rub

Found another live one: Tim Kreider's Referendum. Read it; it will twist your brain into a yoga pretzel. So much of what I want to say in my script is covered with witty amusement in this piece.

In fact, I was just hounding my b-school classmates about this very topic: to have kids or not to have kids; to get married or not to get married; to be on the career track or not to be on the career track; to try to save the world or to leave the world to its own screwed up devices.

Who the hell knows, right? Ooof.

game

There's a joke with entrepreneurs: Instead of Ready, Aim, Fire! the order is Ready, Fire!, Aim.

Yesterday in Creativity Lab, we stuck Post-its of our ideas onto an archery target -- placing them in orbits of Practical, Innovative, and Fanciful. Then we had to connect all the dots and pitch our spontaneous new-business concept.

This is my kind of game. I love creating by connecting my and other peoples' dots.

Samrat and I once spent 4 hours crafting a three-act outline for a film in development. Our dots were: the title, the names and basic thrusts of the 3 main characters, and 2 requisite locations.

Complete boundless freedom is too vertiginous for me; I end up wanting to barf. Even in a sexy think tank like IDEO Lab - there are rules to the chaos: a deadline, an objective, and a boss who steps in when it's called for. Often, that's all you need.

Maude

An image really pressed into my mind is the expression on my stepfather's face when I handed him a birthday card. He looked the way a little baby does when it's surprised into ecstasy.

I maintain this look is why so many people want to have little babies. Because grown-ups, we can be dour. And after twenty or thirty years surrounded by gloom, who wouldn't want to lighten things up?

It was the simplicity of the gesture - giving him a birthday card - juxtaposed to the depth of response - that really struck me. I love watching people come alive.

'Cause seriously: a person who needs an expensive circus performance with bells and whistles and sequiny dresses and champagne just to crack a smile - I'm sorry, but this guy is almost dead. If that's how much it takes to wake up, you are two feet-one arm into the grave. All that remain are a few jaundiced fingernails feebly scratching at the earth above...

Okay, maybe a little harsh.

Back to the baby. Think about peek-a-boo. Stupid game, right? Not to a baby! The whole world exists between his mother's smile and her hands covering her face. To him, this little handmade theatrical spectacle is the entire universe in motion.

When someone lights up that way at something seemingly small, this is the kind of person I love. This is the kind of person I want to be.

It is my birthday today. I am effectively 31 years old. Ugh... But! While this might be the cumulative measure of time, I am determined to get younger each year. My goal is Maude.

splinters

I had my first business school case on Friday. Not my first reading of a case, one that someone else wrote, that we read and then discuss in class.

Side note for whining purposes: I'm already exhibiting the known behaviors of a blowfish when asinine comments are made in class. Stating that the main character in the case "is a moron and shouldn't have done that" is not my idea of scintillating verbal contribution. Chiudere il becco - shut your beak," as they say so fittingly in Italian.

Back to business: Friday was Team Process Day, which is a day-long exercise in exposing our tendencies in teamwork. By afternoon, I had rubbed up against another team member (metaphorically speaking) and received a few splinters. I know what I need to do: utilize the skills we were learning all day about feedback and conflict resolution. But I've still managed to stew about it all weekend.

Babson told us in no uncertain terms:

Get out of your comfort zone.

This is a learning environment - experiment.

Conflict is essential to change.

We don't expect you to always get along.

Diversity has its costs.

Get out of your comfort zone.

Ugh. I know, I know... I have to address the splinters.

value

My stepmother has started hanging out at the dump.

That's right, the dump - the place where people throw things away. She weathers the stench of diapers and rotting fruit to look for furniture and other household items that affluent neighbors are throwing away.

This morning, she sent me and her other children photographs of the pieces she recently snatched up, took home, and restored. I've seen comparable items in second-hand furniture stores along Mass Ave.

Value varies from person to person. A lot is learned from one's parents, some is acquired from major influencers like that rebel you glomed onto in high school or the sleak chain-smoking co-ed on the Italy year abroad... But one way or the other, we each develop an individual sense of value.

Much of my value was picked up from my parents. A lot has to do with conservation of resources as I'm rather obsessed with my eco footprint. But beyond trying to live greenly, I have a deeply lodged belief - an impacted doctrine, if you will - that if something still fulfills its purpose, why go out and get a new one?

I worked for over a year in advertising, right out of college. A "career building" computer program spat out Advertising after I entered my likes/dislikes, strengths/weaknesses and expectations for an employment setting. But I quickly learned that I don't have the stomach for consumer product advertising; for telling someone they need a shiny new one when the old one still works just fine.

We all know that there are some major economic troubles today, and that people are tighter with their money than the government and economists would like. But it is simply the easier view to say: "America is run on consumption. We have to get people blindly buying again, or the engine on our economy won't start up."

But I would like to a reinvention in Americans' sense of value. And I'm proud that my stepmother has been shopping at the dump.

swim

We finished a three-day business simulation this afternoon. I can't believe how much I just learned - simply by being thrown in the water and screamed at to swim.

strategy

I love my MBA program so far. Despite - perhaps because - my brain is being stretched like a yogini in pigeon pose.

During our business simulation this week, I commented to a teammate, "I never imagined I would be this excited to see a giant PowerPoint projection full of lines of red numbers." But I was.

Yet in all the excitement, I plan to stay grounded and to conserve energy. I've taped Ruiz's Four Agreements above my desk. They are very powerful, so here they are:

Be impeccable with your word:

Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Don't take anything personally.

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

Don't make assumptions.

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Always do your best.

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.