January 2021 in Review
Books
I finished three books in January:
X + Y: A Mathematician’s Manifesto for Rethinking Gender by Eugenia Cheng (Basic Books, 2020)
Cheng starts her argument with the observation that there are more men than women succeeding in math, and from there makes the argument that it is unhelpful to consider the characteristics and traits that generally align with success in math as being “masculine,” and their opposites as “feminine.” That groundwork laid, Cheng spends about half the book developing a new paradigm, of ingressive and congressive characteristics and traits, the former aligning with competitiveness (which she also notes is a major and also unhelpful reality in the math world) and the latter aligning with collaboration (which she argues, and I agree, is in short supply in not just math but in many, many aspects of society). Some tips for developing congressive behavior include starting by looking for similarities between people rather than differences, and working to build mutually beneficial situations. In fairness, perhaps not as much about math or about gender as the title might suggest, but I know I still appreciated Cheng’s development of the congressive model of engaging society. Available on Amazon.
Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential by Dan Pallotta (Tufts University Press, 2008)
This book has been on my to-read list for a couple of years now, ever since I watched Pallotta’s TED Talk, “The Way We Think About Charity is Dead Wrong.” The book details the five “Foundations of our Misconstruction,” five ways we limit charitable organization’s ability to effect real change: constraints on compensation, prohibition on risk, discouragement of long-term vision, discouragement of paid advertising, and prohibition on investment return. The book is packed with statistics and other research to make the case. One memorable line, specifically about the way we expect nonprofit executives to have below-average salaries for the executive class at large, paraphrased: It’s more lucrative to be CEO of an organization that helps people manage cancer (insurance companies) than to be CEO of an organization that eradicates cancer (cancer research charities). My entire professional career to date has happened after the book was published and I was pleased to be able to think of several examples of ways the various nonprofit organizations where I have worked or otherwise been involved have in some ways broken free of some of those restraints. Available on Amazon.
A Promised Land by Barack Obama (Crown/Penguin Random House, 2020)
Naomi was kind enough to get this for me as a Christmas present and I started reading it right away. It is the first a planned two-part memoir. Obama chronicles his youth, education, time in the Illinois and U.S. Senate, and the first two and a half years of his presidency. It is a dense read (700 pages!) but elegantly written, with time spent to detail the personalities of the many principal characters who were with him along the way. Obama also helpfully organizes the book around major themes such as foreign policy (and then further divided by world region, for example). He wrote it after he had left office, so he reflects from that vantage point on the state of American politics and society at large, and I appreciate that he hasn’t lost the hope for a better public square that I have as well. Available on Amazon.
Published Writing
I had two pieces published in January.
First was an essay that came from an idea that first came to me in October, when I found myself reading the story of Jesus at the home of Martha in Mary as recorded in the Gospel of Luke (chapter 10). My friend Michelle Reyes is Editorial Director for a new blog, Archetype, that publishes content on the themes of peace, justice, and wholeness, and was kind enough to accept my pitch. I’m grateful to the editorial team there for working to get my piece, a reflection on that story and how it can inform our approach to New Year’s Resolutions, polished and published just after the beginning of the year.
Second was a short reflection on Jesus’ call for his disciples to be the light of the world (from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew) that came to mind while listening to Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman recite her poem “The Hill We Climb” at the Inauguration of Joe Biden, and her closing lines about being the light. Published at SuperPosition Magazine, where I’ve recently started contributing.
Travel
Happily, despite the ongoing pandemic, Naomi and I were able to get out of Miami for New Year’s, road-tripping to Tampa. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay, making use of the two free night certificates from my World of Hyatt credit card that sat unused after other planned trips were postponed due to the pandemic. The Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay sits on a 20-acre property with walking trails, so ideal for social distancing. It was really nice to have a literal change of scenery. Below is a view from our room of the final sunset of 2020, over Tampa Bay (we were upgraded to a bay view room thanks to my Discoverist status). The hotel staff were all very responsive to our requests, COVID-appropriate cleaning practices and hand sanitizer stations were all in place, and it was refreshing to see the Christmas decorations still in place as well.
Final sunset of 2020, looking over Tampa Bay
