Be less boring
by Anton Zuiker on January 30, 2025
On my way to work this morning, I retrieved the Jan. 27, 2025 issue of The New Yorker from the mailbox. At my lunch break, I took that issue with me on my walk to the Durham Food Hall, where I sat with a cappuccino and slice of coffee cake, and I settled into this essay by Daniel Immerwahr, What if the Attention Crisis Is All a Distraction? It’s an interesting take on the age-old tradition of crying danger at new technology—TikTok, television, the iron stove, novels!—and what our abilities to focus may be doing to ourselves and to society.
Just last night, I’d sent a message to a colleague offering to lend my copies of Deep Work and Slow Productivity, both by Cal Newport. Those are just two of the many books and podcasts and articles I’ve studied over the last year as I’ve changed the ways I’ve worked and played. I’ve also finally started to read my copy of The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg (mine is an advanced reader’s copy that I received at ScienceOnline 2012).
I starred this paragraph in Immerwahr’s essay:
[Chris Hayes’s] illuminating backstage account of cable news describes thoughtful journalists debasing themselves in their scramble to retain straying viewers. Garish graphics, loud voices, quick topic changes, and titillating stories—it’s like jangling keys to lure a dog. The more viewers get their news from apps, the harder television producers have to shake those keys.
A few days ago, I’d complained to Erin that I disliked how NPR news programs come back from station breaks with some version of “Elephants in Africa are…but first we’re going to hear from Senator….” I guess that’s the ‘quick topic changes’ mentioned above.
Another Immerwahr sentence: “When someone calls for audiences to be more patient, I instinctively think, Alternatively, you could be less boring.”
Last week, in interviews for a promotion, I was asked to briefly describe my career journey. Both times, I realized, I didn’t do the best in answering, so I dropped into zuiker.com/zen/ to draft a script for next time. Through habit, I’ll be ready with an answer.
In college I studied communications, then worked as a features writer in Hawaii and as editor of an arts and culture magazine in Cleveland.
After Peace Corps service in the South Pacific, I became an early blogger, web content strategist, and organizer of online community.
I earned a masters degree in medical journalism from UNC-Chapel Hill, worked on an AIDS-related global health project, and then joined Duke University, where I coordinated internal communications for the health system, lead the Department of Medicine communications activities, and now work as a communications project manager and team leader in the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
Along my journey, I also organized an international science communications network and won awards for the Voices of Duke Health podcast.
I am in my 25th year blogging at zuiker.com.
Holding up a lantern
by Anton Zuiker on January 21, 2025
The inauguration was yesterday. I was horrified. I watched it because this is my country and that’s what I believe I should do. I’m not going to live in the dark.
Also, Sun Tzu says to study your enemy.
Scheme so as to discover his plans and the likelihood of their success. Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots.
I’m angry at my family members for voting for the criminal, and I’m opposed to most of this administration’s policies—ironically, I’m for upholding our immigration laws and protecting our borders, including honoring our commitments to providing amnesty and safe harbor, just as I am for upholding our laws about storming government buildings and evading taxes and stealing classified documents.
I needed to keep my head clear of the pull of negativity.
So, I tried something new.
Free 3D printing at the Co-Lab Studio is just one more perk of my job at Duke University. I’ve known about the lab for years but never tried it. In a Discord group someone linked to the design file for a simple shade for the Sofirn BLF LT1 Anduril 2.0 Rechargeable Lantern (I have two in orange, picked up on a great sale last year). I followed the Duke instructions, uploaded and sliced the file, picked a printer, and watched as the shade grew. On my way home from work (downtown, about two-and-a-half miles from campus), I stopped by the studio to find the green shade on the table of completed projects.
At home, the shade fit nicely onto the lantern. I would have used it in the woods just now as I walked down the hill to meet Oliver walking from his friend’s house across the creek, but a beautiful snowfall is covering Chapel Hill, and the hillside is shimmering. I could hear Oliver across the way, exclaiming his joy. Alongside Erin yesterday, he had watched a lot of news coverage of the inauguration, so he understands the significance and the danger and the need to keep aware. His awe and joy as we scrambled up to our house shows the strength we have to weather what’s ahead.
When grief is on the mantle
by Anton Zuiker on January 17, 2025
Erin and I are still working our way through Lockerbie. I vaguely recall how the trial ended so we’ll watch to the end.
I also have a memory of a postcard in a Ziploc bag on a mantle in Baltimore.
A year or so after college, I visited a friend of mine who was a living in that city as a volunteer. He and I stopped to check on a townhouse that he was looking after while the occupants were away, and he pointed to the bagged postcard, telling me it was retrieved from the wreckage of Pan Am 103.
I’ll have to check with my friend to confirm the details of that memory. I do know I’ve thought about that many times, wondering about the grief that comes from sudden and unexpected tragedy, and whether peace comes ever for the loved ones who look at the postcard every day.
A job to die for
by Anton Zuiker on January 16, 2025
I took a break from blogging tonight to watch The Devil Wears Prada. Had never seen that (that I remember) but I hear references to it all the time. The takeaway: whatever job you do, do it with integrity. Amen.
Edited the next night after I thought more about two specific scenes.
In Paris, Andy tells Christian she can’t give in to his advances because she’s had too much to drink and she’s not capable of making good choices, and the lout keeps going. That’s absolutely wrong. This makes me angry.
In a less consequential exchange in a NYC street, Nate answers Andy that he’s been making port reduction sauce all day and he’s “not in the Peace Corps.” This made me chuckle. I cherished my bottle of port on Paama Island, and the pork in plum sauce is one of the more memorable, and storied, meals of my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
Connoiseur of Silence
by Anton Zuiker on January 15, 2025
Last night, at the reception for Kelly’s book reading, I told a friend that I’d taken an eight-day silent retreat when I was in college (naturally, I’ve blogged about that). Silence is on my list of 2025 goals, part of my move to focusing on words that start with s. Strength is another. Subtlety. Skills. Smarts. Tonight, on my way home from soccer, I caught the tail end of Terry Gross’s Fresh Air interview with Pico Iyer. They ended with talk about silent meditation at a Benedictine monastery (Iyer) and a Zen monastery (singer Leonard Cohen). Iyer described Cohen as a “connoisseur of silence.” Lovely. I happened to see Iyer’s new book, Aflame, at Flyleaf last night, but I passed by since I haven’t finished reading his previous book. Now that I know what Aflame is about, I will circle back to get it.
After Fresh Air, President Joe Biden gave his farewell address from the Oval Office. (NYTimes has transcript here.) It was a strong speech even if he faltered a bunch. I liked the focus on the Statue of Liberty and the fact that it actually moves.
Like America, the Statue of Liberty is not standing still. Her foot literally steps forward atop a broken chain of human bondage. She’s on the march. And she literally moves. She was built to sway back and forth to withstand the fury of stormy weather, to stand the test of time because storms are always coming. She sways a few inches, but she never falls into the current below. An engineering marvel.
The other day when I was testing the scanner, one of the random slides I pulled out and scanned was the image above, a photo my father must have taken of the Statue of Liberty before I was born. (This scan shows dust and more; I’ll stop by the camera store later this week to get supplies to clean this old film.)
After soccer, I returned home, showered and dressed, then waited for the UNC men’s basketball game to end. Oliver was at the game with three friends, on tickets Oliver won as prize for selling the second-most amount of fancy popcorn in the high school athletics fundraiser. The Tar Heels handily beat Cal, and pickup along Manning Street amid the crowds went smoothly.
Oliver and I home now, drinking tea: Yunnan Golden Tips Supreme, from Upton Tea Imports. Oliver was interested in how to brew tea, so I showed him the expensive golden leaves and compared them to my other go-to teas, a Moroccan green mint and Hong Cha Mao Feng (also from Upton). We shared a bar of milk chocolate.