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"The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size." - Albert Einstein

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

This week Aeon magazine posed a question: "Is 'polycrisis' the word we need to describe unprecedented convergences between ecological, political and economic strife?" Article author Ville Lähde observes that "There is no root cause to the totality of environmental problems, nor can there be a unified solution."

Two weeks ago I held up the work of Monika Bielskyte. She uses the plural 'futures' instead of a singular 'future'. "Our work is always meant to engage the plurality of future possibilities — not a singular thread but rather the ever shifting perimeter of the probable, possible, plausible, and, most importantly, desirable."

I suggest then that we embrace another new concept: 'polypossibilty'. We are surrounded by new learnings, opportunities and possibilities, all of which can be mixed, matched and tried in brand new ways.

Here's a few ideas and learnings I fished out of the firehose this week.

Happy Friday.

How We Live, Cooperation
Weaving the study of biological evolution with human cultural evolution helps us see how humans can shift away from individualism.

David Sloan Wilson with His Holiness the Dalai Lama during the first Mind & Life Conversation at Thekchen Chöling, Dharamsala, India in 2019.

David Sloan Wilson, a distinguished professor emeritus of biological sciences at Binghamton University, is the lead author of a new paper that explores the advanced and groundbreaking—but seldom discussed—field of cultural evolution.

Looking at humanity through a lens of cultural evolution shows that "we are neither cooperative nor selfish," Wilson says. “We are capable of both—so becoming cooperative requires providing the right environmental conditions. Also, cultural evolution helps us to recognize the common denominators that apply across all contexts of our lives—our families, neighborhoods, schools, businesses, and so on, and at all scales, from small groups to the planet. This is very empowering.”

He holds up one program for at-risk high school students that he helped to design in 2010 at Regents Academy in Binghamton, New York. He says “By providing the right social environment, kids who flunked three or more of their classes during the previous year [2010] performed as well as the average high school student in the district [in 2011]."

Article: We Did Not Evolve To Be Selfish

Communication, Social Messaging
"Tell them about the dream, Martin, tell them about the dream."

Mahalia Jackson in concert in the Kongresshaus Zurich, May, 1961. The "I have a dream speech" might have been very different were it not for her prompting. Photo Comet Photo AG (Zürich) via CC.

"Every now and then, a voice can matter. Mahalia Jackson had one of them.

"Known around the world as the 'Queen of Gospel,' Jackson used her powerful voice to work in the Civil Rights Movement. Starting in the 1950s, she traveled with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. throughout the South and heard him preach in Black churches about a vision that only he could see.

"But on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, something didn’t quite sound right to Jackson as she listened to King deliver his prepared speech. King was reading from his prepared remarks when she made a simple suggestion.

“'Tell them about the dream, Martin,” she urged King, 'tell them about the dream.'

"Inspired, King cast aside his prepared remarks and ad-libbed from his heart. For the estimated 250,000 who joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that day, they heard King deliver one of his seminal sermons.

'I have a dream,' King preached, 'that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' - Bev-Freda Jackson

Article: Gospel Singer Mahalia Jackson Made A Suggestion During The 1963 March On Washington − And It Changed A Good Speech To A Majestic Sermon On An American Dream

Related Article: How The Economic Progress Of Black People Has Been Stymied By The Stagnation Of The White Working Class.

How We Live, Learning
In a culture devoid of moral education, generations are growing up in a morally inarticulate, self-referential world.

For roughly 150 years after the founding, Americans were obsessed with moral education. The moral-education programs that stippled the cultural landscape during this long stretch of history came from all points on the political and religious spectrums. School textbooks such as McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers taught not only how to read and write; they taught etiquette, and featured stories designed to illustrate right and wrong behavior. Image via ThisOldBookstore.

"Why have Americans become so mean? I was recently talking with a restaurant owner who said that he has to eject a customer from his restaurant for rude or cruel behavior once a week—something that never used to happen. A head nurse at a hospital told me that many on her staff are leaving the profession because patients have become so abusive. At the far extreme of meanness, hate crimes rose in 2020 to their highest level in 12 years. Murder rates have been surging, at least until recently. Same with gun sales. Social trust is plummeting. In 2000, two-thirds of American households gave to charity; in 2018, fewer than half did. The words that define our age reek of menace: conspiracy, polarization, mass shootings, trauma, safe spaces...."

"...The most important story about why Americans have become sad and alienated and rude, I believe, is also the simplest: We inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration. Our society has become one in which people feel licensed to give their selfishness free rein." - David Brooks

Article: How America Got Mean

How We Work
Though many CEOs in the financial industry want their workers to go to the office every day, most middle-managers don’t want to come back.

Esso Office Baton Rouge 1950, Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc., photographer, via Wikimedia Commons

"In the study, only 13% of respondents said their ideal schedule was a return to office five days a week, and only 8% wanted to be fully remote. Only 18% of respondents said they wanted to be in office 3-4 days a week. That’s no wonder.

"Sixty-six percent of respondents who are remote said they’d leave their job if they had to go in five times a week. That’s especially true for caregivers who may need extra help at home if they go into the office." - Yasmin Gagne

Podcast/Article: Why Most Managers Don’t Want To Come Back To The Office Full-Time

Related Article: Microsoft, Walmart, Airbnb, Nasdaq, AstraZeneca, Saks Fifth Avenue, and McGraw Hill are among those hiring temporary teams—so-called fractional talent—to achieve business goals.

Creativity
The day that the master improvisor Miles Davis honored a mistake by Herbie Hancock as a hidden intention

"The Beatles left in an alarm clock meant for the musicians on 'A Day in the Life' and the sound of empty booze bottles vibrating on a speaker was left in at the end of 'Long Long Long' (along with tons more). The Beastie Boys left in a jumping needle intended for a smooth scratch on 'The Sounds of Science.' Radiohead left in Jonny Greenwood’s warm-up chord that became essential to 'Creep.' (There’s a whole Reddit thread devoted to these mistakes if you choose to go down the rabbit hole.)" - Open Culture

Article/Video: What Miles Davis Taught Herbie Hancock: In Music, as in Life, There Are No Mistakes, Just Chances to Improvise

Packaging
A minimal approach to label design promises a wine without pretension.

Matthias Warnung farms 10 hectares of grape vines in the Kamptal region of Austria. He ferments all of his wines spontaneously, and uses little to no sulfur. While recognized for more conventionally labeled wines, the bottles in his Why So Serious? offerings employ a minimalist and timeless design, without any description of the grapes used to make the wine, or the flavors they present.

The only explanatory copy says: "You take the blue bottle, you make a decision for a certain possibility." "You take the red bottle, you choose one of infinite possibiltles." The designer is Lukas Diemling.

Behance Portfolio: Why So Serious?

Design, How We Live
Furniture pieces that we'd call Mid-Century Modern classics today, were just sitting in regular families' houses 70 years ago.

"There's a Peanuts cartoon strip from the '50s that drives this point home. Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty—quintessential middle-class American children—are sitting in a living room, listening to old records, including 'Old Rockin' Chair's Got Me.'

"Charles M. Schulz didn't portray them precisely, but the chair at left is most certainly the Eames LCW. In the corner, the Hardoy chair (colloquially referred to as the Butterfly or BKF Chair) designed by architects Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan and Jorge Ferrari Hardoy and briefly produced by Knoll. And the piece at right probably references the Barwa lounge chair designed and produced by Edgar Bartolucci and John Waldheim." - Rain Noe

Article: Charlie Brown Lived in a World of Mid-Century Modern Furniture

Related Article: Design Classics Of The Future. Experts Suggest A Few Recent Products That May Stick Around For Generations To Come.

One-liners

Article: Miami public official is the first in the U.S. to hold job title of Chief Heat Officer.

Article: Classical music is set to be played at some UK Metro stations to create a more "soothing" environment.

Article: Scientists see the sinking city of Venice as a laboratory for environmental solutions. Salt marshes could help.

Article: More trees on your street means fewer health problems, says study

Article: Scotland could become first ‘rewilded’ nation—what does that mean?

Article: Prescriptions for fruits and vegetables can improve the health of people with diabetes and other ailments, new study finds

Playlist

Video: Leonard Cohen - Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye (Live in London)

Leonard Cohen's Live in London was recorded July 17, 2008, at London's O2 Arena. He was 73 at the time, and had gone on tour to rebuild his finances after his career-long manager had swindled him out of most of his assets. According to Wikipedia: "Cohen's humility and self-deprecating sense of humor is evident in the between-song banter throughout the London performance, with him telling the audience, 'It's been a long time since I stood on a stage in London. It was about 14 or 15 years ago. I was 60 years old, just a kid with a crazy dream. Since then I've taken a lot of Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Ritalin, Focalin. I've also studied deeply in the philosophies of the religions but cheerfulness kept breaking through.'"

Related Film Trailer: HALLELUJAH: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song | Official Trailer (2022)

Weekly Mixtape
"I've come here to revisit what happens to the heart." - Leonard Cohen

Playlist: What happens to the heart

Image of the Week

(In the early 20th century) "Kick scooters provided an exciting way for people to travel around cities, but inventor Arthur Hugo Cecil Gibson wanted to push things further. He decided to follow in the footsteps of the battery-operated bicycle by creating a motorized scooter.

"He filed for a patent in 1913, and the transport device became known as the Autoped. In many ways, it was similar to the electric scooters we know and love today, but it still had some differences. For example, these first electric scooters were far bulkier than the sleek e-scooters we have now.

"Gibson's mission was to make an invention that was lighter than other transportation options and one that would allow people to get to where they needed to be conveniently.

"The patent came into effect in 1916, and the inventor set up a factory in Long Island, New York, to manufacture the scooters and sell them for $100 (what would be valued today as $2,718 )." - Rider Guide

Article: The First Electric Scooters

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