Grateful

Posted on 12/25/2011 by paulefallon

Christmas is a day of spiritual thanksgiving; a day to be grateful for all we have not just in terms of our bounty, but in terms of our soul.  Grateful is a straightforward adjective, an expression of thanks for gifts received, whether physical, emotional, or genetic. Grateful does not afford irony.  Yet the depths to which gratefulness can be applied are endless.  I can be grateful to my parents for passing on the gene of rhythm because I so love to dance.  I can be grateful to nature for the glory of New England autumn, I can be grateful to god for simply giving me breath every morning.  But I can also be grateful for those little events that comprise the day; the exact change in my pocket that equals the bus fare and the mid-morning refreshment of my diet Coke.

Gratefulness is that unique commodity that gains value the more it is transmitted.  Thirty years ago, months could pass and I would never utter the word.  Then Oprah got in the gratefulness business.  She had a habit of asking her guests what they were grateful for in her confidential manner that implied, just between you and me, that truly worthy people have lots to be grateful for and are not too sophisticated to express it. I was in my forties then and damn tired of being depressed and divorced, by the endless therapy cycle and the gap between my contrived expectations and life’s reality. I wanted to will myself into happiness.  But happiness cannot be willed.  Gratefulness, however, can be acknowledged.  And whenever something good is acknowledged, we claim a few moments of grace from the clouds that darken our soul.

I was talking with my sister Pat last week, a cathartic exchange about the ills of our nation and how the international situation is desperate as usual, when she said, “I just wish our leaders would dwell on all we have to be grateful.”  She struck a true chord.  We Americans deserve to be slapped upside the face, to be shocked into the reality that everyone else in the world already knows – that we are a privileged citizenry who takes too much for granted and we are not near enough grateful.

It is odd quirk of human nature that the strength of people’s hope is inversely proportional to their affluence.  The more we have, the more we spend time protecting it, the less potential we envision for the future.  Affluence impoverishes the spirit.  The fatter our bank accounts, the leaner our dreams.

I am grateful to all the people who take time from your day to click on The Awkward Pose and follow my musings.  I hope you all find much to be grateful for on this Christmas day.  I hope that you build on that acknowledgement tomorrow, and the next day and the next, until we all realize that our days on this miraculous planet are more than just a series of tasks to suffer, they are a cascade of opportunities to explore.  May we all be grateful for the wonder of our own journey and strive to our highest potential to be fully human and fully committed to one another

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Plain, Honest Men

Posted on 12/24/2011 by paulefallon

As our country sputters, sometimes aimlessly, sometimes recklessly, I find myself reading more of our history, as if morsels from a noble past can nourish me through our present morass.  I recently finished Plain, Honest Men – The Making of the American Constitution, by Richard Beeman, a terrific book about the Philadelphia summer of 1787 and the delegates from the 13 states (or almost that many, Rhode Island never got their act together to actually show up) who composed the Constitution. Since the precepts of that document figure prominently in Pedaling Principles, I was interested to learn the details of how it came to life.

My conceptions of the Constitution’s birth proved more or less accurate. All agreed that the existing Articles of Confederation were inadequate, though beyond that there was great disagreement as to how to improve them. James Madison and the Virginia cohort’s efforts to jumpstart the process by introducing a well developed scheme early was a strategically wise move; they framed the debate towards the concept of creating new government rather than simply restructuring the Articles.  However, they probably moved too far too fast, as a backlash ensued that dragged the convention on for months before they reached the compromise document.

I found two very compelling aspects of this narrative.  The first aligns well with my ideas of how to identify guiding principles and move forward based on identified mutual best interest.  Time and again the founders hit an impasse, but they always iterated back to step one – that the Articles had to be scrapped – and refused yield that point.  The conflicts between the large states and small states, the slave states andfree states, the emerging industrial states and the established agricultural states were huge, yet they kept hammering and compromising to find scraps of common ground.  Two hundred plus years later, we tend to enshrine the Constitution as a perfect description of how to govern when in reality it was a compromise all around.

The second compelling aspect of this narrative helped me understand that the roots of our money-driven society trace all the way back to the Constitution and even before. The men who created the Constitution were the moneyed class ofAmerica.  Though they proclaimed a government in the name of the people, they did not establish a government that directly reflected the people’s will.  Many of them were contemptuous of the ability of the ‘mob’ to direct elect a responsible government; hence the indirect selection of Senators, the Electoral College and other quirks in our supposed democracy.  However, they all believed that money talks and spun many debates about how to measure wealth as the determinant for influence.  Only after they agreed that there was a direct correlation between a state’s population and their respective wealth, did the delegates agree to allow ‘people’ and not ‘property’ determine the level of representation that each state would have in Congress.

The most infamous example of this mode of thinking was the 3/5 rule; that slaves counted as 3/5 of a person in terms of establishing representation.  The fraction came out of an unscientific measure of the relative economic vale of a slave over a free worker.  It is perhaps the most bizarre compromise in the entire document.  It reflects the national confliction about slavery and bows to the reality that the Constitutional Congress was not prepared to address it.  The Southern states insisted on counting slaves as full people, while simultaneously insisting they were property.  The Northern states did not want slaves counted for voting purposes at all; there may be few slaves in the North but that didn’t mean they actually wanted black people to vote. Still Northerners were uncomfortable calling them property.  Rufus King of Massachusetts actually argued that if slaves were property yet worthy of some fractional vote, why not give a vote to the horses and oxen that provided the backbone of running New England farms? The 3/5 rule demonstrates a compromise where no compromise can exist.  Either a person is a person or they are not.  The framers sought expediency, they all held their noses and agreed on 3/5, and seventy-five years later, 600,000 Americans died settling the question.

Two hundred twenty-three years after signing the Constitution, the Supreme Court overturned corporate limits on campaign contributions in the Citizens United case.  Our current Supreme Court has a strong ‘Constitution as literal gospel’ bent, so it is easy to see why they would maintain that corporations should be unfettered in how they throw around their wealth.  If Eighteenth century slaves could be considered subhuman, to the tune of 3/5, because of their economic inferiority, then the astronomical wealth of 21st century corporations make them a sort of superhuman species.  Citizens United, though draped in the mantle of first amendment free speech, actually reinforces the idea that money, rather than individuals, forms the core of political power. In that regard it is a pathetic but accurate reflection of our founding fathers vision. 

When we hold the Constitution as ultimate and complete, we deny having our own vision.  Only when we understand the Constitution as a template designed to be customized as our ideals of representative government enlarge, can it enhance, rather than hinder, our vision.

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Pedaling Principles – Chapter 3 – Guiding Prinicples for Our Nation

Posted on 12/24/2011 by paulefallon

As I cycled east and the guiding principles of my journey fell into place, I became more and more aware of the landscape that flowed beyond me and my Surly. Are there comparable principles to describe this immense plain and the people who inhabit it at a fundamental level?  Definitely.  The United States, more than any other nation on earth is the triumph of ideals over geography.  Our quest for individual rights and mutually agreed government define us; while the extents of our borders have proved fluid over time.  At the scale of a nation, we are ripe with potential principles.  So, how should I decide what they are?  Ideally, our guiding principles would be created by a collective consensus of all of our citizens.  But since I was a lone cyclist and not the convener of a Continental Congress, I recollected our history to find statements that could meet the criteria; classic texts that define us in a clear and comprehensive way, yet illustrate our uniqueness.

I selected three.  They each proved worthy evaluators of what I observed cycling across America, as well as insightful guides to how we are going astray in Washington,DC.

The first guiding principle I selected is from the Declaration of Independence, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”  This is our national slogan; it describes us and simultaneously differentiates us from all others. Like all good slogans it is brief and clear, yet conveys the fundamentals.  We Americans place a strong emphasis on the individual, and his ability to lead life as he sees fit.  We want as much personal freedom as possible without undue intervention. These concepts are so ingrained we often cannot comprehend that others don’t seek the same, yet if we compare our slogan with that ofFrance, say, who coined ‘Liberty, Equalite, Fraternite” during their own revolution, we find it is quite a different animal.  True, we both use the term liberty, but the French emphasize equality and brotherhood, more communal attributes than our own individual emphasis on life and the pursuit of happiness.  Two hundred plus years later, any analysis of the differences between our two societies would have to admit that by and large we both got what we wanted.

I also chose the opening of the Constitution, “We the people of the United States, in order to from a more perfect Union…”  This is an important guiding principle because it reinforces the notion that what defines us is not geography but ideals.  The Constitution is the document that describes how we, as individuals, come together to be a nation.  Its checks and balances reflect our disdain for centralized authority, yet it acknowledges that we are better off together than on our own, and establishes the parameters by which we collectively govern. 

Finally, I selected the guiding principle ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people,’ fromLincoln’sGettysburg address.  This phrase crystallizes the notion that we get the government we deserve because ultimately, it is our government.  Every citizen of this country has influence; it is not only a right, it is a responsibility.  The capacity to affect change brings with it the charge to act responsibly. Our individual freedoms and collective government do not come without effort, we must be involved with our government, or it will no longer be ours.

 

 

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Pedaling Principles – Chapter 2 – Getting Started

Posted on 12/18/2011 by paulefallon

Getting Started – Guiding Principles of a Bicycle Trip

Let’s use the simple story of my bike trip to illustrate how guiding principles can direct our actions.  A year before I even thought about cycling 3,000 miles I promised my brother to ride in the Courage Classic, a three day fund raising ride through the Rocky Mountains for Children’s Hospital Colorado. I planned to fly to Denverand ride a loaner bike, but winter and spring of 2011 turned into a blur of work demands.  I logged hundreds of hours and thousands of frequent flier miles and in order to maintain perspective on my harried work life, an escapist fantasy emerged.  What if I extended my cycling trip by riding back to Boston after visiting Denver?  My client load was light in August, my boss gave the green light and suddenly I had seven weeks of approved leave, my longest vacation ever.  True, I had a mountain of work to do before I left, and no cycling experience beyond commuting around town.  But these were mere details compared with the majesty of the idea.

Most endeavors evolve like my bicycle trip, a confluence of forces gather steam until they exert pressure and take their own shape.  No sooner did this luxurious amount of time lie before me than the journey took on distinct definition.

I had time constraints.  I was leaving Boston on July 19, which gave me a few days to acclimate to Denver’s altitude before the Courage Classic ride on July 23, 24, 25.  I had to return to work in Bostono n September 6, the day after Labor Day.  If I did not finish the ride before then, I would have to catch a bus home.  I told myself there would be no shame in that situation, but I knew that if I were compelled to bus the last leg, however short, it would be, if not a failure, certainly not a success.

I had social objectives.  I wanted to visit family and friends in Denver and Oklahoma City whom I had not seen in some time, but I also had the antithetical social objective of spending enforced time alone.  I have spent very little time fully alone in my life and wanted to expand my experience with solitude.

I also had what I considered cultural objectives; aspects of America I most wanted to see.  Obviously, I wanted to go slow, hence the bicycle.  And I wanted the accoutrements of my travel to reflect that leisurely pace.  I would not camp, I like creature comforts at night, but I wanted to avoid chain hotels.  For that matter, I wanted to avoid chain food as well.  Since the journey was more important than any particular destination, I planned my route based on quality of scenery rather than landmarks.  Whenever possible I chose bicycle trails over country roads, country roads over state roads, and state highways over US highways.  I wanted to avoid Interstates completely.

Before pedaling a single mile, I had developed some basic parameters that felt right about my trip. In the lingo of guiding principles, parameters are the ‘givens’ of a project, and we use them to formulate success targets; measurable objectives that mark progress and success.  It was easy to translate the parameters of my cycle trip into success targets.

My first target was to travel 70 miles per day.  After subtracting days for family visits and foul weather, I needed to average that distance if I was going to avoid hopping a bus in Upstate New York over Labor Day weekend. 

My second target was to never spend more than $100 per night on a motel.  This success factor had a cluster of corollary attributes as well.  I did not plan to make any reservations in advance, as that would cramp my spontaneity.  Vintage roadside motels were preferred over traditional hotels with lobbies, corridors, and elevators.  Bathrooms with original pink and green tile got gold stars, as did rooms with actual keys, as opposed to faux credit cards. Bonus points went to any motel with an outdoor chair in front of each room where I could sit in the evening and chat with neighbors if so inclined.  I also had a sort of anti-success target with regards to lodging, which was not to stay in any Bed and Breakfasts.  I find quilted, patterned fabric suffocating. 

My third success target was to always eat at independent restaurants and spend less than $20 per meal.  Bicycle touring seemed incompatible with haute cuisine.  My eating corollary was to always order the most local thing on the menu, especially if I had never eaten it before. 

Numerically, my targets were 70/100/0 – seventy miles per day, less than $100 per night, zero franchise food.

We never know all of a project’s parameters in advance.  In my case, the big unknown was the bike.  I have a good bike; I use it to commute eight miles to work every day.  I could have accessorized it for the adventure.  But I knew touring bikes were reported to be firmer, smoother, and more comfortable.  It took only one test ride for me to decide to splurge on a new bicycle.  After some research I selected a Surly Long Haul Trucker, which I ordered from a shop in Denver to avoid shipping on a plane. I added a pair of the smallest Arkel side carriers, a Brooks leather seat, opted for toe clips over clip-on shoes, and upgraded the tires.  I am not a gear freak, so all this outfitting was work for me.  In the end I made some good choices and some questionable ones.  The Surly was a good call, very sturdy, the Arkel’s were great; plenty of room for my stuff; the leather seat proved iffy, it took way too long to break in because I didn’t treat it with the right oil for a few hundred miles; toe clips proved more comfortable than clip-on shoes, but much less powerful; and the better tires probably helped since I averaged only one flat per thousand miles.

The parameters of what to carry were clear – everything required for safety, as little else as possible.  The list included ten state maps, four liters of water, three spare tubes, three energy bars, first aid kit, space tire, and bike repair tools.  I wore the same bright yellow cycling outfit every day and rinsed it every night.  I brought only one pair of shorts, one pair long pants, one tee shirt and one collared shirt, a poncho, two pairs of nylon underwear, and five pairs of cycling socks (they dry slowly).  I added a netbook, camera, cell phone, and two paperbacks, which I left in motels as I finished them and picked up new ones in second hand book shops along the way.

First thing I did upon landing in Denver was to check out my new bicycle and select the accessories; I had to leave it overnight while they installed the goodies.  The next day I picked it up and had three days of trial riding; I explored Denver’s extensive bicycle paths while acclimating to the bike and the altitude.  Three days later I began the charity ride along with two thousand other cyclists.  Two hundred miles over three days that included three mountain passes,Tennessee, Vail and Fremont.  A week after arriving, I left the mountains and my family behind.  The odometer registered 300 miles; shakedown was over.  I rolled southeast out of Denver carrying nothing but my saddlebags, four liters of water and my idiosyncratic success targets.

It was not until riding east on Colorado Route 83 towards Limon, the mountains long behind me, that the realization finally took hold.  The nebulous idea that I needed to get away from it all had become a very real, monstrous, journey.  I was riding home, thousands of miles away, alone.  I reflected on the decisions I made about where to go and when and what to bring, and I realized that each of my parameters and success targets coalesced my yearning for a major change into a relevant set of guiding principles.  ‘Be Seen, Be Steady, Be Local’.

Be Seen.  When you are smaller than everything around you, there are two choices – escape notice or demand notice.  As a cyclist on roads where bicycles are rare, it is important to be seen.  Route 83 towards Limon has no shoulder, every vehicle coming up behind either has to see me or it will hit me.  My side bags have reflectors, my shirt is bright yellow, I ride just to the left of the side painted line.  I raise my left hand fingers towards every opposing driver, and they acknowledge me in return; a typical gesture on lonely western roads, but one that pays dividends, because I know they will signal to anyone coming up behind me that there is yellow jacket ahead who would very much like to avoid their windshield.  It is a friendly gesture rooted in enhanced safety.

Be Steady.  The Surly was not the fastest bike I test drove, or the lightest, but out on a lone stretch of highway I realized what appealed to me was its sturdiness.  I am not inclined towards thrills; touring is about pace and distance, not speed.  As I claim my place on the road and need to be seen, it helps that the bike is sturdy.  On the long down hills, I can gather 30 or 35 miles per hour.  Lighter bikes can hit 50 on the same stretch, but I like that my bike holds so firm.  Be steady also means to be patient and persevering.  Ten miles an hour is an awfully slow pace when faced with thousands of miles. If I get myself into a rush, I will become frustrated because my speed is limited by my own power.  Steadiness is the key to exercising patience.

Be Local.  This is my favorite guiding principle.  Celebrate every unique aspect of the towns and cities I pass through.  On that first night in Limon it meant riding past the Interstate intersection with the usual chains to discover a 1940’s era motel near downtown with a small pool and a cafe across the road that served juicy chicken fried steak.  I was the only one in the place without a pickup truck (never mind a car) but the dusty downtown gave me a deeper experience of the High Plains than I could have absorbed on the highway.

It is certainly possible to take a bicycle trip without clarifying the guiding principles, but they added a level of richness to my experience.  They provided a framework for my actions and incentivized my purpose.  Even if I were famished when I pedaled into a town, I passed by the franchise lunch place in search of something local, and was usually rewarded for my effort.  Life takes us where we look, and with guiding principles to direct our vision, we are more inclined to find what we truly want.

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PBS Shills for Money with Money

Posted on 12/18/2011 by paulefallon

I have gotten in the habit of flicking on the TV while doing my nightly crunches. Since they only take about eight minutes I usually get a slice of something without context, which is fine by me; I am simply seeking visual noise to distract the monotony of combating a flabby belly.

 

Last week I turned on Channel 2, PBS in Boston, and there is a guy standing on a snazzy set with a studio audience on bleachers all around. The phrase ‘Financial Fitness after 50!’ floats above his head in bright lights.  He has this cute little graphic with a pot of gold and he is spinning a tale of Granny, who invested $500 in 1928 -$100 each in five different strategies – and yielded over four million dollars in today’s money.  The host possesses impeccable talk show timing, announcing that Granny put $100 in this vehicle, pausing as the graphic dollar slips into the pot, builds tension as the pot glows until out pops a giant number reflecting her investment’s worth today.  “$3,000,000 for investing in Small-Cap High-Risk Stocks!”  The studio audience bursts into thunderous applause.  The camera scans the assembly of well groomed, multi-colored people.  You go, Granny!

The set shifts to a pair of PBS ‘personalities’ raising money.  They offer me the DVD of this essential financial program for a $72 pledge or the entire Financial Fitness package on disc for only $150.

What is wrong with this picture?

Is it that PBS has become indistinguishable from QVC, presenting infomercials as quality content?

Is it that we don’t acknowledge the almost certain reality that if Granny had $500 in 1928, she probably had to tap into it during the ensuing Great Depression before she ever yielded four million dollars?

Is it that the audience claps so raucously over the hypothetical success of this mythical Granny, as if she had some special power in her arbitrary investing that we consider heroic?

Is it that by extolling Granny’s haphazard investment scheme we debunk the notion that anyone needs a financial advisor?  That would include Paul Merriman, the show’s host, described as a ‘noted educator, best selling author and money manager’. If Granny became a millionaire without him, why do I need him?

Is it the math of Granny’s age?  If she were fifty in 1928, she would be 137 years old today.   Actuarially speaking she would never even see her four million dollars because Granny is dead.

The problem with this program is all of the above, which can be synthesized into one fact.  We have lost the basic reason for money’s existence.  Money started out as a means of exchange, turned into a symbol of security, then status, and finally into something we value in and of itself.  Money is the fetish of our age.  We exalt money so much we put infomercials for it on PBS while the tangible stuff of our lives, the vacuums and exercisers and cosmetics, get relegated to channels further up the dial. We applaud Granny for her savvy, even though she never reaped any of her rewards. 

Ultimately, we come away feeling insufficient; we cannot possibly match Granny’s financial acumen.  Aha, unless we donate to PBS and get this amazing DVD, which means relinquishing money to get stuff that supposedly teaches us how to get more money.  The logic of the consumer culture tells us this is a good thing to do – buy so we can save; even though the logic of logic tells us that the best way to save money is to, well, save it.  My eight minutes of PBS fund raising schlock is just another footnote in our inane relationship to money, but it is a travesty that PBS buys into the frenzy.

As for my own grandmother, she was 28 in 1928, a young woman with four children and a husband who managed to hold onto a rudimentary job through the Depression. She lived a long and healthy life, and when she died in 1988 she left me a ceramic teapot that I had given her as a gift years earlier.  I make tea in it often, and every time it reminds me of her. She didn’t have four millions dollars; she might not have even had four thousand dollars.  But what does that matter?  She lived a content and happy life and left a legacy of love that sifts through five generations.  If she had left me money, it might have made my life easier, but I am better off needing to be a responsible adult who earns the money I need in life.  I am also better off because whenever I make tea, I do with my Granny.

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Pedaling Principles – Chapter 1 – Introduction

Posted on 12/10/2011 by paulefallon

In the summer of 2011 I took an extended vacation from my job in Boston.  I flew to Denver, Colorado, bought a touring bike, and proceeded to ride back East.  I did it for all the predictable reasons, to take a break from routine, to get inside my head, to see America.  I visited family and friends and odd-ball tourist attractions along the way, but mostly I spent time by myself, pedaling unknown roads, letting my mind spin.

I cycled against the backdrop of the Great National Debt Ceiling Debate.  Even though I steered clear of newspapers and watched no TV, I could not avoid the rancor that permeated the country like a cancer. The tenacious hold of narrow interests, the partisan bickering of Congress and the false triumph of the eleventh hour resolution were petty antics against the unparalleled beauty, incredible resources and extraordinary people I encountered along my ride.

We are a nation of great promise in a period of peril.  Our problems are no greater than challenges we have vanquished in the past, yet we are rudderless in determining how to address them.  Even as we have grown mighty in economic and military strength, diversity and sheer numbers, our national consensus has loosened, our resolve is fractured, and we are wallowing in a miasma of finger pointing.  Our problems are an inevitable result of a multi-faceted and mature society.   We are stymied by the sheer number of voices who claim a place at our table and we have no logical process to sort them out.

Americans like bold, individual action; we are wary of negotiation and inpatient with the diplomacy required to build consensus. Our insatiable news cycles and endless campaigns shout out for action.  Yet we do not move forward because every issue is framed by antagonistic points of view; each articulated so starkly they admit no common ground.

But I know different.  I know that we Americans share miles and miles of common ground; I traversed a good portion of it at ten miles per hour, a very prudent speed.  Travelling slow requires patience and a long view because when the only power available to move forward is what my own fifty-six year old legs can produce, the view is not going to change all that fast.  Trending stories flash across the Internet, fill the ether with their urgency, and get eclipsed by faster breaking news before the next town even appears on the horizon.  At ten miles an hour, the incessant buzz of our culture never gets the chance to infect my consciousness, provocative sound bites ring hollow and the issues facing our country appear more fundamental.   At my leisurely pace I realized that The Great National Debt Ceiling Debate was not about money or credit so much as it was about Washington’s divisiveness; it was not about divisiveness so much as our unwillingness to appreciate other points of view; it was not about a realistic search for solutions so much as an exercise in staking extreme positions, and ultimately the debate resolved little except to highlight our lack of trust and respect for each other.

When I am not riding a bicycle, I am an architect.  I design hospitals for a living.  Like most architects I got into the profession because I love to draw and it is thrilling to see my vision rise in steel and stone.  But these days I spend more time facilitating meetings with constituents than I do drawing solutions.  Hospitals are complex facilities with divergent stakeholders.  The core of my job is to help my clients reach agreement on what to build, which I do through a process of defining each client’s core purpose, their guiding principles. 

Truly great guiding principles are like great art, they are deceptively simple yet they resonate with our soul.  They convey what is fundamental about an institution, but also what makes it unique.  Guiding principles seek to maximize benefits to the many while minimizing harm to the few; they inform our future behavior and lead to solutions where everyone winds up better than they were.  Once we clarify guiding principles, drawing is the easy part.

As I pedaled beneath the brilliant summer sun and the storm clouds of the Great National Debt Ceiling Debate, I realized that parallels exist between designing a hospital and running a country.  I also realized that the concepts of guiding principles we use so effectively in our work were absent from the debate.  Instead of seeking common ground, our elected officials exalted their differences.  Reason could not prevail because the most unreasonable claims garnered the most media attention and the debate became a game, a circus of State.  Acknowledging all that we share in common is not a weakness, it is our strength.  If we do not acknowledge how we agree, we cannot craft solutions that maximize everyone’s interest.

Everywhere my legs pumped me I witnessed the dichotomy between our country and our leaders.  How we can get the governed and the government better aligned?  Time and again I returned to the notion that we must reclaim our common ground, we must return to our nation’s guiding principles; only then can we address the challenges of our day.  State by state I cycled through breathtaking landscape, met wonderful people, and ate scrumptious food, while simultaneously confronting core issues facing America.  Each state offered up opportunities for effective and lasting resolve.

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Paralysis

Posted on 12/10/2011 by paulefallon

November came and went without a single blog posting; the longest lapse since I began.  My objective is one post a week, on Sunday, with daily posts during periods of personal intensity.  So, what made me stop posting? It is not that I stopped functioning, or thinking, or going to yoga or juggling Haiti.  Actually, it is the contrary. I have been thinking and juggling so much, I am unable to find any order of the cacophony inside my head.  My mind is a cloud of doubt; there is so much activity swirling around me I am afraid to make any move.  Without a clear idea of what to post, I have turned mute.  Without a clear idea or how to act, I have become paralyzed. 

The first step to any challenge is to identify it, so I consulted Merriam-Webster.  The top three definitions for paralysis are:

1.   the complete or partial loss of function especially when involving motion or sensation in a part of the body

2.   loss of the ability to move

3.   a state of powerlessness or incapacity to act

Paralysis is the correct diagnosis for my condition.

Next step, seek out root causes.  Ever since I parked the Surly after my 3,000 mile cycling trip, my ‘regular’ life has felt flat. It is the exact same life I had before, but the old refrain ‘how you going to keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Parii’ rings true, even if in my case it was not Parii that had brought such excitement to my life; rather Cleveland and Carmi and Claremore.

A person at drift is more susceptible to the vagaries of the current, so when I came into work one morning to discover an office coup underway, complete with warring partners and legal salvos and rolling heads, I realized I had been floating oblivious to rocky seas all around me.  I spent the next few weeks finding my own equilibrium.  Which side am I on?  Do I want to part of redefining the firm?  If so, how? If not, what do I do next?

I had just completed my book, Pedaling Principles, which describes how cooperative decision making strategies could help our country resolve our most critical issues.  In that text I described how we worked with healthcare clients to reach accord around major construction projects.  Witnessing the principals’ actions at TRO JB, I was repulsed by the narrow, divisive, and ultimately short-sighted moves that every principal involved in the office coup displayed.  I spent a few days sucked into the vortex of meetings and recriminations flying through the office, but soon realized that I did not want to be part of either side and so returned to my desk and worked as best I could given that my faith and trust in a firm that has been so good for me had evaporated.

I could not blog because I could not land a fixed position.  Although I love the awkward pose because it creates balance out of an unexpected position, the wonder of it is that it creates balance.  With my work environment a battle zone, my commitment to work vulnerable, and my heart on the highway, balance was elusive. 

The dissatisfaction at TRO JB makes us all confront the basics of our existence in the firm, and provokes us to act accordingly.  After a period of foggy ennui, I began to press against the outlines of the situation, to see what felt good for me and where I hit against discomfort. I am still weighing options – do I stay or do I go, and if I go, where and why?  But I can sort them now, identity ones that are worthy.  My paralysis is loosening.

The point of being the Awkward Poser is not to spiral into the sort of naval gazing described in this post thus far, but to extract my personal experience into larger themes of life.  So what have I learned during this period of disappointment and doubt?  I have witnessed good people behaving badly in response to difficult conditions.  Everyone acknowledges that the discord at TRO JB would have never occurred five years ago – times were flush, there was plenty of work and money to go around, everyone could pursue their particular interests at will; some panned out in monetary success, others in aesthetic success, a few in both. But the environment for architects is difficult now, our workload is off, we have gone through rounds of layoffs, and the coup was fomented by people who lost the big picture out of fear for individaul short term satisfactions.  Yes, it is difficult to hold to your vision in the face of adversity, but worthy visions are exactly what get us through difficult times.

The larger lesson I learned is that what I witnessed in my office is transpiring all across our country, writ small.  Our nation is in a state of contraction, our fear of losing what we have has eclipsed out ability to see new potential.  We spend our time wringing our hands about how the world has changed against our advantage, instead of embracing that change and driving it towards a better society.  In my 56 years on earth I have never felt theUnited Statesto be so small, claustrophobic as an office cubicle plopped in the middle of a coup where your back is exposed and the only certainty is that no one has your back.

Posted in Personal | 3 Comments

Public Gift

Posted on 10/30/2011 by paulefallon

A few years ago William LeMessurier died.  That may not mean much to many, but he was a mighty structural engineer.  Among the construction world he was a magician; the man who developed the tuned mass damper that stopped
Boston’s John Hancock Tower from swaying so much its windows kept popping out, the genius who supported New York’s Citicorp Building on four legs, none located at a corner of the building.  To me, he was a teacher of renown.  He taught an advanced structural engineering course at MIT, the ultimate structural design course I attempted, during which I admitted the limits of my mathematical ability.  He also taught a watered down, but far more useful, class in structural design for architects, in which I learned everything I need to know to ask the right questions when the engineers start drifting into arcane lingo.

For years he lived at 157 Brattle Street in Cambridge, a forbidding dark brown heap of shingles and tiny paned windows hiding behind evergreen shrubs the size of elephants.  I never knew he lived there,
I never even noticed the house, until he died; his address was in the Obit and within a few months a for sale sign went up on the corner of Brattle and Appleton.

Brattle Street is Cambridge’s local Park Avenue, the toniest address in town.  It used to be called Tory Row, in reference to the many British loyalists who lived in the stately mansions along the street.  Some date back to the 1600’s.  George Washington used one abandoned by Tories as his headquarters during the siege of Boston, that same house later became the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his family.

157 Brattle was built in 1897, the same year as my own house, but it has a different scale – eight bedrooms, ten fireplaces, a 35 foot long living room.  The estate sold the house for $3.6 million in 2008, at which time the new owners gutted it.  Gutting million dollar houses is a Brattle Street tradition.  The mansions change hands; the new owners retain the shell and transform the interior to their particular tastes.  In the case of 157 Brattle the transformation
was complete.  Out went the evergreens, the cupped shingles, the wobbly paned glass, in went a geothermal heating system, a new roof, new shingles, glistening glass, a new carriage house, granite and teak fence, etched house numbers, a fresh lawn and a seasonally spectacular landscape.  The new house is taupe instead of dark brown, in three subtle shades; the carved gable boards have
been sharpened, the immense Tudor front door refinished and shellacked to new life.  What had been a dark hole of spindly needles and shakes is now the showpiece of the street.  A more beautiful house would be tough to find.

People pause at 157 Brattle; it is not uncommon to see groups standing outside the low slung hundred thousand dollar fence pointing out features of particular interest.  The house is gorgeous yet accessible beyond compare, for the new owners did not hide their treasure behind tall walls or dense plantings, as many Brattle Street residents do, they opened their house and invited anyone walking along the street to enjoy.  For some time the buzz was that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner live there, but alas they have renovated another equally impressive house in town, with a good deal more privacy in mind.  I do not know who the owners are – I have never seen them, even though I ride by the house almost every day and have seen the dining room, the upstairs gallery, and many other rooms that are open for the world to see.

The unique thing about 157 Brattle is how it displays the owner’s wealth without being ostentatious.  Many people in town talk about the house, yet never once have I heard a disparaging remark.  It is simply too elegant, too well done, too much a gift to the people to be considered crass.  In this period of the Occupy movement,
someone firmly entrenched in the 1% we are supposed to despise has charmed us with his good taste; we are putty in his hands.

The truth is that humans like wealth, even vicariously.  We like to envision ourselves sitting at that mahogany table in the dining room, snipping the peonies outside the kitchen window.  For all I know the owner is a fat cat banker, a mortgage magnate.  Then
again, he could be a brilliant structural engineer who bought the house and refurbished it with such love in memory of Bill LeMessurier.  I will probably never know. But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying his gift to the public.

Posted in United States | 1 Comment

Occupy America

Posted on 10/23/2011 by paulefallon

I see them every day when I cycle to work, the squad of tents nested snug to the
ventilation shaft that exhausts the highway buried beneath the city.  The round canvas domes with tarped doors faced off against the Federal Reserve Building, that towering aluminum behemoth with
two clunky legs that might have been the original inspiration for Transformers. The tents are dense packed; the city keeps the squatters’ stake small.  Police loiter about in clumps chatting with one another, paid special duty time to keep the 99% who are by now overtired and smelly from tent living from the other 99% of us, fresh showered office workers scurrying to their cubicles.

The Occupy Boston camp is littered with signs.  Thumbs up to peace, justice, and cooperatives, vets, teachers and workers; thumbs down to war, corruption and capitalism; generals, tycoons and banks.  The graphic designer in me is appalled; the signs are jagged, soggy, too small to read from the street.  But they are urgent, as if the issues scrawled on them might be eclipsed by some greater tragedy during the time it takes to craft careful block letters.

There are few people out and about the campground at 8:00 am.  I imagine they are all still in their tents; unlike me they don’t have to go to work. Then again, they are already at work, full time witnesses to the chaos of our financial system. A system that is
supposed to help people achieve their aspirations but has been coopted into a self-serving profit center that rakes in income like dry leaves in autumn but when winter comes and the trees go bare and overextended loans collapse they clamor for handouts with more audacity than any Pine Street Inn beggar would dare muster.  Men in suits are self-confident and entitled.

What do these people want? That is the question on the face of the workers heeling their way from South Station to the Financial District.  Their demands are not clear, their message is not clear.  Actually, they don’t even have demands, at least ones we can grasp.
We can envision “Free Attica Seven’ and maybe even ‘Out of Iran’, but none of us can imagine what ‘End the Fed’ would look like.

I think Occupy Boston wants two things.

First, they want to make us think. I like that they do not have a pat list of demands.  They are coughing up complicated problems that we created over decades and will not resolve easily.  By being non-hierarchical Occupy Boston avoids being simplistic.  If you want simple answers, watch a Republican presidential debate.  If you want a complex picture of the mess we are in, settle down at the camp shadowed by the Fed.

Second they want to make us uncomfortable.  Every morning when I ride by I think, why I am here, on the employee side of the police line instead of on the camp side?  I will not cross over, I don’t have that much activism in my blood, but I appreciate that they make me confront that slack in my character.  When the morning is dry and warm I think they have it all over me, when it rained in sheets overnight, I feel sorry for their wet bodies.  It is impossible to pass Occupy Boston without acknowledging it, without considering problems we are inclined to ignore.

What is the future of Occupy Boston? Winter is coming and the cold will force its death.  Does it have the persistence of a perennial to pop up again next spring or are the cluster of tents just fall mums?  We don’t know, and that uncertainly it part of the camp’s vitality.  Two months ago no one could have foreseen how Occupy Wall Street would spread, would thrive, would capture the media interest it has garnered.  It is like we have been hungry for a good old fashioned protest and so have heaped attention on this action.

I have no idea how Occupy Boston will affect change, and neither do the folks in the tents.  But I do know that the camp is a living, breathing, public testament to the reality that things are rotten
in the State of the United States for too many people and that we have to change course.  The how and when will happen later, by others, but for now Occupy Boston and Denver and LA and Wall
Street and even Akron are infecting our consciousness and even if there is not yet a tent city in every town across America, they are sowing seeds in our minds from coast to coast.

Posted in United States | 2 Comments

Haiti Construction Update

Posted on 10/09/2011 by paulefallon

Ten months have passed since we began construction on Be Like Brit Orphanage.  The road is stable, though prone to washout; the foundations are complete. Len goes to Haiti every two to three weeks and is anxious to begin the actual walls, but security is an ongoing problem, so first
we have to build a wall around the site.  It should be done by Christmas.  I get photographs and videos almost daily but there is not much need for me to visit.  When we have to lay out electrical,
plumbing and other fixtures I will go again.

Clinic construction is erratic but the first floor walls are installed and we hope to pour the roof this fall.  In the meantime, outdoor clinics are still held every few months.  The building will make permanent healthcare that the local community has come to reply upon.  We have big plans – eventually adding a dental clinic, radiology and even two operating rooms, but plans are easier to conceive than buildings are to build, so it will all take time.

The Mission of Hope School received their grant.  I returned to Haiti for trip number five in May 2011 to lay out the school on the site, which was complicated by the need to demolish and remove the existing earthquake damaged portions of their compound.    As of today, excavation is complete and the base foundation is in place.  Classes are taking place in temporary lean-tos.  Our
vision to open the new building next fall is optimistic; the only constant in Haitian construction is delay.

The three projects continue in fits and starts and there are times when it seems there is no forward movement.  But change occurs slowly, especially in a place as fluid as Haiti.  Earthquakes and
hurricanes, revolts and elections, it is a society of disruption.  Still, the objective in our three construction projects has been to ‘raise the bar’, which we have.  We have designed improved strength concrete blocks and started a local plant that sells block around the countryside.  Over 100 people have been employed by the three projects – money going directly to Haitians who are rebuilding their country.  Still, we don’t have any completed buildings; we may not for a year or two or even three.  By some measures, our progress is not much, but we are moving forward.

Posted in Haiti | 1 Comment