The Bowl of Curiosities: 15 January 2019
In the Bowl of Curiosities, I keep the objects that catch my attention or peak my curiosity. In 2019, my intention is to be disciplined about curating and publishing the things I find interesting.
The image for this post is by David Clode and is available on Unsplash.
Article(s) of Interest
This section has articles that I read, and thought were interesting.
Consider the Narwhal
Katherine Rundell wrote this neat piece titled Consider the Narwhal , which tells us about how Narwhal tusks were once taken to be unicorn horns that would ‘sweat and change colour’ in the presence of poison. Turns our that Narwhal tusks are not poison detectors, but Narwhals are elusive and interesting creature that we should know more about.
Hunting the Snark
I like Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark (1876). I always have. It is just a silly set of ideas but it’s filled with interesting thoughts. Slaying the Snark: what nonsense verse tells us about reality by Nina Lyon explores the language and structure of the Hunting the Snark as Carroll attacks the realism. This article offers a brief summary of the poem:
In it, a crew of improbable characters boards a ship to hunt a Snark, which might sound like a plot were it not for the fact that nobody knows what a Snark actually is. It doesn’t help that any attempt to describe a Snark turns into a pile-up of increasingly incoherent attributes: it is said to taste ‘meagre and hollow, but crisp: / Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist’.
The only significant piece of information we have about the Snark’s identity is that it might be a Boojum. Unfortunately nobody knows what that is either, apart from the fact that anyone who encounters a Boojum will ‘softly and suddenly vanish away’ into nothingness.
John Gray on Malcolm Gladwell
John Gray doesn’t think much of Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. I find Gladwell a very clever, entertaining and accomplished writer; however, as a psychologist, I know that he tends to not let a good story get in the way of the facts. John Gray takes that argument up in Malcolm Gladwell Is America’s Best-Paid Fairy-Tale Writer , and I have sympathy for Gray’s view.
Others have defended Gladwell, so for balance you see that argument here.
Eric Hobsbawn
Another accomplished writer was the historian Eric Hobsbawm. Often Hobsbawm’s politics (he was a Communist in the UK at a time when that wasn’t fashionable) colour consideration of his work. I like his work because he writes about history in a way that encourages me to want to know more. For more on the man go here.
From the Library
There are so many leadership and management books produced every year. Most, in my view, are filled with meaningless drivel. So, I am revisiting the books that shaped my thinking about people, work and organisation.
When I was doing my PhD, I picked up a copy of Tim Flannery’s Future Eaters from the Co-op Bookshop. I loved it. It opened my eyes to the tenuous grip we have on the Australian continent and so much more. Flannery is an exceptional writer.
The Future Eaters describes the geography, flora and fauna of Australasia and the long history of how it has been changed and consumed by the Aborigine, Maori, Polynesian, and European peoples over a period of 60,000 years. Flannery describes three waves of human migration Australasia. The first wave was the migration to Australia and New Guinea from south-east Asia approximately 40,000-60,000 years ago. The second was Polynesian migration to New Zealand and surrounding islands 800-3,500 years ago. The third and final wave is European colonisation at the end of the eighteenth century.
Like Malcolm Gladwell, Tim Flannery comes cops a bit of flack from the scientific community for being a bit fast and loose with the facts. Unlike Gladwell, Flannery is well able to defend himself. This article titled The Flannery eaters provides and overview of the criticism.
I haven’t meet Tim, but I have met his mother. She was lovely and told me a great many things about Tim that he probably preferred she didn’t. The lesson for me was never bring your mother to a presentation. Or, if you do bring your mother, don’t let her wander about talking to strangers.
Now, I am reading Tim’s latest book, Europe: A Natural History
Ghost Stories
I have had a copy of ‘Ghost: 100 stories to read with the lights on’ by Louise Welsh on my bedside table for, maybe, three years. I don’t remember buying it. I only dip into Ghost infrequently and have made no progress in getting through the 100 short stories. In 2019, I intend to work my way through this book and document my progress here.
Two ghost stories this week:
Napoleon and the Spectre by Charlotte Bronte. It is simplistic but was written when she was 17 years old. I wish I could have written like that when I was 17.
The Minister’s Black Veil by Nathanial Hawthorne. Hawthorne was an American Puritan and counted the only judge at the Salem Witch Trials as an ancestor. His ancestor never repented his actions. This is the story of a minister who unexpectedly begins wearing a black veil. The story is about the effect this simple action has on his congregation. Hawthorne is better known for his novels The Scarlet Letter and the House of Seven Gables.
Progress on Projects
I started 2019 with three projects I wanted interested to advance. I am reporting my thinking and progress here. It’s an accountability thing. The rationale for the projects is briefly outlined in the 1 January 2019 edition of the Bowl of Curiosities.
Project 1: Finding Meaning at Work (with Sally Dorsett)
Sally and I have been thinking about our research questions, broadly that are shaping up to be something like:
When we think about our experience of work what helps us to be resilient and our teams to be robust?
When we think about our experience of work what causes us to be frail and our teams to be brittle?
They need some work, but at least we have a place to start. The first I see as a supply-side question; and the second, I see as more a demand-side question. I think the pressure for change will come from the ‘demand-side’.
We also decided that we just need to get started, so we are going to do two things: we are going to build a website (so that other can access what we are doing and we can organise our thinking), and we are going to run some test focus groups in our workplace.
Project 2: Trust and Technology
I have been looking into insider threat in information security as every aspect of the threat comes back to trust. We trust insiders to be diligent and competent, but they can betray that trust either through unthinking behaviour or through malicious actions that trade on trust. More on this to come. It was interesting!
Project 3. Meditations on Faith, Hope, Leadership and Management
On Twitter, I saw this quote supposedly from Aristotle:
Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
It was instantly engaging, and like all pity quotes immediately gave a sense of truth.
I chased it up. The actual quote (Rhetoric, Book II, Part 12) seems to be:
The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things—and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning.... All their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything; they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else.
Now, it is even more interesting!
A Thought to End
I would like to end with someone else’s thought. In this case, Igor Stravinsky.
Stravinsky was a pianist and conductor known for his ‘stylistic diversity’. So, his views on the daunting challenge of originality and creativity are probably worth noting, and a little unexpected.
As far as I’m concerned, I experience a kind of terror as I am about to go to work and before the infinite possibilities offered to me, I feel that everything is permitted. If everything is permitted, best and worst, if nothing offers any resistance every effort is inconceivable. I can’t base myself on anything and from then on every enterprise is in vain. … Nevertheless, I will not perish. I will conquer my terror and will take assurance from the notion that I have the seven notes of the scale its chromatic intervals, its strong or weak beats are within my reach, and that I hold in this way solid and concrete elements which offer me as vast a field of experiment as this vague and vertiginous incident which has just frightened me. … What pulls me out of the anguish caused by unconditional freedom is that I always have the faculty of concentrating on the concrete things which are in question here and now.
From, Stravinsky, Igor, Musical Poetics, Paris, La Flute de Pau, 1945, pp. 98-99
