I posted on handling what people call pandemic fatigue to Thrive Global today: Pandemic Fatigue? How to Achieve Pandemic Thriving. Here’s the text of the article: When I learned I would be locked down indefinitely, knowing we were all heading into unknown territory, I looked for role models. Who had handled such a situation successfully? Nelson Mandela had been locked down for twenty-seven years, most of that time on a[…] Keep reading →

I keep reading articles describing food as medicine, describing how vegetables and fruit are especially healthy. Saying so implies vegetables and fruit are abnormal, things you have to go out of your way for, and doof is normal. People can define normal how they want, but to me, fresh fruits and vegetables are normal. From my perspective, food isn’t medicine. It’s normal, as is health. Doof is poison and abnormal,[…] Keep reading →

“Our finest hour” never describes a bright sunny morning with the birds singing, however fine such an hour. I associate the phrase with the movie Apollo 13. The flight director said the astronauts’ perilous state after an explosion in space on the way to the moon “could be the worst disaster NASA’s ever experienced.” His peer responded, “With all due respect, sir, I believe this is going to be our[…] Keep reading →

We were born into a world with systems and practices that pollute. I don’t see how we can blame past generations for decisions they couldn’t have expected to result in our world. Who could have believed when coal first boiled water to steam and that steam created mechanical motion that we could choke the sky with fossil fuel smoke and heat the whole damned planet? Who could have imagined when[…] Keep reading →

I see more people in my neighborhood, especially my neighborhood park—Washington Square Park—addicted to I don’t know what. My whole life, I’ve never been far from seeing addiction. I don’t think I’ve known anyone uncontrollably addicted. Lately, in my daily picking up litter from the northwest corner of Washington Square Park, regulars there have started conversations with me. Our longest conversation lasted about thirty to forty-five minutes. One guy made[…] Keep reading →

Looking back generations, we can’t imagine how the lived without some things we take for granted—anesthetics, vaccines, understanding about germs. Can you imagine a tooth cavity meaning pulling it without anesthesia or a cut meaning possible death? I expect people before anesthetics couldn’t have imagined something to numb pain as well as modern anesthetics do. I expect they looked back at what generations before them lacked and felt great that[…] Keep reading →

Living in Manhattan, I used to think I had access to some of the best tasting food in the world and since a long time, maybe forever. With all the restaurants, chefs, and cuisines, I figured their competition and education must drive them to ever improving quality. The longer I cook at home and shop at farmers markets, the more I find restaurants don’t compete on quality of ingredients. What[…] Keep reading →

I gave a book on men and how men experience the world to my girlfriend at the time, maybe five or ten years ago. After reading it, she asked me, “Do men have emotions?” Apparently she thought men didn’t have emotions. In fact, she clarified, “I thought men just did things.” I’m glad she asked if she didn’t know. I was surprised she didn’t. For context, she had graduated a[…] Keep reading →

A friend recommended to me an exercise I hadn’t heard of. It sounds like the Three Raisins exercise I learned from Jon Kabat-Zinn, included in my leadership book, and assign in my leadership class. She didn’t explain much about it, but my experience with experiential exercises told me that doing it would reveal more than any explanation. The exercise The instructions: Drink a hot beverage and when I think judgmental[…] Keep reading →