The vacation afterglow didn’t last long. I have been slammed with work blechness and was too down and distracted to write last week. I know I should write regardless, but I also don’t think it is very interesting to read a post about me wailing and gnashing my teeth and I don’t want to dive too much into details. The short version is that one my best coworkers is leaving, and I don’t know how to make things better, and I wish I were better at making things better in both work and life.
So what can I write about that isn’t too raw, but still genuine? How about thoughts on the 50th birthday of the Internet, saving the world startups, lounging in meadows admiring grasshoppers, and what to aspire to in life?
Last week, MIT hosted Net@50, a smallish gathering of the founders of the Internet and friends, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first message being sent over the Internet (back then the arpanet) back in October 1969. They told great stories about the early days and how they ended up doing what they did, and various mishaps and detours along the way. The event also featured sessions about challenges facing the Internet today (security, social media downsides) and even a session on the Interspecies Internet project, which included a video message from Jane Goodall and included Peter Gabriel talking to us about his work improvising music with Bonobos. It was really cool. My company was one of the sponsors of the event, and I was incredibly honored to be invited as one of the guests. There are definitely days when I like my job! (We also ran our “How the Internet Works” workshop for our Girls Who Code summer cohort last week, another reason to like work).
It was clear that their lifetime of work was a huge source of satisfaction for the Internet Founders, and rightly so. They worked on interesting problems and had an impact beyond their wildest dreams.
My colleague who is leaving is going to work for a startup that intends to save the world, or at least to help farmers sequester an additional Teraton of carbon beyond what they do today, thus combatting global warming. The technology sounds really cool – using sensor data and machine learning methods to help farmers optimize their crop management and to measure the additional carbon sequestration gained by regenerative farming practices (and getting farmers paid for it by folks looking for carbon offsets). I have been talking about wanting to do work that helps combat global warming, and here she is walking the walk. Maybe I should do that, too! But reading up on the company, it is definitely in “work crazy hours” startup mode. I think that can be really exciting for someone early in their career and without a family. I have fond memories of my Looking Glass all nighters, and early days at Akamai when we were all pulling hard together to avert catastrophe.
Does it make me a terrible person that I want to do interesting work to help save our planet, but only if I don’t have to work crazy hours to do it? I only have a few years left with the kids at home (presumably), and already wish I had more time for family and friends. I already struggle with work-life balance. Maybe I’d feel differently if I thought I were particularly essential to the work, instead of it being better covered by someone else.
This gets into what role work plays in a meaningful life. When work gets crazy and frustrating, I fantasize about retiring (yet somehow still being able to provide my family with a good quality of life!). I think I would enjoy it, and would find various satisfying things to do with my time. Other folks I talk to find the very idea abhorrent – that it is only the time you spend busily doing, working, contributing, building, creating, achieving that counts. Part of me feels the same way, that I would be a total slacker unless I found some new constructive socially acceptable thing to do with my newfound time, and that I would be incredibly lame if I accomplished nothing. But part of me doesn’t. Part of me thinks it would be lovely to stop pushing and to spend more time basking in the beauty of the world and those I am blessed to share it with.
What will you do with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver is cheating, because I imagine she worked very hard at crafting and publishing her poems and did not actually spend all of her time lolling about, but I bet she spent a lot of it lolling, and I do love this poem.
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”
I think perhaps it is about finding the sweet spot, the right balance between blessedly idle and productive. And maybe there is no balance, but at least alternating between the two with some regularity depending upon circumstances. I only just recently got back from vacation, but already could do with a bit more lounging with grasshoppers. Too bad we are in the middle of a 100 degree heat wave.
Elanor and I did see this neat bug determinedly clinging to our car window when heading out for our canoe trip, so I’ll leave you with a photo of that. We also enjoyed the company of White Admiral butterflies, and the protection of an armada of dragonflies.
More soon, maybe.
Reflections and Resolutions 