MY WHITEBOARD
Measuring 29 x 29 cm, my whiteboard has since its
acquisition always held an honored place at my line of sight when I gaze left. In my final office before retiring, it
suspended by its upper enclosed metallic ring surrounding a red plastic
push-pin on my corkboard. I could see
the whole square. Now it attaches by parallel
magnets to of the exterior of a four-drawer metal file cabinet to the left of
my desk in My Space. A goose-neck lamp
clipped to my desk surface obscures the lower left corner. This segment has no writing utility, being
imprinted with Avandia in its logo green letters with an equilateral red
triangle pointing down in the groove of the V of this once widely prescribed
and heavily promoted thiazolidinedione, of blessed memory, a pill for insulin
resistant diabetes. If it lasts
centuries, which it might due to its Avandia green plastic frame, archeologists
can try to place its date in the late 20th century but contemporary
mavens of modern culture can assign it to an age when doctors like myself
received a lot of medical kitsch, now about twenty years ago. This promotional item retained its
utility. As a reminder to prescribe this
drug by its brand name, it has long since lost its value. As a reminder to register what I am about and
what I need to pursue each day, it remains timeless. The sage Kohelet of the Old Testament knew
enough neuroscience to realize that “the wise man has eyes in his head.” What we see, particularly when we take care
to seek out the important, our visual focus creates our mental focus.
This treasured vertical flat surface with mostly unused
clips and magnets for notes keeps me verbal.
I divided its surface into zones.
Its lower third has remained blank, a place for the empty clips and
magnets, also made of pharmaceutical advertising. There I deposited a single small paper with a
security number that I will need to communicate with Social Security. The upper two thirds contain meaningful
writing. On the right there are two four-word
entries, the upper in English, the lower in Hebrew, each a different marker
color for each word. The summary of
Mayor Bloomberg’s guidance to my son’s commencement class of 2008 won its place
there the day after the ceremony. It has
not changed. He advised the graduates to
focus on their individual personal
·
Independence
·
Honesty
·
Accountability
·
Innovation
Some five years later while reading Rabbi Sidney Schwarz’
anthology Jewish Megatrends, I added the Rabbi’s four desired attributes,
Hebrew on the board, translated here:
·
Wisdom
·
Righteousness
·
Community
·
Sanctity
There they have remained, thought about in some fashion most
days.
In the center I added two insertions: a Hebrew DerechEretz which reminds me to remain courteous to all people whether they merit
it or not, and a brief quotation from a TED Talk on writing: I remember the time when…
Ben Franklin advised remaining civil to all, enemies to
none. Since he did better than me, I
need the reminder. We are the composite of our experiences, their contexts, how
we responded to them at the time, how we allow those experiences to upgrade
us. Judaism in particular depends on
memory. We remember Shabbat as Commandment #4.
We introduce Shabbat each Friday night with memory of Creation and of
Exodus. We all have those times when… We
do not always allow those experiences to move us ahead, thus the daily reminder
in my central vision.
The left third of my whiteboard has a list of twelve
initiatives that change at the end of every June and December. What I want to accomplish, really
intermediate goals that must remain coherent with the core values listed on the
right third of the whiteboard, remains in my sight daily as I start nearly
every day except the weekly Sabbath by deciding what activities would make for
a good effort. These are also color
coded:
·
Red: Financial or Family
Projects
·
Blue: My Living
Space
·
Green: Projects
filling my identity as a physician. None
for this half-year
·
Black: My personal development. 8 of 12 are listed with black marker this
cycle
There is a theory that languages with vowels are read from
left to right which puts their ideas into the analytical left hemisphere, while
non-vowelized languages such as Hebrew are read from right to left, which
forces us to form ideas from context as well as letters. Our visual tracking puts this preferentially
into our right cerebral hemispheres where we derive our emotional
connections. My whiteboard has a mixture,
as does my formal and informal education.
Those are the mechanics that outline a blend of identity,
principles, pursuits. While I made a
reasonably successful effort to stand aside from our American political fray,
avoiding the temptation to demean anyone verbally, standing amidst our civil
meltdown caught me as a victim along with everyone else. I look at intersectionalities of political
position more than I did just a few years ago.
Sometimes my opinion of people I don’t know defaults to disrespect, and
not the amusing Rodney Dangerfield kind.
People have started to register in my mind by what they espouse, not the
worthy efforts they might put forth.
With that framework, and not neglecting my own views which no doubt
generate parallel poorly considered reactions, I went back to each item that
puts my mind in perspective each day to assess how partisan each really is.
My white board effectively divides left and right. Unlike our political ideologies which are
also labelled left and right figuratively, my left and right expressions are
more literal. On the left I have
proposed actions, on the right and center, in two languages with different
perspectives, I have abstract values that frame the daily tasks. As much as people increasingly take a binary
view of what they stand for, the daily pursuits, at least mine, have a
consistent universality. There is
nothing partisan about nurturing a garden, visiting children, tracking expenses
with the intent of better financial prudence, creating friendships, banding
together with others in organizations where the target beneficiary is not self,
maintaining health, or challenging my intellect. However somebody else may imprint one of their
labels or slogans to me, on most days we each do something because the effort
generates joy, we take pride in our families with the expectation of
forthcoming nachas, we know what our doctors think we ought to be doing
and try to comply, and do our best to generate the funds we need for our responsibilities
or aspirations. Partisanship rarely
arises from this task column, for me translated each evening into specific
desired tasks to pursue the following day. For every troll who takes a written
poke at me on our increasingly toxic social media, there is a more stoic
person, sometimes marking with a red cap what is beneath that red cap, taking
care of his home, acting in a courteous manner in the workplace to people he
will slander with his computer later that evening, walking on a treadmill, or
planning a vacation to a state whose citizens vote differently.
Those right and center placements on my white board, things
that have resisted any modification from the time they were first written more
than a decade previously, reflect more indelible and highly particular
imprints. Independence means no
temptation will get me to blithely slogan somebody when I should be using my
higher centers to assess circumstances.
That’s important to me, not at all essential to others who are more
inclined to never challenge their nearest person of title. Does it segregate by other elements of partisan
ideology? I think it does. Mayor Bloomberg advised the graduates
honesty. I think the commitment to
something like that really isn’t generated at University commencement,
though. Honor systems abound in schools
and in the workplace. Violations are
few, but not so rare that they never occur.
And while people tend to maintain stage 1 of an Honor System by not
cheating, we don’t do as well with stage 2 that requires reporting of cheaters. Our political divide does not seem at all
equal in willingness to come down on wrongdoers in their midst. But with whatever tribe you select for
yourself trust remains highly valued, and not particularly ideological. We assume our credit cards will debit only
what we authorize, our doctors will have our best interests in the advice we
receive, other drivers will not abuse the orderly flow of traffic. Yet, our tolerance for violators of honest
does have its element of political intersectionality. Accountability may differ as well. Much of our public discourse has focused on
blaming the opposition and scoring points with the faithful when that
happens. That negates
accountability. And I think the two
partisan poles are highly unequal. Willingness
to exploit people’s vulnerabilities has its intersectionality. Trustworthiness is one of the most fundamental
of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that captured more than a few
paragraphs by Dr. Stephen Covey in his landmark best seller. In many, trustworthiness
portends success far more reliably than a degree from charm school, which may
be why one group of voters seems more professionally accomplished in their
distribution than the other. And Mayor
Bloomberg cited Innovation. The
challenge of college was to share common sets of facts but move in different
directions from them. The great
innovative enterprises and the people who devote their efforts to advancing
them are simply not uniformly distributed across America.
The values that I wrote on the whiteboard in Hebrew have
similar divides. Chochmah, or
wisdom, cannot be obtained while screeching slogans. Tzedek, or righteousness, poses more of
a challenge. I think when a natural
disaster occurs someplace in the world, people of all backgrounds offer their
assistance, whether by personal relief efforts or generous contribution. What differs, though, seems to be the
assessment of the recipient. We all
help. We don’t all help because the
recipient is our equal. I think that’s
where the intersectionality of righteousness plays out. It plays out more starkly in the willingness
to harm somebody. Most of us won’t. In the early days of Facebook, as my high
school chums reassembled to give updates on the forty years since graduation,
most of us had families and a measure of prosperity. One highly accomplished classmate introduced
us in cyberspace to his gay partner, subsequently formalized to his spouse when
that became his legal option. This
fellow had a very distinguished creative career, appearing in the final credits
of many TV shows that I watched. We go
back to Cub Scouts, where his mother, now in her 90s, volunteered as Den
Mother. I had no reason to consider one
way or the other whether he was gay. His
partnership approximated my marriage in duration. Would I ever do anything that would hurt my
friend? Not a chance. Would I resist somebody with fewer Gifts from
God demeaning him in any way? For
sure. That’s Tzedek. We strive for it in large part because it is
not set as a universal priority.
Kehillah or Community often has a mixed message. Some loners such as Burt Shavitz, the Burt of
Burt’s Bees, valued his solitude yet became an icon of non-materialistic
purity. More commonly, though, we
encounter people who either lack community or latch onto one devoid of personal
contact through cyberspace. Mass
shootings tend to come from lone wolves, at least in America. Misplaced but very real community can go awry
as well. As Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
noted in an essay in response to a British election, “Anti-Semitism, or any hate,
becomes dangerous in any society when three things happen: when it moves from
the fringes of politics to a mainstream party and its leadership; when the
party sees that its popularity with the general public is not harmed thereby;
and when those who stand up and protest are vilified and abused for doing
so.” Community shares purpose, though
not always benevolence. Moreover,
community is continually being repackaged, a fluid arrangement of associations
in which people frequently change their geography, employers, political
affiliations, preferred places of worship, and numerous other shifts in loyalty. Absence of community, as Judaism teaches, is
dangerous in its own right, but people banding together does not by itself
generate either cohesion or stability.
Kadusha or Sanctity forms the basis for inner
peace. Unlike pornography which one of
our Justices knew when he saw it, we appreciate holiness more viscerally when
violated. For most of the past three
millennia, religious codes have carried this banner and still do, though in a
very fractious way and with enormous inconsistency over extended times. Certainly, evil has not been eradicated even
when a universal consensus largely agrees on not murdering or stealing. Dualism abounds with stated positions that
seem irreconcilable from one sacred text to another. Historically we have schisms within a
religion, creation of new religions, definable sects within large faith
umbrellas, and defined behavioral obligations within each group. Things that I would regard as deplorable serve
as behavioral mandates to others. That
leaves this value at best minimalist.
Don’t harm somebody when they are vulnerable, or in Torah terms, “You
shall not curse a deaf man, nor place a stumbling block before the blind, but
you shall revere your God; I am the Lord.”
[Lev 19:14] While the literal divine imprint to the commandment offers
universality and permanence, I think most atheists would not take a different
view. There are, however, moral
challenges that divide by tribe. I can easily
convince myself that my view of Wisdom is superior to an internet troll’s view
of Wisdom. I cannot really say with equal certainty the divisive questions of
when life begins, what damage have people done to Mother Earth, or even when
doing something expedient is a better option than doing something because it is
right. There are no shortage of clergy
or demagogues who have their own shows on Cable TV that have more certainty
than me, though I clearly do not share either their espoused desire to act or
their certainty. Socrates lives on in
spirit for exposing these uncertainties to sanctity without exploiting them as
so many public figures generate their followers by doing. Kadusha depends on living with the
uncertainty but remaining consistent. As
I write my daily goals for the following day, none can undermine my concept of
holiness. Yet I have to accept that some
pretty dastardly initiatives fall within other’s version of what their God or
other deities, literal and figurative, expect of them.
So, there’s my visible daily guide hanging to my left on a
white board with color coded prompts, the left column what I do, the right
column what I believe that forms the foundation of what I strive to do. The actions of promoting various levels of
performance and responsibility have a very universal consensus that does not
get mired in the ideologies which are more fractious. Yet it is those very personal and particular
foundational doctrines that generate each semi-annual goal. On the left, shared
interests in family, learning, money, and recreation. On the right, sometimes putting on armor to
defend core tenets of myself and often my tribe, sometimes making a truce with
others of different driving principles and affiliations who still generate their
goals in ways that complement mine.
