About illness

My sketch of the miseries of influenza.

There is an art to being sick. And one's philosophy of life plays into it.

I came down with a nasty strain of influenza in July. For two weeks, I was flat out in bed unable to move much, headache, body aches, fever and chills, sore throat, laryngitis, congestion, coughing,...you know, the flu. It's been a very long time since I was this sick.

I had the chance to live my Stoic philosophy. I failed in the moment, but learned much.

If you didn’t learn these things in order to demonstrate them in practice, what did you learn them for? ~Epictetus

Stoicism (not the "stiff upper lip", stand-and-take-it with no emotion kind) is an ancient Greek and Roman philosophy with some coping techniques for the ups and downs of life. One outcome is increased positive emotions and decreased negative emotions. Another is peace of mind.

You seek through virtue (courage, temperance, justice, wisdom) and logic to respond to life in a way that helps you find happiness in adversity.

One exercise is to imagine a loss, or being without, for a brief time every day, and then through the day keep that perspective in mind, along with thoughts of gratitude. This helps you not take for granted what you have (job, possessions, family, friends, health) and prepares you for the certain losses that life brings.

Among other techniques, you manage your emotions and achieve peace of mind by evaluating what you can control and what is beyond your control, and through practice, learning to become indifferent to that which you cannot control.

In theory.

You definitely can't control the flu. I was not indifferent.

I was miserable, complaining that it wasn't convenient, that it never let up, that I was taking too long to get better. I was counting the minutes and dreading the night. My emotional misery added to my physical misery. It was only after I finally gave in and rested, and did what I needed to do to get better, that a bit more peace of mind came to me. I eased up on my own expectations.

Things do not touch the soul, for they are external and remain immovable; so our perturbations come only from our inner opinions. ~Marcus Aurelius

Forced suffering teaches.

I learned that not as much matters as we think it does. Your health is a precious thing to appreciate and protect above all. It can be worse quickly. We are all temporarily able-bodied. Wellness will be more appreciated.

‘Being healthy is good, being sick is bad.’ No, my friend: enjoying health in the right way is good; making bad use of your health is bad. ~Epictetus

I learned that our stuff, our things, what others think, and the events that happen around us should all fall into a low priority, really, illness or no. Keeping that perspective is important to peace and well-being.

Being attached to many things, we are weighed down and dragged along with them. ~Epictetus

I had confirmed clearly that I am too soft and spoiled, and privileged, in my life in general. More Stoic practice is needed.

“But my nose is running!” What do you have hands for, idiot, if not to wipe it? “But how is it right that there be running noses in the first place?” Instead of thinking up protests, wouldn’t it be easier just to wipe your nose? ~Epictetus

I became grateful for food, water, a deep breath of air, throat drops, ice, soft Kleenex tissue and sleep. I've just been rushing through life, not paying attention to or appreciating the simple act of living.

Very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life. ~Marcus Aurelius

Moments of ease between pain are precious. Living more in those moments extends them.

The present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose something he does not already possess. ~Marcus Aurelius

Loved ones and friends became more dear. Their concern and kindnesses however small were so welcome. We need to treat each other with more TLC.

To care for all men is according to man’s nature; and man should value the opinion only of those who openly live according to nature. ~Marcus Aurelius

And, I didn't get worse. I'm still here among the living. I didn't get bronchitis, pneumonia, sinus infection, strep throat, dehydrated or a list of other complications. I very Stoic kind of appreciation.

It isn’t death, pain, exile or anything else you care to mention that accounts for the way we act, only our opinion about death, pain and the rest. ~Epictetus

I feel changed, clearly, and don't think I'll be the same again. Unless I forget.

How quickly things disappear: in the universe the bodies themselves, but in time the memory of them. ~Marcus Aurelius

My duty is clear.

Remember.

For the next time, for others. To be more "artful", to be more philosophical in practice than in theory.

Read more about Stoicism:

How to Be a Stoic, Massimo Pigliucci
Indifference is a Power, (Or why Stoicism is one of the best mind-hacks ever) Lary Wallace
Stoicism 101, How to be a Stoic
Stoic Ethics, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

A Word of the Year

(Hey, look what I found in my drafts folder! Too late for a resolutions post?)

A word of the year works for me.

Rather than a list of resolutions that are more wishes than determination to better myself, I choose one word every January to guide my life for the year, to send me off in one direction.

It's not an original idea.

I trace it back to a post on the Happiness Project blog a few years ago about setting the tone for the year, and this one with a video about choosing a one-word theme, and this recent one that I just discovered, one-word theme.

Then there's this author who believes you can change your life with just a word. (Haven't read it, so I can't recommend it, but it seems like a popular idea.)

My daughter told me she was doing it as a way to simplify and still move forward, and, of course, remove the guilt when resolve usually fails.

Who needs one more thing to fail at, feel bad about, or stress over? Not I.

How I choose

Every year I ponder on something that I think will benefit me personally and possibly others. I try to keep it broad, but not nebulous; focused and measurable, but not restrictive and too defined. I ask others, but not to copy, just to be inspired. I make lists, look at a thesaurus and dictionary sometimes, but essentially it just comes to me at a random moment.

The implications

I like this one-word approach because I already put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed and improve, and I don't need the extra pressure of a long to-do list. Besides, at this point in life I've exhausted the long lists (either as impossible, fruitless, or trivial).

So here's why I choose just one word:

• It's easy to hold in my mind.
• It can apply in so many ways. 
• Anticipating how it will manifest is half the fun.
• Every year can be a success.
• The outcome usually surprises me.

A few examples

One year I chose Color. I felt life was a bit drab, a bit boring, a bit colorless.

So I focused on buying fewer gray or neutral pieces of clothing and more items with color. I didn't realize that I was always pulling beige-colored or gray pants off the rack to try on.

I live in a house with beige carpets and off-white walls. So I took a risk and bought richer curtains, rugs and towels, and a red chair!

More colorful food is better for you, richer in vitamins and variety, better for digestion and cancer-fighting goodness, instead of the processed, soft, white, starchy diets many of us have. I choose colorful food.

That word color continued with me through the years since that first one. I think about color more and not just in clothing, food and home decor. Color lifts my spirits. I look for that really blue sky in October and really green grass in May (and the azaleas!)1 and all the shades and seasons in between. I notice the "pops" of color that make life good and interesting.

The point was to get out of my comfort zone, or climb out of a rut or two, and get some variety and zest into life.

The year I chose Authenticity, I strove to bring my home self, my work self, my church self, my family self and my inner self more into alignment.

I stopped myself from pretending when I didn't really feel it, and smiling when I didn't want to (or when someone told me to!). I started keeping quiet when my opinion wasn't really needed, and speaking up when it was important.

I cherished real life moments (good and bad) rather than rushing to the next thing or wishing away a situation. A lot of healthy goodness came from that year.

For example, it was a relief and a revelation when I finally said to self and family I hate to cook. In our culture it's just assumed that women like to cook and nothing pleases them more than feeding their families. And for some that is true. I gave up trying to fit a mold when it comes to cooking. I now put together nice, simple, balanced meals to nourish us, but I'm equally fine with picking up prepared meals on the way home from work, eating leftovers, or warming something from a can. It's all good and doesn't reflect on me personally, or as a wife and mother.

The point of Authenticity is that my thoughts and opinions are a valid as any other, how I express myself in word and dress and action is unique. My preferences are mine, and I value those ideas.

Last year I chose Truth. As the year unfolded I did a lot of pondering and listening to my heart and soul for answers. I ended up writing in a journal a lot more than I have in years. It was so good to take the time I needed to just think about what's important in life and to me. I knew I had a whole year to figure a few things out and I wandered (and wondered) down many avenues of thought, sometimes aimlessly and sometimes with dogged determination.

What felt serious and heavy at one point gradually flattened out, thinned, and dissolved away. I equate the feeling to a Bible scripture, John 8:32, "and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

The point is that some things can't be forced, but need time to mature or resolve. A year to focus on one word provides that for me.

If resolutions don't work for you or you just don't want another thing to do, give a Word of the Year a try, instead.

Share with me and I'll give you a thumbs up and whatever cheering and validation you need.

Making your website accessible is just plain the right thing to do

Bridging a barrier

I've spent a lot of my work life and free thinking time this year teaching myself (and others, one coworker at a time) the principles and skills of web accessibility, to be applied first on a simple low-risk pilot project, and then so I can be positioned to make a difference when my company finally commits to it whole-heartedly.

Making web content easily available to people with disabilities will take institutional will and know-how.

But mainly will.

Don't tell me it doesn't fit in with the mission, target audience or business needs. I design and manage web projects for the main website of a major financial institution whose mission is to take a stand for their clients, to treat them fairly, and give them the best chance for success. But for all it's altruism, it has yet to get on board fully with coding, design and writing practices that would make it's content available to all people regardless of their technology or disability.

Don't tell me there isn't time or money in the budget. I've just rolled off a 5-year multi-million dollar infrastructure and user interface project where commitment to one internal goal was paramount, but little thought or support was given to complying with basic accessibility guidelines for users.

So I find myself wondering about how large institutions become motivated to take on change.

Where is the will?

I found this excellent WebAIM article, Hierarchy for Motivating for Accessibility Change, which made me wonder if any of these approaches would work at my company.

• Guilt: See above. It is so perfect with our mission, and we've had the opportunities that we've passed up, so why not make it a priority like other projects we've done recently.
• Punish: We could be sued. Others in our industry have recently and the Department of Justice has become increasingly involved.
• Require: The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act "places of public accommodation" phrase could be interpreted to mean websites, which would require companies who do business on the web to make their websites accessible to those with disabilities. Or, maybe we should just declare that we are making this a company standard and it will become a part of job expectations tied to yearly performance evaluations. 
• Reward: Being accessible will give us a competitive marketing advantage...we'll be able to earn/tout industry certification. Or, we'll strengthen loyalty to the brand and our net promoter score will go up. Or, we'll broaden our client base and that means more money coming in.
• Enlighten: Cleaner simpler code is better for SEO and gets us better Google rankings. Or, it makes for better future readiness as new technologies come along. Accessibility is a side effect of technical excellence. 
• Inspire: It is about taking a stand for people, treating them fairly and giving them the best chance to succeed. So let's see it make a difference in the life of an individual. I'll bet you know someone with a disability who could benefit from our great company philosophy. And, 50% of our clients are over age 50, but they own the lion's share of our assets. Let's make it easier for older eyes and improve their experience. Let's make it more accessible to both clients and prospects. It's just plain the right thing to do. 

Which ones work for you, personally? Which have worked for you at your large company or corporation? Did I miss any?

About web accessibility from the experts at WebAIM.org

I've been buried for the last 6 months in teaching myself all about web accessibility (A11y), what it is, how it benefits others and how to achieve it.

Recently I attended the WebAIM 2-day training on the Utah State University campus in the beautiful Logan, Utah, to finally check my knowledge and fill in any gaps.

I'm pleased to say I know a lot about accessibility already, had a few misconceptions cleared up and dove into ARIA tagging.

I tweeted all my notes to share in real-time with colleagues.

Here is the Storify version, as a recap. Enjoy!

Tidbits from A11y training at WebAIM - Day 1
Day 1 continued
Day 2

I love attending conferences

In February I attended An Event Apart in Atlanta Georgia. Since I love learning (hence the blog title), I love conferences. I learn from the whole experience.

I love being in a new place.

Looking up...

looking down...

looking outside...

looking inside,

 and seeing art everywhere, even on the ceiling.

I love eating in new places... 

meeting new people...

...and thinking new thoughts.

And, if I'm lucky, experiencing some great art. 

[High Museum of Art...amazing and varied collection]

I especially like thinking new thoughts...

gaining new insights about my work...

...and myself.

It's so good to "get out of the house", to clear my head and re-energize. The unmeasurable conference "effect" for me is a certain clarity the comes about issues not even related to the conference topics or events.

Does that happen for you too?

Synesthesia is a colorful way of life

Do you see numbers or letters in color?

You're not crazy. It's rather common.

It's called Grapheme synethesia.

I never knew that what I see had a name. So often people looked at me like I was crazy when I said I see numbers in color. I stopped telling others.

I thought it was cool. I liked that it helped me memorize things in school, and do math in my head.

So I dug around to learn more. Here's a little bit of what I've found so far.

Synesthesia definition

The short of it...Hank on SciShow.

The longer Wikipedia bit...

Synesthesia from the ancient Greek, "together," and "sensation," is a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme → color synesthesia letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored, while in ordinal linguistic personification, numbers, days of the week and months of the year evoke personalities. In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, and/or days of the week elicit precise locations in space, or may have a (three-dimensional) view of a year as a map.

Synesthetes often report that they were unaware their experiences were unusual until they realized other people did not have them, while others report feeling as if they had been keeping a secret their entire lives, as has been documented in interviews with synesthetes on how they discovered synesthesia in their childhood.

Facts (so far)

• Over 60 types of synesthesia.
• Runs in families.
• Eight times more common among artists, writers, poets and other creative types.
• Once thought to be uncommon, but exists in about 1 in 25 people, 4% of the population.
• Known for hundreds of years, science just now studying it.

Some fascinating videos

V.S. Ranachandrum at Beyond Belief 2.0, From Molecules to Metaphors
One thought about how it happens...crazy? memory from early childhood? just metaphorical? No, it's a concrete sensory phenomenon. See what happens in the brain. Watch part 2 and 3 too.

Synesthesia: A film by Jonathan Fowler
Another theory, by David Eagleman, involves excitation and inhibition of certain parts of the brain. The experience can wax and wane, or be affected by alcohol or antidepressants so it has more to do with giving off or receiving certain signals in certain parts of the brain. But it's not the same as a hallucination.

Seeing Life in Colors: Crosswired Senses
An ABC news report. One sense—taste, sight, hearing, touch or smell—gets jumbled with another, creating what Dr. Richard Cytowic, a neurologist, describes as a blending of the senses.

Big Think: David Eagleman
An inroad to how different brains see the world differently.

Extrordinary people—synesthetes
One woman who has several forms of synesthesia—unusual.

2012 MAPS film school
Love that one young man composes music using his synesthesia. For example, listen to his piece that exhibits all the colors from "Where the Wild Things Are" children's book.

Entertaining visualization

Michal Levy creates delightfully designed animations based on the involuntary sensations she gets from jazz music. Love this.

Here's what I see

The numbers are definitely colors, some letters too but not all, and the days of the week and months of the year are colorful. Working my way through the year is definitely a 3D pathway, as are simple math calculations.

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  0 or 0

So what does it all mean?

Here's what I take away from this new-found knowledge.

For the most part, it doesn't really matter. We are all unique in our own ways and we should celebrate that in ourselves and in others.  (At what age do we stop clapping for all the marvelous things our children do. Never, I say.)

But to that person it does matter. It helps them interpret the world and their experiences in it. It feels like a gift to some, a leg up, but not in a superior way, to others—just how it is to be them. Let's be curious and supportive.

For me it's a happy discovery. I'm thrilled to learn this new thing about myself (at my age!) and I want to explore and create and augment any talent I can find. Maybe it could help me be a better artist. Maybe it's why I love metaphor or see meaning in everything. Could be the start of another career or hobby, who knows.

Hope you discover something new about yourself, at any age. It's never too late.

And, by the way, it's a great conversation starter. Let me know, in the comments, if you have some form of synesthesia.

e

Strengths

"You cannot be anything you want to be—but you can be a lot more of who you already are."

"When we're able to put most of our energy into developing our natural talents, extraordinary room for growth exists."

Focusing on strengths rather than "opportunity areas" in the workplace, and as a way of managing or leading, makes so much sense to me. It just feels right.

I've been reading StrengthsFinder 2.0, and Strengths Based Leadership in the last few days.

Their research proves that feeling out. People who do have the opportunity to focus on their strengths every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life in general, according to the Gallup organization.

"If you focus on people's weaknesses they lose confidence."

When you are not able to use your strengths at work, you are six times less likely to be engaged in your job. You are more likely to dread going to work, to treat others poorly, to achieve less on a daily basis, and to have fewer creative moments.

Not good for a designer, right?

I recommend taking the assessment and having a candid discussion with your employer about where you can begin using your strengths every day.

At the very least it will validate what you've already known and give you permission to stop trying to be more of something you aren't.

“All Meanings Depend on the Key of Interpretation”

So said George Eliot, of poetry.

Since I like to look for meaning in everything, I find it interesting to think that meaning can change based on new findings, a key, or a change in context.

Lately I’ve been reading Proust Was a Neuroscientist, by Jonah Lehrer, my new favorite author.

In Proust he looks at authors and artists (Whitman, Eliot, Proust, Cézanne) who knew and expressed truths about man, the brain, and science long before 20th century science. The science of their time, perhaps, forced them to look inward for the truth. They tried to understand the mind and were “most accurate, because they most explicitly anticipated our science...this art endures, as wise and resonant as ever.”

George Eliot in Middlemarch wrote “we are a process and an unfolding.” Only until recently biology held that the brain was a genetically governed robot, a set of cells that did not divide, unlike every other cell in our body.

Neurogenesis Is Born
Through a series of experiments misintrepreted or ignored, this belief held firmly. But in 1989 new observations began to alter these scientific “facts”.

Elizabeth Gould at Rockfeller University, discovered that chronic stress was devastating to rat brain neurons, but that the brain healed itself when the stress was removed. Over the next 8 years she painstakingly quantified her findings in rats and monkeys.

The science of neurogensis was born. “The textbooks were rewritten: the brain is constantly giving birth to itself,” Lehrer writes.

Now here is where it gets interesting to me.

“The mind is never beyond redemption, for no environment can extinguish neurogenesis. As long as we are alive, important parts of the brain are dividing. The brain is not marble, it is clay, and our clay never hardens,” Lehrer writes.

“High levels of stress can decrease the number of new cells [regenerating]; so can being low in a dominance hierarchy.” But when changing to living in an enriched environment, adult brains recover rapidly.

The implications are worth pondering. Think of the repression of women in a dominance hierarchy, think of slavery, think of those who live in poverty, think of good zoos and bads zoos, think of stark work environments, think of isolated young mothers, and so on.

How we think about these situations now has new meaning. And there are further implications to growth and happiness.

A New Key
The ramifications are profound and just now, in the last 10 years are being explored.

For example, scientists have discovered that antidepressants work by stimulating neurogenesis, implying that depression is ultimately caused by a decrease in the amount of new neurons, and not by a lack of serotonin.

We have a new key for intepretation.

Newborn brain cells make us happy.

Again ponder the implications, we need to be ever learning, seeking to enrich our environments for ourselves and our children, making workplaces more about cooperation and less about dominance, and excising stress from our routines and helping others to bring about these changes.

Learn something lately
As Eliot wrote in Middlemarch, the “mind [is] as active as phosphorus.”

“Since we each start every day with a slightly new brain, neurogenesis,” Jonah Lehrer points out, “ensures that we are never done with our changes.”

Ellen

More reading:
Antidepressant action in mice, NIH
The Science of Prozac

Sometimes You Have to Retreat, A Little

In a previous posts I went off on how Twitter was a total waste of time.

I still feel that way, personally.

But for the last couple of weeks I've been giving it a try as a way to be "in the know" about social networking and the latest buzz.

I started out much the same way GetItDoneGuy did and followed the same pattern: rekindling old friendships, following those who post good content, then following a few celebrities.

It didn't take long to unfollow celebrities (or celebrities' PR people really), except those that appear more authentic (love Ann Curry...breaking news, a few personal tweets).

I definitely don't follow all who are following me. Who are you anway?

I also happen to agree with copyblogger about the challenge to my writing and editing skills, composing and recomposing a 140 character tweet to convey as much meaning in as few words as possible.

As haiku is to poetry.

I've learned a bit from Jakob Nielsen about adding more punch, though I don't do formal iterations. Just informal ones in my head. See his tips on what's good, what's bad and when to Tweet.

I definitely recommend front-loading, which is a technique I learned from Mark Hurst in his book Bit Literacy, regarding e-mail subject lines and the first paragraph in the e-mail. State your purpose and call to action immediately.

Still, plenty of evidence that Twitter will fade as a fad, though:
Why Teens Don't Tweet
Facebook Exodus (can Twitter be far behind?)

But not just yet...Why Adults Have Fed Twitter's Growth

Until then, follow me: ellenking (at least for a little while longer)

A Good Day

The other day I was working through an online tutorial and at one point, I thought, "Wow, that's cool!" In an otherwise slow and repetitious lesson was a bright flash of light, a new thought, a gem.

Maybe that's all there is to a day, a project, a job, or even life.

Maybe it's just a few sparkles of mica in a long stretch of gray sidewalk.

The next thought was about something I told to my boss years ago as a new designer, "If I can open up Photoshop every day, then it's a good day and I'm happy." Well, that's a fairly simple formula for happiness.

In the children's book A Good Day by Kevin Henkes, it's as simple as freedom, love and food.

So after some thought here's what I've discovered. It's a good day when I can help someone be happy, make something, or learn something new. It's that simple.

What makes a good day for you?