This famous paraphrase
of a Hemingway idea
can help you
and all of us.
We will come under great pressure
in these historical times
characterized by social upheaval.
Hemingway's idea has been repeated
and apparently adapted many times.
The Hemingway quote is attributed here
in this way:
Grace Under Pressure"DP: `Exactly what do you mean by `guts'?'
EH: `I mean, grace under pressure.'"--Ernest Hemingway, an interview with Dorothy Parker, New Yorker, 30 November 1929
May you
and all of us
stand
full of grace
when our time comes.
In a discussion of the political slant of a so-called "Docudrama,"
a professor from the University of Southern California
(a media studies powerhouse),
makes the following observations.
Of his observations, in my view
the key one is "narrative creates closure":
Leo Braudy, a professor and cultural historian at USC, said he believed the dust-up stemmed from the fact that "there is no narrative that everyone accepts about 9/11.""The 9/11 commission comes out with one narrative, which no one reads. Then movies take a piece of it — there's 'United 93' and 'World Trade Center.' The Bush administration is pushing its own narrative of the meaning of 9/11 as justification for its policies. And now a miniseries comes into being that creates a narrative in a semi-documentary, fictionalized manner, which is very persuasive.
"Suddenly people who felt they know what really happened are being preempted by this fiction. Naturally they are going to be upset about it," he said. "Narrative creates closure."
Braudy wonders whether Americans are ready to see movies on the terrorist attacks: "I don't think we have enough historical distance."
We will be discussing the concept "Narrate or Describe"
in my Human Communication seminars.
The power of narrative in professional and social life
is a critical observation.
What is narrative, and how does it work?
That's a story, a tale for another time.
I've been updating my information on a new computer.
Amazing how much time it takes to configure a computer to your own personal settings,
updating all software, setting security parameters and similar tasks.
It makes you appreciate the forward momentum you have--
and probably have forgotten--
on the systems you've already configured and
just have to tweak and incrementally update.
This realization, and the related observation about
how much time it takes to change systems,
leaves you prey to the American phrase
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
This thought seems sensible
on its face.
Yet it's Tom Peters (his daily weblog is here)
who smelled a rat
about this phrase.
The rat is this: the phrase is the sneering enemy
of innovation. It's the cold-water phrase
people throw on others who want to bring about change.
He said, in Thriving on Chaos,
"If it ain't broke, break it."
His idea is that you can improve anything.
Sure, there's a cost-benefit equation to changing anything.
There's a price to pay, in time and materials, with changes.
And there's a price paid when you do nothing.
Things deteriorate over time.
If you've ever eaten stale bread
or had a drink of flat wine,
you get the idea.
Organizations get that way.
People get that way.
Change out or die out.
Change or die.