Can We Talk?

My year off is officially over. I'm still at home, but I'm actively looking for work. Maybe that will be a job in the conventional sense of the word, or maybe it will be a more creative way to bring in income. I'm not sure. I've tried telling myself that I ought to be checking the job ads more assertively, mailing brochures to potential clients, making cold calls and all. But it just doesn't feel right. I have chastised myself, telling myself to just get over my inertia and start the wheels moving again. Don't be such an introvert, I say. Which is kind of like telling myself to stop having such blue eyes or stop being so short.

I have found a much better source of motivation, though. It comes through in the morning when I am writing in my journal -- or sometimes at 3AM when I am wishing that I could get back to sleep. In the deep stillness of my room, little ideas make their way to the surface. Concrete, definite actions that I could take. Actions with energy and enthusiasm behind them. Actions based on what I do naturally, what I enjoy, what gives me satisfaction.

There's a stillness born of time away from the daily commute, the meetings and deadlines and periods of boredom interspersed with crises. In that space has come an appreciation of things that I have been doing for years, but have not integrated into the way I make my living. With that realization has come a desire to more fully integrate the marketable skills with the calling of what is most important to me.

I have come to acknowledge more fully my talent for talking about scientific and technical issues in language that is engaging and easy to understand. I might not get the story first, but I get it in context and I do my best to get it right. That's a real talent. It's much harder than summarizing one's research in the specialized language of one's own field. It goes beyond opening up a stream of data in the hopes that the more information you throw at people, the more likely they are to come around to your point of view. It's very different from "dumbing it down". Good science writing requires me to respect my reader's intelligence and convey an accurate, nuanced picture in language that is both precise and accessible.

Good science writing is an act of empathy. When I'm conducting interviews for an article, I have to do my homework ahead of time to know who it is I'm talking to and have some basic knowledge of their work. I don't want to waste this person's time asking basic questions that could be answered easily with a little online research. It's incumbent on me to know and convey to the person I'm interviewing the purpose of the article I'm writing and to ask for information that makes my article into something worth reading. I'm responsible for communicating to my source just why it is that he or she is exactly the person who can best help me learn and convey the specific information I'm going after.

I have to use my skills in asking questions to encourage my sources to talk about the most interesting, relevant, or important parts of their work. I have to listen carefully to what my sources are telling me. I can't assume that I know in advance what they are going to say. I can't shape their answers into what I think they should have said. I can't be reluctant to ask for clarification -- even if I think I understand what they meant to say. This requires a certain humility on my part -- a willingness to relinquish any concept of myself as an expert and to let my sources speak for themselves. My expertise comes in organizing and conveying the voices of all my sources as accurately and understandably as possible.

Empathy requires me to know something about the audience I'm writing for. What this audience is most interested in might not be the same thing that most interests my sources. Depending on the type of article I'm writing, I might have to spend some time educating my audience, but I can't be overly didactic without losing their attention. Everyone is busy these days, and a multitude of information sources compete for my reader's attention. I have to make it worth my reader's time to read my writing. I have to show my readers something new or present a different point of view on something familiar. Some part of what I say has to be relevant to the world they inhabit.

I have to be trustworthy. If I come across as selling a particular point of view or advocating for a particular cause, I might capture the attention of those who already agree with me. But I will lose those readers who disagree with me -- the very readers who might have an "aha!" moment or engage others in a constructive dialogue after having read my article. On the other hand, false balance is just as misleading as blind advocacy. On some issues (climate change is one notable example), the scientific consensus is so strong that giving equal weight to a small opposing minority is a distortion of the facts.

Trustworthiness also requires clarity. "Baffle them with bullshit" is not an acceptable approach here. Few intelligent readers come away convinced that because an issue is presented in dense technical prose, it must be important and correct. On the other hand, talking down to one's readers, using lazy metaphors, or affecting a false hipness only makes the writer look incompetent. The goal is to convey a message and convey it well.

Conveying a message also requires an understanding that we are not completely rational beings. Two reasonably sane, intelligent, well-intentioned people can look at the same set of facts and draw very different conclusions. We all operate within our own social, historical, and experiential frameworks, and we interpret what we see accordingly. A good writer must provide enough context and perspective to inform, but not overwhelm, her readers.

Our emotions affect how we react to information, whether or not we are aware of it. Thus, humor, diplomacy, and yes, empathy are far more than ways to "spice up" an article. They are necessary elements in connecting with one's audience and opening a space for dialogue -- or perhaps drawing the lines for battle.

The work I enjoy best draws on all these skills, but some of my previous jobs have required a "just-the-facts" approach. For some purposes, that's enough. An activity report for a government agency is not the right place to hone one's skills in humorous narrative nonfiction. But since I have all of these skills, it's up to me to find an outlet for them. Leave the cut-and-dried work to those who excel at it.

Lately, I've been exploring social media (FaceBook, Twitter, and the like) as a means of staying in touch with the people I've met through my travels, career, and various stages of my life. This has evolved into a means of conversing with people whom I have never met face-to-face, but with whom I share common interests and affinities. I'm exploring the nuances of brief written communications and asking myself how well it is possible to know another person through electronic interaction alone. Electronic communities are changing the way we understand friendship and the way information (or misinformation) spreads.

Increasingly, interest groups, businesses, and other organizations use these channels to shape what we think and how we talk to each other in ways that go far beyond the pop-up ads and "you might be interested in..." suggestions. Skilled communicators realize that this is where their audience is, and they seek out the people they want to reach in this way. Perhaps the entire message can be conveyed right there on the spot. Perhaps a brief note on Twitter alerts readers to a more detailed account elsewhere. Perhaps flinging an idea into the fray sparks a conversation or elicits a wealth of crowd-sourced information, an exchange of diverse points of view. In any case, it's a matter of going out and engaging in dialogue with readers where they are rather than passively waiting in the backwaters of the information stream.

If this is so interesting to me in my personal interactions, why not investigate ways to build this into my profession as a science writer? After all, one of the reasons I took 2012 as a year off was to discover ways of integrating the various values and interests I have into a means of supporting myself while contributing something worthwhile to the world.

Racism Through a Child's Eyes

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King day, and I want to share three memories from my years growing up in southeastern New Mexico. This is how my child's mind dealt with issues of race, using what I saw and heard all around me.

Colored people. In the 1960s, "colored people" was the polite term for those we now call African-Americans. When I was maybe 7 or 8 years old, I heard the term and formed a mental image of brightly colored blue, green, and red people, like the colors in my crayon box. I never saw any people who looked like that, however. One day, I asked my mother what color colored people were. She looked at me strangely, as if I had asked an odd question. "They're just negroes," she said. Well, that was a letdown. I had seen negroes before, and they were just sort of brown.

Speaking Spanish. The town where I grew up is about 100 miles north of the Mexican border, so naturally a lot of my schoolmates were of Mexican heritage. Many of them spoke Spanish at home and on the playground. My teachers would always scold them and tell them not to speak Spanish at school. They were probably trying to keep them from excluding the rest of us from their conversations, or maybe indoctrinate them into some common culture. In my child's mind, however, I thought that Spanish must be a language made up of dirty words. Why else would our teachers be so stern when they scolded my friends?

Mythical Meskins. During my early years in grade school, the older kids would tell us about the mythical creatures they called "Meskins". These were mean people who hid in bushes, and they would jump out as you passed by and cut you with their knives. Many of my playmates had dark hair and skin, and they had surnames like Garcia, Hernandez, and Reyes. In my mind, these were two separate and completely unrelated observations. It never occurred to me to make any connection between the playmates I saw every day and the mean people hiding in bushes, whom I never did encounter. When I was old enough to realize that "Meskins" was a racial stereotype of Mexican-Americans, I was also old enough to know how hateful it was. I had been right all along -- my friends and playmates were nothing like the imaginary predators that I had been told about, and I feel very fortunate that my friendships were never poisoned by the hateful stories the older kids told.

This Is Your Life

In a delicious little piece of serendipity, my eye was drawn to this poster, which appeared in the margin next to a wonderful web video on creativity that a friend sent me. This poster is the "Holstee Manifesto" and it encapsulates the philosophy of the Holstee company. Their story (copied from their website):

In the heat of the recession in May 2009, brothers Mike and Dave and their partner, Fabian started Holstee. More than a company, or clothes, the trio wanted to create a lifestyle. Starting in the summer of 2009 they dove head first into the world of design and production. After six months and a huge learning curve, Holstee launched its first line of Recycled Tees made of 100% recycled plastic bottles that were milled, cut and sewn within 150 miles of each other in North Carolina. Starting with this first round, 10% of all sales were lent to entrepreneurs in extreme poverty through non-profit micro-lending organizations like Kiva.org - a tradition they are proud to still embrace.

These guys are the anti-Dilberts. May their philosophy take hold and flourish!

Taking Stock

It's a new year. First Monday of the year, most people are back at work. I'm taking stock of where I've been and getting a little more concrete about where I'm going. Over the past year, I've:

• rested and recovered from a stressful job
  
• educated myself about making a living as a self-employed person
  
• read several books on discovering and pursuing one's bliss
  
• attended seminars and programs related to possible directions for my career
  
• read several well-written novels -- for enjoyment and to see how it's done
  
• gotten into the habit of daily walks and twice-weekly yoga classes
  
• lost enough weight to drop one full jeans size
  
• decluttered my kitchen and done several small maintenance projects around my home
  
• completed a small mosaic tabletop and a tapestry toss pillow
  
• started making a small table out of my old college textbooks
  
• started the design on my next tapestry
  
• discovered a couple dozen online friends from around the world who share a common interest in the ongoing saga of Andrew De Leon
  
• bought a guitar and started relearning my notes and chords
  
• published two short stories
  
• written a feature story on science careers (will be published soon)
  
• learned to use Twitter and become a lot more proficient in using Facebook
  
• kept up this blog and a daily journal, and begun putting these together as a book
  
• completely redesigned and updated my website, with a lot of help from my sister Linda, a talented graphic designer
  
• rediscovered the joy of spontaneous day trips, local musicians, and three-hour lunches with friends
  

Last March, I posted that I felt unfocused and directionless, like a river that had overflowed its channel and spread all over the place. Since then, I've started carving out some new channels for myself. I spend some time each day writing and doing physical exercise. I am still a member of the discussion group that's been meeting twice a month for the last ten years. My eating and sleeping habits are much healthier. Several of my friends have commented that I look happier and more relaxed. Someone even told me that I look ten years younger! (The top picture is me in January 2012, and the bottom picture is from November 2012.)

Over the next several months, I will be contacting several organizations that I have identified as potential outlets for my writing. I'm checking out several agencies that specialize in writers and other creative people. I'm signed up for a six-week writing workshop, and I bought a book on "how to blog a book".

I'm also paying more attention to friendships and spending time with people I enjoy. I'm more receptive to going out and doing things now than when I started this adventure a year ago.

I'm currently conducting an impromptu survey of friends from my various social circles asking them to complete the sentence: "Nancy is my go-to person for _____." Interestingly, none of the responses so far mention my technical knowledge, editing skills, time management abilities, or any of the other talents that were so useful in my previous career. Instead, the responses mention wit, insight, humor, creativity, rationality, carefully considered opinions, and the like. I'm taking this as a sign that I need to build these elements into the line of work that I pursue. If people are already looking to me for these things, then shouldn't I be including them in the efforts where I spend most of my time and energy?

If 2012 was a year of healing and exploration, then 2013 will focus on love and money, and how best to integrate the two. I need to make a living, but I also need the dear people and passionate pursuits in my life. I can't call my book "Eat, Pray, Love" -- that title is already taken. Perhaps I should call it "Heal, Explore, Thrive". That seems to capture the adventure so far.

If you don't stop making that face...

Did your Mom ever tell you, "If you don't stop making that face, it will freeze that way"? When life is moving really fast, people often just get one glimpse of us, like a snapshot. In their minds, that's the way we are -- face, talent, personality, preferences. That's their image of us, our face is "frozen that way".

How closely does my public persona resemble the person I think of as me? Has anyone ever gotten fixated on an inaccurate view of me or formed an image that represents just one side of who I am?

Sometimes, the matter is out of your hands. Parents often think of their offspring as children, even after they grow up, and no amount of rational persuasion or objective evidence will change their minds. Maybe your classmates from high school remember you as that nerdy/freaky/jock/flaky kid even though you've moved past that long ago.

The cast of Star Trek got stuck in the image of the characters from that show, no matter what other roles they played. They got a lot of money and fame for their efforts, but their careers pretty much got stuck there. The movie Galaxy Quest parodied their plight, with a story about a group of actors from a long-defunct television show who could only find work reprising their roles at sci-fi conventions and shopping mall openings.

In the 1960s, four budding musicians and actors signed on for a TV show about a boy band, The Monkees. Their careers were defined by the characters they played on that show for the next 40 years. They got very frustrated at the constraints imposed by their contract, but they raked in a pile of money. That was a good thing, financially speaking, because their most visible source of income in the years to come was band reunion tours and appearances as former members of The Monkees. Was it worth it?

On the other hand, if you don't provide something that your audience, clients, or friends want, you can find yourself all alone.

A folk singer I know insisted so strongly on doing everything on his own terms that he choked off his own career. He didn't care enough about what his audience wanted, and his fellow musicians found him difficult to deal with.

Andrew De Leon, an aspiring singer, gave his first public performance almost as a way to put his dreams to rest, certain that he was going to be hated. The audience responded in an overwhelmingly positive way, and his new-found fans pressed him to release a CD. Now, he's changed genres, blending the operatic style that made him famous with the heavy metal and goth styles that he has admired for several years. Did he perform his least important kind of music so that if he was rejected, at least it wouldn't be for the music that was closest to his heart? Should he please his fans or please himself? You can't blame the fans for wanting more of what drew them in the first place. On the other hand, being typecast in a role that's not really you can choke off your enthusiasm before you can realize your potential.

In my previous job, I became known in my company as a very capable technical editor and trade show exhibit manager. That wasn't inaccurate, but those talents ranked very low on my list of personal priorities. Perhaps I could have pursued my creative writing and visual arts interests in my spare time, but my job left me very little time or energy to pursue the things that I cared about most. My employers didn't require those skills from me, and "creative writer" was not what came to mind when they thought of me. So I provided what my employer wanted, at great cost to my personal priorities.

If you don't care enough about other people's feelings, you're a narcissist, and people walk away from you. If you care too much about what people think of you, you're a people-pleaser, and they take you for granted and exploit you.

There has to be a third way, where you engage with other people while keeping a sense of yourself. You act in a way that shows respect and caring for others, but you respect and care about yourself as well. Reveal your true self, but only as much as appropriate. Actively seek common ground between what you have to offer and what others desire from you. Have boundaries, but give your closest friends a means of access to the self that you think of as "really me".

"Being yourself is not remaining where you are, or being satisfied with what you are. It is the point of departure." -- Sydney J. Harris

"As I think more positively, I attract positive-thinking people into my life, with whom I have satisfying relationships." -- Barbara J. Winter

"As I know myself better and act with more integrity and authenticity, I become more capable of entering into close, authentic relationships." -- Nancy McGuire

Enough is Enough

I just sent this letter to Congressman Chris Van Hollen and Senators Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin:


These past few weeks have shocked us over and over again with senseless killings due to gun violence. It's not just the Newtown shooting, as horrific as that was. It's the Clackamas Mall shooting in Portland. It's the killing of Selina Brown and the wounding of her daughter Kodie by her father as they boarded a bus in DC. It's the shooting at the movie theater in Aurora, the shooting of Gabrielle Gifford and others in Arizona, and before that, the Beltway Sniper, the shootings at Columbine, Virginia Tech, the individual shootings that claim so many young lives in the District… well you get the picture. Over and over and over again, someone with easy access to guns decides to claim some fame or revenge, and there is so very little to stop them from acting on their impulse.

I am not advocating a complete ban on private gun ownership. I grew up in a town with a strong hunting culture. I have friends in rural areas who need to protect their livestock, and who cannot wait a half hour or more for the police to arrive if an armed intruder is prowling around their homes. I know that business owners must have some means of protecting against armed criminals. Legitimate gun ownership is not the problem here.

However, I can see no legitimate reason for civilian citizens to own assault weapons, semiautomatic weapons, high-volume ammunition clips, and other weapons best left to the military and law enforcement professionals. Even if there were legitimate uses, surely these instances are rare enough that we can give up access to these weapons to serve the greater good.

Certainly, someone in an insane rage can kill using a knife, a baseball bat, or even bare hands. But such a person, acting alone, cannot kill scores of people in a few short minutes. Only someone armed with a rapid-fire gun can do that.

We require people to register their cars, pass routine inspections, and carry liability insurance. We require drivers to demonstrate proficiency and familiarity with the laws of the road, and we take away their licenses if they violate these laws too often. We require additional qualifications and special licenses for people wishing to drive big-rig trucks and Metro buses. Surely we can institute similar safeguards for gun ownership and use? All that is lacking is the political will to stand up to well-funded special interest groups -- the NRA in particular. Congress is in a lame-duck session right now, and many of your colleagues have nothing to lose by pushing for gun control legislation before they leave office. The nation has been shocked and horrified by one mass killing after another, and people are pleading for some kind of concrete action to curb the violence. Now is the time to say, "enough is enough" and push through the legislation that we need. Australia did it in 1996. We can do it now. Please.

Your constituent,
Nancy McGuire

Keep, Donate, Toss

Three years ago, I decided that my bedroom was a wretched mess. I had already gotten my living room into decent shape with furniture that harmonized and functioned well. I sent a couple of carloads of clutter (plus several large pieces of mismatched furniture) to new homes -- including the landfill, when I couldn't come up with a better solution. The space where I entertained guests was looking pretty respectable, but the space that was just for me was a dumping ground for whatever had landed there over the years.

My first step was to ask for help. The Washington Post runs a weekly article where people send in photos of rooms that they want to remake, and a professional decorator provides a sketch and recommends various furniture pieces and paint colors. The photos I sent in of my hodge-podge bedroom were deemed worthy of the challenge; a professional photographer came and shot several "before" photos to run with the article. A decorator took my comments, asked for measurements and a proposed budget, and set to work on creating the "after" sketch.

The "after" sketch was nothing like what I had asked for. Instead of a soothing, sunny Zen retreat, the decorator had gone for heavy earth tones and a strong Southwestern theme. More than half the budget was devoted to a dresser that had several layers of "artistically" peeled paint. I realized that I was going to have to come up with my own answer on this one. I did, however, like the way that she had arranged the furniture, so I kept that bit of information. Maybe the sketch in the newspaper article would appeal to someone else, so that would be my donation to someone else's inspiration.

I already had some idea of where to start. I knew that the five-drawer lateral file cabinet that dominated the room would have to go. Why was I saving all that paper? I weeded it out the best I could, boxed up the rest, and made myself a promise to scan as much as I could into computer files and send the paper to the recycling bin. I advertised the file cabinet online, and a husband-and-wife counseling team claimed it for their office.

I went through two wicker hampers of things that I hadn't looked at in years. After saving a few precious keepsakes, the hampers went to new homes at the next condo association yard sale.

After a couple of months of searching locally and online, I found a set of furniture that I liked. I placed an order, to be delivered in three weeks. I called a local charity to come and pick up my old bed, mattress, night stand, and chest of drawers. While I waited for my new furniture, I would be sleeping on an air mattress and using cardboard boxes to store my sox and undies.

I took the opportunity to clear everything out of my bedroom except the pictures on the walls and the clothing hanging in the closets. The parquet floor was in need of a new finishing coat, and this was a rare chance to get that done. I had also planned to paint the walls, but I ran out of time, energy, and motivation. The current paint job was just fine -- a total change was not necessary.

When the new furniture came, and it was time to move back into my bedroom, I brought back only the things that I knew I wanted to keep. The rest stayed in the living room, cluttered and under foot -- purposely annoying me to force me to donate or toss them rather than letting them sneak back into my new personal space.

The newly decorated room was not a complete change -- I still had my familiar artwork on the walls, which were the same color as before. I still had that odd little round table that no one seems to like except me. I used the furniture arrangement from the Washington Post article, but the furniture itself was my own choice. It doesn't all match, but it harmonizes quite well. I still have keepsakes on the new, airy bookshelves, but just a few -- not the visual bedlam I had before. The room doesn't look like the photos in the decorating magazines. It looks like where I live, only it's more peaceful now.

This year has been a metaphorical parallel to 2010's bedroom project. I took the radical step of leaving my job so that I could open a space to reconstruct my life. So that I could give the same honor to my own space that I had spent so many years trying to give to others' spaces. For the time being, my own space is a lot emptier than it usually is. I have used that time to get a few things in order -- physical health, stress levels, personal relationships, creative projects.

I'm keeping a few familiar things in place during the renovation -- my home, my friends and family, the kinds of things I read. A lot of the old things have been moved out. Some will come back into this new room, some will not. As I did for my bedroom, I am making three piles of "life stuff": Keep, Donate/Sell, and Toss.

The only things that will be allowed to stay in or return to my metaphorical room are the things that are valuable to me, including friends and family, home, adequate income, music, photography, travel, learning and discovery, creativity. Other things don't fit me so well, but might be useful to someone else: routine technical work, exhibit planning, proposal-writing teams, classroom teaching, "leadership". Some things are going into the dumpster -- if you want to dive for them, be my guest: the long commute, cubicles, being a human dumping ground for someone else's low-priority projects, the chaos and constant sense of crisis that comes from working with people who don't plan in advance or respect other people's plans.

Anyone who has ever done a major decluttering project can tell you that you have to go through a stage where everything is a mess. You have to navigate your way around stuff on its way out. You have to dig through boxes to find stuff you need to use. Things don't fit quite the way you expected, and you have to adapt. Sometimes, you have to go looking for a couple of extra pieces to make the whole thing work. Eventually, though, everything finds its place and you begin to believe that it's all worthwhile.