For several years, I was a part-time ski instructor at Beaver Creek on the side from day job as a software developer. The majority of professional ski instruction is a poorly paid occupation, but it makes your soul rich. I have not taught the past couple years, and it has had an effect on me. This season I hope to return to this enriching profession. I will leave my protracted declarations of love for ski instruction to a future post. This post is about water. Water as characterized by the legendary Bruce Lee. During a TV interview on the long ago Pierre Berton Show, Lee describes the brief "Be Water My Friend". On the surface, it is a philosophy regarding the art of fighting. In his voice and his expression, for Lee, it is a way one could approach life.
While there are many who look to Bruce Lee as a prophet, I assure you that I am not one of them. Still, the concept of being water in the way the Lee presents it, is something that has always stuck with me. I often related it to sports and in particular skiing. I speak about being water whenever I teach almost any aspect of skiing. For myself, it is most applicable to the skiing of moguls or "bumps". It is paramount to flow over moguls and yet still be strong when needed, much like water. Due to water's hydrogen bonding combined with its relatively compact molecule size versus other compounds also containing hydrogen bonding, water has many unique and powerful characteristics. Combine that with it's requirement for the existence of life, and you have yourself nothing short of a marvel of the universe. It can adapt to many environments, be soft and still be powerful without ever changing its nature. An amazing friend of mine, Rachel Preston Prinz, has been invited to present at a TEDx event where her focus will be on water in the desert. (her post) For some reason, I found myself focusing again on Lee's "Be Water My Friend". I had not thought about it for some time. I could not get away from it and then I stumbled upon a remix of the Pierre Berton interview by melodysheep. YouTube has the video for this remix and it is quite entertaining:
To now have this groovy mp3 on my Ski Mix playlist for the upcoming ski season was cause for excitement. My revisit of Lee's "Be Water My Friend" became a constant in my thoughts. Everyday we struggle to remain ourselves in the face of the many roles we play in our lives. We regularly face events, surroundings and forces upon us. My thoughts developed a new potency for "Be Water My Friend". This lead to the following sudden stream of consciousness that just poured out of me as if someone else was writing it:
be water
be adaptable to your surroundings
strive to be level and calm despite the forces working upon you
be reflective
be nurturing of life and the lives around you
find paths around, under or over obstacles to reach your goals
let no force compress you
stay moving so you stay clear and healthy
glisten
handle ripples in your world with elegance
have the determination to wear down impediments
when under pressure, be focused enough to cut through stone
let your bonds be stronger than expected
be amazing and magical by being yourself
be water
by Craig McLeod - 09/01/2012
Rachel, thanks for the inspiration and I am wishing you all the best at your TEDx talk.
So my friend David Silverman writes a blog for the Harvard Business. Yes, the Harvard Business thing. The quick back story is that David has always been a talented writer. We went from kindergarten, where I remember our first argument, all the way through high school together. He has always written great and funny stories as long as I can remember. Don't believe me? I dare you to not enjoy his book: Typo: The Last American Typesetter or How I Made and Lost 4 Million Dollars
As I was saying, David writes a good business blog. Today's entry was entitled "10 Business Words to Ban" He then asks the reader if they have any suggestions. This brought forth the following from within me:
============== It is probably long done with, but God I hated "functionality."
"We will add functionality" "Here the functionality will..."
It was always said by by people who had no concept of what they were talking about and were proud of it. They even had the nerve to deliver it with an air of arrogance. As a programmer, I would sit in meetings and listen to the owner of our company (not my current company), a sale person or an IA person say this. I began to mentally insert the word "magic" in place of "functionality" and the statement would still have the same level of sincerity. Unfortunately my little exercise didn't help my frustration levels. ==============
I don't know if my above mini-rant has any meaning or contributes to the world in any way, but David's article just sent me into a momentary trance. I don't know why I completely forgot about it until just now. Perhaps the "functionality" overuse caused my brain to create another personality to help me cope. I think his name is Arnold.
Undecided voters again. There seem to be a lot of them. In the 3rd straight presidential election in a row there is a large section of undecided voters. Undecided? Undecided? Seriously?
Just like in 2000 and 2004 these two candidates and their running mates couldn't be further apart. Are these people really undecided? There is no way that you can be confused about the differences they stand for. Are they trying to look more thoughtful or smarter? If so, why do they always say "I haven't heard anything in detail about (some topic that has been discussed)." or "I'm still waiting for them to tell me what I want to here." yet they can never state what it is they want to hear.
The thing that is most interesting about the undecided voters, is that the Democrats lose when these undecided voters show in considerable numbers. Democrats are very talented at losing Presidential elections they should dominate, much less win. They are 0 for 2 against a 'C' student.
The Democrats have tried long and hard to lose this election. Starting with the primaries, Clinton's extended run and accusations of being cheated out of the nomination. I managed to not write then about how I was yet again watching Democrats snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Since the convention they have surprisingly played it all out rather well.
It will be very interesting this Tuesday. Everything says the Democrats should win. They have done everything right while the Republicans have done damn near everything wrong. It has all the makings of a Usual Suspects conclusion.
I just think it would be a really great if Obama and McCain (maybe even Biden and Palin) would do a PSA spot for the Gustav cause. They each have done their own to encourage donations. I think that a spot done together would realy be powerful to show how important it is to come together at times like these.
Ignore my previous post. Today's events made it 100% crappola. I don't exactly know what happened today in the political race, but clearly the "vision" is far from a reality. We can meet back here in another 50 years to see if things are any better.
So I sit here watching some news channels regarding the primaries tonight. As usual, the polls, predictions and pundits were all wrong again. McCain is alive, Romney is still not loved, Obama is electable and Clinton is clearly not done.
With only 4% of the states reporting I am declaring this presidential race is a success (so far). The success I speak of regards two candidates in particular. The country is deciding between Presidential candidates and among them are two people who represent those who have not previously had serious potential to hold this position. People would ask me about my thought on Clinton and/or Obama. My answer was that one or both need to have a successful run at the nomination and possibly the White House. It was very important that they could have a serious campaign that is respected by the voters, the news and the country. If America could seriously consider these candidates on the issues, then moving forward the race and sex issues could get put below the issues of the candidates.
Right now, it is looking like that could be well on its way to accomplishing that task.
I was concerned initially that this might not be the case. All the "Clinton is too divisive..." and "we/I just don't like Clinton" comments seemed unnatural. I seriously felt it was the setting of a foundation to present an early alternate excuse for the fact that people didn't like her being a woman. With Obama, the cover story was about as opaque as plastic wrap. "Is he electable?" peppered with the periodic "articulate" and "clean" statements leaves no confusion about what the underlying issue was.
After Iowa and New Hampshire I am seeing the discussions on main stream new channels discussing primarily the issues and tactics of the candidates. There is the discussion of race and sex with regard to voting patterns, but nothing too far outside of normal discussions. (fyi: Lou Dobbs just made my previous statement false.)
For now this process is a success. It is still unclear if it will remain that way but this does shine hope on the future of open access to the office of the President.
As with any path of change in society, the steps were taken well before this moment by others with much less success. If you view this new landscape as a success you have to recognize those who went before and allowed the questions of sex and race with regard to Presidency to even be considered on some level.
The short list would be (in reverse chronological order):
Geraldine Ferraro - ran in 1984 as Walter Mondale's Vice President. The first serious potential for a woman to actually hold a spot that put her a heartbeat away from the oval office. The United States overwhelmingly voted against that but it was seriously on the table. This path would be continued 4 years later by Patricia Schroeder who ran for the Democratic nomination. Jessie Jackson - made the first truly serious (but not the first) bid by an African American for a Presidential nomination in 1984 Democratic race. "America's not ready for a black president" was the common statement, but it put the concept in play and it's sting, like Ferraro's, would ease the pain for his successors. The worrisome moment in this campaign was when he won the popular vote of the 1984 North Carolina Democratic primary and was not awarded the most delegates which instead went to the person who finished second in the primary voting. (wtf?)
Shirley Chisholm - ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 after becoming the first African American woman to be elected to US Congress in 1969. While she was not the only woman vying for the presidency that year, her's was the most notable and put both sex and race on the table to discuss amongst ourselves.
Important Note: as admirable as these people may be for what they did to open doors, do remember that they are all still politicians which makes them all bad people at their core. :-)
