B-Corps
Businesses do not have a responsibility to fulfill core human principles of belonging, purpose, community, and ritual. When they try to, the outcome is a simulacra of the real thing. Often cold, plastic, and disposable. Their goal is to make money, for their shareholders, and maybe after the fact look after their stakeholders. But what if their was a corporate structure that worked differently? A way of existing for or co-existing with the mission to fulfill larger human objectives, beyond what is socially of the moment.
Eudaemonia Machine
I took on a long delayed challenge and wrote a novella during the quiet and solitude that the early days of the pandemic. By my estimation it’s nothing worth reading and unless I put serious effort into revisions, it won’t be shared more broadly. In the year that followed I also wrote a screen play inspired by a dream that consumed me one night. These creative outpourings were for me and me only. Long solitary swims out into a sea of imagination and wonder. The very doing was enough. I had reached a state of Eudaemonia (or Eudaimonia). The common link between these swells of productivity was space.
Technological Ghosts
I first thought about the idea of digital ghosts while listening to a podcast in which one of the guests on the show mentioned getting a voicemail from a deceased family member after that person died. The message had apparently been delayed by cellular network issues. That eery idea got me thinking about digital ghosts. The pictures, text messages, voicemails, documents, and more that could theoretically live on in perpetuity. I started to look around our house hunting down the sarcophaguses of the digital echos we have created. As I have been cultivating a minimalist practice over the years, I had already whittled down what little remained to a few devices. An external hard drive here and one or two other insignificant devices were all I could find.
The Freedom of Constraints
Some constraints are the result of our respective socio-economic situations. Others come from the compounding of unfortunate circumstances or bad decisions. And yet others come from self selection. The last is my favorite. The conscious creation of boundaries to set constraints in a given situation. I call it addition through subtraction.
A Meaningful Delta
I was once invited to attend a meeting to plan a meeting to schedule meetings. This was a real request from a Deloitte consultant to me while on a project in New York. I declined that invite and every single other meeting invite he sent. I wish I could say that was the last wasteful meeting invite I ever received but anyone who has worked in corporate America knows, meetings, whether meaningful or not, are all too common. They are death by a thousand paper cuts.
Deliberate Practice
The deliberate practitioner won’t just rely on one source for skill development. You have to learn across multiple mediums. Go out and read on the history of your interest, listen to podcasts, and watch how-to tutorials from masters.
Individualism–Collectivism Scale
You can trace the individualistic mindset of Americans to its founding. That pursuit of various individual freedoms fueled the don’t tread on me spirit. Whether it was the freedom of religion, the lawless expansion into occupied indigenous lands, or the right to practice morally bereft chattel slavery. Americans have demanded the room to pursue what they solely want no matter the impact to their neighbor. It is no surprise then that "the United States scores highest on the individualism end of [the individualism-collectivism scale ... and consequently] is the only industrialized country in the world that does not provide its citizens with universal health care."
Revisiting Minimalism
I find I have to constantly explain the idea of Minimalism to everyone I discuss it with because their first idea is some Monk like existence, barren of joy or material belongings, wasting away alone in some empty white walled room. That’s the double entendre in the naming this philosophy, Minimalism. In reality, Minimalism should be equated with Essentialism. An essentialist philosophy that is reinforced by mindfulness. The two fuel the thoughtful consideration of everything we bring into our lives and how we allot our time and attention.
Optimizing a Home Office
Work From Home has become what my wife calls, live at work. Each one of us adapting in our own way to a semi-permanent remote worker status. Dining room tables, closets, garages, and empty guest rooms have transformed into make shift offices and classrooms. My experience in working remotely for extended periods of time is not new. Having worked from home in some capacity since 2008. During that time it became clear to us the value of planning office space in your home in some capacity up front.