On Two Recent Health Headlines

1. There's a Fat Switch!
2. There's a Test to Predict When YOU WILL DIE!

Between pharmacology for all and everyone, and so-called DNA discoveries, we are right back to the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th century with hawkers of tonics to fix damn near anything that's wrong with us including maybe death. I mean, if you can predict when death is supposed to occur and if there's a drug for everything than surely there's a cocktail to cheat death?

I'm not making this up. Google it...tweet it...go online or watch the evening news and you can't avoid the latest greatest discovery or new drug or new application of an old drug.

I'm not saying it's bad for drug companies to find new uses for theirs drugs. Except when marketing not medicine drives the mission.

Nor am I saying DNA shouldn't be used to decode humans. I am after all more in the Hawkings camp than the Pope's.

I probably shouldn't snark. I need to lose weight. Extra weight has all kinds of negative health consequences. That hasten death.

But there are two wickedly pernicious undercurrents at play here.

The first is the ever present denigration of humanity by advertising designed to make us feel less worthy and in need of a product to make use more acceptable. Playing on people's self doubts - creating and feeding them is the unsurprising consequence of a consumer economy. When spin doctors set out to expand markets by manufacturing want, they have to play on emotional needs. The constant picking on that nerve has led to a want culture. Not just in the sense of materialism but also in the pervasive sense of lack many Americans seem to feel which is inexplicable in some ways since most of us don't lack for the basics or anything else. But psychologically completely understandable.

The second destructive factor at play is the idea that we can predict and therefore possibly cheat that which makes us human: death. The fact that we die and that we are conscious of the fact is arguably the only thing that makes us humane and unlike the other animals (although the jury's out on the latter). If we take that away, we will either:

1. live our best lives possible (like those who have near death experience often report);
2. live the way we are right now (thoughtless, aimless, foolish):
3. or go buck wild in the misapprehension that it doesn't matter because I'm gonna die on X date anyway so I better live it up now.

The good news is those outcomes are exactly the same as life today so no better, no worse. The bad news is, those outcomes are exactly the same...

My point is, a finding like that - that DNA can help predict when a person will die - should do something to elevate and illuminate the meaning of life. The moral, ethical, religious and philosophical considerations (along with the scientific, technological and legal ramifications) should be thoroughly debated.

Everyone who might die (that would be all of us), all of humanity should sit up, take notice, discuss and debate this and determine individually, as the individual owners of our destinies, what we think, want and will do with this knowledge.

Instead, what will probably happen is that advertisers will exploit our fears to sell more products, insurers will find new ways to limit coverage, big brother will manipulate the data to serve its political ends and whole populations will be written off as less than due to shorter life spans in spite of the few hand wringing liberals who will lament the immorality inhumanity of it all.

Most important, in light of clear evidence to the contrary, we still will not face the fact that we are born dying, that death is a central fact of life and that it defines what it is to be human. Knowledge of an expiration date probably won't change a thing.

Perhaps I am wrong. Maybe it's not death that makes us human. Perhaps it's the collective amnesia of stupidity. To quote a famous Homer, duh!

Split Personality

Last night body shaving and putting on make up were described as acts of vanity. We should just present our (natural) (face) selves to the world. It was pointed out that the speaker spends more time than any other at the table in the bathroom in the morning. That in response to another who suggested that good hygiene (grooming) is not the same as vanity.

Later on it occurred to me that we all present different faces of ourselves in different situations. I was thinking specifically of my online personas - the occasional and opinionated blogger, the saucy tweeter, the alternately edgy, outraged and whimsical facebooker and the professional observer of all things marketing and social media on linkedin.  Never mind that the real me - my truly favorite personal interests of writing, reading and jazz and trance music only show up in the privacy of my home or the subway but not online. Sometimes in the office but except for the infrequent book update on linkedin, strictly in the offline world.

Is there any meaning here? I am deliberate in what and how I show up online because I can be. Similarly for me words and music are mostly private inner life experiences. Is this vanity? I think it just is.

Consider another aspect of this: external perspectives of ourselves. People only see slices of other people. Based on what we show, what they want or expect to see and the nature of the interaction. At work colleagues may see the cool, rational self. At home the family may see the bitter, angry, frustrated, tired self. In the grocery store perhaps the gracious self shows up. Behind the wheel the aggressive road warrior. All different aspects of same person. None fully representative.

I think Hannah Arendt said something about the story of one's life cannot be told until her death. After death one might be able to put a life in perspective. Granted there's a lot of biographical and autobiographical evidence to the alternative. Just look at Mark Twain's bio published on his express orders 100 years after his death in order to quell controversy at the time of his death.

Still the who and what we are and our motivations and intents are never fully knowable either internally by our selves or externally by other peoples views of us.

So why the characterization of grooming as vanity? Or I should say more precisely the view of an act as grooming by one yet vanity by another. A mourning for the loss of a child to young adulthood? A disagreement of values? A projection of a perception?

I'm not sure the question is answerable. Each participant saw and heard what they saw and heard just as each presented what they wanted to show. It's never possible to know the full truth of a person.

Missive #20: Eisenhower's Revenge - Endless War

I really wanted to write a nifty pithy piece on the prescient president Eisenhower. There was a small article in the New Yorker a few months ago about newly discovered evidence that "military industrial complex" and "permanent arms industry" were actually his fears (and not those of his speech writers or other influencers).

I quote the article in the Dec 10 issue that discussed Ike's farewell address:

"Speaking three nights before the end of his Presidency, in 1961, Eisenhower warned of a “scientific-technological élite” that would dominate public policy, and of a “military-industrial complex” that would claim “our toil, resources, and livelihood.”

If you aren't worried about what people with think of your reading choices (according to my kids I'm an elitist for reading the New Yorker but that's okay because they're hipsters for listening to NPR & indie freak folk rock), there's more at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/12/20/101220ta_talk_newton#ixzz1ITjY5h4r

That little piece got me thinking about the ridiculous number of wars in which we are ensnared and how over extended we are militarily.

And then the March Harper's Index had an interesting tidbit about the increase in defense spending in the last decade:

Estimated percent change since 2000 in the U.S. defense budget, not including the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq: +80%.

Outrageous. In 10 years, the defense budget grew 80%. If that's not evidence of Eisenhower's prescience, I don't know what else we need as proof although someone, I'm sure, will take issue with my conclusion. (Hint, how much did entitlement spending grow over the same period? I assume it's not 80% but I'm also not going to look for the stat.)


Back on Feb 25 I posted a facebook status about this and asked why the current budget debate was so silent about defense spending. It all seemed to be about defunding NPR and shutting down the government.

Well liberals got their backs up over entitlement program cuts and have come out guns ablazing with the cut defense spending argument. I'll do a separate little post full of facts and figures about the budget and setting up the cut defense spending argument in a couple of days. Wouldn't want all my research to go to waste.

But, today we have this wsj piece on the GOP plan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576240751124518520.html#articleTabs%3Darticle. Read the comment from Gabriela Sbarcea for a nicely encapsulated liberal view of the proposal. Lines sharply drawn. Guns drawn. Shot's fired.

I spent all weekend working on this post. I researched the budget and defense spending. I looked for debates and dialogues about the current proposals. You know what I've ended up with so far?

Nothing but frustration. I can't work up any outrage on this topic any more.

I'm really tired of America being the world's cop. And I'm sick of being bamboozled by politicians set on transferring wealth to fewer and fewer hands while bankrupting our country.

Outrage is difficult where serious anger exists. Outrage requires detachment. Anger implies attachment. I'm too attached. I'm going to go watch some un-reality television.

Missive #19: Forgive me for I have sinned

I have failed to maintain my blog and for that I should be flogged. But today I am pissed. I mean moved to write. Did anyone see my FB post yesterday? I shared the insightful (and well established if little known) observations from the current MJ article: It's the Inequality Stupid. The folks at Mother Jones have started a Plutocracy Now series that's got me riled (I must remember the reason why I stopped subscribing - not good for the blood pressure!!!).

But okay, the MJ article showed up in Yahoo News as I was checking my email. And then this morning I'm reading Thomas Frank's piece in the February issue of Harpers called "Servile Disobedience" which addresses issues of class and the psychology of the very very rich and some characteristics they apparently lack like the ability to listen, read facial expressions or empathize. It is reminiscent of the diagnosis of the corporation as sociopath (for those of you who have yet to watch the documentary The Corporation, you must). Is it any wonder than that our society is so heartless? Those in charge lack the basic human ability - emotion - to care.

So it got me to thinking. Who am I to be? Crusading fighter for justice? Passionate advocate for peace and compassion? Cowed cog content in the lower ranks of the upper 10th? It gets harder and harder to resist clamp down on ignore the call of the soul.

Courage is the mantra for the new job. But courage to what? of what? My convictions? Which ones? To be a passionate advocate for my team? To be a voice for the people?

Is my self-interest best served by speaking truth or by ensuring my kids educational and economic future? And why does it have to be such a stark choice? Where is the third way? Do no harm and live your life empathetically (although not necessarily philanthropically in my case which seems a bit of the pot calling the kettle...)?

An educated citizenry is necessary to the just functioning of democracy so my choice is not faint. The education I want for my children is both to think and to earn. I am to doom them to my dilemma. (And in defense of my philanthropy, I do pay for the best in public education both in my taxes and through my support of public radio and magazines like Harpers & Rolling Stone which have one of the best political reports out there in MT). (And unlike the really really rich I have no options to hide my income).

I am angry and riled and cannot see the way no matter that I can see the true and authentic. We are being absolutely lied to by our media and in our education systems. We are economically threatened or marginalized if we speak or choose activism. Plutocrats - even those like George Soros still exist to serve themselves and their own. He cannot be playing a truly altruistic game can he?

So I am left with only my questions and my fears and my doubts. It sucks to be a liberal and a thinking person.

Missive # 18: Wildly Improbably Options

There is a legend in my husband's family about the time pop quit the ad agency (he's an artist) in frustration, left all four kids with his mother in law and took his wife to Mexico for six weeks. I'm trying to treat this period as my Mexico. 'Cept I'm not in Mexico (Martha's Vineyard this week, vacationing with the Obamas). Also, my kids are not with my mother, my step mother or my mother in law. And also it's only for a week. But whatever. I am still contemplating wildly improbably options.

I just wrote to a friend that I am practicing insight meditation to open my mind to these previously unconsidered notions. Perhaps I should explain my method. The first four days here it rained and the wind blew. Nor'easter style. You would think the god who is our president would order up better weather for his vacation. But perhaps like me he just wanted an excuse to read ceaselessly. I wonder if he is also on book # 5.

As a minor digression, here's what I've read this week:

1. Anita Brookner's Strangers (heartwrenching loneliness)
2. Jeanette Wells' memoir The Glass Castle (affirming)
3. Jayne Ann Krantz Burning Hot (trashy mindlessness has it's place)
4. Bad Things Happen which is a first novel by an author who's name escapes me but a first rate mystery
5. Menonite in a Little Black Dress, also a memoir by another forgotten author but funny

If my friend Elise ever finishes the current Janet Evanovich I'll read that next. Otherwise it's Ian McEwan's Saturday. And actually since tomorow is Saturday perhaps that's as it should be.

That digression was not in fact a tangent but the point. How I practice insight meditation. I read. I also sit in the sun, at the beach, on the porch and watch the sky water clouds letting random thoughts pass through. Wildly improbably options.

Just this morning I was thinking about how much I love music. It is my mother's greatest frustration that I don't have a piano because despite years since the last time I touched a piano, I can sit down and play simple pieces well. I love the piano. And listening to music of any sort. I would truly enjoy being a programmer or producer or musicologist for Muzak or some other company that programs the sound track of your life. I'm one of those people who actually listens to the music in the grocery store Urban Outfitters Buddha Bar and tries to identify the songs I have in my collection. Is it too late for me to go back to school for music? I hear Columbia has a great program.

Missive #17: A Vacation of the Mind

This is my Mexico. It's a legend of the family myth type. In my version of the story I don't actually get to decamp to the desert southwest surfing coast flutterby land. In the true...accepted? version of the legend, the protagonist and his lovely wife leave the kids with gramma and jet to the mexican riveria for six weeks. Soul searching meaning of life insight seeking experiences follow until the path forward to follow the bliss is revealed.

My mexico is all in my mind. Forty days in the desert, sweet as it sounds, never gonna happen. But bliss searching meaning of life insight seeking might be kind of interesting.

Or I could just go to the beach (check), read a trashy novel (double check) and drink wine (no doubt) until the fog lifts and awareness descends.

Missive # What? Life in the Country

Creak. Groan. My daughter beat me at Scrabble today. We shopped for antique postcards and chocolate. Patrick Wolf, Edward Sharp, Florence's Machine and Debbie Reynolds entertained us. Life is my employer and I am a free agent.

Will get back on track with a new and improved message soon.

Missive #15 - Stumbling

I'm stumblingly @ http://www.stumbleupon.com/productdemo.php

and am feeling like I've arrived at the gateway to online nirvana. Am I late to the game? Maybe. But so what. I'm a fan of Pandora almost since its inception and like Last FM too and the main reason I like these music sites is because it always me to expand my more esoteric music tastes with no effort whatsoever. These sites make recommendations based on my preferences and refine those suggestions based on my thumbs up/thumbs down ratings. Looks like stumbleupon does the same thing.

Now if only I could figure out how to work it for work!

Entry #14: Blogging is hard

Whine whine whine. I don't have anything to say and anyway no one's watching to who cares?

Entry #13: Shift. Coltrane on my mind.

Shift. Nudge. Outlier. Outsider. Conundrum. Paradox. Paradigm. These are some of my favorite words.

They say we live in a world in flux. Whitewater change. The only steady state is constant change. There's so much noise and chatter and information unleashed. So much is knowable. Data is king. Information is knowledge.

I heard a magazine editor declare the other day that it is not about accuracy but speed. Information fast so what if it's wrong, unreliable, incorrect. Speed to eyes is all that matters.
This info drenched world is perfect for me. I thrive on information. The more input the better. Google is god.

But I also crave quiet reflection to chew on digest assess what I've read heard seen and draw my own distinctions conclusions connections.

They say the ability to be adaptable flexible go with the flow is the key to success in these times. Maybe but I think zagging when everyone else zigs is a better approach.

Those who know me will recognize this as my willful stubbornness unwilling to acknowledge authority deliberately obdurate just because it's oppositional. Yeah, so?

While everyone is running headlong after the pack with blinders on crying about the falling sky, I think I will step back and riff on the paradox; use the time wisely waiting out the craziness plotting my next dream.

It is a conundrum that there's so much info but nobody knows anything. Powerful smart leaders of all stripes and colors nudge us this way and that while watching or not the outside outliers to sketch in the boundaries. They manipulate our paradigms to madden our perceptions while relying on our inability to shift.

Shift people. If it is one thing, it must be the other. When it is nothing, it is all things considered. Watch for the they for they are the we. Nothing is new everday a new sun.

Entry #13: The interconnectedness of everything

Everything is connected to everything else, right? We are all part of the same organism or system if you prefer. Religion teaches this. Science confirms it. Even a child understands this. It's a simple concept.

But sometimes as we grow more (misunder)educated, sophistijaded and become “experts,” we lose sight of this concept by becoming specialized and too narrow in our thinking. We also learn to deny our senses and believe (mistakenly) that facts and figures connote the only truth, when any good statistician has probably read lies, damn lies and stats.

Let's play this out to one really worrisome possible outcome. Are we eventually all going to become datapoints with identifying signatures that define who we are and help those who should find us find us in the internether? What happens when the beauty of interconnectedness is turned on its head and we are turned into bits and bytes? When we are all just one degree separated? Is it possible to be too connected?

Interconnectedness is a beautiful idea; everything is ultimately connected to everything else implies a certain amount of responsibility to one another and stewardship of the planet. Doug Adams riffed in this idea in a few of his books when Dirk Gently’s (Holistic Detective Agency) expensed his trip to the Bahamas as part of the search for the woman’s lost cat which disappeared in London, justifying it by invoking the "interconnectedness of everything." (If you haven’t read any Doug Adams, you should).

Then there’s the butterfly effect, a related popular concept - "when a butterfly flaps its wings..." The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. While the butterfly does not cause the tornado, the flap of its wings is an essential part of the initial conditions resulting in a tornado. (Wikipedia). Wings flap in China, Hurricane in New Orleans, you know? It’s all connected.

From Buddhism we also know this to be true. There's karma - the law of moral causation which says basically that nothing happens to a person that he or she does not for some reason or other deserve based on present doings or past (life) actions (for Christians and farmers it’s "you reap what you sow"). Usually, you cannot see the actual and direct reason or reasons, but it's all connected.

But like you can’t know life without death, light without darkness, good without evil, is it also true that you can’t have interconnectedness without being found?

Entry #12: Look@Me! I'm Jack Keourac

Facebook quizzes have to be the coolest apps on the site. They're even better than those 17 and Cosmo quizzes we used to have so much fun with in high school. According to the few quizzes I've taken:

• my 80s movie is the Goonies (admittedly a favorite),
• I'm the "lively center of attention" according to Dr. Phil (had to take that one twice cuz I so did not like his original indictment - vain, self-centered leader - as if; and am I the only one who sees his categories as condescending?)
• New York is my city (okay anyone who knows me knows that's true but I was kind of hoping for Paris)
• My goddess is Morgan LeFaye Celtic triple threat - sweet! Although my goddess knowledge is nil so is that good? what are the other choices? hmm. may have to take that one again
• The flower that represents me is the sunflower (fab)
• and, as referenced in the title to today's missive, my writer type muse idol is Jack Kerouac, renowned and infamous beat poet writer painter Buddhist lover of jazz. That one I own with pleasure - would love to have that on my epitaph, along with best mom & wife ever.

So what does all this mean? Not much of anything except they're fun and I wanted to share.

Entry #11: Not Really About Anything

I am apparently, according to my daughter, too old to blog. That cracks me up because in my mind I am of course barely formed. But worse, it shows (on her part) a decided lack of appreciation for the contributions Xers like me have made to the (d)evolution of communication in the 21st century.

Seems to me I read or heard somewhere that me fellow Xers (it depends on whose definition you believe, I choose those born between 1961 and 1981 to include Pres. O'Dreamy and exclude my husband just because I find it amusing to call him a boomer); anyway. Seems to me we Xers and our use of new tech / social media / networking were big time helpful in getting him elected. Didn't we create it even if most of the users are our children?

Also seems to me that Xers are big time dominant in the blogosphere.

Those of you skeptics who say it just seems that way to me because I probably know more people my age than any other group may in fact be correct. However I must note that this is the first time in my conscious life that I feel safe in claiming responsibility for anything.

Xers have the misfortune of being stuck between two really big generations - Boomers, responsible for screwing everything up, and Millennials like my kids who are well on their way to doing damage themselves. (Okay so the real intergenerational warfare is going to be between Boomers and Millennials; I know this, we Xers are just a speck on the windshield of god's great machine).

We Xers on the other hand, by virtue of our tiny tiny size have had minimal impact on the world. That is proven by our name (Xers? wtf?) and by our common reputation - as being disengaged, inactive, lazy, blah blah blah. When were were defined by Boomers, that is.

But, now that we have wrested power from those who came before, it's time for things to change.

More on that later. Right now I have to yamtwitinmailonFB.

Entry #10: It's Not the Economy Stupid

You do not need a degree in economics to know the same rules apply to finances as to calories: spend less than you earn, eat less than you burn. Duh. Not hard to comprehend. Yes hard to do -especially the calories part - but not hard to understand. This is what's missing from the current conversation and what's been missing from the consumer culture ethos. People, please, take responsibility for actions and choices.

Take calories. I need to lose weight. I know I need to lose weight. I know I need to eat more healthfully and exercise more. I choose - consciously - to let myself eat badly, work to exhaustion and not move enough. I know first hand the likely consequences (is it first hand when family members have the usual weight related diseases of heart and sugar?) and I have witnessed what it takes to overcome them - time, the third rail of a good life along with money (security, not billions) & food (wine, olives, cheese, chocolate), and commitment to use that time wisely by, for example, exercising and being conscious to hyper-vigilante about food choices.

I am probably harming myself. And if I don't take care of myself, I may cost the economy in terms of healthcare spend in the future. I will deal with it. Eventually. As soon as the morning temps are consistently over 40, I can resume my morning skate.

Now reader, you may think I've written myself into a rabbit hole. I am in effect not taking responsibility for my health actions just like I am charging myriad others did not take responsibility for their financial actions. Glass houses, stones. Have I contradicted myself? Just wait.

People who spent more than they earned and let the naked emperor get away with deceiving them are no different than me eating more than I should and blaming the food industry and advertising for making it hard to be healthy. Oh wait - I didn't do that, did I?

It would be very easy for me to say it's too hard for me to eat / exercise appropriately because advertising promotes an eat eat eat culture and our food industrial complex is as out of control as our financial system. Except it's really hard to deceive myself.

I'm blind about many things but I know the difference between a bag of chips and an apple. I know that going home and sitting is not the same as going home and doing sit-ups. I know that I have less energy than I would were I to exercise regularly.

Let's not deceive ourselves or the American people any longer. Let's call a spade a spade, make decisions that don't simply enrich the individual but also sustain the community.

I am of the opinion that greedy power mad crazies were for the past 20 years on a quest to further consolidate wealth and power. They used every trick in the book to distract us from that sad slimy truth. And we let them.

We are just beginning to understand level of effort exerted to create a (highly un-American) culture of extreme consumption to distract us from reality (Oh I smell a(n) (un)reality TV rant coming on). One of those realities was that we were spending way more than we earned - individually and nationally.

Let's stop letting them get away with it. The good news is, with the rate of delevering going on, there's hope for Americans. Too bad it takes a crisis to do what we should've been doing all along. And hopefully we'll have a post-depression period of responsibility longer than the 50 years preceding the creation of the easy credit era.

And maybe we’ll all lose some weight too.

Entry #9: Oh Dear, Socialite Wears 10 Year Old Dress

People, please. Or perhaps I should say, newspaper people, puhleese. The days of conspicuous consumption are over! A new more altruistic time is upon us! Rather than compulsive shopping, it’s the era of responsible spending! Oh for god's sake, did everyone lose their minds?

Today’s missive is shaping up to be a rant. And it is directed at the New York Times. My hometown paper that I love. But yesterday, above the fold, on the front page, this headline: "Extravagance Has Its Limits As Belt-Tightening Trickles Up".

Really? I'm supposed to have sympathy for socialites and other well employed people who have to spend less than they earn? Was I also meant to have envied them their extravagant lives prior to the tsunami? Give me a freaking break. Where is the voice of the real people who were responsible pre-tsunami and are still responsible -and still spending, therefore keeping the economy going as it were - post-tsunami.

Today's NYT has an interesting juxtaposition of above the fold headlines: "As Jobs Vanish, Motel Rooms Become Home" with a heart-wrenching photo of nice middle class kids sharing a bed in room jammed with stuff, placed next to the headline: "Madoff Will Plead Guilty; Faces Life for Vast Swindle".

Surely I am not the only one to see the problem here, am I? Am sure Times did not mean to be ironic. That's the exact problem. They are serious.

Here's the shadow storyline that drove the shadow economy: let swindlers get away with bilking investors - separating fools from their money - for as long as possible, than bemoan the fact that individuals pay by giving up lives they couldn't afford in the first place. Don't mean to be cold but, if it's too good to be true than it's TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE and 1+1 does not = 3 (the arithmetic many seem to have embraced over the last 20 years) instead of the depression era generation's 1+1 = I can't afford to buy that right now I will have to save for it and, dear heaven help me, wait (delay gratification).

That's what I think is missing from the current mainstream story line - a lot of people knew the emperor was naked, the financial system was headed for a breakdown and that they were over leveraged. A lot of people gambled and lost. It would be far better for America if we were to simply acknowledge this fact, learn from it and move on rather than bemoan the destruction (we brought on ourselves) and proclaim the death of a lifestyle that is well known not to deliver fulfillment.

And hopefully we won't forget that living well does not require stuff and does require responsibility for self and others - which includes holding self and others accountable through political and civic action - and a meaningful free press.

Entry #8: Retirement

The current issue of The Actuary (Society of Actuaries publication - yes I occasionally read it and yes I know that makes me a geek but it is technically work related since it helps to understand the business you are marketing even if it's a field no outsider ever truly has a hope of comprehending); anyway. The current issue of The Actuary has an article on redefining retirement.

There are a lot of trends and factors that are changing the way employers and employees think about and get ready for retirement - we've all read or heard about most of them: aging workforce, multigen workforce, economic tsunami, death of DB, low to nearly nil savings rates, trillions lost in DC plans, longevity, and so on. The traditional orderly flow of older workers out to allow younger workers in has been radically disrupted.

As I said in my last entry, I've always known I was going to work longer and harder than the mainstream myth. But I'm not sure anyone really could have foreseen what we're facing now. We've got the intersection of "can't afford to retire" with "don't want to retire" and it is creating a blockage in the workforce that may truly limit not only my career growth options but worse, may impede my children's entry into the workforce.

If older workers don't leave or only leave on their terms - that is keeping the fun work for themselves and leaving the boring stuff for the rest of us - that may have the down the line impact of delaying my kids' departure from my home (the ultimate goal of parenting: get them out of the house. didn't you learn anything from Bill Cosby?).

Some of the other important things we need to talk about for redefining retirement are communicating how much it costs to retire (think 20 to 25 times your current household budget); saving for healthcare or, in the US moving toward national healthcare as an economic necessity (if we haven't saved enough to live on, we certainly haven't saved enough to pay for healthy longevity); and starting a national debate about who should be the conduit for retirement: the individual, the employer or the government; same goes for healthcare.

Also, we need a robust debate on the nature of work. The great management consulting theory of the 80s (delayering enabled by technology) is the corollary failure of the current economy. Think about it: eliminating several layers of management and workers without eliminating the work and without really replicating or replacing the control those managers and workers provided must have had a direct impact on both the risk taking behavior that seems to have surprised the world in today's crisis and the similarly bad behaviors that led to the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley. Why was everyone surprised leadership, executives and the board didn't know what was going on? How could they? We all have too much on our plates to really know.

It's no wonder therefore that older workers (the ones stuck holding the bag after the intensive restructuring and delayerings of the prior decades) want to keep the best work for themselves and leave all the crap to the rest of us - in some ways they've earned it, being the survivors they are. But what does that mean for the rest of us who are aware of the scope of the challenge we face fixing the American economy and way of working (think Grand Canyon) and the type and extent of the tools currently offered to cross the chasm (tissue paper wings anyone?). Personally, if I wasn't already midstream, I'd choose to stay on my side and learn to live with the limits rather than kill myself trying to get to the other side.

So, really, rethinking retirement should be a discussion on the subject of rethinking work and must include workers, employers and the government and must cover education, healthcare and money. And we must look at it in the context of lifestyle and longevity. Maybe a period of sustained economic woe will force the inward looking internal work we as Americans must do to reflect on and remedy our excesses. And maybe we'll find a cure for cancer, end global poverty and find world peace.

Entry #7: Socialism & E-Mail

Yesterday's NY Times printed an article in the Tech section on managing one's email that I must riff on this morning. I'm old enough to remember the advent of personal computers, fax machines and e-mail in the workplace. (Remember the debate about legally / contractually binding signatures on facsimiles? Ah, the olden days, 1987). I'm also old enough to remember mimeographs, punch-card computers in massive, air-conditioned computer rooms and actual inboxes on desks into which the daily mail arrived, sorted, stamped and anticipated twice daily - once in the morning, once in the afternoon - by professional administrative staff that know what to do with most of the incoming mail and how to direct their bosses to get their work done. This would be the same century as secretaries, filing systems and no concept of business casual.

Aside, this was also the time when the employee-employer contract was a straightforward deal, at least in the white collar space and union shops. Worker gives employer soul for 40 hours a week, leaving life, family and opinions at the door, in exchange for salary, healthcare and pension benefits. We call this the paternalistic model. The company (sociopath that it is - oh, wait, that's the corporation and a different topic, nevermind). Anyway, the company took care of you - HR, formerly known as Personnel, made sure you got paid, could pay for the odd hospital visit, and could afford to retire when it was time for you to go.

Fastforward to today and the contract has changed. We've been through HMOs and cost-shifting (also downsizing, the end of loyalty and the broken contract), and now we are facing a choice: fully free market individualism (give me the cash, my preference, to spend on health and retirement or Las Vegas as I see fit) or Nationalized Healthcare - Socialized Medicine.

As I said in my post yesterday, I would love to believe health care is a human right - and basic health care is - like access to clean water, safe food, medicines like antibiotics that save children and adults from the most common, pervasive illnesses like the flu, preventative care and vaccines, all (not so basic in most the world) human rights. But the way healthcare happens in the US of A? Not a right - not even a privilege - insurance bar association money fueled spending on ridiculous health services that most Americans are a) appalled at and b) not interested in has so warped what constitutes good healthcare that we can't distinguish among good and bad choices nor can we improve outcomes because we've created such disparates in health that you either have more than you need or none at all.

Wow. Didn't see that rant coming. Anyway, you know what I mean. System broke. How to fix? Free market individualism or socialism?

But wait - back to e-mail. So the essential premise of this article yesterday is that one should maintain a pristine (read: empty) inbox. That one must not let e-mail rule one's life. That e-mail is not work, work is work and e-mail must be managed appropriately.

God save me from preachy reporters who've obviously never held a professional full-time job. Or is it my perspective that is warped? Entirely possible. Many people in many jobs don't face an avalanche of daily e-mail. Doctors, teachers, store clerks, call-center employees, construction workers, farmers, artists and other entire employment categories don't rely on e-mail to get the job done. But for business people of all stripes - from finance to advertising, bureaucrats and certain other "white collar" fields, e-mail is the life blood of work. Me and my peeps - you know who you are - receive easily 100-150 email a day at work (and most of us maintain separate personal e-mail addresses for the social, family, friends, political, civil, spiritual stuff that makes life worthwhile). I'm not sure where journalists fall on the spectrum but I'd always assumed they like me are inundated. I mean since media & PR are part of my scope, I know we send press releases and other really important, meaningful, newsworthy tidbits to the journalists and editors in our world as part of our strategy to raise visibility and get the word out. Multiply that by everyone else who does and those journalists have to be in the same boat as those of us who have routinely out of control email inboxes.

Now, I checked in with some of my team members and colleagues, and also of course my husband who is the benchmark by which I measure most of my perspectives. There are one or two among them that do maintain a pristine inbox. But when I delved deeper I began to discern two very important factors: no one reported to them and they weren't married with children. (my biased presumption being they had fewer responsibilities and therefore more time to devote to managing their inboxes.) (note to self - step into the working mother vs stay-at-home mother vs the career woman, no children debate in a future blog.)

Everyone else faced out of control e-mail and didn't particularly think the empty e-mail was a reality. There is one other exception I know of - a really smart IT guy who is aggressive about his inbox and has a fairly complex system of reading, responding, filing and creating tasks. But he's a workaholic and I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any kids either.

The rest of us, we know what we're supposed to do and sometimes we do it. We tend to delete the emails we don't need, respond quickly to the ones that are easy to respond quickly and even file the ones we can file easily. But there are two other categories of e-mail that require more attention, consume more time, and pretty much blow us out of the water. One type of these e-mails are the work related ones - those that require more than two minutes of action, contain documents to review, project plans to approve, budgets to cut, guidance for performance management, links to other systems or resources for research, management and basic daily work activities like contracting, paying bills and managing people. You know, work? I haven't done a scientific study of this category but probably a good 40 - 50% of my inbox is this type of email.

Then there's the other type. This is the water cooler type. Not gossip per se but you know you're connected when you are on the right email chains. Ya'll know what I mean. A certain group of emails are a measure of how well connected you are to the political structure of the firm - that informal but all powerful network of minds and groups that truly influences the direction and focus of the firm. Not the outward, on paper structure but the linkages among groups that are the engine of every organization. I'm guessing I could eliminate at least 20% of my email if I got off some the email chains that weren't directly related to my work except that these are indirectly relevant and have a far greater impact on my work like and success than the actual work emails. So, I'm thinking getting out of the political net would be akin to professional suicide. And I'm not saying I'm that connected - just enough to know some of what's going on.

So in the good old days when the inbox was actually a box on your desktop -two boxes actually, one for incoming, one for outgoing mail, and what a sense of accomplishment one achieved by getting through one's inbox - in those days you both measured your worth by the volume of inbox items and measured the length of your day by the volume of incoming mail since the amount of mail directly tied to how long you'd be working or how much disruption from your real work you'd have to deal with. I may be rewriting and romanticizing the past and it's hard for me to judge the difference between early, entry-level, junior jobs and my current status, but I think there is an order of magnitude difference in difficulty keeping on top of the inbox that has more to do with technology and less to do with accumulating responsibility as I progress in my career.

Let me clarify what I mean. In the good old days, technology (and protocol) limited the number of items that could arrive in the inbox, be processed for the outbox and generally kept down the amount of (printed) communications. Remember writing a memo? Typing a letter? Strategically planning the cc list? Old fashioned office technology kept the inbox in check.

Fast forward to today. We know that technology, rather than ending the paper chase, exploded paper. It has also undermined the protocols and actual costs that served to limit communications. In isolating us from our teams - and enabling global workforces - technology has also exploded the water cooler (and annual meeting) networks that kept people "in the know". More than anything though, e-mail has dramatically increased the volume and type of communications. Many of them may be unnecessary but most of them are legitimate work-related communications. The problem is the boundaries of technology, the elimination of protocols and the associated "controls" that were erased in the "downsizing, rightsizing, flattening" of organizations in the 80s and 90s, and the explosion of not just a globalized but also the freed untethered from the office workforce have made it all but impossible to achieve the pristine inbox. When we finally learn new ways to work - and finally take back our lives from the choking, smothering, ever increasing inbox - when we finally shout from the roof tops - enough already, I'm not going to take it anymore - then maybe we'll gain control of the inbox. But until then, I say to the journalist who wrote the article that set me off on this riff, get real, get a real job and stop making those of us with less than pristine inboxes (right now mine has 1946 items and that's just Feb/Mar) out to be the disorganized, out of control bad guys. (Basics: An Empty In-Box, or With Just a Few E-Mail Messages? Read On By FARHAD MANJOO Suggestions for maintaining an empty in-box).

Concluding note: I was also going to write about socialism today and the trade off among security and creativity and freedom. The idea is with socialized medicine and pensions, will we also be required to continue to allow the erosion of our civil liberties or will we get the best of all worlds - nationalized health and freedom of speech? Think France. Similarly, does socialism actually stymie creativity? Again, think France. I touched on the topic yesterday and have some more thoughts but you've had enough, dear reader, haven't you? ttyl

Entry #6

I have a few things on my mind this morning. Social Media. Healthcare Reform. Retirement & Pensions. These are things that matter to me and since marketing is my field and my firm is in HR consulting, I get to have opinions about them and it's related to work. At this point I should say: do not construe anything said here as advice and anything I say is my opinion and not representative of the firm I work for. In fact, what I really hope will happen is that you will comment and share insight and provide feedback to help shape a collective perception (think wisdom of crowd sourcing).

Now, on the subject of social media: I get it; I like it; I use it. I'm on FB, I'm in LinkedIn, I tweet. But I'm charged with developing the social media marketing strategy for my firm and I don't get it for business. I can see maybe for internal communications, alumni relations and knowledge sharing, but for building business? Developing customer relationships? Even creating client/prospect community is a stretch for a B2B firm (although I'm open to possibilities here, what it will take, how it could work, what kind of resource and other investment). So that's the first thing: how can I make social media an effective part of my marketing strategy? At least that's a fun problem to have.

Healthcare: should be free for all, right? I'm not sure - consider the tradeoffs and costs. But I will say this for sure, healthcare is broken in the US of A. My friends and family who are physicians vacillate among hating their jobs because of what's happened to the practice of medicine to hating insurance companies because of what's happened to the practice of medicine to hating lawyers and not just because it's fun to hate lawyers. I have access to excellent healthcare and still I'm generally not in love with most of my care. Also, I see what my parents deal with as older, sicker people who have a lot of interaction with the healthcare system and it is not pretty or easy or reassuring.

Retirement: hah. I knew a long time ago that I wasn't part of the demographic who could expect to retire set for life at 55. I am part of the demographic that has been facing a social security system expected to go bankrupt right around the time I should be retiring. That reality has shaped most of my career and work expectations. Think about entering the workforce just when they say your pension system will be bankrupt when you are ready to retire. What impact would you think that would have? Naturally I figured I have to work until I died. But today's unprecedented cataclysm has me rethinking the concept of pensions and retirements. I would gladly trade off circumstances for security. What I mean is, teachers slog away for years at a rewarding but exhausting job for relatively low pay when you consider they're shaping our future. Part of their trade off is the board of ed pension - less now for future security. That is a compelling value proposition. If the state wants to give me that kind of security for less take home now, it's hard to argue; it takes off a boatload of pressure - if it's not the children monkey than it's the financial security monkey on my back; I could do with one less monkey. And for me it's not like less take home now will create a deprivation. I am one of the lucky ones. I'm not living the gossip girl life but we are the Huxtables. People like me can afford to give up something now and sorry but I'm not buying the argument that higher taxation stifles creativity. That's part of America's rugged individualism myth which is useful propaganda for creating a divided community. Opps. Went there. Ciao for now.

Entry #5

Still love the concept but now realize what a time suck blogging can be. Am not going to let this wither on the vine. But, am feeling social media isn't going to delivery on its premise. It can't.

Entry #4

This is what I've decided. Ruffsonlife will be a bit about work, a bit about me and much about life. To whit, my goal in life was and is the corner office. But you know how momma always said be careful what you wish for? I achieved that goal in my last job. Yep. Inside office (never saw the light of day) and heavily trafficked (by the doors to the elevator. Just goes to show you need to be more specific in your goals. Life is a crazy practical joker. So now I focus on more specific in my goals. Like doing something meaningful and having an impact. Can't wait to see what shows up next!