https://archive.vn/aEa4o
"Anne Kenner worked for many years as a federal prosecutor, first in the
Eastern District of New York, and then in the Northern District of California,
trying mobsters and drug dealers. “I like the hairy edge,” she told me. Her job
was meaningful to her; it made her feel useful. When she became disturbed by
the powerlessness of some of the young people caught up in the system, she
developed a curriculum to help students understand their rights if they came
into contact with law enforcement: Here’s what to do if the police stop you;
here’s what to do if a cop asks to look inside your backpack.
A turning point in Kenner’s life came when she was in her 50s. Her brother, who
had been troubled since childhood, shot and killed himself. They’d had a
difficult relationship when they were kids, and she hadn’t spoken with him in
33 years. He had cut off almost all contact with her family decades earlier, as
his life spiraled into reclusive paranoia. Still, she told me, his death “was a
massively tumultuous experience. I wanted to understand why I was knocked
sideways personally.”
Around that time, she heard about what was then a new program at Stanford
University called the Distinguished Careers Institute. It’s for adults, mostly
in their 50s and 60s, who are retiring from their main career and trying to
figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives. The fellows spend
a year learning together as a cohort of a few dozen, reinventing themselves for
the next stage. “Somebody told me it offered breathing room, a chance to take a
step back,” Kenner recalled.
But that is not how she experienced it: “It wasn’t breathing space; it was free
fall.”
On her first day, Phil Pizzo, who’d been a researcher and dean of Stanford’s
medical school before founding the program, told the group to throw away their
résumés: “That’s no longer who you are. That’s not going to help you.” Kenner
took his words to heart. “I thought,
Okay, nothing I’ve done matters.
Everything I do going forward has to be different.”"
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-poverty-bangladesh-conservation-ecuador-indigenous-fire-australia/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
