Paul8

A few weeks after my partner's mother died, we were looking at a photo album. I was surprised at some of the pictures of her -- playing at the beach, singing, serving friends at a dinner party -- happy and vital. I realized that in my memories of her from years before I was picturing her as she was in the months before she passed. Wizened, exhausted, confused. My memories of her were ugly and grotesque, and I had been avoiding them.

I spent the rest of that evening, recounting to myself, with help from my partner, my history with her mother and recovering memories of how she looked and acted over the years I had known her. How she laughed when she was tipsy, how glorious she was when she and her husband were singing a particular song to each other. How she dressed when my partner got her doctorate. How thrilled she was to welcome someone even when she could no longer recognize who she was welcoming.

I still felt her loss from my future plans and expectations, but the loss of her that I had imposed on my past was gone. Since then I've found some people distort their memories in this way and many don't. I'm glad I discovered what I had been doing and stopped it.

Joseph M. Williams's "Style: Toward Clarity and Grace" is by far the best book on learning HOW to put sentences and paragraphs together. It teaches principles that I've never seen anywhere else -- principles for making my writing easy to read and understand. Then it teaches methods for applying those principles. So instead of teaching rules, it teaches how writing can be clear. Instead of "don't use passives" it shows the only time a passive verb makes the writing easier to read. It teaches how much new information to put in a sentence and where to put it. And then it shows how to connect that sentence to the next for simple flow.

I've been watching younger friends teaching their infants some sign language, which seems to make for happier babies. The kids can start learning at 4-5 months and had the coordination to use the signs maybe two months later. 'more', 'eat', 'mom', 'dad','play', 'sleep' & 'dog'. And the kids are thrilled when I finally learn a new word from them.

Joseph M. Williams's "Style: Toward Clarity and Grace" is by far the best book on learning HOW to put sentences and paragraphs together. It teaches principles that I've never seen anywhere else -- principles for making my writing easy to understand.

Then it teaches methods for applying those principles.

So instead of teaching rules, it teaches how writing can be clear. Instead of "don't use passives" it shows when a passive verb makes the writing easier to read. It teaches how much new information to put in a sentence and where to put it. And it shows how to connect this sentence to the next for simple flow.

Consider the values that you seem to take personally, the ones that you can't leave alone, even when it seems to make sense to set them aside. What are the things that you can't leave undone, that you can't not do?

Most people have a few closely-held, somewhat abstract values that stay with them even though they may get expressed very differently in various contexts.

Look at Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle (https://vimeo.com/36579366). He's talking about himself and others who eventually got very specific about why things are worth doing, for them, personally. When people understand that, they get very inspired and very productive.

So, why do you value a stable, quality product? And why do you value choosing the right stack? Maybe it's the elegance or power of using the right tool for the job. Or maybe you enjoy understanding technology deeper than the people around you. What other values are persistent for you. Whatever they are, look for more ways to express those values and to share them with the world.

It's sometimes long hard work to learn this about yourself. And as you do learn, you'll know which projects can be satisfying and which to say no to.