Uncle-ing Sprint Conclusion, Blink, Appearance vs. Content

OK, things are simmering down a bit. I just had Suzannah's sister's family visiting for a few days, and so I was on full-time uncle duty, which is rewarding but also exhausting, so yesterday was basically recuperation. They were only here for two days though, so I gave them as much of my time as I could. 

And before that was cleaning up the house to make it presentable for company, a concept I am familiar with, but in the same way I've heard about cultural customs in different countries. If I'm having somewhat over, The only cleaning I'm doing is to clear things off of surfaces so there is a place to sit and put things. What you see is what you get. Which is not terribly messy, but I've always been a content guy, more than an appearances guy. But Suzannah very much wants a clean house for guests, so I'm helping.

This makes me thing of the book I'm currently listening to, which is making a point that appearance affects the experience of content. Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. He talks about marketing researchers that found the packaging foods are in significantly affects people's perceptions of the thing in the packaging. Not surprising, but not something I think about every day. I'm listening to the book because I had a dream where I was part of a book club on it, and the dream had some other elements that made it impactful. So, two months later, it's off the waiting list and I'm going through it when I have time.

Which is less than previously, as I've discovered I'm unfortunately less efficient when doing chores while listening to books on tape. Sad, as that was my main opportunity to listen, so I'm still doing it a bit, but I'm also trying to get a lot done, so often I'm just really focused on, say, cleaning dishes quickly. Especially tasks like cooking that require a lot of focus for me because they are far from automatic and require paying attention to inputs like sounds and sights and smells and careful timings and some off the cuff problem solving.

Hmm, I have a lot of these posts to write to catch up, so I'm thinking I should end this one here and just start another one for my next train of thought.

Though I've kind of rambled, so I'd like to give some kind of concluding wrap up. I'm really into the book, it relates to my 'navigation by felt sense' idea I've been playing with, as well as some other experiences with intuition, especially from Tom Brown Jr.'s courses.