A Timeline of Communication Patterns – Recurring Themes (part 2)

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As described in the previous article, communication technologies compressed time and space, creating shared experiences across vast geographic and historical dimensions. Innovation through Constraints Throughout history, we observe a pattern where new communication methods emerge precisely to overcome the constraints of their predecessors. Consider how clay tokens addressed the fundamental limitations of memory in oral accounting. Early Mesopotamian merchants couldn’t rely solely on memory for complex transactions, so they developed physical tokens to represent goods and quantities, creating the first external accounting system. The …

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A Timeline of Communication Patterns (part 1)

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Smiling, touching, watching, copying, talking, listening, singing, dancing, painting, writing, and making – these are the ways we have always connected with one another. From cave paintings to the latest AI models, our methods of communication have been shaped by the culture in which we are born, power hierarchies, and the technologies of our time. But how did early societies manage to encode meaning that could be understood? How did we transition from simple gestures and sounds to complex forms of expression? Early Systems …

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Celebrating Mărțișor, A Romanian Heritage

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On March 1st, we Romanians celebrate Mărțișor to mark the beginning of spring. Mărțișor is a small red and white string, often embellished with trinkets like hearts, clovers, birds, horseshoes, flowers, chimney sweeps, symbolizing renewal, protection, good fortune, love, or the continuity of life. The red and white colors represent cosmic balance: red for vitality and life and white for purity and snow, embodying the transition from winter to spring. [Romanian] Dochia e cea întâia zi de primăvară. În ziua de Dochia, se face mărţişor: un …

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Articles Insights (2020 – present)

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Published on: January 26, 2025 Last Edited: February 10, 2025 Last Article Reviewed: Mindful Work – Capturing, Prioritizing and Working on Tasks Effectively As I looked at which articles to tackle next, I noticed more and more ideas that felt similar to the ones I had written in the past. So why not do my own analysis of what I have written so far? It might seem self-serving because, after all, the purpose of this blog is primarily writing for myself. This blog is …

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Writing Insights (2024)

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Writing as a Thinking Practice Writing is a powerful exercise in refining thought, unearthing new insights, and building clarity. As William Zinsser famously said in his On Writing Well classic: Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can’t exist without the other. One sharpens the other as writing forces us to slow down and organize our thoughts in ways that speaking or thinking alone often cannot achieve. At its best, clear writing transcends the personal and becomes universal by tapping into shared human experiences and …

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Feel Good Stories about Everyday Extraordinary

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Sometimes, it is the quirky, the overlooked, or the downright difficult that brings us a smile or a thought. Sometimes, we need moments like these, an array of stories, not neatly correlated but a jump from one thought to another, to wander and wonder. Born in 1875 in Arles, France, Jeanne Calment witnessed the turning of two centuries and the transformations they brought with them. At the age of 90, Jeanne entered into a contract with 47-year-old lawyer André-François Raffray, who agreed to pay …

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When Resilience Requires Slack

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The traditional approach to understanding complex systems has been reductionist, breaking them into smaller, simpler components. While effective for understanding mechanical systems like clocks, where each cog serves a clear purpose in isolation, this method falls short when applied to dynamic, interconnected systems like living organisms, ecosystems, weather patterns, or even social structures such as economies, organizations, institutions, supply chains, or families. To look at systems like these and only see parts is to miss the force that ties them together. […] You don’t …

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The Historical Method – You Learn Something Old Every Day

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“You learn something old every day.” X the Owl, a character in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood This article is inspired by a comment on the askHistorians subreddit. It highlights a fundamental difference in how historians approach facts compared to those from fields like science or engineering (my own background). Many assume historians can offer definitive truths about past events, but the reality is more nuanced. And one thing that I, and I suspect others around here who’ve been trained as historians, learn is that the …

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