'If you want a happy ending...
that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.’--Orson Welles
“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story”—Orson Welles
The title quote stops me in my tracks. Think about when you might have dropped a pin in a career win or personal success and thought you were on top of the world. Or a certain quotidian normality appears to stretch in front of you knowing no limits. Moments later, game over. It doesn’t have to be a tragedy it can simply be a realization or an unexpected barrier or obstacle.
But wait. Let me introduce the image. Its me, pre-covid living my best life. I am wearing my old school headphones which I still prefer from time to time. This photo is one of my favorites for many reasons but today it came to mind when I wanted to share what I have been listening to and reading.
I am an ultra-runner and listen to the Rich Roll podcast on the regular but not just for nutrition or training advice (focus). I revisited the episode on changing your brain because, well, I need to change my brain.
Signing the contract on my first book deal seemed like the pinnacle—and trust me, it is still a career high. There was my happy ending—but the story doesn’t end with a signature.
Dear reader, writing a book is not about putting words on a page.
Yes, the book is the product (or flour) but you are the grist. I am learning when to fight, when to listen, and when to surrender. Let’s just say I am what you might call a sloooow learner.
The book HAD to have color images. I fought that along with my editor all the way to the top and thankfully prevailed. When told that only data visualization books are color and my book is about geospatial analysis I succinctly explained that maps are everyone’s first meaningful data visualization. A black & white book about geospatial sounded ridiculous to me so I was willing to perish on that hill.
Now it is July and I have arrived at the most tedious part of book publication—technical review. Not to be deterred or heed the warnings about the emotional drain of strangers murdering your darlings, I signed another contract with a different publisher, for a different book.
In my head this sounded like a good business decision. Strike while the iron is still warm, benefit from my monastic existence while it is still a ritual, and emerge with a host of new stories to tell.
I am also reading a masterful history of the unfortunately named “sex” chromosomes. Imagine naming chromosomes for an enzyme they metabolize or a single protein manufactured.
Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome
Data analysis—or at least the way I think about it—requires a few assumptions, and transparency in what those assumptions might be. For example, I am a huge fan of Nigerian_American artist Mimi Ọnụọha.
“Ọnụọha looks beyond the data points themselves and instead digs deeper to reveal the whole narrative surrounding data collection as a process. Weaving together threads of histories related to missing, destroyed and forgotten data sets. Ọnụọha also examines the labor and politics surrounding data collection.”—Virginia Commonwealth University
“Her work gives us keen insight into the ways that seemingly objective materials, like data, are gathered and distributed with the same prejudices and inequities that disproportionately affect marginalized peoples. Ultimately, Ọnụọha’s work addresses the power of data collection and questions the role that data plays in shaping our realities, histories and futures. Given the important role that data collection plays in research, especially surrounding the topic of technology, she was the ideal speaker to reflect the hope of this series as a whole. Rather than approaching technology as the answer to every problem, this series aims to create a platform where research-based makers (or researchers who make) can ask better questions about technology.”—Virginia Commonwealth University
Knowing that data isn’t often collected, analyzed, or reported in the way we may assume I often struggle with not only the collection of racial statistics but also sex and gender.
How would your questions change if you understood sex to be less binary?
Give Radiolab a listen and join the emerging conversation of humanism in data science.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/series/radiolab-presents-gonads