Near the end of my first year of Indirections, I began writing a series of punchier (less indirect?) essays on LinkedIn in a newsletter called The Indirections. While I often replicate them on this site, you can find the entire collection through the following links.
Got Bone? (Break a Leg!) – 5 March 2024
Aquinas argues deliberate will. Descartes thinks and, therefore, is. Celine belts My Heart Will Go On. But sometimes, the body just does stuff.
Got Time? (Get Rid of It!) – 31 January 2024
Only by taking time out of the equation can we isolate who we are long enough to change.
Got Self? Got Future? (Got Duck Food?) – 19 January 2024
The thing to remember about the future is that it often comes at us first.
What Uncritically Assimilated Worldviews Are You Dismantling?– 12 January 2024
If the unexamined life is not worth living, how, then, to examine it?
What Century Are You In?– 5 January 2024
James Darren, Robert Colbert circa 1966
Who owns the past, anyway? For that matter, who owns the future?
What Flag Are You Flying – 29 December 2023
If the proper aim of life were handwritten on a secret card
before we drew our first breath, what would it say?
What Planet Are You From?– 8 December 2023
If a point of view is worth 80 points of IQ, sharing it, however alien, can be ingenious.
What Game Are You Playing?– 20 November 2023
The games we play can end in a minute or go on forever.
What happens when we lose track of which game is which?
When’s Your Train? – 13 November 2023
Remember that proverbial squirrel spinning its heart out inside the black box of anything that is mysteriously mobile? If Erwin Schrödinger was right, before looking under the lid, there’s an equal chance the mysterious power source is something else entirely.
When’s Your Time? – 6 November 2023
Beginning seven hundred years ago, young people were apprenticed to a master until they could come into their own as skilled workers and contributors. Today, we use terms like ‘intern’ and ‘trainee’ to describe an apprentice system that prepares its graduates for positions of choice and accountability.
When’s Your Tide? – 2 November 2023
When leading a meeting or presentation, it’s never a bad idea to consider that your busy audience might have been tempted to skip it. To recapture their attention, prepare your remarks as if listeners were in the middle of the biggest crisis of their week and only you possess the information they need to get through it. If you approach business communications with that kind of urgency, you’ll be surprised at how little you choose to say when it’s your turn to say it.
When’s Your Turn? – 30 October 2023
When leading a meeting or presentation, it’s never a bad idea to consider that your busy audience might have been tempted to skip it. To recapture their attention, prepare your remarks as if listeners were in the middle of the biggest crisis of their week and only you possess the information they need to get through it. If you approach business communications with that kind of urgency, you’ll be surprised at how little you choose to say when it’s your turn to say it.
When’s Your Truck? – 27 October 2023
When pondering the future, it might sometimes seem easier just to let the present take us there, no questions asked. Fortunately, if awkward, even painful, the world has a way of begging certain questions. And when it does, maybe we should think twice before choosing not to answer them.
Where’s Your Chalk? – 23 October 2023
Most of us would find it fun but stressful to stroll on a Santa Barbara beach one day and a Lake Lugano shorewalk the next. What we might not realize is that abiding in multiple time zones simultaneously is something we do all the time. Wanna reset your future? Put a clock with an eidetic memory on your past.
Where’s Your Clock? – 16 October 2023
Most of us would find it fun but stressful to stroll on a Santa Barbara beach one day and a Lake Lugano shorewalk the next. What we might not realize is that abiding in multiple time zones simultaneously is something we do all the time. Wanna reset your future? Put a clock with an eidetic memory on your past.
Where’s Your Dock? – 9 October 2023
When confronted by The Other, we are cautioned by conventional wisdom to align common ground as a first step to diffusing tension and minimizing differences. But what of the buried treasure yet unearthed in the uncommon ground we also share?
Where’s Your Lair? – 2 October 2023
There’s no place like home. But is there not as well—in sorrow or joy, despair or exultation—a hideaway that is uniquely our own?
Where’s Your Chair? – 28 September 2023
There’s a theory about the theatre—that it’s a theory waiting to be observed. And where we sit? It matters a lot.
What’s Your Sauce? – 19 September 2023
In my change work, I have observed that every organization highly values something it might label its ‘Special Sauce.’ Can the same be said for every person?
What’s Your Name? – 9 September 2023
Shakespeare’s leading lady asked, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” But is there more to the words we call ourselves?
What’s Your Line? – 4 September 2023
On the stage of life, when things get so hot you are tempted to bolt back into the wings, is there a cue—a word, a phrase, a sentence—you can use to help remember who you are?
