Our ultimate and highest goal

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"The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of humans is through love and in love." — Viktor Frankl

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

Decades ago I embraced Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, known as Amma, as my personal guru. But before I did I resisted her simple message, wondering why so many people would spend days sitting at her feet waiting for their turn to be hugged by her. Then in one moment I got it. She channels pure love and then shares it bounteously with selfless service.

She has said that “Our efforts to remove hatred and indifference from the world begin by trying to remove them from our own mind.”

This is my New Year's resolution: to continue to try to notice and remove hatred and indifference from my own mind.

Happy Friday. Happy New Year.

Centering, Love
Never squander an opportunity to help others, and four other keys to a meaningful life

"Amma has dedicated her life to spreading a message of peace, tolerance and compassion. Amma has traveled the world for more than 35 years, inspiring thousands to follow in her path of service to society. Accessible to one and all, she has embraced more than 40 million people worldwide, and inspired a global volunteer-based humanitarian movement to help alleviate the burden of the poor and suffering." - Amma.org

Amma's message of unconditional love is so simple that it can be shared in just five "keys", a set of reminders from Amma to contemplate on daily.

- Never squander an opportunity to help others.
- Avoid using harsh words. If you cannot speak with love and respect, wait until you can.
- Make protecting nature a part of your daily routine.
- Maintain a regular spiritual practice, even to a small extent.
- Every day, strive to spend a little time discussing or reflecting on spiritual topics.

Web Page: Five Keys to a Meaningful Life

Centering, Love
Love "means to be sensitive to life, to things, to persons, to feel for everything and everyone to the exclusion of nothing and no one.”

Born in Bombay, British India, Anthony de Mello was a Jesuit priest who integrated eastern and western learnings of psychotherapy, spirituality and mystical tradition. He was one of the first teachers to bring mindfulness and contemplative practices to the United States. His ideas were radical enough to posthumously prompt the Catholic Church to express concern that de Mello's books "are incompatible with the Catholic faith and can cause grave harm".

So he had me at hello. In this delightfully simple book he observes that what keeps us from knowing and practicing love is our programming and conditioning; our beliefs, ideas and judgments; and our attachments.

“To drop your conditioning in order to see is arduous enough. But seeing calls for something more painful still. The dropping of the control that society exercises over you; a control whose tentacles have penetrated to the very roots of your being, so that to drop it is to tear yourself apart.”

Easier said than done, of course. But it helps to have a teacher and guide to show the way.

Book Summary: Seeing through your Programming: “The Way to Love” by Anthony de Mello (Book Summary)

Book: The Way to Love

Centering, Love
Love letters to the earth

"Sometimes I forget. Lost in the confusions and worries of daily life, I forget that my body is your body, and sometimes even forget that I have a body at all. Unaware of the presence of my body and the beautiful planet around me and within me, I’m unable to cherish and celebrate the precious gift of life you have given me. Dear Mother, my deep wish is to wake up to the miracle of life. I promise to train myself to be present for myself, my life, and for you in every moment. I know that my true presence is the best gift I can offer to you, the one I love." - Thich Nhat Hanh

Article: Thich Nhat Hanh: Ten Love Letters to the Earth

Culture, Storytelling
"We can’t restructure our society without restructuring the English language. One reflects the other."

Ursula Le Guin. Photo by Marian Wood Kolisch via CC

"A lot of people are getting tired of the huge pool of metaphors that have to do with war and conflict [and] the proliferation of battle metaphors, such as being a warrior, righting, defeating, and so on. In response, I could say that once you become conscious of these battle metaphors, you can start “fighting” against them. That’s one option. Another is to realize that conflict is not the only human response to a situation and to begin to find other metaphors, such as resisting, outwitting, skipping, or subverting. This kind of consciousness can open the door to all sorts of new behavior." - Ursula Le Guin

Article: Ursula K. Le Guin on Art, Storytelling, and the Power of Language to Transform and Redeem

Related Talk: How Language Shapes Thought | Lera Boroditsky

Teaching and Learning, Futures Thinking
Using behavioral economics to encourage people to take the long view

Tatsuyoshi Saijo by Lauren Tamaki for Vox

"A Japanese economist, Tatsuyoshi Saijo is at the forefront of the 'Future Design' movement, which aims to figure out how to get the world to care more about future generations. Their lives will be directly affected by the decisions we make today, yet they don’t have a voice in politics — so how can we make sure their needs are taken into account?

"Saijo was inspired to tackle this question head-on after learning, on a trip to the United States, about Indigenous communities that have long embraced the principle of “seventh-generation decision-making.” That principle, in some articulations, involves weighing how choices made today will affect a person born seven generations from now."

"...Saijo’s big ambition is to figure out ways to activate what he calls 'futurability' — the quality you exhibit when you happily choose to forgo current benefits because you know it’ll enrich future generations (like when a parent, facing food scarcity, willingly eats less so their kids can eat more). If researchers can design methods to activate futurability in society — and Saijo’s research suggests that’s possible — that could change how we approach massive issues like the climate crisis." - Sigal Samuel

Article: Tatsuyoshi Saijo Wants to be “A Good Ancestor”.

Habitat, Social Infrastructure
Rethinking architecture and the criminal legal system

Image credit: Designing Justice + Designing Spaces

"Headed by architect Deanna van Buren, Designing Justice + Designing Spaces is a pretty unique proposition in its field: an architecture and real estate development firm aiming to use its skills and industry as a tool to end mass incarceration. Founded in Oakland in 2017, the practice is a proudly Black woman-led one, striving for the radical imagining of spaces for care in the context of the criminal legal system."

"...‘New building types need to be designed if we want a new world,’ van Buren says. Moving away from traditional ideas, models and form making, this practice forges a path in a largely underserved building category, hoping to infuse it with new philosophies, such as concepts around restorative justice. ‘This means that social impact is the primary driver for projects we need to do,’ van Buren explains." - Ellie Stathaki

Article: Designing Justice + Designing Spaces Calls for Radical Reimagining in Architecture

Commerce, Social Mission
A clothing and homewares brand that "aspires to a slower, more thoughtful way of life, sharing knowledge, sustaining craftsmanship and supporting communities with our conscious actions".

"British brand TOAST is leading the way in bringing repair culture into clothing, homewares, and accessories and now employs as many repair specialists (six) as designers. As well as offering a repair service for customers (3,579 mends and counting), the brand has recently launched TOAST Renewed – a collection of creatively repaired pieces." - Katie Treggiden

Article: TOAST Launches Collection of Creatively Repaired Garments + Home Accessories

Advertising
Small can be beautiful

Look again. In 2003 agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky dominated this page in The Atlantic with a small space ad for the Mini. To do it they simply got permission from three other advertisers to include them in the ruse, bringing extra attention to them too.

Like most (all!) readers and viewers, I take great offense at advertisements that pop-up unannounced or otherwise interrupt my media experience. But unlike most I'm also a huge fan of small space ads, and have been since I was a magazine loving kid. How else would I know the there is a small, very portable kayak called a Poke Boat, even though I don't want one today? But someday I might, and because I've seen these relatively inexpensive ads hundreds of times they will be top of mind if I do.

As publishers and platforms get stricter about more invasive forms of digital advertising, it's time to think of otherwise unobtrusive tiles as small space ads. They're not designed to stop everyone. They're there only for the readers and viewers who care. A new book shows how it was done in the age of print.

Article: New Book Highlights How Much Graphic Designers Can Learn from the Small Ads of Yesteryear

One-liners

Article: Minnesota picks 24-year-old artist’s design for new state flag.

Article: Bird feeding is important to another species: humans.

Article: Downtowns are full of empty buildings. Universities are moving in.

Article: People in Europe ate seaweed for thousands of years before it disappeared from their diets.

Article: Drip painting was actually invented by a Ukrainian grandmother… not Jackson Pollock.

Playlist

His Wiki page describes Howe Gelb's music as "Indie rock, Americana, alt.country, roots rock, indie folk, folk-rock, lo-fi". Strikingly jazz does not make the list. Yet when I first heard him he struck me as a songwriter and stylist who had listened to a lot of Chet Baker and Mose Allison.

This song, which he introduces as a "standard for the future", makes my case. Perhaps one of the reasons I like his music so much is that he is impossible to pigeonhole. The qualities of quiet, evocative and soulful know no bounds.

Video: Howe Gelb - Irresponsible Lovers (Live on KEXP)

Weekly Mixtape
For me the week before the new year is typically one of quiet aimlessness. Here's some music for this hushed time.

Playlist: Cool your jets

Image of the Week

Here Is Where Things Are, by Oliver Jeffers.

The folks at the Outrage + Optimism podcast featured it recently on their Twitter (oops, I meant X) page:

"@OutrageOptimism Reminder: the problems are huge and manifold but we have all the solutions AND we are capable of implementing them. But they won't unfold by themselves. They require a step change from all of us. We each have great power to influence - let's use it wisely. @OliverJeffers"

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.

You can learn more about me and my work here: mitchanthony.net

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