Difference between revisions of "Evolving Self Other Resources"

Revision as of 18:26, 31 March 2017

Core Readings

Overview of Addiction

• Magic, Thoughts on Addiction Link 5pp (10 min)
• Kotler, Steven. (2015). "The Truth about Addiction: We're All Junkies Now." Link 3pp, 3min.

Broad view of addiction, edging towards "habitual maladaptive behavior" and all that we imply with this definition.

• Stover, Dawn. (2014). "Addicted to Oil." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Link 3pp., 3min.

Author proposes to treat fossil fuel dependency as substance addiction, uses DSM-V to substantiate diagnosis, and iterates proven approaches to addiction treatment.

• Hagens, Nate. (2011). "Fleeing Vesuvius: The Psychological Roots of Resource Overconsumption."Link (I'm asking you to read the "Conclusion" section. Read more if you like.) 2pp, 2min; 18pp, 20min

Nate Hagens explores our appetites for novelty and status, tracing their long evolutionary history and their relationship to addictive contemporary behaviors by which we expend more and more resource for less and less satisfaction. Hagens integrates broad understanding of evolution of Earth and life with growing evidence from neurobiology to explain, and to propose exits from our current predicament. Here as in Stover's and Jackson's writings we see clearly how change within us and change without us are necessary to each other.

Love

• Jampolsky, Gerald. (2004). Love is Letting Go of Fear. Link. - A pediatric oncologist writes about ways to become more as we intend. I find illuminating his insight about love and fear being opposites. Skim read what you like from these excerpts. 10 min
• Firestone, Robert. "The Fantasy Bond." Psychology Today. Link 2pp., 2min. If you want more on this topic, see "The Fantasy Bond: A Developmental Overview," Link1 "Hunger Versus Love," Link2 and "Point of View," Link3 The Fantasy Bond, Robert W. Firestone, pp. 35-56, 365-389 [47 pgs].

Beyond Individualism

• Grant, Adam. (2013). "Does Studying Economics Lead to greed?" Link 6pp., 5min.

Various researchers have found that people who study economics become less concerned about others. Economics remains a primary framework for assessing value. Biophysical economics is means to evolve economics to reinforce understanding of interdependence of individual and common good.

Being

• Johnson, Carolyn. (2014). "People Prefer Electric Shocks to Time Alone with Thoughts." Link 3pp., 3min.

Dan Gilbert and colleagues have shown that people prefer electric shocks to being alone and quietly thinking about whatever we choose.

• Thich Nhat Hanh. (1999). "Stopping, Calming, Resting, Healing." The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching. Link pp. 24-27. 4pp., 8min.
• Brooks, David. (23 October 2015). "Lady Gaga and the Life of Passion." Link 5pp., 5min.

Brooks writes of passion, bravery, fulfillment, meaning, completion, coherence, fervent curiosity, unquenchable thirst for wholeheartedness, escaping the tyranny of public opinion, and living without fear.

• Simmons, Michael. "Ten Ways Successful People Deal With Stress Differently." TIME. (11 June 2015.) Link 4pp., 4 min.

Suggestions for chilling.

Death and Dying

• Palet, Laura Secorun. (13 September 2014). "A Cheerful Mortician Tackles the Lighter Side of Death." NPR Books. Link. 4pp., 5min.

Interview with Caitlin Doughty, author of Smoke Gets in your Eyes and Other Lessons of the Crematory. A thesis of the author is that we need to have more contact with death and dead bodies, to get more familiar and comfortable with our own dying. She is trying to reduce embalming and caskets, in favor of at-home wakes, burials in a mere shroud, and cremation ceremonies attended by the family, where a family member gets to press the button to incinerate the corpse.

• Maynard, Brittany. (2 November 2014). "My Right to Death with Dignity at 29." CNN Opinion. Link 3pp., 5 min

Brittany Maynard, a 29 year-old woman with incurable brain cancer committed suicide and made a statement for right to death with dignity.

• Emmanuel, Ezekiel. "Why I Hope to Die at 75." The Atlantic. Link 19pp., 20 min

Ezekial Emmanuel, a highly respected physician, writes about the duration of a good life, and extended morbidity consequences of medical care aimed at prolonging life. On the basis of this article officials of the AMA initiated a process to revoke an award they'd earlier given Emmanuel for medical ethics.

Changing Habits

• Keys, Alicia. "Time to Uncover." (3 June 2016). LennyLetter.com. Link 3pp., 3min.

Keys writes of becoming make-up free.

• Aamodt, Sandra; Wang, Sam. (2008, April 2). "Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind." New York Times. - Link 5 min

Aamodt and Wang say that we've limited willpower and advise us to use it wisely and increase it with practice.

• Morin, Amy. (2013, December 3). "Five Powerful Exercises to Increase Your Mental Strength." Forbes. Link - Advice I consider sound about becoming better able to practice valuescience. 5min
• Baer, Drake. (2014, March 16). "How Incredibly Lazy People Can Form Productive Habits." Fast Company. Link - Tips for habit formation. 5 min
• Boroson, Martin. (2011). "How to Meditate in a Moment." Link - Meditating in a moment to bring greater calm to any situation. 5 min
• Enge, Nick and Power, Richard. (2013). Waltzing: A Manual for Dancing and Living. 15 min total
  • "Dance for your Partner." Link

Enge describes Abraham Maslow's concept of synergy, as the merging/transcendence of selfishness and altruism.

• • "Giving." Link

Enge describes the benefits of giving.

• • "Gratitude." Link- Enge describes the benefits of gratitude
  • "Dancing in the Rain." Link

Enge describes the benefits of radical acceptance.

• Scott, Robyn. "The 30 Second Habit with a Lifelong Impact." Link 5 min

The author describes a procedure for distilling and clarifying social experience which she claims has proven beneficial for her and others.

• Barker, Eric. (30 April 2014). "Time Management Skills are Stupid. Here's What Really Works." The Week. Link 5 min

Advice on working smarter (e.g., like an athlete!) by emphasizing energy rather than time.

• Fogg, BJ. "Tiny Habits." Link Stanford professor BJ Fogg provides a formula for forming habits. 5 min

Follow this format to create your Tiny Habit recipes. “After I [existing habit/anchor], I will [new tiny behavior]” Once you identify a tiny behavior you want, you then find where it fits in your life. Plan to do the new tiny behavior after an extremely reliable habit you have, an “anchor.” Matching the new tiny behavior to an anchor routine is vital. You may require several trials get this match right. And that’s okay. You can revise until you do.

• Roberts, David. (October 2014). "Reboot or Die Trying." Outside Magazine. Link 10 min

A star blogger unplugs.

• Oettingen, Gabrielle. (24 October 2014). "The Problem with Positive Thinking. New York Times. Link 5 min

Psychologist Gabriele Oettingen reports that a balance between imagining desired outcomes and contemplating obstacles yields a better life than either untrammeled "positive thinking" or unremitting "realism."

• Arends, Brett. (18 September 2014.). "A Full Night's Sleep Can Really Pay Off—in Salary and Investments." Wall Street Journal. Link

Taking a Stand

• Jensen, Derrick. (2006). "To Give Our Brightest Deepest Truth." Link 7 min

Leading Away from Materialism

• Kasser, Tim. (2002). Excerpts. The High Price of Materialism. pp. 4, 22, 28, 40-42. Link 10 min

Kasser argues that we're too attentive to the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy and paying a grim price for ignoring what lies above. He backs his case with statistics from around the world spanning several decades.

• Kurutz, Steven. (2014, April 16). "Square Feet: 84. Possessions: 305." New York Times. - Link 10 min

Another choice on the menu of the type of home in which you want to live and with what you want to fill it.

• "Urban Homestead" Link. - Ideas for living a dream. Look at "Facts and Stats" page, and whatever else you like. 10 min
• Goldberg, Carey. (1995). "Choosing the Joys of a Simplified Life." Los Angeles Times. Link 5 min

Introduction to voluntary simplicity.

• Braw, Elisabeth. "Communal Living Projects Moving from Hippie to Mainstream." (11 May 2015). Guardian. Link 3 pp., 3 min.

Braw notes rising popularity of co-housing world-wide, remarks that people often choose it first for reasons of ecological footprint or cost and then discover its social pleasures, and connects it to the larger "sharing economy."

Exploring Energy Alternatives

• Rocky Mountain Institute. "Reinventing Fire: Electricity." Link - Writers at organization directed by Amory Lovins describe how to implement transition to a distributed electricity generating system with broad social and environmental benefit. 5pp., 5min.
• Shwartz, Mark. "Stanford scientist unveils 50-state plan to transform U.S. to renewable energy." Stanford Report. (26 February 2014) Link - Mark Jacobson of Stanford has devised 50 plans for 50 states to convert to 100% solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, and hydro power by 2050. I hope he's right. 5 min
• Anderson, L.V.. "What If Everyone in the World Became a Vegetarian?" Mother Jones (1 May 2014) Link - Anderson presents a rough yet useful analysis of the mixed effects of a universal shift to a meatless diet. 5 min

Generating Meaning and Purpose

• Seligman, Martin. (2004). "Eudaemonia: The Good Life." The Edge. Link - A leading figure in the positive psychology movement opines about the characteristics of a life lived well. 15 min
• Frankl, Viktor. (2000). "Preface," "Experiences in a Concentration Camp." Man's Search for Meaning. Link Link pp. 7-25. 20 min
• Das, Ram. (1971). "Journey," Remember, Be Here Now. Link. Link- A Harvard psychology professor becomes a spiritual teacher. "Journey" is the story of his transformation. "From Bindu to Ojas" is a topsy-turvy agglomeration of text and images with which he attempts to bridge normal everyday experience to that of his new found consciousness. I find in these writings encouragement to look beyond what I currently think and feel to the possibility of a life richer than I now imagine. Skim both and read what you want. 10 min
• Davidson, Sara. (autumn 2006)."The Ultimate Trip." Tufts Magazine - Link - Brief biography of Richard Alpert/Ram Das. 10 Min
• Roush, Wade. (2008, July 23). "Stever Robbins on How to Be a Happy Entrepreneur." Xconomy. Link. - A personal coach/business consultant on "value" and how he works with his clients to ensure that they attend to the upper levels of Maslow's hierarchy. 10 min
• Brooks, David. (2009, May 12). "They Had It Made." New York Times. Link - Brooks reviews the Grant study and comments on the divergent life paths of seemingly promising young men. 5 min
• Shenk, Joshua. (2009, June 1). "What Makes Us Happy?" The Atlantic Link - Reflections on the lives of men who were undergraduates at Harvard in the early 1940's and were part of a longitudinal study about mental health shed light on how we change over a lifetime and how we live and die more or less well. 40 min
• Poswolsky, Adam. "4 Tips to Help Millenials Find Meaningful Work." Fast Company. - Link- Poswolsky writes that we CAN create right livelihood by experimenting and learning. As we become more competent and accomplished we find new opportunities. 5 min
• Jacobs, Tom. (13 May 2014). "Sense of Purpose Lengthens Life." Pacific Standard. Link - Jacobs reviews a well-done study in which researchers found purpose a buffer against mortality risk across adult years. 5 min
• Khazan, Olga. "How Meaningful Activities Protect the Teen Brain from Depression." The Atlantic. Link - Researchers studying teens find evidence that kindness and meaningful service to others are protective of mental health.
• Monbiot, George. (2014). "Career Advice." In Monbiot's words, "You know you have only one life. You know it is a precious, extraordinary, unrepeatable thing: the product of billions of years of serendipity and evolution. So why waste it by handing it over to the living dead?" Link 5pp., 5min
• Scranton, Roy. (2013, November 10). "Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene." The New York Times. Link
• Huffington, Arianna. (2013, September 23). "Are You Living Your Eulogy or Your Résumé?" The Huffington Post. - The author opines, "[W]hile it's not hard to live a Third Metric life -- redefining success beyond money and power to include well-being, wisdom and our ability to wonder and to give -- it's very easy not to." Link 5pp., 5min.

Reconceiving The System

• Wikipedia. (2013). "Partnership and Domination Models." Wikipedia. Link - Two contrasting templates for social organization. For more info see, Riane Eisler's The Chalice and The Blade and her website. Link - 5 min
• Kick It Over. Adbusters. - Adbusters project with their characteristic mix of provocative text and images to overthrow orthodox economics. - Link Images. 5min.
• Smith, Yves. "Was Marx Right?" Truthout. (14 April 2014) Link - Commentary on concentration of wealth in the US, 1970-2014, ending, "as long as there is a sufficiently large remnant of the American middle class, still socialized to identify with the established order, no matter how beleaguered they are, it’s hard to see how any organized, large scale uprising could occur." 10 min
• Cowen, Tyler. (15 May 2015). NYTimes. "Don't Be So Sure the Economy Will Return to Normal." Link George Mason University economist cautions that discontinuities in economic development are underway, and that more loom, and warns that the shape of the outcome remains difficult to foresee. 3pp. 3min.
• Daly, Lew. The Week. 'What if Economic Growth is No Longer Possible in the 21st Century" - Lew Daly of Demos makes a case for redistribution as a necessary alternative to growth in an era when the latter is no longer possible. Link 5pp. 5min.
• Wingfield-Hayes, Georgie. "Capitalism: The Inner Battle." Occupy Wall Street. Georgie Wingfield-Hayes draws parallel between change of narrative by which slavery was rejected and one underway by which current exploitation is being rejected. Link 2pp, 5 min.

Changing Business

• Alburty, Stevan. "The Ad Agency to End All Ad Agencies." Fast Company. - Link- Alburty describes how a group of employees refused a corporate takeover and created their own venture--the ultimate strike--which they imbued with their values. 10 min
• Kjerulf, Alexander. "5 Simple Office Policies that Make Danish Workers Way More Happy Than Americans." Link- Kjerulf describes governmental and corporate policies that exist in Denmark and might well exist in the US. We can work towards these in whatever livelihood we choose and with collective action to influence enterprise and government policies. 5 min
• Bader, Christine. (21 April 2014.) "Why Corporations Fail to do the Right Thing." The Atlantic. Link - A corporate insider writes about obstacles to altering current destructive patterns of behavior evident in people operating and supporting businesses. 10 min
• Email Newsletter. Schumacher Center for a New Economy. (29 May 2015). "Plugging Leaky Buckets." - Schumacher staff plug "localism" with story of success of "Buy Eugene." Link 3pp., 3 min.
• Cohen, Patricia. "One Company's New Minimum Wage: $70,000 a Year." (14 April 2015). NYTimes. - Link - CEO of Seattle firm, Gravitas, announces $70k minimum wage for all employees.

Changing Government

• King, Mary Elizabeth. "Gene Sharp Is No Utopian." Satyagraha Foundation for Nonviolence Studies - Link- King summarizes the ideas and work of Gene Sharp, whose books about peaceful change have been widely read and applied. 10 min
• Sharp, Gene. "From Dictatorship to Democracy." Albert Einstein Institution. Link- Sharp explicitly describes how to make a democratic revolution. Appendix I: "The Methods of Nonviolent Action" lists 198. This is a 90-page book that has been translated into dozens of languages and is widely credited by leaders of revolutions in several countries. For all who wonder, "What shall we do?" Sharp provides plenty of suggestions. 5 min to read Appendix 1
• Caballero, Maria. (2004, March 11.) "Academic Turns City into Social Experiment." Harvard Gazette. Link. An example of peaceful, positive social change. 15 min

Eliminating Racism

• Yancy, George and Mills, Charles. (16 November 2014). "Lost in Rawlsland." New York Times. Link - Charles Mills, a Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Northwestern, explores past and present racism. "Whites have not merely an unrepresentative group experience, but a vested group interest in self-deception. Sociologists have documented the remarkable extent to which large numbers of white Americans get the most basic things wrong about their society once race is involved." 10 min.

Health Care

• Mowe, Sam. (24 April 2014). "The Long Good-bye." The Sun. Link - Interview with Katy Butler, author of Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death, in which she discusses death and dying with reference to the American medical system. 15 min

Cognitive Activist Art

• Jordan, Chris. (2008, February.) "Turning Powerful Stats into Art." Ted Talk. Link - An artist visually represents some of the human and matterenergy trends of our times in order to assist us in seeing and grasping who we are and what we are doing, and to motivate us to ask, "What and how shall we change to become more as we want to be." 10 min
• "Not an Alternative." Link - Gutsy artists communicate radicalism in ways from which we may draw inspiration. (see also: Link) Browse "Projects" portion of site. 5-10min.
• "Journalism is printing what someone else [more powerful than you -ds] does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell 5 sec. (Read quotation only.)
• Shem, Samuel. (28 November 2012). "Samuel Shem, 34 Years After 'The House of God'." The Atlantic. Link- Stephen J. Bergman, MD, PhD, novelist, radical critic of medical training and practice looks back at 70 and reflects upon what is important to him in medicine and life. Bergman's speaks to his own experience practicing peaceful and courageous resistance.
• Shem, Samuel. (3 December 2002). "Fiction as Resistance." Annals of Internal Medicine. Link- A physician writes of how he came to understand that he knew less what he wanted and how to get it, and of the importance and meaning of taking a stand for empathy and love. NOTE: He's a psychiatrist fascinated with how people change. (5pp, 5min)

Evolving Religion

• Dennett, Daniel C. (2006). "Five Hypotheses about the Future of Religion." Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. p. 35-36. Link - Dennett offers five alternative futures for religion. 2 min
• Lee, Adam. (2013, November 27). "Why People Are Flocking to a New Wave of Secular Communities: Atheist Churches." Alternet. Link - Atheism is fastest-growing "religion" in US, and people are creating secular "churches" (often based upon scientific religion) in order to enjoy sangha in ethical practice. 8 min
• Tarico, Valerie. (18 November 2014). "Does Religion Cause More Harm than Good? Brits Say Yes. Here’s Why They May be Right." Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Link - Former evangelical Valerie Tarico reports on research that reveals a majority of Britons perceive that religion does more harm than good, and related studies. 5 min.
• Brooks, David. (22 May 2015). NYTimes. "Building Spiritual Capital." Brooks discusses research about spirituality with or without the context of religion. He and the researcher are tip-toeing towards, though short of "science-based religing."Link 3 pp., 3 min.
• Kirchgaessner, Stephanie. (26 May 2015). Guardian. "Vatican: Ireland Gay Marriage Referendum Vote Defeat for Humanity." - Irish voters, most Catholic act to reform church and state while high Vatican official resists "reformation" essential for Roman Catholicism to become a religion consilient with a modern scientific world-view. Link 3pp., 3min.

Rethinking Philanthropy

• Koru Kenya Link- Here's an example of a small NGO working in diverse ways and at many levels to improve the human condition. I think we can make it inspiration to think creatively about how we can give. 5 min
• Appel, Jacob and Karlan, Dean. "More than Good Intentions." Innovations for Poverty Action. Link - Economists Jacob Appel and Dean Karlan illustrate with case studies the necessity for valuescience in philanthropy. Read review and Chapter 1. 30 min.
• Ridley, Matt. (25 July 2014). "Smart Aid for the World's Poor. Wall Street Journal. Link - Matt Ridley reports on Bjorn Lomborg's rankings of poverty alleviation proposals. What shall we make of such "cost/benefit analysis"? 5 min.
• Illich, Ivan. (1968). "To Hell with Good Intentions." Link - Ivan Illich tells US "do-gooders" to stay out of Latin America unless they want to be tourists and spend money. 20 min.
• Piller, Charles; Sanders, Edmund; Dixon, Robyn. (2007). "Dark Cloud Over Good Works of Gates Foundation." Los Angeles Times. Link - Critique of Gates Foundation investment policy conflicts with its giving showing how foundation money is invested to finance the very ills foundation grant money is intended to remedy. 10 min
• "Hunger and World Poverty." Link - Self-billed as people with "a practical approach to ending poverty," creators of this site offer statistics on major causes of death among poor people and concrete ways to reduce mortality among the poor. 5 min
• Heinberg, Richard. "Sustainability Metrics, Growth Limits, and Philanthropy." Post Carbon Institute. (25 June 2015.) - Heinberg calls on philanthropists to fund shift to sustainability and warns that endowments will be worthless in a depleted environment and collapsed society. Link 5pp., 5 min.

Socialism

• Wikipedia. (2014). "Basic Income." Wikipedia. Link - An excellent summary of arguments for and against and world-wide experiments and advocacy. 10-20 min, depending on how much you read
• Foulkes, Imogen. (2013, December 17). "Swiss to Vote on Incomes for All - Working or Not." BBC News. Link - Foulkes describes upcoming Swiss referendum on guaranteed income. 10 min
• Jesse, David. (2014, March 19). "Pay It Forward: Plan Would Allow Michigan Students to Attend College for 'Free.'" Detroit Free Press. Link - Jesse describes proposal to fund higher education for all from earnings of high-income graduates. 10 min
• Wheeler, David R.. (18 May 2015). "What If Everybody Didn't Have to Work to Get Paid?" Atlantic Monthly. Link - Wheeler writes of the international movement for guaranteed basic income, citing examples of crowd-funding now underway that demonstrate alternatives to waiting for people in government to act. Who among you will seize this idea and act on it? 5pp., 5min.
• Wikipedia. "Second Bill of Rights." Link "FDR's second bill of rights" - Roosevelt imagined us shaping a government designed to ensure social welfare to an extent greater than that enjoyed Western European peoples today. His vision stands in sharp contrast to our current reality, and may be useful to current youths in developing perspective about changes is US politics during the last half-century or so. 5 min
• Krugman, Paul. (25 May 2014.) "Europe's Secret Success," NYTimes. Link - Krugman accuses US media personnel of systematic misrepresentation to discredit European welfare states, and notes their successes in employment and well-being. 5 min
• Daly, Lew. (7 July 2014)."Our Mismeasured Economy." NYTimes. Lew Daly of Demos analyzes the often unacknowledged economic benefits of public spending/investment. Link 3pp., 3min.

Miscellaneous Topics

• Brown, Brené. TED. Link - Brene Brown on the power of vulnerability. (20 min)
• Bianchi, Jane. (10 April 2014). "How the Boston Marathon Bombing Inspired a New Life Path." Insights by Stanford Business. Link - Stanford GSB grad '82, survived injury in Boston Marathon bombing, shifted gears, and offers advice for living. 5 min
• Arrien, Angeles. "The Four-fold Way." (excerpts). Adrien, an anthropologist reports on four archetypes common to shamanic traditions in diverse societies, and offers suggestions for how we may incorporate qualities of these into our own lives to live/die well. Link 10p., 10 min
• The Yes Men. (2008). "Special Edition of The New York Times." Link Includes stories describing a future in which we held Obama to the values he espoused while campaigning: single-payer national health care, abolition of corporate lobbying, maximum wage for CEOs. (Please note that the site has been corrupted making much of the first page redundant; however, clicking through to any of the pages in the box on the upper left of the front page will bring up a multi-page PDF with the rest of the paper as published.) See this link for more 7 min
• Jensen, Derrick. (2009). "Forget Shorter Showers." Link 5 min - Jensen calls for collective action to achieve individual change.
• Sapolsky, Robert. (2006). "A Natural History of Peace." Foreign Affairs. - Link - Sapolsky describes social structure in primates with an eye to explaining cooperation and competition. 15 min
• Graeber, David. (2014). "Why America's Favorite Anarchist Thinks Most American Workers Are Slaves." Link - David Graeber calls for a guaranteed income. The Making Sen$e program of PBS Newshour, of which this is one example, includes a number of other proposals for reducing inequality in wealth and income. 5 min
• Original Mothers' Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe. Link - Mother's Day, initiated by a feminist, pacifist, suffragette as a call to peace, has been hijacked into yet one more orgy of consumption. 5 min
• "Change Everything Now." Link- More essays from contributors to Orion about roots of current predicament and ways out of it.