Hey friends!
Happy Monday! A brief edition for today: another collection of things that I found interesting over the past few weeks that I’ve mostly held myself back from sharing till now… Check out anything that catches your eye, and let me know what you think.
Also, I’d love to hear any feedback on these newsletters— are there things you would like to see more or less of? Have you come across any new articles or books you wanted to check out? How’s the link-to-commentary ratio? Do you find yourself seeking the invisible unsubscribe button? And what would you think about an occasional interview thrown in the mix?
Cheers,
Maya
Recommended readings
- Joe Biden and Tom Friedman’s 2002 trip to Afghanistan— showcases a human side to the very politicalized issue. This is kind of story is the one that needs to be told, more than any rational or logical argument for one decision or another.
- A beautiful article exploring the forests of Asia— I thoroughly enjoyed this just as much for the graphics and visualizations as for the content!
- What we’re saying when we talk about low-skilled jobs, and why we need to stop— maybe the most impactful and eye-opening article here, this made me question a lot of assumptions I’d passively held to be true: from what a “skill” really is, to what the real problems are in the job market.
- Many-analyses studies (in which researchers analyzing the same data in many ways) show how publication bias isn’t the only problem in science, and how it’s so important to form ideas based on collections of papers, not just on individual studies
- Pacific Northwestern ‘forest gardens’ were deliberately planted by Indigenous people— Not only have these cultivated ecosystems remained resilient long after people left them, but they their benefit to birds, bears, and insects show how human impact on the environment can have long-lasting positive effects.
- Return the National Parks to the Tribes— A very compelling argument. I wish there was more of a chance for this to happen, but starting the conversation is important, too.
Things to do or look at
- How to cope with psychic numbing, told through an illustrated story— and suggestions for how to stay engaged with dire news to empower yourself to take action
- Take this new personality profile, Principles You, just released by Ray Dalio. My strongest archetype was the Individualist, and the description seems fitting… what about yours? (Not gonna lie, I have a not-so-secret obsession with taking personality tests, so I may be unduly excited about this one!_
- Sweden in the summer is really freaking beautiful
- All the lighthouses in the world, mapped
Other musings
- “Bespoke” (custom-made, commissioned)— so maybe I’ve been watching too many British house shows, but this word has cropping up so often recently. Am I going crazy? Or am I just late to the party about the resurgence of the bespoken trend?
- A way of thinking I value a lot: having a scout mindset, searching for clues like a wolf, “the folly of dogmatic certainty”, the importance of intellectual humility, “less certainty, more inquiry”
- I’m working a lot this month on not taking excessive notes on books & articles that I read to be able to engage more deeply with them in the moment, but trying to balance that with the fact that taking notes helps me not just scroll through the text… do you ever feel this tradeoff? Any suggestions?
- Relatedly, why you should treat your pile of unread books and articles as a river instead of as a bucket you might one day manage to empty.