Carl Setzer

This morning’s glimmer from " Advice from 30 year old me to 20 year old me ”: "A few people will change your life forever. Find them." Searching, seeking, a pilgrimage of personal growth. Finding such humans ensures you grow. Such people challenge you, driving you past your internal resistances. However, I seek more; more than to simply absorb greatness from others. I seek to Be One Of These People. If one person grows from my presence: success! Afterwards, “the more the merrier”. What, really do I benefit embodying the values of leeches and mosquitos? Sure, at a primal level, I gain. But, I also lose. Human relationship is transactional. One-sided benefit destroys relationship and eventually leaves one isolated, alone. Lost to the greedy, immature mind: synergization, gestalt. Collaboration creates things greater than by an individual. Things greater than can even be conceived by the one. A zen quality therein, methinks.

Those that know me well know that I'm an Apple guy. Well, that's waning. There are several key things that have caused me great consternation, as well as a few key sector swings that have impacted my opinion. A biggie for me: Apple's reluctance to "play well" with others. One key example: the whole iCloud thing. Calendaring drives me crazy. Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo!, all these use the same calendaring protocol. If I send an invite, or receive one, from one of the other systems, it works fine in mine (currently Gmail). Updates come through, changes come cleanly. Apple, of course, needs to do things their way. So, when my wife sends a calendar invite from her iCloud account, I check to ensure sure it's in my calendar correctly. And if she sends an update, I need to manually update. This drives me nutty. This is rudimentary. Nobody exists within one network's system, and the inability to "play well" with something as basic as calendaring shows a dee...

Yesterday evening, harsh words drifted through the summer air.  Voices of two women, b rutal in their battery, stunning in their cruelty, I wondered, "are these coming from mother and daughter?" Perhaps they're romantic rivals. There are a multitude of possible roots, and it's likely I'll never know the reality. And I'm not sure I want a deeper engagement.  Yet the rage tinged brutality engaged thereby intrigued me, intellectually. Are the speakers aware of social corrosion taking over? Can they see the destruction brought about by their words? Do they care? And what does healing look like? Ultimately, they're about being  right , not about being effective. Damage was done, whether healed from or no. And we all lose when relationships corrode .

Working in Real Estate, I'm currently dealing with a distinctly frustrating lender issue. The other agent (we represent the sellers) has been great. Also, the lender's mortgage staff have been great and responsive. But we have an appraiser who the descriptor "slow" is a glorious understatement. So, a few points of frustration on this. One is obvious: everything is backed up due to the sluggish progress of one individual. However, the bigger point of aggravation comes from this appraiser's routine failure to produce documentation in a timely manner. Being on-time is the rarity, as confirmed a few discussions. It's easy to be frustrated with the appraiser, however, that's not entirely fair. When routine incompetence isn't addressed, that's a management failure. I understand that banks and appraisers need to maintain an "arms-length" relationship. However, a documented pattern of failure shouldn't, well, can't be tolerated. It is t...

Read " The man who drove us into our national ditch " this morning, by Michael Smerconish . Though focused upon a particular "shock-jock" (Morton Downey, Jr.), it touched on the whole spectrum of political rhetoric in the United States. And reminded me of recent thoughts about the current state of US public discourse. One of the points that Mr. Smerconish makes gave me deep pause: we are in uniquely extreme times in terms of political divide. First, I'm reminded of the long-standing uncivil thread within our political conversations. Consider the Jefferson/Adams campaign of 1800 and the Jackson/Adams campaign of 1824, amongst others. Political rhetoric and person invective have been part of our public banter as long as we've been, well, us. Also look to the uncivil history of English politics to get further context at our roots. Smerconish, though, points to research by the National Journal pointing to truly historical levels of division.  I feel this to...

I seek compassion, Please let the gentleness flow From my marrow's core  Originally posted to my poetry blog:

Just discovered this video by Sofia Ashraf about Unilever's "response" to mercury poisoning in Kodaikanal, India . I found it powerful. I, being me, did a little digging through this. Here's a piece describing the background , and why Ashraf was recruited to the cause. The global pressure seems to be working, as Unilever today announced efforts to resolve the situation . We'll see. 

This is the most powerful thing I've read all week, perhaps longer. Zoehler's very gifted as an invoker of emotion. I, a delighted invokee. Take a few minutes and give this a read. Please. When I’m Gone