Love & Work
A notebook about how we work, learn, love and live.
By design I have resisted talking politics in this letter. In turn, many of you have remarked to me how you appreciate a regular summary of good news without vitriol. But good news is meaningless if not applied to personal and collective agency.
This week's quote is from author, editor and speaker Marilyn Ferguson. She held up the "radical centrist" perspective. She wrote: "Radical Center ... is not neutral, not middle-of-the-road, but a view of the whole road. From this vantage point, we can see that the various schools of thought on any one issue – political or otherwise – include valuable contributions along with error and exaggeration."
Wiki describes it this way: "The radical in the term refers to a willingness on the part of most radical centrists to call for fundamental reform of institutions. The centrism refers to a belief that genuine solutions require realism and pragmatism, not just idealism and emotion."
We can't just sit by. And screaming at, and being terrified of each other won't help. But listening to and learning from each other will.
Happy Friday.
How We Live
"Joy isn’t the lack of pain but the presence of love."
Ross Gay’s new book Inciting Joy is out now with Algonquin Books. Photo by Natasha Komoda
"Inciting Joy, poet and professor Ross Gay’s latest inquiry into happiness, reads like an intimate conversation with a close friend. With his usual playful, openhearted wisdom, Gay explores what incites joy and what joy incites through subjects like basketball, dancing, and losing your phone. The word 'incite' is often used alongside something like a riot or a revolution, but it’s just as apt for Gay’s definition of joy: a force that dissolves our deepest systems of order—'me,' 'you,' 'good,' 'bad'—and embraces the sweet complexity of what’s left.
"Sorrow is inextricably bound up in Gay’s definition of joy. In the first chapter, Gay describes this with a scene almost identical to the night before the Buddha’s enlightenment when Mara attacks him beneath the Bodhi tree. The assault finally ends, as the story goes, when the Buddha says, 'I see you, Mara,' and invites him to sit down for tea. Gay’s version adds one more step: Invite your friends and their demons (he calls them sorrows) to the table too and make it a party. This 'potluck of sorrows' places communion and interdependence at the center. Joy isn’t the lack of pain but the presence of love." - Rachel Abrams
Book Review: A Radical ‘Joyning’
Futures Thinking
“We equate moving forward with things getting worse. When you see the future, all you see is decline, which means you are not motivated to do anything. You feel paralyzed.”
Writer and artist Jenny Odell. Photo: Chani Bockwinkel
In her latest book, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock, Jenny Odell argues that we live in a society that has structured time for profit, not for people, and that the concept that "time is money" has made our planet sick. She is particularly interested in how this assumption is interwoven into our ecological crisis. She takes umbrage with how the language that “time is running out” is leveraged to encourage people to take action now.
“'The ‘we’re running out of time’ framing conveys urgency, but it also puts the problem in the future as if it’s coming toward you as this grim inevitability,' she said, noting this ignores that climate change is already affecting people. 'The reaction is often paralysis and fear.'
"As a result, people turn inward, bracing for the impact of a future calamity rather than preparing for the one we’re already living through where wildfires burn villages to the ground and where extreme weather from climate change is already killing an estimated 5 million lives a year. Instead, it is more useful to view ourselves as having been born into the climate crisis.
“'When I think about it as something already unfolding, I lose some of the dread and resistance to thinking about it,' she said. 'When I’m not anticipating it in the future, I can think about how I can respond to it creatively today.'” - Mélissa Godin
Article: Jenny Odell Is Reimagining Time to Tackle Climate Change
Related Article: Facing Floods: What the World Can Learn from Bangladesh's Climate Solutions
Civics
As rightwing campaigns for censorship sweep the US, opponents are finding ways to keep books on the shelves.
 Martha Hickson, a high school librarian, found herself at the center of a battle over book banning. Photograph: Nick Romanenko/Courtesy of Rutgers University
"The censorship of books in the US has reached crisis level."
"...But still, there is cause for hope.
"Across the country, parents, students, teachers, librarians and community groups have successfully fought back against attempted bans, defeating well-funded, rightwing attempts to remove books that address issues of race, sexuality and gender.
"Their experiences provide a model for others who may want to stand up and defend free speech, racial equity and the rights of gay and trans youth." - Adam Gabbatt
Article: How to Beat a Book Ban: Students, Parents and Librarians Fight Back
Perception, Communication
The role of rhythm in how we perceive — and connect with — the world.
Postal workers in Ghana hand-cancel stamps with the help of rhythm. Video.
In her book, Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World, neuroscientist Nina Kraus says that rhythm "connects us to the world. It plays a role in listening, in language, in understanding speech in noisy places, in walking, and even in our feelings toward one another."
"Music and rhythm are rooted in every known culture... (and we all) experience the rhythmic changes of the seasons. Some of us have menstrual cycles. We have circadian rhythms — daily cycles of mental and physical peaks and troughs. Frogs croak rhythmically to attract mates and change their rhythm to signal aggression."
"...The currency of the nervous system — electricity — is nothing if not rhythmic. The better we understand the biological basis of rhythm, the better we will be able to employ rhythm — in all its guises — to improve communication and to better understand ourselves."
Article: The Extraordinary Ways Rhythm Shapes Our Lives
Industry, Circular Economy
A library of materials that facilitate “an ecologically mindful approach to material choices”
Agne Kucerenkaite, ‘Ignorance is bliss’ tile series, recycled metal pigments on ceramic tiles. Photo by Studio Agne
"In 2020, the Jan Van Eyck Academie in The Netherlands saw an opportunity to respond to the global shift toward sustainability. The Future Materials program was established to position “art, design, and other creative practices in relation to the climate crisis, environmental breakdown, and their manifold effects,” tapping into artists’ and designers’ penchant for experimentation. Through researching and proposing renewable alternatives to unsustainable practices, the program aimed to open up discourse and set 'a framework that embraces a diversity of practices and allows for a multitude of voices.'” - Kate Mothes
Article: Recycle and Renew: Future Materials Bank Archives Hundreds of Projects that Emphasize Sustainability
Advertising, Corporate Social Responsibility
There is a drinking straw’s worth of single-use plastic hidden inside a piece of regular chewing gum.
"Plastic-free gum manufacturer Nuud has called out its bigger rivals, including Wrigley's, in a 'playful' out-of-home campaign. The campaign, 'Chew plants not plastic' created by TheOr, stems from the fact that there is a drinking straw’s worth of single-use plastic hidden inside a piece of regular chewing gum.
"The push calls out gum brands that use single-use plastic in their products by making this ingredient more transparent on the offending brand’s packaging." - Charlotte Rawlings
Article: ‘The Food Industry’s Dirtiest Secret’: Nuud Calls Out Gum Giants on Plastic Content
Advice
Ernest Hemingway on writing what you know
Hemingway and Fitzgerald in Paris, 1925
"For Christ sake write and don’t worry about what the boys will say nor whether it will be a masterpiece nor what. I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket...."
"(And) ...Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you."
"… All you need to do is write truly and not care about what the fate of it is. Go on and write." - Ernest Hemingway
Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald
28th May 1934
One-liners
Article: NPR Quits Twitter Over “Inaccurate & Misleading” Government-Funded Media Label
Article: Your Disposable Utensils Could Someday Be Made of Sugar and Wood Powders and Degrade On-Demand
Article: Ancient Europeans Took Hallucinogenic Drugs 3,000 Years Ago
Article: Downshifting: Why People Are Quitting Their Corporate Careers for Craft Jobs
Playlist
Video: OLU DARA - Your Lips - LIVE
File this guy under "deserves to be better recognized". Born Charles Jones III in Mississippi, he moved to NYC in 1964 and changed his name to Olu Dara, which means "the Lord is good" in the Yoruba language.
He was a central character in the downtown music scene of the 70's and 80's, playing and recording with David Murray, Henry Threadgill, Hamiet Bluiett, Don Pullen, Charles Brackeen, James Blood Ulmer, and Cassandra Wilson.
He released his first album, From Natchez to New York, in 1998. A second, Neighborhoods, released in 2001 included guest performances by Dr. John and Cassandra Wilson. His Wiki page describes his music as "immersed in African-American tradition, playing an eclectic mix of blues, jazz, and storytelling, with tinges of funk, African popular music, and reggae." And oh yeah, he's the dad of the rapper Nas and is featured on a couple of his songs.
Weekly Mixtape
I call this Beatnik Jazz. Like the music of Olu Dara, it is hard to see the lines between the styles it blends.
Mixtape: Olu Dara sent me. Beatnik Jazz #3
Image of the Week
The image of the week was shot by Erin Yoon.
"The House of Sharing is a residence outside of Seoul, South Korea, for former 'comfort women,' a euphemism for women (mostly teenagers) who were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese army during the World War II. These days, Koreans endearingly call them halmonis (grandmothers). 'During my stay at The House of Sharing in 2010, the halmonis had a constant stream of visitors, from grade school students wanting to learn more about their histories, which has been subject to denial and erasure by the Japanese government, to women who came regularly to give them massages,' says photographer Arin Yoon. 'When a young mother and her two daughters gently placed their hands on Kim Hwa Seon Halmoni and began massaging her soft skin, she closed her eyes and her thoughts and words drifted away into a different space. When I think about kindness, I think about 정 jeong -- a Korean concept that connects Koreans to each other in collective social responsibility through acts of caring, empathy and gratitude. It encourages people to be present in the moment and cultivate deeper, more meaningful connections. In witnessing the halmonis receive massages from younger generations of Korean women, I could feel the healing of old and ancestral wounds. I could feel jeong.'"
Article: How Do You Take a Picture of Happiness? We Asked Photographers to Surprise Us
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.
|
