Difference between revisions of "Evolving Self Other Resources"

Revision as of 18:54, 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
• Solnit, Rebecca. (2014). “By the Way, Your House Is On Fire.” Nation of Change. Link 10 pp. Solnit ties 9/11 events and responses to climate disruption, noting that survivors of World Trade Center attacks disregarded authorities’ commands and suggesting that we do so now.
• Duhigg, Charles. (2012). "Keystone Habits, or the Ballad of Paul O'Neill." (Chapter 4, pp. 46-56). The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.Link 11 pp., Duhigg makes a case that some habits are so central that by altering them we can make other change much more readily.

Taking a Stand

• Jensen, Derrick. (2006). "To Give Our Brightest Deepest Truth." Link 7 min
• Shem, Samuel. (3 December 2002). "Fiction as Resistance." Annals of Internal Medicine. Link (5pp, 5min)

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.

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. 10 min

Ideas for living a dream. Look at "Facts and Stats" page, and whatever else you like.

• 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."

Generating Meaning and Purpose

• Seligman, Martin. (2004). "Eudaemonia: The Good Life." The Edge. Link 15 min

A leading figure in the positive psychology movement opines about the characteristics of a life lived well.

• 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 10 min

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.

• Davidson, Sara. (autumn 2006)."The Ultimate Trip." Tufts Magazine - Link 10 Min

Brief biography of Richard Alpert/Ram Das.

• Roush, Wade. (2008, July 23). "Stever Robbins on How to Be a Happy Entrepreneur." Xconomy. Link. 10 min

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.

• Brooks, David. (2009, May 12). "They Had It Made." New York Times. Link 5 min

Brooks reviews the Grant study and comments on the divergent life paths of seemingly promising young men.

• Shenk, Joshua. (2009, June 1). "What Makes Us Happy?" The Atlantic Link 40 min

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.

• Poswolsky, Adam. "4 Tips to Help Millenials Find Meaningful Work." Fast Company. - Link 5 min

Poswolsky writes that we CAN create right livelihood by experimenting and learning. As we become more competent and accomplished we find new opportunities.

• Jacobs, Tom. (13 May 2014). "Sense of Purpose Lengthens Life." Pacific Standard. Link 5 min

Jacobs reviews a well-done study in which researchers found purpose a buffer against mortality risk across adult years.

• 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." Link 5pp., 5min

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?"

• 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. Link 5pp., 5min.

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."

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.