Getting your high school student ready for college

I went through this process as a single parent and it's not easy, but here are some ideas that helped us. Hopefully they'll help you as well.

Check out The Colleges That Change Lives consortium.  There are about 40 participating colleges, and the concept grew out of education columnist Loren Pope's bestseller about what these schools offer — a focused commitment to the student; smaller class sizes; programming and support for out-of-classroom experiences; an academic and communal experience that transforms the student in positive ways. Their tuition ranges vary as well. Just because they're not part of the Ivy League brand does not make them inferior by any means. My own child attended one of the CTCL schools; it lived up to its promises. (Contact me if you want details).

When you attend college fairs or make campus visits, prompt your child to get to know faculty/staff key to the admissions process, not just pick up brochures. Have your student dress for the occasion as he would for a job interview; you wouldn't believe how many kids show up for college fairs dressed for a day at the beach (in shorts and flipflops). When particular colleges capture his interest, have your child exchange business cards with those key individuals, and send a follow-up note that thanks the faculty/staff member for their time, and includes more pointed questions. As with sales touchpoints, this helps to build the relationship. And trust this: very few teenagers take this approach, so if your child does this, he'll stand out. And he should ask questions, because it's four years of his life that he'll be investing with them, not just the other way around.

You can create a card for your child (see illustration) that profiles him as a candidate. Leave the GPA blank so he can handwrite the latest as he gets deeper into the process. Include AP classes, SAT scores, unique capabilities, anything you want flagged for attention. Again, very few teens do this, so he'll stand out.

You'll be able to sense when a school has a smart enrollment management strategy. For starters, it'll be more than "bodies in/bodies out." A ho-hum, lackluster admissions representative is a poor showing. The admissions counselor of my daughter's college was enthused, engaging, and extremely proactive about recruiting her. They traded emails that addressed her questions about life at the college. Another incentive: if she applied by October of her senior year, they'd waive the application fee. When each college charges fifty to a hundred bucks in application fees, this is a big help, especially if your child applies to more than three or four colleges. 

You might also check out the FAFSA website (www.fafsa.gov). That's the Federal financial aid resource. In January of your child's senior year in high school, you'll want to fill out an application. It's allocated on a first-come-first-served basis: the sooner you do this in the year, the better your options (ie, January versus July). Do it every year your kid's in college. Do not worry that the info you give them may be subject to change. The financial aid offices of the college will fine-tune as your child's circumstances become more imminent. 

Being a transfer student might ease the process. We didn't do this but a lot of families have their kids attend the first two years of college in a local school close to home, to benefit from in-state cost breaks. This also helps the child adjust gradually to living away from home, and affords the family a couple more years to save for tuition. Then they have their child transfer to the college of their choice, because sometimes it's easier to get in as a transfer. This isn't always a desirable solution, but a solid alternative.

Have your child create a web site or social media presence showcasing special talents or interests. For example, is your child eager to study creative writing? Every writer in the world is urged to create a platform, and this will show she's savvy about social media, professional about her passion, and knows how to communicate her ideas to a larger audience. She can also start a Facebook page for the same purpose. With every new blog post on her web site, she can also post it to her Facebook page, Tweet it, even load it with images onto Pinterest. It doesn't have to be perfect: just make it exist with a professional tone. She can then encourage admissions folks to visit those sites.

About social media.... After he applies, the colleges will likely have a work-study student check out his social media. This is a great opportunity: have your child synch up his social media identity to be consistent with how he wants colleges to perceive him. You wouldn't believe how many kids apply and say, "I'm a passionate student of international relations and read The Economist weekly," but their Facebook pages are riddled with behaviors like "F**k you, man, I'm going to blow it out my *** this weekend!! KEGGER!!!" True story. Don't let a deal-killer come from temporary lapses in judgment.

Putting together the next college class is intentionally creating a new community, not just about grades but about who each freshman is as an individual. Sorry to be longwinded, but this can be a daunting process and I wanted to "pay it forward." If I could get through this, then you can too.

Twilight's Last Gleaming: The Role of 9/11

A photo montage with a portrait of each 9/11 victim

I lost no one on 9/11/01, but every year I try to read about some of the victims — who they were, where they were in their lives, who they left behind. There was the firefighter with the older-model Wagoneer that was constantly breaking down. The EMT who should've had a day off, but turned on his heel to run back into the first smoking tower. The bright-eyed middle-schooler on her first flight to another city. 9/11 gave us a new "Spoon River" anthology of lives, cruelly interrupted .

My father was in New York City that day with a Chinese film crew, and I had three or four friends traveling in commercial jetliners like the one that cartwheeled and vaporized over a Pennsylvania farm field. My family and I tried all day to reach Dad, were finally relieved to learn he was unharmed. My loved ones were inconvenienced by 9/11, and their safe return enables me to feel a level of empathy for those who did lose loved ones that day. For several hours, that possibility had been ours. 9/11 refreshed a public component in our sense of empathy: caring for the plight of strangers is not a bizarre thing to do.

Empathy being a vital part of public grief

There are diverse attitudes about 9/11, one being that only New Yorkers have any right to mourn it, since the attack epicenter was in their neck of the woods (hello! Pentagon on line one). Another deplored our day of "grief porn," that a nationwide mourning of 9/11 is somehow maudlin and self-indulgent.

Neither works. Far more than American lives were lost that day, and far more than American lives were in jeopardy during the hours of uncertainty that followed. More than 90 countries lost people in the attacks. 9/11 was a global event that happened on American soil.

Our nation, among these 90 others, experienced butchery on a massive scale, and for a while we engaged in an unprecedented sense of community and compassion. Then it devolved to polarized discourse, fingerpointing, spitefulness, and all levels of social, political, and emotional violence. The same Congressional chamber that saw Americans rising to their feet to applaud the widows of Flight 93's "Let's Roll" heroes also saw, years later, Congressman Joe Wilson screaming "You lie!" to a newly elected POTUS. 

Today incivility characterizes our most ordinary dealings with one another, from Little League ballfields and mall parking lots, to workplaces and groceries. 

And yet when we applauded the Flight 93 widows, nobody stopped to ask if their dead husbands had been liberals or conservatives.

The role of public grief

So ... back to the role and value of public grief (that it's public only means it's widespread, not histrionic) —

Grief enables the living to try and understand (if not accept) the breadth and depth of their bereavement. It helps us to reflect on those lost, and what they mean to us. It gives us an opportunity to honor memories, whether one does that by laughing over anecdotes, burning incense in a place of worship, making a pencil rubbing off an engraved memorial, or buying a tacky souvenir from the 9/11 museum shop.

The more abrupt and violent the loss, the more unpredictable the grieving process. To those who have lost a great deal in the cruelest manner, a day of public grief gives the rest of us a chance to stand with them, to offer care and support, even if they are strangers. That's being humane, not "pornographic."

Self-ordained for what?

As a culture, this nation has gotten good at self-ordination based on sentiment versus fact. We're skilled at identifying how we're entitled. Some of it's been to the positive, and some has been gasbag punditry and blatant hatemongering. 

Over a decade later, despite the violence that was done to us on 9/11, we've become a more violent nation. And we've yet to find the common ground we share with other nations much less among ourselves: currently we're more invested in being morally triumphant than in finding unprecedented solutions. And we'll get no closer to finding common ground by telling others their most heartfelt emotions — such as grief — have no place in public discourse (Sandy Hook parents). 

Lively debate is one thing, but to believe you can make someone else change their moral vision is a presumption of correctness that's wrong for the times in which we live. Don't forget, it was moral intractability that drove the terrorists to act as they did.


So what?

9/11, as it turns out, didn't bring us closer to agree but to disagree. Its consequence was — and remains — our greatest opportunity, because in disagreement we find new ideas, even fresh collaborations. The same convictions that got us here won't be the thinking we need to get us out — and over — to better solutions. 9/11 awakened those who'd been spiritually dormant, and galvanized those already engaged in social justice and geopolitical accords.

Twilight's last gleaming? If we can't do compassion, can we at least try civility? 

America's Son

File this one under "Our Workplaces Do Not Exist in a Vacuum."

One foggy evening, I'm leaving a West End meeting with a client and in the darkness at a stop light, a hooded figure — a black guy — starts running towards my car. I glance at my doors — and he winds up running past me because he's trying to catch the bus on the other side of my car. 

Does this make me racist?

A black mom advises her two teenaged sons not to wear hoodies, nor to walk around with their hands in their pockets. 

Post-Trayvon, does this make her over-reactive? 

Post-Trayvon, journalist Charles Blow recalled telling his sons to watch how they run, because a black man in motion usually makes people nervous and suspicious — not what is he running to (like a bus), but what is he running from (like a crime)? 

I've been in a handful of race relations workshops, at least one of which turned emotionally violent because the issues quickly polarized. One observer, a Canadian mayor from a city of at least 14 ethnic groups, shook his head and asked me, 

Michael Brown at age 16:
He wanted to attend college and
one day run his own business

"Is it only about black and white here in America?" 

Is my adopted hometown of Atlanta — this city symbolized by a phoenix rising out of the ashes — is this a city "too busy to hate," or just busy enough to sidestep a crucial conversation that's never been properly discussed, not anywhere in this nation, but especially not in places like Ferguson, MO? 

Is Mrs. Brown just another grieving low-income black mother (one of those social elements identified as "tearing apart the fabric of society"), or is she my neighbor, another mother who struggled to keep her child in school? If we buy into the notion that the fabric of our society is supposedly being torn apart by black men without work ethic, or black women bearing children without husbands, does it then make it okay to shrug off Michael Brown's death (or the death of any other youth from those presumed circumstances)? 

By criminalizing and dehumanizing both the youth and his circumstances, are we who are not black thus morally absolved of what happened last Saturday in Ferguson? 

Or is the hifalutin sacred fabric of our society even more threatened by what happened — because America's sons can die so violently in their hometowns, their bodies left on our streets for hours, while authorities scramble to understand how such things could've erupted in the first place?

Is the death of Michael Brown a social justice problem for just the black community, or is this one that belongs to all of us? 

I'm not asking you to give an answer. Just trying to round up the questions.

"It must've been my evil twin!"

I deliver a class on (workplace) civility and we talk a lot about cultural influences behind the incivilities we experience today. Reality TV shows, for example, are loosely scripted around escalating conflicts.

The rudeness people experience on social media is an odd phenom: everyone agrees it's deplorable, but nobody's responsible for those acts of incivility. I've concluded we each have evil twins running around, indulging in low-brow conduct.

Anyway, here's a rundown of what I'm talking about:

• Willfully misunderstanding the other person to position them in the wrong (and to put yourself in the right). If you don't understand their point, ask for clarification.

• Willfully (mis)characterizing the other person's motives. Before you make an accusation of their moral or intellectual inferiority, get an accurate picture of their motives first — from them.

• Name calling, insulting, baiting, goading, profanity, sarcasm. If you normally wouldn't say it face-to-face, then best not to launch the salvos from behind the medium. Remember that their loved ones may be following the thread. I've had to keep my 20something daughter from entering the fray when she felt I was being unfairly attacked. 

• "If you don't think the same way I do, you must be evil/moronic." Well, let the witch hunts begin.... Your moral indignation and their public shaming will not reverse any opinions. About the only thing that changes attitude and value judgment is careful listening: if you listen, you'll have earned your right to be listened to.

• Discounting someone else's personal experience as irrelevant or petty. Personal experiences lead us to our most closely held opinions! The more profound the experience, the more deeply set the opinion will be. (As a single mother, I might disagree with notions that "single mothers are tearing apart the fabric of society.")

• Understand that you can't fix the world's problems on social media, you can only try to understand the issues better via access to assorted viewpoints. At best, agree to disagree (so many of my Facebook threads have ended this way).

• If you post the topic, you're the host or "curator." It's the equivalent of having friends, acquaintances, and colleagues in your living room. Do you favor only the ones with whom you agree? Are you going to stand by, grinning, while others "gang up" on an individual? You need to be sure everyone behaves to your terms of conduct. You need to have terms of conduct.

• Always end the discussion as positively as possible. Wish everyone a good evening. Thank them for bringing their viewpoints to the table. Remember their spouses and families. It may be a cranky, begrudging finish, but try to leave it as friendly as possible. If you're a "guest" leaving the thread, thank the "host" for posing the discussion.

Engaging in debates, arguments, and discussions is not the problem. The problem is the way people choose to behave once emotions run high. This country was built on public discourse, even when volatile and polarized, but social media has provided us a screen to hide behind. And I don't mean to be holier-than-thou, because I remind myself of these points each and every day, and I don't often measure up. #dietrying

About the illustration: Pawel Kuczynski, a Polish artist, has worked in satirical illustration specialising in thought-provoking images that make his audience question their everyday lives. His subjects deal with everything from poverty to social media and politics.

Here's one for the Curiosity Book

How long does the American public care to follow a news story before it loses emotional heat?

I've watched this in an informal way and — with the exception of stories like the OJ Simpson trial, 9/11, the disappearances of Laci Peterson and Elizabeth Smart, or Kate Middleton's evolving wardrobe — it appears to average about two to three weeks. And then we move on to the next crisis, the  next controversy.

The Georgia "hot car death" story began trending within hours after the father was arrested (around 6/20/14), with reactions and opinions voiced on Facebook threads, but faded shortly after his bond hearing and his wife's hire of her own attorney (after the July 4 holiday weekend).

Even though the case itself has gone quiet for now, it's spawned flash-in-the-pan stories in the news: with the nation now hyper-alerted to children and animals left in hot cars, last week a Georgia woman was arrested after she left four kids, all under the age of six, in hers when she ran into Kroger's for about 20 minutes. An Asian couple in Brea, CA, was arrested after leaving their 3-year-old alone in the car.

The Curiosity Book

I love being a designer, especially in publications. In addition to working with all the elements of design like fonts and colors, one of my favorite parts of work is learning on a continuous basis from my clients just by reading their copy before laying it out. I love learning about the issues that inhabit and challenge their worlds.

A long time ago I started a habit of jotting down any questions that occurred when reading my clients' content. Then whenever I had time I'd Google around, jot down book titles, and talk to people to try and get answers to those questions. For years I've kept a "curiosity book," perhaps what the British would call a "commonplace book," a repository of quotes, facts and figures, and answers to questions. For example, some of the questions in mine:

What happened to the von Stauffenberg children?

What is humanism?

Which countries were part of Arab Spring?

What forces cultural change?

Process of Rwandan reconciliations?

What I've learned is this:

•  Sometimes we don't fully understand what we know. We only think we know it, but often what we really have is a conventional "derivative" of the topic, and that can be shallow or homogenized. (The Valkyrie plot failed and all the conspirators were executed.... Yes, but they had families, loved ones. What happened to them?) 

•  Humans beings are fascinating! Human effort is layered and textured, rich with hidden backstories about petty rivalries, unspoken love, and thwarted intentions. For good or evil, these are the motives that drive effort. Despite our many wars and conflicts, the bigger part of our nature is to create and discover. To do better than before.

•  Creativity is an interdisciplinary act, so it helps to know a bit about everything. The world of work does not exist apart from the world at large. Our workplaces do not exist in a vacuum, estranged from life itself. Maintaining a habit of curiosity keeps life amazing.

•  Some questions are unanswerable. They should either be tackled from multiple viewpoints, or the answers are still works in progress. Oddly, there's a sense of adventure and safety in knowing some of these questions will never be answered in my lifetime.

Creativity and emotional fraudulence

When I was a student at Carnegie Mellon University, one of my favorite professors, my drawing teacher Bill Haney, used a phrase that I still refer to today: he encouraged us to keep our visual vocabularies replenished. In present socio-cultural terms, it probably means "inner resources" — having emotional, spiritual and intellectual reserves to tap into that not only define our lives, but help us understand our experiences. (Nearly 40 years later, I was honored by Bill Haney's invitation to be in network on Linked In).

Creativity belongs to all of us. Everyone has the creativity "muscle," and it's usually got to be spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually nourished. How that's done is as individual as you are (travel, reading, music, visiting museums, hanging out with loved ones).

But I will also tell you the one feature that separates strong creatives from weak ones, and that is the ability — actually, the will — to live in an authentic, truth-seeking way. Originality, creativity, and critical thinking are closely tied.

Without those, design becomes merely ornamental; writing reads like pomposity; and sales pitches lack a sense of caring and commitment. And trust me: your audience is smart enough to know the difference. They may not voice it, but it can be felt at a gut level.

Whether you write plays or cast TV commercials or plan sales strategies, you can't hit that chord of truth unless you know how to be truthful in your own life. That chord of truth is the magical thing that makes others laugh out loud, wet in the eyes, or agree to buy services from you — because somehow, without using neon signs to say "I AM REAL," you've just shown them something authentic in raw, insightful, or very funny terms. It signals that you get it. You're not afraid to commit. You will deliver.

And it's really true: the unexamined life is not worth living, because if you're constantly sweeping things under the emotional rug, over time you're living without a lot of authenticity. Shallow relationships become easier than real ones. Forget about having crucial conversations; you stop bothering to even ask the right questions. You watch a lot of TV and come to believe celebrity highlight reels are the best life a person can have — so you watch more TV. Your relationships become more like possessions, and your possessions start to feel like achievements.

There are emotionally fraudulent people in the world. It's not that they're bad people, only that their inner reserves are skimpy, sterile, or shallow. They don't bother to replenish them, because to do so means first looking at their lives for what's missing. That can be a harsh reality to face.

Instead they prefer to lead lives that are morally convenient and/or materially comfortable. They borrow this 'n' that belief from popular TV shows or social media posts, and present such convictions as their own, to render themselves engaging and palatable. Closer to the truth, they'd rather sit home and admire their golf clubs or new rims than spend a couple hours listening to their kids' opinions. They have an uneasy relationship with the truth so they duck it at every turn.

And yes, by necessity, we all wear masks. Sometimes it's just good manners to do so, but it's no way to live. A contrived human being cannot exercise creativity any more than a copy of a copy can be called original. If you can't be honest with yourself, why on earth would anyone else trust you?

Ever chat with someone who talks like this?

(You should be able to watch the whole thing on YouTube, no problems).

This was such a stupid mistake

Please do not watch this video if you're easily offended by profanity.

So much of what one finds online is bogus or apocryphal, but let's just assume this one's absolutely 100% true: this U. S. soldier stationed in Iraq called HP tech support for help with his HP printer and was told he'd have to pay for the help.

He got rather annoyed. Understandably.

Total waste. What irks me about shabby customer service is that it's a wasted opportunity to create good will for both your products and your brand. And nothing is worse than nickel-and-diming your customers especially when they're appealing to you for help.

Now imagine what would've happened if HP tech support had actually been helpful — not only enthused to be helpful, but thanked this soldier for his loyalty as a customer, and gotten an address where he could receive packages. And then let's imagine that HP tech support pooled their resources — versus protecting that sacred cow, their bottom line — and sent an HP printer box filled with extra ink cartridges and cookies and movie DVDs and magazines for our boys overseas. I don't know: tell me if this is just too "out there"....

How much are we talking about here? An act of generosity that'd cost less than $300? What about enclosing a banner that also says, "HP thanks you for your service" that the troops can hang up in the mess hall? How much of a dent would that have put in HP's bottom line? Maybe $500? Heck, a few months ago HP's CEO got a raise from $1 million to $1.5 million. Could Meg Whitman be prevailed upon to spring for a boxload of cookies, magazines, and DVDs? Think how many loyal HP customers might've come out of it, especially if the troops then made a video thanking them for it. Among other things, how great to have a product that can withstand "combat duty" in Iraq!

OK, so HP didn't do any of that. (I can just see some dreary middle management guy droning, "Well, now, if we did that for him, we'd have customers expecting us to do it for everyone." Really? What a risk! How much of a pair do you need to have, to offer creature comforts to our soldiers in Iraq, especially knowing the disarray in the current VA, and the type of "support" these boys will be coming home to?) ...

Instead HP alienated a customer who's now made a video repudiating their product, their tech support, and their brand. No surprise, the video's been making the rounds on social media.

But if I worked for one of HP's competitors, I'd be sending this guy a new printer, plus baked goods. You better believe it. If HP can't value their customers, it's open season for someone who will.

The Persistent Idealist

In days to come, countless Atlantans and Georgians will share their memories of Harry West (1941-2014). These are mine.

When you put an idealist in with a bunch of prosaic or formulaic thinkers, it's the idealist who inevitably takes a beating. Why? Because his vision is more imaginative, reaches for more, and involves a deeper investment of hope.

Harry West passed away yesterday morning (7/14/14). Back in the 90s, he'd worked so hard on an Atlanta metro region initiative called Vision 2020 that now, so near its threshold, my first reaction was to wish he could be around to see the year 2020 roll up.

"Don't let go of what you believe in"

He had a great deal of persistence — I'm talking superhuman levels. By his early 30s, he'd reached the top of his profession: his job as director of the Atlanta Regional Commission often looked to me about as much fun as cat-herding: a great many people were committed and enthused, eager to help the Region, but some of the cats were also lazy, complacent or ineffectual; and there were a few whom my daughter's generation would describe as outright "haters" — corrupt, self-serving people who'd rather put energy into smashing down someone else's efforts rather than lead, follow, or get out of the way. Harry seemed to bear it all with typical resilience, once telling me, "Do your thing while others do theirs, but don't let go of what you believe in."

In the years I served on a couple of his committees, I watched some of these regional movers and shakers pluck off low-hanging fruit, after which they'd spend a great deal of time slapping each other's backs. To sustain a vision of enormous scope and depth during such bouts of self-congratulation had to have felt absurd or crazymaking, but ... he must've fixed his gaze on that distant prize, those faraway shores. Once when I was burning at the edges over petty baloney from a detractor, he said, "I know you're fed up, but just remember, it takes everyone to make the world go 'round." I've never forgotten that one because it's been the hardest to learn.

Friends and solutions — and listening

More than anyone else I've ever met, Harry had thousands of friends, not just in Atlanta but all over the country — governors, city mayors, politicians, local celebs, journalists, nonprofit directors, foundation presidents, corporate leaders, and grassroots activists and volunteers. The latter group alone was incredibly diverse. Inevitably, no matter where he was, someone would walk up and introduce themselves, remind him of where and how they'd met, and each of them were from very different walks of life and world views.

He never stood on pomp or circumstance (I once left a meeting with him and as I was heading out, then-mayor Bill Campbell was strolling in)....If you had an idea, a vision for aiding the greater good, he would find ways to support your efforts. When I met him I was in my 30s, fresh out of a divorce with a small child, and all I knew was that if child care was a formidable concern for me in the English-speaking middle class, then refugee/immigrant parents in Atlanta's DeKalb county urgently needed safe, affordable child care solutions, just to survive. He saw a civic imperative in this, which meant a great deal to me.

He was also a very good listener. Deep in conversation, he'd lower his head, his chin would sink into his chest, and you might be wondering if he'd dozed off — until he responded with something that not only perfectly encapsulated everything I'd said but asked an astute question to help advance the ideas behind it. "As you get to know me," he said once, "you'll find I like to listen better than to talk." There's wisdom in that.

Plenty of people will step up to tell you why a thing can't be done, but he was one of those who looked for solutions in everything. As a younger man, he must've realized that durable civic improvements are not made in great glorious strides, but in inconspicuous, painstaking increments, each requiring tremendous patience. And perseverance.

Because I did not move in his world, he knew my humor tended to dry and irreverent when observing it, and we shared a few "inside" jokes. Many times someone would say or do something in a meeting that would set me off, and I'd wind up biting my lip to keep from laughing out loud. Then I'd glance over at Harry, sitting in one of the staff chairs of the conference room, and find that he was already anticipating my glance, a broad grin splitting across his face, and when I crossed my eyes or made a face in exasperation, his shoulders would begin shaking with silent laughter.

Thinking beyond

He enjoyed gardening and reading. Given the amount of work-related reading he had to do, he said the last 30 minutes of his day were devoted to something he wanted to read for personal pleasure. When I finished writing my first book, I told him, "The impossible thing has been done!" and he was very kind: "You have finished a book!" he repeated.

Finally, this: as a kid growing up in Calhoun, GA, he said he liked listening to the town's leaders talking about "what was going on." The fire chief, police chief, mayor, and bank president, standing near the firehouse, talking things over: What had caused that pot-hole on a nearby street, and how should it be fixed? ... How would weather affect nearby farm crops? ... Who was mad at his neighbor, and why? ... I'm guessing he realized the dark and humorous fullness of life through listening in on those conversations.

I loved the generosity of his ideas, and feel sad there had not been an opportunity to say a proper farewell. Knowing him taught me the value of persistence — more than that, I tend to value idealists far more, especially among the young. Their visions should not be trampled. The world is filled with people who worship practicality, usually as an excuse to do nothing. They look no further than the easy, low-hanging fruit, but people like Harry think about the world beyond the orchard. If it takes everyone to make the world go 'round, more than ever we need idealists and visionaries who can tell us that our most fantastic dreams are entirely possible.

Good bye, Harry. I will miss you.

Toybox Crucible

Conventional wisdom: "Don't politicize your blog" — but you know what? Our workplaces do not exist in a vacuum. And I am sick of personality-disordered pundits and self-ordained "moral compasses" enriching themselves by preaching hate, fear, and intolerance. So this post is not about design or marketing, soft skills or leadership, not about print sales or optimizing customer service. This is about being American. This is about being human.

We take empathic selfies holding up little signs that say #bringbackourgirls but there are xenophobic "patriots" at the border with bigger signs declaring "return to sender" — and threatening to shoot children — as if we Americans have had nothing to do with the turmoil of Central America. Boy, have they got it wrong.

The murderous Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13 or MXIII) is to Central America what the Boko Haram is to Nigeria, and where did MS-13 get its start but in the streets of Los Angeles, a product of failed U. S. drug enforcement policies and practices in the 1980s. In deporting those LA gang members back to El Salvador, we merely transplanted the problem. In the 1950s the CIA-assisted overthrow of Guatemala's legally elected Jacob Arbenz opened up decades of dictatorships that led to the genocide of over 100,000 Guatemalans. In our self-certainties, puffed up on American exceptionalism, we have contributed to the violent forces in these nations, and we are now paying that price. For example, earlier this year Atlanta Safe Streets enforcement caught up four rampaging MS-13 thugs and sentenced them to life for terrorizing Atlanta neighborhoods — so yes, our "borders" have long been compromised by more than hungry frightened children. MS-13 alone has over 10,000 "foot soldiers," a stockpile of serious weaponry, and operate within at least three dozen U.S. states. They're now international.

Thousands of Central American children will no doubt be sent back, much to the elation of our self-ordained "border guards," but they'll be returning to lives of chaos and constant danger, either as collateral damage of organized crime activity, or recruited into one of the local gangs.

The homicide of children is a good indicator of violence levels in any country. Honduras has an extremely high murder rate: the city of San Pedro Sula may be "murder capital" of the world, averaging three murders per day. From 1998-2010, over 6,000 children/youth under the age of 23 have been murdered in Honduras as the result of organized crime activity, 61% of those under the age of 18. MS-13 starts recruiting at age 10, graduating members from lookouts and mules to drug dealers and hit men. Loyalty has to be continuously proven and disobeying orders or "turning rat" is punishable by death. In 2012 El Salvador, nearly 1,200 women and girls were the victims of sexual assault, a quarter of them having witnessed the assault of another woman in their home. In 2011 Guatemala, 437 kids were murdered, and 834,000 kids live and work in unsafe or inadequate conditions. (World Vision reporting)

These stats don't include the unquantifiable cost of millions of children living too precariously to benefit from a complete education. If we don't address it within our time, in a transnational collaboration with the "sending countries," we'll be facing generations more of this. We can make a strong start by confronting and prosecuting the "coyote" organizations that exploit and profit from these kids.

These Central American kids have not come here to freeload off our wealth and good will. They just want to survive. This problem has been gaining critical mass for years, we have been part of its genesis, and we are now faced with a moral crucible. This transcends party politics re illegal immigration. As exhausted as our entitlement systems are purported to be, we Americans still do not live in a country where calling for help entails yet more threat of danger from corrupt and violent first responders.

We cannot be a nation that embraces both #bringbackourgirls and "return to sender"; it's a hypocrisy, given that for over 200 years we've hung out a shingle that says we're a safe harbor for those fleeing violence and persecution. No more Voyage of the Damned stories conveniently tucked away as footnotes in our history books: we need to land on the right side of history with this one.

The black-and-white photo shows two German-Jewish children on the ill-fated S. S. St. Louis, whose journey to Miami and Cuba was dubbed "Voyage of the Damned." Although close enough to see the lights of Miami, the St. Louis was denied — gripped as they were by anti-Semitism and xenophobia, both Cuba and the U. S. refused to help the refugees of Nazi Germany. The ship was returned across the Atlantic. Although a handful of European nations took in some of the passengers, hundreds more perished in the Holocaust.

The Life of a Creative, Part 4 (Why persistence counts)

Author and former literary agent John Hodgman is talking purely about the life of a writer, but I like what he says about brilliance and persistence.

The unconscious life is not worth living. A creative has to understand what he knows in a truth-seeking way, and be willing to maintain a daily practice — to pitch ideas and samples, to be present enough to perform, to simply persevere.

Amateurs built the ark; professionals, the Titanic. Speaking only for myself, assuming I've got a couple good decades left, I don't want to be dying and thinking, "Thirty years ago...I could've tried that." Everyone starts out as a novice, a rookie. The world is filled with talented amateurs who give up too soon.

Persistence, not talent, will carry you further. I had a professor who said, "Talent is just indication of potential. What do you have after that?"

Most people love the perceivable assumptions of "the creative life" — the supposed irresponsibility and outspokenness — but I'm here to tell you, being a creative is one of the most responsible, rigorous things you can be. Most people don't want to do the work, because it doesn't fall into conventional work hours, it's not always "billable," and it's subject to criticism from everyone and his brother. Life is filled with a thousand necessary tasks and distractions, and nobody is blamed for submitting to them (especially where child-rearing is concerned). Harder to understand why anyone would acquiesce to a life of constant effort and repeated rejections. (I'm thinking of my friends who are painters and poets and jazz musicians.)

So...write your book or magnum opus. Go back to school for a poetry class and fill notebooks with your own sonnets. Take up sculpture or quilting or photography, and see the world in new dimensions. Relearn something you once loved and let slip away.... It may take years to master, but the time will pass anyway. Seek out constructive criticism, and make a friend of rejection. Rejection is a form of discomfort, and discomfort is temporary. Any pain you feel lasts 90 seconds, and then it dissolves into a new insight, a new lesson. There are more reasons to persist than to quit, and it will be an adventure. Good luck to you.

#noregrets #dietrying

The Life of a Creative, Part 3 (Ultimate Freedom)

In 1964, when Rita Schwerner and Andy Goodman's parents went to see LBJ after their loved ones went missing in Mississippi, the President knew he was in a for a tough time, and he was right. Rita was confrontational: "This is not a social call, Mr. President. You need to help find my husband." But despite having few answers, LBJ at least acknowledged their pain and met them where they were....

Dozens of parents lost their first-graders in one of the worst acts of violence this country has seen since the 1927 school bombing in Bath, MI, and most of our elected politicos treat them as if they're kooks and loose cannons, unworthy of a meeting. (Bereaved Isla Vista dad Richard Martinez has been called a "media whore"). Today on talk radio an old geezer angrily referred to the Sandy Hook parents as "snakes" for trying to "weaken gun rights." 

But what do you expect these parents to do? Losing a child is brutal enough. Losing a child to a preventable act of violence is bound to turn a parent into an activist. You don't take it lying down; you make it your life's mission to prevent other similar losses. And where is the compassion that Americans are so famous for? Sandy Hook parents will feel a sharp, fresh grief every day of their lives. In defending gun rights, we've taken to denigrating these bereaved parents. So is it all about The Gun now?

A gun is not this country's ultimate symbol of freedom — if it is, then we're in a very sorry condition. Even the most deprived concentration camp inmates knew, the one thing that can't ever be taken from you is your ability to think, to choose your thoughts and reactions. The one thing that can't be taken from us is freedom of thought, the ability to attain an education, shape opinion and policy, participate in public discourse, to form ideas apart from the herd. Or to disagree — and still enact compassion. 

(Photo above: On April 11, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson signed a bill that made it a crime to interfere with civil rights workers and to cross state lines to incite a riot.)

The Life of a Creative, Part 2 (What do creatives need?)

Most people make a common mistake: they assume creativity is a well belonging to a chosen few. (Plagiarists and copycats shrug it off — what's the harm in borrowing a bucket of water from your well? Will it be missed? You still have plenty left).

Creativity is not a well but a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it gets. (By that thinking, people who constantly "borrow" wind up with flaccid creative muscles).

To keep those muscles going strong, creatives need an environment filled with the following:

Good listeners. Because creativity is the world of ideas, creatives need alert, open-minded listeners who understand conceptual thinking and will suspend judgment even if they don't fully understand creative processes. These are folks who don't just get off on the special effects; they also appreciate a great backstory. Creatives like to brainstorm, play with words and imagery, follow through on "what if?" imaginings... It's fun to bounce ideas off one another. There's nothing more flattening than to discuss the curiosities that drive you to create, only to have that other person tune out, or interject, "You know what? You should do portraits of CEOs. Bet each one would fetch you a good price," or "Why do you always deal in such dark subjects? Why not bright, peppy, colorful things? Those make me happy!"

Opportunities for transformative, not just transactional work. Of writing, Lawrence Kasdan said, "Being a writer is like having homework for the rest of your life." Writers try to maintain a daily writing practice, often keeping more than a couple book ideas going, and if they're not hammering out the first draft to one, they're making research notes on another, or scouring newspapers for fresh story ideas. That said, creatives maintain a daily practice of thinking beyond.

Sure, there are creative jobs where you can turn off the computer and never think about it until 9AM the next day, but most creative challenges entail continuous thinking and planning. That stream of experimental thought optimizes the birth of good ideas. What appears to be down time (brooding, puttering, doodling, daydreaming to music) is in fact a mind feverishly at work, weighing options, testing theories, scanning an idea from a variety of angles, asking, "What if...?" The transformation begins in the process that yields the idea. Remember, creativity is first and foremost a problem-solving skill.

A conscious life, based on authenticity of risk and effort. To be creative is to analyze, (re) interpret, depict, magnify, and exalt reality — whatever reality means to the individual — to comfort the distressed, and to startle the complacent. Creativity yields not only a new way of looking at things, but also a call to action. Individuals who are more committed to convention, to garnering widespread acceptance, will have a harder time getting past formulaic, derivative, "first shelf" ideas. Literally, they have nothing new to say.

Creatives don't just inhabit the visual and performing arts: they work in finance, STEM industries, blue collar sectors — all the places where one might assume a deficit of  creativity. Fact is, creativity belongs to everyone, resides in everyone, so is there anything on this list that wouldn't be important to each and every one of us?

Next post: The only thing you need can't be taught.