*|MC:SUBJECT|*

View this email in your browser

"We are always in transition. If you can just relax with that, you'll have no problem." - Chogyam Trungpa

Love & Work
A notebook about how we work, learn, love and live.

During these very unsettled, and unsettling, times I find Chogyam Trungpa's reminder that everything is always in transition, that change might be the only sure thing in life, very reassuring.

Here in New England it is July hot. We're moving more slowly, and more deliberately. Wherever you are, I hope you can stay cool.

Happy Friday.

Personal Development, Learning
“Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language."

Krista Tippett | The On Being Project Image by Chris Daniels Photography

In this short podcast Krista Tippett brings the words of German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, to life. She describes how she discovered him while in her early 20s, and how his insights gave her "permission to keep on stretching the way I felt called to stretch".

I find her appreciation particularly reassuring during these times that stir deep questions. She describes how the permission he helped her find "has never felt more directly useful and relevant than in this post-2020 world.

"I’ve thought a lot in these years about how Rilke, too, was a citizen of a young century with spectacular and devastating potentials for creating and for destroying.

"And on some level, all of the great challenges before us — ecological, racial, economic, political — are all vast, aching, open questions for which we do not have answers and will not."

Podcast: The On Being Project, Living the Questions

How We Learn
How hip-hop has made classrooms more engaging, fostered new mindsets, and even expanded academic fields.

Hip Hop history at the San José Library. Photo by Treasure Nguyen via CC

"The year 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop culture. People around the world are taking time to reflect on and celebrate hip-hop’s accomplishments.

"Educators are not only remembering the obvious ways hip-hop has influenced language and fashion or provided the soundtrack to our study sessions and sports events, but we are also acknowledging how hip-hop has changed education. Drawing from my research exploring the educational benefits of hip-hop culture, what follows are four ways that hip-hop has changed education in America." - Vivian Lam

Article: How Hip-Hop has Enhanced American Education Over the Past 50 Years, From Rec Rooms to Classrooms

Social Messaging, Advertising
An Independence Day billboard made a simple point: drag bans are unconstitutional.

"Uncommon Creative Studio, Voss Entertainment and RuPaul’s Drag Race Werq the World Tour are behind a billboard that appeared in Times Square on 4 July. It contains one key message: Drag, like any other art form like dance, fashion or music, is a form of creative expression and is therefore protected by the First Amendment." - Liz Gorny

It's not bad self-promotion, either.

Article: RuPaul’s Drag Race Protests Drag Bans with Times Square Billboard

Personal Growth
The benefits of short-term routines

"Society has become so focused on productivity hacks and packing the most into every day that we think of long-term, consistent routines as the gold standard for spending our time.

"And, yes, long-term routines are helpful for increasing efficiency, decreasing stress and decision fatigue, freeing up cognitive resources, and helping us stay healthy.

"But short-term routines come with their own set of benefits. A routine doesn’t have to last forever to serve you well.

"Here’s a case for embracing short-term routines." - Nir Eyal

Article: You Don’t Have to Follow the Same Routines Forever

Civics, Storytelling, Messaging
To change minds we need to address people’s fears and anxieties.

"The American Rescue Plan’s temporary expansion of the child tax credit lifted more than 2 million children out of poverty, resulting in an astounding 46 percent reduction in child poverty...(but) the suite of progressive economic policies Biden enacted hasn’t made a dent in his approval ratings. In fact, in a poll from early 2023 Sixty-two percent of Americans said that Biden has accomplished 'not very much' or 'little or nothing' during his presidency."

This article draws on ideas that the authors develop further in their forthcoming book Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World. They make a clear case that there is no linear and direct relationship between economic policy and people’s political allegiances. Instead, unhappiness is a very strong predictor of voting behavior. Being extremely unhappy more than doubled a person’s likelihood of voting for Trump in 2016, and the unhappiest counties were the Trumpiest.

Most importantly, and most hopefully, they outline four strategies that are crucial to countering authoritarianism; all involve broadening our - centrists, liberals, and progressives - ideas of how to talk to people. They start with taking seriously fears and anxieties that we have too often tended to ignore or downplay.

Article: The Death of “Deliverism”

Futures Thinking, AI, Bioregionalism
Imagining a future where AI could be used as a tool for exploration and imagination, rather than pure efficiency.

Products of Place is an interactive map of speculative place-based plate concepts made from abundant local materials.

"Travel to Mexico City, Seoul or Paris and you will likely sit on the same chairs and see the same lamps. Products today no longer represent the place where they are made and used, rather they are the result of global industrial production and distribution.

"But nature doesn’t ship worldwide. Each bioregion is the product of a unique recipe — variations in sunlight, soil type, rainfall, and predator hierarchies inform what plants and animals call a place home.

"What if everyday products could emerge from their local ecosystem through a process that imitates nature? oio collaborated with artificial intelligence to explore a new design process, where objects emerge organically from a set of local variables."

Webpage: Products of Place: Localised Design with AI

Advertising, Circular Economy
Phillips launches ad campaign to promote refurbished products.

“At Philips, we believe that innovation should be about making quality products that you can enjoy for a long time,” said Josefien Olij, Global Sr. Director Marketing Communications at Philips. “We are proud to launch our latest innovation – Refurb Edition products that are not just as good as new, but better than new. The ‘Better Than New’ campaign is about creating greater awareness of the benefits of re-using perfectly good products, so consumers can use less and re-use more in a fun, easy, accessible way.”

Article: Philips 'Better Than New' - Retro-Futuristic TV Campaign for Refurbished Products.

One-liners

Article: How one amateur wildlife photographer in India built a team of 150 conservationists.

Article: Social housing is a systemic approach to providing homes that treat housing not as a commodity, but as a human right.

Article: The first home in California to be Zero Carbon certified is only the fourth in the world.

Article: How a determined few saved the city of Atlanta's art coverage

Article: The value of art to a community isn't just economic. Let's stop treating it that way.

Playlist

'Player' is a song is from Anna Ash's 2016 album Floodlights. In October of 2021 Surreal Lewis wrote about it on KCRW's website:

"While it’s been a few years since her sophomore release, sifting through our CD towers reminds us that tracks like 'Player' are always worth coming back to. Ash expresses this tension through smooth vocals and thoughtful lyrics, drawing from a variety of influences, from her folk roots to the jazz-soul of collaborators such as Joe Dart and Theo Katzman of Vulfpeck. Ash’s music is inspired as much by the sun and bustle of L.A. as it is by the snowy memories of her home in Michigan.

"This range of influence is clear on 'Player,' which offers indie rock with soul and warm production. Drums thump beneath Ash’s lyrics about the scars left behind by past heartbreak, and the healing process of moving forward without looking back."

I like this song because its soothing groove is timeless.

Video: Anna Ash - Player

Weekly Mixtape
Tunes that go down easy on a summer day.

Playlist: Player. Beatnik Jazz 8

Image of the Week

I shot the Image of the Week on my iPhone. It is eight of the recreations of the flags of the 188 countries who were members of the United Nations in the year 2000, the year the work was created. All 188 are hung now at the Peabody Essex Museum.

"Gu Wenda is among the most significant artists to emerge from China in the last 50 years. His awe-inspiring installations immerse visitors in a vision of shared humanity, global connectivity, and mass participation. He began as an ink painter, but by 1993 Gu began his united nations series, in which he works with human hair and other bodily materials. In 2000, he debuted his most expansive hair installation to date, united nations: man and space, which recreated the 188 flags of the member states of the United Nations from hair samples sourced from six continents. Using a material viscerally associated with the human body, this dramatic installation makes a powerful statement about what unites us as human beings across borders, racial, and political divides."

This stunning work is on view through November 5, 2023

Webpage: Gu Wenda: United Nations

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.

Not a subscriber? Sign up here.

You can also read Love & Work on the web.