There has been a lot of talk and some action about “opening” lately. Most of it has been focused on opening the economy, or more specifically businesses. Some are clamoring to get back to life “as normal” while others are concerned that such a move would endanger our individual and collective health. This debate, if you want to call it that, is taking different shapes depending upon circumstance, geography and is greatly affected by leadership of lack thereof.…
In the face of our current challenges, I’ve heard many echo my own feelings that our personal actions have been insufficient. This is especially true when we compare ourselves to others whose roles are deemed essential and actions heroic.
This sentiment at times comes when people reflect on their relative good fortune or privilege. But it is not limited to the lucky.
I’ve also spoken to those directly impacted by events.…
In this interview, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, recounted what attributes are common among musicians. One that resonated was the idea of musicians having especially patterned minds. The term refers to the ability to remember and think in patterns. In music this comes in especially handy in remembering chord progressions, lyrics etc. For an average person, we might be able to recite the words to a song we know only if we begin at a familiar place, like the beginning or at the chorus.…
As many lament what they see as a lack of moral courage in our politics and society, it perhaps is helpful to take pause and appreciate how rare and special this particular type of courage actually is.
Over a hundred years ago, Claude Monet wrote “It is a tragedy that we live in a world where physical courage is so common, and moral courage is so rare.”…
“That is very kind of you” I said to the man on the train who offered up his seat so I could sit next to my mother. I’m not sure why I used that somewhat antiquated phrase. Perhaps it is because I have been thinking of kindness a lot lately.
It began last month when my wife and I took our three daughters to see Little Women.…
The irony of self-knowledge is that to gain it, you need to look outside of yourself. Recently I noticed that tucked inside the word acknowledgement are three smaller words – a + knowledge + me.
Yet science shows that we are wired not to see the broader context of our lives. While confirmed by modern research the sentiment goes back at least to the days of Shakespeare – who wrote in Julius Caesar:
Lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.…
On our bookshelf, there is a plaque with this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt:
“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
While I’ve always aspired to such an ideal, upon further investigation, I found two problems with this quote:
Meaning in our lives is derived by what we actually do (events) and who we do them with (people). …
On a recent podcast, Kevin Bacon told a story about what it was like to act in a movie directed by Clint Eastwood. (It’s starts around the 1:49 mark)
On most movie sets, he described a pre-shoot experience marked by commotion, noise and stress.
People chaotically running around, barking “quiet on the set” and “rolling” and then slamming down the slate board that marks the scene as loud as humanly possible before the director screams “action.”…
Within one 24 hour period last week:
Ira Glass has said “audio is the most visual medium.” He was referring to the ability of gifted storytellers to paint pictures in our minds using the intimacy of their voice as a brush and words that provide color and form.
Another way to interpret that phrase is the ability to help us hear something that changes the way we forever see the world.
Throughout most of my life, this largely happened via music. Gifted…
Last week, for the first time ever, we saw a picture of a black hole. In this primer of the experience, the New York Times described a black hole as a region in space that “swallows up everything too close, too slow or too small to fight its gravitational pull.” The edge of a black hole is marked by a ring of light, called the event horizon, represents light about to be drawn into the black hole “never to escape.” …
It stood almost ten feet tall and weighted close to a thousand pounds. We were less than four feet away, separated by two trainers and a steel fence. Feeling small in its presence, it was literally awesome.
While most of the onlookers were equally mesmerized watching the polar bear go through its training exercises, it was impossible not to notice the five-year-old girl who sat just in front of me.…
The opening of David Brooks new book, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life reads:
Every once in a while, I meet a person who radiates joy…They are kind, tranquil, delighted by small pleasures, and grateful for the large ones. These people are not perfect. They get exhausted and stressed. They make errors in judgment. But they live for others, not themselves. They’ve made unshakable commitments to family, a cause, a community or a faith.…
One of the best things about writing these weekly notes is the response I get from readers like you.
Some share a brief thumbs up or question, a related link or recommendation. Other share personal stories or reflections on their own.
All are so appreciated, so please keep them coming.
Among the emails I received recently were three that go to the heart of these Monday morning notes.…
Growing up I absolutely idolized Elvis Presley. His rock and roll greeted me after Friday Little League games as I walked into the bar where my mom worked. His movies kept me company on Saturday afternoons. His gospel music was my church on Sunday.
Why I was so drawn to him is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps it was his devotion to his mother – which I shared to my own. Or…
Hot dogs didn’t come to America until the 1860’s when a German immigrant began selling them off a cart in New York’s Bowery.
Apple pie came to America courtesy of England – via Geoffrey Chaucer’s recipe. But apples originated from Asia – which is also where fireworks were created.
Baseball, our national pastime, may actually trace its roots back to Egypt – where the first use of a bat and ball were discovered.…
Most people probably consider themselves open-minded. Especially considering the connotations with being the alternative.
Yet as I learned in reading David Epstein’s book, Range: Why Generalist Triumph in a Specialized World, open-minded isn’t simply a passive way of being but an active way of thinking. (The book refers to the work of psychologist Jonathan Baron who coined the term “active open-mindedness.”)
When given the choice, our natural inclination is to seek out information that confirms our own beliefs, expertise or intentions – rather than searching out information to that may challenge them.…
I read the New York Times and watch MSNBC because they reinforce my existing beliefs (confirmation bias).
I remember bad things done to me more than good things done for me (negativity bias).
I think that the country will ultimately be ok (optimism bias).
I didn’t think the poll results were accurate leading up to the midterms (pessimism bias).
I believe that if I flip a coin five times and get heads each time, the next flip will be tails (the gambler’s fallacy).…
My six year old daughter stepped off the bus with a very long face. “Daddy, you’re going to be so mad at me. I did something awful at school today.”
Embarrassed, upset and ashamed, it took twenty minutes for her to work through her tears and tell me that she got in trouble for talking in gym class. A crime that was punishable by sitting alone on the stage at the front of the gym. A…
In general, people believe that their own actions are more important than the environments in which they live. It’s a belief that’s so powerful its name is Fundamental Attribution Bias.
At the same time, the decision of where to live, work, go to school or raise our kids is among the most important and serious ones we will make in our lives.
If you’re curious to know how much where you live may impact your life, check out these two tools:
The first from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation uses CDC data to estimate life expectancy down to the census track level.…
Nine years ago novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave what remains one of the most viewed TED talks of all time. Her topic was the danger of a single story. The single story refers to a dominant narrative we tell about a group of people or a place. Using examples from her own life and in popular culture, the talk it is both comic and tragic, simple and profound.…
In the film First Reformed, a reverend and environmentalist are experiencing existential crises – each waging a battle between hope and despair. In one exchange, the environmentalist shares his conflicting feelings about being an expectant father yet having to answer for the catastrophic effects climate change will have on the earth his unborn daughter will inherit as an adult. He asks, “What will I say when she looks at me and asks – ‘You let this happen?’”…
Want to feel good? Read the definition of honor. It can be received, given, and felt deeply. It is about respect, reputation, reverence, and integrity. Most importantly it is about recognition.
Recognition not in the sense of receiving an award but in making sure we see and acknowledge what is important and good around us.
Yes we can recognize bravery in combat with the Congressional Medal of Honor but we can also honor our mothers by treating them with the utmost respect and living in a way that would bring honor to them.…
We stood eighty-five feet off the ground, walking a hundred feet across a slender 4-inch wide beam. My six-year old daughter inched step for step in front of me until, after what seemed an eternity, we reached the platform that ended our adventure.
This all took place at the world’s tallest indoor ropes challenge course. While we were tethered to a safety harness guaranteed to stop any fall, it did not allay my fears as much as one would think. A…
Imagine if the newspaper was only published once every fifty years. What would the major headlines be? What stories would we wake up to read?
According to Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress, it would be a positively delightful experience.
We would read about how extreme poverty has been halved, diseases such as polio and malaria almost entirely eradicated. It would tell us that we are living in the most peaceful time in the history of mankind and chronicle the incredible progress made in human rights for women, minorities and the LGBTQ community.…
