Mud-colored glasses. Playing in the street. Connections are complicated (and important). Telling yourself stories. Dare to see stupid. Does reading matter? (YES!) Taking risks.
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1. “Walking around with a pair of mud-colored glasses”
The World Isn’t Actually Going to Hell in a Handbasket (gift link) – Elizabeth Bernstein – (Wall Street Journal)
These days this seems like a very hard concept to internalize. And yet, if you look at the data rather than listening to the rhetoric, you’ll find it’s true.
There’s a danger to believing that people are getting worse when that’s not really true. That belief distracts us from real problems that need to be solved. It makes us susceptible to people in power who want us to believe the worst so they can claim to be the only one who can fix it. And it keeps us from connecting with each other.
That hits home, hard, in several ways. Imagine, people in power using these beliefs to manipulate us? Only every day, it seems.
Do this: Try to be fact-based.
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2. “A world built for cars has made life so much harder for adults.”
What Adults Lost When Kids Stopped Playing in the Street (gift link) – Stephanie H. Murray – (The Atlantic)
The focus of this story, on scheduled street closures to allow kids to play as they once did, is on what parents have lost.
… neighborhoods across the country have discovered that allowing kids to play out in the open has helped residents reclaim something they didn’t know they were missing: the ability to connect with the people living closest to them.
And that’s true. But when I read the article, my mind went to the plethora of articles discussing the kids themselves, and what they’re missing out on in an always-online world. There’s simply no substitute for in-person interaction, be it child or adult.
Do this: Get together with people. In person. And encourage your kids to do the same.
3. “Building meaningful connections, or just adding to the noise”
The Mind-Bending Reality of Non-Euclidean Social Networks – Joan Westenberg – (@Westenberg)
This is a very insightful article summarizing how we relate to each other, and how online connectivity has caused a fundamental shift in everything from community to identity. For both good and bad.
Every time we scroll, every connection we make, every interaction, we’re contributing to the shape and texture of our non-Euclidean social world. And that means we have a responsibility – to ourselves, to each other, and to future generations – to engage with this new reality thoughtfully and intentionally.
There were so many great points in this article I had a hard time narrowing it down to something to share here. If you have the opportunity, it’s well worth a read.
Do this: Engage thoughtfully and intentionally.
#connection #loneliness #community #identity
4. “Pay close attention to the stories you tell yourself”
The Stories You Tell Yourself – Sahil Bloom – (Curiosity Chronicle)
It’s well understood, but frequently overlooked, that the stories we tell ourselves, particularly about ourselves, create our reality. Ultimately, that’s what this article is about. But as I read it, I realized many of the concepts translate from individuals to groups and to society as a whole.
Your brain is literally programmed to try to make sense of all new data by fitting it neatly within the context of what you “know” to be true. Therefore, the original story is often the one that gets preserved and deeply entrenched: New information is massaged to fit that story, or rejected if it doesn’t.
Does that sound at all familiar? Not just at the personal level, but at the societal, and — dare I say it — political level?
Do this: Pay close attention to the story. All of them.
5. “The single best thing you can learn in college is stupidity.”
Stupidity: A Reading List – Ted Gioia – (The Honest Broker)
The fastest way to get smart is to avoid the pitfalls of the stupid.
Gioia sets out a 12 week fictional(?) course on stupidity, based on a reading list of 12 books. It’s a fascinating list. I expect several of these items will appear on my reading list in the coming months.
Do this: Dare to see stupid.
6. “There is some feeling nowadays that reading is not as necessary as it once was.”
How to Read a Book – Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren – (ebook)
This almost falls into the “everything old is new again” category. The book was published in 1940 and updated in 1972. 52 or 84 years ago is a long time. And yet the topics are as relevant today as they were then.
The educators of the country have acknowledged that teaching the young to read, in the most elementary sense of that word, is our paramount educational problem.
Still.
Yes, the threats have changed — social media, short form skimmable content, other digital distractions, and more — but the problem remains the same. Reading remains critical, and yet schools are still graduating the nearly illiterate.
Do this: Read. Encourage reading in others.
7. “I was only deported that one time”
The Things That Go Wrong Make the Best Memories – Chris Guillebeau – (A Year of Mental Health)
An interesting observation.
If you find your life becoming routine or monotonous, ask yourself—what am I risking? When was the last time I engaged in an activity that made me slightly nervous?
If you’re not experiencing occasional misadventure, are you just coasting? Could risking a little more make for memorable experiences? Could you perhaps even learn from the mistakes?
Do this: Risk.
#memory #risk #adventure #boredom
Other Links
- Gamergate at 10 – “Gamergate can be credited with the rise of the alt-right, the prevalence of misogyny in online discourse, the mainstreaming of several harassment tactics and the normalization of abusive campaigns”
- A Compliment That Really Means Something – How to.
What I’m Reading
In progress:
- How to Read a Book – Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren
- Queen of Angels – Greg Bear
- Lethal Bayou Beauty – Jana DeLeon
- Where Good Ideas Come From – Steven Johnson (re-read)
- Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman (audio)
Daily:
- A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Selected from the World’s Sacred Texts – Leo Tolstoy
A full list of my common sources is on the sources page, and I list the books I’ve read on my Reading List page.
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Thanks!
-Leo