You Must Read This

You Must Read This!

Well, not really, though of course I would like you to read it. There are very few things in life that we must do. My father taught me that. 

Still, we encounter this urgent message - or a variation of it - all the time. Sometimes the email, or snailmail, really is worthwhile. Sometimes we’re glad we read whatever it was the sender found so urgent. We learned something, we saved some money, we averted a loss or a danger, we improved a relationship, we improved ourselves. Often, though, the “must read” is a waste of our time. Oh, the sender found it worthwhile, maybe inspirational, perhaps transformative. But for us - eh. Not so much. Been there, done that. Yawn.

And then there’s the “must read” that’s not only silly, but stupid - or downright offensive. What gets into some people?

It’s such a simple phrase: “You Must Read This.” Only four words. Yet it tells us a lot about how we think, what we want. And it tells us a lot about what those who use it think, what they want. 

The phrase itself is a marketing tool, obviously. It’s a way to get our attention in a crowded field, where there’s all kinds of distractions and things crying for consideration. If we listen to radio announcers and advertisers, they have a similar set of phrases. They can’t say, “you must read this” - well, they can, if they’re promoting a book, but usually the radio folk want you to listen, to not change channels. (Anyone remember, “Don’t touch that dial”?) Visual attention-getters probably also have catch-shots, pictures that elicit a visceral turn-to. 

Things we’re hard-wired to respond to don’t always hold our attention for more than the reflex response. Once the conscious mind takes over, tacky tricks get glided over. We don’t necessarily take the next step, from the equivalent of “You Must Read This” to reading (as opposed to glancing over) and then to acting on what we’ve read. It’s like the original telephone ring-tone. It was meant to jar us; it was designed to subliminally force us to stop whatever we were doing and answer it. But once past the initial reflex response, it’s not so hard to ignore the telephone ringing - not if we’re doing something else equally or more important.

“You Must Read This” has three parts: You, Must Read, and This. 

There’s a reason why such messages are in the 2nd person. Rephrase it and you (YOU) will see why: “Everyone must read this.” “I must (had to) read this.” Any grammarian or rhetorician should recognize why: “You” makes it personal, intimate, direct, specific. English doesn’t distinguish between 2nd person singular and 2nd person plural any more (except the Southern, ‘y’all’ - ‘you all’ - which may be making a comeback). But the eye-to-eye of “you” remains, in certain circumstances, the most powerful of emotional pronouns. Even in a song (phrase) such as “And I love her,” there’s an implied you - an audience being addressed. Antony’s “Friends…” speech works so well because it’s all about the “you.”

We like being the audience. We like attention. When one student waves his hand and makes “call on me” noises, the teacher loves it. Someone’s paying attention. Someone cares about what she has to say. But the other students also pay attention. Some gladly. What interesting thing is the student going to say? Will she make us laugh? Vicariously, we share in the attention getting-and-giving exchange. Some students resent the hand-waver, not necessarily because the hand-waver knows the answer (that, too), but mainly because the hand-waver’s getting the attention. I want mine.

Must Read equals it’s important. It’s another attention-getter, but of a different sort. “Must Read” is not directed at us, but at the third person, the thing, in all this. Must Read appeals to the bandwagon effect, our desire not to miss out, our need to be included. But it’s another way to make us feel important. It moves the “you” into the “us,” letting us into the inner circle, sharing the secret.

This is the thing itself. It may or may not be all that important. But unless it’s a life-or-death “must read,” it doesn’t matter. It’s like a plot device - a McGuffin, as some writers call it. It’s the way to get from here to there. The object is to sell something to you, to get you to buy into an idea or purchase a product or whatever. The “This” you must read isn’t the object itself, or the idea. It’s the way there. (The secret letter isn’t the point of the plot. It’s the device to get Elizabeth and Darcy together. A flower dropped in the road would do as well.)

This brings us to why “You Must Read This.” Or, what’s in this blog post for you (aside from all the wit and wisdom you’ve already received ☺)? 

I think we need to consider what calls to us, and why. When we literally turn our attention to something, we are also turning it away from something else. The attraction is also a distraction. It’s important to make conscious decisions, not just about which entertainment to enjoy, for instance, but whether the allure of the trailer is really worth out time. A lot of people are crying for our attention, insisting that we must read (or hear) this. 

But must we, really? Do we want to? 

There’s a difference between the cry of a child, real or metaphoric, and the cry of the barker. 

So if you really must read this, do read between the lines.

The River Flows

 Rivers fascinate. And rivers are like thoughts. Not the other way around, as we’ll discuss. 

(What follows was inspired by, and is based on, part of a discourse by Rabbi DovBer of Lubavitch, also known as the Mitteler Rebbe.)

First, some facts about rivers: Rivers always flow downhill. They begin in mountains or, paradoxically, spring from underground. Rivers begin in hidden places.

And rivers flow in ways we don’t usually consider. We see the river flowing in its channel, between its banks. What we don’t see is the river flowing beneath the substrate, the bottom of the  river (where the ground seems to hold it in place. What we don’t see is the river flowing beneath the ground of its own banks. The area where the water flows between the crevices and rocks is call the hyporheic zone. (The word comes from two Greek words, meaning “flow below.”)

Sometimes rivers flow swiftly; sometimes they form eddies, whirlpools - and waterfalls. Sometimes they surge; sometimes they cascade; sometimes they run their course; and sometimes they drift in a lazy rhythm. Sometimes a river is rapid, sometimes it meanders.

Rivers collect rivulets.

Rivers change constantly. They change the land through which they flow. 

Rivers can erode the land, pulling rocks, soil or vegetation from its land channel and transporting it down stream. When the river slows down and can’t carry the extra non-water stuff, it drops - or deposits it. 

And as rivers change the land (waterfalls, canyons, flood plains) through which they flow, they change their own course, find new channels in which to flow.

And thoughts: They also flow. They flow “downward,” from the inner resources of our minds, from our souls. Thoughts flow downward into speech, and then action. And there is much beneath the flowing thoughts that we don’t “see,” don’t realize is there. 

Where do our thoughts come from? For they exist in the “subconscious,” in a mental - or spiritual “hyporheic zone” - and emerge into our awareness. Thoughts spring from hidden resources of mind and soul, cascading from the higher “mountains” or emerging from the underground “springs.”

Sometimes thoughts flow swiftly, like rapids, chaotic. Sometimes, thoughts overwhelm us, so that we are awed by what has appeared in our minds - like watching a cascading waterfall. Our thoughts cut deep channels into the “landscape” of our being, creating the canyons and flood plains of our interactions and reactions.

And our thoughts can change course. They do find new channels. Sometimes the change is rapid; sometimes the change meanders - takes its time. But our thoughts are redirected - by our experiences, yet also by our conscious choices: we can gather the rivulets and carve out the canyons - the deep commitments - and flood plains - the actions with which we engage and transform the world. 

Rivers have long been a symbol of life. But when they overflow their banks, they can wipe out all that has flowed from and through them, all the life - vegetable, animal, human - that depends on them. Thoughts, too, give life. But when they overflow their “banks,” when our thoughts overflow with the negative character traits and destructive emotions, our thoughts can destroy all that depends on us - all those who depend on us.

We can control our thoughts, re-channel them, give them a new course to follow. For Will - our soul-directed desire - is higher than thought. No, it’s not easy. Rivers are stubborn things. They have their passages. They are conduits - and they narrow. After all, “narrows” refers to a channel connecting two bodies of water.

Still, just as G‑d directs rivers, we direct our thoughts.

And that’s why rivers resemble thoughts, not the other way around - even though we make the analogy the other way around.

Creation mimics the human form, metaphorically. That’s because is a setting, as it were, the background for a narrative - the narrative of our moral choices. The cosmic struggle between good and evil reflects our personal struggle.

How flows your river?

Formatting

In the old days, formatting was a big deal. The one-inch margin, double space rule left room for editors, or teachers, to make corrections. The extra space at the top accommodated a clipboard - or paper clips. 

Of course, adhering to the rule on a typewriter often proved a challenge. Going left to right it wasn’t hard to see where the page ended (or began), but judging where that last inch started might involve some guesswork. Later typewriters had a hard stop - a widget that would prevent the roller from moving any further horizontally. The earlier word processors had the same feature - no word-wrap. As long as you didn’t need to sneak in an extra letter or two to finish the word,  you could type merrily along, sliding the return bar at the end of each line. Harder to maintain thought flow - type, type, type, end-of-line, return, type, type, type…

Electronic typewriters introduced automatic line advancement - the word-wrap we’re familiar with thanks to word processors. But you could still get stuck at the end of a line with an unfinished word. And since the typewriter didn’t have a “processor” it couldn’t recognize that you were in the middle of a word. It made for some funky looking stuff, even with an override key.

I remember taking a blank sheet of paper and using a magic marker to mark the edges - thick and black and with an extra quarter inch of warning. I’d put that behind the page I was typing, and the margins became easily visible - if I paid attention to them. (It was not, obviously, an original idea.)

Doing footnotes was still a pain. Footnotes - at the end of the page, not endnotes at the end of the document. How many were going on a particular page? And if there was any text - anything beyond the basic reference - how many lines had to be saved? It made academic more tedious. Details. Nit-picky stuff - and there was plenty of that in the research.

I can’t imagine what the editors and typesetters had to go through, trying to format books, magazines, even newspapers. Nightmare city. No wonder production costs were so high.

Now, of course, formatting’s easy: Select All, Format Menu, enter parameters. Done. Or click the mouse-pointer in the ruler toolbar for a tab. It’s all so automated. And what with blogs, fonts, and variable screen sizes - books aren’t confined to an eight-and-a-half by eleven inch format.

 (The format apparently goes back to the 1600’s. The vatman - the worker who shook the pulp onto the wire, where it would be formed into sheets of paper - could carry a paper mold about the size of four 8.5 by 11 sheets, squared. So the paper maker would make a large sheet, then cut it in quarters)

With ebooks and blogs and variable computers screens (iPod, iPad, Kindle), text - and graphics! - come in a variety of sizes. Format has become flexible. Not irrelevant. Text and panel placement, frames, aesthetics - all this still matters. But we can now format our work any way we like - full screen, larger margins, smaller margins, floating text, animated or hidden graphics, etc.

And we can format ourselves. So much of our life is a process of formatting. What will I wear? How will I get my hair cut? How do I present myself? Do these glasses look good on me? We format ourselves by what we wear, what we say, how we move, what words we use, what gestures we make - even how we stand or how we’re silent. (Rhetoricians call this decorum - how we present ourselves is part of how we argue, or persuade others. Check out figarospeech.com for more on a rhetorical perspective to all this.)

But do we format ourselves inside-out or outside-in? That is, do we put on a new suit and feel confident - not temporarily, but do we become inherently confident? Or do we put on a new suit because we’re inherently confident? I will wear this. I will stand thus.

The answer is probably both. After all, formatting is a response to outside contingencies - remember how we got to 8.5 by 11 or one inch margins. Formatting standardizes, gives us a common structure, a common framework. Formatting (decorum) is a first language for communicating. 

But we also format ourselves morally. Moral formatting involves more than not stealing and being honest - though that’s the starting point. It involves more than being charitable and compassionate - though those are pre-requisites as well. Moral formatting even involves more than being cognizant of another’s humanity - the inherent dignity every one deserves. (An example: adults expect children to show respect; how much respect do adults show children? Obviously (?) there’s respect, and there’s respect. Too often, though, adults confuse authority with respect.)

While moral formatting requires us to conform to all the above, it also requires us to continually re-format ourselves. It’s the age of the computer and word-processor, after all. Moral formatting is the process of constant self and re-evaluation. And appearances do inform content. 

Change my font and margins and I not only look different. I am different.

Taking Notes

Enter almost any classroom - high school or college - and you’ll see an interesting phenomenon. All students can be divided into note-o-phobes and note-o-phils - those who hate taking notes, even have an antipathy to it, and those who love taking notes, and who may even an obsession with it. (I suspect the following observations apply to businesses or government panels or speeches - any place where there’s a flow of information or ideas. Open floor discussions have their own protocols and patterns.)

We can further sub-divide each group. The note-o-phobes can be divided into the listeners and the distracted. There are students (colleagues, clients, committee members, audiences) who prefer to listen. They pay attention and absorb information like their note-taking companions. Whether they retain more of what they hear is debatable. Maybe they listen because they are auditory learners. Maybe they listen because they can’t multi-task. Maybe they listen because their notes turn to doodles, their handwriting is illegible or they never look at notes. Or need them. 

The distracted don’t take notes because they’re not interested in the subject, they’re focusing on something else, they’re using the note-taking ability to do something else (surf the web, play games - really? You really think the teacher or speaker doesn’t see  you?), they have trouble focusing - whatever. They don’t take notes because they’re only there physically. Their minds are somewhere else. Do they even hear what’s being said? “Can I borrow your notes for the test?”

The note-o-phils also have two sub-groups: the ‘just-the-facts’ group, those who want the headlines and synopsis and main ponts, and the ‘every word a precious gem’ group, those who write down everything, even the bad pun or side comment about the noise in the hall or the chalk dust on the shoes.

‘Just-the-facters’ take down the basics, figuring they can fill in the details. They’re also more interested in the information than the style or personality behind them. ‘Every-word-a-gemers,’ on the other hand, want to capture, for later review, the style as well as substance.

(Of course, these categories have permeable membranes and aren’t quite as rigid as classification makes them.)

All this raises the question: Why take notes? If it’s just for information, then do note-takers have any advantage over attentive listeners? True, material that has to be memorized, has to be memorized. But these days that stuff’s all over the internet - so play games in class, get the info needed, and go on.

On the other hand, if note-taking has some other function, what is it? And, if so, so what?

Notes - and they can be recorded as well as written down - have two functions besides recording information: verify and review.

Notes allow us to verify what was said. They serve as a document to document assertions or ideas. Written witnesses, they can support a challenge or confirm a claim. 

Notes also aid review - and therefore understanding. Good teachers and good students know it’s hard to listen and think at the same time: you’re either absorbing the information or you’re processing it. You’re either getting the pieces or analyzing them. 

Note taking is related to the difference between having information and understanding it. Understanding makes connections, puts information in context. Understanding allows us to absorb ideas, play with them, modify them, make them our own.

And notes are a mnemonic that give us a reference point. There’s a reason courts have stenographers, doctors make chart notes, critics and artists make line markings, etc. A good student - or scholar - doesn’t just review the notes. She argues with them. And herself. 

Notes are a challenge to us to use our minds, not only to master the material in the notes, but to master ourselves. It’s almost like having an intellectual prayer - a way to engage how we think, to take note of our strengths and weaknesses. 

Think of soul-searching as a kind of spiritual note-taking.

Backwash

The ocean sends a wave crashing onto the shore. Most of it is absorbed in the sand; plants and plankton and creatures that live on the edge survive on the water that thus penetrates the land. And some of that water, perhaps filtered of the salt, finds it way, capillary-like, further inland, part of the complex eco-system. 

But there is an excess of the wave, and it seeps back into the ocean, carrying with it sand, silt, drift and flotsam. Until the next wave brings it back.

Backwash.

A tanker-truck gets filled with kosher glycerine, produced from a vegetable oil (the oil generally coming from coconuts or soybeans). The glycerine is used as  a food additive, sweetener, preservative.  It's used in pharmaceuticals and personal care products.

The transfer from storage unit to tanker-truck has to be carefully supervised, to make sure there's no contamination. And the amount has to be carefully measured - the shipping company, the trucking company, the manufacturer, the Department of Transportation - payment to and from is based on weight. 

But occasionally a tank gets over-filled. Some of the glycerin needs to be put back. Air is forced into the tank, which forces some of the glycerin back through the hose and into the storage unit. Of course, there is some spillage and waste; it can't be helped.

Backwash.

A child - four, five, six - starts to play with her toys. Then takes the pots and pans out of the pantry and begins to bang away. And then explores the house some more. Plaything overload and the house has the chaotic look, like the shore after the wave has crashed. The child starts to put things away, becomes overstimulated, becomes upset, can't put the toys (or pots and pans) away, and has to take a rest (psychological time-out). 

Backwash.

We,  feeling energetic, inspired, energetic, accept a new project. And then another. And another. We join a committee. And another. We become involved in a civic enterprise, deep research, a new and another undertaking, a capital venture. As students, we join too many clubs and take too many classes.

We overcommit, and have to pull back, preserve our resources, reorganize our lives, rethink our priorities. Some commitments we keep, but delay. Some we drop or abandon. Sometimes there's understanding and support, sometimes fallout and repercussions.

Backwash.

All of life has moments of backwash, which involves three elements: excess, reversal and preservation. 

Excess: File under cliches such as: Know your limits; don't seize more than you can hold, your eyes are bigger than your stomach, etc. Excess can come from greed as well as zeal. We can try to do too much or we can want too much. 

Reversal: After excess comes waste. After excess comes a recognition that things must change. An excess of words, emotions run high, we say too much. We take our words back. We are over-filled emotionally and spiritually and need to reverse, reconsider, regroup, reorganize, rearrange - return and start over.

Preserve: Reversal is not a throwing away of the excess, an abandonment, renouncing, a trashing of the excess, of our energy, involvement, commitment or understanding. Reversal preserves the initial impetus and the positive residue, the stuff - intellectual, emotional, physical - yes, even spiritual - that, if exercised and applied appropriately - in the right measure - is an effective and proper use of our abilities.

When exhausted or dejected or defeated - look for the backwash.

And prepare for the next wave, for it will surely come.

Details

 "Pay attention to the details." "It's a game of inches." "Missed me by that much." "Close only counts in horseshoes." We have many expressions and cliches that point out the importance of the little things. Success or failure often turns on focus - not just a split section recognition, but an awareness of where to focus. When musicians rehearse a song they've done a thousand times, a song they can play in their sleep, it becomes clear how important the details are: they'll go over a note or a pause multiple times, until it's at just the right length and pitch. How many of us are expert enough to detect the difference in a performance or a recording? Chess players talk of a "blindness," when part of the board becomes "invisible," when they can't see a piece - or its movement - even though it's right in front of them.

Teachers run into this problem all the time with students. It's not just that students fade-out or day-dream. It's that students can get sloppy about the little things. Who cares where the comma goes? Well, there's the story of the panda in the restaurant. If it eats, shoots and leaves, call the police; if it eats shoots and leaves, call the grocery store. (Are "shoots and leaves" nouns or verbs?) How often do students get simple directions wrong - name in the upper left hand corner, not the bottom of the page - because they don't pay attention?

Yet when they start out, students are all about details. Watch a group of kindergarten kids doing an art project. Everything has to be just right. Their questions are all about the details. The slightest deviation raises a firestorm. And babies are really into minutiae - just watch one play with a piece of paper she found on the floor.

"It's all in the fine print." Somehow we've come to not just ignore the details, but to distrust them. The contractor puts in a cabinet, and covers up the quarter inch gap with an extra layer of putty. The credit card company puts the details in a hard-to-read font to obscure how unfair the terms are. 

I suspect details have gone down the drain in part because of multi-tasking. We think we can do multiple things at once. We can talk on the phone and bake a cake. This is true, so long as neither requires much focus, much attention to detail. "Hold on, I've got to find the sugar." "I'll call you back, I have to count the eggs." Or the speaker drops a bombshell - and the ignored blender spews goop on the counter. Pay attention to what we pay attention to when we're yanked out of the multi-tasking zone.

The multi-tasking theory of life coincides with what used to be called rudeness, and probably now is just lack of awareness - lack of focus. I hate call-waiting. And have you ever been talking to a sales person, a professional - say your doctor - when he or she gets a call and puts you on hold? Why is the interruptor more important? How many people - students especially! - hide behind a computer instead of engaging in conversation?

Why? Because the details are dirty. They're nitty-gritty. They mess things up. They're the little smudge on the white canvas of life. They're the drop of grease on the tablecloth. Here's an irony: perfectionists miss the details for the detailed. 

And yet, when it counts, we go into detail. Every penny - or the equivalent thereof. There are many observations about how to determine a person's character, how to "take the measure of a man."  What calls his attention away from everything else? What does she focus on, instinctively? And when?

Where are the details of your life?

Responsibility

One of the first things we're taught - or should be taught - is "take responsibility for your actions." But what does that mean? Most of us would probably say it means something like, if you mess up, admit it. You know, point to your chest and say, "my bad." If you break a window, cause a fender-bender, or don't do your homework because the basketball game was more interesting - admit it. 

And take the consequences. Accept the punishment. Pay for the window, don't complain about the bad grade.

But this is all after-the-fact responsibility. And there are two pitfalls (at least two) with after-the-fact responsibility. First, the damage is already done. There can be recompense or punishment (I would argue in some cases there can't be both, but that's another discussion), but the failure, or breakdown, or disaster, can't be reversed. Second, it's possible to be responsible for something for which we're not really responsible. That is, we may have to accept responsibility for actions over which we have no control. There are events we truly cannot foresee; not all of these are natural disasters.  I don't include lack of maintenance or vigilance, though fatigue or emotional distress may be mitigating factors. But who can predict where lightning will strike? We are also responsible for individuals who work for us who act against our wishes or instructions. Agents or messengers who betray our trust or simply don't do the job; we have to be responsible for their irresponsibility.

Of course, while we'd like legal responsibility and moral responsibility to not just intersect, but to synchronously overlap, that's not always the case. We are legally responsible for an employee who slaps a customer, to use an extreme case, but probably not morally responsible. We - or our company - will have to pay damages (and we'll probably fire the employee), but are we really responsible for the employee's behavior? Not if we believe in free will.

Conversely, there are cases where we may be morally responsible but not legally so. I think many would argue this is even more egregious. For example, a teacher who belittles a child - "Jonny, you can't draw! Why do you even try?" - is morally responsible for the harm to the child's feelings and psyche, but not legally so. There's no liability.

Taking responsibility serves as a test of character. I don't just mean learning from one's mistakes. I mean becoming a better person - working on the weaknesses (and we all have them), becoming aware of the flaws so that we begin with before-the-fact responsibility.

And that's really what we mean, or want to mean, when we say "take responsibility." Before-the-fact responsibility can be as simple as spell-checking or keeping accurate records. It often entails enlisting a second person - having an editor or doing a cross check. 

I recently supervised the loading of a kosher product from a storage tank into a tanker truck. The workers used several methods - electronic, mechanical, and human - to maintain the product integrity and to accurately measure the amount of product being shipped. Never underestimate the power or value of a paper trail.

Being human, we will inevitably experience the consequences of an after-the-fact responsibility. More important, though, is before-the-fact responsibility. Paying the bill fixes an after-the-fact. But only remorse, self-examination, self-improvement - teshuva, or return, in Hebrew - corrects a before-the-fact lapse. 

Perhaps after-the-fact is for others. Before-the-fact is for yourself.