I feel like I’m going to blog a bit this week. Maybe even as a general closing theme of 2020. Let’s see.
I might also finally kill off my blog. It contains everything I thought of posting since 2004. 16 years of random crap 🙂 And I guess, for compleness sake, there’s some blogger content floating around starting the mid 90s.
This place was offline for long while. And I missed it. So I put it back and some of the old content that’s still getting hits is helping people again, so that’s that. But I didn’t return to writing here either. It just sat here. Slightly uncomfortable at the amount of shit floating around in here.
Parts of the journey that got me here. But even tho every step gets you there, stepping in poop at some point and wiping it on the grass some steps later, doesn’t change where you ended up.
And there’s no taking things offline, all things remain in the endless wayback machine and I love them for it. I use them for my own crap and I will probably pay them if they need me some day. That said, there’s a difference between it existing, and me dragging it around, all 3088 posts here. Just like those 43.9K Tweets in the one account and the 2731 in the other. And those thousands of content I dropped all over all social media. Honestly, it’s out of control and I can only accept it. And that’s fine. It’s fine, but writing it here, a bit overwhelming. But that’s life
Point is, I could write anywhere. And I stopped writing because it didn’t feel right anywhere… But it doesn’t feel right here anymore either. Though I needed to get “here” back to realize that. To realize the weight and importance and fuck knows. To realize I just stopped writing, regardless of space and time. Time to start writing again; which is a good start here. It does have a homecoming feeling I guess 🙂
Time to reconsider, drop some ballast, move publishing house and get back to kicking assss again 🙂
It’s time to heal. Despite covid, dispite winter, despite lockdowns, despite..
We’ve all locked down, We’ve all stopped, We’ve all scaredly revived, We’ve all angrily railed against the virus, We’ve all angrily protested against weak or strong gov’t measures, We’ve all felt like shit, We’ve all embraced the little otherworldly things that remain, We all need to rise like the phoenix from the flames.
Haha yeah, I went there. Bloody phoenix imagery 🙂
It’s time tho. Time to accept the realities and carry on with the new normal
For me that in part means my communities. I care deeply about a selection of vivid communities that have all come to a screeching halt. With some attempts to recreate the real life dynamics to online versions. With changing success depending on the format. And with short flaring revivals this summer that gave vital relief without, luckily, making anyone sick as far as I know. But I don’t honestly thing anyone was ready for it, not really.
Reality has changed but communities and activism hasn’t. And even tho it doesn’t look like it did before, I for one am about ready to restart some of those efforts ^^
So let’s kick some new stuff off.
It won’t look like the old. But it’ll definitely answer some of the old needs in the new reality 🙂
That moment when someone tells you about a problem, and you start offering solutions but they annoyedly shrug it off because they’re already fixing it.. Or that moment when you confide in a friend because you need emotional support, and they just start lecturing you on what to do..
So on the triforce of communication you are sharing to be heard 🙂
Me, responding to a colleague on a random update
The Triforce of Communication is a term that comes from the non monogamous communities, but it’s extremely useful in general life, coaching or management situations!
The triforce was coined by the Multiamory podcast in 2016 and nicely summarizes some basic modes of communication in any kind of professional or private communication. When communicating with others, it helps to establish where on the triforce you or them are basing your communication from.
To quote the summary in their DLC edition..
Triforce number one, which is building intimacy or sharing.
Triforce number two, which is seeking support or acknowledgement, and
Triforce number three, which is seeking advice or problem solving.
In the opening paragraph, they were communicating on triforce one, sharing their plight. And so was the colleague from the quote. And in the second one, I was communicating on the second level, looking for support. Yet both examples got a response in triforce number three, trying to solve the situation presented. Realizing what the goal is and matching the goal makes for better conversations all around. And sometimes it starts with just observing for yourself what you’re looking for.
This is the kick off post I put on facebook to start my fixing this situation. #EndOfLife There will be a part 2 and maybe 3 to this, detailing how I fixed things and potentially even part of the wishes document. Today just this tho 🙂
(TW. Not sure.. Death? Ill fate? Divorce.)
I don’t currently have any relationships that will be structurally notified when I land in the hospital. Pragmatically speaking, if I die now, my 2 preteen kids will get to bury me and have my stuff; so basically their mom will get the pleasure of dealing with all that for me, for them. (I don’t have a relationship with their mom other than amicable co-parenting after the divorce.)
I have other people tho that will want to visit me in the hospital and have a say on my burial and will need to be involved. And I care a lot about them being notified asap and having access to me and more.
My current situation is one of neglect (or at least stuff changed and not having been updated) and I need to fix this asap 🙂 (Shoutout to the RA Smorgasbord for revealing this.) But other than the legal naming stuff, I wonder.
I’m wondering about a “These people need to be involved when something happens” document somewhere, but even then the practicalities are complex? How do I make sure people even think of reading this when it happens?
So Question! Do you have this? How do you deal with this?
Posted on Facebook to those who are members of these groups.
Ik leef sinds september in verhoogde staat van awareness, soms na paniekerig, want ik mag geen covid doen. Ik deel mn kids met hun mama en zij is risico patiente. Een meest schrijnend moment was toen ik deze zomer besliste om niet naar de koffietafel te gaan van de mama van een vriend omdat ik het niet wou riskeren. Die mama lag me na aan het hart, als buurvrouw en rode draad door een deel van mn 20er jaren. Maar ik zag me enkele maanden later de kids mama begraven omdat ik me niet even kon inhouden. Dus heb ik toen beslist om voorzichtig te zijn en niet makkelijkweg toch mijn persoonlijk moment van afscheid te gaan beleven. Maar omwille van een onzichtbare ziekte die niemand in mijn directe kring tot dan trof, terug naar huis te gaan. Ik ben toen half kwaad op mezelf een longboard gaan kopen omdat het niet goed met me ging en ik beweging nodig had. In retrospect is er die keer niemand ziek van geworden, van dat afscheid.
Fast forward naar 2 weken geleden. Ik heb een selectie persoonlijke covid scares achter de rug die uiteindelijk allemaal allergie bleken; en ik ben voor zover ik weet covid vrij.
Op 23e Oktober ben ik druk bezig om mn huis te herorganiseren en die ene kast zie ik me toch niet alleen verslepen. En die kapotte zetel wil ik toch graag een second opinion. Dus ik bel den nonkel om even te komen helpen. Hij stormt vol energie het huis binnen, zonder masker en ergens in de living waar de kast staat daagt me dat er iets schort. Dat dat geen masker dragen misschien toch niet zo goed is. We bespreken de situatie even, ik zet alle ramen open en hij doet zn masker weer aan. Ik voelde me wel een beetje een idioot. Maskers en ramen en troep. Een kamer uitwaaien omdat er iemand even zonder masker was. Wat een idiotie, die covid paranoia, Anderzijds heb ik de indruk dat hij wel heel wat mensen nog ziet.. zucht, ik voel me wat idioot. Maar veilig spelen is goed!
We bespreken de zetel en we verzetten de kast. Hij heeft zin om de zetel te helpen repareren en belooft dat hij later die week binnen springt om dat snel even te doen. Ik ben happy en ga on my merry way.
Fast Forward naar vandaag. Hij belt me omdat hij die zetel niet komen repareren is. En dat ik me misschien afgevraagd heb waarom niet? Hij belt eigenlijk om te zeggen dat zijn quarantaine over is en dat hij die zaterdag covid positief getest is. Dat hij sindsdien absoluut zonder energie in bed ligt. Ik word stil en zie mn ongemak bevestigd. Ik merk op .. “Das de dag nadat ge hier waart he..?” Hij wordt stil .. telt wat … En zegt dan “Oeps, ik ben je vergeten opgeven bij de contact tracing.”
Ik bel de dokter, hij kan me vanavond nog zien. Ik bel de kids mama en bevestig dat we elkaar wel zagen maar buiten en niet te dichtbij geweest zijn. Ik begin aan mn eigen contact tracing oefening. En ik zorg voor mn kids, want die zijn hier al een week en gaan overmorgen, woensdag, terug. De cascade is aanzienlijk.
Vrijdag 23. Onschuldig even een kast verzetten. De geleende standing desk terug gaan afzetten, helemaal ontsmet. Ik met masker en zonder er bezoek van te maken. Ik voel me weer een beetje stom. Kaas kopen in het Hinkelspel en de groentewinkel. In ontsmet m’n handen elke keer als een idioot in de auto. Idem voor de Bioplanet. En de Colruyt.
Zaterdag 24. Emotioneel herladen met mn knuffelcontact. Ghost doet The Shining in de Vooruit. Geweldige covid safe experience!
Zondag 25. Meer emotioneel herladen met mn knuffelcontact.
Maandag 26. Osteopaat, hyper covid safe met maskers en shields omdat ze weet dat ik een risico patient in de buurt heb. Kids en hun mama zien met knuffels en masker.
Dinsdag 27. Home working in alle gepaste eenzaamheid.
Woensdag 28. Kids ophalen. Samen bij de bakker, elk een koek kiezen. De jongste op sport les; zijn kids vriendje op bezoek en achteraf thuis gaan afzetten. Delen hoe dat toch allemaal oncomfortabel aanvoelt, al dat contact dat de kids nog hebben. Misschien moeten we dat toch ook allemaal maar afbouwen.? Zoet dropt bloemen, we blijven buiten absoluut uit elkaars buurt.
Donderdag 29. Kids naar school en ophalen.
Vrijdag 30. Kids naar school en ophalen. Ik schuw wat weg van die ene man die tussen de ouders dwaalt en achter zn mondmasker droog loopt te hoesten overal. Ik ben blij dat voor alleenstaanden er een knuffelcontact voorzien blijft. Ik merk dat ik dat serieus meer nodig had dan ik besefte. Thank fuck.
Zaterdag 31. Weeken, Thuis.
Zondag 1. Weekend, Thuis.
Maandag 2. Naar de bakker, en dan een stevige dag thuiswerken. Vrolijk een glas wijn drinken terwijl ik steak sandwitches maak om de kids tot warm eten te verleiden. En dan het telefoontje, en mn avond die even een mini andere richting kiest.
Dinsdag 3. … Dat is morgen. Maar ik voorzie alvast een hoop ongemakkelijk afwachten en nog wat alternatieve ziekteverlopen mentaal overlopen binnen dewelkene ik wel nog pas qua verloop.
Ik ben ondertussen terug van bij de dokter. Het is te vroeg voor veel info, doch aan mn knuffelcontact stuur ik ongeveer het volgende.
Ik ben zonet bij de dokter geweest heb woensdag ten laatste m’n test uitslag. Als die negatief is, is alles oké en slaak ik een zucht van Absolute gefrustreerde opluchting. Als die positief blijkt, hou ik de kinderen nog tot volgende woensdag bij me en moet iedereen die ik sinds dan gezien heb op de hoogte gebracht worden.
Het weekend van de 24 hebben we samen doorgebracht. Zo zo zo sorry voor de stomme covid crap. Ik heb geen symptomen en voel me heel okee. Dus er is een redelijke veronderstelling dat ik okee ben. Normaalgezien zou ik volgens de huidige regels niet getest worden, maar gezien ik geen 10 dagen quarantaine kunnen doen heb, ben ik wel getest zodat we als nodig de feiten kunnen nalopen. Voor jou betekent dat dus ook dat je hoogstwaarschijnlijk okee bent; doch woensdag weten we dat via mijn test ietsje meer zeker.
(welja, neen, als ik woensdag okee blijk, ben jij dat zeker en vast ook.)
Dat en een 1000 meer sorries, want ik wil niemand ziek maken. Ik wil niemand ongerust maken en ik wil heel graag ZO voorzichtig zijn dat dat ook effectief probleemloos lukt.
Maar ze heeft gelijk wanneer ze antwoordt
Gah komt goed, gaat hoogstwaarschijnlijk niet de laatste scare zijn
Tegen iemand anders quote ik HsT.
“Pray to God, but row away from the rocks.”
― Hunter S. Thompson
Ik ben kwaad in mijn machteloosheid.
En ik weet binnen een paar dagen of ik er zelf mee rondgelopen heb.. En of ik die enkele mensen om wie ik genoeg geef om ze te blijven zien .. ook misschien wel ziek gemaakt heb. Alle moeite en pijnlijke keuzes ten spijt. Ik haat het. Ik moet het blijkbaar nog meer serieus nemen.
Song of the evening..
Ander verhaal maar het spookt toch even nu.
Maar de kids waren alvast wel fan van mn steak sandwiches! 🙂
Update! Na een psychosomatische 20 uur stress is de uitslag van de test er. Coronavirus niet gedetecteerd. Oef. En dan nu tijd voor een nabeschouwing om er de volgende keer duidelijk beter mee om te gaan!
Intermittent fasting is, instead of eating all day long, just not eating all the time. It’s really that simple
I dislike breakfast. My stomach just isn’t up to do the food thing and revolts at the thought. Science persuaded me my body was wrong and I started eating some of the things I could stomach (haha) but really, it never felt right. In doing the plant based diet experiment, I more and more realized that returning to what felt good for me was probably a very very good idea. Turns out that skipping breakfast and only eating at noon is called intermittent fasting these days.
Not eating all day isn’t that unusual either. All the big religions have a concept of a period of fasting. Several weeks of not eating during the day or eating a lot less, to water fasts for days on end. In graduating big religion, we also ignored the folk traditions that were attached to it. Taking that back feels good 🙂
So what did 4 months of IF [Intermittent Fasting] (abbreviated because still lazy optimizing energy) teach or reveal to me?
People eat out of habit
People eat JUNKKKKKK
We really do not need to eat all the time
IF is highly personal and gender matters
Running off stored fat feels good and the burn rate is interesting
Just knowing when and what I’ll eat when I’ll start eating again takes all the difficulty out of it.
Shopping fasted doesn’t matter at all anymore.
Eating is a big activity that we spend TONS of time on!
I’ve done IF for a while now and I love it. I relax in the weekend and aim for a 13 hours fast (skip breakfast and have lunch). I like the family meal and evening alcohol 😉 During the week I often socially do a 16h fast and 8h of eating; 16:8. Stop eating at 20h, and lunch with the people around me the next day. But most of all, I like 20:4 or even OMAD [One Meal a Day]. Not eating for most of the day, and having one big, no holds barred, meal in the evening. I love not having to care what I eat (as long as it’s balanced and healthy) and how much. I resisted the urge to binge eat early on, and I can only eat that much in one meal without feeling stuffed.
It’s been an interesting journey. One I’d heartily propose everyone to look into!
The first motto I tried on was from a probably crappy 90s movie that I never saw.
Live like there’s no tomorrow
It served me well and informed amongst others my snowboarding philosophy. Turns out tho that snowboarding is easily ok far longer than I hoped and I’ll come out on top there 🎉
My mind motto became
No regrets.
It was the subtitle of my blog and I still stand by it.
It’s about making good choices and accepting that you’ll never be able to always make the perfect ones. It’s about accepting that decisions are easier when you have that hindsight and perfect information. And remembering that regrets don’t help anyone in any way, except if you have some idle energy to burn. I usually know where to put that energy to better use.
It might be time for a new one now.
This morning, after looking for a favourite Jack Nicholson quote, I came across his own personal motto..
More good times.
Jack Nicholson
And I, for the first time, realised how negative and backward looking my current one is. It served me well in a time where I had harder times and tougher decisions.. But ultimately, I prefer the future and positivity over a confidence that I’ll not dwell on all that.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll never stop living no regrets. But it’s a part of me. And it’s now time to grow beyond.
Lean coffee Gent affords me unique access to a group of highly skilled agile experts. Lean coffee itself is our monthly meetup where we discuss all things agile following the lean coffee principle. Other than participation, attendance also offers access to our invite-only slack channel. The lean coffee gent slack is invite only and at the end of each evening, we offer everyone present the opportunity to get invited to the group chat. We’ve started a couple of years ago and by now it’s a veritable who’s who of the Belgian Agile world.
And that gets us into some pretty interesting conversations! This week, Peter seeded an inspiring topic that spurred me into a monologue and resulted in an inspiring conversation.
I will publish some of those excerpts here.
I ‘m not sure if I’m right, but I prefer bottom up culture over top down strategies. Not all strategies are top down, I do see that. A group can decide on strategy for themselves too, but I’ll only believe in its value if the entire group or a vast majority including key influence group members support and foster the decision. Under those circumstances (and some other prerequisites) I can see the strategy enter into their culture and take hold.
As such, it feels to me that culture eats strategy is very apt. But I’m not sure it’s the original meaning. As for if strategy is worth while, I’m sure we need a definition of strategy before we continue down that discussion. That being said. Blindly pushed strategy that is too different from a groups culture has no way of succeeding without carefully building group support.
Checked out the origin and apparently, yes, Fields had that in mind. Apparently tho, some people consider replacing culture with agile in that quote.. To then consider “agile eats..”, it feels like a dangerous mistake to confuse culture there with agile. Agile is a strategy that is often easily adopted and has a better chance of succeeding than some old-fashioned strategies.. But bad culture also eats agile for breakfast. Which is why big scale agile transformations take long and are painful and difficult. (And interesting and deff my next career interest)
Then to ultimately zone in on the .. is strategy bad and is there a problem.. I agree that artificially imposing incompatible strategies is a bad practice. That being said, I do believe that strategies being delegated to a strategic few that then set a course for the group is a good business practice (see also sociocracy) Imposing those blindly though, to a culture that is at odds with it, is painful at best and often simply a disaster. The best way to stop change is saying yes and then ignoring doing it.
Strategy should be decided and then not imposed but grown into the culture.
A lot of this coincided with my experience in large companies and organisations, and with my recent interest in S3. Once you’re familiar with the s3 patterns, it’s easy to recognize what’s happening and to start facilitating solutions. My interests tend to materialize around me, so I’m glad to say, our first experimenting with Sociocracy 3.0 is later this month. Join us, if that’s what you’re into.
Special thanks to Peter, Erwin & Bert. Peter Janssens is agile catalyst, you can find out more about him on in/peterblogs Erwin Tollenaere is agile coach, meet him at in/erwintollenaere Bert is business analyst, check him out at in/bertheymans
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