Chimamanda Negozi Adichie’s Brilliant Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story”

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Among the many interesting things that came up in my conversation earlier this week with my friend, Eugene, was his recommendation of Chimamanda Negozi Adichie’s wonderful 2009 TED talk, “The Danger of a Single Story.”

This line summed up the talk beautifully:

I’ve always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.

A few things came up for me as I watched. First, Adichie mostly talks about the single stories told by others. I think her premise also applies to the single stories we sometimes tell ourselves. Finding that balance between honoring the truth of our experiences while also recognizing that it is just one experience is really challenging.

Second, Adichie’s complaints about the single stories many Americans have about Africa in general and about Nigeria in particular reminded me of my travels there in 2008, especially this line:

Every time I am home I am confronted with the usual sources of irritation for most Nigerians: our failed infrastructure, our failed government, but also by the incredible resilience of people who thrive despite the government, rather than because of it.

In a blog post about my experiences leading up to the trip, I wrote:

One of my best and oldest friends, Gbenga Ajilore, is Nigerian. So is one of Blue Oxen‘s advisors, Ade Mabogunje. I spoke with both of them before the trip, and they were excited about me coming here. The reaction from other friends and colleagues was quite the opposite. Most of the non-Nigerian Africans I spoke to do not think highly of Nigerians for reasons that I don’t quite understand. Several of my well-traveled friends had horror stories to share, although none of them had actually visited here. Cheryl [Francisconi] is the most fearless and experienced traveler I know, and even she had some scary stories.

I was incredibly fortunate to have many stories about Nigeria going into that trip, as it enabled me to have an open mind. Cheryl told me something else right before the trip. She thought that my week in Nigeria would be one of my most difficult travel experiences, and that I would walk away loving the people there. She was so right on both counts.

Stripe Is Paying to Remove Carbon from the Sky, Hoping that Others Will Follow

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Last year, Stripe shared on their blog their commitment “to pay, at any available price, for the direct removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and its sequestration in secure, long-term storage.”

Their reasoning was straightforward. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions will not be enough to resolve our climate crisis. We almost certainly need to remove carbon dioxide that is already in our atmosphere. The technology to do so is in a classic early stage conundrum. Because it’s so new, it’s both not good enough and too expensive to be viable. However, those who buy early help fund improvements to the technology, which drives the price down, which leads to more customers and investments. Wash, rinse, repeat. All the while, carbon is being removed from the atmosphere.

This is the promise all early stage technology makes. The question is, who’s going to buy early? For carbon removal, Stripe raised its hand, committing to spending at least $1 million a year. Their hope was that other companies would follow suit.

I thought this was awesome, but I wasn’t blown away by the dollar amount. A million dollars isn’t nothing, but Stripe is worth $36 billion.

So I was disappointed to read in this week’s The Atlantic that a million dollars turned out to be a big deal. The article quotes Stripe’s Ryan Orbuch, who said, “We got a positive response from the carbon-removal community, because the field is so starved for capital that a million dollars will raise eyebrows.”

I find this infuriating… and sadly, not surprising. With an estimated $500 billion a year being invested in climate change by companies, governments, and philanthropic foundations, how is it that a million dollars shook up a market that is so clearly necessary right now? My guess is it boils down to two things: Lack of leadership and lack of strategic action. The need to wait for others to make an obvious idea okay before being willing to jump in themselves is very, very strong in most people.

While I find this very sad, Stripe deserves even stronger kudos for recognizing this and doing something about it.

Psychological Safety and Swimming

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

I had a conversation with my friend, Eugene, the other day about psychological safety in groups. It reminded me of an experience I had several years earlier in an adult swim class.

I don’t know how to swim. My parents enrolled me in a swim class when I was five, but I wasn’t able to learn. Over the years, friends and family have tried to teach me, but no dice. However, all that trying has made me relatively comfortable in the water. I’m able to stay calm, even if I’m in too deep. I’ve even been snorkeling (with a life vest and a noodle, but it still counts).

Several years ago, I took an adult swim class. There weren’t that many of us in the class, and most of us were older with a good sense of humor about our incompetence. The teacher was young and way over her head. She clearly was a strong swimmer, but she wasn’t able to break it down for the rest of us. Still, she was kind and patient, and she was clearly trying her best.

At one of our first classes, a middle aged woman showed up with her daughter. The older woman was clearly terrified of the water. Her daughter held her hand and tried to help her stay calm. The first exercise our teacher had us do was to hold onto the wall and put our heads in the water. We were standing in waist deep water, there weren’t that many of us, and in addition to our teacher, there was a lifeguard. Objectively speaking, we were absolutely safe.

That didn’t help the woman. She started weeping, saying she couldn’t do the exercise. Her daughter and our teacher tried their best to calm her down, but she was inconsolable. Finally, her daughter led her out of the pool.

It was incredibly hard and sad to watch, and I was thankful she was surrounded by folks who felt compassion toward her and by her daughter, who could take care of her. Still, it didn’t matter if she was safe. She didn’t feel safe, and that feeling was real. Who knows where that fear came from? Maybe she had a traumatic experience when she was younger. Maybe she was just a fearful person. None of that really mattered in the moment. That space wasn’t safe for her.

Safety is contextual. You can’t be responsible for how people feel, but you can be empathetic and human, and you can act accordingly. The only thing that made that space even close to safe for that woman was the presence of her daughter, who held her hand the entire time.

Safety is also developmental. I didn’t start off feeling safe in the water. I learned how to feel safe in the water by spending a lot of time there and by having many loving guides along the way. Who is responsible for that development? I don’t know if that’s a useful question. All I know is that there were people who acknowledged and created those developmental spaces for me, even though they could have easily said to me, “Figure it out on your own, and then you can join me in the water.” Supporting people’s development is a choice, but that choice can benefit everyone.

Making Meaning of a Death Count by Walking in a Cemetery

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my attempts to make sense of death counts. Yesterday, my friend, Joe Mathews, wrote about his own brilliantly simple way to do the same: he took a walk in a cemetery.

Joe chose to walk in the original Forest Lawn in Los Angeles. As he explains:

Since Forest Lawn opened here 114 years ago, in 1906, it has interred 340,000 souls on this property. Under current projections, the United States will experience 340,000 COVID deaths by sometime in January, 10 months after the March lockdowns began.

…

Such statistics are sobering and tragic. They also reflect a fundamental human failure: We experience individual death intensely, but struggle to recognize death in the aggregate. That’s why we can more forcefully rally together in response to one death—like the police killing of George Floyd—than in response to escalating numbers of COVID deaths scrolling across our screens.

Our myopia is why we need cemeteries right now, and not just as places to bury our dead.

Read the whole piece. There’s lots of good stuff about the history of Forest Lawn and of some of the folks who are buried there. And go take a walk through a cemetery. I’ve never walked any of the cemeteries in Colma, as Joe suggested for Bay Area folks, but the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland is a peaceful place to walk and think.

Norms, Strategy, and Thanksgiving Duck Revisited

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

It’s been nine years since I and my family started eating duck for Thanksgiving. I have also happily introduced several friends to the concept, although surprisingly, I know of no permanent converts. Some (many?) of my friends actually like turkey. But I think the biggest factor is that culture, norms, and traditions are remarkably powerful.

I get it. My family ate turkey for over thirty years before converting. When I consider how much more I enjoy Thanksgiving now, and how much less stressful it is to prepare the meal, I marvel at how long it took us to make the switch.

I see individuals and groups struggle with this all the time. Goal-setting and strategy are more often an exercise in documenting what you’re already doing rather than a deep examination of where you’re trying to go and why. The latter requires that you make a choice, and making choices is hard.

That’s not to say that doing things because that’s why you’ve always done them is a bad thing. The most important thing is that you’re being intentional, and that you know why you’re being intentional. Chesterton’s Fence definitely applies.