When everything is off-kilter, with too much going on (cf. troppo), we don’t want to just manage the conflicting and excessive forces; we want to change the situation. We’d rather be on the wave than managing our intake of sand and saltwater. Once upright, it’s lots of little adjustments that keep up upright, whether we’re standing or surfing (or unicycling). The balance […]
How often is the first step declaring “it can’t be fixed”? By “fixed,” I mean fixed by conventional means, working within our habits and expectations. “Fixed” by working harder, or paying more attention, or reminding ourself not to get upset by an annoying coworker. Many times, possibly even most of the time or all of […]
The job probably isn’t what you thought it was going to be. You may have thought you were going to share ideas, solve problems, and create art. Instead, your time, concentration, and motivation are depleted as you attend to people with complaints and as you are peppered with interruptions throughout the day. “That’s not my job!” we […]
“Complexity” and “chaos” are commonly used words that have both everyday and technical meanings. In their technical incarnations, both complexity theory and chaos theory deal in part with cases in which it’s difficult to predict what’s going to happen next. For chaos theory, think “butterfly effect.” Tiny changes in the initial conditions of a system […]