"Remember me and smile...
June 3, 2012
... for it's better to forget than to remember me and cry."
~ Dr. Seuss
(From Friday, June 1st, 2012)
Hi, all. In a matter of hours, I'll be retired, at the statistically young age of 57. I don't feel as if this is an end to anything, interestingly, but a new beginning. I hope this change will mean that I can spend more time doing what I love, and with the people whom I love, not the least of which are you.
Below, you'll find the so-long note that I will shortly release at work. I wanted you all to see it first because it frankly has more to do with each and all of you than anything else. You all are among the people I feel I'm heading toward at this juncture in my life. It's immensely satisfying to be able to retire and have your sense of purpose grow, instead of diminish. I feel fortunate in this respect.
The genesis of HopeScope has likely never been much of a mystery to any of you, but perhaps the below note will provide some more insight as to why you all are so important to me. So, with that, I'll share it with you.
Love to all!
----------
I recall that Thursday evening in December, 1981. Months prior, I had received my master's degree in counseling psychology. Mom had gone out somewhere, so Dad and I had headed to York Steak House in Catonsville for supper. As we ate and talked, a familiar presence, simultaneously imposing and warm, approached our table. It was one of my graduate school professors whom I had always held in particular esteem. After I introduced my Dad and exchanged a few pleasantries, Lee surprised and honored me by asking if I would consider an entry-level position in his practice. Respectfully, I declined. Funding cuts, as a consequence of the chronic devaluation of mental health services in our culture, had curtailed at least two of my graduate internships and low-paying stints as a substance abuse therapist, and a concession to economics had forced me to accept an unrelated U.S. Defense Department job. I was to enter on duty the following month. Fiscal responsibility had dictated my decision, and to a 26 year-old, it seemed set in stone.
Lee wished me well. "It's a shame, though," he pronounced with gracious candor. "You would make a great therapist."
Almost exactly twenty years prior, an unsung academic at MIT's Department of Meteorology had created a rudimentary computer program to simulate weather pattern behaviors. On one particular day, he changed one of a dozen or so numbers representing atmospheric conditions in his model. That miniscule alteration vastly modified the program's long-term forecast, an effect which was central to Edward Lorenz's 1972 paper, "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfiy's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?"
That premise, since dubbed the "Butterfly Effect", describes a "sensitive dependence on initial conditions" in which an isolated alteration in a nonlinear system can induce exponentially larger changes to a later state. The concept is often spindled and mutilated in popular culture as we bastardize it into an imprecise formula for indulging our fantasies of predicting the future, or even reverse engineering and modifying it. In doing so, however, we overlook the most salient lesson of Lorenz's theory: It is immensely difficult - perhaps impossible - to calculate forthcoming events with certainty. So, rather than draft a threadbare metaphor into serving the notion that any of us can orchestrate tomorrow by undoing yesterday, I would simply suggest to you that the future is indeed a product of "small changes" over which each of us holds some measure of influence.
Since January, 1982, I have filled myriad capacities here. Though none of those positions has allowed me to utilize my academic or practical specialties directly, all of them have immersed me in scenarios with which I was initially unfamiliar, for better or for worse. Meeting my wife here, for instance, was an unqualified windfall, and my increased exposure to burgeoning web technologies in 2000, when I arrived in this office, would prove to be another personal planetary alignment of sorts. Though web content management is not an occupation that I would have envisioned for myself, my placement in this role at the turn of the century seems, in hindsight, fortuitous. My introduction to web technologies not only piqued an avocational interest in social media, but spawned a working theory that it could potentially become a vehicle for the delivery of mental health adjunctive resources to young people in need... not merely a sterile clearing house of information, but a warm safehouse on the interwebs that could traverse continents and bridge seas, and which imposed no fee or temporal limits on "residency".
In 2004, concurrent with working here, I began to test my theory avocationally, using resources afforded me by a low-cost social media platform. Nearly nine years have since passed. The software media evolve and adapt, as does my model of care. And so do the adult and youthful participants of what is no mere fictional trope, but living proof of a "sensitive dependence on an initial condition" evolving into outcomes in three countries. Some earn degrees. Some overcome emotional challenges or abuse, or reconcile with estranged parents. Some stop self-harming, secure appropriate care, avail themselves of hospital if necessary, or even put hospital behind them forever. They will laugh and love and live again, having intersected with a "small change in a nonlinear system": This office - this "condition" - gave someone an idea, and an introduction to the tools with which to execute it.
I could never have predicted that this place would lead me back “home" since, as Lorenz suggests, that would be difficult or impossible to do with certainty. It is equally futile to re-plot our route once it is behind us. Regret is a circular folly. Ultimately, my tenure here has been an intersection through which I needed to pass in pursuit of a calling, initially vague, but now much more distinct. In The Pretenders' '80s hit "Talk Of The Town", Chrissie Hynde sang:
"Such a drag to want something sometime... (but) one thing leads to another, I know."
Those simple words are as true for each of you as they have proven to be for me. Hopefully, most of you have already found your vocation or, at the very least, are exercising your chosen craft. Ideally, the work you do here represents for you the fusion of both a personal and civic objective. As I look around me, I see evidence that this is the case for many of you. Equipped with your tailored skills, and motivated by an ethical imperative, you actualize a theory that translates directly to a critical reality: the security of a people. That is the "later scenario" to which each of you is hopefully contributing. At the end of the day, if you do what you love while serving an authentic objective, you inhabit a coveted domain indeed, and are virtually assured of nipping the potential tornado at its seed.
For my part, I will be headed "home" now. There is still a lot of work to be done there, whether I am contributing to the foiling of destructive storms, or to the formation of perfect ones... or if not perfect, then at least free. In either case, I will be accomplishing what I set out to do all those many years ago. It's just that I’ll have taken the long way "home".
Warm wishes for the very best to each of you!
Tommy
~ Dr. Seuss
(From Friday, June 1st, 2012)
Hi, all. In a matter of hours, I'll be retired, at the statistically young age of 57. I don't feel as if this is an end to anything, interestingly, but a new beginning. I hope this change will mean that I can spend more time doing what I love, and with the people whom I love, not the least of which are you.
Below, you'll find the so-long note that I will shortly release at work. I wanted you all to see it first because it frankly has more to do with each and all of you than anything else. You all are among the people I feel I'm heading toward at this juncture in my life. It's immensely satisfying to be able to retire and have your sense of purpose grow, instead of diminish. I feel fortunate in this respect.
The genesis of HopeScope has likely never been much of a mystery to any of you, but perhaps the below note will provide some more insight as to why you all are so important to me. So, with that, I'll share it with you.
Love to all!
----------
I recall that Thursday evening in December, 1981. Months prior, I had received my master's degree in counseling psychology. Mom had gone out somewhere, so Dad and I had headed to York Steak House in Catonsville for supper. As we ate and talked, a familiar presence, simultaneously imposing and warm, approached our table. It was one of my graduate school professors whom I had always held in particular esteem. After I introduced my Dad and exchanged a few pleasantries, Lee surprised and honored me by asking if I would consider an entry-level position in his practice. Respectfully, I declined. Funding cuts, as a consequence of the chronic devaluation of mental health services in our culture, had curtailed at least two of my graduate internships and low-paying stints as a substance abuse therapist, and a concession to economics had forced me to accept an unrelated U.S. Defense Department job. I was to enter on duty the following month. Fiscal responsibility had dictated my decision, and to a 26 year-old, it seemed set in stone.
Lee wished me well. "It's a shame, though," he pronounced with gracious candor. "You would make a great therapist."
Almost exactly twenty years prior, an unsung academic at MIT's Department of Meteorology had created a rudimentary computer program to simulate weather pattern behaviors. On one particular day, he changed one of a dozen or so numbers representing atmospheric conditions in his model. That miniscule alteration vastly modified the program's long-term forecast, an effect which was central to Edward Lorenz's 1972 paper, "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfiy's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?"
That premise, since dubbed the "Butterfly Effect", describes a "sensitive dependence on initial conditions" in which an isolated alteration in a nonlinear system can induce exponentially larger changes to a later state. The concept is often spindled and mutilated in popular culture as we bastardize it into an imprecise formula for indulging our fantasies of predicting the future, or even reverse engineering and modifying it. In doing so, however, we overlook the most salient lesson of Lorenz's theory: It is immensely difficult - perhaps impossible - to calculate forthcoming events with certainty. So, rather than draft a threadbare metaphor into serving the notion that any of us can orchestrate tomorrow by undoing yesterday, I would simply suggest to you that the future is indeed a product of "small changes" over which each of us holds some measure of influence.
Since January, 1982, I have filled myriad capacities here. Though none of those positions has allowed me to utilize my academic or practical specialties directly, all of them have immersed me in scenarios with which I was initially unfamiliar, for better or for worse. Meeting my wife here, for instance, was an unqualified windfall, and my increased exposure to burgeoning web technologies in 2000, when I arrived in this office, would prove to be another personal planetary alignment of sorts. Though web content management is not an occupation that I would have envisioned for myself, my placement in this role at the turn of the century seems, in hindsight, fortuitous. My introduction to web technologies not only piqued an avocational interest in social media, but spawned a working theory that it could potentially become a vehicle for the delivery of mental health adjunctive resources to young people in need... not merely a sterile clearing house of information, but a warm safehouse on the interwebs that could traverse continents and bridge seas, and which imposed no fee or temporal limits on "residency".
In 2004, concurrent with working here, I began to test my theory avocationally, using resources afforded me by a low-cost social media platform. Nearly nine years have since passed. The software media evolve and adapt, as does my model of care. And so do the adult and youthful participants of what is no mere fictional trope, but living proof of a "sensitive dependence on an initial condition" evolving into outcomes in three countries. Some earn degrees. Some overcome emotional challenges or abuse, or reconcile with estranged parents. Some stop self-harming, secure appropriate care, avail themselves of hospital if necessary, or even put hospital behind them forever. They will laugh and love and live again, having intersected with a "small change in a nonlinear system": This office - this "condition" - gave someone an idea, and an introduction to the tools with which to execute it.
I could never have predicted that this place would lead me back “home" since, as Lorenz suggests, that would be difficult or impossible to do with certainty. It is equally futile to re-plot our route once it is behind us. Regret is a circular folly. Ultimately, my tenure here has been an intersection through which I needed to pass in pursuit of a calling, initially vague, but now much more distinct. In The Pretenders' '80s hit "Talk Of The Town", Chrissie Hynde sang:
"Such a drag to want something sometime... (but) one thing leads to another, I know."
Those simple words are as true for each of you as they have proven to be for me. Hopefully, most of you have already found your vocation or, at the very least, are exercising your chosen craft. Ideally, the work you do here represents for you the fusion of both a personal and civic objective. As I look around me, I see evidence that this is the case for many of you. Equipped with your tailored skills, and motivated by an ethical imperative, you actualize a theory that translates directly to a critical reality: the security of a people. That is the "later scenario" to which each of you is hopefully contributing. At the end of the day, if you do what you love while serving an authentic objective, you inhabit a coveted domain indeed, and are virtually assured of nipping the potential tornado at its seed.
For my part, I will be headed "home" now. There is still a lot of work to be done there, whether I am contributing to the foiling of destructive storms, or to the formation of perfect ones... or if not perfect, then at least free. In either case, I will be accomplishing what I set out to do all those many years ago. It's just that I’ll have taken the long way "home".
Warm wishes for the very best to each of you!
Tommy
Posted by Tommy Blumenfeld. Posted In : Musings
