Oh hello, oh good day, how nice to speak with you again!

Terribly sorry for not calling recently, but to be honest I really haven’t felt like it!

That’s a thing I like to do sometimes: Nothing at all.

To be frank, what I’ve really been doing is enjoying holiday memes.

It's hard work collecting memes.

Here are some memes.

If you don’t get that last one please unsubscribe, then resubscribe again, because let’s be friends anyway. It’s really hard for me to be mean!

Also please consider the above memes to be the only version of a gift guide you’ll be getting from this newsletter! I’m a low-carbon giver.

Ok soooooo

This week I wrote you a little thing.

It’s not about marketing or content or recruiting etc. Sometimes we don’t write about those things here! Sometimes we write about less professional things because god what are we even doing with our lives. So this is one of those sometimes.

This week’s brief and diverting post is about the two things I began learning how to do this year: play Go and speak Spanish.

I hope you enjoy it.

I hope you’re enjoying everything!

It is, after all, the holiday season.

I smell like pine needles. You should too.

-s.

p.s. omg the world cup right? To my lads in England: ☹️ Meanwhile, all the teams I was rooting for (🇲🇽 🇪🇸 🇺🇸) got kicked in group or round of 16. Ah well, go Morocco! 🇲🇦

p.s.s Oh! Oh wow, actually! Here’s a gift: make your family some ponche crema. Venezuelan egg nog. Here’s an absolutely killer recipe (in Spanish) from Sumito Estévez, but you can find similar (tho less charmingly explained) recipes elsewhere, e.g., this ‘un. Ok, on with the show!

Let’s play Go

This is the game of Go.

Possibly you’re familiar!

Possibly you’re familiar because you play Go, or you saw that documentary about AI beating Go, or you read that manga called Hikaru no Go. It’s an old game! Something like two and a half millennia old.

Been around, this one.

I am not two and a half millennia old. I am 45. I started learning Go this year.

My friend Rafa has been tutoring me.

After six months of playing, I am incredibly, wonderfully, delightfully bad.

The rules are simple

One person’s black.

One person’s white.

Your goal is to capture territory on the board, stone by stone.

Black goes first.

You play by placing one of your stones on any intersection. Your opponent answers by placing one of their stones on any intersection.

That’s it! That’s the only move!

But from that simple back and forth, complexity emerges.

Like, for example, shapes

Shapes are groups of stones.

Shapes appear as you and your opponent try to capture territory.

There are good shapes, like the Tiger’s Mouth.

Good shapes are flexible and efficient. They help you make connections to other stones or increase your room to move.

See how there are spaces on each side of each piece? Those are called liberties. They’re like breathing room.

If a stone gets surrounded on all four sides by your opponent’s stones, that stone gets captured.

So, Tiger’s Mouth, more or less, without any other context, is a good shape. Lots of liberties.

There are also bad shapes, like the Empty Triangle.

Empty Triangle Man, does whatever an Empty Triangle Man can

Bad shapes are inflexible and inefficient. They undermine your connections or limit your movement.

See how each stone is already missing liberties? Danger!

The Empty Triangle shape is also called onigatachi, the devil’s shape, because it brings to mind the long nose of a certain Japanese demon.

And isn’t that a delightful thing about Go.

Go has lore.

Anyway, shapes are helpful to know.

They’re also unavoidable.

They’re one of the first things you notice when you play: the recurring patterns of stone against stone.

In that way, the shapes are like a language.

Or, at least, the morphemes and phonemes of a language. The building blocks. Useful to recognize! By themselves, easy to deploy. But, ultimately of limited value if you don’t understand the grammar, i.e., how to make decisions to play the right shapes within the context of the game.1

And the process of learning that context takes a lifetime.

That’s another interesting thing about Go: you’re playing the game to learn how to play the game.

Turns out this is true for everything.2

Let’s play Spanish

There is a language called Spanish.

Possibly you’re familiar!

Possibly you’re familiar because you speak Spanish, or you’ve heard Spanish spoken, maybe because it’s the second most spoken tongue in the world, A+ job with the whole colonizing thing, Spain.

Anyway this year I moved to Mexico and decided to (try to) learn how to speak Spanish.

And after nine months of living here full-time3, I am incredibly, wonderfully, delightfully bad.

The rules are simple

One person’s a native Spanish speaker.

The other’s a Virginian who only speaks fluent y’all.

The goal is to define the territory of a conversation.

The Virginian goes first by trying to speak Spanish words on any available conversational intersection.

The native answers by speaking words back.

That’s it! That’s the only move!

But from that simple back and forth, complexity emerges.

Like, for example, phrases

Phrases are groups of words.

Phrases appear as you and your partner try to define territory.

There are good phrases, like the Thirsty Man.

Te pido una cervecita porfa.

Good phrases are flexible and efficient. They help you make connections to other phrases or increase your partner’s capacity for speech.

See how the waiter is going to bring me a beer now? That’s called progress. I no longer have to worry about being thirsty. Now I need nuts.

So, Thirsty Man, more or less, without any other context, is a good phrase.

There are also bad phrases, like the Lazy American.

Wow everything is so cheap here, gracias.4

Bad phrases are inflexible and inefficient. They undermine your connections or limit your ability to be charming.

See how the phrase is completely in English? And it inspires in locals a kind of resentment? Because you’re not being considerate of your context? Danger!

The Lazy American is also called dudecmon, because it brings to mind the traditional shorts and backwards baseball caps of certain aggressively loud neighbors.

Anyway, phrases are helpful to know.

They’re also unavoidable.

They’re one of the first things you notice when you play: the recurring patterns of phrase after phrase.

In that way, the phrases are like a game.

Or, at least, the starting moves and positions of a game. By themselves, easy to deploy. But, ultimately of limited value if you don’t understand the rules, i.e., how to conjugate the words so you play the right phrases within the context of the language.

And the process of learning that context takes a lifetime.

That’s another interesting thing about learning Spanish: you’re playing the game to learn how to play the game.

Delightful resources

12-Step Brand and Content Framework

Product Content Strategy 101

The Creative Problem Solving Reading List

You don’t get it, you’re not the point

Make relationships, not things

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1

Explaining that context is beyond the remit of this little letter but, for the interested, here’s a good video explaining the rules by a stern and dramatic young gentleman who could benefit from some hand moisturizing cream. I might also suggest the training videos from the NY Institute of Go, which is a thing; the apps SmartGo and Tsumego Pro; and Online-Go.com.

2

Wasn’t gonna mention Finite and Infinite Games because good lord everybody mentions Finite and Infinite Games but yes, Go is a finite game that is also infinite, I will not be taking questions.

3

There was also some time in the states and some time in Italy and some time with covid, so we’re taking those three months out of the count. But now, according to the gov’t of Mexico, I’m what’s called a Temporary Resident. I’ve got a residency card and everything. Which basically means I don’t have to leave every 90 days.

4

Americans make more money than Mexicans. A lot more money. Just to give you one random example, police officers in Mexico City make about $500 to $1200 per month (there’s a great movie that touches on this: A Cop Story, by Alonso Ruizpalacios, who’s also directed great TV show episodes like Outer Range). When Americans come here and spend money here, they create inflation. Americans have always traveled to Mexico in large numbers, but the rise of remote work means we’re decamping to our southern neighbor for longer stretches of time. The average rent in certain gentrifying parts of Mexico City increased by 40% last year, in no small part because of AirBnb housing. Which means locals are being priced out of their own homes and restaurants. It’s hard, on a personal level, to know what do about this financial reality—but at the very least, when you visit, don’t rub it in the faces of locals by talking out loud, in restaurants and bars, about how cheap everything is.

Delightful

Let's play Spanish