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Weekly Reflection #8 - Mushin and Spontaneity
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Each week, I share one insight. One piece of wisdom. One question to reflect on. (and a little Lagniappe) InsightMost things in life are out of our control. This is only exacerbated for those of us who work in complex systems. We can't predict the next outage, re-org, or technology shift. What we can control is our ability to respond to spontaneous changes. In Zen, there is a concept called "mushin", a mind free from distraction, able to respond fluidly to whatever arises. When we cultivate mushin, we can respond appropriately to whatever comes our way. When we focus on the fundamentals of our craft, we see patterns, not just the tools of the moment. When these fundamentals are solid, we respond appropriately to whatever comes. We do this not because we predicted all future states, but because we have a practiced ability to respond fluidly. Wisdom"You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail." — Charlie Parker (probably) ReflectionWhat's one thing you've trained so deeply it no longer requires thought? Lagniappe
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Weekly Reflections Newsletter
Practical insights on platform engineering, developer experience, and building teams that ship. Each issue is written to be useful, actionable, and applicable. No filler, no promotions-only emails. Enter your email and sign up for free right now.
Each week, I share one insight. One piece of wisdom. One question to reflect on. (and a little Lagniappe) Insight This week LiteLLM, the most popular open-source LLM proxy in the python ecosystem, was hit by a really gnarly software supply chain attack. The awful part was that the attack vector was through Trivy, a security scanner LiteLLM trusted to help protect its code. Attackers compromised Trivy's GitHub Actions and used that to steal LiteLLM's PyPI publishing credentials, and used them...
Each week, I share one insight. One piece of wisdom. One question to reflect on. (and a little Lagniappe) Insight In Will Larson's book, Crafting Engineering Strategy, he nails why so many executives fail at executing on strategy. However, my experience is that engineering strategies fail for very mundane reasons—the most common of which is that executives assume their strategy will roll itself out. The second most common reason is forgetting to spend time validating the details. Both are...
Each week, I share one insight. One piece of wisdom. One question to reflect on. (and a little Lagniappe) Insight It is easy to treat Change Management as a means of controlling the change itself, as if changes were discrete events you could shove into a box on a specific timeline. But change is continuous, it's fluid, and it's much more powerful than any of us can truly control. Systems were changing long before we intervened, and they will continue to change long after we are gone. Surfers...