[To poach an egg: boil and simmer four inches of water; add a bit of vinegar; crack the egg onto a cup and pour into the water; after a minute and a half, lift with a slotted spoon and prod a bit to check; drain and store in ice water; reheat in simmering water before serving.]
I usually have at least one nicely cold soft-boiled egg on hand to lure my thoughts away from eating lunch out.
[Cooking seems like something to juggle amongst life’s many complications rather than a clear path through them.]
[Fast-and-easy recipe books try to sell us akin to ‘breathing air more rapidly’ while pasta is already ‘boil then toss’ and omelettes are already a minute away.]
[Cooking is transformation, and transformation is human.]
[Absurd to think that nature starts from scratch at dawn: cooking as well is continuity, picking up where something else left off.]
Stale slices of bread should be ground into breadcrumbs, which make a delicious topping for pasta, and add crunch to a salad. Or they must be toasted and broken apart for croutons or brittle crackers, which ask to be smeared with olive paste.
This continuity is the heart and soul of cooking. If we decide our meals will be good, remanded kale stems, quickly pickled or cooked in olive oil and garlic, will be taken advantage of to garnish eggs, or tossed with pasta. Beet and turnip greens, so often discarded, will be washed well and sautéed in olive oil and filled into an omelet, or served on warm, garlicky crostini. The omelets or little toasts will have cost no more than eggs and stale bread, and both will have been more gratifying to eater and cook.
If our meal will be ongoing, then our only task is to begin.
if there is anything that you can learn from what is happening, learn it.
[Adding salt is more than just about boiling: it’s a way to cook one good-tasting thing inside another.]
[You already know how everything is supposed to taste: it should be ‘good’. And that’s as true for water as any other ingredient.]
[Add ingredients together warm, as they’re already transforming and open to change.]
[Push re-use of water by moving from less starchy to more starchy ingredients.]
[Taste the broth often and cook until delicious.]
[A given name like ‘honour killings’ portrays that violence as somehow different than in the occidental nations: more barbaric and primitive. Is ours any better?]
[1. What is the difference between hearing and endorsing a dangerous idea? 2. Should we hear them or not, and why? 3. Is it possible to discuss them productively?]
[Strengthening an argument doesn’t make it more threatening.]
[Appreciate disagreements; notice and address anxiety.]
[Systemic issues stick when their disagreements are stuck in unproductive states or off limits of discussion.]
I changed the game from “online debate” to “potluck at my house.” I changed the goal from “let’s debate ideas” to “let’s enjoy each other’s company while having a stimulating conversation.” I changed the conversational medium from “type into a comment text box” to “discuss over food and drink.” And I changed the question from “What do you believe?” to the biggest unanswered question in my own head: “What’s the endgame for the gun-control debate?”
[By realizing that we knew less, we felt somehow wiser.]
A traditional essay makes a single case and puts all its weight behind it. A problem brief collects the best proposals [and criticisms] that attempt to answer the open question. That means it might have two or five or a hundred different proposals, each with supporting evidence and proposed actions, each a result of a collaboration between supporters and opponents.
[Focus on end-games instead of arguing specific points.]
the low doorway is meant to remind guests to enter with respect.
[To any disagreement, you can ask: What’s really at stake here? If true, what happens? What truth would cause you to change your mind? If this were no longer a problem, how would we get there?]
[‘Nutpicking’ is to select the most extreme viewpoint so that it’s easy to tear apart; an empty victory that invites another cycle.]
[Consider helping the opposition build their strongest arguments and enlist them to build up yours. Iron sharpens iron, and each of you is best suited to find flaws in the others’ approach.]
[We’re easily blind to the loopholes in our own desires.]
[Even if one side wins through power, do they really expect the other side to simply shut up about it forever?]
What is your relationship to the unknown? What is it like to have sensitivity to nature and spirits?
[Reason habituates us to asking black-and-white questions like “what is real?” and “what actually happened?” when actually there’s no need to go there, to the point that some people feel a sense of duty to correct others who believe in something considered unacceptable.]
[Ghosts are more heart-realm metaphors than head-realm beings.]
To ask a good question, walk right up to the perimeter of your current understanding about something and find a question that you don’t know the answer to.
[Instead of “are ghosts real?” ask “what experiences led you to your beliefs?”.]
It’s amazing to have a chance to peek into someone’s belief systems and memories, a treasure trove wasted by a bad question.
[People don’t need to answer, or do so truthfully.]
[Open and honest dialogue requires the information shared to not be weaponized.]
[The fruits of disagreement include: 1. security (negotiating for foundation); 2. growth (taking risks to discover new possibilities and potential security); 3. connection (being able to relate to people with diverse perspectives); and 4. enjoyment, learning to enjoy fundamental disagreements because the discussion brings new nuance each time.]
[Going beyond battling for security diffuses the zero-sum game to enable everyone to gain and grow from the experience.]
[The voice of reason makes sense of things by connecting to all the other things that give authority and power to its wielder.]
[Ghosts and spirits are a more a language to talk about unknown forces that influence us and less a physical being that we can’t interact with.]
[The voice of possibility doesn’t need to immediately decide whether something is true, and can accept contradictory arguments simultaneously.]
[Propose to ‘disagree and commit’ when nobody will have the ideal information anyway, especially if reversible. Try to recognize misalignment and correct quickly.]
[Leader seek to have strong judgment and good instincts. They incorporate diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.]
[When resolving conflict, the voice of power uses force, the voice of reason uses systems, and the voice of avoidance uses inaction. The voice of possibility tries to make conflict productive instead, by facilitating learning, curiosity, understanding.]
[Depersonalize points of view so that people feel free to try out other ones. Plot them on a quadrant of agreement against potential to change.]
[Arguments are an indication of something important, not necessarily bad. It’s normal for them to come back like weeds. Not dealing with them to ‘avoid rocking the boat’ can create anxiousness underlying everything.]
[Try to determine whether it’s about being true, meaningful, or useful.]
[Recaps can help ease tension contours after intense learning.]
[If you teach well, people might pay you to help them with things you’re skilled at, even without expertise.]
[Putting people in a group or course would yield better outcomes when they have been vetted to have similar needs that can be addressed by your offering. The transactional ‘buy and enroll’ misses this opportunity.]
[Living documentation that everyone can access. Many people have talked about doing it, but you actually do it in a relational way. Nice reminder of the beauty created through that process. No logic or reason behind it, other than connection, recognizing that something cool is happening and doing it.]
Poorly dressed in other folks’ old clothes, with a dog and a noisy borrowed bicycle, I’d see half the eyes in the room wish they hadn’t come the moment they realised that it was me giving the workshop. ’this is the guy?!’. Some would quickly look away as if to hide the way their faces openly displayed their shock. I quickly learnt to play off of that, and to enjoy it too; it was the first tension contour to resolve! Knowing that I would resolve that tension, I could enjoy it, a little like sitting in front of a big cake you know you are about to eat, and waiting a little!
[Problematic learners can become observers. Problematic rapports in one-on-one might work out better in a worokshop setting, or in an audio course. Terminating a relationship with the student can still maintain their engagement with the method.]
[Bear with difficult learners as long as they help illuminate deficiencies in your method. Try to convince them to play ball, but ultimately leave the choice with them.]
[Explaining etymology can help mask repetition.]
[Moving at the speed of trust.]
[Teaching a language vertically is quickly tedious. Nobody makes a sentence from only prepositions. Better to tie together various concepts to enable creating simple expressions.]
[Teach common words after the necessary knowledge to understand them, not at the beginning.]
As language methods often completely ignore the language of instruction, they tend to have an irritating habit of describing absolutely everything a language does. Learners are often forced to spend too much time trying to make heads or tails of grammatical descriptions provided to them for a new language, without ever realising that the target language functions in the same way as the base language, or indeed realising it when it’s too late and the knowledge can do little to spare the learner any effort. What’s worse, is that superfluous descriptions run the risk of becoming mental debris that the learner is unsure how to apply. They may lurk in the shadows and raise their ugly heads later on, interfering with other thought processes (often in fascinating ways, mind!).
In short, we don’t need to describe everything the target language does, and what should remain unsaid will have much to do with the structure of the language of instruction. To describe certain things in the target language which are indeed the same in the base language (without a particular reason for doing so) would serve to make our learner feel less in control than they would have with less information. We will avoid burdening our learners with irrelevant observations they’re not sure what to do with, and in this way we also cue that what we do tell our learners is important.
[We often already know, without realizing that we know.]
When it comes to importing vocabulary, we are almost always using the vocabulary for something other than learning a word. When Complete Spanish opens with -al words, it is not so we can learn legal, normal and metal, but so that we can begin dissecting what vowels sound and look like in Spanish, whilst raising the learner’s consciousness of word stress, too. In the same course, when we access verbs through the pattern ‘cancelation - cancelar, we do so to highlight the infinitive and its function, to then begin establishing the infinitive as a launchpad for building other tenses. The vocabulary conversion itself is secondary to these goals. Our learner will be taken aback by all the free words, of course, but our own focus as writers is elsewhere!
[Languages don’t exist: there are only dialects, and some of those get promoted as a vehicle for national purposes, which makes it a political event.]
[They only know what we tell them when we tell it to them.]
[Often what looks like one concept to someone with experience is really several concepts to a beginner. Make a list of all the elements involved and there will usually be one that can be learned in isolation.]
[The learner should rarely feel like something is missing. The teacher presents one idea at a time, and the learner tries to apply it feeling complete and resolved.]
[Maintain an optimum cognitive load normally and increase or decrease tension deliberately to create contours of peaks and valleys so that the experience feels dynamic and engaging.]