November 9, 2020

Hello All,

Happy Monday! Tomorrow at 5:30PST / 8:30 EST is our November BOSLady meeting during which we will be discussing Give and Take by Adam Grant. As usual, it doesn't matter if you read or not, when you log on or for how long you stay - it's just great to see everyone :)

The Weekly Three

1. Somethings about Madame Vice President Elect: She did it. We did it. I've been listening to Wondery's Kamala: Next in Line to learn more about her political career and background. The podcast is a series of six episodes all between 30 and 40 minutes long each, during most of which I felt unexpected, deep swells of pride for her. If you'd like a buoying listen, this is it.

2. Something following up on last week's discussion of Us vs. Them: After reading last week's Love Note, Catherine shared with me some parallels between the commentary on Parasite and the book The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. Both bring up "how often a victim could have been the perpetrator - that there is almost never a 100% innocent party and a purely evil party. How greed and sadism explain almost none of violence, that high self-esteem and idealism are connected to the larger part of violent crime... It blurs the simplistic line between an Us and a Them, which has the potential to facilitate much more constructive conversations between otherwise antagonistic parties (concept of "naive realism")".

The blurring of Us and Them for crucial conversations is in line with what BOSLady has discussed about empathy. We spoke specifically about this during our meeting about racism. I was of the opinion that in order to actually have a chance at changing someone’s mind, you have to listen to their point of view and reasoning. If you can find common ground (erasing some of the us/them) then you can have a better discussion since you aren’t demonizing and attacking your conversational partner.

Thank you Catherine for sharing the book and your thoughts.

3. Something from ArchiParlour about meaning, stress and burnout: Helle Hein is, among other things, the developer of the Archetype Model that "describes four distinctly different motivational profiles". She has spent 18 months collaborating with Arkitektskolen Aarhus and one result is that they "have dubbed the dual relationship between meaning and frustration 'artistic overload': it is exhilarating, yet frustrating. Inspiring, yet taxing. You love it and you hate it". Sound familiar to anyone?

The definition brings to mind previous discussions of burn out and how current COVID related work conditions are weighing on us all. Hein describes "'boreout'" stemming from constraints that inhibit progress, thus thwarting inner meaning" and that "being able to do meaningful work is the best antidote to stress". Here I am removing the specific motivational profile that she is studying but find that this statement about meaningful work is universally applicable at present.

Thank you Alexandra for sharing this Archiparlour Instagram post with me!

Looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow!

Thank you for reading,

Amber