What details of your life could you pay more attention to?
Mental states and somatic & emotional sensations. Sakshi Bhava is good stuff.
PROMPT: Pay More Attention
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Tag Archives: mind
5 Books to Read If You Want to Live
Over the years, I’ve read many books about survival in extreme or unexpected situations. Here are five of my favorites.
THE UNTHINKABLE by Amanda Ripley [Full Review]
What I like about this book: Ripley focuses heavily on the topic of mindset while exploring a wide range of survival situations from being stranded in a lifeboat to being in the Twin Towers on 9/11. It’s a fascinating – as well as educational – book.
SURVIVAL AT THE EXTREMES by Kenneth Kamler [Full Review]
What I like about this book: This book focuses on surviving in all the places humans are not adapted to, places where one cannot live for long without ongoing technological support. These places include Mt. Everest (with which the author has personal experience,) the ocean, and the harshest of deserts. Kamler is a medical doctor and the book, therefore, does a good job of explaining the limits of human physiology.
EXTREME FEAR by Jeff Wise [Full Review]
What I like about this book: Wise’s book examines how fear can work against us in challenging situations (e.g. causing one to freeze at the wrong time) and what methods have been developed to overcome such crippling or inappropriate fear responses. This book is not entirely about life-and-death survival, but it does have a lot to say that is relevant to the subject.
INTO THE WILD by Jon Krakauer [Full Review]
What I like about this book: This book is not like the others. There are no physical or mental techniques for survival described in it, nor discussions of physiology. Rather, it is an extremely well-written cautionary tale about a young man who goes out into the wilderness and gets in over his head. It is highly readable food-for-thought.
98.6 by Cody Lundin [Full Review]
What I like about this book: This is the closest thing to an actual survival manual on my list. But it’s written in conversational, folksy style that makes it easy to read, despite the daunting subject matter. As the title suggests, Lundin’s central premise is that one must keep the body burning at its appropriate temperature, or else…
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PROMPT: Lesson
Few things in life matter as much as they feel they do. Almost nothing is perilous, while many things feel as though they are. Don’t let illusory feelings keep one from living boldly.
Or, as the Epicureans liked to say, “What is painful is easy to endure.”
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BOOK: “The Mind Electric” by Pria Anand
The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains by Pria AnandMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher Site — Simon & Schuster
There are A LOT of pop neuroscience books out there that reflect upon what we know about the brain from what goes wrong with it. I thought I was done reading such books because, while the first few are fascinating, they tend to retell the same stories.
That said, I’m glad I read this one, and what made it worth reading was that the science was explored in a very personal way, and I don’t just mean that the author recited her own personal experiences or those of her patients (though she does both,) but rather that the whole book is imbued with her worldview. She relates maladies of the mind to works of literature, of Greek and Hindu mythology, and to other aspects of culture in a relatable manner.
Another factor that sets this book apart is that its author shows a passion for language. In that sense, it reminded me of the works of Oliver Sacks (who she references a number of times,) rather than your average — articulate but linguistically conservative — neuroscientist.
I’d recommend this book for any readers interested in neuroscience, particularly anyone looking for a book that sets itself apart from the crowd. (I don’t recall it even mentioning Phineas Gage, which I thought was a requirement of all such books.)
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PROMPT: Most Important
Daily writing prompt
What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?
Heart and brain tie. Without the former I’m not alive; without the later I am not.
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PROMPT: Modern Society
In short, I think we need to foster emotional intelligence and not just academic intelligence, and we need to rebuild social interaction in a super-tribal world (i.e. a world too big for everyone to know everyone else.) [But do the latter without the xenophobia.]
To elaborate:
First, I think we need some true coming-of-age experience that facilitates a sense of self-empowerment. This would not just be collecting envelopes of cash and dancing a dance or reciting a prayer, but something more akin to being dropped in the woods for a week. Of course, this would require engaged parenting and skill acquisition and not just leaving kids with video games and social media. It seems like a lot of our present problems result from people with no sense of empowerment or the emotional intelligence that comes therefrom. Such people may have passed all the tests but still have “imposter syndrome” and the like.
Second, we need some sort of way to build tribal-scale groups in which people interact with a small group of others repeatedly — in person and face-to-face. The challenge is that this needs to be done without increasing xenophobia, which is already trending the wrong way. I think there is a problematic tendency to be virtually engaged but not personally engaged with others in humanity. Even in I, who am intensely introverted, the social impulse remains, but we live in a world where people can successfully dropout.
Some people get one or both of these experiences in any number of ways, but it seems like an ever-increasing segment of the population lacks confidence (even if they had a 4.0 gpa the whole way through their formal education,) and lacks human interaction (even if they have 2000 social media “friends.”)
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PROMPT: Listen
I don’t. I could listen to instrumental music while writing or doing other mental work, but I can’t have anything with words / lyrics involved. It’s distracting and can warp my writing.
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BOOK: “Breath” by James Nestor
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James NestorMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Author’s Book Site
In this book, James Nestor takes an immersion journalism approach to reporting on the art and science of better breathing. In addition to participating in trainings on particular breathwork (e.g. Tummo / Wim Hof, Buteyko breathing, Sudarshan Kriya, the DeRose method, etc.,) he participates in a scientific studying involving closing off his nostrils for a few weeks and then systematically nose breathing for a few more. (The first half of which he describes as torturous.) In between discussions of his own experiences, he explores both ancient breathwork teachings and the discoveries of modern science.
While there’s not really anything new in this book, it does a good job of presenting the information in a clear and readable form. In truth, it would be hard to say something both profound and new on the subject, given that yogis, tantrics, Daoists, and others have been systematically observing and altering breath for centuries to improve health, concentration, and emotional poise. Even the seemingly modern systems are by-and-large variants of the old ways (e.g. Wim Hof breathwork adapts the Tummo of Vajrayana Buddhism, DeRose worked from ancient yoga teachings, and Andrew Weil’s 4-7-8 breathing is pretty much the 1:2:2 vrtti pranayama that yogi’s have practiced for centuries.) Still, despite the basic information in the book being widely available, there remains a crisis of bad breathing and the cascade of ill-health that results, therefrom, and so it is a valuable book. (The key takeaways are: nose breathe, breathe slowly and deeply, hyperventilate only consciously and occasionally, and elongate exhalation to facilitate relaxation.)
The newest information to me, personally, was that of Chapter 7, which dealt with the role that shifting to softer, cooked foods played in humanity’s proclivity for breathing problems. Chapter 1, which deals with humankind’s unique breathing issues, also provides insight into why people have so many problems with something so fundamental to life as breathing. Nestor also presented some of the breath-relevant insights of Albert Szent-Györgyi, a Nobel-winning biochemist whose work offered some insight into the connection between electrons and both cancer and aging. So, in addition to some nice reminders and references, I did learn a thing or two as well.
This is a fine overview of breath and how to improve it for better living, and I’d recommend it for anyone looking to learn more on the subject.
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“Wonder—is not precisely Knowing” (1331) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]
Wonder—is not precisely Knowing
And not precisely Knowing not—
A beautiful but bleak condition
He has not lived who has not felt—
Suspense—is his maturer Sister—
Whether Adult Delight is Pain
Or of itself a new misgiving—
This is the Gnat that mangles men—
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Lost in a Fog [Free Verse]
Lost
in a foggy wood.
all the trees alike,
no long view,
no hint of the sun's position...
(or existence.)
just the vertical stripes of
straight pinetree trunks --
like the bars
of the cell
of a giant --
laid against a fluffy white
backdrop.
I can scurry between
the bars, like a mouse,
but am still lost
and still caged.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 