Whimsy Flowers at Milli by METRIC Coffee; Belmont & Kedzie; Avondale

It has been some time since I have sat down
At my laptop
To write an original thought.

I’ll do this with my phone on occasion,
And quiet verrryy often with my books and journals,
But ever so rare, of late, with my laptop.

I’ll draft a message
That I would like to share
On a bench called
The Musings of Gabe
—A sea of A4 and A7, all sorts of sketchbooks, notebooks, pads and all their brethren.

Every day, and every wind, brings a new message.
“Archive to share later”
Does not work well with my flow

I prefer to keep things moving:

A new idea;
The last thing it would want to do is sit and wait on committee.

NEW LIFE NEEDS TO MOVE IN ORDER TO GROW AND BECOME

When the matter is fresh, it is best to dance with it now.

~~

So, I have many tabs and themes etc of content
(Stuff of value),
That belong to yesterday’s wind.

Still great, but today there is something new afoot.
Perhaps subtly-new, barely perceptible as the Earth tilts somewhat more each day.
Perhaps it is quite a spectacle.

I am keen to take a page from my 14-year old self.
Clikcity-clacking away on Xanga ~~ I would be writing from, through my gut — just channeling some epic or frivolous goodness.

Conversation,

Or…

The space held and honored between us

~

~

Is an art.

As is your breath;

And somehow it comes so naturally,

Effortless, almost.

What strength of will and effort does it take for you, awake, to breathe?

This is what it should take for us to show up,
good-willed and interested in the betterment of each other,
In conversation.

I think we over-complicate things.
I certainly have done so.

When we are in conversation
— an open flow —
Certain ideas and norms and assumptions
that we carry and act from daily with most of the world,
Start to matter less,
And bear less influence on the dance
Of two or more
In conversation.

Vulnerabilities and delight ensues.

~~~

Keeping things moving in a creative sense is my primary focus on this season of my life.
My creative flow, my messenger self,
the kid playing around xanga or cool edit or collective self governance…
Loves to play.
I love to play. And I’ll wager you do, too.

Play is creativity in motion
Ideas being exchanged in real time
Between us,
You,
Them,
Me,
Nature / God

—

There is form of mischievous play
For me
In sharing an idea or message or musing in real time.

I’ve lately been used to
Capturing,
Drafting,
Storing,
Building on & editing
Ideas… but not so much shipping them.

There is a kind of radical trust that I lost hold of.

In myself.

I’ve known this trust before. It is like love, if not enjoined to love ~~ ever so invigorating, comforting, and empowering to stand where I am and act, in faith that whimsy, when it shows up, would move hearts — at the least, my own.

Whimsy… seems never to have failed me.
So I say:
“Why not trust
That Whimsy, for me, is keeping creative forces moving.
Bring back my Xanga Era confidence
Let my tongue loose,
And I will find that the abundance of Whimsy in my life
To be more than satisfactory?”

Well, put it that way and it seems to be a delightfully fruitful endeavor:
Letting go of my need to control.

~~~~

The more present and responsive,
The more in-touch we are with each other,
The more in-tune we are
In Conversation.

We know
That the better we are at letting go,
Of our need to do/ensure X,
The better our relationships become.

The more whimsy we have between each other,
The greater our quality of life.

~~~~~

It’s a policy directive from OPM for the Federal Government that offices begin immediately to bring more whimsy to their work-flows, offices, etc. When this conflicts with reporting standards and processes not set by congress, then OPM is happy to work on cutting unnecessary bureaucracy to prioritize greater whimsy.

You should not expect sustainable success
If you add responsibilities
(however noble or necessary)
To the plate of a working person
Without removing something else.

It is the worst offense against
Logic,
Human decency,
Good leadership &
Decent management
To dump obligation on someone fully taxed.

Many will think that “fully taxed” isn’t accctualllyy 100% tapped out — there’s more juice to squeeze!
I know this because asswanks will manage like this and gaslight resistance. Often decent people, but not meant to manage others at the moment.
As a supervisor,
When I needed to ensure a specific task was completed same-day,
I dropped mission-critical tasks from my staff’s workload:
Everything we do is because we are a government agency and we have obligations to fulfill the mission of our mandate to the public. So this timebound things ALWAYS competes with 10 (or more) other timebound, costbound, and qualitybound things (Thanks, Chrys, for the lesson on an Iron Triangle)

So if I see management getting heat from headquarters about a specific metric or objective, I would partner with my direct reports to re-allocate their time and tackle the hot pocket with peace of clarity on expectations.

Please manage expectations.

I did pretty well with 2-4 reports. Part of my burn out at the Census Bureau had to do with ~40 direct reports and 60 or so more 2nd level reports, hammer-sandwiched in an agency so over-stressed at the absolute nonsense of the Drumph(Trump) Administration.

Story for another time.

….

The OPM policy I referenced is a dream, not a current reality.

~~~~~~

We are invited, though, to weave whimsy into every level of every new idea, public works project, business concept, marketing plan, Disney attraction, neighborhood park, home, day-to-day habits, etc.

To Whimsy,

Gabriel