QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Sam Pyrah, The nature cure: how time outdoors transforms our memory, imagination and logic
(The Guardian, 27 November 2023)
We’ve been arguing this case for the past 10 years and walk the talk (watch our video with Theresa May)! We all feel, or know, that when we do not engage with natural environments, our brains cease to work well. New research in the field of environmental neuroscience now proves this incontrovertibly. In short: exposure to nature isn’t a luxury, but a necessity. If you need convincing, read on to understand how nature exposure benefits cognitive function: all the processes involved in gaining knowledge and understanding, which include perception, memory, reasoning, judgment, imagination and problem-solving (free access, reads in 6-8 min).
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Thomas Friedman, Understanding the True Nature of the Hamas-Israel War
(The New York Times, 28 November 2023)
A great explainer. Outsiders have a hard time understanding the reasons that underpin the war between Israel and Hamas because there are three interlocking wars happening at the same time: (1) The war between Israeli Jews and the Palestinians exacerbated by a terrorist group; (2) The war within Israeli and Palestinian societies over the future; and (3) the war between Iran and its proxies and the US and its allies. In all three wars, as the columnist explains, a “revamped Palestinian Authority is the keystone for the forces of moderation, coexistence and decency”. But Netanyahu stands in the way, locked in by the extreme right and the settlers (gifted article, reads in 5-7 min).
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Robert Kagan, A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.
(The Washington Post, 30 November 2023)
Deeply troubling. A must-read as the US election will be the most significant global event of 2024. The author of “Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart — Again” (to be published in May) exhorts us “to stop the wishful thinking and face the stark reality: There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day.” Read on to understand how, once Trump secures the nomination, he’ll loom over the country like a colossus, and why his many legal battlefronts cannot contain him. The bottom line: unless something radical and unforeseen happens, Trump can win the election. “If that weren’t so, the Democratic Party would not be in a mounting panic about its prospects.” And if he wins,
“Will his presidency turn into a dictatorship? The odds are, again, pretty good” (gifted article, reads in 10 min+)
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Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh and Peter Schmidt, Powerful Forces Are Fracking Our Attention. We Can Fight Back.
(The New York Times, 28 November 2023)
This issue is coming fast to the fore. In today’s ‘attention economy’ characterized by information overload and perpetual distraction, the problem of fragmented attention is reaching catastrophic proportions. This is the dark side of our new technological lives. Social media extractive profit models amount “to the systematic fracking of human beings: pumping vast quantities of high-pressure media content into our faces to force up a spume of the vaporous and intimate stuff called attention, which now trades on the open market (…). Increasingly powerful systems seek to ensure that our attention is never truly ours.” The authors, members of the “Friends of Attention” collective, argue that we must make attention itself the thing being taught in the classrooms (gifted article, reads in 6-8 min).
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Darwin Guevarra, Can Little Steps Lead to Big Joy?
(Greater Good Magazine, 14 November 2024)
Yes they can. As shown by a few science-based insights on how brief and simple exercises each day could gradually build up our potential for happiness. Micro-acts are all that matters. This is inspired by the documentary Mission: JOY: Finding Happiness in Troubled Times, (which tells the story of the deep friendship between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu), but also supported by scientific research. Like for nature in the first article, look at the science behind it which you find in the second part of the article (free access, less than 10 min, video included).
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