Where Silicon Valley Is Going to Get in Touch With Its Soul

Dr. Dean

(New York Times)
BIG SUR, Calif. — Silicon Valley, facing a crisis of the soul, has found a retreat center.

It has been a hard year for the tech industry. Prominent figures like Sean Parker and Justin Rosenstein, horrified by what technology has become, have begun to publicly denounce companies like Facebook that made them rich.

And so Silicon Valley has come to the Esalen Institute, a storied hippie hotel here on the Pacific coast south of Carmel, Calif. After storm damage in the spring and a skeleton crew in the summer, the institute was fully reopened in October with a new director and a new mission: It will be a home for technologists to reckon with what they have built.

 

A Place of My Own

Dr. Dean1 Comment

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A Place of My Own, in which Michale Pollan builds a hut in the woods — deliberately. Huh?  This continues my belief that all of Pollan’s books are all parts of the larger  Pollan meta-narrative.  He starts by discussing the fact that this is his second book and second books are in some ways the hardest.   We end with the writing hut which becomes something of a character making cameos in future books, not unlike the actual members of his family.  Also, he has not yet hit on his four topic formula — which I quite like.

I really like that these first two books are staged on his property and are directly tied to his family and their home.  Additionally, I admire how he uses this intimate and domestic setting to explore the larger issues of gardening and architecture.

Second Nature

Dr. Dean

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I am happy that I have gone back and started reading Pollan’s books from the beginning. I indented the pun because it is meaningful, all of the seeds of his future writing are in this book. This is where he starts writing books about nature and our cultural relationship with food and eventually the food industry.  We are introduced to his wife Judith and their home.  I believe key ingredients in Michael Pollan’s successful recipe for writing are the details of his biography and lived experience writing the book.  Traditional documentary films always pretend the camera crew is just some invisible omnipresent eye.  With Michael Pollan, we are always clear that there is a subject exploring an object.  In fact, the subject/object relationship is perhaps the real story.

As a first book, it is quite good but still rough around the edges compared to the later works.  He has not yet found his 4/4 rhythm which is a staple of his later books.  His literary voice is still developing and there are some rhetorical choices that seem off.  It’s a bit like listening to your favorite band just before they really find their sound.   But as I said all the seeds for his future work are here.  There is even a moment towards the end where he knows there is something missing in the garden.  It doesn’t look right.  He solves the problem in a different way than I had expected, but even this solution really sets the stage for his next book.

80-year Harvard study claims to have found the secret to health and happiness

Dr. Dean

(MarketWatch)
There are some things that money can’t buy. True friends and happiness are among them. In fact, an 80-year-long study at Harvard University claims good pals are the key to a happy life.

Scientists began tracking the health of 268 Harvard sophomores in 1938, and have continued the study over the past eight decades. The original participants included President John F. Kennedy and longtime Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, according to the Harvard Gazette. The study originally only included men, as Harvard didn’t admit women at that time, but the ongoing research has expanded, and now includes 1,300 of the original participants’ offspring. In the 1970s, 456 Boston inner-city residents were added to the study.

“The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health,” Robert Waldinger, director of the study and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, told the Harvard Gazette. “Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too. That, I think, is the revelation.” That, he said, is more important than money or fame. “Loneliness kills,” he added. “It’s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism.”

Young People In England Are At The Epicenter Of Britain’s Loneliness Epidemic

Dr. Dean

Quartz

Britain, alongside other wealthy nations, has a loneliness epidemic and it’s killing people. The UK government even appointed a loneliness minister to tackle the problem.

And contrary to assumptions about the problem being a consequence of aging, it seems that young people are at the heart of the crisis.

Data released by the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) this week show that adults aged 16 to 24 years in England reported feeling lonely more often than those over 65.

Instagram! Patient​ Zero For The Orthorexia Epidemic Or Meeting Ground For Recovery​?

Dr. Dean

(Mic)
People with orthorexia are overly concerned with whether their food is “pure,” “healthy” and “clean” enough, and often restrict their diet to a small number of “safe” foods. Those foods tend to be fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and little else.

While anorexia is an obsession with controlling the amount of food consumed, orthorexia is an obsession with controlling the quality of food consumed. The disorder is thought to have a close connection to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Many people, like Coleman, are believed to experience both anorexia and orthorexia concurrently.

Either way, you seem to end up talking a lot about kale looking at even more pictures of food.  I wouldn’t know since I avoid both Kale and Instagarm.  Though I am told by people in the know I have a lot of followers for someone who has never posted.

The Omnivores Dilemma

Dr. Dean

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As you may know Peter Gabriel titled his first handful of solo albums just Peter Gabriel.  Later critics and fans would start to differentiate them names like Peter Gabriel/Car, Peter Gabriel/Scratch.  I’ve always felt that Peter Gabriel was being cheeky in his choice of titles but simply say here is some music I did, here’s some more.  In starting The Omnivores Dilemma it became quickly apparent to me that Michale Pollan is just telling one big long story.  It just happens to be broken up into books you can read as stand-alone pieces should you choose.  I choose not to.

I am choosing to go back and read the earlier books I have missed.  I want to read them in order and then pick back up with In Defense of Food.  I feel like I have stumbled onto this really great show, but it is already in its fifth season.  So I owe it to myself and the show to start from the beginning.