Life and soul
My musings in the last blog began with a word. I continue the theme, this time inspired by the Greek word ueraki (transliterated Meraki). It’s not quite as random as it might appear: it is the name of a building I visited and which made an impression on me. The word is translated into English […]
I imagine so …
I’m fascinated by the genesis and evolution or words and phrases, particularly when they diverge from their original intent. This is no mere academic interest. The words we use frame our worldview, and our worldview frames our actions, and our actions expand or inhibit our horizons. Take the phrase “I imagine so”. In its modern […]
The real voyage
In my last blog, inspired by Proust, Eliot, and the King James Bible, I reflected on journeying as a metaphor for personal and professional growth. In particular, I borrowed from Proust’s famous phrase “The real voyage of discovery … consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes” which contrasts the seeking of […]
Seeing with new eyes
The obscure phrase “through a glass darkly” is deeply integrated in the English psyche, even if its origin and meaning are lost in the mists of time for most of us. Some will claim its origin as the 1961 Ingmar Bergman movie of the same title. Or the 1993 Jostein Gaarder novel. Both tangentially tackle […]
Leadership – science or art?
I am always fascinated by what draws us to engage with – and buy – certain products. As a non-marketeer, I am intrigued by the skills with which professional marketeers engage with human psychology to pique our interest and invite our participation. As an inveterate academic, books are both a tool and, I admit, a […]
Polishing the heart
The former US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, gained fame, or perhaps infamy, from a 2002 news briefing from the podium at the Department of Defense. He said to the assembled Press Pack: “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things […]
Colourless green ideas sleep furiously
The somewhat bizarre title of this post is a quote from the influential linguistics professor, Noam Chomsky, in his 1957 book “Syntactic Structures”. In the book, he presented this sentence as an example of a grammatically well-formed but semantically nonsensical sentence. He used it to illustrate the distinction between syntax and semantics, two key components […]
Anxiety – a leadership birth pang?
I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on anxiety – its antecedents, its presentation, its impacts. It is perhaps not surprising. I don’t feel particularly anxious – at least not at a conscious level. But it is ‘in the air’. Be it the insidious impacts of a struggling economy, the sense of impending doom from escalating […]
Seneca’s lament
My last post was written in the magical city of Rome, that wonderful nexus of the old and the new, bustling with noisy life yet infused with the calm perspective of ages past. That city above all, confronts me with the dialectical worldviews of old and new, the paradoxical emphases of the ages, the cultural […]
I don’t have the capacity …
How often do I find myself using that phrase – “I don’t have the capacity”? To be honest, I normally only use it to myself, in response to external requests for attention and in the context of meaning I’m overstretched, I don’t have the time, my bandwidth is maxed out. I don’t often enough use […]
