P. Caleb Patterson

Bad Bunny’s closing messages during his Super Bowl performance:

“The only thing more powerful than hate is love”
“Together, we are America”

Beginning Again A mantra

My latest on Substack, in which I attempt to take my own advice.

open.substack.com/pub/pcalebpa...

Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist by Stephen Batchelor is a memoir of his journey from Buddhist monk to secular Buddhist. He explores the practical applications of mindfulness and meditation, presenting Buddhism as a path of self-discovery free from religious dogma. Very insightful and well told.

Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz is a cozy British mystery with a meta twist, as the author fictionalizes himself in the story, alternating between the present and five years prior. The audiobook narration is also spot-on. If this is your genre, add this to your list.

My goal is to finish two books a month and here are my two for February 2025. Both were audiobooks; I didn’t manage to finish any of the physical books I'm reading. I’ll blame that on the short month, rather than my chronic inability to focus on one book at a time.

10 True Things The following list consists of ten things I have determined to be true through my own life experience.

To help myself stay sane, I've started a Substack. My first ever post went up yesterday. If you're interested, please check it out:
pcalebpatterson.substack.com/p/10-true-th...

Ughhh this is me and my husband.

"History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for."

Could not agree more. The Prez & VP are shameful, embarrassing Putin puppets & a disgrace to our country. 🤮

#SlavaUkraine 🇺🇦

He shouldn't be admired, lauded, or emulated. He shouldn't be anywhere near the levers of power. D.T. has and will do some truly awful things, but giving this train wreck of a person unlimited power will go down as one of the worst. Unfortunately, I fear he may outdo himself in the future.

Musk is everything that's wrong with the world. No empathy, no compassion, no humility. A weak, insecure child, enabled by sycophants, convinced of his own brilliance, and now doing everything he can to make the world a far worse place to be for anyone who isn't already insanely wealthy.

Elon Musk is a literal comic-book villain. Inherited wealth, bought his way into the tech world, made even more money by ignoring safety rules and regulations, and now openly embraces fascism and Naziism. And people will still grovel at his feet and pretend he's not an all-around terrible human.

Pic of our Dutch Shepherd in front of a pond

78 degrees in Dallas today = long lunchtime walk

I've no sympathy whatsoever for voters who are SHOCKED to learn that Trump told them what they wanted to hear and now isn't keeping his promises. What planet have they been living on for the last decade? This is what he does Every. Single. Time. They played themselves and have no one else to blame.

MORE OF THIS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

All this is why you can confidently ignore anyone who blames "DEI" for bad things happening in the world. They have no idea what DEI means or what it's based on. They're just using it as a thin mask for their own bias and bigotry. These are not serious people, and we should always call them out.

It's also why I don't think any companies abandoning DEI at the first sign of pushback were ever really committed. Those companies don't want new ideas or challenges to institutional thinking; they just wish to (1) avoid bad PR and (2) cozy up to whoever is in power. DEI requires real commitment.

But make they aren't just tokens or PR hires. No one, including these employees, wants that. Don't hire diverse people and then ask them to fit your pre-existing mold. It'll be a bad fit, and that's not the point. Your organization has to be willing to adapt, and so do they. That's hard at first.

Take your on-campus recruiting to HSBCs. Expand your recruiting efforts to include moms looking for part-time work or to rejoin your workforce. Consider making the position remote, increasing your pool of candidates with disabilities or who can't afford reliable transportation.

If you're afraid of change, you won't like DEI. If you don't like old ideas being challenged, you won't like DEI. If you want everything to stay the same forever because it works just fine for you, specifically, you won't like DEI.

But if you want to grow, innovate, and achieve more?

Diversify.

Diversity with equity and inclusion is pointless. That is just a quota system.

DEI is, by its nature, disruptive by nature. But it's disruptive for a specific purpose: to ensure that you get the best ideas, regardless of where they come from. It's for organizations that want to adapt and grow.

E&I is about adapting your existing culture to welcome new ideas and points of view, as well as considering what may be needed to help employees of different backgrounds feel like they belong. They need to feel they have equity - both in the sense of equal standing and a stake in the company.

What happens to your new talent when it arrives? Organizations usually have an existing culture or point of view. Challenging it can be difficult. If you don't give new ideas room to be aired and evaluated, then you've defeated the purpose of diversifying.

Enter Equity and Inclusion

Organizations can easily become silos, where everyone has a similar life experience and background. Our experiences inform our perspectives and viewpoints, so new or different ideas are hard to come by. Innovation and growth suffer.

Solution: diversify your talent pool. Different POV = new ideas.

Studies have shown that organizations that include diverse viewpoints have better financial results over the long term. That includes differences in social status, economic background, cultural viewpoint, religious affiliation and background, and place of education.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is not affirmative action. It's not a quota system. It's not about elevating less qualified people of a certain minority over better-qualified straight, white, cisgender men.

DEI is about increasing the strength of an organization by ensuring it doesn't stagnate.

"DEI," as used by the President and his ilk, is just shorthand for "non-white men." It's racism and sexism all rolled into one term. It's the same way they use "woke" to mean anything they don't like. It's the new bogeyman.

Source: I actually took a course and have a certification in DEI.

#DEI

Beacon 23 - I really enjoyed the first season of Silo on AppleTV+ (season 2 has been way too drawn out) so I gave this one a shot. It's a solid sci-fi story with some interesting twists on some of the genre's main-stays, but it all wraps up a little too quickly, and the conclusion feels rushed.

A Desolation Called Peace - A good read if you like novels that examine issues of cultural bias and stagnation, political intrigue, and the essence of memory and identity, all set against a backdrop of a potentially devastating interstellar war. I liked the first book in the trilogy better.