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Sloww Sunday Newsletter 065 (June 20, 2021) — Saying “Yes” to Life, Power of Contribution, Steering Civilization, & More
Hi friends,
Sloww Sunday is a free newsletter delivering the latest from Sloww along with the most interesting modern knowledge and timeless wisdom I discovered last week.
To respect your time and attention, every newsletter can be read in under 5 minutes. Enjoy!
New News
🙋♀️ I’ve received a few questions about women I recommend following. If you use Twitter, here’s a list. If you’re looking for email newsletters, my favorite is Patricia Mou’s Wellness Wisdom.
📧 I recently shared 15 email newsletters that I recommend (and actually read). I added one more! My favorite new newsletter is Eric Brown’s The Edge of Being.
Sloww Stuff
New Public Posts:
🆕 Living with Meaning: “Yes to Life” by Viktor Frankl (Book Summary)
Viktor Frankl’s writing has it all. He directly experienced life in the concentration camps. He was a neurologist, psychiatrist, and philosopher. And, he was able to translate life’s deepest insights into the simplest terms as an author. “Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything” was created from lectures given by Frankl in 1946 only eleven months after he was liberated from a labor camp. No matter what you are going through in life, Frankl offers timeless wisdom for navigating human existence. Not just to survive, but to thrive.
🆕 A Real-Life Meaningful Example of Saying “Yes to Life” (Short Story)
A short story from the book that illustrates how one person was able to find different forms of meaning in various stages of life.
New Premium Post:
🔒 How to Live Meaningfully No Matter What with “Yes to Life” by Viktor Frankl (+ Infographic)
Really excited with the flow of how this one turned out. I hope you find it practical and actionable in your everyday life! Pair with the “Man’s Search for Meaning” Premium post.
Modern Knowledge
🌎 Steering Civilization Away from Self-Destruction
(4 hrs 15 mins | YouTube)
Daniel Schmachtenberger’s latest podcast also happens to be his longest—and on one of the biggest stages with Lex Fridman. I tweeted a thread of highlights you may enjoy.
Daniel’s new initiative The Consilience Project also recently published a couple new articles.
Pair with:
“A good social system would be one where the organism of the individual and the organism of the group of individuals are synergistic to each other. So, what’s best for the individuals and what’s best for the whole are aligned.” — Daniel Schmachtenberger
Timeless Wisdom
🌌 The Power of Contribution
(2 mins | YouTube)
A two-minute video of jam-packed wisdom from Charles Eisenstein. If you aren’t familiar with him, check out his book “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible”—available on his website based on the gift economy.
Video Highlights:
- Complexity Theory: Life trends toward beauty, order, and complexity—toward more life. Order emerges out of chaos. Beauty emerges out of the interplay of basic elements that wasn’t designed into it consciously.
- Big Questions: What does power look like when it’s no longer rooted in a force-based cosmology? What does power look like when it’s rooted in the understanding of emergence and the understanding of an all-permeating intelligence?
- Key Takeaway: You don’t have to force change to happen or force beauty upon the world. Instead, you can occupy a different kind of power—the power of participating in the unfolding of the beauty that is inherent in reality.
“When we understand that, then we don’t have to be in charge of making everything happen. Instead, we can start by listening, by observing, and by asking, ‘How can I contribute to this unfolding?'” — Charles Eisenstein
🤯 Mind Expanding
Why do we dream? Neuroscientist David Eagleman has an amazing theory for why we dream called the “Defensive Activation Theory.” In a nutshell, we dream (visual activity) so our brain doesn’t think we’re blind while we’re sleeping in the dark and start rewiring our visual cortex to our other senses (hearing, touch, etc.)!
Here’s the abstract from the full research paper: “Regions of the brain maintain their territory with continuous activity: if activity slows or stops (e.g., because of blindness), the territory tends to be taken over by its neighbors. A surprise in recent years has been the speed of takeover, which is measurable within an hour. These findings lead us to a new hypothesis on the origin of REM sleep. We hypothesize that the circuitry underlying REM sleep serves to amplify the visual system’s activity periodically throughout the night, allowing it to defend its territory against takeover from other senses.”
💭 Deep Quote
“I’m reminded of life advice from the Dalai Lama on the occasion of his 80th birthday … First, he recommended, gain some internal control over your own mind and how you react to life’s difficulties. Then, adopt an ethic of compassion and altruism, the urge to help others. Finally, act on that outlook in whatever ways your life offers.” — Daniel Goleman (psychologist, science journalist, and author known for popularizing emotional intelligence)
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Support: Sloww is a one-human labor of love. If you’re interested in supporting my work, there are several financial and non-financial ways to support.
Feedback: Have something you want to say, or just want to say hi? It’s always much appreciated. Just send me an email or reach out socially.
Have a meaningful week!
Kyle Kowalski
Solopreneur & Synthesizer, Sloww
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