2020s
After years of having the house to myself for several days a week, it’s hard to adjust to constantly sharing it.
I’ve never craved “alone time” much - but I’m starting to.
Much as I hate to admit it, structure and focus make a huge difference to a client Zoom call. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the pleasures of small talk, too.
Requiem for a lamp
I’m saying “goodbye” to an old friend this morning. For the last 23 years, whenever I’ve been working at my desk, across three different properties, this old, battered lamp has lit my work. Last week — in the middle of a lecture — it finally, catastrophically fell apart.
I didn’t even choose it. It came into my life because my girlfriend of the time was working at Terry Farrell & Partners, a firm of architects. They were having an office refurb (or was it a move? I can’t recall at this distance) and she grabbed some things that were being thrown out.
She left it behind when she exited my life and, amusingly, my relationship with the lamp has lasted well over ten times longer than my relationship with her… But I’m proud that I’ve used this thing that came my way for so long. This lamp has had over two decades of extra use after it was first consigned to the bin, and in an era when we’re ever more aware of the climatic cost of a throw-away culture, this small choice has proven to be surprisingly satisfying.
Eight months ago I was forced into delivering online training by the pandemic. Even after mass vaccination, I think it will remain part of my mix. The benefits - attendees from all over the world, provision of videos of the session afterwards - are too compelling.
Chris Cook in this morning’s Tortoise email:
“The challenge is how we all get to the finish line without needless further fatalities: a vaccine makes it increasingly clear that an infection delayed can now become an infection prevented.”
Exactly.
Today’s lesson: do not record your Zoom sessions locally, if you have multiple incoming streams. It seems to strain the connection too much.
The power of disinformation to capture people’s minds is terrifying. Watching a friend’s Facebook friend who is clearly deep in the rabbit hole is sobering.
As someone who spent my entire childhood north of the border, the increasing likelihood that Scotland will soon be an independent country is troubling me.
Today’s beach walk did not feel autumnal at all. Between the waves and the overcast skies, not to mention the biting wind, it felt distinctly like winter is coming.
OK. A week in I am prepared to say this:
Big Sur is bloody lovely and it has completely reignited my joy in using my Mac.
Wake. Take children to school. Train people via Zoom. Collect children. Feed children. Read bedtime story. Edit training videos. Sleep. Wake. Take…
I regret I didn’t take more notes in the early days of the first lockdown. It was an unusual, but quite special, family time. And I do want that memory - the good part, at least - to persist.
I need to remind myself more often that it doesn’t actually matter how far I am from my goals, as long as the direction of movement is largely correct.
They’re creepy and they’re kooky, Mysterious and spooky, They’re altogether ooky, They’re Adam’s family.
😎