Eric Ravenscraft of The New York Times has “An Adult’s Guide to Social Skills, for Those Who Were Never Taught.”

Very interesting idea for which I give Eric a “B”. It’s fine, some good ideas, but they aren’t fleshed out very well. Ultimately, I can’t imagine anyone making a significant leap forward in their social life as a result of reading it.

Which begs some questions, first, can adults improve their social skills when they are so ingrained? Let’s think positively and say they can to some degree. But how, if not by reading The New York Times guide?

Have you learned to get along with more people over time? If so, what might others do to replicate your success?

1. “Jaywalking” Shouldn’t Even Be A Thing.

“Jaywalking isn’t dangerous in itself. Fast-moving cars are dangerous. And in fact, just as people are the indicator species of a strong town, rampant jaywalking is most often a sign of a vital place and a successful urban street.”

Amen brother.

2. On starting ballet at age 62. DIG the ironic first sentence (in light of #1). Such a beautiful essay.

Early:

“Maybe I wouldn’t hate it. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t hate it so much that almost right from the beginning I was in tears—that peculiar sort of crying that comes from joy that surprises you.”

Late-middle:

“I’m surrounded by people who are not ‘dancers’ but have made dance a significant part of their lives. Judith is an epidemiologist, 10 years older than I am. Mallory is a pediatric nurse, Lindsey a clinical social worker. Charity homeschools her five children. Danielle is teaching 10 classes this year in seven different university departments and has a 5-year-old daughter. Rian is a fashion model, manages a grocery store, and runs a business out of his home. All of my dance friends have busy, interesting, complicated lives. And yet here we are, day after day, leading with our hearts. . . ”

Very end:

“Sometimes, for a moment, I make precisely the shape I have been seeking to make for months, years, and it is a kind of holy experience, something that goes even beyond the surprise that I am fully living in my body for the first time in my life. I am in balance: entirely at one with myself, body and mind, never posing, always in flux, poised for the next thing.”

3. How Frank Vogel won over the Lakers. Really well written case study on leadership. Too bad Domingo, a friend who mentors leaders for a living, won’t read it because he has some sort of hangup with the NBA.

“Poll any NBA roster — particularly a veteran one — for the most important attribute for a head coach, and accountability will likely rank second to trust. Players want to know that the staff will set standards for performance and will enforce those standards with consistency, from superstar to the end of the bench.

After a lackluster defensive performance earlier this month against the New Orleans Pelicans in which the Lakers allowed 68 points in the paint on 67% shooting, Vogel unleashed his fury in an exhaustive film session featuring a sequence of defensive snafus.

“He got on all of us — me, LeBron, everyone. A lot of coaches don’t get on their superstars, but he does,” Davis says. “What’s impressed me the most is that even when we win, he holds us accountable. When a team sees a coach getting on LeBron or me, the other guys respect him more and know they’ll be held accountable too.”

In their next game, the Lakers set a franchise record with 20 blocks in a win. . .”

4. The Quinceañera, Redefined. Pick your metaphor, melting pot or mosaic; either way, multiculturalism rules. 

“In Bakersfield, Calif., on the same day as Jayla’s quince, Amina Sherif Hamza, 14, had a quinceañera that honored her Muslim faith. Underneath her embroidered black dress she wore a long-sleeve shirt to cover her arms, and she ditched the tradition of having a chambelán and celebrating a Catholic Mass.

Amina, whose father is Egyptian and whose mother is of Guatemalan, Honduran and Native American descent, is part of a horse riding club that competes in escaramuza, a form of traditional Mexican riding and performance done only by women.

So she incorporated that too, appearing at the beginning of the ceremony astride her mother’s horse Chispa. ‘My dad speaks Arabic and my mom speaks to me in Spanish,’ she said. ‘It’s a taste of both worlds.'”

See the beautiful picture of Amina and her horse.

5. Cottage Grove church to usher out gray-haired members in effort to attract more parishioners. All I have to say to this is, yikes! However, I’d probably make the cut since I have very little gray hair. Granted, very little hair at all.

“The church wants to attract more young families. The present members, most of them over 60 years old, will be invited to worship somewhere else. A memo recommends that they stay away for two years, then consult the pastor about reapplying.”

Few citizens are sufficiently objective to see that the United States is in steady decline. Even when they see explicit evidence of it, they’re psychologically unable to acknowledge it. 

Trumpeters in particular are in serious denial.

Which is why Frank Bruni’s insight in, “Let Us All Now Weep for Donald Trump”, is so perceptive.  

Of Trump, Bruni writes:

“He has turned himself into a symbol of Americans’ victimization, telling frustrated voters who crave easy answers that they’re being pushed around by foreigners and duped by the condescending custodians of a dysfunctional system.

He’s their proxy, suffering on their behalf, and in that way he collapses the distance between a billionaire with multiple golf resorts and displaced factory workers struggling to hold on to their one and only homes.”

That’s the most convincing description of Trump’s appeal to his base that I’ve read.