Issue 384
A notebook about how we work, and learn, and love and live.
"It is good to realize that falling apart is not such a bad thing. Indeed, it is as essential to evolutionary and psychological transformation as the cracking of outgrown shells." - Joanna Macy
As the author's of today's lede story say:
"We’re living through a pandemic that continues to cause untold suffering, our climate future is still genuinely scary, and it’s impossible to imagine the fear and anguish of millions of people in Afghanistan right now. Instead, we want to remind you that even during the darkest of times, there is always another set of stories out there. You won’t find them on the front pages of the New York Times and you definitely won’t get them from your Apple News feed, but they’re all true, and they’ve all happened in the last month too.
"As Jane Goodall says: 'These are stories that should have equal time, because they’re what gives people hope.'"
You know the bad news. I don't need to remind you of it. But what I can do is remind you of the good news that is happening simultaneously.
Happy Friday.
Context
Context
Current events can be seen through very different lenses.
"Catastrophe is in the air. Days ago, the largest peer-reviewed process of all time confirmed that we are in the midst of the greatest planetary crisis we’ve faced since we came down from the trees. July was the hottest month ever recorded; the Earth is hotter than it has been at any moment since the beginning of the last Ice Age. Heat waves settle across entire continents, floods rip through Germany, China and Japan, drought stalks Myanmar, Venezuela and Mali, wildfires explode across the Pacific Northwest, the Mediterranean and Siberia. Our scientists tell us humanity is unequivocally responsible for these events. 'In the past, we’ve had to make that statement more hesitantly. Now it’s a statement of fact.'”
"This is the story of collapse. It’s the oldest one in the book, and we are all intimately familiar with its lurid details. It’s on the front page of every newspaper and at the top of all of our feeds. You can tune it out or turn it off, but you cannot ignore it."
"And there is anther story, the story of renewal.
"That IPCC report makes grim reading yes, but there are also reasons for hope. A decade ago the world was on track for a particularly terrifying climate future. China was building a new coal plant every three days and global emissions were increasing at a rate of 3% per year. Ten years later, we’re in a very different place. Clean energy is now definitively cheaper than dirty energy, making climate change a solvable problem by expanding the universe of the possible. In the past, nations faced an impossible trade off between climate disaster or material impoverishment. Today, thanks to the efforts of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs, that trade off no longer exists."
"We’ve begun fixing the problem. The world has produced more electricity from clean energy — solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear — than from coal in the past two years. 32 countries have absolutely decoupled their emissions from economic growth, and global emissions will start falling this decade as the energy revolution takes hold. Is it enough? Not yet, but the darkest climate futures of a decade ago are no longer in play. With continued effort it’s possible to lower the curves even more. It will take heroic effort, unprecedented cooperation and visionary commitment. It will mean making profound changes in our societies, economies, our ways of doing things. The good news? We know how to do it."
"Perhaps there’s a better way of thinking about Collapse and Renewal.
"Instead of expecting them to follow each other in sequence, like they do in our stories, what if we consider them as things that happen in parallel? In making sense of the world, what if we give up trying to figure out whether we’re in the upswing or the downswing of history and instead, make peace with the idea that we’re in the middle of both — the long-awaited fall from grace and the journey to the promised land.
"This idea, of a ‘Great Turning’ existing side by side with a great collapse, is one we first came across in the work of ecological philosopher, Joanna Macy, and it’s become one of the cornerstones of our worldview. It accepts that the signals for disaster are everywhere we look, and so are endless examples of human progress, environmental stewardship, ecological restoration and extraordinary acts of kindness, all densely entwined and far too complex to resolve into a simple three act structure."
This is an important and ultimately very hopeful article. Living is never about collapse or renewal. It is always about both.
Learning
Learning
"The paradox of social media, and so much of our technology, is that it keeps us locked in an eternal present, while at the same time creating an eternal archive that never fades away. The result isn’t just higher levels of anxiety, depression and loneliness, it also makes it harder for us to grow and evolve — which is, after all, our essential purpose at the heart of every spiritual and philosophical tradition. Evolution did not stop when we evolved from the apes. There is an instinct embedded in us, our fourth instinct, beyond the more recognized instincts of survival, sex and power, that drives us to evolve and to grow through our mistakes, through pain, and through self-discovery.
"But we’ve reached a dangerous moment in our culture where we assume a frozen ideal, a state of arrested development, from which no growth or improvement are assumed possible. Because growth cannot happen without the necessary ingredients of redemption, forgiveness and self-forgiveness.
If we’re not allowed to learn from our mistakes, atone for them, become better people, then we can grow neither individually nor collectively. After all, the great documents we live by assume a progression — whether it’s the never-ending journey toward “a more perfect union” or Martin Luther King’s “arc of the moral universe” bending toward justice — and even our Constitution had amendments.
But true change at the systemic level has to be accompanied by change at the personal level. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it, “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.” Dr. King knew that, which is why he had made it clear that to change society, “you’ve got to change the heart.”
Article: A Culture Without the Possibility of Redemption Is a Toxic Culture
Thinking
Thinking
"More than 20 years ago, two philosophers, Andy Clark and David Chalmers, wrote a journal article that opened with a question: “Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin?” Now, that question would seem to have an obvious answer, right? The mind stops at the head. It’s contained within the skull. But Clark and Chalmers maintained that this assumption—as common as it is—is wrong. The mind, they said, takes elements from outside the head and draws them into the thinking process. These mental “extensions” allow us to think in ways our brains couldn’t manage on their own. They called this phenomenon 'the extended mind.'”
Annie Murphy Paul has just published a book on the topic, a book that she summaries here.
Book Summary: Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain
How We Work
Humans, a NY creative agency, ditched its Manhattan studio in favor of an upstate motel that serves families and fish anglers.
The motel's reception area now holds furniture that was once in Human's Chinatown office, like the vintage velvet sofa and Bertoia chairs. DeSean McClinton-Holland.
I love this story. Rather than force-fit the regulars of the 1950s-era motel that they bought to conform to a city version of a rural fantasy, the principals of creative group, Humans, honored the traditions and needs of the motel's core customers. And they brought their international creative work with them. IMO, they deserve to use the name Humans. You go, Rachel. You go, Michael.
"They had no intention of turning the Roscoe into an Arnold House or Red Rose, upscale retreats nearby run by a new generation of Catskills hoteliers who seem to follow the same design playbook of greenhouse yoga studios, vintage Americana, and Scandinavian farmhouse aesthetics. The motel’s rates, about $95 a night, are the same as they were with the previous owners. 'Most people wouldn’t appreciate or respect the structure and the history,' says Jordan Kupserschmid, a 56-year-old regular who learned to cast a fly rod on the motel lawn as a kid. 'They could have just knocked down the entire thing and built a luxury resort or house. It could have gone any direction.' The biggest change Yaeger and Ray made is that you can now book a room online."
Article: When the Office Is a Fly-Fishing Motel
Design Process, UX
To engage users to act repeatedly, we need to understand their underlying psychology: what are the reasons behind what drives user behavior?
While written for designers of digital products, this article is relevant for any creative person. In it UX Designer, Maximiliano Cabrera, breaks down the most important design principles and cognitive biases to be aware of, and how to apply them.
"For starters, every interaction a person has with a digital product follows the same pattern:
📝 Information — User filters the information
🤔 Significance — User looks for its meaning
⏰ Time — User takes an action within a time frame
🧠 Memory — User stores fragments of the interaction in their memory
"For each of these stages of interaction, I’ve compiled a list of the most relevant design principles and cognitive biases that will help you to build habit-forming products."
Article: The Psychology of Design: 15 Principles Every UI/UX Designer Should Know
Organizational Health
Research shows that working in a self-managing organization increases well-being at work.
I've mentioned Helsinki’s new Central Library Oodi before. While the building's architecture is the first to grab your attention, its mission and management style are just as bold. Laura Norris works as a Service Manager for the library. She recently reported on the organization's self-management.
"Helsinki’s awesome new Central Library Oodi opened in December 2018, located in a custom-built, architectural-award-winning building right in the heart of Helsinki.
"Expectations were high for this high-profile project, and we were expecting up to 10,000 visitors a day. Oodi doesn’t just lend books: one of the first things we did, long before we opened our doors to the public, was to create our own, ambitious evolutionary purpose: to bring more equality to the world and to increase citizen involvement in society. Our EP helps us make decisions and focus on the essential.
"We knew that in order to succeed, we’d need to work differently from how libraries usually work in the Finnish public sector. We’d need to eliminate bureaucratic bottlenecks to ensure that we’d be able to give our all at the customer interface. We decided that our teams would have to be self-managing, and we chose a way of working based on Teal.
"Even though we feel that the way we do things feels like the right way for us, it’s always great to get outside confirmation to confirm your beliefs. Tampere University asked Oodi to take part in a study into occupational wellbeing in self-managed organizations. Not many public organizations are self-managing, and Oodi was the only one of the five organizations participating in the study that was from the public sector.
"The study showed a correlation between self-management and wellbeing at work. The flow of work is often used in Finland as an indication of occupational well-being. The study indicated that this flow is a lot higher than average in self-managed work environments, and Oodi had the best flow of work of all the workplaces in the study."
Article: Research Shows That Self-Managing Organizations Have Better Occupational Well-Being
Design
Woman Made seeks to highlight the work of women in design who have largely been overlooked by history.
“'It’s amazing how many people in this book have done extraordinary things, but who aren’t taught to us in design school,' says Dr Jane Hall of her new book, Woman Made.
"Published by Phaidon, the book seeks to present and celebrate women that have made a substantial mark on design in the last century, but who haven’t necessarily made it into design history."
Article: Uncovering the Women That Design History Forgot
Playlist
Carolyn Franklin (standing) coaches her sister Aretha through a demo of Ain’t No Way, a song that Carolyn wrote.
OMG, I am crying tears of joy as a write this. I've told you more than once the there is no doubt that Dave Grohl is the coolest, nicest and most generous rock star of all time. And I've told you about the pre-teen drumming phenom Nandi Bushell, and her online challenge to a drum-off with Grohl during the first lock-down, and of Dave's gracious acceptance of the challenge, and then his counter challenge, and ultimately his admittance of defeat to her. (The article below has links to all of this.)
But what makes the story worthy of yet more broad grins and wet cheeks is the fact that last Friday night, at the very end of a set at The Forum LA, Grohl invited and welcomed Bushell on to the stage with the Foo Fighters to play 'Everlong', the very song that she used to challenge him.
"Calling Bushell 'the most badass drummer in the world,' Grohl sang the praises of the British pre-teen whom he says bested him in their viral drum duels.
"'We've had the honor to jam with some pretty amazing people over the years. Some Beatles, some [Rolling] Stones, some Pink Floyds. But this one right here takes the cake,' he said on stage."
That guy screaming on the video? That's her dad.
Video: Live Performance: Dave Grohl and Nandi Bushell at The Forum LA jamming Everlong with Foo Fighters
Article: Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl Performs On Stage with Prodigy 'Arch-Nemesis' 11-Year-Old Nandi Bushell
Image of the Week
The image of the week is a tintype portrait of Lucille Girado Hicks of Montclaire, CA. She is one of the last native speakers of the Kawaiisu language.
"Around the world, one language dies every fourteen days. By the next century, it is predicted that nearly half of the roughly seven thousand languages spoken on Earth will disappear, as dominant languages such as English, Mandarin, and Spanish exert their influence in an increasingly homogenized linguistic era, in which technology and world commerce push regionalized languages towards extinction.
"In North America alone there are more than 280 vulnerable and endangered languages spoken within Indigenous communities. Fluent speakers of these languages are often over seventy years old. Who are these language keepers of North America? What is lost when their language goes silent?
"The purpose of this series is to honor and share the work of the remaining fluent speakers of North American languages. In these photographs, each language keeper portrayed represents the gravity of all that is at stake when a language becomes endangered, as well as resiliency and the hope of revitalization."
Article: Last Speakers
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