Pulling at Threads – Page 3

Category: Pulling at Threads (page 3 of 7)

The way you do one thing is the way you do everything

In the spring of 2014, I bought my first pair of designer shoes. I had just gotten a real grown-up job, and I wanted to treat myself.

And of course, I fell in love. Isn’t that the story with every girl and a pair of shoes?

It was an indulgence to buy such expensive but unwearable shoes. They were on sale, of course. $300 dollars was a lot for me back then.

Like many shoes by Dries Van Noten, this pair was a little off balance. From the front, they look like austere-but-very-high-heeled librarian shoes, covered in glen plaid. From the back, the blocky heels are studded with an elaborate crystal design.

They are somehow masculine and feminine all at once, a weird balance of the two without tipping to much to either side. And the feel incomplete, unfinished, like they require the perfect clothes to bring them to life–also a weird off kilter yet perfectly balanced tightrope walk between masculine and feminine.

There’s a phrase that Alexander Cortes often says: “The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.” He most often draws parallels between a person’s posture and their approach to life. Your posture–your relationship with gravity–reveals a lot about how you view yourself and your place in the world.

At work this afternoon, I remarked to a coworker that I feel like I’ve never had a “real” job that has challenged me to my fullest capacity. I’ve had jobs that were extremely challenging, that that forced me to learn new skills and completely exhausted my willpower–those are good things to experience.

But I couldn’t shake the thought that I’d never had a job that I consider actual work?

What, then, do I consider work?

After thinking out loud (I like to go on drives and talk to myself–movement is very useful for lubricating the ideas–walks are good too), I sorted out when I’ve felt most accomplished.

My favorite activities have always involved detective work and creating some sort of tangible finished product. Not necessarily together, but those are the things that make me satisfied with a job well done.

It is work when I’ve discovered something new, especially if it’s something that can be acted upon in the real world
It is work when I’ve created something that didn’t exist in the world before

Everything else is maintenance. This explains why I don’t get any satisfaction from making my bed or cleaning my house. It’s nice to have a clean house, I guess, but I didn’t learn anything from it and it looks the same as it did the last time it was clean, so what?

Over the years, I’ve contemplated my ideal style. What (or who) would I want to look like? Do I have a style icon to emulate, or a fashion brand to follow?

No of course not. My beauty ideal is a sculptural and polished piece of driftwood, not any human being.

I gravitate over and over toward a mixture of Edwardian British Professor and Elven Fairy Tale Princess tempered with a good dose of classic American sportswear.

I love the challenge and the weird imbalance of mixing two complete opposites on the style spectrum–the heavy, ponderous Oxford look and the light, playfulness of clothes that look like spiderwebs and dew drops.

You could call this look “Librarian Princess” or “A Scholar and a Wood Nymph,” whatever. Maybe even “Fairy Tale Detective.” Sherlock Holmes with fairy dust.

It’s the kind of look that my Dries Van Noten shoes would look right at home again, the kind of look that one might wear to both investigate the truth and to create something new with it.

Grounded in reality yet spinning on flights of fancy.

Is this the way that I do everything? No, not yet. It’s a perfect example of how I aspire to be only me, weaving only the threads that I love and that I alone can see into the larger tapestry of life.

There are glimmers of what I want in other people. Those things are good to study, and to emulate. But the answer is only in me.

What Tanacon can teach us about client relationships

2018-07-03 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

I used to watch reality tv to watch how personalities interacted under pressure. Yes, the storylines were fake, and the scenarios were heavily suggested, and the editing was pervasive, but the people and their personalities were real–if a bit exaggerated because of stress and booze and exhibitionism.

It was like watching people I know react under a big ol’ microscope, and I didn’t have to worry about getting splat on by any of the drama.

So it’s been interesting to watch a subgenre of Youtube turn into, essentially, reality tv. Old school style, where you just followed people around with a camera.

Normally I don’t pay much attention to this area of Youtube. I went down the vlog rabbit hole a few years ago until I realized that the payoff in terms if real life application was pretty slim.

Teen Youtube, though, seems to be a big thing. Logan and Jake Paul. Pewdiepie’s army of nine-year-olds. I guess there’s a whole demographic on Youtube who don’t also use it to learn how to troubleshoot the pilot light on their water heaters.

However, Shane Dawson’s latest stuff has really caught my attention. Somewhere along the line, he went from an unknown-to-me comedian loved by the youths to Youtube’s Investigative Psychologist Dad. Seriously, even though he’s personally connected with the two subjects of the pieces I’ve watched, I feel more objectivity from him than from most mainstream journalists these days.

(Major kudos to Shane for being one of those comedy guys who so clearly thinks and feels deeply about the world–I’m not a huge comedy fan but I really respect comedians who are in it for real.)

It started with Bunny, aka Grav3yardgirl, a Texas goth girl with a big personality who somehow amassed a large following of tween girls. At some point, she started playing to the crowd instead making videos for herself, and the lack of joy showed. She closed herself off (IRL MISS HAVISHAM VIBES) and in doing so lost the fans on Youtube who are absolutely ravenous for authentic weirdness. I mean, I myself am Bunny’s age, and I subscribed to her because I secretly want a goth best friend.

Shane came into the picture by showing up at her house, delving into what makes her scared about Youtube (other than hemorrhaging subscribers), and helped her remember what she liked about making Youtube videos in the first place. Since then, Bunny and her videos both have been clearly on an upswing. Good job, Shane.

That put Shane Dawson on my radar (and on my “recommended” feed).

Which brings us to Tanacon.

Now, I don’t care about the convention itself. Essentially, what happened was two unseasoned kids teamed up to throw a convention up against Vidcon, decided to milk it, and oversold tickets like crazy because apparently people like “being oppressed outside” standing in the rain (or in this case, getting hella sunburned) waiting to get into a convention that’s at capacity.

Shane, doing the Youtube Dad thing that he does now, tried to console all parties involved (who are convinced that they’ll be ruined forever) and also to get to the bottom of all the lies and blame. He had a fine line to walk, since apparently he is good friends with Tana, but ultimately let the footage speak for itself. Bless Youtube vloggers and their need to film everything.

Without getting too much into the he-said-she-said of it all (and trust me, there is a lot), what strikes me is the lessons that we can learn from young, bold personalities getting in an argument over a badly managed conference: the client/provider relationship takes as much work as the event itself.

It’s interesting to watch the two of them interact, because they both clearly felt wronged, and they both clearly do not have the experience to know what they could have done better.

Don’t be a bad client

Tana, it seems, didn’t know what she wanted other than a lot of “nots.” Basically an event that was not Vidcon that was also somehow cooler than Vidcon. It is very difficult to develop an event (or a marketing campaign or any other thing) for a client who doesn’t know what they want. If you’re a client, try to figure out what it is that you’re looking for before you start planning.

Also: if your name is on the thing, you might want to take a little bit more care with it than going on vacation to Hawaii the week before your event is scheduled. Be around to answer questions during the prep phases. Usually by the time you’re asking questions day-of (or when things are about to launch), it’s way way way too late. Think about your reputation and what you want your name to stand for each step of the way as you’re selecting vendors, venues, and signing contracts.

Know your limitations. Know your budget. Know your physical constraints. Know your market. Start small and scale. (ie, start with a meet and greet, not by planning a convention). The person you hire for events is an expert in events, not in your particular area of expertise or what you personally want to get out of this event. You have to bring knowledge and research to the table, as well. You can’t rely on them.

Learn how to say no

Then we have Michael, the kid who was in charge of the convention, and apparently his own talent management company. He is a “yes” man, clearly wanting to always project the best possible facade for himself, his company, and his event. It is difficult to tell the exact sequence of events because of all the disparate footage, but he seems unable to put up boundaries between what is ideal, what could potentially be done on an indefinite time frame, and what is realistic within the constraints.

Being able to push back on a client when they are being unreasonable is one of the most important parts of dealing with a client (or a boss or anyone, really). Managing expectations to a realistic level is just as much about protecting yourself as it is creating the smallest possible gap between expectations and reality. When there is a big gap, there is big disappointment.

Another difficult thing you have to do when managing an event for someone else is behing honest about what’s going on. It can be really hard not to put a good face on things, especially when you want them to go well and your own ego is riding on them. But false information makes it impossible to make good contingency plans, which will absolutely tank your plans.

You always need a contingency plan. Always always always. It will make your life 90% less stressful, trust me on this.

And for everybody

Making decisions based on what’s good for your ego is usually a terrible idea. Sure, it might make you feel good in the moment, and it might make you look good on Youtube for a hot minute (at least until Shane Dawson goes digging), but ego-deep decisions rarely hold up in real life. Take your time, think things through, and be brutally realistic with yourself about what you can accomplish with your available resources. Then once you get your first success, leverage that momentum into something bigger.

Based on Michael’s past trajectory, and the fact that he got started with this stuff in high school, I have no doubt that he’ll figure out how to bounce back.

I hope that Tana will use this as a lesson in what she can realistically expect out of herself, and that she should play to her strengths.

And I hope that all the kids watching on Youtube, and the ones who were stuck in the parking lot, see this as a lesson on risk. There are things that are great to get from young people–like fresh perspectives and boundless energy–but there’s a reason why you have to be 35 before you can run to become president of the United States. There is a lot of learning that you have to do before you can be great at anything.

And kids, always read contracts before you sign them. If you die in the contract, you die in real life.

The Three Highways

2018-06-02 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

In my neck of the woods, there are three highways that you can take from my small town to the nearest city.

One is the “easy” highway. It’s the default option, and the one that seems specifically engineered for people driving back from an international flight at midnight. It’s wide (relatively speaking), and save one very steep embankment that is completely unavoidable, has very few twists or surprises. In keeping with this mild driving experience, the views are mildly beautiful. You’ll never drive alone on this highway, and are likely to get tailgated, passed, or stuck behind someone clueless.

The second highway is much more picturesque. It’s a throwback to the old highway system before the interstates took over, and meanders through every small down. Let’s call this one “relaxing,” although it takes a considerable amount of attention more than the first one. This highway takes sudden right turns, sometimes gives you the option to merge onto the easy highway above, and is often traversed with farm equipment. If you want to feel like you’re going fast, don’t take this route–there are lots of twists and turns and 25 mph stretches. On the other hand, there’s much less traffic on this route, so your own pace is usually okay with everybody else. There are some really nice views on this route, especially in between towns.

The third route runs in a neighboring state, and boy can you tell. The speed limit is faster (especially when it cuts across the Reservation) and it’s a little rougher around the edges that these other two. The towns that it cuts through are less picturesque and more just hanging on, or maybe you’d prefer to visit the casino. The people are less patient here–you are guaranteed to get passed–so pay attention. You’ll probably pass an old beater truck yourself. But the views. Man, this highway winds its way through the foothills of the rockies, around baby mountaintops and vast fields that finally give way to an army of trees. In the autumn, the larches light up like fireflies in the forest. This highway gives the type of driving that is good for the soul.

When making a decision between these three options, what you want determines what you’ll get. Most people take the easy route, preferring to bypass interesting side trips in favor of speed and efficiency. Others take the relaxing route, usually the ones who don’t have anywhere in particular to be. Then there are the people who take the third highway, where you have to work a little bit harder but are equally rewarded with beauty.

You think I’m pulling out this whole huge metaphor about life. I’m literally talking about highways, though.

More people use the third highway than would normally explore the road not taken in their own lives. But that doesn’t change that it is the most interesting of the highways, and that it is a good metaphor that life isn’t a guarantee.

Sometimes I wonder

2018-05-26 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

If a cow laughs real hard, will milk come out of its nose?

Since the world is a series of wheels within wheels, sometimes those circles repeat themselves. Today I was contemplating a few health-related conundrums.

Sometimes I wonder if the opioid crisis is even bigger than we know — if we expand it to also include wheat addiction. It’s been slow going to convince people that wheat (and grains) aren’t real food, but we do know this:

Modern wheat is an opiate.

Nobody talks much about the opioid epidemic and what we should do about it, but nobody really talks about the obesity epidemic either. It looks like they may be one and the same, which is especially horrifying. It makes me wonder if our eating so much wheat predisposes us to an opiate addiction, since our brains are already bathed in “morphine-like substances.”

If you haven’t read Wheat Belly, you really should (or find more info from Dr. William Davis or Peer-Reviewed Science).

Sometimes I wonder if taking lots of drugs to suppress symptoms of illness, but without solving the real problem, has taught us how to endure our own destruction. For instance, taking benadryl during a (non life threatening) allergy attack teaches us to passively live with the problem, rather than taking care of the pollen or actively create something better out of the situation. Obviously this leads to problems in the health arena, but less obviously, there are mirroring issues in other areas of life. Like “failure to launch” syndrome, or the Millennial tendency to endure and complain rather than to take steps to change. Small boys are drugged with ritalin to stay in school, which teaches us how to become cogs in the cubicle machine, which…is an unfulfilling life that may spur an addiction to opiates.

Gosh it’s all connected, isn’t it?

Modern life: where we address only superficial symptoms and then wail that we’re still sick.

Smother mothers

2018-05-12 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

I used to work for a woman who, I decided after a while, reminded me a lot of Hillary Clinton. At first, I thought this was an interesting parallel: woman of a certain age realizing her ambition and going after power. An interesting angle, if you leave aside the means of seizing that power.

Then I remembered that that boss was a micromanager who let crises rule the workflow and whose emotions ruled the day.

Not the kind of person who I want running our country (but who knows what Hillary is really like).

Another person who strikes me as that type of woman is Anna Wintour (who is friends with Huma Abedin, Hillary’s top aide), with her near-perfect stranglehold over the fashion industry.

Wintour has the power — the Met Gala is her party, after all. Since she took over as the event’s chair in 1995, she’s turned it from a mere annual fund-raiser for the MetropolitanMuseum of Art’s costume institute into Manhattan’s most star-studded happening. In 2014, the Met even renamed the institute the Anna Wintour Costume Center.

“Anna controls it all,” seconded the fashion-industry insider. “Some celebrities [attending the Met Gala] have existing relationships with designers, but otherwise Anna matches up the celeb with a designer — [the designer] works with the celebrity directly, and someone at Vogue, on a specific look.”

Part of me wonders if this excessive influence over the fashion industry is part of what has made it so circular and uninspiring. From the outside, at least, it seems like everything in fashion grows toward the editorial concept(s) of Vogue and there’s very little room for free thought and fresh ideas.

The longer that I’ve worked for women – and I’m sure there are some great female bosses out there but I sure haven’t worked for one – the more wary I am of the misplaced maternal instinct.

This boss wants to help you, especially if you come across as a “child” to her, but wants to help you in the Right way; that is, she only wants to help you in the way that she wants you to be helped.

So there may be a professional development plan, or a raise, or a perk, but it’s all on her terms and it’s very personal if you decide that any one of these things might not be right for you.

There’s room to grow and develop….in the space she gives to you.

Like those horrifying moms who don’t let their kids grow up and make independent choices, except this mom has no actual responsibility over your long-term welfare.

My advice? Avoid these women. If a potential boss pre-negotiates on your behalf, run.

It’s the specifics, stupid

2018-05-02 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

I listen to Stefan Molyneux call-in shows on long drives. (There are few podcasts that are long enough so that I don’t have to switch in the middle. 😉 )

Many of these shows feature guests that I have absolutely nothing in common with. Maybe (usually) the caller is a dude, or there are mental health problems, or any number of other things that include the caller not being me.

What I’ve found, though, is that I learn something from each and every show.

Obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t keep listening.

Sometimes it’s something Stef says, sometimes it’s something I start thinking about in relation to my own life and experiences.

I find that the more specific that things get, the more that the caller lets down his or her guard and really works with Stef to get at the truth, the more useful the call is.

You’d think that keeping things general and vague would be more helpful, more applicable to a broad audience.

Maybe that’s true in marketing, I don’t know.

But in this show, in this format, minute details and specific situations are key to unlocking understanding. I don’t know why this is, but it holds true for me.

Common understanding through specific details.

Or perhaps it’s the other way around: bullshit language for bullshit understanding.

The variability of travel

2018-05-01 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

> Great for my guts. This past few days of no schedule has me pushing past what I thought they could take and has shown me that we’re more resilient than I thought. (Dare I say antifragile?) However, I’ll soon be needing a good rest and a steady no-frills meal or I can tell things will start up go downhill.

> Not so great for Batfort. The spotty wifi and variable schedule mean that my normal approach, live my life then write a post at the end of the day, doesn’t always work. Sometimes the end of the day and the wifi don’t match up. To take advantage of this, I’d need to switch to a hunter-mindset for posting – post what you have while you can.

> My mostly ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ approach to this trip has worked out. I’m pretty happy with the itinerary and I’m glad to have a trip without being stressed out.

> Having a car definitely helps. Not sure if I could do this as a backpack trip. But I’m an American and I love road trips.

Image of the Week: crossing the (dragon energy) streams edition

2018-04-27 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

This is an image of a phenomenon called “crown shyness,” in which – as you can clearly see from the picture – certain types of trees don’t like to touch other trees.

Much the same as humans, as it turns out.

With all the crossing of the streams that has happened this week, I think a little bit of “consciousness shyness” is in order for myself and probably a lot of other people on the internet.

Take some time to examine what’s inside the contours of my own domain.

I love how crown shyness patterns are highly irregular, yet super integrated.

Maybe that’s what we should all aspire to be.

Too many things swimming around in my head

2018-04-25 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

» Sometimes you realize how inadequate you are to face the sheer colossus of reality. There’s so much I want to understand right now, to wrap my head around, but it’s nearly impossible to get a handle on it. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to see what’s in front of me; now I see it and know that I’m much to finite to figure any of it out. Yet I feel compelled to try my best.

» And simultaneously I try to stretch myself in new ways, to develop physical muscles and learn new things and decide on the future and revisit old friendships and forge new ones. The newness, the regrowth, can be overwhelming.

» It’s too warm in my house which makes it difficult to concentrate.

» I find Korean more aesthetically pleasing than Japanese but Japanese-style music videos are 1000x crazier than anything aimed at the Korean market.

» It’s really easy to just look around for someone who will tell you what to do. Resist that impulse. Thinking for yourself is difficult, and it involves risk.

» It’s really difficult to be encouraging to others when you’re feeling rather nihilistic yourself.

» What if I want to be an artisan, not a merchant?

Introverted Sensing

2018-04-24 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Warning: this is a completely self-indulgent, ninja-level MBTI post.

On the introverted sensing of the INTP:

This stored knowledge is the fuel for the pedantic stereotypes and discursive form of argument (moving goalposts if Ti simply lacks the knowledge) that online debates have become known for. It’s largely impossible for an INTP to ignore their sense data, and they are bound to it in experiential form, over capturing reality as it seems in the present. If the foundation of their argument is based on sound perception data, they are unwaveringly accurate in their evaluations.

Given that Si is rooted in recollection, the INTP habitually refers to and maintains records from the past. These might take the shape of objects, or souvenirs which remind them of general moods at the time. INTP’s might be collectors and even hoarders, as there is no object separate from its value in terms of past significance.

In short: we have a hard time letting go.

For quite some time now I’ve been ruminating on the parallels between my external life and my internal life. The problems that I have in my external life seem to be mirrored, almost exactly, by the problems in my internal life.

To be less abstract about it, take the bit I bolded above. I have long held onto memorabilia from the past, like ticket stubs and other bits and bobs. More inconveniently, I also hang onto papers and notebooks from old courses; there are materials from high school – or possibly even earlier – from my old educational archives. Mostly-Grown Me has figured out how to let go of these physical embodiments of stuff I’ve learned — I’ve purged most of my paper ephemera from grad school. Young Me nearly had panic attacks at the thought of throwing away a paper that had information that I needed to know on it. (Even if that information was readily available elsewhere.)

Sometimes that instinct extends to places that it really shouldn’t go, like taking out the trash. There is no useful information in a bag of trash — and yet.

I also feel like this extends internally somewhat (and no, this isn’t totally the domain of sensing) to my tendency to hold onto ideas, or relationships, or feelings, or memories, or associations long past their due date. Cleaning mental house is sometimes as difficult as cleaning out an old desk. (Although morning journaling has helped with this immensely.)

But now I’m going to take this past the mind and into the body. For a few years, I struggled with Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth, which was really Whole Body Bacterial Overgrowth. My body was literally hanging on to bacteria that it obviously didn’t need. (This was aided and abetted by some high powered immune-suppressing drugs.) It took years, plus some natropathic assistance, for my body to relearn how to properly purge unnecessary bacteria. And though the worst of it is over, I’m still learning how to live a “clean” life.

But I’ve always thought it was kind of funny how I had hoarding problems in my living space and hoarding problems in my physical body.

Learning how to let go and clean things out has been instrumental in my upswing in wellbeing over the past few years.

There are probably some lingering clinging emotions that I should deal with, but like any INTP I like to pretend they don’t exist. (Which is probably why they are a problem in the first place!)

No conclusions here, I just found a new conceptual model of the INTP and wanted to flesh out some thoughts I’ve had.

Batfort

Style reveals substance

Category: Pulling at Threads (page 3 of 7)

The way you do one thing is the way you do everything

What Tanacon can teach us about client relationships

Don’t be a bad client

Learn how to say no

And for everybody

The Three Highways

Sometimes I wonder

Smother mothers

It’s the specifics, stupid

The variability of travel

Image of the Week: crossing the (dragon energy) streams edition

Too many things swimming around in my head

Introverted Sensing

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