Mental Pivot #45: Year One
Favorite posts from the first year of the newsletter, the value of boring advice, and the selfish gene metaphor.
This newsletter is now officially one year old as of last week.
Last year, I had a whopping 5 subscribers after posting the first issue. This includes my very first subscriber, Joe K., a regular on my blog who encouraged me to start the newsletter (shoutout to Joe for sticking with me and not unsubscribing).
A year later, there are over 800 of you (838 to be precise). It’s a modest number, but I like to think that what I lack in audience quantity, I more than make up for in audience quality.
I’ve learned a lot from those of you who have taken the time to email me with your thoughts, feedback, and suggestions. It’s been one of the most enjoyable aspects of this experience. So thank you for that and all the ongoing encouragement.
As for personal favorite posts from the first year, I’ll highlight a few:
The Procrastination Comic (Issue 36) was an attempt to try something different format-wise. It illustrates something many of us fall prey to (the failure to make steady, incremental progress on a project), but there’s something about actively putting it on paper that made the idea more concrete and “real” to me.
Fleeting Moments (Issue 34) explored the bittersweet experience of watching my kids growing up too quickly. This must have resonated with a many of you because I received numerous emails from those of you who were similarly touched. For what it’s worth, I’m still walking my son to school every day and he still insists on holding my hand (I know those days are numbered).
The Calm Down Chart (Issue 17) was a gift from my youngest child as an antidote to when I get “super mad.” It lists several activities to help me calm down. Even when I’m not mad, it’s a great set of ideas for regaining focus and taking much needed mental breaks. I’m still referring to it regularly.
Here’s to the next year of the newsletter being as enjoyable and enriching as the first.
Now onto this week's recommendations…
Productivity:
Follow Boring Advice: Vitaly Pushkar lists 8 “boring” but powerful behaviors in this short piece.
How to Stay on Schedule Even When You Go off Track: Nir Eyal offers practical tips on time-planning and being intentional with your time.
Why and How to Use RSS for Consuming Knowledge: Vipin Ajayakumar explains the value of curating your media consumption through old-school RSS feeds. I do this as well instead of following social media and it works well for my purposes. I use Inoreader to manage my feeds, but am intrigued by his recommendation of Unread (iOS only).
Articles:
The Disastrous Voyage of Satoshi, the World’s First Cryptocurrency Cruise Ship: Sophie Elmhirst chronicles a failed techno-libertarian fantasy to create a “seasteading” community off the coast of Panama during the COVID-19 pandemic. Audacity, hubris, idealism, and naïveté all play a role in this crazy tale of failure. One crazy fact: the three crypto-enthusiasts behind the plan purchased a 70,000 ton, 1400 passenger cruise ship having had zero prior experience with managing or operating such a behemoth.
A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: “Men are abandoning higher education in such numbers that they now trail female college students by record levels…in the next few years, two women will earn a college degree for every man, if the trend continues.”
The Other Afghan Women: Outstanding long-form piece by Anand Gopal that explores the harsh realities of life in rural Afghanistan in recent decades. Of particular interest is Gopal’s profile of a woman named Shakira, who lost 16 relatives in the past two decades of war. It’s a markedly different world from that of urban Afghanistan (where liberalism, secularism, and reforms were attempted) and the article offers a window on the complicated relationship between the rural citizenry and the Taliban.
What the Men Who Love My Boyfriend Taught Me about Social Hierarchy: a short piece by Gloria Liu that explores the ways we claim social status and identity though our associations with groups, places, and valued attributes.
Why Does it Cost so Much to Build Things in America?: Transit infrastructure costs in the United States outpace those of most other nations. The result is that we get very little return on our investment, comparatively speaking. The chief culprits: bureaucracy and regulatory hurdles, entrenched interests, inexperience, and a failure to adopt best practices from elsewhere.
Why the Selfish Genes Metaphor Remains a Powerful Thinking Tool: Evolutionary biologist J Arvid Ågren offers a primer on the gene’s-eye view of evolution including its origins, proponents, explanatory power, and critics. Are we organisms mere vehicles for the much longer-enduring through-line of genes?
Odds & Ends:
The 2021 IgNobel winners were announced on September 9th. The prize celebrates scientific inquiries that make “people laugh, then think.” The prize in ecology went to a study of the bacteria in wads of discarded chewing gum. The economics prize winner was an examination of whether obese politicians were a good indicator of corruption. The entomology prize proposed a new method for cockroach control on submarines. The official winners list can be found here.
Stuart McMillen draws long-form comics about social issues such as science, psychology, and economics. His recent series “The Town without Television” looks at a 1970s research project that studied the last Canadian town without TV reception (it’s a 3-part series, the final installment hasn’t been published yet). You can also read Stuart’s favorite pieces over the years on his Top 10 page (including a long-form comic about the War on Drugs). I’m constantly awed by the exceptional content produced by others, and McMillen’s creations are no exception.
The Veggie Digest is a new weekly newsletter that curates interesting finds in the world of veggie-focused food systems, food innovation, and sustainability. Nepotism disclosure: this publication is written by my daughter, an environmental policy major at UC Berkeley, as a way to stay abreast of this rapidly evolving space. As someone who is overdosed with traditional tech news, it’s refreshing to learn about the explosion of technological innovation and creative work taking place in a different industry.
Thank you for subscribing to the Mental Pivot Newsletter. If you’re enjoying it, be sure to share it with your friends and spread the word.
I want to be able to deliver a top-notch newsletter to all of you. To that end, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what’s working, what doesn’t, and things you’d like to see more of. You can reach me by replying directly to this email or by adding a comment on Substack.
If this newsletter was forwarded to you, visit this link to subscribe.
Alternatively, you can also read the full archive of posts, book notes and link roundups on my blog: https://mentalpivot.com.