human nature

Any one heard of Human Nature?  …well, they are awesome!  :)  A friend of mine and I went to see them in concert this past Friday – A.MAZ.ING is all I can say!!!  They are a group of four guys from Australia singing Motown classics and apparently were featured in last week’s Dancing with the Stars.  At first that sounds odd but being the good Michigander I am and their amazing voices it was great!  I was definitely dancing in my seat and totally suggest if you are in Vegas or you see them touring near you to go… but try to get an aisle seat (so you have more room to dance!).

great article!

This came to my inbox this morning from a good friend of mine and I couldn’t agree more.  Granted… I love technology because don’t live anywhere close to many of those that are important to me but I also, more than anything, love spending time with them!  While we might only send and receive “sips” of data about our lives, in my world, that sort of acts as a place holder or book mark of the conversation until we are able to be in the same room together.  I wouldn’t want to build a relationship based in technology but I am thankful for it.  Love you!!!  :)

The Flight From Conversation

By SHERRY TURKLE

Sherry Turkle is a psychologist and professor at M.I.T. and the author, most recently, of “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.”

Published: April 21, 2012

WE live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.

At home, families sit together, texting and reading e-mail. At work executives text during board meetings. We text (and shop and go on Facebook) during classes and when we’re on dates. My students tell me about an important new skill: it involves maintaining eye contact with someone while you text someone else; it’s hard, but it can be done.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve studied technologies of mobile connection and talked to hundreds of people of all ages and circumstances about their plugged-in lives. I’ve learned that the little devices most of us carry around are so powerful that they change not only what we do, but also who we are.

We’ve become accustomed to a new way of being “alone together.” Technology-enabled, we are able to be with one another, and also elsewhere, connected to wherever we want to be. We want to customize our lives. We want to move in and out of where we are because the thing we value most is control over where we focus our attention. We have gotten used to the idea of being in a tribe of one, loyal to our own party.

Our colleagues want to go to that board meeting but pay attention only to what interests them. To some this seems like a good idea, but we can end up hiding from one another, even as we are constantly connected to one another.

A businessman laments that he no longer has colleagues at work. He doesn’t stop by to talk; he doesn’t call. He says that he doesn’t want to interrupt them. He says they’re “too busy on their e-mail.” But then he pauses and corrects himself. “I’m not telling the truth. I’m the one who doesn’t want to be interrupted. I think I should. But I’d rather just do things on my BlackBerry.”

A 16-year-old boy who relies on texting for almost everything says almost wistfully, “Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I’d like to learn how to have a conversation.”

In today’s workplace, young people who have grown up fearing conversation show up on the job wearing earphones. Walking through a college library or the campus of a high-tech start-up, one sees the same thing: we are together, but each of us is in our own bubble, furiously connected to keyboards and tiny touch screens. A senior partner at a Boston law firm describes a scene in his office. Young associates lay out their suite of technologies: laptops, iPods and multiple phones. And then they put their earphones on. “Big ones. Like pilots. They turn their desks into cockpits.” With the young lawyers in their cockpits, the office is quiet, a quiet that does not ask to be broken.

In the silence of connection, people are comforted by being in touch with a lot of people — carefully kept at bay. We can’t get enough of one another if we can use technology to keep one another at distances we can control: not too close, not too far, just right. I think of it as a Goldilocks effect.

Texting and e-mail and posting let us present the self we want to be. This means we can edit. And if we wish to, we can delete. Or retouch: the voice, the flesh, the face, the body. Not too much, not too little — just right.

Human relationships are rich; they’re messy and demanding. We have learned the habit of cleaning them up with technology. And the move from conversation to connection is part of this. But it’s a process in which we shortchange ourselves. Worse, it seems that over time we stop caring, we forget that there is a difference.

We are tempted to think that our little “sips” of online connection add up to a big gulp of real conversation. But they don’t. E-mail, Twitter, Facebook, all of these have their places — in politics, commerce, romance and friendship. But no matter how valuable, they do not substitute for conversation.

Connecting in sips may work for gathering discrete bits of information or for saying, “I am thinking about you.” Or even for saying, “I love you.” But connecting in sips doesn’t work as well when it comes to understanding and knowing one another. In conversation we tend to one another. (The word itself is kinetic; it’s derived from words that mean to move, together.) We can attend to tone and nuance. In conversation, we are called upon to see things from another’s point of view.

FACE-TO-FACE conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience. When we communicate on our digital devices, we learn different habits. As we ramp up the volume and velocity of online connections, we start to expect faster answers. To get these, we ask one another simpler questions; we dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters. It is as though we have all put ourselves on cable news. Shakespeare might have said, “We are consum’d with that which we were nourish’d by.”

And we use conversation with others to learn to converse with ourselves. So our flight from conversation can mean diminished chances to learn skills of self-reflection. These days, social media continually asks us what’s “on our mind,” but we have little motivation to say something truly self-reflective. Self-reflection in conversation requires trust. It’s hard to do anything with 3,000 Facebook friends except connect.

As we get used to being shortchanged on conversation and to getting by with less, we seem almost willing to dispense with people altogether. Serious people muse about the future of computer programs as psychiatrists. A high school sophomore confides to me that he wishes he could talk to an artificial intelligence program instead of his dad about dating; he says the A.I. would have so much more in its database. Indeed, many people tell me they hope that as Siri, the digital assistant on Apple’s iPhone, becomes more advanced, “she” will be more and more like a best friend — one who will listen when others won’t.

During the years I have spent researching people and their relationships with technology, I have often heard the sentiment “No one is listening to me.” I believe this feeling helps explain why it is so appealing to have a Facebook page or a Twitter feed — each provides so many automatic listeners. And it helps explain why — against all reason — so many of us are willing to talk to machines that seem to care about us. Researchers around the world are busy inventing sociable robots, designed to be companions to the elderly, to children, to all of us.

One of the most haunting experiences during my research came when I brought one of these robots, designed in the shape of a baby seal, to an elder-care facility, and an older woman began to talk to it about the loss of her child. The robot seemed to be looking into her eyes. It seemed to be following the conversation. The woman was comforted.

And so many people found this amazing. Like the sophomore who wants advice about dating from artificial intelligence and those who look forward to computer psychiatry, this enthusiasm speaks to how much we have confused conversation with connection and collectively seem to have embraced a new kind of delusion that accepts the simulation of compassion as sufficient unto the day. And why would we want to talk about love and loss with a machine that has no experience of the arc of human life? Have we so lost confidence that we will be there for one another?

WE expect more from technology and less from one another and seem increasingly drawn to technologies that provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of relationship. Always-on/always-on-you devices provide three powerful fantasies: that we will always be heard; that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be; and that we never have to be alone. Indeed our new devices have turned being alone into a problem that can be solved.

When people are alone, even for a few moments, they fidget and reach for a device. Here connection works like a symptom, not a cure, and our constant, reflexive impulse to connect shapes a new way of being.

Think of it as “I share, therefore I am.” We use technology to define ourselves by sharing our thoughts and feelings as we’re having them. We used to think, “I have a feeling; I want to make a call.” Now our impulse is, “I want to have a feeling; I need to send a text.”

So, in order to feel more, and to feel more like ourselves, we connect. But in our rush to connect, we flee from solitude, our ability to be separate and gather ourselves. Lacking the capacity for solitude, we turn to other people but don’t experience them as they are. It is as though we use them, need them as spare parts to support our increasingly fragile selves.

We think constant connection will make us feel less lonely. The opposite is true. If we are unable to be alone, we are far more likely to be lonely. If we don’t teach our children to be alone, they will know only how to be lonely.

I am a partisan for conversation. To make room for it, I see some first, deliberate steps. At home, we can create sacred spaces: the kitchen, the dining room. We can make our cars “device-free zones.” We can demonstrate the value of conversation to our children. And we can do the same thing at work. There we are so busy communicating that we often don’t have time to talk to one another about what really matters. Employees asked for casual Fridays; perhaps managers should introduce conversational Thursdays. Most of all, we need to remember — in between texts and e-mails and Facebook posts — to listen to one another, even to the boring bits, because it is often in unedited moments, moments in which we hesitate and stutter and go silent, that we reveal ourselves to one another.

I spend the summers at a cottage on Cape Cod, and for decades I walked the same dunes that Thoreau once walked. Not too long ago, people walked with their heads up, looking at the water, the sky, the sand and at one another, talking. Now they often walk with their heads down, typing. Even when they are with friends, partners, children, everyone is on their own devices.

So I say, look up, look at one another, and let’s start the conversation.

weekend update

This weekend was a combination of relaxing, slowness and events.  Mostly importantly I got to sleep in… so my friend went to brunch on Saturday without me (and don’t feel bad as she is a super morning person and another of her morning friends went with her).  Our events for the day centered around eating… we had lunch plans, shopping, and dinner plans. Both of the meals were so amazing!  I got ordered more beef and for dinner we did a full beef platter type thing – awesome.  My belly and blood are so full and richly red right now – um. 

We did make it out to a bar, Argentine style (very late) and then off to a club even later.  She bowed out somewhere around 3ish and I stayed out with a trustworthy and very nice friend of hers… I realized somewhere in my dancing that I wasn’t able to fully follow or know what my feet where doing that I was simply tired.  So we left… and boy would I have LOVED a Denny’s or IHOP right then, but nonetheless BA doesn’t have one so I hit my bed somewhere after 5ish.

To the more amazing surprise to everyone, I made it up before my friend went to brunch with her friends… so they left, I hopped in the shower, and joined them late.  Honestly, this might have been my favorite brunch spot, I ordered a cappuccino – it was so big and so awesome!  Not to mention the service was great and honestly, everything was just good… expect for the fact my brain was fully functioning and my friend and I couldn’t really communicate to each other and the more one of us tried to understand the more confused it got!  It was hilarious!!!

The rest of Sunday was equally as relaxed and lazy, we meet up with some friend for mate in the park… it started to rain so some folks came back to the house to chill.  I’ve decided that mate without sugar is not for me which is surprising as I’m such a plain drinker – normally I like my coffee dark and strong but this is different.  This is different, it has a way more earthly flavor and I just don’t like feeling like I’m eating trees so the sugar adds just enough to bring it back to a milder tea flavor for me.  Bottom line the mate in the park is a great tradition and everyone seemed to be out, very cool!

tango

Hello… I’m still in BA but I thought for my last day I’d catch you up. 

Friday I sort of spend the day centered around tango… I was up early to meet a co-workers cousin for brunch in  San Telmo however I got lost.  The cab driver either took advantage of my lack of language skills or just plain didn’t understand me and dropped me off in the completely wrong part of town.  Thankfully I was in a safe area just totally turned around and couldn’t find it on the map so I finally tried asking someone – hilarious but I got it.  I made it to our brunch location an hour later and am sure I missed her but it the day was still beautiful, so I ate and then honestly just wondered.  I wondered up and down the streets window shopping in the antique stores.  Honestly, if I had limited income and/or lived here I might have spent more time because the chandeliers here are gorgeous!  Then I wondered back to the Plaza Dorrego which is a little center that has restaurant tables, vendors, and a little bit of tango all in the same area.  I found a necklace I couldn’t live without and then sat down to wait for some tango…

It ended up being a short day for wandering around because my body was just done and tired – maybe old age setting in?!  hahaha!!!  So I came back to my friend’s house and chilled, it was great.  Once she got home we opened the bottle of wine, had a smorgasbord of food, and got ready for the tango show – perfect.  The show it’s self I thought was awesome!  I’ve seen better individual dancers however the tango dance is just really cool to me, the passion, the variety, and, here, the costumes all very very cool.  Really glad we went… and really glad my friend sucked it up for me as she is not a fan of watching it at all  …now that’s an awesome friend. 

Go Green!

Yes, I’m in the southern hemisphere and still managed to watch MSU play last night… wait, did they actual play because whatever happened last night I’m not really sure what that was?! 

As much as my friend doesn’t watch or follow or even know that sports exist… she apparently has friends that enjoy watching March Madness.  So we went to their house, where the games were projected on wall, we opened a good bottle of wine, and enjoyed homemade thai food – delicious!   (I tried getting to go bags, but no one would listen to me?!  haha)!

Somewhere along the day toured Cemeterio de la Recoleta and saw Evita’s resting place.  My friend is so right, walking into this cemetery is like walking into a Tim Burton movie but only in real life – very cool!  I also should mention our tour guide was amazing!  She spoke very good English and was super knowledgeable about the sites… and she even through out some perfectly timed jokes.  Great stuff.  Next I wondered up Avenida Alvear which is supposed to be like the Paris Champs-Élysées but it’s on a super small-scale here, though the Ralph Lauren (one of my favorite stores) was too intimating even for me to walk into!  The entrance to this store reminds me of the Playboy Bunny club entryways… like I needed a key or special invitation?!  Crazy!  Anyway, I strolled up to the Teatro Colon, got my tour this time and it was amazing!  They were doing a final rehearsal before the performance that night so we paused for a moment and listen… honestly, highlight of the trip so far – it was so great!  This is supposed to be the #1 rated for opera acoustics and #3 rated for orchestras in the world.  The musicians don’t need any kind of mics, the sounds just travels that perfectly.  After, I headed to the water and by then I was hungry so sat down and had a very delicious steak… finally after my belly was full I found my way home.  All in all, another good day. 

walking… shopping… talking…

Yesterday, as you can guess I did some walking, shopping, and surprisingly talking!  As I was venturing out for the day I ran into a lady that I was in line waiting with the day before… she was from Mexico, but spoke great English.  We chatted to fill the time…  today, to my super random surprise, she was in line again!  What are the chances of that happening in such a big city?!!    So we ventured out together for the first half of the day…

The tourist part started in the heart of the city, Plaza de Mayo – kind of like the park behind the White House… but dirtier.  I found it odd that monuments were painted or chipping and grass was very bare in spots.  Took pictures of the Casa Rosada – their White House.  It really is pink, but not as pink pink as I was imagining in my mind… more like a brownish pink but very cool because it’s so close to the sidewalk and with ID one is able to go on a tour that day.  Then we walked along Avenida de Mayo to have brunch at Cafe Tortoni – oldest cafe still brewing in the city.  The inside was beautiful!  Lots of wood and marble, very heavy but beautiful feeling.  Next we walked back to Calle Florida (a pedestrian road much like downtown Kalamazoo) all for shopping.  While I didn’t really do any shopping, we did stop in a few leather stores (I almost got super sucked into getting a me designed hand-made leather coat!) and the big galerias – shopping malls, but more beautiful than ours.  Finally, the street ended passing the empty Harrods – yes, same one from London but now gone – and opened into the Plaza San Martin, which is also the beginning of the ‘museum mile’.  This plaza has one of the oldest rubber trees in the city, very cool!  It kind of reminds me of the big old trees from Charleston that need help standing up but more stringy looking in the trunk.

Next I ventured up Avenida 9 de Julio, this is that super huge road you see in postcards or pictures, toward the Teatro Colon (opera house).  However the guy selling tour tickets decided that today wasn’t the best day and if I had time to come back on Friday that would be better… I appreciate his honest, so I’ll be back on Friday.  By now a snack break was needed in the Plaza Lavalle and i decided that there was at least one purse I really, really liked!  So I walked all the way back to the store, Prune on Calle Florida to purchase. 

After this home was calling my name… and while I know how to hail a cab I don’t know how to speak to a cab driver, so thankfully I’ve gotten each destination written down and just simply point to the paper and show the cab driver!  hhahahaa!  Next up is a change of clothes to meet up with some friends for a good old American style happy hour and Argentine style wine tasting.  Both very fun but the latter being on the long-winded side!  Granted, I had no idea what the guy was talking about… but he just kept talking and talking – hello, wine in front of me?!!!

i have arrived!

Well, its official, I”m here in BA!  So far it feels like a long but fast blurry journey to get here.  I spent 7 hours in ATL – pampered my toes, my nails, and my entire body… and even took a break from all the pampering to watch MSU!  Go green!  It’s never the most ideal to spend 7 hours in layover time but I have to say, it also wasn’t the worst.  The 10 hour red-eye flight its self wasn’t that bad either… though I think the anticipation of doing it again is not going to be fun.  In my head I broke it up in pieces – movie #1, movie #2, sleep, arrive.  The first two and the last piece of the trip went off without a hitch; it was the middle that left me a lot to be desired.  Bummer that I didn’t sleep a whole lot but I did enough to not make me totally out of it.

So we speed into the country at about 30,000 plus thousand feet (my ears were fine!!!!) at about 550 miles per hour – amazing.  Honestly, the hardest part of the whole trip is that my entry forms (customs and immigration) need better instructions.  Maybe even instructions for dummies!  The print was so small, it was in three languages, and some of the questions didn’t even make sense.  Now I’m guessing most people out there are thinking, well ask the flight attendants… we did and no help.  Million dollar idea #1 – travel form instructions for dummies, pocket-size addition.  It was hilarious!  I was trying to read the form out loud for the little old ladies next to me then the three of us would attempt to discuss what information it was actually asking for… oh to be in the row behind us most have been amusing.

Anyway, the plane landed and despite my lack of knowledge with the language or forms customs and immigration were easy.  Oh I also found out my immigration fee is good for up to ten years (so, yes, we definitely have to come back and spend some time just in wine country).  My friend here gave me very detailed and awesome instructions on how to find a cab and we made it through the city with my arm still in tact.  I say that because the weather is so beautiful I really wanted to stick my arm out the window while driving but honestly, it would have been lost!  They drive so close here – imagine DC but with smaller cars and no thoughts about staying in lines or maintaining the laws of traffic.  I could have reached out and touched the car next to us multiple times!  OH – they all have manuals down here! 

Surprisingly my friend was home when I got here… she wasn’t feeling well therefore it was a perfect match.  I was tired and she wasn’t 100% so we took the day really easy.  Chilled out, went out for a very delicious brunch, strolled back, drank wine, ate in… oh we got a hail storm last night!  I was in bed around 9 pm because I was so tired.  All in all… good way to start a relaxing vacation.

week 3: lessons learned

I have to admit I don’t have to many to really no lessons learned this week because I’ve just been busy… so that’s probably the biggest lesson or struggle is how to balance life (hanging out with friends, getting stuff done around the house, etc) with working out.  I feel like right now I can only focus on one or the other, then I get frustrated because I’m behind in whatever I didn’t focus on.  If anyone out there has some solution or comments – please I’m completely open to seeing/hearing differently.

Though I will report that I’m only past day four of no candy month (four because I started late and then messed up and had candy that first day) but it is going ok.  I’m still in the phase of missing it and the crunch/workout it gives my jaw is great – but I’m hoping the apples and other harder type food will offset.  Normally when I do stuff like this it’s day 10 that is the ‘ah-ha’ marker and by the end I just feel so much better I’m happy to not go back.  Giddy up to day 5!

Oh and I’ve decided my next month will be to add in a salad every day – now that will be a challenge because I just tend to not like them and don’t even think about ordering them when I go out… but nonetheless I feel much much much better when I eat more of them.

Other really random but exciting things – I’ve officially booked my ticket to Argentina!  I’ve also booked my ticket back home for a friends bridal/bachelorette parties!  And I will be seeing some of the Alaska family in April!  …see it’s been a busy/exciting week.  So far I’m really thankful 2012 is going so well, hopefully your is too.  :)

Week 1: Lessons Learned

While I announced to the world that I was moving again, I wanted to keep myself accountable via sharing what I’ve been learning along the way.  I figure this way you’ll know if I’m actually walking or not!  So week one lessons learned are classic Chaz mistakes… I was not dressed appropriately!    What we realized is that it’s awfully cold outside, wind whips around and I need to have waaaaaaay more layers on!  Next lesson I learned that in light rain I would like to wear some sort of hat or visor.  While on the warmish days the rain feels good, by the end of the walk I’m just plain annoyed from wiping running water out of my eyes – so hat it is!  Final lesson of the week is that I need more cold weather workout clothes.  Once I finally figured out how many layers I need to wear I soon realized that I kept wearing them over and over and over and over again.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need to have super fancy new flashy clothes, but I’d like enough that I don’t feel like I’m wearing the same clothes all the time - rotation is helpful for wear, tear, and laundry.  Also along the lines of new clothes (but not the rewear - only once) is I need new workout undies, specifically none cotton undies.  So if anyone has any suggestions please feel free to let me know!

So, with that… last week was fairly successful in the walking and I’m glad to state that we both are just plain feeling better.  We even are looking forward to the walk. 

avon walk

Hey there!  So anyone heard of the Avon Breast Cancer walk?  If you have – awesome; if you haven’t – I’m with you.  Either way, a friend of mine convinced me last year that I should join her in the walk… I hemmed and hawed but eventually agreed and signed up.  Well, that was a year ago… 2012 felt so far away!  Needless to say, it is now 2012 and the walk in DC is coming right up (ok, in May so maybe not tomorrow but soon).  We all know how wonderfully my knees like to work so this short little 26.2 miles of walking is not something I will be able to just do… Enter in THE SCHEDULE!

note:  I tried to enter it here for you all to witness but please just pretend you see it…

I have to explain this schedule… now since my knee needs some time working up to this I thought I’d need a plan.  Well, I can get a little overwhelmed when doing the research and in the process of being overwhelmed a friend of mine (different from above said friend) was also talking about how she wanted to start walking/working out again – click! Light bulb goes off!  Not only is she an amazing research/planner extraordinaire, she needs to me to keep her motivated, and she keeps me on schedule to keep me motivated.  This is the worlds biggest win win – amazing we are not in the news!  ;)

Bottom line is that we are loving it, I’m getting Back to the Basics this year, starting to move more and it feels good.  :)  If you want to join us, let me know as we can even do long distance motivation/communication to keep everyone moving.  Oh and in case you were wondering, yes, I’m back in ballet classes!