What is Dave wearing today? Dave is wearing a red Alabama polo shirt and a blue Industriales baseball cap. He’s also wearing shorts, but they don’t represent a sports team.
What is one thing that’s making Dave happy today? Dave experienced another wonderful sunrise run on Bayshore this morning.
What is Dave’s inspirational thought for the day? Dave says don’t confuse feelings with facts.
What else did Dave see on Bayshore this morning? Dave saw some dolphins. Here’s video of one of them:
After a few months of neglecting diet and exercise, I’m back on the horse again.1 I’m tracking what I eat and being very careful to avoid mindless snacking. But that’s not what I’m happiest about. It’s my morning runs on Bayshore.
The Complimentary Spouse and I live close to Bayshore Boulevard, the longest continuous sidewalk in the country.2 It hugs Hillsborough Bay for 4½ miles in South Tampa. It’s pretty much the only place I run in Tampa, and this video I shot should show you why:
That was the view from my run this morning. Like, literally, just a few hours ago. Spectacular, right?
Pictures like this can show you what I see, but they can’t really capture the essence of the experience. You’re in the dark and, suddenly, you notice a thin slit the color of fire between the inky blue sky and the dark shimmery water. You swear it wasn’t there just a few seconds ago. The orange glow strengthens, illuminating the undersides of the clouds. If there are any ripples on the water that morning, the crests begin to lighten.
It’s at this moment that you’re most likely to see pinks in the sky. Not the wispy pink of cotton candy or the synthetic pink of Pepto-Bismol, but a vibrant pink that seems to be lit from within.
You can sense the moment right before the sun peeks over the horizon and — with no fanfare — there it is, bathing everything in red, or gold, or orange, or copper — the color shifts from moment to moment and day to day. You take a moment to stop and appreciate this. As the sun rises, the color of the sky transitions to a shade of blue. The glow is gone, and everything is bathed in beautiful natural light.
The running and sunrise — actually, let’s call it the runrise — is an important part of my day. I’m glad I’m running again and can enjoy these moments.
1 Not a literal horse, of course, of course.
2 Or so I’ve been told. I haven’t measured the other ones.
I am part of Gen X, the most neglected, overlooked, and ignored generation in modern American history. We grew up under the monstrous weight of the baby boomers, a group whose importance is completely outweighed by its sense of self-importance. The baby boomers dominated our formative years. We got their music, their literature, their television shows. And when we did manage to craft our own cultural experiences, they were controlled and curated by baby boomers.1
Yeah, don’t get me started on the baby boomers.2
After us came the millennials, who craved attention and got it. Millennials said what they wanted to read, and the young adult fiction category exploded. Millennials said what they wanted to listen to, and they were spoon-fed pablum by artists like the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and N*Sync. Millennials said what they wanted to watch, and they got to see their life experiences reflected in “Dawson’s Creek,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and “Saved by the Bell.”3
Now a new generation has emerged, which means Gen X will get shoved further back in the closet. With a sigh, I’ll tell you I’m OK with that because I know nothing will change it. But I have one small plea. Please, please, please don’t call this new generation Gen Z.
One of the few small things Gen X has going for it is that we got to choose our name.4 It comes from a book by Douglas Coupland, one of the very first people to write about the fact that they didn’t relate to the baby boomer values and expectations thrust upon them.
How you identify has always been a big deal. In the late 1980s, I disliked being classified as a baby boomer so much that I had to invent my way out of it; my debut novel, published 30 years ago, was called Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture.
Douglas Coupland, Douglas Coupland on Generation X at 30: ‘Generational trashing is eternal.’
The book focused on a handful of people attempting to define themselves through the stories they tell.5 The only baby boomer in the book is a yuppie; he helps juxtapose the angst and authenticity of Gen X with the self-assuredness and shallowness of his own generation.
An excerpt:
After you’re dead and buried and floating around whatever place we go to, what’s going to be your best memory of earth? What one moment for you defines what it’s like to be alive on this planet. What’s your takeaway? Fake yuppie experiences that you had to spend money on, like white water rafting or elephant rides in Thailand don’t count. I want to hear some small moment from your life that proves you’re really alive.
Douglas Coupland, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
Baby boomers had no idea what to do with the book, but it became something of a touchstone for my generation. We finally had a work of art we could see ourselves in. Generation X became our name. Over time, that was shortened to Gen X.
Fast forward about two decades. I remember when people began writing about the generation that followed ours. They were originally branded Gen Y, a name showing a complete lack of imagination. I was relieved when the term millennials emerged.
Now we hear about Gen Z, and I hope the name doesn’t stick. My generation’s name comes from an essential work of literature. We defined ourselves instead of letting others define us. The name Gen Z robs us of that — it steals one of the only things we can take pride in, our nomenclature.
I’m pleading here. Give Gen Z a new name. I’m cautiously optimistic that this may happen: The New York Times found that many members of the upcoming generation don’t like Gen Z either. Post-millennials is one option. Others are iGeneration, the homeland generation, and deltas.
What’s in a name? For Gen X, everything. Let’s use a different name to describe the generation that’s emerging now.
Please.
1 Is it any wonder that Nirvana and the grunge movement were popular among Gen X? We finally got an unfiltered peek at our generation’s zeitgeist, and it was wrapped in flannel.
2 I’m very critical of baby boomers in some respects, but I’ll also freely acknowledge the great things they did. They rioted at Stonewall, invented personal computing, and gave us Cher and Star Wars. I even married a boomer.
3 I’m conscious of the fact that I’m writing this post from the perspective of a well-educated middle-class white man. I’d love to hear from people with other points of view.
4 The baby boomers wanted to call us the baby busters. We were also called the MTV Generation for a while.
5 In terms of narrative structure, it’s somewhat similar to The Canterbury Tales.
What is Dave wearing today? Dave is wearing a T-shirt only a Tampeño could love — it shows an Ybor City chicken smoking a cigar.
What is one thing that’s making Dave happy today? Dave took care of everything he needed to do today by 1 p.m. so he can just relax the rest of the day.
What is Dave’s inspirational thought for the day? Dave says to always accept a compliment. Don’t minimize what you’ve done or what it means.
What is Dave listening to today? Dave has just started listening to FUTURE PAST, the new album from Duran Duran. He’s enjoying it so far, but why are all the titles in all caps? You have my attention, Simon Le Bon. You don’t need to yell at me.
What is Dave wearing today? As today is Saturday and it’s college football season, Dave is wearing Alabama stuff. How predictable!
What is one thing that’s making Dave happy today? Dave and Britt saw Chelsea defeat Norwich 7-0 this morning. KTBFFH!
What is Dave’s inspirational thought for the day? Dave says it’s good to get your errands out of the way early so you can lie down on the couch all evening and watch football with the Complementary Spouse.
Did Dave have a pastelito de guayabera at lunch? For the first time he can remember, Dave passed up a pastelito de guayabera at La Segunda. He has been very disciplined about his eating recently, and he’s proud of himself for displaying the willpower to skip one of his favorite pastries in the whole world.
In the past few weeks, I’ve been using Twitter mostly for fun. I created @dsimanoff to do some personal branding1, but tweeting about nothing but marketing is kind of dry — although I really appreciate the professional insights I gain from my professional peers. Then I went through a fallow period in which I did little more than tweet at companies to complain (yeah, you heard me, American Airlines). Now I’m using it to entertain myself and, I hope, others. I’ll still keep my professional image in mind, but there’s no harm in letting people know there’s an actual person with a sense of humor on the other side of the screen.
Some recent tweets follow. Note that the Complementary Spouse makes a few appearances.
1 Ugh, is there any phrase more banal yet ostentatious than “personal brand”?
What is Dave wearing today? Dave is wearing a light blue polo shirt that’s perhaps a tad too large.
What is one thing that’s making Dave happy today? Dave got his booster shot today. He had a nice conversation with the guy who did the vaccination.
What is Dave’s inspirational thought for the day? Dave says to take little steps instead of trying to achieve a goal all at once.
Has Dave seen Dune yet? Dave has not, but he has an idea for a spin-off teevee show. It would be like Chopped, but the ingredients would all come from Arrakis. What can you make with Spice Melange and sandworm filets (and no water)?
I don’t often see waves on Bayshore Boulevard when it’s not windy. Hillsborough Bay is pretty placid, as you’ve probably noticed from the many photos I post.
This morning was an exception. Small waves rolled in from the east and lapped against the sea wall. No wind. No boats causing a wake. And they were only there for a few minutes.
Granted, these were not big waves. No one’s going surfing on them.
Where did the waves come from? Your guess is as good as mine. I’m going to just assume they were a sign from the universe that good things are coming my way.
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”
Henry David Thoreau
What is Dave wearing today? In honor of Spirit Day, Dave is wearing his purple polo shirt.
What is one thing that’s making Dave happy today? Dave had a very tasty chicken salad sandwich for lunch.
What is Dave’s inspirational thought for the day? Dave reminds you that failing at something does not make you a failure.
Did Dave come across a photo of Little Chelsea having a bath? Dave did indeed. She doesn’t seem to be enjoying the experience, does she?
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a world-renowned psychologist and the author of “Flow,” died yesterday.
Csikszentmihalyi’s work has played a role in my life for the past year or so. In 2020, I participated in a workshop for people looking to reboot or reinvent their careers. The workshop was something of a bust — full of great ideas that look helpful on paper but are impractical in real life — but, out of it, I started a book group with two other participants, Vanessa and Philip. We have focused on books about professional self-improvement, like “Grit” by Angela Duckworth, “Designing Your Life” by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, and “Drive” by Daniel Pink.
Nearly all the books we read mentioned flow (the concept) and “Flow” (the book), so we decided to check it out for ourselves. In a nutshell, the idea behind flow is that certain kinds of tasks, performed with a particular mindset under certain conditions, create a sense of total immersion and focus. Ever start working on something and get so engaged that you lose track of time? That’s flow.
The first thing we noticed is that “Flow” is not really a self-improvement book. It’s an academic book written from a psychological and ethnographic perspective. Csikszentmihalyi describes what flow feels like, but he doesn’t really discuss how to achieve it. Instead, he looks at how flow affects consciousness and happiness, and then places flow in the context of work, athletics, and creative pursuits.
The final chapters of the book were the most challenging for our reading group. By that point, Csikszentmihalyi seemed to apply the concepts of flow to culture and existence. It’s the Grand Unified Theory of flow. We decided that his intent was noble, but his evidence and ideas were stretched pretty thin.
I highlighted a lot of passages in Flow. This one stood out because my undergraduate degree is in English:
But when writing is used to control experience, without letting it control the mind, it is a tool of infinite subtlety and rich rewards.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
These were insightful takes on what it means to be happy:
And the reality is that the quality of life does not depend directly on what others think of us or on what we own. The bottom line is, rather, how we feel about ourselves and about what happens to us. To improve life one must improve the quality of experience.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The most important step in emancipating oneself from social controls is the ability to find rewards in the events of each moment.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
This was an astute observation about work:
Thus we have the paradoxical situation: On the job people feel skillful and challenged, and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative, and satisfied. In their free time people feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used, and therefore they tend to feel more sad, weak, dull, and dissatisfied. Yet they would like to work less and spend more time in leisure.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
These quotes relate to my own life experiences:
Unless a person knows how to give order to his or her thoughts, attention will be attracted to whatever is most problematic at the moment: it will focus on some real or imaginary pain, on recent grudges or long-term frustrations. Entropy is the normal state of consciousness — a condition that is neither useful nor enjoyable.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Why are some people weakened by stress, while others gain strength from it? Basically the answer is simple: those who know how to transform a hopeless situation into a new flow activity that can be controlled will be able to enjoy themselves, and emerge stronger from the ordeal.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Complexity requires that we invest energy in developing whatever skills we were born with, in becoming autonomous, self-reliant, conscious of our uniqueness and of its limitations. At the same time we must invest energy in recognizing, understanding, and finding ways to adapt to the forces beyond the boundaries of our own individuality. Of course we don’t have to undertake any of these plans. But if we don’t, chances are, sooner or later, we will regret it.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
If you want to learn more about Csikszentmihalyi and flow, here’s a TED talk he gave in 2008: