Category: Rumination
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Creativity, Distractability and Structured vs. Unstructured Procrastination
I have been practicing structured procrastination while allowing a few blog posts to, uh, ferment a bit longer (not to mention other things I want to get done). As evidence, after reading Jonah Lehrer's recent post about unstructured procrastination – Are Distractable People More Creative? – I feel inclined to write about that, rather than…
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Questioning Questioning: The Performative and Informative Aspects of Public Inquiry
During the CHI 2007 conference last week, I asked a number of questions after a number of presentations during a number of sessions (two examples of which are shown in the photos on the left from Marc Davis’ Flickr stream). I usually find it very challenging to muster the gumption to walk up to the…
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Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivations: Doing the Right Things for the Right Reasons
I was recently talking with a friend about the contrast between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, and offered to send him an email with some of the inspiring things I've been reading about this topic lately. Having just blogged about mutual inspiration, and how blogging provides a channel for telling the stories we make up about…
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Self-Reflection vs. Self-Expression
How does technology’s facilitation of self-expression, instant communication and constant connectivity affect our inclination and ability to think for ourselves, assume personal responsibility and unite for social action? Sherry Turkle explores these and other questions in an interview with Liz Else published in a September 2006 New Scientist article entitled "Living Online: I’ll Have to…
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Self-Disclosure to the Fifth Degree
Dan Oestreich, one of my favorite bloggers and best friends, has offered the mixed blessing of an invitation to reveal 5 things about myself that you may not know about me. This is challenging, not only because self-disclosure is risky, but I don’t know exactly who "you" are (but one of "you" may be my…
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Input, Processing, Output (IPO): A Multi-dimensional Balancing Act
I often view life through a computer metaphor, and think about my range of actions in the world as some blend of input, processing, and output. This is due, no doubt, to previous career chapters in which I was a computer science student and then a computer science teacher … and then a computer science…
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Practicing What I Preach, and Preaching What I Want to Practice
Inspired by Dan‘s recent comment involving paradox, teaching what we most need to learn, and mobius strips, I recognize that while I strive to practice what I preach, I believe that I more consistently preach what I want to practice. I am increasingly aware that other people are mirrors for me — when I react…
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Acceptance, Striving and [In[ter]]dependence
On New Year’s Eve, I had an existential conversation of significant depth and breadth with a number of friends in our old ‘hood in Libertyville on the tension between accepting ourselves as we are and striving to be better, and between pleasing ourselves vs. pleasing others. I have been struggling with these dilemmas — consciously,…