Recently, I decided to get a certification…. just to be legitimized by an authority for a way of working that comes naturally to me. So I took an Agile Scrum class. Today, I took the test and passed. So, I’m officially a Certified ScrumMaster, in the Agile Alliance.
Labels: work
In the coming months, this blog may come back to life and take a different turn. I’m designing a way to be the female business and technology mentor that I never had.
And this time… there will be video.
Wish me luck & stay tuned.
I haven’t posted in forever. Ah well, all I can say is that I’ve been off doing a million other things. Not the least of which is moving to Florida and finding real estate.
Here’s two photos of the house. Front yard and back yard.
Labels: home
I don’t know if you’ve ever read anything by Albert Camus, but he had an interesting philosophical interpretation of the world.
Camus was known to be a philosopher of the absurd. His work poses interesting paradoxes. Is it possible to destroy everything in your life except for your lust for life? Can an atheist long for salvation and meaning? Is it possible to be authentic and principled, yet estranged from societal norms? To that I would add what seems a logical tangent (given his other notions): is it possible to be happy yet accept the absurdity of an inherently indifferent world?
As I interpret Camus’ work, I find it “works” for me to believe that we live in an an indifferent universe, but make meaning along the way. Meaning is the meat and potatoes of life. It is meaning that sustains and nourishes us. So what is meaning? We make a story about meaning (and call something meaningful) when our actions take care of our concerns, or when we think that a situation forces action.
So the task of life is to create robust stories of meaning: even when that meaning is provisional and ephemeral and across generations and geography. We have to make up our stories of meaning, then believe them, and share with others because we are always betwixt and between (l’envers et l’endroit.) Life really is inherently absurd. We make meaning out of our lives in order to make the world a little less absurd, in order to find the happiness and reject those nihilistic tendencies. Meaning sustains us and we are the master storytellers in our own life.
Today, in the USA Today newspaper, there is a feature on page 17A regarding the layout of the MLK Jr. National Monument. The monument overlooks the Tidal Basin and Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Back in 1996, when I worked at the White House, I was the writer assigned to compose an official presidential letter (signed by Bill Clinton) to Coretta Scott King. The purpose of the letter was to mark and celebrate the occasion whereby President Clinton signed Congressional Legislation proposing the establishment of a memorial to honor Dr. King.
When I visit DC next time, I’ll definitely make an effort to visit the memorial. I only have a loose connection to it, but personal connections with history are pretty cool.