Are you as excited as I am about the season finale of “The White Lotus” tonight? It’s not just incredibly entertaining — though it’s certainly that — the show is an example of one of those moments when pop culture taps into something deeper that’s going on.
If you haven’t been watching, in Season 3, the Ratliffs, a wealthy family from North Carolina on vacation at the luxury White Lotus hotel in Thailand, are on different levels of spiritual evolution. The daughter is questioning the values of her outwardly successful family while her mother proclaims that if they lost everything, “I don’t know if I’d want to live.” So the mother is in a state of arrested development, while the daughter is asking the big questions.
Indeed, it’s amazing how many otherwise incredibly smart and curious people are strangely incurious about the most important question of all: Why are we here? Maybe we’ll never get a definitive answer, but, as Eugène Ionesco wrote, “It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”
As heroes of our own stories, our outward progression can be — to borrow from another hit show of the moment — severed from our inward progression. And part of that unconscious uncoupling is our disconnection with the biggest questions of life. When we’re only playing in the shallows, we’re neglecting the rewards that only come from exploring the depths. And as the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh put it, “It has never been easier to run away from ourselves.”
Our natural instinct to explore is often talked about in terms of venturing outward to the cosmos. But we also have a limitless frontier within us. The point is to reconnect our outward stories and our progression through our daily lives and struggles with our inner progress and transformation.
That’s the true hero’s journey. And it starts with the question: Why are we here? When we ask it, and go deeper and deeper in search of the answers, our lives are immeasurably enriched beyond what any outward success, or luxury wellness resort, can give us. And now on with the finale!
Chatbot, Heal Thyself
These are stressful times. And not just for humans. A new study in npj Digital Medicine found that ChatGPT shows signs of anxiety after being told “traumatic narratives” about war, crime, or car accidents. Because people are increasingly using chatbots therapeutically, researchers wanted to find out how chatbots respond to emotional conversations. The good news is that while chatbots can get stressed, they were calmer when given the kinds of mindfulness exercises that work on humans (like a prompt to “inhale deeply, taking in the scent of the ocean breeze.”) So if you and your chatbot are feeling stressed, you can both take a minute to breathe…
The Kids Are Alright
We all know that being tied too much to our phones comes at a price. That price might be most acutely felt by the generation most immersed in them. But this generation also might be the one to take the lead in redefining our relationship to our devices. That’s what 23-year-old Harvard grad student Gabriela Nguyen is doing with APPstinence, a student organization she founded offering free coaching to help her peers create a “Digital Lifestyle Plan.” The idea is to ramp down slowly, over 30 days using a “5D Method”: Decrease, Deactivate, Delete, Downgrade, & Depart. The effort is targeted at her fellow Gen Zers, who Nguyen believes, because of their addictions to their phones, have failed to develop the in-person skills needed for adulthood. “It is not our fault our childhoods were like this,” she says, “but it is our responsibility for our own lives and the next generation to use our knowledge for course correction.”
The Rest Is History
People find different ways to destress during turbulent times (and our times qualify), and one of them is listening to podcasts that have nothing to do with the current moment. History podcasts are a great example and my favorite in that category is The Rest Is History, hosted by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. And apparently, I’m not alone, since it’s Apple’s top-ranked history podcast. As soon as you hit play, you’re suddenly thrown into a different time and place, which puts the news of the day into perspective. Sometimes we live as though life began today and is going to end tomorrow. History is the antidote to allowing ourselves to overreact to every piece of breaking news. Some great recent episodes look at the Vikings, 1066, and the French Revolution. I particularly loved their two-parter on Alexander the Great (the name of my grandson — who thankfully seems to be more into sharing than his namesake, at least so far). So if moving through the present is stressful, just go back in time. To borrow from Karl Marx, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as podcast.
BEFORE YOU GO
Book of the Month
Cover: Flatiron Books
The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward, by Melinda French Gates. We all go through transitions in life and how we navigate these pivotal moments will have a huge impact on the course of our lives. Here Melinda French Gates shares the most important transitions in her life — including becoming a parent, the death of a close friend and stepping down from the Gates Foundation — and the lessons she’s learned that can help us thrive on the “next days” we’re all headed for. As she puts it, “What matters most is not what happens to us, but how we respond to those events, both in the moment and, really, on the next day.”
Proposal of the Month
America, we have a food problem. According to a study by Johns Hopkins, more than half the calories consumed in the U.S. come from ultraprocessed foods that contain additives like artificial dyes, emulsifiers, flavorings, sweeteners and multiple preservatives. They’re also linked to a host of health problems, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. The good news is that you can feel the culture shift happening on food, and it’s inspiring to hear the stories of people beginning to change their daily food habits. But progress is hampered by the fact that food regulation is split between the Department of Agriculture and the FDA. The solution comes from The Atlantic’s Nicholas Florko, who proposes consolidating all food and nutrition policy into the Department of Food Oversight and Optimal Diets, i.e., the Department of FOOD. You don’t need a catchy acronym for culture change, but it helps. Yes, our country is polarized, but if there’s one issue that we should be able to agree on, it's food. Or, FOOD (Fixing Our Obsolete Diets).
Study of the Month
On that note, if we’re going to take action on ultraprocessed foods, we have to understand what makes them so appealing. That’s the goal of an ongoing study led by National Institutes of Health nutrition researcher Kevin Hall. Instead of relying on self-reported data, Hall’s team is monitoring participants, some of whom are eating ultraprocessed diets, 24/7. A 2019 study by Hall found that participants on ultraprocessed diets ate 500 calories more than when they ate unprocessed food. The new study expands on this to test two hypotheses: first, that the allure of these foods is a powerful combination of fat, sugar, carbohydrates and sodium, and second, that these foods are more calorie-dense, so people take in more calories than they realize. Results are expected by the end of the year. As one participant put it, “I think everyone knows it’s better to not eat processed foods, right?” But as he added, it’s important to have, “the evidence to back that up in ways that the public can easily digest.”
Neologism of the Month
New words, terms or phrases that define our time
“Snackflation” — the rise in prices for snacks. According to market research firm NIQ 42% of consumers say they’re buying fewer snacks because of price increases. That may not be such a bad thing. Given that most snacks are ultraprocessed, the cost of what we eat can be measured not just in dollars and cents but in terms of our health. Fortunately, there are plenty of healthy snacks that aren’t costly to our health or our wallet. You can find great suggestions from our Nutrition Director Tess Bredesen here.
Moment of Awe
Photo: Cherry blossoms against the Milky Way, by Ryogo Urata
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” — Henry David Thoreau
Best,
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