Daily Learn: Adorno

Three Significant Ways Capitalism Corrupts and Degrades Us
1. Leisure time becomes toxic - Free time should be an opportunity to develop ourselves and to acquire the tools to change society. But in the modern world, leisure has devolved into the "culture industry," designed to keep us distracted, unable to understand ourselves, and without the will to alter our political reality.

2. Capitalism doesn't sell us the things we really need - Our real wants are carefully shielded from us by capitalist industry so that we end up forgetting what we truly need and settle instead for desires manufactured for us by corporations without any true interest in our welfare. Though we think we live in a world of plenty, what we really require to thrive - tenderness, understanding, calm, community - are disconnected from the present economy.

3. There are proto-fascists everywhere.

The primary obstacles to social progress are cultural and psychological rather than narrowly political or economic.

The May 26 Mark

*Read a news article about a foreign country every day.
*Sign up to volunteer for something.
*Talk to a family member.
*Try to make Jess laugh.

Previously:
* No caffeine and chocolate after 3 pm.
* No screens after 10 pm.
* Spend 30 minutes outside everyday.
* Stop saying "good job" to my daughter. Use more specific praise instead.
* Use smile.amazon.com when ordering off of Amazon.
* Have a conversation with a friend or family member every week.
* Read a book just for pleasure.
* Be more forgiving of myself and others.
* Say "Thank you" more and "I'm sorry" less.
* Laugh more.
* Try to understand other people's thinking, especially if they disagree with my own.
* Create something.
* Fail. Try to laugh it off afterwards.
* Spend an hour everyday being present with my wife and daughter.
* Brush and floss my teeth every night before bed.
* Try something out of my comfort zone.

Oakland Warriors

Things I've Liked This Month

Seeing the baby river otters at the Oakland Zoo
Reading The Day Louis Got Eaten by John Fardell
Making a tin can banjo at the Spring Situation in Berkeley
Playing chicken shit bingo at the Little Longhorn Saloon in Austin
Playing with Adi in a giant cardboard box filled with packing peanuts

The role that ideas play in shaping us as human beings

"We design human nature by designing the institutions within which people live and work."

Dr. Brene Brown Says...

Connection gives purpose and meaning to our lives; to create connection, we need the courage to do things that make us feel vulnerable.

Shame is the fear of disconnection: "Is there something about me that, if other people know it, that I won't be worthy of connection?" The feeling "I'm not good enough" underpins this shame.

Shame motivates many negative behaviors:
1. We numb our emotions. When we numb ourselves from shame, grief, and disappointment, we also numb joy, gratitude, happiness.
2. We blame others to discharge pain and discomfort.
3. We seek perfection. We orphan the parts of ourselves that don't fit with our ideal, leaving just the critic.

Focusing on our behavior (guilt) has a positive influence while focusing on ourselves (shame) has a negative one. So when we do something regrettable, we should think "I did something bad" rather than "I am bad."

Trumpocalypse

I bet there are 100 billionaires out there who are thinking they could have been the presumptive Republican nominee had they simply started spreading hateful vitriol 10 months ago...And a 1000 political pundits plotting how they can replicate Trump's success in the next election cycle. Who will come AFTER Trump?

Grown-ups

MY TURN!!

Donald in Mathemagic Land

Do you have a problem in your life?

Pendulum Waves

David Foster Wallace Quote

"Dullness is associated with psychic pain because something that's dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other, deeper type of pain that is always there," namely the existential knowledge "that we are tiny and at the mercy of large forces and that time is always passing and that every day we've lost one more day that will never come back."

from the 'The Pale King" book review by M. Kakutani.

RSA Animate: Language as a Window into Human Nature

Beautiful Fight Trailer

A Video Compilation of Close Calls

This should get your heart rate up...

How to Be Happy

- Show up
- Follow your heart
- Find a new perspective
- Have a sense of wonder
- Find people you love
- Set goals
- Help others
- Dance
- Pamper yourself
- Face your fears
- Go to a museum
- Exercise
- Limit television
- Get in touch with nature
- Lighten up
- Get a good night's sleep
- Read books
- Buy yourself flowers
- Don't compare yourself with others
- Don't beat yourself up
- Be open to new ideas
- Don't focus on negative thoughts
- Focus on creating what you desire
- Make time just to have fun
- Keep the romance in your life
- Make a gratitude list
- Love your Mother Earth
- Want what you have
- Be true to yourself

"I Love Everything"

The Secret Powers of Time

via kottke:

A fascinating 10-minute animated talk by Philip Zimbardo about the different "time zones" or "time perspectives" that people can have and how the different zones affect people's world views.

The six different time zones are:

- Past positive: focus is on the "good old days", past successes, nostalgia, etc.
- Past negative: focus on regret, failure, all the things that went wrong
- Present hedonistic: living in the moment for pleasure and avoiding pain, seek novelty and sensation
- Present fatalism: life is governed by outside forces, "it doesn't pay to plan"
- Future: focus is on learning to work rather than play
- Transcendental Future: life begins after the death of the mortal body

See more talks by Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo on TED.

Deliberate Practice

Talent is waaaaaaay overrated. According to the research of psychologist Anders Ericcson, experts are no more talented, intelligent, or capable than the rest of us. Instead, these skilled performers -- ranging from professional stockbrokers, hockey players, concert violinists, cardiac surgeons, and writers -- benefit enormously from 10+ years of deliberate practice.

So what is deliberate practice? Well, it's more than just repeating the same exercise over and over. Deliberate practice involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback, and focusing on process rather than outcome (source). Exceptional performers all benefit from these environmental advantages.

Still, there are no shortcuts -- everyone have to work hard (and work smart) to become exceptional. Even so-called "child prodigies" like Bobby Fisher and Tiger Woods required the same amount of training as their peers; they just started much earlier (source).

For further reading, check out kottke's collection of links on deliberate practice along with another related topic, relaxed concentration.

Do You Have Time to Love?

To love is, above all, to be there. But being there is not an easy thing. Some training is necessary, some practice. If you are not there, how can you love? Being there is very much an art, the art of meditation, because meditating is bringing your true presence to the here and now. The question that arises is: Do you have time to love?

I know a boy of twelve whose father asked him one day: "Son, what would you like for your birthday present?" The boy did not know how to answer his father, who was a very rich man, able to buy anything for his son. But the boy did not want anything except his father's presence. Because the role the father played kept him very busy, he did not have time to devote to his wife and children. Being rich is an obstacle to loving, When you are rich, you want to continue to be rich, and so you end up devoting all your time, all your energy in your daily life, to staying rich. If this father were to understand what true love is, he would do whatever is necessary to find time for his son and his wife.

The most precious gift you can give to the one you love is your true presence. What must we do to really be there? Those who have practiced meditation know that meditating is above all being present: to yourself, to those you love, to life.

Do you have enough time to love? Can you make sure that in your everyday life you have a little time to love? We do not have much time together; we are too busy. In the morning while eating breakfast, we do not look at the person we love, we do not have enough time for it. We eat very quickly while thinking about other things, and sometimes we even hold a newspaper that hides the face of the person we love. In the evening when we come home, we are too tired to be able to look at the person we love.

We must bring about a revolution in our way of living our everyday lives, because our happiness, our lives, are within ourselves.

--Thich Nhat Hanh