Founded in 1996

August 2 marked the thirtieth anniversary of my quitting a steady, secure job to become the sole proprietor of a risky business in the educational services sector. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 19% of such businesses fail within their first year, 46% fail within five years, and 61% after ten years. I'm not a big-time gambler, so I sometimes shake my head in bewilderment that I decided to go solo. Why would I take such a big risk at age 42 with a mortgage and two daughters, ages 14 and 11, meaning a quarter million dollars in college bills ahead of me, to walk away from a job with a reasonable salary, pension, health benefits, a company car, and good friends?  

I had a long time to answer this question. For seven years, I prepared myself to walk away from a role that I ultimately spend 19 years doing by calculating my potential income across the expanse of industry changes, learning whatever I could about the operational side of the business I wanted to enter, and honing my skills to succeed at it. I would have been happy with an equivalent income since I was fortunate to have a wife who had healthcare benefits from her work as a public-school teacher. Throughout those seven years, I continually weighed the pluses and minuses of going into business for myself.

It turns out that my predicted disadvantages and advantages, as well as my ultimate decision, were spot on. 

Starting with the downside, I would never again get a paid vacation, holiday, or sick day. I would work for billable time. I would lose the company car and the healthcare benefit. I would sit on a frozen abysmally low pension from my job, not payable for another 23 years, and I would no longer be able to contribute to a 403B plan reserved for nonprofit employees. I would have to surrender the company car, so I would now have to buy one of my own. Although I did not belong to a union, I enjoyed job security in an autonomous, specialized role. I would also miss the camaraderie of several friends.  

On the upside was the possibility of earning more income, but that was not a guarantee. I would have greater control of my time, even though I never shied from 75- to 90-hour workweeks. Important to me was the constant challenge of finding creative solutions to my clients' problems. I love learning, and surviving in this business depended on obtaining a great deal of self-education to stay at the top of my game. Without a boss, I would feel independent to make choices that mattered to me. I would never again argue with management. I would have only myself to blame for making poor decisions, holding on to bad clients, and partnering with ineffective collaborators.

It all has worked out. Despite formidable challenges, including recessions, natural disasters, an epidemic, and clients' strategic changes, I have earned far more than I expected, so my daughters went to colleges I would not have otherwise been able to afford, and my financial future is more secure. I traveled for work to China, India, and throughout the United States. I worked for some of the largest companies and municipalities in the world, and I have worked with brilliant, diligent people who have made me smarter. I remain close to my friends from my old job 30 years later.

Yes, risks arise in leaving a dependable job for an unknown future in a private business. I would not recommend it for everyone, but the ride continues to be worth it for me.

A Thank-You Letter to Benjamin Bass

Strand Bookstore, New York City. Photo by Ajay Suresh

Dear Benjamin Bass, 

When as a struggling Lithuanian immigrant you founded the Strand Bookstore nearly a century ago in 1927, I'm sure you wanted to see the day when it would flourish. And you did, long before you died 51 years later. Your store continues to be a must-visit spot for travelers around the world who come to New York City, whether to buy a reasonably priced, hard-to-find book or to satisfy their curiosity about the store's mammoth size (18 miles of books, as your tagline says).  

You were alive when I first frequented your store in 1971 as a City University of New York student living 12 miles away in the Bronx, and although I now live 32 miles away, I still stop by whenever I can. I look at the hundreds of used books on my shelf that I've bought in excellent condition and at affordable prices from Strand, realizing that I owe much of my education to you. In truth, your legacy is one of the reasons I hesitate to move much farther away. 

So thank you for offering the perfect deal to the millions of people who have wanted to be educated or entertained through the endless, transformative power of books. I have always felt that when it comes to the book business, the customer always gets the better end of the bargain. We can reread the same book at different ages in our life and discover how much we have changed. This might be a good time for me to acknowledge your business model as a labor of love, too. Finally, thank you for believing in the magic of books and for being such an important part of my life. Here's to the next hundred years.

With appreciation and admiration,

Phil Vassallo

On Forgetting Words

In a dream last night, a friend pointed to the vertical groove between his nose and lip and asked me for the word identifying it. I couldn't recall no matter how hard I tried. I learned the word in the third grade, when I was eight years old, but I just couldn't name it. I woke up at 3:30 a.m. in a Porto, Portugal hotel room, realizing I couldn't recall the word in my waking life either. So I looked it up on my phone as my wife slept peacefully beside me. Philtrum. A word I have not used, or probably seen, since I learned it more than six decades ago. How could I forget? My name, Phil, starts the word!

In a sweat, I started going through other visible body parts: eye, iris, pupil, lens, cornea, eyebrow, eyelash, then down to my foot, heel, Achilles tendon, ankle, ball or plantar fascia, toes, instep—what's the formal word for instep? Another one that sent me to my Google assistant: dorsum. Darn, another forgotten word! I was experiencing a waking nightmare. Was I at the doorstep of dementia? I kept naming body parts, like a child counting sheep, until I fell asleep.

I woke up a few hours later pleased that I recalled philtrum and dorsum, but doubting I'd remember them for long. My minor difficulty made me think of the poem "Forgetfulness" by Billy Collins. When I first read it more than thirty years ago, I found it amusing, but it reflected my reality more and more as time passed. 

When a more focused temperament grounded me, a familiar adage came to mind: If you don't use it, you lose it. Philtrum, philtrum, philtrum, philtrum. Dorsum, dorsum, dorsum, dorsum.

So What's Really New?

How do we decide what to teach schoolchildren? Why?  How do we know what we teach them works?

Maybe you have sought answers to these questions, as I have. If so, you might want to read my article, "The Educational Philosophy of Quintilian" in Philosophy Now. Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (35-95 CE), better known as Quintilian, laid out an educational philosophy two millennia ago that remains profoundly influential to academics and scholars worldwide.

You've heard the expressions "The more things change, the more they stay the same" and "There's nothing new under the sun."  When it comes to education, these maxims are true. Sure, information technology and artificial intelligence may  obscure the fact that we continue to borrow from our ancestors, but only briefly. Read the article and you'll see what I mean.

On Revenge, Part 3

This final segment on revenge comes with a disclosure about my motivation for this three-part series. Someone I love, someone I have known for 25 years, since they were 7 and I was 47, someone I have done much for in their life, offended me deeply in a well-crafted, detailed, acerbic text message days before one of the biggest milestones of their life. (I use the gender-neutral pronouns they, them, and their to conceal their identity.) I was so deeply insulted by their comments that I was too stunned to respond or to talk even to my wife, daughters, or closest friends about the attack. Anyone who knows me would say my reaction was uncharacteristic. I typically do not hesitate to express my feelings, except for when my expression might ge hurtful to someone. Many thoughts swirled through my head, foremost that we humans tend to hurt most and express anger most to those we love most. I knew they loved me too. I did not respond to their message. Although they followed up with an attempt to apologize, I could see that their words were self-righteous and self-justifying, with no real sense of accountability for their comments. I teach adults how to apologize in speech and in writing, and this person I love so much failed abysmally in doing so. I expected better from a 32-year-old.

Days later, I shared the message with my wife, who can be more forgiving that I in some situations. She was outraged that this person would write such a blistering invective about me. She suggested that I stop communicating with them. But this was not an option for me. I still loved them. Their directing such venom toward me was clearly motivated by a problem they were having with someone else. On the day of that person's milestone, I wished them well. I could have said so much about their own shortcomings, but to what end? I could have said that in writing such a trenchant, negative message, they were behaving worse than the people who were offending them. But what good would that do? 

Please read my two previous posts on revenge, the one about Taha Muhammad Ali's poem "Revenge," which imagines an offense far worse than any pain I could imagine, and the one about what masters say about revenge. Both pieces confirm that the greatest manifestation of power is restraint. More than two weeks after the offense, I am still hurting. Yet I find great solace in the words of these healers. My ability to read has saved my soul—and others pain—more than once. 

On Revenge, Part 2

Following up on last week's post about Taha Muhammad Ali's poem "Revenge," I wonder whether Ali found inspiration in his poem from Marcus Aurelius, who wrote nearly two millennia earlier in Meditations, Chapter 6, Part 6:

The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the the wrongdoer.

And then, maybe Aurelius was influenced by the Bible, specifically Romans, 12:19:

Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.

Or perhaps Aurelius somehow got his hands on Buddhist precepts, which view revenge as poisonous and self-destructive, worsening the problem rather than mitigating it. The key is understanding that the wrongdoer is also suffering. Khalil Gubran and Mahatma Gandhi were credited with saying, "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." Even Frank Sinatra's more self-centered viewpoint, "The best revenge is massive success," is better than seeking to heap violence upon those who hurt us.

It's one thing to say revenge is a misdeed, another to practice it. What does it require? Self-control. Restraint. Love. 

   

On Revenge, Part 1

WORDS ON THE LINE presents a series on revenge in its many manifestations, starting with the poem "Revenge" by Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali (1931-2011). I heard Ali read this poem on Friday, September 29, 2006, at the eleventh Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, then in Waterloo Village, Stanhope, New Jersey. 

After hearing that short poem live twenty years ago, and reading it many times since, I have become convinced that the word revenge, as well as most words in our lexicon, is subject to vast interpretations. The poet posits that revenge need not be an act of violence or any sort of overt retribution, for that matter. Showing mercy to the most hateful criminal can also be an expression of revenge. It evokes Joseph's forgiveness of his brothers after they sold him into slavery, or Valjean's abandoning the opportunity to dispose of his nemesis Javert in Les Miserables.

You can hear the poem in Arabic by Ali and in English by one of his translators, Peter Cole, as I heard it in that moment live here. Please listen.

Writing Confidence at Work, Part 6: Attitude

This final segment on writing confidence at work focuses on attitude. And why not? Confidence is an attitude, or an awareness, about one's abilities to perform successfully. When we approach any task without that requisite confidence to perform it well, it shows to everyone in our presence. Embarrassment is not even half of it. No one wants to appear incompetent, and no one wants to mess up a job because of their self-perceived shortcomings. Pretty unnerving.

Now it's one thing to say, "I write well" and another thing to write well. But experience tells me that for a person of adequate self-awareness, saying it is a fine first step being it. This means that someone committing to that declaration will do everything they can to live up to that expectation. That's attitude with a capital A. 

To close this series, I'll list five ways to build confidence:

1. Learn from the masters. Study the sentences of authors you respect. For example, the highly regarded Nobel Prize laureate T. S. Eliot wrote this sentence in a 1929 essay on Dante in his Selected Essays: "For the science or art of writing verse, one has learned from Inferno that the greatest poetry can be written with the greatest economy of words, and with the greatest austerity in use of metaphor, simile, verbal beauty, and elegance." We need to be forgiving of 96-year-old sentences, as writing style changes with the times just as fashion does. While today most of us would write just the art of writing and drop science, by this point in the essay, Eliot has implied how he distinguishes between science and art. As for those final four descriptors, I immediately understand metaphor, simile, and elegance but not verbal beauty, which seems like a redundant rendering of elegance. Then I think of whether an expression can be verbally beautiful and not elegant and vice-versa. Regardless of how I, the reader, resolve this matter, the key point is that I am thinking like a writer who is trying to apply such phrasings to my own compositions as much as I am a reader who is simply trying to be educated or entertained.  
2. Practice. Good writers are always writing or thinking of writing. Bring a notebook with you wherever you go. You'll never know when a good idea will pop into your head, so write them in your notebook as soon as they do and follow up on those notes when back at your writing spot.
3. Put things in perspective. Guess what? You'll mess up from time to time, no matter how good a writer you become. So what? You haven't died. Far worse things can happen. Just work through it. 
4. Know your developmental areas. Say your narrative flow is terrific but grammar knowledge is limited. Do something about it. Enough online resources exist that can provide the necessary information to get you up to speed. 
5. Build on your strengths. Read number 4 above and put two tips into practice. First, if your narrative flow is strong but your grammar weak, then use that strength to sharpen the weakness. You can do that, for instance, by putting some of your best sentences through a grammar-check tool to see if your sentence is more effective than the suggested one. If you write a good sentence, chances are yours is better. Second, work on your narrative flow, your strength. All skills need constant updating and refining. This task should be easy because you already feel you have arrived in this department. Keep reading eclectically and incorporating. 

By exuding confidence as a writer at work, you will have greater authority and respect. Confidence is worth cultivating.

Writing Confidence at Work, Part 5: Standards

Think about what we call standards of good writing. What does that even mean? Does it mean write like me, your manager? Write like the company-provided templates? Write like the standard that we have created for you? 

Whatever it is, do not automatically consider it a standard of good writing. Writing style is arbitrary. I'd bet that you and I would disagree about what defines good writing style. Does James Baldwin have good writing style? Does Joan Didion? Lydia Davis? I would say yes. If you would say no to any of these three writers, then we would disagree about what constitutes good writing style. Yet these three writers have quite different approaches to style. 

Then how do we determine whose judgment of good writing style matters? By how much we respect that person's writing and that person's opinion. If we know they have set a standard that we can aspire to, then their opinion matters to us, for their influences have shaped their style. Those people whose writing style we respect most likely read a lot and learn from what they read. For this reason, I cannot stress enough the value of reading eclectically, something I have noted repeatedly on this blog. Through reading a broad range of writing styles, we discover our own standards and replicate them in our own writing assignments.

But remember: Standards are arbitrary, though excellent writers establish them, and those are the writers whose lead we should follow.

Writing Confidence at Work, Part 4: Efficiency

Writing efficiently means accomplishing the writing task with the least waste of time and effort. When we talk about good writers, we generally refer to their quality: the inventiveness of ideas, fluency of syntax, and precision of diction. We don't talk enough about efficient writers, but we should. To prove my point, let's do a thought experiment.

Let's say you manage two business analysts, both fast typists. Kerry is 35, a native-born English speaker with a business degree from the United States, and Kim, 35, learned English in America at 22 with a business degree from Colombia. Kerry consistently produces excellent reports and proposals but does so at half the speed of Kim, whose quality is weaker than Kerry's. Kim's reports are as comprehensive and organized as Kerry's, but the sentence structure and word choice are usually off. Which analyst would you choose to write a critical review in a flash for upper management? 

I would choose Kim. Kerry would get the job done flawlessly in four hours, and Kim with a bunch of linguistic errors in two hours. I would be able to fix Kim's flaws in 15 minutes and have an hour and forty-five minutes to spare for other business matters.

What is Kim's trick? Confidence. Having the right perspective about the writing process. Certainty that the draft will be good enough for review. Trust in the manager to improve it. Not stressing over the finished product. Understanding that writing quality is subjective. Now, if Kim were uncommitted to improving the quality, then I would eventually indicate this lapse on her performance evaluation and recommend that she improve her writing and her attitude. But speed is so important in businesses where people get hundreds of emails a day. I'll take Kim for any writing task knowing that she'll eventaually improve in her writing quality under my guidance. Kerry's problem, on the other hand, is psychological, and I am not a psychiatrist.

Efficiency is as valuable as effectiveness, and it starts with confidence.

Writing Confidence at Work, Part 3: Feedback

Q: Should you get feedback on your writing?

A: Yes. And you should too.

Q: When?

A: Always.

Q: What do you mean by always?

A: At every step of the writing process?

Q: What steps?

A: In step one, planning, when you're listing ideas to include in the document. Ask your manager and teammates, should I include just the problem or the impact, history, and cause of the problem? Just the solution or the options and benefits of the proposed option? You might be surprised by their answers. They might say, be sure to include the advantages and disadvantages of each option including your proposed one, and the methods you used in determining the options. Step two, drafting based on your plan, seems like a solitary activity, so why seek feedback? Won't that request slow you down? Maybe, but the rewards outweigh the minor drawback and will enable greater efficiency during future writing assignments. Ask, is a rough, single-paragraph draft all right for review? Should I use a preexisting template? If you get stuck in the middle of the draft because you can't think of an advantage of an unpreferred option, ask for someone's opinion. They might see something that was right under your nose all along. In step three, quality controlling, you revise, edit, and proofread. If unsure when revising, ask, did I leave anything out? Should I delete anything? Should I move any section higher or lower? When editing, ask, is that sentence overlong? Did I choose the right word here? Is a question better than a command there? Ask someone you trust to proofread for you. They are more likely to pick up your overlooked errors. Of course, offer yourself as a resource for those you ask when they write complex documents. 

Q: Why bother with all this feedback?

A: This give and take among staff go a long way toward making a proficient writing organization. It also helps writers understand that feedback is not a means of punishment or embarrassment, but a natural element of the writing process. Ultimately, it builds writing confidence.

Writing Confidence at Work, Part 2: Perfectionism

You want to write the perfect feasibility study, procedure, policy, or status report. You think you have but wonder whether it will get the expected reception. Maybe some of those on your distribution list won't even read it. Others might react indifferently to it. Maybe the most important readers will be downright critical of it. You review the document one more time and see why you have had those thoughts. You can make so many improvements, starting with the forcefulness of that opening sentence all the way to that last uncommitted paragraph.

You look at the draft an hour later. Now you believe the style is much improved, but another thought surfaces, You believe you've sacrificed style for substance. You go back to your original outline to find that, in fact, you have not removed any detail, but the most essential content is now buried in the middle of overlong paragraphs. You decide to rearrange information to make the key points more prominent. But now the internal logic of the piece has run amok.

You get the point. Perfectionism. You've got to stop somewhere; you've got to press send sooner or later. You can be sure that no matter how well you write a work-related document, you will find ways to improve it as soon as it drops into your files. You are constantly learning, the business is continually changing, and the industry is revolutionizing. Perfectionism is pointless.

Aiming for perfect is a noble goal, so long as you don't let such a pursuit take over your better senses. If you keep focusing on not hitting your mark, on failure, you might as well give up. Just produce. It's just a bunch of words.

Writing Confidence at Work, Part 1: Subjectivity

Possessing a confident mindset matters to writing success at work. Writing ranks as one of the most  common activities in most jobs, so we can't spend even a moment of our workday feeling uncertain about our writing capability or apprehensive about approaching a big writing task. That's why, starting with this installment, WORDS ON THE LINE starts this six-part series dedicated to the concept of writing confidence. 

Why do so many good writers, or at least adequate ones, lack confidence in their writing? I meet them all the time in professional workshops. They openly express their insecurities about the quality of their reports, analyses, or proposals. They wish they could compose faster, fluidly, painlessly. If writing amounts to most of their daily work, then their job is torture.

Confidence is an attitude. And attitudes are subjective, at least as others perceive us. One person's idea of an assertive tone is another's aggressive, one's straightforward another's rude, one's humility another's disengaged. It would help people who beat up themselves over their perceived inadequate writing skills to start with this mindset. Even the most celebrated writers in the world have received bad reviews.

Writing style is also as subjective as any art, song, cuisine, or fashion. We cannot deny that some documents are well written and other poorly written, but the same well written document for one reader might not do for another. Start with that thought the next time you write something important on the job.

Talking Up Writing

When I see teams talk up their writing among each other, I see good writers employed in a publication organization. This assertion calls for qualification of three terms: talk up writing, good writers, and publication organization.

Talking up writing is easy enough to explain. Let's say Anita, Brian, Carlos, and Diana—who call themselves the Fab Four—work on the same team in a large company. Anita has never written an internal proposal, but she needs to draft one for management. She asks Brian to share a successful one he wrote last year so that she can use his as a template. Brian, on the other hand, needs to write a monthly meeting review, but he's bored of using the same boilerplate style. So he asks Carlos to read his meeting review before submittal for suggestions on what he might add to or delete from the document. And while Carlos is writing a new procedure, he asks Diana if she can think of a way to make a particular sentence sound better. Meanwhile, Diana, who is crafting a necessarily negative response to a query, asks Anita to look for tone problems before sending it. Just the fact that these staffers are talking up their writing gives them deeper insights into each other's approach to writing and into the writing process itself.

Describing good writers is a tougher nut to crack. To keep it simple, we could say that management almost always accepts the writing of the Fab Four without comment. Or management also turns to the Fab Four to draft their own messages before editing them to reflect their own style. Or the Fab Four's supervisor asks them for their opinion on a business-critical email. Or employees in other departments of the company seek the Fab Four's input at any point of the writing process, from planning the scope of a white paper to drafting a status report on a massive project to reviewing an audit report for precision,  clarity, and conciseness. If any of these situations apply to you and your team, then you are good writers.

Perhaps the easiest term to qualify is publication organization, because these days virtually every company is one. This term does not apply only to book publishers. Does your business create and archive blogs, business forecasts, business plans, disaster plans, procedures, audit reports, meeting reviews, internal and external proposals, project plans, status reports, and completion reports? If yes, then you work for a publication organization. Everything you do must be in writing, so you and your fellow employees are no less writers than novelists, playwrights, and poets. In fact, you and your team likely write more than "published authors"; therefore, you need every writing tip possible to improve the productivity and sharpen the quality of all your documentation. 

Talking up writing at the workplace has many benefits. It will enhance everyone's writing experience and tighten the team camaraderie. 

A Note on Kafka's "Before the Law"

Few stories keep me thinking long after I've read them like Franz Kafka's short story "Before the Law." This 639-word vignette has said more to me over the past half-century than have most 639-page books I read. Some people see Kafka's mini masterpiece as a parable about the intractable, onerous nature of our legal system as we flounder though life. But on each of the few dozen occasions I have read it throughout my adulthood, I have been reminded of the power of free will and personal choice. 

I won't summarize such a short story but urge you to read it if you have not and to reread it if you have. Whenever I have made a life-changing decision, such as getting married, bringing a child into the world, buying a house, pursuing a doctorate, or starting a new career, I tell myself that the message of "Before the Law" is that fear in the face of action is inevitable, that I must act in spite of my fear of the unknown, that living with the consequences of inaction is far more painfully enduring than acting decisively. In other words, I do not want to wait my entire life for gaining entry into "the law," as does the man from the country in the story. That's a lot of message! See what I mean for yourself: read "Before the Law," an amazingly haunting yet existentially challenging tale. We can talk about this work of art all day.

On Rereading a Beloved Story

I recently reread Franz Kafka's novella "The Metamorphosis" after more than a half century. I read it for the first time as a college student. At that time, I was just a beginner, learning about the vast world of literature. I saw the story as a tale of ostracism and isolation, which resonated with a 20-year-old loner feeling, well, ostracized and isolated. 

A lot of life experience has passed over these past five decades. Now I see "The Metamorphosis" as an allegory of the transactional basis of familial relationships and the relative nature of moral obligations. Gregor Samsa, the man who in the first sentence of the story becomes a gigantic insect or horrible vermin, depending on whose translation you read, has what seems to be a simple relationship with society and his family. He works as a traveling salesman and lives with his parents and younger sister. Gregor is the breadwinner, as his father, a failed businessman, and mother are too incapacitated to work, and his sister is too young to earn income.

A family lie escaped me the first time I read the story. Months into Gregor's transformation, all three family members find employment to continue the lifestyle that Gregor afforded them. Thus, Gregor had little need to support his family, even though his salary was greater than theirs collectively. 

During this reading, I was struck by how Gregor became not only someone to hide from the rest of the world but a thing of deliberate neglect. As a 20-year-old, I was so absorbed in Gregor's problems that I did not consider how his family members began deserting him in his small bedroom. His endearing sister Grete, who quickly became his caretaker once he suffered his metamorphosis, gradually abandoned him. as did their parents, hastening his demise. Gregor could not speak like a human. He climbed the walls and ceiling of his bedroom. He was in the eyes of his family no longer Gregor, no longer human. Once people are convinced that someone else is even a shred less than human, there's no limit to the harm they can inflict on them.

I can say much more about my new insights into failed communication, societal expectations, and self-abnegation, all additional themes of "The Metamorphosis"; however, enough said to encourage you to read a beloved book from your youth. See what it means to you today. 

Travel Tips for Serious Communicators, Part 6: Why Go?

In this concluding post on travel tips for serious communicators, I refer to previous posts in WORDS ON THE LINE throughout the past 13 years. I have often returned here to the benefits of traveling for writers.

In 2012, I wrote about getting bitten by the writing bug by traveling. I mentioned my penchant for visiting writers' houses, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's in Cambridge, Massachusetts; William Shakespeare's in Stratford-upon-Avon, England; Nikos Kazantzakis's in Myrtia, Crete; John Keats's in Rome, Italy; and Carl Sandburg's in Flat Rock, North Carolina. I have since visited Ernest Hemingway's in Key West, Florida; Eugene O'Neill's in Danville, California; August Wilson's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; August Strindberg's in Stockholm, Sweden; and Henrik Ibsen's in Oslo Norway. You can get a lot of inspiration and ideas in these places.

In 2017, I mentioned that travel is something writers do. Travel could mean just heading out to a different part of your immediate environment with a conscious effort to experience differences, to observe.

In 2024, I described the value of travel for the workplace writer, explaining that these tips apply not only to so-called creative writers, but to business and technical writers as well.

Earlier this year, I noted the tools of the traveling writer. Find the ways and means to facilitate your writing and do it.

So these posts are the who, what, when, where, and how of travel, and this post is the why. Safe and meaningful travels to you.

Travel Tips for Serious Communicators, Part 5: Where to See

The answer to the question, "Where to see?" is "Everywhere," of course. But if you walk nearly 200 miles through city streets over 22 days to get to various destinations and experience them, you must use your blinders sometimes. Nevertheless, you should see some places with your eyes and other senses wide open.

Toilets

Biological necessity determines our need to go to a restroom. Wherever I went during my trip to Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Copenhagen, Bergen, and Oslo, the toilets and sinks and floors were immaculate. The quality of a restroom says a lot about a culture. For instance, you'd better bring your own toilet paper to Cuba because it is in short supply, which underscores the neediness of its people, clearly due to United States-imposed sanctions. I am ashamed that so many restrooms in my native city, New York, are filthy. How can this fact not tell you that New Yorkers don't really care about your hygienic safety? You can say all you want that a city of more than 8 million people is far more difficult to manage than Scandinavian cities. That's like saying you shouldn't play tennis or golf because you can't play as well as Scottie Scheffler or Janik Sinner. 

If you think that toilets are not worth mentioning, go to the Bryant Park restroom, abutting the main branch of the New York Public Library in Manhattan. That restroom is so famous that it has a Wikipedia page. The line to get in it is often very long, and I doubt people feel it's worth the wait for its Beaux Arts design. It's because they know they can relieve themselves in a sanitary spot.

Airports

Airports also speak volumes about a culture. If a terminal has few phone charging stations, we assume they are antiquated. If intercom announcements or arrival and departure boards are unclear, you can assume you'll have a chaotic experience. If you see croissants, cinnamon buns, and bread freshly baked on the airport premises, then you know people pride themselves on their food. If you accidentally walk into a restricted area, as I did, and see that the enforcer treats you respectfully, then you will see people in that country value you as a human being. Oh, and what I already said about restrooms applies to airport restrooms too. I found them spotless and well supplied throughout the Nordic regions

Central Stations

I stayed within a short walk from five central stations to my hotel. I am proud of Grand Central Station, as all my visiting relatives ask me to take them there during their trips to the United States. Someone is always available to help orient travelers at Grand Central, which underscores Metro-North Railroad's and Long Island Rail Road's commitment to customer service. I can say the same for some, but not all, of the central stations I visited in Northern Europe. All of them expect customers to use their phones, get the apps, read timetables, and identify track numbers, proving that these cities expect customers to be tech savvy. 

Prices

The cost of items also says a lot about where you are. Compared to major American cities, I saw a consistent trend throughout all these cities: quality hotels are less expensive, entertainment is on par or a bit less expensive, and food is more expensive. What does this say? That hotels are competitive and a lot of food is imported from faraway regions. And while entertainment, such as museums, sporting events, and concerts, by their nature attract fewer people than do their American counterparts, which should drive prices higher but do not, they are better subsidized by the government.

Gardens

Yes. I mean it. Flowers look the same as America's in these countries, but they are infinitely more abundant wherever you go in Scandinavian cities. In front of restaurants, along walkways, across waterfronts, outside apartment windows. You can assume from this fact that the aesthetic of the people  and pride in their appearance surpasses America's. Exceptions may apply. For instance, the last time I saw Atlanta, it was a veritable garden city. And there may be abundant reasons why America's cities do not invest in beauty. But I must concede: It is what it is.

So many other places to see in what being in a foreign place tells you. The way people dress, how young people address elders, the food that's served, the number of benches in a public park, the efficiency of countdown clocks at bus stops, the historically preserved sections of town, and much more. You can learn so much about others and yourself without ever saying a word. Just see.

Travel Tips for Serious Communicators, Part 4: How to Listen

The value of dialogue

At the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, the city that awards the Nobel Peace Prize, an exhibit captured my attention. It concerned the value of dialogue and listening. Throughout my travels, work career, and conversations with family and friends, I have met many people who were artful speakers but few who are polished listeners. Yet one of the greatest barriers to peaceful relationships is our ability to listen without an agenda, without presuming, without judging, without advising.

Through true listening as described at the Nobel Peace Center, we can achieve harmony, empathy, and real progress. I'm not talking about the progress that advantages some and disadvanatages others, that further enriches the wealthy and disenfranchises the working class.

I won't offer tips in this post because the illustrations from the Center do just that with sufficient clarity and concision. I will say, however, that the world needs a lot of help in learning how to listen, that I am striving to be a better listener, that we learn more from listening than from speaking, and that listening is a critical component to human survival. Listening is especially useful when you are a visitor in a foreign country, a guest in someone's home, a student in someone's class, a congregant in a house of worship, an audience member during a presentation, or most important, a friend to someone needing to be heard. 

Listening in dialogue

Travel Tips for Serious Communicators, Part 3: When to Bend

Knowing the difference between kronos time (measurable) and kairos time (qualitative) can be beneficial in understanding dialogue and flow invaluable theories in gaining insights into how we can live an optimal life. Building on kronos and kairos, my friend and mentor Barrett Mandel taught me there are two types of time management: creative planning, arranging your life activities for when you would like them to happen; and reactive scheduling, dealing with things as they pop up. While creative planning demands a structured approach to life, reactive scheduling demands a strong capacity for bending. Managing both of these types of situations can be life-changing.

For an example, on June 19, 1974, as a 20-year-old American university student from New York City, I was in Malmö, Sweden, on Day 9 of a 10-nation, 80-day tour as planned. I went to the Bohemian Jazz Club, as planned. I got there by midday to get tickets in advance of that evening's show. The door was wide open. Inside I found no one but a tall, white Swedish woman cleaning the bar and a black man sweeping the floor. The place looked hip with a small bandstand in the corner of the room and couches and tables scattered throughout. 

The woman asked, "May I help you?" 

"Yeah, I wanna see the show tonight," I answered.

"Sorry, there is no show tonight," she said.

"Oh," I said, clearly disappointed. So much for creative planning; I had to reactively schedule that evening.  

The black man stopped sweeping the floor and asked, "Yo, you from the Bronx?" Not only did he peg by nationality but pinpointed my residence.

"Yeah," I said.

"So am I," he said, extending his hand, which I grasped. He could tell what I was thinking: What was he doing there? Pointing to the woman, he said, "I visited here a few years back, met her, and never went back. This is our club." He introduced me to his woman and to his massive collection of jazz records. The three of us talked for a good half hour about jazz, education, and differences in racial, cultural, social, economic, and jurisprudence perspectives between the United States and Sweden. My disappointment quickly faded. Most memorably, Clarence recommended I go to the Montreux Jazz Festival. 

Thanks to this serendipitous meeting, I dropped from my perfectly planned schedule cities like Zurich and Vienna, which I'm sure would have been great, and went to this picturesque Swiss village from June 30 to July 7 to attend more than a dozen concerts, featuring artists like Sonny Rollins, Slide Hampton, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band, Earl Hines, Jay McShann, Roland Hanna, Randy Weston, Didi Bridgewater, Lew Soloff, Charles Earland, Ron Carter, Randy Brecker, Michael Brecker, Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Milton Nascimento, Jon Faddis, Billy Cobham, and many others. These experiences led me over the next 50 years to discovering more about the jazz world and enjoying arguably America's greatest cultural gift to the world.  

I've said somewhere else in this blog, more than 20 years in the running, that we need to plan as if we were going to live forever but live like we have only the next moment. That requires bending, especially when traveling to places where every moment is a new experience.