A man once said to me, with evident pride, that he’d never failed a test of any kind in his life.
I guess he was expecting admiration, and must have been disappointed when I blurted, “how sad for you.”
But here is a person who has never stepped outside his comfort zone, who has no idea what he is capable of, and–moreover–he’s pleased as punch with that state of affairs.
I learned the terms “hot media” and “cool media” during my weekend reading. These terms were coined by Marshall McLuhan, and don’t seem to have caught on outside of academia.
Hot media are information sources that are packed with data (often simultaneously transmitted to multiple sensory organs at once), and that require little or no interpretation or analysis on the part of the recipient. Television and movies are prime examples.
Cool media are those information sources that offer relatively little data, but which require the receiver to interpret, interpolate, analyse, and draw conclusions about the information they receive. Books are the prime example of cool media.
There are people who proudly say, “I don’t have the time to read, but I only watch the Discovery Channel and Public Broadcasting.” If you think you’re getting smarter just like readers, you’re not. You’re still mainlining information, and the parts of your brain that have to exercise when you read (or otherwise take in information in an abstract form) are shut down.
I’m not suggesting one shouldn’t watch television, or that you can’t learn something from it. I’m just saying that if you don’t read, but try to educate yourself via TV, you are the intellectual version of this guy…
Taken in the summer of 2011 in Hungary.
There are two ways to survive a harsh winter: you can squirrel away your pile of acorns or you can bear it by just not needing much.
Source: German Federal Archives
Hitler killed the short-stache (a.k.a. the “toothbrush mustache.”) Imagine that, almost 70 years after his death, he still holds power over people’s decisions about facial hair.
This is a misplaced take-away lesson. It’s the unbridled narcissism, the icy hatred, and the irrational exuberance in the power of evil of Hitler that should be abandoned (yet, somehow, those intangibles still quietly exist.) It’s not the superficial aspects of Hitler that should be shunned, but the ones at the bastard’s core.
I’m not saying the toothbrush-stache was a good look. On the contrary–as one who has had a mustache his entire adult life and has worn a beard now for several years–I’m a little offended by the lack of commitment to one’s choice of facial hair that the toothbrush-stache represents. (Incidentally, I feel the same about the sole patch and mutton chops.) In my mind, one should go full-stache or go home to shave.
Still, there being no accounting for taste, I think those individuals who would otherwise find the short-stache appealing (i.e. you know, indecisive types who wear culottes and eat with sporks) should revive the toothbrush mustache as a big fuck-you to Hitler–don’t let tyrants boss you around from the grave.
Toothbrush mustache admirers of world, unite! (No, I won’t be joining you.)
I don’t think Death should be depicted as a cowled, faceless Grim Reaper.
Instead, I think Death should be the wise drinking buddy who can hold his liquor. Not the one who acts like an idiot an encourages friends to do the same. Rather, the one who spurs you to ask out a girl who’s way out of your league, and keeps you classy if (when) she declines.
“What happened to the good ole days when I ate you people–not lived in your cages?”
Paleolithic dieting is all the rage these days. I’m no expert on the paleo-diet, but–as I understand it–this refers to the practice of eating the foods consumed by our pre-agrarian ancestors. The idea is that if one consumes the foods that our species is evolutionarily-optimized to eating, one will be healthier. Whether one believes in the merits of the paleo-diet or not on the whole, it’s hard to argue that one wouldn’t be better off eating less highly-processed and highly-refined foods and more things that look like food at a glance.
Our diet isn’t all that has changed since the days of our pre-agrarian ancestors. Modernity has brought with it an entirely new way of experiencing stress. Eliminating or reducing stress is a common topic of discussion, but not all stress is created equal. There’s a necessary form of stress, a stress that makes one better, stronger, faster, and smarter. We don’t want to willy-nilly eliminate stress; we want to reduce the wrong type of stress.
Our ancestors—like animals–experienced brief periods of intense stress (e.g. saber-tooth tiger attacks), followed by longer periods in which they were free of deadlines, carpools, and after-school activities. Now, no one likes to have a saber-tooth tiger stalking them. It’s unpleasant. Modern humanity has gone to great lengths to eliminate those short bursts of terror, but not without cost. (If you don’t believe me read Robert Sapolsky’s Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.)
Whether or not you believe that eliminating acute instances of terrifying stress is bad for mankind, it’s hard to argue that modernity’s leveling process didn’t eliminate stress, but instead resulted in a chronic stress on a smaller scale. People today have impossibly long daily to-do lists, and they have to accept trade-offs between work, family, and personal development.
It’s true that you don’t get eaten by a giant cat when you drop the ball, but life is so packed diverse events that one may feel like one is dropping some ball constantly. If your boss thinks you’re a model employee, then your kids are probably going to need therapy. If you have a contented home life, your boss may have his or her eyes open for someone who can give the firm consistently 70+ hour work weeks. If you feel you’re doing alright on both the work and family front, your body and / or mind is probably a train wreck.
Chronic [mini] stress may feel better than acute [catastrophic] stress, but it takes its tolls in various ways. First, with our sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight reaction) constantly engaged our body’s power to heal itself is reduced. When the parasympathetic nervous system is engaged, the body devotes resources to long-term goals like getting healthier, but in stress mode activities not relevant to immediate survival shut down. This is a great system if you have periodic life and death stress, but is not so good if you’re under constant stress.
Second, chronic stress reduces sleep, and sleep is essential to one’s mental and physical well-being. There are a wide variety of symptoms associated with sleep deprivation such as forgetfulness, decreased concentration, decreased alertness, reduced reasoning ability, diminished problem-solving capacity, and depression—all of which can diminish our physical health through accidents, ailments, suicide attempts, and lack of energy for exercise.
Third, chronic stress can make one fat, with all the health issues that result. Some people use food as a coping mechanism. Other people eat too fast or choose their food poorly because of time constraints or because they are not mindful of eating as their monkey minds churn at a mile a minute. Then there is the more convoluted and complex issue of cortisol–a hormone released under stress that is linked to weight gain in at least some cases. Even if you don’t have a problem on the calorie intake side, the stressed individual may not do so well on the calorie burning side—either because of a lack of time to exercise or a lack of energy.
Modern humans are uniquely suited to chronic stress because we are the only species that achieves the same physiological stress response by remembering and obsessing about a stressful event as experiencing it. Abandoning the modern approach to living isn’t an option most are willing to entertain; but there are ways to combat chronic stress.
Move – Meditate – Mindfully Breath: The bad news is you’ve got to shoehorn these activities into your schedule daily (or at least several times a week.) The good news is that they don’t need to take up a lot of your day. There are a number of systems that address all three components in one handy package such as Qi Gong, Yoga, and some martial arts. I don’t think it matters so much which one chooses as how one goes about one’s practice.
Movement strengthens and strategically stresses the body, but it also increases one’s bodily awareness so that one becomes aware of how stress is manifesting itself in one’s body. Meditation teaches one how to live in the present moment, and it trains one to recognize the seeds of negative thought and emotion earlier so that one can counter-act them. Obviously, breathing is essential to life, but learning to be aware of one’s breathing patterns and to “manually override” the breath patterns associated with harmful emotional states is a beneficial skill.
Massage / Bodywork: Whether self-administered or other-administered (the latter allowing greater distressing–particularly if the masseuse is skilled) massage is an activity, like movement, that can help one become aware of where one is physically holding one’s stress. These physical manifestations of stress can exacerbate the whole experience of stress. One should take time periodically to have bodywork done. A day rarely goes by in which I don’t work on my own neck, shoulders, head, or face, and I occasionally get professional Thai Yoga Bodywork done.
The Places that Scare You: Force yourself to go someplace (not necessarily literally a “place”) that scares you once in a while. This needn’t be skydiving or hand-gliding—but it could be. It may be a martial arts class in which one has to put on the gloves occasionally and go at it. It may be joining Tostmasters and having to give a speech in front of a crowd. It may be traveling to some backwater where you don’t know the language, but you want to learn. This is a very personal issue. (i.e. A Type-A personality he-man may not find that skydiving is outside his comfort zone. If so, sorry, skydiving doesn’t count, he may need to learn ballroom dancing, or something else that truly takes him outside being comfortable.) KEY POINT: The problem with hiding from all stressors is that it doesn’t result in a stress-free life, what happens is that smaller and smaller stressors loom bigger and bigger in one’s mind. Which brings us to…
Perspective: One must put life’s challenges in perspective. Each person’s problems are important to them, and I don’t want to diminish anyone’s problems, but—come on—you’re not going to be eaten by a freaking saber-tooth tiger.
I was sitting at an outdoor cafe as I thought about how to write this post. I’d just finished reading chapter 5 of the Rob Dunn book entitled The Wild Life of Our Bodies, and was reflecting upon how interesting it was to be reading two books whose central premise–in broad brush strokes–was the same. As I was ruminating, a family of four–a couple and their two daughters, an infant and a preschooler/kindergartener–came and sat down at an adjacent table.
For a while the preternaturally-cute infant crawled around on the table top, but as the mother became concerned that the wriggly little child might fall or spill scalding coffee, she eventually set the child down. The child proceeded to crawl around on the ground–ground on which one could easily imagine pigeons trolling for crumbs. [Full-disclosure: I didn’t actually see any pigeons, or even any noticeable filth on the ground for that matter, and–while this is India–it was a major coffee chain attached to the side of a popular up-scale shopping mall, and so that particular ground was probably at least hosed down daily.] The child crawled on all-fours, except that she had the plastic number placard which told the waitress where to bring the order in one of her hands, and she would alternate between dragging it across the ground and–when she got tired of crawling–she would roll onto her rump and pop a corner of the placard into her mouth.
If reading the preceding scene made you a bit queasy, you should be reading one [or both] of books mentioned above. Doing so gave me a totally different perspective on this event. There was a point when I–like many–would have assumed the little girl would get some sort of ailment and that her parents would pay in lost sleep for letting the kid crawl on the ground in an urban public space, but I’m now more inclined to think that probably nothing will happen, and she could–theoretically–end up better off for the wear. I’m not advocating wallowing in filth, but I have come to see biological stressors in a new light. I wouldn’t go so far as to advocate letting a child crawl around sticking things in his or her mouth that have been on the ground at a cafe, but it would no longer surprise me to hear that this child lived a healthier life than children of germophobic (properly “mysophobic”) first-world moms who are about one cookie-off-the-kitchen-floor from forcing their children to live in a bubble.
The reader may be wondering two things: 1.) how these books could mitigate one’s queasiness, and 2.) what the books even have in common. If you’re familiar with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, it’s likely you associate him with criticisms of the misuse of statistical methods, and the failure to understand under what conditions the usefulness of these methods break down. While Taleb does consider a wide range of examples in his popular books Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, and–most recently and most relevantly–Antifragile, the world of business is where Taleb’s background lies and where much of his discussion is centered. The Dunn book, one the other hand, fits squarely in the domain of biology and medicine.
Both of these books take as their core idea that there are systems that must face constant and occasionally serious challenges to grow stronger, and that the removal of these challenges can have adverse and sometimes dire consequences. Taleb looks at such systems in a broad and general sense, and coins a term, “antifragile”, to describe such systems. A system is antifragile if it gets stronger (i.e. in some way better) when subjected to stresses. This shouldn’t be confused with robustness, which is being indifferent to stressors. Robust systems can take or leave stressors, but antifragile systems need them or they become weakened. Dunn’s book deals with a specific example of an antifragile system, our guts. The biologist suggests that our war on parasites and germs has created a whole raft of problems never before seen. It’s probably not a new idea to most readers, as there are ongoing arguments about the risks of our antibacterial frenzy.
While first-world dwellers tend to take a superior view of those poor third-worlders and their myriad ailments–a number of which have been stamped out in the developed world–Westerners may not even be aware that there are a number of ailments that exist almost exclusively in the first world. Increasing evidence is developing that certain forms of diabetes and allergies are linked to “clean living.” Interestingly, while one might readily imagine how a digestive tract ailment like Crohn’s Disease is tied to insufficiently populated digestive ecosystem, there’s reason to believe that diverse issues such as autism and anxiety disorders may also be linked to loss of internal predators and the imbalances their loss causes.
It’s not entirely a coincidence that I’m reading these books concurrently. I’ve been interested in the issue in a broad sense as of late. How does the craving of comfort weaken a population? What are the risks of indiscriminately weeding the stressors out of one’s life? (As seems to be a major objective of modernity.) Of course, stressors are not eliminated, but instead stressors that are relatively feeble may become the 800 lb. gorilla of stressors.
If anything sells a book more effectively than sex, it’s being banned. One knows that a book contains powerful ideas when someone goes to the effort to try to have it banned. Granted, the powerful ideas may or may not be good ideas–or true ideas, but thinking minds will demand to see for themselves. (I for one will be stopping by my local bookstore to see if they have a copy they’ll sell me for less than 1,000 rupee [$16USD], because I’ve got to know what has the thought Nazis up in arms.)
But does a self-imposed ban have the same effect? Penguin India settled a suit by agreeing to stop printing the book The Hindus: An Alternative History, and to burn outstanding copies. This, after a protracted legal battle against a Hindu nationalist group called Shiksha Bachao Andolan. However, there may be more to it than simply trying to build sales on the four+ year old book (that likely would have been long forgotten in an environment of free speech.) Indian law makes it a criminal offense to offend Hindu sensibilities, and thus puts the publishers in physical as well as fiscal jeopardy. Of course, it’s already come and gone as a best-seller in India, so it couldn’t hurt to restoke global interest.
It should be noted that there isn’t overwhelming support for banning the book in India. There has been outrage against Penguin’s fold by Indians who read, who believe in freedom of speech, and who are terrified of the idea of a crime of hurting someone’s feelings by discussing their religion’s history. (The latter being a direct route to tyranny if ever there was one. )
As I said, sex sells and bans sell double; the book in question has both. One might be inclined to think that it’s some sort of porn novel churned out on pulp. Actually, the author is a Professor of Religious History at the University of Chicago, Wendy Doniger. The book does apparently focuses heavily on the role of sexuality in Hindu mythology. What some readers might not know–and might be surprised to learn–is that hardcore Hindu nationalists are two steps to the right of Jerry Faldwell on issues of sex.
Here’s are accounts by the LA Times and Galleycat.
One of the most extensive discussions of the forces who succeeded in getting the book banned is in the NY Times.
The Einstein Theory Of Relativity by Hendrik Antoon Lorentz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It’s hard to complain about this book because: a.) it’s a free kindle book, b.) the author was brilliant, a Nobel Laureate, and a man whose work contributed to the discoveries of Einstein, and c.) it’s a very short book, clocking in at about 60 pages, and so it’s not a huge time investment–though for most it will be a bigger time investment than its page count would suggest.
All that being said, I’ll be upfront and tell you that his work is the product of a different era and doesn’t establish its audience clearly.
Science writing, particularly on subjects as arcane as relativity, is a challenge. One has to pick an audience and carefully write for that audience. If ones audience is broad (i.e. not well-trained in science), this means one has to accept a lot less precision in exchange for clarity. In other words, one has to write like Brian Greene or Michio Kaku do in their popular works. On the other hand, if you want to write for technical people, you should probably feel free to show your math and sling the technical jargon.
This book tries to walk a middle ground. It doesn’t lay the subject out in clear, simple, and entertaining analogies. (With the exception of a moving car analogy early on that gets bogged down.) However, there’re no equations or highly technical and jargon-suffused discussions. (Though the section on deflection of light does get into measurements and is bit technical.)
So the question the reader needs to ask themselves–provided they haven’t had physics since high school or their freshman year of college–is whether they are willing and able to grind through reading that will require them to think hard the whole way. One doesn’t need a big science vocabulary, and you aren’t asked to ponder any equations, but you do have to noodle out what the author is saying to get value out of the reading. As I implied earlier, this book (pamphlet) took me considerably longer to read than 60 pages normally would–and I read a fair amount of popular science works.
Of course, given that it’s free, it’s worth a try if you have a Kindle. If nothing else, you should come away with some basics– such as what differentiates special from general relativity. If you don’t like the book you can always buy a Greene or Kaku book to explain the subject in a more palatable fashion.
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Kleon’s work began as a series of index cards and expanded into a short book. As the subtitle implies, the book is built around ten pieces of advice on creativity, each of which has short sub-chapters.
The ten chapters / advice offerings are:
-Steal like an artist.
-Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started.
-Write the book you want to read.
-Use your hands.
-Side projects and hobbies are important.
-The secret: do good work and share it with people.
-Geography is no longer our master.
-Be nice.
-Be boring.
-Creativity is subtraction.
Much of the advice offered in this book is common wisdom. This is exemplified by the title chapter, “Steal like an artist.” That chapter suggests that one must learn to borrow from past artists in a way that creates an end product uniquely one’s own. It’s good advice. Frequently, artists become paralyzed by a desire to create a work that is unlike any in the annals of humanity. At some level of granularity, this is an impossibility, and each artist has to come to grips with that. I once read a book entitled Write Like the Masters which offered this exact same advice in a less pithy form but which elaborated more on how to go about this process.
It’s possible to drill down much deeper into on the subject. Some art is much more thievable than others. I once wrote a short story set in a dystopian far future in which animals of several species had evolved intelligence and other adaptations and were challenging humanity. This was panned by a few on a critique group on the grounds that it was too much like Planet of the Apes. In truth, it did have some things in common with that story (though also much that was quite different.) However, I realized that where there is only one iconic storyline that’s similar, it’s much harder to avoid being compared than when there is a wide body of work. (As opposed to say the billions of vampire stories constantly coming out that usually escape comparison to Bram Stoker’s.)
However, Kleon’s book does offer some advice that isn’t as often addressed in creativity self-help guides. For example, the advice “Marry well” that forms a sub-chapter is critically important but is usually outside the scope of this type of book (and forms its own self-help genre.)This is certainly a good piece of advice not just for life, but specifically for creativity or other personal development. A bad relationship can kill personal growth faster than almost anything else, and a good relationship certainly facilitates one becoming a better person.
Besides being concise, where the book excels is putting advice on creativity in a modern context. This is most prominent in the chapter about the changing role of geography, but it’s also seen in discussions of how to share one’s work in the world of social media and blogging. There’s a lot of advice out there about how to deal with social media. Some will tell you to avoid it like the plague because it cripples productivity. Others will say that you can’t get far in this world without having mastered social media. This book addresses the balance, which is to say being able to use social media to one’s benefit while not letting it consume one’s time and energy.
Some of the advice conflicts, such as “validation is for parking” and “keep a praise file.”
One of the most interesting parts of the book is an appendix that consists of many index card notations–a number of which are clever and thought-provoking. These include one that says merely “quilting vs. weaving” and another that has a drawing of a pitcher and one of a skeleton that says “containers vs. skeletons.”
This book is highly readable, brief, and offers cleverness sprinkled throughout. It’s worth a read if you are interested in how to spur creativity. Don’t expect revelations, but rather inspiration.
For more on creativity, I highly recommend the following talk by Monty Python alum John Cleese:
Tiger Riding for Beginners 