Love & Work
A notebook about how we work, learn, love and live.
Let's say that again: we have the power to redeem the work of fools.
Happy Friday.
Systems Seeing
"First, I took an acid trip. Then I asked scientists about the power of altered states."
Illustration by Ian Mackay via The New Yorker
"In 'The Soul of an Octopus,' the naturalist Sy Montgomery compares scuba diving among sea creatures to taking LSD. 'I find myself in an altered state of consciousness, where the focus, range, and clarity of perception are dramatically changed,' she writes. In an e-mail, Montgomery told me that, while diving, she feels as if 'the mental experience of one species is no more real or valuable than any other.'
"When I wrote about the biologist Michael Levin, who studies electrical signals that instruct cells to become body parts, he told me, 'I look for cognition everywhere. In some places you don’t find it, but I think I see it broader than many people.'
"Maybe it does make sense to consider a tree’s intelligence." - Matthew Hutson
Article: How I Started to See Trees as Smart.
How we work
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." - Aldo Leopold
Photo by Max Titov on Unsplash
Stowe Boyd thinks that commuting breaks Leopold's golden rule. He makes the case that our planet is better served when knowledge workers, (100 million Americans in 2017) work from home.
"The arguments in favor of returning to the office for work dwindle to insignificance when compared to the environmental damage -- especially CO2 pollution -- caused by commuting, at least until we have zero-emissions commuting." - Stowe Boyd
Article: Commuting Is Evil
How we work
Is the office the height of bureaucractic efficiency, or an unnecessary evil?
The Tetley Brewers’ headquarters, Leeds, 1968 © Worldwide Photography/Heritage Images/TopFoto.
"When lockdowns first started in 2020, many white-collar workers came home to find that their jobs were already there waiting for them. Technology had long attained sufficient immediacy and sophistication for most clerical, managerial and administrative tasks to be undertaken well beyond the bounds of their traditional haunt, the office. Two years on, as quarantine regulations have started to taper off and workplaces have reopened, the necessity of the office has been called into question. If white-collar work can take place anywhere, then what are offices for?" - Daniel Jenkin-Smith
Article: The Birth and Death of the Office
Economy 2.0
"30 years ago, thinking 'like an economist' would have been taken as good adivice. Today, not so much."
"When it comes to crafting economic policy, cost-effectiveness, efficiency, choice, and competition have reigned supreme among policymakers for decades. Sociologist Elizabeth Popp Berman says that this style of economic reasoning—prioritizing efficiency above all else—makes good ideas seem like bad policy. She walks us through how that short-sighted style of thinking took hold in DC and explains when policymakers are right to lean on purely economic thinking—and when they should reject it in favor of prioritizing more fundamental values." - Pitchfork Economics
Elizabeth Popp Berman is a sociologist at the University of Michigan and the author of “Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy”.
Futures Thinking
"Optimism isn’t a belief that everything will go well all the time. It’s a belief that despite the inevitable challenges, we will make progress."
"If you want, you can call it 'realistic optimism' or 'pragmatic optimism' or 'realistic skeptical optimism' or whatever you want to call it in your head to make it feel less doe-eyed, but the actual definition of optimism captures those, so I’ll just call it optimism...".
"...It’s not blind optimism, but it’s not pessimism. It’s the very optimistic belief that things will inevitably go wrong, but that each new challenge is an opportunity for further progress.
"That’s the kind of optimism I’m arguing for, and I’ll go further: I think the single most important thing we can try to do is to make the world more optimistic. Optimism is the meta that defines the rate of progress, and progress translates into longer, healthier, wealthier, and happier lives for more people."
Article: Why it's Worth Trying to Make the World More Optimistic
Personal Development
Loving our entire work life is unrealistic. But what if we only needed to love 20% to find fulfillment?
Dorie Clark
“There's absolutely no data at all that says the most successful people only do what they love. It sounds good. ‘Find what you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life.’ There's no data backing that up at all. What you do find though, is that the most successful people in any role that you would care to study find certain aspects of what they do that they love. They don't love everything, but every day they find certain moments, situations, or people, where they find the love in what they do. That is a much more achievable and realistic aim than saying, ‘Find your passion and do all that you love.’ Research from the Mayo Clinic suggests that 20% is a really good threshold. When you actually look at what percentage of the data about how much people find things that they love, it's 20%. Above 20%, there's no actual increase in resilience. A little love every day goes an awfully long way.” - Dorie Clark
Article: How to Love What You Do
Circular Economy
The world’s 'most sustainable furniture factory' just opened in the middle of a Norwegian forest.
"Playfulness, democracy, and sustainability are at the heart of the Vestre brand and everything they do; our wooden, colourful factory in the middle of the Norwegian woods – surrounded by a 300,000 sq m public forest park...lives and breathes this philosophy. Working with the ambitious and dedicated Vestre team has been the pleasure of a lifetime." - David Zahle, a Copenhagen-based partner and architect at Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG).
Article: Vestre’s Sustainable Factory, The Plus by BIG, Opens
Organizational Productivity
Fewer meetings lead to greater productivity. Who knew?
"We found that employee productivity was 71% higher when meetings were reduced by 40%. Rather than a schedule being the boss, [employees] owned their to-do lists and held themselves accountable, which consequently increased their satisfaction by 52%. But wait, there's more...". - Pim De Morree
Article: Research Concludes: We Waste Our Time At Work
One-liners
Article: Heinz wants to be the first ketchup brand in a paper bottle
Article: Lululemon, Fenty Beauty, Goop and Glossier voice support for abortion access
Article: Le Botaniste is the first carbon-neutral restaurant in NYC
Playlist
Video: Ben Harper - We Need to Talk About It (Lyric Video)
On July 22 Ben Harper will release his new album, Bloodline Maintenance. This week, before the first U.S. federal Juneteenth, holiday, he released the first single, We Need to Talk About It.
It's a beautiful song, expertly performed and produced. The fantastic animation supports an important and essential message.
“'We Need To Talk About It' pulls no punches about the horrors and generational impact of slavery, with lyrics such as 'I say ‘Black Lives Matter,’ because history says we don’t' and 'Whoever said time heals all wounds wasn’t a slave, I’m guessing.' The song was produced by Harper and Sheldon Gomberg, who previously worked together on the former’s Grammy-winning 2013 album with blues great Charlie Musselwhite, Get Up." - Jonathan Cohen
Article: Ben Harper Wants To ‘Talk About’ Slavery On Fiery New Single
Image of the Week
"Berlin-based artist Isabel Reitemeyer is known for making uncanny collages that splice images of animals and bodies into humorously enigmatic compositions...
"...Reitemeyer taps into the ways we anthropomorphize our pets and other animals, reading into their expressions and feelings as if they were our own, resulting in sly and unusual personalities." - Kate Mothes
More of Reitemeyer’s collages on her website and on Instagram.
Article: Chimerical Creatures Combine Feathers and Fur in Isabel Reitemeyer’s Uncanny Collages
What's Love & Work?
Love & Work is the weekly newsletter by me, Mitch Anthony. I help people use their brand - their purpose, values, and stories - as a pedagogy and toolbox for transformation.
If you get value from Love & Work, please pass it on.
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