Recalculating

In traffic-crazy Orange County last weekend, my friend John missed a freeway exit in our rental car.
He had been alerted by the robotic female voice on the GPS, but John had been engrossed in conversation with another passenger and failed to follow the clear instructions to exit right in “zero point five” miles.”

The screen immediately showed his error and a luminescent parade of green dashes scrolled across the small dash-mounted display.

Immediately our gizmo's monotone intoned “recalculating.”

John’s a management consultant who gives workshops in effective communication. He has also worked on Alternatives to Violence in California prisons. He’s accustomed to people not listening carefully enough, including himself.

“I love it,” he exclaimed as he listened for the revised directions to get us back to where we needed to be.

“If you mess up with this device, there’s no blaming or guilt tripping. The GPS simply does what it needs to do, RECALCULATING.”

“That’s exactly what we need to do, recalculate.”

We both thought of times when business or domestic conflict could have been resolved by simple recalculation.

Did you forget to pick up milk at the grocery? Recalculate and go to the corner store.
Guys, did you leave the toilet seat up? Recalculate. Apologize and promise to be more aware in the future.

Did you forget to put out the curb-side recycling? Recalculate. Looks like a trip to the recycling center in a couple of days.

I’ve thought a bit more about recalculation since our California musings on this new technology-based metaphor.

It helps to recalculate together.  I can hear a new GPS command “mutually recalculating...”

The older I get the more recalculating I’m going to need. I’ve certainly needed to recalculate with the onset of hearing loss. Hearing aids help, but they don’t provide crystal-clear hearing. Recalculation means lip reading, patience, finding quiet places to talk, and sharing my hearing issues before engaging in conversation.

Glaucoma eye pressure-reducing drops and blood pressure medication are now part of my recalculated routine.

I know I’m going to face more recalculation with age. I’ll need to schedule more time for doing things. I’m sensing that I will be stereotyped as being “old.” How do I recalculate for that?

I can see the changes will mean not only recalculating, but re-recalculating of earlier recalculations.

But, you know what? With recalculations, I’m going to gracefully get to where I’m meant to go.

All I ask is what the GPS lady asked for when we missed our exit. Be patient (this will take a second)...I’m recalculating.

Chase-Community Compact needed

Here is my Hillsdale News commentary on the unfolding story about JPMorgan Chase's proposal to build a branch in Hillsdale. For the story itself, go to hillsdalenews.org.

Communication is equal parts sharing of views, attentive listening and keeping an open mind.

But first you have to get everyone in the same room.

And if agreement is the objective, they need to be willing to meet again and again.

That desperately needs to happen here in Hillsdale as sides line up over Chase Bank's push to put a branch on the old gas station site next to Baskin Robbins.

The atmospherics surrounding Chase's surprising filing for City approval is already tense, to say the least.

We may disagree about the bank's plans, but the need for harmony and progress is such that we can't disagree over the need to communicate.

As things stand now, the community has less than two weeks to comment to the City about the proposal - this in a month when neither business nor neighborhood associations meet.

An "emergency" neighborhood association meeting has been called for Tuesday, August 9 at 6 p.m. at the Watershed building.

That's a beginning. Chase officials, to their credit, plan to attend to answer questions.

I believe they need to do more than that.

I have a proposal which I've shared with some members of the Hillsdale Main Street Board. It doesn't pretend to be a silver bullet, but it might provide a framework for a solution, better use of the lot, an attractive building and a stronger community.

Call it "The Chase/HIllsdale Community Compact plan.

Under the plan, Chase would extend the comment period until bank officials and community members can forge a partnership. The Chase-Community partners would jointly draft the compact, a document that identifies shared objectives and pledges to meet them.

After that, the representative compact group would come up with an agreed upon site design and structure. The discussion leading up to the compact should include, but not be limited to: mixed use building occupancy, more than one story, transit-pedestrian orientation, affordable housing, sustainability, community needs (meeting room, financial support, gathering places), architectural integration with adjacent properties, undergrounding utilities and streetscape aesthetics, local lending and on-going Main Street involvement and cooperation.

I'm sure others will add to the list.

After the inevitable give and take of next Tuesday's meeting, the essential next step should be to establish a framework for moving forward.

How the Internet shapes decisions — a Quaker's perspective

Communicating via e-mail, texting and Facebook exchanges present a host of inherent problems. Unless you are a Writer (that’s with a capital “W”), such communication is often one-dimensional, lacking inflection, dramatic pauses, and texture.

If you agree those limitations pose problems, consider the loss Quakers experience as they try conducting business on the internet.

Traditionally Quakers rely heavily on silent "gathered" reflection to discern what to do. Yet silence “plays” about as well on the internet as it does on talk radio. Imagine Rush Limbaugh interrupting a debate (usually one-sided) with “Let’s pause a moment in silence to consider what the caller is saying.”

Quaker silence gets even more complicated because Friends seek to be “spirit-led” in the stillness of reflection and meditation. When was the last time you sought the spirit as you were e-mailing or texting? I’m not saying it doesn’t happen (it is more likely in the pauses of text exchanges than in, say, board room discussions or political debates), but it’s increasingly unlikely in this rapid-fire world.

For many Quakers, “spirit-led” means led by God. As a Friend recently commented, “When I look into the eyes of another, I am looking into the eyes of God.” The comment comes from the core Quaker belief that there is “that of God (or the Spirit, or both) in everyone.”

But if you aren’t looking at another person, you are unlikely to fully feel in the presence of their divinity. And if they are not looking into your eyes, your own divine presence may be forgotten. Our communication is shaped by that presence, or, alas, lack of it.

I raise these questions because of the tendency to conduct more and more business through the internet, conference calls, and, yes, video conferencing. I’m suggesting, as many others have, that every medium shapes its content — and hence the outcome of communication.

We all should ask ourselves how our decisions are altered by the medium we choose. And then we should consider what we might have decided had we met face-to-face — sharing in timely silence, allowing the “spirit” to lead us, seeing the divine presence in each other’s eyes.

Question: How might the decisions of our democratic institutions (Congress, the judicial system, elections) be different if they adopted these practices?