Coming Home
Weekly reflections on existence, meaning, and exploring the experience of coming home
What I mean when I use the word "spiritual"
Hi Reader, If you're just re-joining us, welcome back! I'm done with the email portion of my white paper project and am returning to weekly newsletters on my usual topics of existence, meaning, and coming home. Time is very dear right now and I'm still not done with the final edit and visual design of the white paper. I would seriously love to be finished with it, but it still needs some unknown amount of hours and I've scarcely managed to put even fifteen minutes into it this week. So I...
Your regularly-scheduled program
Hi Reader, I'm continuing to work on editing and designing the white paper. Meanwhile, here's a teaser of the stuff I've been noodling on for when thing get back to my normal around here (which I hope is soon): What do I mean when I say spirituality? Does God exist? Who or what is SE? And why did I make up such a silly-looking (and sounding) word? Anything else you comment on or ask me about in the meantime.
The bottom two boxes
Hi Reader, (Assuming you're not reading this until after the holiday, I hope you had a blessed one! I wish you all the best as we close out 2024!) Some things are easy to teach because you can point to them. Here's two apples, see? One here, and one here. One plus one makes two. Some things are hard to teach because they exist only inside you. Or maybe not at all. Maybe you misinterpreted your hunger pangs as anger at that person who happens to be nearby. (Apropos, research has shown judges...
Teaching the top two boxes
Hi Reader, (If you're just joining me—welcome—and want to catch yourself up, here's a link to all my past newsletters. The first one in this series was called "A brief project(ed detour)") One of the perks of being a parent of young kids is getting to see a lot of learning happening firsthand. That's a challenge sometimes, but it's been helpful when reflecting on this batch of newsletters. Some things are easy to teach because you can point to them or touch them or otherwise easily have...
Starting to bring it all together
Hi Reader, So I was considering those two charts from last week's newsletter (I shrunk 'em a bit since they aren't important right now, just reminders): ...and I realized they answered a question I pointed to back in the first newsletter in this series: "what do we do when we don't know what to do?" (I also implied this knowledge/skill is an essential part of tech support's job.) The short answer is, "go deeper." The middlingly longer answer requires that we take a closer look at that stacked...
Coming up from the depths, getting our bearings
Hi Reader, This is exciting! I know exactly what I'm going to write about today, thanks to all the fumbling of the last few emails. Now that we got to the deepest part of this journey, it's like I can see clearly. Funny, that's like a mirror of the physical world, where it's clearest from the highest point. There's an interesting rabbit trail about spirituality that's calling to me here, but I'm going to save it for a future newsletter, probably after finishing this tech support series. Now,...
This is as deep as we go
Hi Reader, You'd think that after starting umpteen newsletters with some version of "not sure where I'm going with this this week, BUT..." I'd get a handle on things. Or at least learn to pretend like I know where I'm going. Or at the VERY least just edit my first paragraph after finishing the email. BUT... ...nah. Here's what I DO think I know that I think I know: I need to work this tech support thing back up to a set of specific recommendations at some point. As in, actionable steps tech...
A clarification: maybe it's all about healing
Hi Reader, I've hit a bit of an obstacle with this project. I'm not sure how to proceed, so I'm feeling my way forward. I thought I was clear, but some wonderful feedback from readers like you has helped me see some wrinkles. I doubt I'll be able to iron them all out, so I'm acknowledging that here and will keep trying to move forward. This is where I wanted to go next: Any problem that someone contacts tech support about isn't a real problem. It's a symptom. I don't say that to dismiss the...
From existential crisis to... ok, it's really just more existential crisis
Hi Reader, In last week's email, I tried to set up the first part of a two-part argument where I was moving from the data-backed "empathy problem" in tech support (part one of the argument) to what seems to underlie that problem (part two, which was going to be what this week's email was about). As I was sending last week's email I was thinking it wasn't as clear as I would have liked. But, you know. Deadlines. So off it went to your inbox. I got a lot of replies from you about that email....
From empathy to existential crisis
Hi Reader, Last week we left off on this "empathy" thread. I mentioned how, in my experience, encouraging my teammates to respond with empathy seems to have produced only more-frequent apologies. "I'm so sorry to hear you're having issues." "Really sorry about that." "I'm very sorry about such-and-such." "I'm so sorry to hear that blahblahblah." And that's what it feels like to me. Just blahblahblah. Empathy is NOT blahblahblah. Wouldn't you agree? During the week, I got one message from a...
Weekly reflections on existence, meaning, and exploring the experience of coming home