Tag: community

Relationships: When a Run is Not About Running

By Angela Noel

September 4, 2018

I’m not especially good at running. In fact, I’ve mostly hated it for the vast majority of my life. As a teen, I joined the cross-country team and hated it. In my twenties I ran mostly to impress a boy–still pretty much hating it. In my thirties I had my son and developed a back problem–virtually no running at all then. But, something changed in my thirty-ninth year. That something’s name was Paul. Continue reading “Relationships: When a Run is Not About Running”

Peel the Onion: Why We Answer the Wrong Question

By Angela Noel

April 5, 2018

Questions without easy answers abound. But we humans hate that. Our brains like certainty. Tough, complex problems without clear solutions make us very unhappy indeed. In these situations, particularly where public pressure exists to find a fast and clean answer, we’re susceptible to a type of brain elf, Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, calls substitution. He writes, “If a satisfactory answer to a hard question is not found quickly, System 1 (our fast-thinking brain) will find a related question that is easier and will answer it.”

Since being sure of something is our preferred condition, our brains tend to do a lot to help us feel that way. I wrote about our search for certainty before, and how hard we fight to preserve our version of events even when we know it’s wrong. But, this time we’re talking about certainty from another angle. This time, we’re talking about onions. Continue reading “Peel the Onion: Why We Answer the Wrong Question”

Two Mathematics Concepts You Should be Thinking About

By Angela Noel

October 26, 2017

I have two favorite mathematics concepts. That sounds weird, I know. I’m a communications and writing major, an author and a blogger, but I’m also a collector of mental oddities. I find little scraps of interesting tidbits from all kinds of places and add them to the museum of my mind. The scraps can come from anywhere, a technical specification, high school algebra, Nietzsche, an ad on the radio, or a quote in a magazine. I pull them out to illustrate ideas, as either analogies or examples. Most of the time, they’re useful little tools, bringing context to complexity. Sometimes, they confuse people. I hate it when that happens.

Hopefully, this isn’t one of those times. Because these two concepts form so elegant a metaphor for life and human interactions, I can’t resist sharing them with you.

Mathphobes, please keep reading. I’m not about to amaze you with knowledge of multivariable calculus–mainly because I don’t know the first thing about it. These two little gems I learned in my first fifteen years, and you did too.

I’m guessing though, that many of us left these things buried where we hoped never to see them again: in the textbooks of our youth. But, maybe I can change your mind about their usefulness and application in daily life.  Continue reading “Two Mathematics Concepts You Should be Thinking About”

Story Skeleton: A Spider’s Death Sentence Commuted . . . For Now

By Angela Noel

September 7, 2017

Crazy spider walking precarious along my page: I hate you because you are creepy. And you hate me because I hold your death in my fingers.

Yet I am more like you than I am not. Something holds a tissue above me, too. Something that would squash my life as I would squash yours–and equally without thought. Continue reading “Story Skeleton: A Spider’s Death Sentence Commuted . . . For Now”

Sharing the Good: It’s not You, It’s Me

By Angela Noel

August 17, 2017

Remember in February when I said I’d created a weekly way to share the good called Awesome Nuggets? No? Of course you don’t. Why would you? I didn’t do a good job with it at all. I kept it up for a month and when a thousand people didn’t immediately start posting little gems of goodness on my Facebook page I gave up. Shame on me. Continue reading “Sharing the Good: It’s not You, It’s Me”

The Secret Life of Trees and What It Means for Humans

By Angela Noel

June 8, 2017

When we first moved into our house I sat in my backyard gazing up at the canopy of tree branches overhead. Two trees, their trunks big enough around that two adults with arms outstretched couldn’t encircle them, blotted the sun. For reasons I cannot explain two names popped into my brain: Erin and Bertie. I told my husband and son the trees had names. Not that I had given them names, but that they already had them–like they’d accepted me into their community as one of their own. (Weird, I know.)

Among the oaks and cottonwoods that dot the rest of my little wooded lot, Erin and Bertie are special. A fact, Suzanne Simard, noted forest ecologist, professor, and TED speaker would find not-at-all surprising. Her work, and those of other researches around the globe, has opened up a greater understanding of the complex and beautiful world of tree interdependence. How trees communicate and contribute to the common good of the ecosystem in which they live has a lot to tell us not only about nature, but about ourselves as well. Continue reading “The Secret Life of Trees and What It Means for Humans”

Dave Driver: Author and Yogi

By Angela Noel

April 13, 2017

I practice hot, sweaty yoga. I love the quiet, dark room filled with other people. We start and end each session in savasana, or corpse pose. The yogi leading the practice provides an intention, the only voice in the room, as we begin. He or she might share a quote, a song lyric, a poem, or a riddle. I’ve both giggled, and allowed tears to flow. There’s something about yoga that opens up possibilities in me.

No competition. No expectations.

Akin to a spiritual revival, the bunch of us sweat together, breathe together, slurp quantities of water after six sets of chaturanga dandasana (four-limbed staff pose) together. Continue reading “Dave Driver: Author and Yogi”