The Ladder: Infrequent Intelligence from the NCSDO Staff
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People are surprised to learn that an NCSDO copyeditor can also work as a yoga instructor. Aren't the two jobs fundamentally disparate, they ask, the one being exacting, technical, and nerdy, the other, permissive, organic, holistic?
Yes and no.
They are dissimilar on many fronts (see above), and we all need balance, so I appreciate the mildness of yoga after a day of ink-red precision. In perhaps more ways, however, practicing yoga is not unlike editing for NCSDO: In both endeavors, we are exceedingly present (yoga without mindfulness is beside the point, and editing a proof while daydreaming has big, expensive consequences), so we approach both a posture and a document as if for the first time, no matter how many times we've experienced them. We focus on both the details and the piece as a whole—that is, we think about the placement of the big toe and the coordination of the spine with all the limbs, just as we think of the placement of commas while keeping in mind the overall message and voice of the institution. And in both services, we are compassionate in our criticism, subject to tradition and style, and continually striving for balance, harmony, grace, and strength.
And of course, the end result of, say, a well-executed downward dog and an error-free, magnificently written viewbook is the same: bliss.
Posted by Erica Ashton on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:33:38 -0400 | Permalink