Love & Work
A notebook about how we work, learn, love and live.
Mark Twain called worry "interest paid on trouble before it's due." Worry takes a lot of energy and yields nothing if it does not lead to creative action. As I compile this letter week after week, I'm struck by how many problems have real solutions. Our largest challenges as a civil society are not technical in nature. They are in how we share our technical prowess.
By design this letter is a notebook, and only a notebook. Recently I've been asking myself what it would mean to collate and sort these notes into something more practically useful, something that helps each of us find and develop our own agency to stop worrying and to take more creative action.
Toward this end I'd love to hear your thoughts about the value of these ideas. Why do you open and read this letter, if only occasionally? Hit 'reply' and let me know?
Happy Friday.
How We Learn
"Activities like learning a new song, or a new dance step, or how to play a character onstage can result in a brain that is better prepared to acquire a wide range of skills, including math and science."
These brothers/sister put on a dance routine every year at Thanksgiving. Image by Lisa Ruokis via CC.
"The link between arts and academic achievement has been noted by educators for many years. But it's only in the past couple of decades that technology has allowed scientists to see some of the changes in the brain that explain why." - Jon Hamilton
Article: Building a Better Brain Through Music, Dance and Poetry
How We Live
"Poverty may be a collection of related symptoms that are preventable, treatable—and even inheritable."
 Photograph by Nathan Cooper
"Over the past decades...we’ve learned that the stresses associated with poverty have the potential to change our biology in ways we hadn’t imagined. It can reduce the surface area of your brain, shorten your telomeres and lifespan, increase your chances of obesity, and make you more likely to take outsized risks.
"Now, new evidence is emerging suggesting the changes can go even deeper—to how our bodies assemble themselves, shifting the types of cells that they are made from, and maybe even how our genetic code is expressed, playing with it like a Rubik’s cube thrown into a running washing machine. If this science holds up, it means that poverty is more than just a socioeconomic condition. It is a collection of related symptoms that are preventable, treatable—and even inheritable. In other words, the effects of poverty begin to look very much like the symptoms of a disease." - Christian H. Cooper
Article: Why Poverty Is Like a Disease
Economy
"Andy Hunter’s Bookshop platform was a pandemic hit. Now he’s on a mission to prove that small businesses can scale up without selling out."
"Andy Hunter, the founder of Bookshop.org (pictured here at Spoonbill & Sugartown Books in Brooklyn) developed his love for books early. 'I became a reader, in the beginning, because it provided me solace,' he says." Photograph: Yael Malka
Article: How Bookshop.org Survives—and Thrives—in Amazon’s World
Related Article: Lydia Davis Refuses to Sell Her Next Book on Amazon
Corporate Social Responsibility, Branding, Visual Identity
Ben Cohen wants to use cannabis profits to help make reparations.
"Ben’s Best BLNZ (B3) is a new brand of cannabis with the stated mission of 'selling great pot' and then using the power from that business to address the injustices of the war on drugs.
"All the profits from B3 are split three ways, with 10% going to the Last Prisoner Project, a non-profit working to free and reintegrate those incarcerated for cannabis offenses; another 10% goes towards supporting the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, an organization that directly impacts and breaks apart the systemic origins of racism in Vermont.
"The remaining 80% of B3’s profits will get set aside for grants and low-interest loans for Black cannabis entrepreneurs. The fund is administered by NuProject, whose projects address equity, education, and networking gaps for cannabis entrepreneurs of color." - Rudy Sanchez
Article: Ben & Jerry's Founder Launches Cannabis Brand With Design From Pentagram's Eddie Opara
Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability
Cannabis and terroir. Why pot grown outdoors has a greater diversity of terpenes and is better for the environment.
Eel River Organics is a Sun+Earth certified farm in Humboldt County, CA. They say: "We are focused on land stewardship, and we are ambassadors of the living soil. We share our floodplain farm with ancient redwoods on the banks of the Eel River, creating a Mediterranean microclimate and the world’s finest cannabis. Our dry farming methods are intuitive, regenerative, and capture the expression of our unique terroir."
I'm glad to see the Ben's Best BLNZ commitment to organic agriculture and being "terpene forward". It has been distressing to see the new industry focus solely on producing the most THC at the lowest possible cost. THC is just one of dozens of cannabinoids in cannabis which work in concert with one another to shape the user experience of a particular bud or blend.
And growing pot indoors takes a lot of energy. Today the cannabis industry is responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions. For consumers who value the ground in which our wine, salad greens and coffee is grown, it's more than a little ironic that we don't ask how or where our pot is grown.
Now research reveals that cultivation practices have a lot of influence on cannabinoid ratios and terpene content.
Article: Outdoor or Indoor Grown Cannabis: What’s the Difference?
If you do care about how how your pot is grown, you can look for the Sun+Earth certification seal. It designates "cannabis that is grown under the sun, in the soil of mother earth, without chemicals, by fairly-paid farmers. Sun+Earth aims to create a world where cannabis is grown regeneratively and organically for the well-being of all people, farmers, and the planet."
Website: sunandearth.org
How We Work
Companies that want to design office spaces that support how people actually work are using sensors to learn how they do.
To attract people to come into the office, companies are increasingly relying on employee behavioral data to ensure the space provides what workers need when they’re there.
"Erin McDannald, CEO and co-owner of Lighting Environments and its sister company, Environments, have been using data to understand how their 80 employees use their two office locations. Through data, they found that while they have 50% office occupancy, those coming in are using 100% of the space.
“'We found that people want to stretch out and move,' said McDannald. 'That’s different to pre-pandemic. People need a place where they can walk and talk.' An area of the office that was under renovation was open but without any furniture in it. From observing the heatmaps, McDannald could see people were using it as a runway. 'They would put their headphones in, talk on the phone and would walk. Every new office needs a walking track because we all got up and moved during the pandemic,' she added." - Cloey Callahan
Article: How Companies Are Using Behavioral Data to Inform Office Design
Advice
Jeni Britton Bauer on getting things done.
"Don’t give a shit about shit you don’t give a shit about. Focus on what you care about. Let everything else go.”
Podcast: Jeni Britton Bauer – Balancing Creativity & Business with the Founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams
One-liners
Article: New research shows seeing great art can inspire kids to be nicer and more generous.
Article: Urban Outfitters Inc.’s clothing rental program, Nuuly, is racking up revenue and increasing subscribers so quickly that the company believes it could be its fourth brand to become a billion-dollar business.
Article: Why we all need dinner parties in our lives
Article: Climate deniers and climate doomers are more alike than they’d like to think.
Playlist
Video: RAYE: Tiny Desk Concert
RAYE is an artist who blends scat, early R&B, hip-hop and contemporary jazz into something fresh and new. Her lyrics are personal and poignant. Her band is delicate and tight, and her multi-octave vocal range can even incorporate beautiful laughter. During an era when some young people report that jazz is irrelevant, it is reassuring to find it being redefined yet again.
Weekly Mixtape
RAYE's blending of old, new and myriad styles informs this mix.
Mixtape: Stay Flo. Easy Now #6
Passing
On Saturday, April 15, Ahmad Jamal died at the age of 92. Ted Gioia wrote a beautiful tribute that articulates how the artist "transformed the rhythmic and melodic textures of improvised music".
"But then Ahmad Jamal sat down at the piano, and just floated over the beat. Sometimes he played almost nothing. Jazz fans had never heard this way of improvising before. 'On some numbers, he will virtually sit things out for a chorus,' exclaimed critic Martin Williams—who struggled to figure out why it worked. 'It appears that Jamal’s real instrument is not the piano at all, but his audience.' How else could you explain his way of captivating listeners while playing so few notes."
Article: Jazz Piano Innovator Ahmad Jamal Is Dead at Age 92
Image of the Week
The image of the week was shot on August 4, 2021 by Indra Abriyanto.
It is of a woman in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia selling produce at a market stall, with an option for customers to pay with a QR code.
Article: The Winners of Rest of the World’s First Photography Contest
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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