012021 — Blog — Rulerless

When you can't make your dreams come true

Even though we were contemporaries from the same state, I never heard of Travis Roy until a couple of years ago when I was sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Ohio and got distracted by a documentary on one of the screens on the wall.

Travis Roy was a talented hockey player who was paralyzed in a tragic accident in the first few seconds of his debut on the men’s ice hockey team at Boston University in 1995. Roy went on to graduate from BU and create a foundation for spinal injury research and support for spinal injury survivors. He passed away just a few days ago at age 45.

Casey von NeumannNovember 2, 2020112020, 112720, 120920, 012021, 060121 Comments

All the time in the world

There’s a tension that I experience on a frequent basis. It’s between the necessity of slowing down and allowing space for reflection and growth, and the reality that the clock is ticking.

I don’t do my best work dangling by my fingertips off of a precipice. I need to be peaceful, grounded, and safe.

And yet these are the same conditions that can lead to complacency — to doing nothing and letting the time simply pass by.

It is easy enough to fill a day with meals, laundry, and a walk in the fresh air — maybe a bit of bill-paying, family time, or creative work. And the next, and the next.

Casey von NeumannOctober 15, 2020110220, 112020, 120920, 011121, 012021, 040921, 060121, 082721, 011223Comment

It doesn’t have to be this way

When I speak of my life as a child growing up in a small town in Maine, I’m not exaggerating or idealizing when I say that there was endless time to play.

Back in the olden days of the 1980s, kindergarten lasted only a half day, there was no homework until third or fourth grade, and children who were barely out of the single digits could roam around on bikes or on foot. Older kids enjoyed a six-hour school day and no carpool — just a short bus ride. Standardized testing was minimal, and we had outdoor recess all the way through middle school. We didn’t have devices or the Internet — we had the woods, the beach, the library, and each other. And lots and lots of snow.

Casey von NeumannOctober 8, 2019061620, 070420, 071320, 072320, 012021, 021721Comment

How do you measure success?

It’s nice when our work goes smoothly. It’s especially satisfying when we can point to our output: “I wrote these ten pages/folded these three loads of laundry/finally won the battle royale.”

But sometimes, it’s not that clear-cut. We brainstorm for an hour but none of the ideas quite click. We exercise and eat right for an entire week and our clothes fit the same. We spend half a day waiting at the doctor’s office for an appointment that resolves nothing.

Casey von NeumannApril 12, 2019111620, 012021, 102621, 111921Comment

"I want my kids to be happy...and get into Harvard."

How do you measure the value of a human life?

Is it measured by how successful someone is? Well then, how do we define successful? And how do we measure success?

Parents want the best for their kids — that appears to be universal. But there is no objective measurement of what best means.

To generalize mercilessly, I have observed three ways in which parents grapple with this issue.

Casey von NeumannApril 3, 2019061620, 072220, 081120, 012021, 021721, 051022Comment