#general life advice is always kind of a set of platitudes

[trek-tracks]

What generic wisdom and/or life advice do you have? Here's an acorn for your trouble: 🌰

Oh, goodness! Talk about an intimidating ask.

When I think about existence, two quotations always come to my mind from authors who have been important to me at various stages of my life.

The first, from Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater:

Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies — "God damn it, you've got to be kind."

The second, the last line from Robertson Davies' final novel, The Cunning Man:

“This is the Great Theatre of Life. Admission is free, but the taxation is mortal. You come when you can, and leave when you must. The show is continuous. Goodnight.”

These are two thoughts by which I've tried to lead my life.

The first lesson is kindness.

As an educator and person in a certain position of power over people's learning journeys, I'd like to say that kindness costs me nothing. That's not true. Kindness costs me late nights, extra review sessions, letting people hand in assignments in ways that are detrimental to my own time and stress. Connecting with so many people on a daily basis can be emotionally exhausting.

If there's one thing I have worked on more and more in my life (and need to continue to work on), it's walking the fine line between being kind and being taken advantage of.

However, I operate from the following perspective:

Everyone is having a difficult time, and there are things in other people's lives that are not "dreamt of in my philosophy," so to speak.

This perspective makes my life richer. I have never understood people who rigidly stick to a "one size fits all" mindset. I listen to people. I prioritize the person over the dropbox deadline. I say nice things to my family, my friends, my colleagues, my students, when I can. I practice grace in most things.

This also means that, when I do draw a boundary (for example, in my work as a professor, I do not tolerate plagiarism once I have very clearly taught what it entails), people can see that there is a clear difference between my usual practice of grace, and my ethical framework. It also means that people are more likely to extend me grace in return. I need it. We all do.

The second lesson is passion.

This is the Great Theatre of Life. We don't get to choose much about it, but we do get to shape the show.

I was talking to a former student the other evening, after I came across him in the lobby after my Lord of the Rings performance. He said to me that I was one of the few faculty he'd had that wasn't cynical or jaded yet, which is why he'd enjoyed my class.

The funny thing is, that's not entirely true.

In many ways, I'm very cynical. A fellow faculty member once said of me, in an approving tone, that I was "impressively jaded for one so young." Look. I'm Jewish. I'm bi. I'm disabled (in the chronic often invisible illness way). I know what the world can dish out, and I can kvetch with the best of them. But that's mostly because I want to believe we can do better. In any case, I can only control myself. I can do better.

First, I want everyone I teach to know that reading, writing, critical thinking, loving language, loving literature and theatre, are all things they can do, even if those gates have seemed barred. Opening these gates together can help them. I like to break things down as clearly and succinctly as possible. I don't expect people to show enthusiasm for something if I'm not showing it myself. Do I sometimes get super-mega-frustrated with the results I'm getting? Of course. There are parts of my job and my life that suck. Do I throw myself into things head-first with enthusiasm anyway? Always.

I do the things I love. I see tons of theatre. I make theatre. I sing (even if you "can't" sing, find time to do it anyway). I tell stories. I spend time with friends. If I have a choice to go to the thing or stay home, I go to the thing. I support my friends. I make people LAUGH, because I love that more than anything. I curl these things around me like a warm cat on a lap. And I try not to get jaded by the offerings around me, no matter how many shows I go to or how many papers I read. (I don't always succeed.) Can you imagine, though, how amazing it is to have a life where you're in danger of getting jaded simply by the sheer amount of art on offer?

Four years ago, a student came to me after the second week of my rhetorical analysis class. She told me that she had dropped the course with other faculty twice because she was intimidated by it. We were talking about one of the course readings for the week, which was a 35-year-old essay by a now-dead white man (everything she was not) with very strong opinions on the need to properly state your ideas in exactly the correct words to prove you were thinking.

She said, about the reading, “I didn’t understand it when I read it and thought I was stupid. But then, when you said it might not have been written with me in mind, I felt better. And then, when you broke it down and I understood it, I liked how much I liked that feeling.” Then she said something that made me cry in my office: “Things happen for a reason. I had to drop that class twice so I could meet you.”

She came to office hour after office hour. We spent time working on her writing and discussing what her particular frame of reference brought to her understanding of each week's readings.

She had dropped the course twice because she "couldn't do it."

She left with an A.

She left with a new sense of agency over her own experience of the wonder of the world.

What does it cost to be kind, and to love things?

What do we gain?

This is the Great Theatre of Life. All we can do is put on a show of kindness, watching with wonder before we depart.

#not trek #my life #teaching #professor life #education #life advice #kindness #passion #learning love and laughter #sounds like a platitude on the side of a plate #and in many ways it is #general life advice is always kind of a set of platitudes #but this is mine for what it's worth #robertson davies #kurt vonnegut #long post

[catie-does-things]

I loved your deconstruction of the Ember Island Players -episode. Could you be persuaded to write down your thoughts about the Southern Raiders too?

Well, since you asked.

(The Ember Island Players meta)

There’s a lot to say about The Southern Raiders and much of it has been said, but I’m going to focus on five major questions:

Is Aang’s response to Katara’s anger appropriate?

Is Zuko’s response appropriate? Is he being self-serving?

Is Aang’s philosophy about forgiveness correct? Should Katara forgive her mother’s killer?

Does this episode show Zutara in a positive or a negative light?

What were the writers trying to do with this episode?

Fair warning, I’m obviously Team Zutara, but I’m not going to be uncritical of Zuko, Katara, or this episode as a whole. I actually have some very mixed feelings about it, as you’ll see.

Also, this is hella long. So, get comfortable.

This is a serious episode. Look how serious we are.

1. Is Aang’s response to Katara’s anger appropriate?

When Katara and Zuko first tell Aang they plan to find the man who killed her mother, Aang’s immediate reaction is skeptical and dismissive, asking Katara what she thinks that will accomplish. This is point one against Aang - even if there’s reason to doubt that this mission is a good idea, that’s a bad way to open the conversation. And naturally, Katara doesn’t take it well, saying in disgust that she knew Aang wouldn’t understand.

Aang protests that he does understand, and I know a lot of people take issue with his comparison to losing Appa, which I do think is not really comparable to Katara’s trauma from her mother’s death. But to be fair, he does also mention the genocide of the Air Nomads. It’s weird that Aang even puts these two things on the same level, though, and kind of does come across as naïve - as I’ve talked about before, I think a certain level of age-appropriate naïveté is a definite part of Aang’s character, and the show runs into trouble when it fails to challenge him on this.

This is another example of that failure. A bit later, when the scene cuts to night time, Aang uses forgiving Katara for trying to sneak away with Appa as another example, cheerily asking if that gives Katara any ideas. This is a real cringe moment for me, as Aang is lumping all offenses, great and small, together as if they should be equally easy to forgive. That’s not to say that they should not all be forgiven. But forgiving the murder of a loved one is inevitably going to be much harder than forgiving the minor deceit of a friend, and Aang’s flippant attitude shows no regard for the distinction.

Pictured: The wrong attitude for this conversation.

Going back to the first part of this scene, after accusing Katara of seeking revenge, which she doesn’t deny, Aang says that she sounds like Jet. This comparison really is unfair, as Katara points out - seeking retribution against a killer might be wrong, but it’s nowhere near the same as attacking innocent people. Again, Aang is making sweeping moral generalizations that, even if they’re founded on correct principles, fail to recognize the realities that make these kind of moral questions difficult. I think it would be very hard to argue that Yon Rha does not deserve any kind of punishment for killing Kya, the real question is what that punishment should be and whether Katara should be the one to mete it out.

Aang is twelve. This is a children’s show. Fine. But the writers wanted to go there, and it’s a disservice to the gravity of the subject matter they chose to address if we’re really meant to take the twelve-year-old’s fumbling attempts at moral guidance at face value.

And unfortunatley, we are. After Zuko and Katara leave, Sokka declares that Aang is “pretty wise for a kid”, which to me is…the exact opposite of what we just saw. Aang means well and is even right in some important ways, but the only arguments he has to back up his own “wisdom” are unhelpful comparisons and platitudes. He’s about exactly as inept at this as I would expect a child of his age to be, but the writers are trying to tell me he’s wise beyond his years? Not buying it.

Some points in his favor: Aang does eventually come around and recognize Katara needs to confront her mother’s killer, though it is a weird and unexplained 180 after the scene cuts from day to night. And his advice that she should “let [her] anger out, and then let it go” is sound. It’s weird that Zuko makes fun of him for this, because it’s much better presented than a lot of his previous advice, and also…something Zuko has kind of already done. But we’ll get to that later.

Overall, I’d say Aang’s response to Katara’s pain and anger is not great. His heart’s in the right place, but his inability to provide strong arguments for his philosophy and his apparent expectation that Katara should easily forgive her mother’s killer prove he’s not actually mature enough to give moral guidance in a helpful way in such a difficult situation, in spite of what we’re told.

It’s hard to be a kid when the writers keep treating you like you’re more mature than you actually are.

2. Is Zuko’s response appropriate? Is he being self-serving?

For starters, we need to distinguish that Zuko is not trying to provide an alternative moral guidance to that offered by Aang. He’s not trying to be a moral guide at all, so that puts a lot of what he says and does in a different context.

What is Zuko trying to do? He’s trying to make up for his betrayal in Ba Sing Se. 

The beginning of the episode sets up that Katara is the last holdout on accepting Zuko as part of the group, and Zuko is bothered by this. (Though it is interesting that each of them saves the other’s life during the escape from the Western Air Temple, also hinting at how these two characters are mutually supportive of each other, antagonistic or not.) Because of this, some people have said Zuko pushes Katara to take revenge for selfish reasons, because he thinks it will make her accept him.

Well, Zuko doesn’t actually push Katara to do anything, so much as give her the opportunity. All he says to her is that he knows how to find the man who killed her mother, making no suggestion as to what she should do in that scenario. And when Aang challenges them, he says that Katara needs to find this man in order to get “closure and justice.” Where could Zuko have gotten the idea that confronting the person responsible for your childhood trauma is necessary for closure and justice?

Probably by doing it himself.

Zuko confronting Ozai is likely our best indication of how he’s imagining Katara confronting her mother’s killer is going to go. Zuko doesn’t try to punish Ozai, because he believes it’s the Avatar’s destiny to take down the Fire Lord. Instead, he essentially takes this as his opportunity to let his anger out so he can move past it…you know, that suggestion Aang made that I said it was weird for Zuko to scoff at? This is why. If he’s imagining Katara confronting her mother’s killer will go something like him confronting his father, which I think we have to assume is the case, then he and Aang would be more or less suggesting the same thing.

But Kya’s killer, like Ozai, also deserves punishment, and whose destiny is that? If this is the Avatar’s responsibility as well, Aang doesn’t seem to be jumping at the chance to do it - not once does he offer to accompany Katara on her quest. Legally, perhaps it’s the Fire Lord’s job to punish war criminals in his own armed forces - but Ozai’s obviously not going to do that, and who if anyone will succeed him is up in the air at this point. This is a classic setup for a revenge or vigilante plot - the proper authorities, the designated arbiters of justice are either unwilling or unable to act, so individuals who normally would not have the right to punish wrongdoers are the only ones who can.

Is seeking retribution in these circumstances morally perilous nonetheless? Absolutely. But to the extent that Zuko’s offer to confront her mother’s killer does move Katara to violence in this episode, it’s a principled rather than arbitrary use of violence. And the offer itself comes from a personal experience of how necessary the confrontation can be.

Which brings us back to earlier in the episode, and the reason Zuko is doing all of this in the first place. 

This is my favorite screencap of course I was going to find a reason to use it.

When Katara lays down her very legitimate grievance against Zuko, namely that she was the first person in their group to trust him, and that he betrayed that trust, Zuko is not dismissive of her anger, nor does he offer excuses. He just asks, “What can I do to make it up to you?” Zuko of all people understands the need to make amends for his own misdeeds. Katara of course only offers sarcastic, impossible suggestions (reconquer Ba Sing Se, bring her mother back), and here it would be very easy for Zuko to write her off and just accept that she’s always going to hate him. But, as he tells Sokka in the following scene, he doesn’t know why, but he does care what Katara thinks of him. We know why, though.

It’s because of his sense of honor. I hope I don’t need to explain to anyone how we know that Zuko has a deep-seated drive to the right thing, even if he’s sometimes confused about what the right thing is. But in this case, his instincts are good: he personally wronged Katara by his actions in Ba Sing Se in a way he didn’t hurt anyone else in the group, so he needs to do something equally personal to expiate his guilt against her in a way he didn’t need to for anyone else in the group.

And what he tries to offer her - the closure she’s never gotten over her mother’s death - really is the perfect thing. Their initial connection was forged because of their shared pain over losing their mothers, and as Zuko insightfully tells Sokka, Katara has connected her anger over that loss to her anger at him. This is not just some random favor he thinks he can do to get back in her good graces. It’s a specific redress of her actual grievance against him. It’s not selfish of him to want to give her that. It’s right.

But, there are some points against Zuko as well. He’s a little too quick to dismiss Aang’s advice, and a little mean about how he does it - though as I’ve said, in a way that I don’t think is quite in character. More gravely, during the actual confrontation with Yon Rha, Zuko is almost entirely hands-off, letting Katara do whatever she wants - apparently up to and including kill him. Again, Zuko is not trying to be Katara’s moral guide here, but that in itself is open to criticism. If killing Yon Rha really is crossing a line, then Zuko would be remiss in not trying to stop her.

The best light you can read this in is that Zuko trusts Katara not to cross that line - and he certainly shows no sign of surprise or disappointment when she does spare him. But I think this is reading a bit more into the text than is actually there. You could also take it as Zuko leaving the decision of whether Yon Rha deserved to die up to Katara, but again, this is a morally lax stance that is hardly above criticism.

So is Zuko’s response to Katara’s anger appropriate? Yes and no. His response to her anger at him absolutely is, demonstrating a healthy sense of compunction and a laudable desire to give due redress of grievances. How he responds to her anger at her mother’s killer is less childishly judgmental than Aang, but in a way that arguably runs to the opposite extreme of showing too little concern for the morality of her actions - which is itself odd, given Zuko’s established strong sense of morality and unwillingness to stand by and do nothing when someone else does something wrong.

“What can I do to make it up to you?” vs. “Guru Goody Goody”: Zuko’s moral compass is kind of a mixed bag in this episode tbh

3. Is Aang’s philosophy about forgiveness correct? Should Katara forgive her mother’s killer?

Obviously opinions will vary about this, but I can certainly give you mine.

Putting aside questions of Air Nomad philosophy vs. Water Tribe vs. Fire Nation - these are, after all, fictional cultures made up by modern American writers in a show for a modern American audience - forgiveness is generally valued by most people, though as C.S. Lewis puts it, “everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive”. Forgiveness is hard, especially when the offense is great and there is no easy way for the offender to make things right - as in Zuko’s case - or the offender has no interest in doing so - as is the case with Yon Rha. But Aang is right that forgiveness is necessary for healing, and I would say for other reasons as well. I’ll refrain from a full-blown treatise on forgiveness here, but I quoted Lewis, and if you have any idea what he wrote on the subject…yeah. That.

Katara says in the first argument with Aang that forgiving her mother’s killer is impossible. And as much as the episode’s final scene tries to present the resolution that Aang was right all along, Katara still definitively declares that she will never forgive him (though she does forgive Zuko). So even though Zuko says Aang was right about what Katara needed, Katara certainly doesn’t seem to think it’s that simple.

Pictured: Not someone who has accepted Aang’s philosophy.

I’ll be very honest. I hate this line. I wish she had said something like “I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive him”, which would allow her to still have that residual anger to work through like the writers apparently wanted, acknowledging that forgiving Yon Rha can’t be as easy as Aang made it out to be, while still leaving the door open that she might get there someday. True forgiveness might be too much to expect of her at this point, but her rejection of it as impossible should at least be tempered, especially if, as Zuko’s dialogue in this scene and Sokka’s in the earlier scene imply, we’re meant to learn from this episode that Aang is right.

In spite of how poorly argued Aang’s position is, I do agree with his basic thesis about the importance of forgiveness, and I’m disappointed how many people seem to be ready to dismiss it outright in order to give Zuko the moral high ground in this episode. I don’t think that’s even necessary to defend Zutara as a ship, which brings us to our next point.

4. Does this episode show Zutara in a positive or a negative light?

“Come on, kids! ‘Zutara’ never would have lasted! It was just dark and intriguing.” - Bryan Konietzco

For those who buy into this claim that Zutara was too dark to be a functional romantic relationship, The Southern Raiders is usually the primary episode cited as proof. And it’s not a lighthearted episode. The creators described it as “probably one of the most intense episodes of the series”. It deals with unusually heavy subject matter for a half-hour timeslot cartoon for kids, and sees Katara struggling with some very dark feelings. But confronting darkness does not necessarily make a character, storyline, or ship dark.

Some argue that this episode shows Zuko bringing out the worst in Katara, and there is some truth in that, inasmuch as the effects of his betrayal in Ba Sing Se are still being felt. But Zuko is also making the effort to help her move past that, as well as her childhood trauma. In the course of their “field trip”, we see them working together effectively as a team, and in an understated but crucial scene, we see Katara open up to Zuko about that pain, unprompted, and Zuko once again offer her comfort - which no other character is ever shown to do.

“Your mother was a brave woman.” / “I know.”

Consolation is a different thing from moral guidance, but just as necessary. And where Aang’s attempts at the latter come across as inept, Zuko seems to know exactly the right thing to say to comfort Katara at that point. Katara’s memory of her mother’s death, even though she doesn’t have all the details at this point, makes it pretty clear that Kya died protecting her, which again highlights the similarities between Zuko and Katara - he also lost his mother because she was trying to protect him. I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that their repeatedly paralleled backgrounds are the reason these two characters seem to get each other so instinctively, and here we have another excellent example of that right in the middle of the episode that supposedly shows what a bad influence they are on each other.

And then of course it ends like this:

So dark. Very intrigue. Much dysfunction. Wow.

Are all of Zuko and Katara’s actions in this episode beyond reproach? No. Why do they have to be? What’s wrong with two characters confronting a difficult situation and making some questionable choices but ultimately both growing from the experience? That doesn’t prove that a theoretical romantic relationship between them would be doomed to failure. It actually provides a pretty good foundation for a healthy relationship that they can work through these things together. I mentioned earlier the reciprocal saves in the escape from the air temple, and I still maintain that’s emblematic of a larger pattern of Zuko and Katara mutually enriching each other’s character arcs.

Which is another important point to make here: this episode is not the be all end all of Zutara. We see so many more interactions between them, from the unexpected connection they make in Ba Sing Se to Katara’s friendly teasing in The Ember Island Players. And then there’s the four episode finale.

Bringing this back from the last meta for a victory lap.

So I would say that the portrayal of Zutara in this episode, in the context of the rest of their relationship in the show, is overwhelmingly positive. They’re not perfect, individually or together, but they’re a far cry from grimdark dysfunction. Furthermore, some of the morally questionable aspects of their actions in this episode are even narratively questionable as well, which brings me at last to my final point.

5. What were the writers trying to do with this episode?

I’ve already talked about how I find the effort to portray Aang as a wise moral guide unconvincing, how I think Zuko’s nastiest dismissal of him makes little sense given Zuko’s own prior experience, and how Katara’s ultimate refusal to forgive Yon Rha doesn’t fit with the episode’s apparently intended moral. But other scenes, like the air temple escape sequence, the clifftop argument between Zuko and Katara, and most of the “field trip”, are fantastically written. So what’s going on here?

Well, there’s always the Team Ehasz Conspiracy Theory.

It’s speculation time again!

For those unfamiliar, “Team Ehasz” consists of husband and wife writing duo Aaron Ehasz, the head writer for the series and writer of several episodes, and Elizabeth Welch Ehasz, who also wrote several episodes, including The Southern Raiders. Various iterations of the conspiracy theory range from giving them credit for many of the show’s most successful narrative choices to asserting that they had an entire alternative vision for the show that frequently clashed with Bryke’s, including that they supported the idea of Zutara. There’s little to no evidence for any of this, but it’s…vaguely plausible based on what we do know for certain was the work of Team Ehasz, and that’s all that’s necessary for it to pass into Zutara fandom urban legend.

One wrinkle of this theory - which if anyone does have verifiable sources on I’d love to see - is the rumor that Bryke were supposedly unhappy with the original draft of The Southern Raiders because they felt it was “too shippy”, and insisted the episode be revised accordingly. If it were true that there was a creative clash behind the scenes, that would explain a lot of the episode’s inconsistencies. 

Perhaps the unsuccessful attempt to show Aang as a wise moral authority was a Bryke addition. Maybe Zuko’s uncharacteristic mean comments were meant to make him less sympathetic, lest anyone ship him with Katara. We’ll probably never know for sure, but whatever happened in the writers’ room, the end result is an episode with a lot of great scenes and important character development that nonetheless fails to land a coherent message. Aang is wise beyond his years for giving shallow and immature arguments for his philosophy of forgiveness, but in the end Zuko and Katara learn he was right all along, except Katara doesn’t actually forgive the person Aang wanted her to forgive and never will. Um. Okay.

At least we got badass ninja!Zutara out of it.

Bonus Point: The Writing Fail Train Doesn’t End There!

The episode ends with Zuko asking Aang a very important question: If violence is truly never the answer, as Aang claims, then what is he going to do about a little problem named Ozai? We cut to credits and never see Aang’s immediate response to the question, but of course this is an issue in the finale, with the potential consequences of Aang’s refusal to kill Ozai famously made a non-issue thanks to an eleventh hour power-up granted to him by a deus ex machina.

Maybe if a magical lion turtle showed up to resolve my moral dilemmas for me, I’d be as naïve a pacifist as Aang, too.

#anonymous #catie answers things #the southern raiders #zutara #atla meta #go to bed catie #thoughts about movies and things #historical critical zutara fandom studies

[blueboxesandtrafficcones]

Presents

Sometimes, the best gift you can give is yourself.

Day 25 of 31 Days of Ficmas - Presents.  @doctorroseprompts

13xRose, TenTooxRose

This is based on a prompt from a nonny, and got a bit wordy (juuuuuust shy of 3k).  SPOILERS FOR TWICE UPON A CHRISTMAS.  You have been warned.  The prompt was:  13 x Rose - Presents - Clean - 13 visits Rose in Pete's World

@timepetalsprompts - Bingo - Piper, Mum!Billie, sapphic characters; characters, 13′s suspenders, Capaldi’s eyebrows (mentioned), every Doctor loving Rose.

Ficmas Masterlist 2017, Day 25

AO3

“Sarah!” Rose called desperately, dashing around the playground.  Two seconds she’d taken her eyes off her daughter to answer her mother’s text, and the little girl had gone and disappeared.

“Sarah!”  She spun desperately, panic clawing in her throat as she searched.

“Mummy!”  She heard her daughter exclaim happily, and she turned to see her walking towards her, eating chips and holding a woman’s hand.

“Sarah!”  Rose almost collapsed in relief, scooping up her daughter and clutching her tight.  “Don’t you know rule number one?”

The little girl merely shrugged in her arms, and Rose could already hear the Doctor complaining about them being two peas in a wandering-off pod.

“She’s alright, hadn’t gotten far,” the woman who’d found her spoke up, and Rose got her first proper look at her.

She startled slightly, surprised at how much the woman looked like, well, her.  Average height and lean but not a stick, with peroxide blonde hair and kind hazel eyes.  Rose could certainly understand if Sarah had confused the two – except for the woman’s outfit.

“Thank you,” Rose said gratefully, tearing her eyes away from the… unique combination to look her in the eyes.

“Of course,” she said reassuringly, and there was something about her that tickled Rose’s instincts.

“Hang on!” Rose blurted, looking down at her daughter who was happily munching the last of her chips. “Where’d the chips come from?”

“Ah, that was me.  I had already purchased them, but she gave me the look, you know?”  The woman said sheepishly as she grimaced slightly.

“Well, thank you,” Rose settled for, resolved to remind her daughter again about not accepting things from strangers.

“You’re welcome.”

The woman’s stare should have unnerved her, but there was something about her that Rose couldn’t quite put her finger on.

“Thank you!” Sarah chirped, licking the last of the vinegar from her fingers.

“You’re very welcome, Miss Tyler,” she stooped to be at eye level with the little girl.  “Now, hasn’t Daddy told you a thousand times ‘don’t wander off’?”

The combination of the words and that northern accent sent a spark zipping through Rose’s blood as she suddenly understood.

Her gasp must have clued in the woman, who straightened up to smile at Rose.

“Rose Tyler,” they said, and Rose’s breath hitched.

“Doctor,” she whispered in reply, and the Time Lord in front of her smiled wider.

“Not gonna make me prove it?”

Rose slowly shook her head, trying to take it in.  “What…”

“Mummy, Tony and Nana are here, can I go play?”  Sarah interrupted, and Rose set the girl on the ground without looking away from the Doctor.

Once they were alone, Rose gave a disbelieving laugh.  “I thought the walls were closed.”

“They are,” the Doctor shrugged.  “Except they’re not.  It’s complicated.  A lot’s happened.”

“How long-”

“Fifteen hundred years. Give or take.  I honestly don’t know anymore,” they shrugged again, stuffing their hands in their pockets.

“Right.”

“Wait, how’d you know it was me?”  The Doctor asked, blinking when Rose laughed.

“Well, the outfit, and ‘don’t wander off’, and the way you said my name, and… it’s you and me.  How could I not?”

“Are you happy?”  They asked abruptly.

“Course.  I’ve got you,” Rose replied simply.

“I mean in general,” the Doctor rolled their eyes at her.

“Yeah.  I’ve got you,” she repeated.  “Are you?”

Their lips twisted into a bitter smile.  “I haven’t got you.  Or anyone, really.”

“You’re on your own?” Rose’s disappointment cut through them like a hot knife.

“Yeah.  I was settled, if you can believe it, though restless.  Obviously.  I had a friend travelling with me – Bill.  But she’s… gone.  Everyone’s gone.  Again.”

“Oh, Doctor,” Rose sighed, stepping forward to wrap her arms around them.  The Doctor clung to her, desperately fighting the urge to take her hand and run back to the TARDIS and take her away again.

“I’m so tired,” they whispered, burying their face in her shoulder; it was the first time they were at the right height standing up to do so.

“Can you stay?”  Rose asked, and they tensed.  “Never mind, forget I asked.  Though you can, if you like.”

Rose merely held them tight, rubbing soothing circles into their back.  Finally she asked, “How many?”

“Companions or regenerations?”

“Both,” she shrugged. “Either.”

“This is the, uh, third body I think.  Brand new. As for companions – a couple.  No one full-time, though.  Not really.”

Rose nodded, before what she’d said earlier sank in.  “Did you say Bill?”

The Doctor blinked at her. “Yeah?”

“Like from that time I met the you with the impressive eyebrows in that bar in Bristol?”

The Time Lords eyes lit up, and a slow smile grew on their face.  “You remember that?”

“Mmhmm,” she batted her eyelashes.  “Pretty fit, that body was.”

The Doctor laughed. “Glad you thought so.  That was the previous me.  There was a fellow between – very young, not that different from sandshoes.  Floppy brown hair, awful fashion sense.”

“Which doesn’t apply to this you,” Rose said seriously, and they frowned.

“This is a spectacular outfit!”

“Course it is, the suspenders really make it, love,” Rose soothed, and they both paused at the endearment.

“Doctor?”

“Mhmm?”

“Why are you here?”

The Doctor sighed heavily, finally pulling back from their hug.  “Can we sit?”  Once settled, they sighed again, taking Rose’s hand.  “I struggled with this regeneration,” they shared hesitantly. “It took meeting myself – my original self – to get me sorted.  That was a bit of a thing – but something that came up was the question of what makes one, them?  Is it memories?  If, say, some artificial being has all your memories – are they you?  Or are they just something with your memories?  And that made me think of the metacrisis, and you, and I just… I needed to know you were happy.”

“I am,” Rose promised softly.  “So happy. Even when the toaster settings change the telly station and the light switch starts the kettle and kicking the front door turns the oven on.”

“That coral I gave you…”

“Took a couple years,” Rose confirmed.  “But Donna’s advice was solid, and she’s been up and running for about three years now.”

“Good,” they relaxed marginally.  “I want you to be happy.”

“What about you?” Rose challenged.  “You don’t sound happy.”

“I’m so tired of losing,” they confessed on a whisper.  “Every time, I promise myself I won’t let them down, but ultimately I do.  Then I promise not to let anyone that close again, and I always do.  You’d think I’d learn.”

She hummed in sympathy. “I’m not gonna give you any awful platitudes, or try to spin that.  It sucks. But you’re strong, and I can guarantee that most if not all of your companions would, given the choice, pick you over the safe life any day.”

“Really?”  The Doctor asked skeptically.

Rose shrugged.  “I would.  Mickey would’ve.  Sarah Jane, I think.  Jack.”

“Yeah, but none of you died,” they said bitterly.  “Bill, she got converted to a cyberman by the Master.  And Clara, she became too much like me, and died for it as well.  The Ponds, well, let’s not go there.  You think any of them would say that?”

“Maybe,” Rose dismissed, “maybe not.  No way to know.  But they all – we all – chose to travel with you. We all accepted this life. Especially if they weren’t full time. Could say no at any point.”

The Doctor nodded slowly. “I suppose.”

“How long are you here for?” Rose asked abruptly.

“Twelve hours before I have to go back.  Why?”

“Come on,” she stood, extending her hand.  “Care to explore with me?”

“Rose…” they hedged, even as Kazran’s words echoed faintly in the back of their mind.  “All right.”

She beamed back, that wide, tongue-touched grin that set their hearts pounding like always. “Allons-y!”

They got about five steps towards the park exit before Rose stopped in her tracks.  “Wait!”  She spun, seeking Jackie only to find her mum already staring at her with a perplexed look on her face.  “I’ll be right back.”

Before the Doctor could respond, Rose dropped their hand and jogged over Jackie, talking quickly before calling a goodbye to her daughter and coming back to them.

“All good,” she said cheerfully as she pulled them out of the park and into the city.  “Where do you want to start?”

-

“-and I said, ‘I am younger!’” the Doctor shared, smiling as Rose almost fell over in laughter.  They were cuddled together on the Eye, ignoring the view of London in favor of each other.  They’d made an effort to keep it lighthearted, and spent their hours together telling stories; Rose had been able to greatly appreciate the Ponds’ suffering during the year of the Cubes, and had not provided the sympathy the Doctor’s obviously been hoping for in relating the tale.

“And what did you, the first you, say?”

“Nothing, we got distracted – shocker, I know.  But still!”

Rose just giggled, smiling fondly at them.  It had been as though no time had passed for either of them, though the Doctor did have to keep reminding themself that Rose was living with that them day in and day out.

“You know I’ve come to love my life, our life, but there are days when I miss that,” she murmured. “Being able to take off, no responsibilities or obligations.  I wouldn’t trade my kids, but to be able to throw myself headlong into the fun without worrying about coming home to them?  Those days were pretty great.”

“But you travel, you said,” the Doctor pointed out.

“Well, yeah, and we still go off and save planets and lead rebellions and do all the usual things, but those are carefully scheduled around meetings and conferences and Sarah’s bedtime and dance classes.  We’ve got roots.  And sometimes they’re wonderful things keeping us grounded, and other times, well, we haven’t changed that much.”

The Doctor sighed.  “I always knew there’d come a time when you’d rather settle down, lead a normal life.  Everyone does.”

Rose shook her head. “No.  Not like that, at least.  I still love the travelling, I’d do it more if we could.  But I like our life, and the roots.  Usually.  But a trip is as likely to be going to take Sarah for a history lesson as it is to find trouble.  It’s not the mortgage and carpets and doors that terrified you on Krop Tor, but it’s not spending all our time on the TARDIS in the vortex either.  It’s a balance.”

They nodded, just pulling her tighter to them.  “Still miss you.”

“Me too,” Rose promised, before jerking up.  “Hang on, how long ago was that for you?”

The Doctor made a face, encouraging Rose’s head back to their shoulder.  “Six months?”

“Blimey,” she breathed. “That was almost a decade ago.”

They shrugged.  “Time machine.  In the, what, ten seconds between when you said no and I came back it was about, oh, three months or so for me?”

“Really?”

“Mmhmm.  Couldn’t stop thinking about you, though.”

“Didn’t know that,” Rose murmured.

The Doctor let that pass, just enjoying the long-forgotten feel of Rose pressed against them.

“So, did you say something earlier about making friends with a Dalek?”

The Doctor couldn’t help it; they burst into laughter.

“Right, so, Clara was travelling with me at the time…”

-

“Thank you,” the Doctor said abruptly as they neared the TARDIS.

“For what?”

“Spending today with me. Being you.”  They shrugged, making Rose smile.

“I always like spending the day with you – any you.”  She bit her lip, glancing around before whispering, “Shame we couldn’t spend the night.”

The Doctor laughed, loudly, pulling her close.  “Probably not a good idea.”

“Cause we’re both known for doing the smart thing,” she scoffed, letting her arms wrap around their neck as theirs came around her waist.

“Rose Tyler,” they said fondly, and she gave them that smile.

“My Doctor.”

They brushed a strand of hair from her face, fingers lingering on her cheek.  “I still love you.”

“I still love you.  I promised you, remember?  Every you, no matter what you looked like, so long as you looked at me the same, still said my name that way you do.  Yes, I love the Doctor who’s here with me, of course I do.  And I still love you too.  You’re all the same man – er, person? – to me.  You’re all the Doctor.”

“So, you’re saying if we switched places you wouldn’t be bothered at all?”

“Well…” she drew out the word in consideration.  “I do have him rather well-trained to bring me tea in the morning, and put the seat down. But I’m not saying you can’t, you know, audition,” she teased.

They rolled their eyes, not bothering to hide a smile.  “If you insist.”

Cradling Rose’s face gently they brought their face to hers, pausing a moment for Rose to push back if she so chose.  When she didn’t, only puckering up, the Doctor pressed their mouth to hers.

A bomb could have gone off, and Rose would have never noticed.  She’d never kissed a woman before, but she had kissed the Doctor and it was still the same.  Different, softer lips, but the pressure and taste were the same as they’d always been, and she let out a slight moan as their tongues brushed.

A throat clearing behind them yanked them out of the moment, and Rose looked over their shoulder to see her husband leaning against the TARDIS, arms folded.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said dryly, “but the Cloister Bell’s been ringing for a solid minute now.” The unspoken so you should go was loud and clear, and the Doctor huffed.

“Fine, be selfish,” they complained.  “Not like you get her forever, or anything.  I can’t have five minutes?”

“Sorry,” he shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”

The Doctor sighed, taking Rose’s hand and leading her to the ship.  “I spent the day not a week ago arguing with another previous self; I can’t put up with you as well.”

The Metacrisis Doctor raised his eyebrows at that revelation.  “You’ve been busy, then.”

They shrugged, inserting the key into the lock.  “Rose’ll tell you how I’ve been trying to keep out of trouble.”

“Ha!” she snorted.  “Is that what you call it?”

“Hey!  Trouble’s really been just the bits in between,” they insisted.  “At least lately.  Guess I’m back to the drawing board, again.  Ugh,” they grimaced at the thought.  “Scratch that.  Chalk board has got to go.  Time for a renovation, I suppose.”

“Can I see?”  Rose blurted, stepping forward.

“Uh…” they grimaced again, peeking inside.  “It’s pretty torn up.  It was a nasty regeneration.  I put it off too long.  Again.”

“Again?”

“For obvious reasons it was hard to let go of stupidhair over there.  I put it off, ran some errands.  Had to redo the whole console room.  I think it’s the same this time.”

“Still, please?”  Rose asked, ignoring her husband’s spluttering at the insult to his hair.

“Fine, but not inside. She misses you too, and I can’t promise she won’t try to kidnap you.  Wouldn’t be the first time.”

They stepped inside the door, holding it open for Rose to peek her head in.  Her Doctor, still muttering under his breath, leaned in over her head to see as well.

“I don’t like it,” he announced as he made a face.

“I don’t either,” Rose said seriously, and the Doctor’s face fell.  “I love it!” She beamed, and they lit up as well.

The Cloister Bell tolled once again, and they sighed sadly.

“That’s my cue, I think. No point in getting stuck here – the whole point of regenerating was to be around to save that universe.”

“Goodbye, love,” Rose stepped forward, pressing another kiss to their lips.  “Don’t be afraid to accept the happiness you find, and don’t regret it no matter how it ends.”

“Yes, dear,” they sighed, burning the image of her into their mind.  “Doctor.”

“Doctor,” he replied, sticking out his hand.

“Take care of her.  Treasure her.”  They shook hands.

“Course,” he replied easily. “We take care of each other.”

“Whenever you think you hate this life, just remember – it’s been fifteen hundred years for me since we said goodbye.”

The reminder sobered him, and he wrapped his arm around Rose’s shoulders, pulling her close.  “I’ve never hated it, and I’ve never forgotten.”

The sound of the engines firing up broke the Doctor’s trance as they tried to absorb the last view of Rose. “Have a brilliant life, yeah?  For me?”

“You too,” Rose ordered, smiling brightly.  “Do it for me.  And Bill, and Clara, and the Ponds.  And go visit your friends.  I bet Sarah’d like to see you.”

“Maybe I will,” they agreed, gaze darting back nervously towards the console, eyes widening at the way the rotor was beginning to churn.  “Goodbye, Rose.”

“Goodbye, Doctor,” she said, smiling as the doors slammed shut and the ship began to materialize. She was still smiling until the sound of the engines faded, at which point she burst into tears and buried her face in her husband’s shoulder.

“Shh, it’s all right,” he soothed, wrapping her in a hug.

“I love you,” she mumbled against his shoulder.

“I love you too.  With everything that I am,” he promised in return. He was slightly surprised to realize that he didn’t feel any regret or envy for the now-gone timeship.  He had a feeling that when Rose shared what stories she’d been told, he’d be more grateful than usual for the life he lived.

The other Doctor might have all the perks of being a Time Lord, but he had Rose and in the end, which was the better fate?

The look on that Doctor’s face as they left confirmed what he already knew.

There was no better fate than spending forever with Rose Tyler.

#bbatcfic #timepetalscollective #doctorroseprompts #31 days of ficmas #ficandchips #spoilers #twice upon a time #tuat #dw spoilers #13xrose #TenTooxRose #kid!fic #this got really long #presents #31 Days of Ficmas 2017

[the-starchariot]

Bouquet

Nouns / phrases: Visitation, invitation, social life, conviviality, regalement, cultivation of friendship(s). Gifts, generosity. Affability, pleasantries, cordiality. Etiquette, good manners, polite platitudes. Appreciation, recognition, thankfulness. Congratulate, reward. Compliments, admiration, flirt. Flattery, honeyed words, bootlicking. Decoration, design. Perfume, jewellery, make-up, new hair style. Prettiness, (conventional) beauty. Embellishment, hyperbole. Window dressing, euphemism, glorification. Traditionally also: happiness, creativity and art, sex.   Activities: To visit, invite, socialise. To cultivate friendship(s). To give a present, regale. To act courteously. To thank, show appreciation, congratulate, reward. To compliment, admire, flirt. To flatter, suck up to someone. To decorate, design. To make oneself look/smell nice (to dress up; style one's hair). To embellish, elaborate, exaggerate. To glorify, sugarcoat. Attributes: Invited; on a visit. Convivial, sociable. Given as a gift, generous. Appreciative, pleased. Affable, pleasant, cordial. Well-mannered, according to etiquette, courteous. Admirable, commendable. Flattering, flirtatious, ingratiating. Decorated, conventionally pretty, fragrant, melodious. Well-dressed, tarted up. Embellished, hyperbolic. Glorified, euphemistic. As a person: Person with the above attributes. A welcome visitor, a good hostess or host. Peacock. Interior designer, hairdresser, stylist, plastic surgeon. Bootlicker. As advice: Be nice/more sociable! Visit/invite! Watch your manners! Show appreciation! Tend to your appearance! Negatively: Don't exaggerate / stop sugarcoating! Don't be vain!   Time factor *) : When etiquette allows; or when it pleases. When in good company. On a visit.

About the meaning: The Bouquet is one of the cards where I depart at least slightly from traditional approaches. I don't see happiness per se in the Bouquet but only the joy we feel when someone pleases (treats) us. I don't see art or creativity in the Bouquet (only design), nor sex, because I find those better represented by the Lily. My interpretation of the Bouquet is directly derived from why and when we give (or receive) a bouquet of flowers, or why we pick flowers for ourselves and put them in our home. Visitation and invitation / social life: One of the most common situations in which we give or receive flowers is when we visit someone, or when someone visits us. This is why the Bouquet to me represents both visitations and invitations, and, more general, a person's social life. The Bouquet speaks to me of being sociable, or convivial, of cultivating friendships. In some cases the Bouquet represents all these as given facts. But often it seems to suggest to be more sociable, to take better care of our friendships. Gifts / generosity / regalement: Because we are usually given flowers as a small present the Bouquet can be interpreted as gifts, and, possibly, as generosity. Along this line the Bouquet can suggest that someone is treated to something, being pleased, regaled. In relationship readings, for example, it can often be taken as the advice to show our appreciation to our partner (or child, or parent, or friend!) by giving them something which makes them happy. This something needn't be a material thing. Often, what our loved ones want most is to spend quality time with us! In less intimate contexts, and/or when personal gifts are not appropriate or not feasible I still have found it quite productive to interpret the Bouquet as the general hint that giving and/or receiving in some other form is relevant to the situation, that generosity is called for. Etiquette / pleasantries / affability: Continuing from the last paragraph, when we give flowers, e.g. to a host, we might do this mostly or even entirely because we are fond of the receiver and would like to please them. We might give someone flowers out of genuine cordiality. But it is also a fact that presenting something, like flowers, is in many contexts considered etiquette. Thus, the Bouquet to me represents not just affability, wholehearted pleasantries, but also etiquette, good manners, politeness. And I feel that in neither of these cases does the Bouquet say much about the graceful person's sincerity. Their pleasantries might be authentic, the politeness be born from honest respect for the other person. But the Bouquet just as well can also hint at meaningless pleasantries, at automated (even grudging) politeness. In other words, the Bouquet doesn't necessarily say that someone treats us pleasantly and politely because they actually like us. It could also say that they are just going through the motions - for example to not hurt us, because it's expected, or, to personally benefit from appearing courteous. Appreciation / compliments / flattery: I wrote above that flowers are sometimes given to someone to express fondness. That's a very important meaning of the Bouquet for me: appreciation, acknowledgement, and, from the receiver's perspective, thankfulness. The Bouquet can stand for recognition we receive or give, for congratulations. In some cases the Bouquet suggests a reward for something, very rarely, even an award. From the perspective of the receiver, the Bouquet might suggest that a "thank you" is in order. From a slightly different angle the Bouquet can also stand for compliments and admiration, and for flirts. Furthermore, because compliments aren't necessarily honest, and because there's sometimes an ulterior motivation behind paying them, the Bouquet also translates to flattery, honeyed words, adulation, bootlicking. The Bouquet sometimes is a warning that someone is just sucking up to us. Decoration / embellishment / hyperbole: Sometimes we use flowers to make our home look nicer, more colourful, more alive. This is why I think it is very appropriate to interpret the Bouquet as decoration, any kind of (interior) design, and subsequently also as any type of bodily embellishment - like perfume, nice cloths, jewellery, make-up, a new hair-do etc. In some cases the Bouquet can suggest that we are too concerned about our appearance, or vain. But first and foremost it stands for anything which pleases the eye, smells nice, sounds pleasant etc. The Bouquet stands for prettiness, (conventional) beauty. If you translate decoration and embellishment into interpersonal and linguistic contexts the Bouquet can suggest window dressing, euphemisms, and glorifications, as well as any type of (especially positive) elaboration, hyperbole, and exaggerations.

About the Image: My Bouquet is excessive, and very colourful, and obvious. You can't overlook it - it is being held out right to you, thrust into your face over the card's frame. None of the more contained designs I tried first were as able to convey how much the Bouquet has to do with social interactions. For the same reason I also ended up including a smiling face behind the flowers. It is only the lower part of the person's face which is visible. The smile is beautiful; you might be tempted to automatically interpret it as honest, too. But did you know that we can know an authentic smile from a fake one by looking at the smiling person's eyes? While the mouth part of a smile will look the same in both genuine and fake smiles, only the first creates those lovely little crinkles in the corners of the smiling person's eyes. By painting only the mouth part of a smile I left it open whether the affability the card represents has any depth or is just superficial, whether the praise it can stand for is motivated by true admiration or is just flattery, or whether (if the person in the image represents the receiver of the Bouquet) they are genuinely pleased about their gift or just pretending to be.

Bouquet-Rider Visitor (who's invited themselves?); a welcome change (or news); to invite change; social intrusiveness or presumptuousness. Greatly exaggerated or embellished news. Intrusive design or fragrance, flashy outfit. Overwhelming beauty. Something changes one's beauty standards. Obtrusive compliments or flirting. Bouquet-Clover A chance to visit / be visited / be more sociable. Circle of friends in which nothing serious is ever spoken about. Don't take compliments you are getting too seriously. To have some fun with decorating / a makeover. To dabble in interior or fashion design. Light-hearted flattery or flirts. To not take the cultivation of friendships serious(ly enough). A welcome opportunity. Bouquet-Ship To be welcome(d) were you go. To welcome a foreigner; a stranger. A welcome journey/change. To re-decorate. To be not very committed to one's friends. Change your ways - you need to be more friendly, praise others more! To go visit someone new; to embark on the venture of broadening one's social circle. To explore new social circles. To leave one's social circle. To leave behind the need to look pretty and look for something better. A farewell party; a farewell gift. To give (or receive) praise for making a change. Exaggeration of an adventure. Admiration of adventurousness. Bouquet-House Gratitude or admiration for family(members). Interior design; to make one's home nicer. A family member who always tries to be nice to the others. The attempt to make family life more pleasant Family gatherings; to reconnect with family members. Familiar flattery; to be used to compliments or admiration. Elaborate rules or plans; to overdo it with planning. Traditional beauty standards. To plan a visit. Rules which apply when visiting/receiving guests. Home visit. Visit of the family or a family member. To be comfortable socializing. To have very set taste. Rules regarding the showing of gratitude. Bouquet-Tree Compliments about our appearance; flattery about physical characteristics. Attempts at making our body look/smell/feel more beautiful. Exaggerated decoration of one's body. Or: Natural beauty. Natural decorations - e.g. flowers, living plants, the use of natural materials etc. Very stable and strong circle of friends. To find grounding in one's social circle. Gratitude for health; gratitude to one's ancestors. Gifts which are very usable, down-to-earth; pragmatic gifts. To be nice for pragmatic reasons. Bouquet-Clouds Fake compliments. Someone is being nice but has a hidden agenda. Confusion about how you should react to niceness / compliments / flattery. Insecurity in social situations. To misunderstand someone's pleasantries. To not know how to express gratitude or admiration. To be conceited in regard to one's attractiveness. Bouquet-Snake The use of flattery to  get something, to manipulate somebody. To be happy and proud of your own achievements. To crave (loving) attention, admiration, or a more active social life. To be very adept in social settings. To put a lot of effort into looking nice. Bouquet-Coffin End of pleasantries. Loss of comfort, beauty, or social circle. To suppress one's social abilities/needs. To not allow oneself to make oneself more pretty/attractive. To let go of the illusion that everything/everyone is nice. Bouquet-Bouquet*) Very pretty, very pleasant, very elaborate. To flatter someone's looks; compliments regarding someone's good manners. Someone for whom beauty is everything. To bring a gift when visiting. To exaggerate one's social life. Bouquet-Scythe Unexpected visitor or invitation. To put an end to flattery. to reap praise for effort / hard work you've put in. Or: to be nice to people just because you want something from them. Bouquet-Whip To behave in such a friendly and non-confrontational way that others think they can be mean to us. To exploit someone's goodnaturedness. To react with kindness to aggression. To alleviate guilt or shame. Attempts at appeasement. Gestures of reconciliation. To gloss over / sugarcoat / whitewash something which is quite horrible in reality. Bouquet-Birds Chat and gossip in our social circle. Worries about a visit or an invitation. (Noisy/chaotic) party or gathering. To be full of happy but chaotic thoughts. Someone is so admiring that it annoys the admirer. Attempts to be pretty for or nice to everybody in all kinds of ways. Fluctuating views on what is beautiful. Pretty platitudes. Bouquet-Child To be nice to or reconnect with a child, young person or childhood friend, maybe give them a present. (Birthday) party for a young person. Pretty child. To welcome a child. To be grateful for a child. To praise a young, inexperienced person. To take the first steps towards improving something. To take the first step towards another person. Naivety when we are just being flattered. Guileless friendliness. To meet friends for games. Bouquet-Fox Flattery and social visits for selfish purposes; to be nice to others for one's own gain. Distrust of compliments; to not trust someone's kindness. Be cautious of being too generous! Friendliness as self-defence. One's identity is dependent on one's looks. To have one's own beauty standards. Commendable caution. Caution in regard to a visit(or); to be cautious of who one welcomes in. To do something nice for oneself; self-praise. Bouquet-Bear Invest in your friendships now so they'll be strong when times are more difficult (or to prevent them from falling apart). Looking nice, making a good impression, is so important to you that it dominates your life. Influential social circle. An interfering visitor. Someone tries to influence who someone else make friends with. To visit or invite a (grand)parent. To flatter, try to win over, or even bribe, someone who is in a position of power. Powerful flattery; to be easily overpowered by flattery. Bouquet-Stars The longing for fulfilling, friendly contact with other people. To reach out to others with the hope of getting friendliness in return. Wishful thinking we were more attractive, or our situation was nicer, etc. Illusions about our looks. High hopes concerning a social situation. A type of spirituality in which aesthetics play a big role. To aspire to beauty. To trust someone's friendliness. Bouquet-Stork A slow transformation towards being more sociable, less isolated. Being nice to someone can transform them. The longing for a richer social life. A transition for which we receive praise. A returning visitor; to revisit a place we once visited before. What we consider beautiful is transforming. To transform something (or one's own body) by decorating, embellishing, enhancing it. To exaggerate or glorify a longing. Repetitive compliments. To try again in the hope that maybe this time our gifts / compliments / flirt will get better reception. To feel pulled towards that which is pretty, or towards people who flatter us. Bouquet-Dog Show your appreciation to your friend(s) or employee(s) more! Visit a friend or invite them. Someone really needs to know you love them / are proud of them. Someone dependent on approval. Unconditional admiration. Admiration from a friend. Someone totally adores you (possibly not in an entirely healthy way). To make oneself look pretty to please others. Bouquet-Tower A conflict between wanting to retreat and wanting to (or feeling one should) be more sociable. A social recluse. Let people in! To get admiration for one's achievements. To turn down an invitation. To refuse entry to someone who would like to come in. To not accept a gift. Praiseworthy leadership. To flatter, kiss the ass of, or even bribe, a person in power. Bouquet-Garden To meet someone in public - to go to a restaurant or cafe etc. together with one or several friends. To present a friendly face on the outside even when we don't feel friendly. A culture of welcome. Commonly accepted standards of beauty. To want to be pretty to others. To have a very large circle of friends. Facebook type of friendship. Lobbying, marketing, PR, advertising. Bouquet-Mountain Social phobia (to freeze in social situations). Difficulties with making or accepting compliments or with giving or accepting gifts. It's going to take a long time until you and someone else (or a group of people) will come to accept/like each other. It's difficult to make friends with a person, idea or situation. Exaggerated problems. A greatly embellished tale of conquest/victory. Praiseworthy patience. Friendly silence. Tackling social dealings/gatherings. Bouquet-Crossroad To choose that which is more pleasant. To receive appreciation or praise for a choice we make. To think about the reward of a certain (difficult) decision. Difficulties to choose because all the options are similarly nice. Bouquet-Mice False compliments, someone is kissing ass. False friendliness. Something which used to be nice is slowly being corrupted, getting stale, becoming foul. Lack of social life. A conflict between having very little and wanting to be generous. To ruin something nice. To spoil things for others. An unwholesome concern with aesthetics. Bouquet-Heart A very loving, very affectionate, friendship. The love for one's friends. A kind gesture, a compassionate act. To humbly ask someone's forgiveness, or to generously offer someone forgiveness. To flatter someone, to be nice to someone, in order to win their love or forgiveness. To have one's heart in social life. Infatuation with someone because of their beauty; to give our heart to someone just because they are nice to us. "Love" which is conditional on the other person giving presents (or time, or admiration). Flirtatiousness. To dress up for a lover (or, to attract someone new). Bouquet-Ring Social connections, social ties, social commitment. To be bound together by friendship. A promise to visit someone more often. Shared taste, shared aesthetics. Connections/affiliations which make us look good. Cohesion through being nice to each other. To exaggerate commonalities. Glorified relationship. Bouquet-Book To share knowledge; to be invited in on a secret. Praise of knowledge, praise of one's study efforts. To study interior design or other trainings which have to do with beauty, design, fashion. Facts or knowledge about beauty/design/fashion. The truth behind the flattery. To categorise something as compliments, pretty, pleasant, flattery etc. Bouquet-Letter Letter of congratulation; to pay compliments; flattery. To invite or to get invited. To let someone know they are welcome. To express gratitude/appreciation. Communication in one's circle of friends - possibly communication on Facebook if it's not public to all. To mince one's words; to say something in a roundabout way; to beat around the bush. To express oneself only in nice ways other people appreciate (whether this fulfils one's own needs or not). Styling which expresses something, which is supposed to deliver some information (e.g. about one's availability, or class). Bouquet-Man (a) Man who is: invited; on a visit, convivial, sociable; socially active. Man who is affable, well-mannered. Man who is appreciated by the querent, or generally praiseworthy. Man who is flirtatious, or ingratiating. Bootlicker. Handsome man; groomed man. A peacock. Man who tends to exaggerate or whitewash things. A welcome visitor, a host. Interior designer, hairdresser, stylist, plastic surgeon etc. To show appreciation to a man; to flatter or flirt with a man or men in general. To visit a man; give a present to a man. Bouquet-Woman (a) Woman who is: invited; on a visit, convivial, sociable; socially active. Woman who is affable, well-mannered. Woman who is appreciated by the querent, or generally praiseworthy. Woman who is flirtatious, or ingratiating. Bootlicker. Pretty woman; groomed woman. A peacock. Woman who tends to exaggerate or whitewash things. A welcome visitor, a hostess. Interior designer, hairdresser, stylist, plastic surgeon etc. To show appreciation to a woman; to flatter or flirt with a woman or women in general. To visit a woman; give a present to a woman.   Bouquet-Man (b) Man who is: invited; on a visit, convivial, sociable; socially active. Man who is affable, well-mannered. Man who is appreciated by the querent, or generally praiseworthy. Man who is flirtatious, or ingratiating. Bootlicker. Handsome man; groomed man. A peacock. Man who tends to exaggerate or whitewash things. A welcome visitor, a host. Interior designer, hairdresser, stylist, plastic surgeon etc. To show appreciation to a man; to flatter or flirt with a man or men in general. To visit a man; give a present to a man. Bouquet-Woman (b) Woman who is: invited; on a visit, convivial, sociable; socially active. Woman who is affable, well-mannered. Woman who is appreciated by the querent, or generally praiseworthy. Woman who is flirtatious, or ingratiating. Bootlicker. Pretty woman; groomed woman. A peacock. Woman who tends to exaggerate or whitewash things. A welcome visitor, a hostess. Interior designer, hairdresser, stylist, plastic surgeon etc. To show appreciation to a woman; to flatter or flirt with a woman or women in general. To visit a woman; give a present to a woman.   Bouquet-(Sensual)Lily To go to a private view or theatre with others; to make music with others; artist group. Praise for someone's artistic accomplishments. Positive art reviews. Harmonious (interior) design; physical embellishments or verbal niceties with the goal of creating harmony. To give someone a sexy love letter / to get given a love letter. Thankfulness for the comfort and pleasures one can enjoy. Intense thankfulness. A very generous lover. Invitation to have sex; welcome sexual advances. Swinger party. Honest compliments or (possibly manipulative) flattery regarding sex. Bouquet-(Virtuous)Lily Any virtue relevant in order to have friendly, harmonious, close relationships with other people: willingness to compromise, loving kindness, righteousness, compassion, altruism, generosity etc. To treat others well. Honest compliments; honest feedback. Presents with no strings attached; to give gifts not to get something in return but to make the other person happy. To behave virtuously in order to create an atmosphere in which everyone feels happy and safe. Bouquet-Sun Party, celebration, congratulation, joyful gatherings. Superficial friendliness. Celebration of friendship; to find joy in cultivating friendships. Warm compliments, positive feedback. Great praise or appreciation. Pretty only on the surface. To please somebody. Making other people happy makes you happy, too! Bouquet-Moon   Profound gratitude; very sincere compliments. Emotional visit; emotional compliments. Recognition causes deep emotions. To visit someone who is sad. Someone visits when all we want is to rest. To rest from social situations. Social phobias. A beautiful night. Exaggerated emotionality; to exaggerate a fear/need. Bouquet-Key To open one's door to others. To accept compliments and praise. Welcome attention; a welcome visitor. To let beauty into one's life. Means to appear beautiful to others. Exaggerated welcome. Inclusive standards of beauty. The key to a healthy social life. To think that if you want to succeed you have to flatter others. Someone gets what they want by flattery or bribery - or, by being nice to others, in an honest way. An imminent visit or social situation. Bouquet-Fish To be very generous, to give away gifts or money. To receive a lot of flattery because people want your money (or other things of worth they feel you could give them). To view friendship as currency; to be friendly out of calculation (to gain something). Bribes (not necessarily financial in nature). Bouquet-Anchor Focus on aesthetics. Stable circle of friends. To find safety in social niceties. To stick with pleasantries. To be confined/restricted by having to be nice. Pleasant status quo. Nice, pleasant stop or break. To welcome a break. To make a stay / residence pleasant. Bouquet-Cross Social life or some aspect of it (e.g. a visit) feels like a burden. Friendliness, and/or being likeable, is our foremost duty. To be friendly on principle. To see it as our task to make things nice for others. The burden of always having to to please others. Generosity is a duty. Fateful visit. To compliment someone's dutifulness. Gratitude for someone's shouldering a burden / taking responsibility. To make someone's suffering easier for them; to help them forget their pain for a while by doing something nice. To present a pretty facade even when one is suffering inside.

#bouquet #annak

[towardslean]

S&L Interview of Pioneer Russell L. Ackoff

Russell Lincoln Ackoff (12 February 1919 – 29 October 2009) was an American organizational theorist, consultant, and Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Ackoff was a pioneer in the field of operations research, systems thinking and management science.

In a Strategy & Leadership article, ‘‘On misdirecting management’’, Ackoff andhis co-authors Vincent Barabba and John Pourdehnad argued that there are twotypes of consultants: self-promoting gurus and educators. According to this typology, the gurus promote their proprietary solution as a x-all instead of trying to increase managerial understanding of a particular corporate problem. In effect, they promote maxims and slogans as general prescriptions for management, but do not increase the competence of managers. In contrast, systemic thinking considers problems in terms of how the interactions of the parts, and the parts with the whole and its environment, create the properties of the whole.S&L contributing editor Robert J. Allio recently interviewed Russell Ackoff to obtain his specic suggestions for reinventing how managers learn to develop effective strategy and promote innovation. Robert Allio is a principal of Allio Associates, located in Providence, RI ([email protected]). He is currently putting the nishing touches on a new book, Seven Faces of Leadership.Strategy & Leadership: According to your recent indictment in Strategy & Leadership of management consultants who aggressively promote themselves as gurus with a prescription for change, most of them have only platitudes or tautologies to offer organizations that seek guidance on strategy. Why is it so easy for purveyors of platitudes to dupe managers?

Russell Ackoff: Because most managers don’t have the knowledge and understanding required to deal with complexity, they attempt to reduce complex situations to simple ones. As a result, they tend to look for simple, if not simple-minded, solutions to problems. For this reason managers are susceptible to management gurus pitching panaceas. When a panacea appears to work in one or two prominent business situations, it can quickly become a fad. The consultants relentlessly promote these fads and fantasies because they’re sources of business.S&L: So these consultants simply respond to market demand for solutions?Ackoff: Yes. There are exceptions of course. In my experience the larger consulting firms are the most guilty of promulgating fantasies like ‘‘down sizing’’, ‘‘benchmarking’’, and ‘‘process re-engineering’’.S&L: What responsibility do the business schools have for this condition?Ackoff: A great deal. In general, I nd that business schools tend to avoid theimportant complex strategic problems that corporate management is currentlyinvolved with. Not too long ago at a meeting of the deans of business schools Iidentied the set of six or seven corporate problems on which I was working. I asked them if any of them had courses that addressed such problems – not a single one of them was covered.S&L: An example of these problems you are working on?Ackoff: One is, ‘‘How can you plan to market a truly new product – one the consumer cannot conceptualize?’’. Another is: ‘‘What kind of support is required to enable an organization to learn and adapt effectively to a rapidly changing environment?’’ I have ‘‘endeared’’ myself to some faculty and business schools by identifying the three things that business schools do for students. First, they provide students with a vocabulary that enables them to talk with authority about subjects they do not understand. Second, they transmit to them a set of principles that have demonstrated an ability to withstand any amount of disconrming evidence. Third, they provide a ticket of admission to a job where they can learn something about management andbusiness. Around 95 percent of what managers use on the job they learned on the job. The most they get out of business school is connections. Attendance at a business is justied economically in terms of return on investment, but not in terms of providing aneducation.S&L: Let me go back to the search by management for panaceas. Are the corporate managers ignorant, insecure, naõ¨ve?Ackoff: They are not stupid. They are misinformed, incorrectly instructed, and do not understand what fundamental changes are going on in their environments. They are products of a defective educational system. Consequently, 50 percent of the corporations in the Fortune 500 of 25 years ago no longer exist. The average life of an American corporation is 14.5 years. Out of 23 new corporations created each year, only one survives the rst year. We incorrectly characterize the American economy by the successful ones. We ignore the failures. The strength of the American economy lies in the fact that it can survive more inefciency than any other economy in the world. If any other economy had the number of failures that we’ve had, it wouldn’t msurvive. We had almost 1,000 bankruptcies last year of major corporations and we are beating that this year so far. Imagine what our performance would be like if that inefciency were decreased.S&L: Are you suggesting that this is the consequence of inept management, aDarwinian survival phenomenon?Ackoff: Yes, I am. Gary Hamel and other management observers identify thenumerous failures and look for their causes in faulty management practices. But the one cause that dominates all others is management error. When I talk to managers, I usually start with a quote from Einstein, ‘‘Without changingour pattern of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current patterns of thought’’. Managers always agree with this. But when I ask, ‘‘What is our current pattern of thought?’’ they haven’t the foggiest idea. Because of this they cannot understand their failures.S&L: Are you advocating that we do better research on failures as opposed tosuccesses?Ackoff: No. We have to educate managers on the nature of the fundamentalintellectual changes that are occurring within our culture. These require a change in the way we think and what we think about.S&L: What are some of the characteristics of this new paradigm?Ackoff: One of them is the development of synthetic thinking, which provides better understanding of complex systems than analytical thinking does. Synthetic thinking is a way of thinking about and designing a system that derives the properties and behavior of its parts from the functions required of the whole. The whole has properties that none of its parts have.Analysis of a system reveals how it works but synthetic thinking is required to explain why it works the way it does. Systems thinking integrates the two.Analysis breaks a system down into its parts, tries to explain the behavior of these parts, and then attempts to aggregate this understanding into an understanding of the whole. It cannot succeed because when a system is taken apart it loses all its essential characteristics and so do its parts. A disassembled automobile cannot transport people and a motor taken out of it cannot move anything, even itself. Analysis, applied to systems, and therefore corporations, can only yield knowledge of how the system works, but never an understanding of why it works the way it does.S&L: You’re making the important distinction between knowing a system andunderstanding it.Ackoff: Yes. Knowledge is transmitted through instructions, which are the answers to how-to questions. Understanding is transmitted through explanations, which answer the why questions. Herein lies a very fundamental difference. Corporations and corporate managers do not understand the importance of this difference. They tend tohave a lot of knowledge but little understanding of the complex systems they manage and the environments in which they operate. To echo Peter Drucker, they tend to manage things right rather than manage the right things. The righter (more efciently) they managed the wrong thing, the wronger (less effective), they become.S&L: Where can executives get reliable advice on how to run their organizations, if not from consultants or the business schools?Ackoff: Don’t start with books on strategy, with alleged experts, or so-callededucators. Instead, start with iconoclasts – individuals who can help others acquire understanding about the changes taking place in the way we think, and what we think about. Once managers understand the changing paradigm, to use your term, then they can ask: ‘‘What are the implications of strategic thinking?’’. The approach I suggest seems terribly complicated compared to what most consultants advise. When someone asked Peter Drucker what he thought of the solutions proposed in the 1990s by Peters and Waterman’s best selling book The Search for Excellence, he said, ‘‘I wish it were that simple’’. Complex problems do not have simple-minded solutions.S&L: Can you cite examples of corporations that manage systemically?Ackoff: Yes, there are a number – Hermann Miller, Fed Ex, Westinghouse Furniture Systems, SAS, and Gore-Tex, to mention a few.S&L: In order to think systemically, I need to understand the relationship between the parts and the whole. Doesn’t that mean I need to have data that show the causal relationship among those parts?Ackoff: You have to understand how the interactions of the parts, and the parts with the whole and its environment, create the properties of the whole. Cause-effect is about actions, not interactions. Most managers currently manage the actions of their organizations’ parts taken separately. This is based on the false assumption that improving the performance of the parts separately necessarily improves the performance of the whole, the corporation. That is a false premise. In fact, you can destroy a corporation by improving its individual parts. Try putting a Rolls Royce engine in a Hyundai.S&L: So your premise is, if we are going to have more effective corporations, then we need to understand the system that comprises the organization. When you give that prescription to a manager, what are you telling him to do?Ackoff: He has to re-conceptualize the corporation. The origin of the word‘‘corporation’’ is ‘‘corpus’’, a body, an organism, a biological entity. According tothe law a corporation is a person. Organisms, unlike mechanisms, have purposes of their own. But, in an organism, the parts have no purposes of their own. They are mechanisms. It is only the whole that has a purpose. So, the current conception of a corporation involves thinking that its parts exist only to serve the purposes of the whole and the whole has no obligation to serve the purposes of the parts – only to keep them, as organs, healthy and safe. And this is the wrong metaphor for a modern ncorporation. We should no longer treat a corporation as a biological system. We should treat it as a social system. A social system has purposes of its own, so do its parts, and so do the systems that contain it and the other systems they contain. A social system oats in a sea of purposes at multiple levels with some purposes incompatible within andbetween levels; and its management must concern itself with all of these. It is for this reason that we are becoming aware of the need to know how to manage complexity. There is a growing need to think of the corporation as a community, not as an organism. Now, the implications of re-envisioning a corporation as a community are huge. First, ownership becomes irrelevant. This notion that stockholders own a corporation is in decline. They are investors and shouldn’t be treated as owners. No one owns a nation, state, city, or neighborhood. But each must take into account the purposes of all its stakeholders. Communities have an obligation to facilitate the development of its members, tocontribute to their quality of life and standard of living, and to enable them to pursue their objectives as well as they know how.  The third fundamental characteristic of a community is that it is not a hierarchy but a‘‘lower-archy’’. In a community, those in a position of authority are selected by the people below them, not above them. Authority does not ow from the top down as it does in most corporations; it ows from the bottom up, and so do resources. So the task of turning a corporation around into a community and a lower-archy is really huge.S&L: What about leading such a transition?Ackoff: This requires more than management; it requires leadership. The thing that leaders do that managers don’t is articulate an inspiring vision and guide theformulation of a strategy for its pursuit. Good or bad, you look at a Lenin or a Churchill, and what they did is produce a vision shared by others. In Churchill’s case, he produced a vision of victory for the allies and helped formulate a strategy for getting there. To lead requires different skills than to manage. Some unique individuals combine those two skills, but generally not. Churchill was a magnicent leader in WWII. He was not a good manager, but he had enough sense to pick people who were. He surrounded himself with people who could do what he couldn’t do, and who couldn’t do what he could.S&L: Let’s talk about how to formulate effective strategy – not by listening toconsultants, not by going to business school, but by understanding the system.Ackoff: First by understanding what’s happening inside and outside the organization, then by developing a vision of what the organization could be within the emerging culture and environment. Next by preparing a strategy for reaching or moving closer to that vision. For example, our healthcare system is a mess. We are the only developed country in the world without universal coverage; about 42 million people are uninsured. It is estimated that excessive testing, excessive surgery, or excessive prescribing of drugs hat interact adversely causes at least half of the illness in the US. The federalgovernment recently found that about one million people per year are seriouslyinfected while in hospitals and approximately 100,000 die from these infections. The fact is that the US doesn’t have a healthcare system. We have an illness and disability care system. Why? We or our surrogates pay the system for taking care of us when we are sick or disabled. Therefore, the greatest threat to the existence of the system is pervasive health! Little wonder that the system accepts and encourages practices that preserve, maintain and create illness and disability. The time is ripe for somebody to see the real problem and say, ‘‘Let’s design a healthcare system, one that that has incentives for producing and maintaining health, not illness and disabilities’’.S&L: Let me ask you to advise the individual who sees such an opportunity andcreates a vision. The manager wants to develop a strategy to implement that vision.How does the manager develop effective strategy? Ackoff: This requires design, and designs that lead require creativity. Creativityinvolves a three-step process. The .rst step is to identify assumptions that you makewhich prevent you from seeing the alternatives to the ones that you currently see.These are self-imposed constraints. The second step is to deny these constrainingassumptions. The third is to explore the consequences of the denials. Creativity ofindividuals can be enhanced by practice, particularly under the guidance of one who iscreative.S&L: As opposed to learning creative strategy from case studies?Ackoff: Case studies usually provide examples of uncreative solutions to problems.Learning a business principle from a case may help one practice that principle, but itdoesn’t show you how to creatively solve problems.S&L: What’s a good alternative to the case method?Ackoff: The best way to learn is through apprenticeship and neither the educationalsystem nor education within corporations is built on apprenticeship.S&L: How do you implement the concept of apprenticeship in the corporation?Ackoff: I lived in England for a while and I was tremendously impressed by theconcept of a shadow cabinet. Years later, working with the brewing company,Anheuser-Busch, I asked the CEO, August Busch, III, and each member of theexecutive committee (all 11 vice presidents) to pick one up-and-coming young personto serve on a shadow policy committee for the corporation. Each issue that goes tothe top for solution .rst goes to this group and they make their recommendations tothe top group. Members are replaced every few years. They are exposed to a realeducation and learn how to think strategically through continuous interaction with topmanagement.In the organizational design called a circular organization or democratic hierarchy,every manager has a board consisting of him/herself, his/her immediate subordinatesand his/her immediate superior. These boards have responsibilities similar to those ofparliament and congress while the manager has those of an executive of.ce. This toohas turned out to be a very effective educational process and way to raising moraleand productivity. Furthermore, it simpli.es succession planning.S&L: Give me an example of a creative systemic thinking process that resulted in animportant new product.Ackoff: An urban automobile. Before we could start to redesign the automobile forurban use, someone had to ask, ‘‘What is the most basic assumption we make thataffect the design of our current automobiles?’’. The answer: we currently designautomobiles to serve in a variety of environments, to serve many purposes. Is this acorrect assumption? When the automobile was developed it was so expensiverelatively that only the most prosperous families could only afford one. Therefore, theinitial need was for a general-purpose vehicle. But today, most households in the UScontain two or more cars, enabling us to divide their use between urban and interurbantrips and between use at rush hour or off hours. So, this gives us an opportunityto design an urban automobile for workday and work-time use. On the average, howmany people ride in an urban automobile? It turns out to be 1.2, more than 80 percentof the cars in the city contain just one or two people. So, we can design a twopassengerautomobile for urban use. And what is the speed at which you get themaximum density of people on a highway all moving in the same direction? It turns tobe between 35 and 40 mph. So we build the car with a maximum cruising capacity of 40 mph. The car, currently available only through custom production, goes more than80 miles per gallon, is non polluting, and would, if in general use, eliminate all urbancongestion until well into this century.These examples answer the question you asked earlier: ‘‘How do you work out themeans strategically?’’. First, we decided we wanted an automobile that will avoidpollution congestion and maximize comfort and convenience. To design one fromscratch creatively we had to identify the assumptions on which the design of thecurrent automobile is based, deny them, and explore the consequences. The need thatremains is for a strategy that will lead to progress toward realization of such a vehicle.S&L: You are describing the process of critical thinking.Ackoff: It’s more than just thinking critically; it’s a process of rethinking constructivelyand creatively.S&L: So, in the management arena, does research have a role – for example tosuggest enduring relationships or natural laws? How would you critique the BostonConsulting Group research on the experience curve that led to the market sharehypothesis?Ackoff: Experience is a dynamic concept, isn’t it? Without experience, learning wouldnot be possible. Therefore, to say that experience results in learning is to say nothing.Then to add that performance improves with learning is also a tautology. How couldperformance improve without learning?S&L: But it quanti.es the impact.Ackoff: No, it doesn’t quantify, it gives you the shape of the curve, and that’s trivial. Itjust says you become more ef.cient with practice.S&L: The PIMS research resulted in a multivariate regression equation from whichcertain conclusions were drawn. The PIMS apostles would argue that those equationscould explain pro.tability.Ackoff: They’re wrong. They don’t explain anything. They are not explanatory; they’redescriptive. The PIMS model operates on the assumption that regression hassomething to do with causality and that’s absolutely false. The most that regressioncan do is formulate a causal hypothesis that can be tested. It cannot establish anycausal relationships.S&L: What are some other strategic management ‘‘predictors’’ that are misused ormisunderstood?Ackoff: In his book about corporate longevity, Arie de Geus postulates that allcompanies that have lived for more than 100 years have certain characteristics. Bystudying such companies he identi.ed properties to which he attributes theircontinuing survival. But he didn’t show that all the companies that don’t live for 100years don’t have those characteristics. His inferences may be correct, but they are notjusti.ed by his argument.S&L: Lack of a ‘‘control sample’’ is also a problem with Jim Collins’ research for hisinuential business books Good to Great and Built to Last: Successful Habits ofVisionary Companies, and many other best sellers too.Ackoff: But, that’s the kind of simple-minded stuff that’s being bought.S&L: What’s your advice to a practicing manager on how to become a more effectivestrategist and leader?Ackoff: First, to get educated on what’s happening in the culture and the new world,to become aware of the nature of the fundamental intellectual transformations takingplace and what their implications are for the future of business and managementgenerally. Second, to attach themselves to people who show creative thinking andengage with them in the process of redesigning, from scratch and with no constraints,the systems they manage.

[thesinglesjukebox]

MILEY CYRUS - YOUNGER NOW [5.38] We return her enthusiasm.

Alex Clifton: Confession: I've never really cared for Miley Cyrus' music. There's something about her tonal quality that doesn't sit well with me and her music has always been middling at best. She's tried to be cute, edgy, hard, and experimental, and none of those have ever sounded great. Yet there's something to be said for "Younger Now" -- for once in her entire musical career, Cyrus doesn't sound like she's trying. The entire tune's full of weird platitudes regarding change, the lyrics are a bit basic, and I can't say I'd seek this song out, but it finally feels like she's found her niche and enjoys the music she makes. That's all you can ever ask for from an artist, I suppose. I still have mixed feelings about Cyrus in general (appropriation, etc.) but maybe this era will mark a welcome change for her. [5]

Alfred Soto: Miley Cyrus can sing, but those stretched syllables are hell on my concentration. Also, while I sympathize with clinging to the insouciance of youth, Cyrus's public persona suggests she's more interesting as an adult channelling the energy of youth. [6]

Katie Gill: Miley Cyrus is 24. I don't want to be ageist, but "I feel so much younger now"? Really? Speaking as a 25 year old, I'd honestly be surprised if any of us WANT to go back to our younger, high school to undergrad years (fun fact! Legally drinking and not living in a dorm is AWESOME.) There's so much potential here: after all, a younger Cyrus still spent most of her life in the spotlight. How do you reconcile that with feeling younger? Instead, she gives us a song composed of nothing but platitudes and fortune cookie fortunes over a stale instrumentation. [5]

Eleanor Graham: She doesn't actually feel younger now. Age is still measured in linear years and not square inches of skin. VMA-gate Miley was only "mature" in the least literal, most Daily Mail sense of the word; and Miley in a high-cut red leotard performing a terrible cover of "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" is still about as indelibly, nakedly young as pop gets. But this isn't about that. This is about a peaceful transfer of power. A resurrection with director's commentary. "Even though it's not who I am," she explains patiently. "I'm not afraid of who I used to be." As T****r S***t attempts to take a knife to her past incarnations without cutting ties with her original fanbase, to exclude herself from every narrative going while sitting smugly atop the platform those narratives provided, and thus becomes engulfed in an ever more impenetrable web of political and cultural discourse, Cyrus manages a simple and bloodless transition. From Bad Girl to Good, from breasts and gold grills to a white dress laced to the neck, but for the lipgloss one of Sofia Coppola's Civil War schoolgirls. This and the country rock sounds are part of her plan to ensnare Trump supporters and - what? Even if Cyrus were somewhere between Billy Bragg and Bob Dylan, their votes are not up for grabs. Their hearts, perhaps. Their $9.99, certainly. But "Younger Now" doesn't have the aesthetic of moral bankruptcy. Cyrus follows Joan Didion's advice: there are no ugly confrontations, just a smile and a shrug and a "change is a thing you can count on." The music sounds good; clean, like fresh air. [6]

Maxwell Cavaseno: More and more, Miley Cyrus's current phase feels less like the next step of a continuous desperation to be the star of her generation and instead appears to be evolving into their conscience. "Younger Now" sonically feels like a big budget Neko Case song, with the intent of continuously reminding us that the perpetual zest of annoyance that characterized so much of Cyrus's more 'edgy' period has been expulsed like so much poison for the sake of a nice, responsible, maturity. This is the Miley so many of us all knew she was deep down, whom she has finally allowed to breathe without trying to be so wild and crazy. Fact of the matter is, this burnout for all its satisfaction as a pop song feels more desolate than the pine-needle provocations of Bangerz & Dead Petz. If anything, her more crooked material at least had the ideas of a wild desire to impress people. Now we're left with placation and a bowed head of humility, tragic resignation that just feels less like being tamed than being broken. [5]

Katherine St Asaph: How many pop stars have to penitently abandon electro before we note it not as individual awakenings but a trend? The playbook is the same: hemlines lowered, parties canceled, acoustic guitars mixed to near-pornographic emphasis, duet with Dolly Parton or someone like her. Miley has read your thinkpieces and made musical apologies, mea maxima Crow. Or maxima megachurch, as the stolid kick drum suggests big sterile auditoriums and the nonspecificity of Cyrus' supposed awakening would work fine at a youth-group baptism. You probably think I hate this, but it's not all bad. Pro: Synthpop is plenty friendly to alto voices and thick timbres (evidence: the entire '80s), but perhaps in a soft-rock setting the solidity to Miley's voice might be less lost on listeners, since they think it isn't autotuned. Con: The demographic cynicism of it all; I'm sure it's not lost on Miley or anyone that Sam Hunt's "Body Like a Back Road" is in the Top 10 and is getting the kind of pop radio airplay that hip hop-influenced tracks increasingly aren't. Pro: I've got a soft spot for pop-rock, that spot where Lilith Fair meets U2; it's funny and kinda vindicating to see people like it when not by those names. Con: With "maturity" and "realness" invariably comes a thematic flattening, the pat morality of a story's end; there's more weirdness and emotional ambivalence in Tove Lo or Halsey or the near-entirety of R&B than these bowdlerized bangerz. [5]

Rebecca A. Gowns: Such a confusing career move. Miley's trading in her tasteless minstrel show act for a scrubbed-up, more "mature" brand and a whiter shade of pale. Even though she claims she's "younger" now, the song feels decades older and terribly dated, much like those rich teenage girls who dress like their mothers. She's trying to sound more self-assured, but all I can hear is a little girl clomping around in big high heels, telling us she's not a baby, she's five; she refuses to do what we expect from her, but her imagination is still confined to the walls of her own house. [3]

Scott Mildenhall: It's almost startling how Miley Cyrus seems to have opted out of the illusion of notoriety just as easily as she bluntly manufactured it. All that carry-on a few years ago pierced consciousnesses beyond common pop-cultural bounds, but it was only ever a moment. The narrative needn't be rounded out: from the media to the media-averse, the uninvested most likely made their money and moved on, or simply forgot. Teflon controversy and the allegedly anarchic give way to breezy spirituality, a break with the past is used as water and not petrol on the flames, and short memories are harnessed. Miley Cyrus sounds like she's forgotten she cared, and that she wants you to do the same. [8]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

#Miley Cyrus #Younger Now

[ramialkarmi]

A guy who sold his startup for $1.26 billion tells grads to 'get good at failure'

Martin Casado is a legend in his own corner of the tech world for inventing a technology that radically alters the way computer networks are built.

He invented the tech while he was a PhD student at Stanford. He took that invention, and two of the professors advising him (legends in their own right) Nick McKeown from Stanford and Scott Shenker from University of California, Berkeley, and founded a startup back in 2012. It was called Nicira and it was backed by VCs like Andreessen Horowitz ("a16z").

"Nicira launched into the networking industry like a cannonball hitting placid water," a16z founder Marc Horowitz wrote of Nicira and of Casado. That's true.

The company was quietly founded in 2007, but didn't officially launch until early 2012. Five months later, it sold to VMware for a stunning $1.26 billion. And the network industry has never been the same.

After staying with VMware for a few years, Casado left in early 2016 to become a VC with a16z. But the interesting thing is, he doesn't think of himself as a runaway success. He thinks of himself as someone who "got good at failure."

Or so he told the 2017 graduating class at his first alma mater, Northern Arizona University, where he spoke after receiving an honorary PhD on May 13.

"When I was standing where you are, I wanted to be the world's best computational physicist," Casado confessed to the crowd. "And soon after I wanted to be the world's foremost cyber policy expert. But instead I went to grad school, and then I wanted to be the world's best academic. And I certainly didn't accomplish that."

"I only found computer science because I couldn't hack it as a physicist, and then I failed as a microbiology student. I made many, many missteps as the first time founder of a company," he said.

Casado's speech was short, sweet, funny, and profound.

I heard it because I was in the audience that day, proudly watching my own daughter graduate with a degree in astrophysics (notice how I slipped in that motherly brag?). While I'm insanely proud of my kid, I'm also biting my nails over what her degree will lead to.

She doesn't want to go to grad school right now. And although she knows forms of math that I didn't even know existed, what kind of career will she have? I don't know. And neither does she.

But Casado's speech flipped my view on it. He offered four solid bits of advice to students, which is good advice for anyone, at any age:

No. 1: "You're unlikely to achieve your goals."

Since no one can predict the future, while on the path to a goal, a better goal "is likely to smack you while you're looking the other way, and you'd be an idiot not to follow it," he said.

His advice is to "take some fraction of that effort and work on being open to change, and to opportunity," while working toward your goals.

If he hadn't been open to change in his career, he never would have invented an industry-changing technology.

No. 2: "You are going to fail. A lot. It's inevitable."

He suggests that it is really "failure," not "progress" that indicates whether you are living up to your potential.

If you are failing, you are truly pushing yourself, and "not stalling your own progress by hiding."

The true skill, then, is "to learn to embrace failure. Not only embrace failure, get good at it, and by that I mean get back up, apply what you've learned, and hit reset."

No. 3: "No one really knows what contributes to success."

Every person is unique, and that means what's right for others isn't always right for you. When it comes to advice, listen to the parts that ring true for you, and disregard the rest.

"You're going to take one path out of an infinite number of possibilities," Casado said. "And you're going to navigate it your way."

No. 4: "The universe is a messy place."

So, if there is a secret to life, happiness, and success, it's this: "The opportunity is hidden in the sloppiness. If you hold too hard to specific ideas of where you want to go, or what the landscape will look like, or what the world will provide you, I can guarantee you'll be disappointed."

Here is the full transcript of his speech with the video embedded below, if you'd rather listen than read:

CASADO: "Graduates, I am deeply honored to have a few minutes with you. So let me first thank you for the opportunity and your attention.

Right now. This moment. Is one of the most significant inflection points in your life. And perhaps not in the way you'd expect. So if you'll indulge me, I'd like to explain why.

Getting to this point. This space we're all sharing right now, has taken a tremendous amount of work and dedication. No doubt. And for that, I applaud you, and you have my deepest respect.

However, a university education, no matter how windy, is a path with a clear goal. It was challenging, sure. Yet generally the objective was pretty obvious: Work hard and get the hell out.

All of that is about to change.

Almost two decades ago I was standing where you are now. I was nervous. I was excited. And I was largely over it.

And so I took that proverbial step. And very quickly, I realized that where I landed was very, very different from where I left.

It was as if I stepped off of a narrow path and into a city. And unlike my university experience, there was no clear goal. There wasn't a defined string of classes or tests I had to pass. There was no notion of a start or finish.

Instead there was a vast, vast collection of opportunities and perils. Infinite routes, to infinite locations, and none of which I really understood. You could chose to stop or move at any time with equal chance of benefit or loss.

And I found that none of my experiences really prepared me to navigate such a wide open space. There were no platitudes, no cliches, no quippy one liners that provided clear and useful guidance. It wasn't just about working hard and setting goals. It wasn't just about perseverance or having a positive attitude. I knew how to do all those things. This new space required something far different.

So with that backdrop I'd like to offer you some advice. Lessons that no one would be able to put on a motivational poster and keep their job. Lessons to keep in mind as you take this next step into the chaos.

First: You're unlikely to achieve your goals. Really, it's very unlikely. When I was standing where you are, I wanted to be the world's best computational physicist. And soon after I wanted to be the world's foremost cyber policy expert. But instead I went to grad school and then I wanted to be the world's best academic. And I certainly didn't accomplish that.

You're unlikely to achieve your goals. The reason is that you probably don't realize how many amazing opportunities are out there, and how much you'll enjoy them. You are unlikely to achieve your goals, because a better one is likely to smack you while you're looking the other way, and you'd be an idiot not to follow it.

So my guidance to you is as much as you work towards your goals, take some fraction of that effort and work on being open to change, and to opportunity.

Second: You are going to fail. A lot. It's inevitable. I only found computer science because I couldn't hack it as a physicist, and then I failed as a microbiology student. I made many, many missteps as the first time founder of a company.

You are going to fail because you're going to be navigating a shifting landscape with a lot of things not under your control. You're going to fail because the goals are going to change or be unclear. You're going to fail because you'll start something, and realize it's not what you want to do.

And here's the key: Failing will be your only true measure of progress. It's inevitable. The system you're about to walk into is simply too dynamic and too poorly defined for you not to.

And so my guidance to you is to learn to embrace failure. Not only embrace failure, get good at it, and by that I mean get back up, apply what you've learned, and hit reset.

Third: No one really knows what contributes to success. Not me, not some business guru, or some pundit on the news. No one. And that's particularly true for your success. Yours. Here's the reality: Every one of you is a beautiful collection of amazing qualities and strengths. Unique in all the universe you. And you're going to take one path out of an infinite number of possibilities. And you're going to navigate it your way.

So right here, I grant you permission to summarily ignore the nonsense of others. Take advice as input, sure. But check it against your absolutely unique perspective and qualities to bring to a problem.

You do you, Boo.

For what it's worth, of all the advice I've given you, this last request will probably be the most difficult. I know you can work hard. I know you're all smart, and capable, and resourceful. But I don't know how well you know yourself. I certainly didn't when I graduated. And it took a lot of inquiry, and a lot of failure, and a lot of false starts to begin to figure it out.

In the words of Dr. Seuss, that he actually didn't write and I totally made up, “You can't do you, Boo, if you don't know you"

OK, let me take a step back. Here's where all of this is leading.

The universe is a messy place. And the real trick going forward is to acknowledge that, and to embrace it. The opportunity is hidden in the sloppiness. If you hold too hard to specific ideas of where you want to go, or what the landscape will look like, or what the world will provide you, I can guarantee you'll be disappointed.

And it's exactly because the beauty is in the chaos. What have I asked of you?

One, focus on being open to change because although you're all beautiful and bright and creative individuals, the opportunities are for more wondrous than you can possible conceive.

Two, fail. It's the only way you know that you're riding the chaos and are not stalling your own progress by hiding.

Three, no one knows what's best for you. Because really, it's unknowable. So ignore the pundits and do it your way.

And to do that, know yourself. Because really, this journey is for you. And your priorities. And for those you care about. With that, I'll leave you with a quote. And this one I didn't make up.

It's from the Ashtavakra Gita:

'Let the waves of the universe rise and fall as they will. You have nothing to gain or lose. You are the ocean.'

Thank you very much, and again many congratulations."

Here's the video. Skip to 48:37 to see Casado:

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