Category: People

There’s No Absence of Fear

There’s No Absence of Fear

by | God, People

I used to think there was an emotional state of “no fear.” Entirely unafraid, about all things, all the time. I thought this was a real, legitimate place I should be trying to get to.

Laine (and God (L: it was mostly God…)) corrected me.

There are always new sources of fear. This world is broken. The people living here are broken. Things go wrong. Our dreams fail, and our hopes die. Our relationships can break, our jobs can suck, people can hurt us. We make choices and the people we love make choices, and it doesn’t always seem like it could possibly work out.

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Your Fears are Not a Beacon

Your Fears are Not a Beacon

by and | God, People

Fear is really hard to deal with. Fight or flight is an inherent human truth – we think that if we’re afraid, we must act. But…most of the time, action in the context of fear doesn’t make a ton of sense. It’s very logical in the comparatively rare times that our lives are actually in danger – but in the times we are simply (ha) afraid that we will lose an important relationship, action spurred by fear usually just does a whole lot of damage.

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The Myth of Rationed Femininity

The Myth of Rationed Femininity

by | God, People

I recently had the great honor of going with a transgender friend to his first support group meeting. I was kind of terrified, because I am not transgender – just an extremely determined supporter of the people I love. I was worried that I would be seen as an interloper, or that I would make people uncomfortable.

As it happened, I didn’t need to worry about any of that. I was mostly quiet, and I listened, and I heard their stories with a great deal of thankfulness to be allowed to be included.

One story stuck with me, along with the way it was told as though it were a norm. A woman there had recently found out that a cis woman, someone she considered a friend, was something like neutral on being transgender. Not supportive. Not exactly “against.” Just…neutral. She said that it felt as though cis women in general don’t accept her, that they get defensive and say awful things like not a “real” woman, and the other women in the room nodded sadly in agreement.

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It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect

It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect

by and | Community, People, Technology

In a previous post, we talked about how important kitty typing and determination are to technical execution. An important addendum to this is that whatever you do doesn’t have to be perfect.

Now, the first response to that is most likely to be an objection:

You: But…Laine and Josh, quality is so important to companies! It’s like, job #1: don’t mess it up. How can you say that it doesn’t have to be perfect?

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Idols and Alone and Rest for Your Soul

Idols and Alone and Rest for Your Soul

by and | Community, God, People

People Seem Safer than God

 Come, all you weary.
Come, gather ’round near me,
find rest for your soul. 
– Thrice, Come All You Weary

“Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30

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Choice-Based Relationships

Choice-Based Relationships

by and | Community, God, People

Relationships and Control

We’ve talked in the past about how control is an illusion – we can’t control the world around us, and all we really have are the choices we make.

We’ve also talked about how manipulating people only works when you’re the smartest person in the room.

One of the things that’s been a struggle for both of us, individually and as friends, is how do we make sure people will stick around? We all, at our core, don’t want to be alone. We want to be known, and appreciated, and maybe truly loved, but that…sure seems like a lot to ask. Most of us only manage to shoot for being a little bit known and sort of vaguely liked. And that’s actually pretty great, if it happens.

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Laptop Stickers: These are My Nerd Gang Signs

Laptop Stickers: These are My Nerd Gang Signs

by and | Community, People, Technology

I seeeee you!

One of our favorite things to do is to observe people. You can learn a ton about people by watching them (uh…in a non-creepy way, ideally) and seeing what they display as valuable. With nerds, one of the best ways to do this is to look at their laptops – make and model and operating system, sure, but actually the best source of information is to look at their stickers. A laptop is very important among nerds. It is the tool with which they fulfill their purpose, and so it has inherent value. It’s also only so big, so real estate given to stickers is important. You can learn a ton about a nerd by the tech and things they choose to affiliate with.

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Trust: What is?

Trust: What is?

by and | Community, God, People

Fun fact – the Building Reliability blog post was originally called “Building Trust.” It was old content – some day we’ll tell the story of everything that happened between when it was originally published and when we published it here, but suffice it to say that a lot changed okay.

Because of what changed, Laine was immediately and thoroughly triggered by defining trust in some part as “doing what people expect of you.” Some number of arguments later, we agreed that what’s described in that post is reliability – which is in fact different from trust. And…then we started trying to define and explain trust. Turns out, it really isn’t easy. After a lot of paying attention to where we stumble in trusting other people (spoiler alert: we’re both awful at it, actually…), this post was born. Finally.

We’re going to explain in more detail, but here is the basic definition:

Trust: believing that the other person loves you enough to figure it out – whatever it is.

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Puppet Mastery, Manipulation, and Control

Puppet Mastery, Manipulation, and Control

by and | God, People

“It works as long as you’re the smartest, but then the curtain comes back. Nobody likes being manipulated.”

People hate that word, “manipulation.” As a rule, they don’t hate the concept unless they’re on the receiving end of it, and even then sometimes they appear to prefer it to dealing with…well, reality.

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Plan Replace Me

Plan Replace Me

by | Community, Leadership, Organizations, People

One of the greatest things about being a leader, for us, is building deep, enduring relationships with the people and teams we work with.

One of the hardest things, for us, about being a leader is leaving the relationships we’ve built. This is a sad, painful process. We love people a lot, and we keep leaving, maybe because there are always more dragons to teach people how to slay.

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