Middle Season #24

 

golden rod, virginia creeper (or poison ivy!), white snakeroot, touch-me-not (or jewelweed).... all in Bemis

Joe pie weed drying on the head and thistles tall vessels turning to seed with long filaments and down and cotton.

Six-Word Prompts

 A bunch of idea from Rob Walker's Newsletter:

“Using only food: Where did you grow up?”

Describe your town in six words.

The provocation to invent a Six-Word prompt just takes all of that to another level. Certainly I immediately started dreaming up six-centric assignments.

• Describe your home in six sounds.

• Recall your childhood in six objects.

• Recap your romantic history in six dates.

• Recount your life in six cars.

• Sketch your neighborhood in six flowers, or six architectural details, or six birds. (Six-Bird Memoir!!)

It’s a fun personal challenge — and a thoughtful one. Here’s one last variation: Summarize what you pay attention to in six words.

Silence and still have a huge role to play

 

JKZ's Espisode 35 contains some interesting, thought-causing pieces:

"Recognize that whatever you've come here for has already begun.... by virtue of your tuning in and your original impulse to come online."

"Giving yourself over to silent wakefulness."

"Silence and stillness have a huge role to play."

Too Many Needles

 This Oliver Burkeman post ("treat your to-read bucket into a river") is notable for a couple reasons.  First, it's a "they say/I say" posting.  It's "Clary Shirky says this; Nicholas Carr says this, and he's right." (Also worth noting, his "they say" is a bit of a cheap move; it's completely ripped off from Carr... it's CARR who cites Shirky, it's not Burkeman who puts the two in conversation.) Second, Burkeman has a writing tell.... "the wider point here".... which is a great way to make the small, focused point bigger, which is about we have "information overload" in all ways of life... it's our condition.  (in a recent posting, I quote him saying "I think the general point here is...") Third, with almost everything I read of him, the answer is the same: don't beat yourself up! it's impossible to keep up with the pace of modern life!  Accept that and think about the implications of that.  It's his lens - absurdist, shoulder-shrugging, but true in many ways -- that he applies to a variety of areas of modern life.   

His good point is that all the self-help, modern living advice appears on the horizon of "it can all get done,"  But, my complaint is that you still need to answer emails, for instance, in my world.  And the "big rocks" idea is a good one generally for some stuff at least (paying bills...)

The real trouble, according to the leading techno-optimist Clay Shirky, wasn't information overload, but "filter failure". We needed – and we'd eventually get – more sophisticated ways to filter the wheat from the online chaff. And then we'd no longer feel overwhelmed. 

 

Yeah… no. I assume you'd agree that the problem of your to-read pile is very much not one of filter failure. It's not that you're deluged with things you don't care about, and need help figuring out what's truly of interest. It's that you're overwhelmed by things you do want to read. All the books on your bedside table, all those bookmarks in your browser, or articles saved to Instapaper – all of them seem like they might be right up your street, or crucial to your professional success, or might contain some nugget of wisdom you'd benefit from absorbing. The problem, as the critic Nicholas Carr explained, isn't filter failure. It's filter success. In a world of effectively infinite information, the better you get at sifting the wheat from the chaff, the more you end up crushed beneath a never-ending avalanche of wheat.

 

And so, for example, the reading recommendations I encounter via Twitter are much more tailored to my concerns than those I might encounter via a newspaper, because I choose who I follow on Twitter; it's like having a thousand assistants scouring the infoverse for whatever might pique my interest. My challenge, information-wise, isn't about finding a needle in a haystack. It's that I'm confronted on a daily basis, in Carr's words, by "haystack-sized piles of needles." 

 

The wider point here is that lots of the other ways in which we feel overwhelmed are problems of "too many needles" as well. They involve the attempt to divide our finite time and attention among too many things that all have a legitimate claim on them. Some of these are "good problems to have": for example, if you're blessed with work you love, or a creative passion you're good at, you may often feel torn between multiple projects you're excited to launch. Others are the familiar problems of Life Under Late Capitalism™, like the feeling that there's simply not enough time in the day to be a good parent while staying afloat financially. What they all have in common is that the things you're choosing between all genuinely matter, and would benefit from more time than you can give them.

(he concludes)

Coming at life this way definitely entails tough choices. But it's liberating, too, as you slowly begin to grasp that you never had any other option. There's no point beating yourself up for failing to clear a backlog (of unread books, undone tasks, unrealized dreams) that it was always inherently unfeasible to clear in the first place. I like to think of it as the productivity technique to beat all productivity techniques: finally internalizing the implications of the fact that what's genuinely impossible – the clue is in the name! – cannot actually be done.

Wanting to be saved.

Oliver Burkeman

I think the general point here, beyond the specific question of how to get writing done, is that we desperately want to be saved. We want to find some person, or some philosophy of life, that will spare us the fear or discomfort or self-doubt or tedium that so often seems to come along for the ride, whenever we try to make progress on things we care about. We hate feeling yoked to reality in such an unpleasant way; we long instead to soar above it, in a realm free from problems. And it's the mark of a bad self-help book, a dodgy spiritual guru or an incompetent therapist that they'll be only too happy to encourage the illusion that this might one day be possible

I don't think people generally seek out such quick fixes or back-door solutions out of laziness or entitlement. It's not because they think they shouldn't have to put in the same effort as everyone else. Rather, most of the time, it's the opposite: it's that they feel so inadequate and unqualified for the task ahead of them (of writing, of marriage, parenting – whatever) that they believe they absolutely need a miracle technique, some sort of edge over other people, some secret from a book, if they're to have half a chance of not screwing everything up. They don't realise that everyone else is just winging it, too – and that all they need to do is the straightforward thing that's been staring them in the face all along: to just write for a few hours a week; to sit down for a few minutes and meditate; to be the most loving spouse or parent they're capable of being on this particular day, and so on

Still, if the bad news is that there isn't One Genius Technique you haven't yet discovered and that someone else might yet be able to impart, the good news is that you don't need one. Your internal resources are entirely up to the task.

In his book If You Meet The Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! the therapist Sheldon Kopp explains metaphorically how he tried to encourage this sort of realisation in the people who came to see him:

It is as if I stand in the doorway of my office, waiting. The patient enters and makes a lunge at me, a desperate attempt to pull me into the fantasy of taking care of him. I step aside. The patient falls to the floor, disappointed and bewildered. 

That disappointment is the beginning of everything, though:

Now he has a chance to get up and to try something new. If I am sufficiently skillful at this psychotherapeutic judo, and if he is sufficiently courageous and persistent, he may learn to become curious about himself, to come to know me as I am, and to begin to work out his own problems

Refusing to pretend there’s another way

"Inspiration is for amateurs,” says painter Chuck Close. “The rest of us just show up and get to work…” 

Oliver Burkeman.  I love his phrase: "The great kindness of Silvia's book is that he refuses to pretend there's another way."  

ne of my favourite books on writing is How To Write A Lot, by Paul Silvia, despite the fact that it's not really aimed at people like me (it's for academic social science writers) and although it primarily focuses on a single piece of advice, which is that you need a schedule. It needn't be an onerous schedule; you don't have to write every day, or for many hours at a time, or anything like that. But, Silvia insists, you do need a schedule

Patiently, he bats away objection after objection: What if I'm too busy to write except on Tuesdays and Saturdays? Then schedule your writing for Tuesdays and Saturdays. What if I need to do more research before I can begin? Treat research as part of writing, and do it at the scheduled time. What if I really need a new desk/chair/computer? Fine – but start your schedule right away anyhow, and deal with those things in parallel. What if I'm the kind of person who hates schedules? That's OK! You. Are. Valid. But (and you can probably see where this is going) you still need a schedule.

As it happens, I'm not personally convinced that literally everyone needs a schedule in order to make progress in writing or similar work. But what I admire about Silvia is his amiable yet implacable stubbornness. He knows that for a huge proportion of people, "you need a schedule" is precisely the right advice, yet that they'll still invest a massive amount of energy coming up with reasons why they shouldn't make one. They want him to unveil some productivity technique that's newer and shinier, and preferably easier to implement – one that doesn't seem to condemn them to month after month of plodding, incremental forward motion. The great kindness of Silvia's book is that he refuses to pretend there is one.

You have a good eye for telling details

 

Illustrator Kikuo Johnson's "Double-Parked."

The Cover Story feature at the NYer (by Francoise Mouly) has this brilliant introduction and (below) the snapshot that he took while going to the beach that inspired this cover.  I like looking at the original inspiration and how he transformed it into a clearer "story."  There's also an excellent short video that' talks about HOW he creates the art and how he figures out how to "tell the story" he wants to tell.  He names the graffiti on the post.  

Here's the efficient and witty intro:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that car ownership in the city is a pain in the ass. Its attendant joys: traffic, expense, and, above all, finding parking—an endeavor that requires both Machiavellian strategy and Job-like patience. I recently spoke to R. Kikuo Johnson about his inspiration for this week’s cover, and why wiser New Yorkers know that the best way to experience the pleasures of summer in the city is on a bike.

You have a good eye for telling details. Do you have a method for collecting them?

The seed for this cover came at the end of a long bike ride to Fort Tilden beach. I love biking in the city because you can go wherever you want. You don’t have to wait for the subway or be stuck in traffic. When my partner and I locked our bikes to a no-parking sign, it just seemed like a perfect New York moment. I snapped a photo and made a note on my phone.

HTML 10x10

Here, I'm learning about HTML coding.

I am watching this video.

Day 1: Chapter 1: I downloaded Visual Studio Code and set up a file structure on my laptop.  I created a file called "index.html".  This took me from the beginning of the course to 5:00 in.  Only 4 hours and 2 minutes left!

Day 2: first line of code is a element or tag... for html files, it's <html></html>.  There are 2 sections of each page.... <head> (containing meta data) and <body>.  I download Live Server extension.  I learn <h1> header and <p> paragraph.  I'm up to 13:00.

Day 3: Error finding validator.w3.org... you upload files and it checks and suggests fixes.  There are things like <charset> and <lang> that I include.  I'm up to 20:00

Day 4: Chapter 2: Head Element (stuff NOT seen in the webpage). I'm trying to get it to go to main.css to read style elements... but it's not working.  Also trying to make an icon at the top.

Day 5: Chapter 3: Text elements: learn <h2> and <h3> as well as horizontal rule <hr>.  I learn line break <br>.  These are "block level" elements... there are "returns in the content.  There are also "in line elements". Like <em> and <strong>.  There are also html entity elements, like white space collapsers or ways to use symbols like <.... "&nbsp;" provides non-breaking space.  Here are some other html entities:  Here are some things I learned: abbreviation that expands the abbreviation <abbr title="definition"> and &lt & &gt and &copy.  I'm at 45:00 by the end. 

Day 6: Comment <!-- Add notes to yourself in the html --> and <address> Chapter 4: List Types: ordered, unordered, description lists; <ol>, <ul> and <dl> and <dd> (description term and indented detail)

Day 7: Chapter 5: Adding Links. <a href="https://blah blah"> Anchor </a>.   Absolute reference (out on the web) or relative reference (on the same server).   (this is like: <a href="aboutme.html"> Dave </a>.  I learn to type "lorem" to get a paragraph of fake text.  (it expands when you write lorem).  Third type of link is an "internal reference" -- references a portion of the same page.  Here, you need to add sections, like <section id="books">. and then reference it with <a href="#books> Books </a> (ends at 1:15 minutes)

Day 8: More add links. <a href="#"> takes you to the top of the page. Added this in the 'about' page...Learn about download link.  mailto link. dial link. and absolute link that opens in a new tab.  Open <a href="https://www.google.com/" target=""_blank">Google</a> in a new tab.  <a href="/">Back to home</a> takes you back to the root site.  (ends at 1:30) what about <nav>?

Day 9: Chapter 6 Add Images.  <img src="img/local photo" alt="name of photo" width="300" height="300" >.  Also <figure> and <figurecaption>; also Loading="lazy" (or "eager").  you can also add a website for src="https//etc."  Also <code> to show code elements. (end at 1:55)

Day 10: Image sources: Unsplash, Pexels, Placeholder Image Generators, Fill Murray, Irfaview (resizes images), Canva, tinypng.com (make it smaller)..... Chapter 7 Semantic Tags: <header> and <main> <footer>; you can label <nav> <nav aria-label="primary-navigation">;  <section> and <article> (that are both OK);  <mark> = highlight text in-line; chrome extension has "html outliner" that shows what the article looks like in outline form.  Next chapter (2:24) will be "table elements.

Watercolors 10x10

 

My first day with my PRANG watercolors and single tiny brush.

Day 1: Watched this tutorial.  Learned about resources (below) and practiced on my own making "swatches".  The goal of this tutorial was to

Day 2: Watched the second half of the tutorial where she asked you to play around with brushes. (see like 15:00 in)

Day 3: Watched this tutorial.  Use #8 brush. How much water to use... Try to fill in 4 circles with more to less paint.  Use a pallet.  First circle is full color, little water; then add a bit of water to pallet... then more.. the fourth circle is just dipping your brush in water... and whatever paint is left.  When doing real paintings, you start with the lightest color.

Day 4: Wet in Wet blending technique lesson here.  Good paper=140lb 100% cotton paper.  Brush - 12, 8, 3/4 (new princess neptune)Mak.  Tape down the paper scraps with masking tape.  you can use a "watercolor block" too. Makes for small squares.  wets paper, then adds color to the top, cleans brush, then make a gradient.  She does four... one of them is "wrecked" because there are wet puddles which dry strangely -- with texture.

Gets another brush.  She keeps adding color to top and dragging down.  

Resources

♡ BEGINNER WATERCOLOR LESSONS ♡ The full playlist ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj1sm... What are the BEST watercolor supplies for beginners? ► https://youtu.be/EIrpXaB_pME Lesson 1: Getting to Know Your Supplies ► this tutorial Lesson 2: How Much Water to Use in Your Paints - Transparency ► https://youtu.be/bFVDtkt7-Sw Lesson 3: Wet in Wet Technique ► https://youtu.be/6fm4F-RZYvI Lesson 4: Wet on Dry Technique ► https://youtu.be/LuulhfjfLc4 Lesson 5: The Perfect Painting for Beginners ► https://youtu.be/me9xlNZVrOY 50+ FREE Watercolor Tutorials ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=984lC... ♡ WATERCOLOR CHALLENGES ♡ 10 Day Watercolor Woodland Animal Challenge ► https://allisonlyonart.live/watercolo... 10 Day Watercolor Bird Challenge ► https://allisonlyonart.live/watercolo... 10 Day Watercolor Butterfly Challenge ► https://allisonlyonart.live/watercolo... ♡ SUPPLIES USED ♡ Round Brush Size 0 ► https://amzn.to/3vO3EBb Princeton Neptune Brushes ► https://amzn.to/3lJsFsO Round Brush Size 8 ► https://amzn.to/3eZX3xE Watercolor Sketchbook ► https://amzn.to/3lDulUC Etchr Sketchbook ► https://amzn.to/3c7KDBT Woodlands Pan Set ► https://amzn.to/3c9ms5Z Classics Pan Set ► https://amzn.to/3tMlLpu Canson Paper Pad ► https://amzn.to/3KJJe3Y Winsor & Newton Paper Pad ► https://amzn.to/35pPYUt Arteza Watercolor PAD ► https://amzn.to/3tSJNCp ♡♡♡ FREEBIES! ♡♡♡ Free Beginner Watercolor Class ► https://allisonlyonart.live/freewater... Free Procreate Watercolor Brushes ► https://allisonlyonart.live/freeprocr... Free How to Make Prints Guide ► https://allisonlyonart.live/howtomake... Free Artist Tips ► https://allisonlyonart.live/artisttips Free Art Print ► https://allisonlyonart.live/freeprint ♡ SHOPS & WEBSITES ♡ Art Shop ► https://www.allisonlyonart.com/ Etsy ► https://www.etsy.com/shop/AllisonArtP... Online Classes for Artists ► https://allisonlyonart.live/onlinecla... Artist Resources ► https://allisonlyonart.live/artist-re...

So, what's the story about?

 

 Jennie and I watched a documentary on Netflix (Trainwreck: Woodstock 99) over the weekend about Woodstock 99.  It was a familiar type of documentary where good intentions and ideas are corrupted and things go Really Bad: looting, arson, gang banging, trench mouth, drunkenness, rape, massive property.  The movie makers found a wide range of people: concert goers, journalists who reported the event, a large number of people from the promotional team, security.

Throughout the documentary, you get visual and reported evidence that trash was building up massively, bathrooms were massively unsanitary, mosh pits were extremely violent, etc.  Some promoters, predictably, downplayed the squalor.   (You see them do the same spinning/ story control, minimizing and reframing during press conferences recorded at the time: a few bad apples, weather was cooperating, I hadn't heard about...). 

Eventually, the concert ends with a riot.  It looked like a war zone.  Particants agreed that it was out-of-control and terrifying.  The national guard is called in to return order.  The day-after photos look like a refugee camp that had been bombed.

Throughout the film you see many people denying blame.  Limp Bizkit  frontman flatly telling a reporter, unasked, "It wasn't our fault" that the crowd got violent.  The promoters admiting that bad things happened, but what could they have done? If it happened again, they couldn't do it differently.  Rioters saying "I was swept up in the crowd of looters.  Who wouldn't?"

What really struck me was the historical reframing of the participants.  The last 10 minutes of the documentary feature various participants answering the question of "what happened?" (in the sense of why did things break down?). (It wasn't exactly: how should we apportion blame; more like: "so, what's the story about?"). (What's the story about is kind of like: why is this story important? what important lessons are there? how should we frame the disaster?)

Different people said:

• I guess the kids were not interested in the "social movement aspect "of the event, they were just there for the music (Michael Lang, one of the promoters, who had tried to veneer the event with an "anti-gun" theme and ordered candles passed out to everyone at the end of the event, which directly caused bonfires, explosions, destruction...)
• It was (white) frat boy entitlement that made it culturally ok for sexism and sexual assault and property damage (but that was the 90s and now things are different!). (There was reference to sexism, racism, classism by a MTV "journalist".... but it was a pretty white and middle-class event.)
• The promoters were greedy; their cost-savings efforts (particularly selling food vending rights and sanitation and security) led to unsanitary conditions. which led to kids becoming frustrated with how they were treated
• The promoters were dumb, out of touch: they booked acts that incited violence - Korn, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock
• When a riot starts, everyone (even good people) acts out of control
• It was "a mistake. Kids did not intend for this to happen."  (and it was kids "letting off steam.")

So, in this very-well documented event with many eye witnesses and tons of video footage from a huge variety of perspectives, there is a hazy agreement on what actually happened (two great days that turned bad on that last night because of a few bad apples or something that started to go bad from the planning stages that progressively got worse, was violent and terrible throughout, then exploded into group violence at the end) and almost no agreement about why telling this story is important.  What's the story ABOUT?

This story is fascinating to me. I am reminded of Errol Morris' book "Believing is Seeing," and with Roshomon and multi-narrative texts and psychological concepts like cognitive distortions like minimizing and reframing.

Field Trip by Kevin Young

 Not enough 

was the lunch I brought 

but I didn't trade, stuck 

to my small fare. While 

others passed peanut 

butter & pickles, I ate 

my soggy sandwiches, 

the one with mustard 

first. No dessert. 

The field held on 

to its secrets, the words 

we kids got here to find, 

names of trees & birds, 

Latin, scientific. We gathered 

samples, stirred under rocks 

to study the world pale & blind 

as the black albino 

able to enter Cotillion, to pass 

the brown paper bag 

test at the door but still get 

talked about. To this day 

my father won't wear 

baggy pants or carry his 

lunch in bags--both remind 

too much of teenage 

times, of days Negroes 

had to lug lunch to town, 

chicken grease or hocks 

seeping the paper, making 

the bag a newborn's caul, 

the veil that lets you see 

ahead. After all, who knew 

when you'd end up downtown, 

walking past miles of WHITES 

ONLY signs or the thin disguise 

of Gentleman's Clubs. No one 

had to wink or hint what 

Members Only meant. Just head 

out, hungry, past the boulevard 

towards the dock or boardwalk 

or fields that chain 

& label nothing except 

food. Alone, devour cracklin 

& drumstick till no meat 

or marrow is left, just 

bones & grease & fossil 

enough to feed 

a father’s fire.

Middle Season #23

 

Joe Pye weed in Bemis

Alliums in front landscaping

Compass plant (6’ tall) in Dean Nature Sanctuary 

Butterfly weed in Dean

What fills you with good feeling?

Recently re-reading my November 2021 journal.  I was wrestling with the idea of how important is your general "stance" towards the world: are you in a football stance, ready to fight back against adversaries? are you in a track stance, ready to sprint, compete? are you in fetal position? are you in forest bather stance?  How do you "move through the world"?

I wrote: "if you're annoyed by red lights... that shows your attitude."

Those seem like fruitful ideas.  Hidden among them is a little question to myself: 

what fills you with good feeling?

I made a list in answer: 

savor, help, make, celebrate, care, curious

Looking back now, it seems like an elemental question.  What are the moment-by-moment things that I do that sustains me?  I'm not sure if that list of 6 is the definitive answer.  But the question seems valuable.  It could be a self-check while I'm planning my day or going through my day... am I doing one of these things?  Can I adjust the next hour/ few minutes so that I can fill myself/feed myself with some of these things?  Can I reframe my next activity (let's say "making dinner") into one of these?  Can I savor the smells? Think about how I'm caring for Jennie in making dinner?

I realize that the list isn't 100% accurate.  Shoving OREOs in my face also "fills me with good feelings."  

* * *

This was a productive time for me -- I was working on landscaping/hardscaping, reviewing the year 2021 in my journals, building/connecting ideas to complete some year-end project/s.

And then Thanksgiving happened -- I see Charlotte on Find My Friends going to Peoria, returning from Peoria on Thanksgiving morning.  Phil nor Kim nor anyone says anything about it.

I'm noting this now because it slammed the door on the good, productive thinking.  The episode felt like an elaborate betrayal.  Which was, if nothing else, distractingn and consuming.

Ambiguity is our constant companion

Urssula LeGuin wrote this about her novel, The Dispossessed.

I read everything as novels, including history, memoir, and the newspaper—I think J. L. Borges is quite correct, all prose is fiction. So when I came to write a utopia, of course I wrote a novel.

I wasn’t surprised when it was treated as a treatise, but I wondered if the people who read it as a treatise ever wondered why I had written it as a novel. Were they as indifferent as they seemed to be to what made it a novel—the inherent contradictions of novelistic narrative that prevent simplistic, single-theme interpretation, the novelistic “thickness of description” (Geertz’s term) that resists reduction to abstracts and binaries, the embodiment of ethical dilemma in a drama of character that evades allegorical interpretation, the presence of symbolic elements that are not fully accessible to rational thought? 

Mandy Brown, in a lovely essay about The Dispossessed and ambiguity, writes:

[A]mbiguity are not precise opposites: something can be clear and ambiguous (as in a clear day when a dark storm hovers in the distance) or opaque but unambiguous (as in a ship run aground in a fog).

Ambiguity is often used to mean uncertainty or confusion, but I think of those more as accoutrements to ambiguity, which likes to adorn itself with lots of other untidy challenges. Ambiguity itself is the state of being open to multiple interpretations. Its Latin root, ambi-, means “both ways.” It arises often when a choice has been prevented or deferred, and two paths open up before you, each of them legitimate, each of them branching off in dozens of other ways. In this manner, ambiguity can create uncertainty, but the uncertainty is a response, a reaction. A reply. 

Here's the opening paragraph of The Dispossessed:

There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, an idea of a boundary. But the idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had been nothing more important than that wall.

Like all walls, it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.

Brown writes:

Notice the layers of ambiguity she threads in even this short passage: the wall doesn’t look important, but there’s nothing more important than the wall. The wall exists, even in places where there is no wall to see.

The ambiguity that novelists (and fiction) engage in is productive for us.  It helps us deal with ambiguity.

I want to consider that we borrow some lessons from Le Guin and Shevek and look at ambiguity not merely as something to manage or navigate through, but as something to hold. Something to make space for. I think the usual advice for leading through ambiguity is well and fine, but often it feels insufficient. It’s grand to solve the problem of ambiguity by stating plainly which perspective on hand is the one we’re going with, to provide clear direction even when we don’t all see the territory the same way. But sometimes, I think, that quick decision—that easy dismissal—cuts us off from learning things about each other, and the work, that would benefit both.

What would it mean to spend time describing the various perspectives that give rise to ambiguity, and not with the goal of choosing one or eliminating another, but simply to learn? What would it mean to resist the urge to close ambiguity off, to see it not as an inefficiency or a problem to be solved, but as something generative, a door that could be opened, a wall that could be crossed? What would it look like to react to ambiguity not with fear or frustration but enthusiasm or eagerness?

Brown concludes her essay with: 

I’m coming around to thinking that ambiguity, like change, is a constant companion. And maybe instead of manipulating or avoiding it, we need to listen to what it has to say.