Excerpts from recently read articles that I've enjoyed
Ages ago, Tumblr was my repository for these sorts of things but that login and password is long gone and this sad blog could use an update, anyhow.
How To Ruin Your Life (Without Even Noticing You Are)
"You ruin your life by desensitizing yourself. We are all afraid to say too much, to feel too deeply, to let people know what they mean to us. Caring is not synonymous with crazy. Expressing to someone how special they are to you will make you vulnerable. There is no denying that. However, that is nothing to be ashamed of. There is something breathtakingly beautiful in the moments of smaller magic that occur when you strip down and are honest with those who are important to you.”
Radical Candor, the Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss
“Radical candor is humble, it’s helpful, it’s immediate, it’s in person — in private if it’s criticism and in public if it’s praise — and it doesn’t personalize.” That last P makes a key distinction: “My boss didn’t say, ‘You're stupid.’ She said, ‘You sounded stupid when you said um.’ There's a big difference between the two.”
If you think this all sounds like a lot of work, you’re right. Radical candor requires you to undo the “if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say it at all” training that’s been beaten into your head since you learned how to talk. This is hard.
I was subject less to the law as it was written than I was to the private laws of whiteness. When the laws that bind a community apply differently to different members of the community, as Bettina Bergo and Tracey Nicholls write in their 2015 collection of essays, ‘‘I Don’t See Color,’’ then privilege ‘‘undermines the solidarity of the community.’’ And that, in turn, undermines us all.