Solutions in 2024
Our agency to create change operates at three levels
I believe our ability to shape our own destiny (the extent to which we have free will) operates at three levels. First, is what I will call the macro-structural level. We can look at these as governing bodies and large-scale institutions whose policies ultimately shape individual choices and interactions. Our ability to mobilize movement in these organizations requires collective action, collaboration, and coordination on a large scale.
The second is the micro-cultural level — the local organizations or groups we participate in. Who do we surround ourselves with? What schools do we go to? Which religious organizations? If any? What are the forces from which we draw most of our relative experiences?
At the macro level, it can be challenging to see the subtle influence of this or that government or economic policy. We often aren’t aware of the intricacies, so the influence operates in the background of our lives — only occasionally do these macro decisions draw our attention. At the micro-cultural level, the influence is more pronounced. They are the forces that have more explicit impacts on our behavior. This is the level of keeping up with the Joneses.
But essentially, this is the experience of — what are my neighbors up to? What books are my friends reading? Do my friends read? How do the people I surround myself with spend their free time? How do they express emotion? What values do they have?
This level often has the most profound impact on our individual choices — because the human mind responds to stimuli not objectively but relatively. We don’t compare ourselves to the global or national standard — we compare ourselves and our experiences relative to the people and the environments we are close to (unless you spend a lot of time on social media… which widens the aperture of relative comparison significantly — to our detriment, as the aperture is widened to include false comparisons and inaccurate representations).
The final level in which we can shape our futures is on the individual level. We create change on this level by building habits for ourselves. We can do this by structuring our environments to make us better versions of ourselves more easily. Essentially, the goal is to put the work of becoming your best self on auto-pilot. Our species often follows the path of least resistance — so set yourself up for success by putting the right choices into the most straightforward path possible.
Below, I will detail how we can cultivate change at these three levels.
Collective Action Solutions
As an American culture — as a global culture — the most critical question of our generation is the technology question. How do we deal with too much information? How do we handle the tools that push this information toward us in obscurely tantalizing ways designed to suck up as much of our precious and limited attention as possible?
This is a vexing challenge that has implications for our society, our communities, our families, and our individual lives.
First, the macro-structural. A recent article from Zach Rausch looks at various solutions to address the adolescent mental health crisis and the stability of liberal democracy. In collaboration with the Center for Humane Technology — Rausch proposes three categories of solutions: content-based, age-gating, and design-based solutions.
Content-based solutions would involve regulating and filtering content, age-gating solutions would delay children's entry into social media, and design-based solutions would focus on the product's initial design to mitigate harm.
Could we foster a new era of social media designed with the public interest in mind, encouraging critical thinking, human relationships, and productive democratic debates?
This will require legislation and coordination at the highest levels of government. Check out Rausch’s piece. It’s worth the read.
The Micro-Cultural
I recently read this passage from Neil Postman’s book Technopoly, which does a strikingly good job of summing up the transformation that is taking place in the modern world of the smartphone (considering that Postman wrote Technopoly in 1992). His analysis of the unfolding media revolution of his day is as pertinent now as it was then. He writes:
Tools play a central role in the thought-world of culture. Everything must give way, in some degree, to their development. The social and symbolic worlds become increasingly subject to the requirements of that development. Tools are not integrated into the culture; they attack the culture. They bid to become the culture. As a consequence, tradition, social mores, myths, politics, rituals, and religion have to fight for their lives.
- Postman, Technopoly
Postman reminds us that during the Gutenberg Revolution — after the invention of the printing press — culture witnessed a similar reckoning with a sudden explosion of too much information. This revolution resulted in 350 years of cultural turmoil and in a lot of people being burned at the stake. (The printing press resulted in the reformation, the scientific revolution, and modern nation-states… so a big deal.)
As Marshall McLuhan so eloquently states — the medium is the message — and the medium is getting more powerful.
How did culture contend with the dramatic technological upheaval of the 1400s? They invented universal schooling. The sudden influx of widespread information — both factual and not — meant we needed formal schooling for more people. We needed indexing, textbooks, and the invention of curriculums. We needed ways for people to navigate through the sea of information without becoming mentally and emotionally destroyed.
We need a new version of the same thing today.
I believe the best chance we have at getting the mental tools required into the minds of the people in our immediate culture is through the educational system.
Part of our current problem is that the educational system has lost the thread of its purpose. They have become so intertwined with engaging reactively to the next cultural wave that they have forgotten their purpose: teaching critical thinking.
The best education encourages questioning, critical thinking, and the pursuit of knowledge through dialogue and reading. What do the mediums of dialogue and reading encourage?
Real dialogue encourages active engagement, critical thinking, collaboration, reflection, community building, and adaptability.
Reading print emphasizes exposition, logical coherence, sequential development, objectivity, and reflection.
Solutions at the Individual Level
We only have so much power to control outside forces — most of our power rests in our ability to structure our immediate environment to make the things we want to manifest in our life habitual.
James Clear explains this well in his book: "Atomic Habits." Clear’s thesis is that small habits and incremental changes are powerful in achieving remarkable results (or my favorite saying: small things often). Clear introduces the concept of the "Four Laws of Behavior Change," which are:
Cue: Make it obvious.
Craving: Make it attractive.
Response: Make it easy.
Reward: Make it satisfying.
Clear drives home the point that it's all about systems and processes, not just goals. Ultimately, habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
One habit that I have cultivated for myself over the last 3 years is turning my smartphone into less of a distraction machine.
Here were my steps:
I logged out and deleted all of my social media apps. I check my accounts maybe once every 3-6 months, except LinkedIn — which I check because I have to for work about once a week.
I turned off all notifications other than text messages and phone calls during the day — and all notifications between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m. So, no news alerts, no app alerts, NO ALERTS. As a result, I am more focused and less distracted.
I still get that tug to check my device — maybe there is something new and interesting there for me to see, says my brain — but then I check the weather or something else benign, resist the urge to be pulled in further by the distraction machine and move on with my day.
Other results — I read more, think more clearly, and have better, closer, more loving relationships with my family and friends.
The 6 Pillars to Overall Wellness
We also have to ask ourselves what we can do to take care of ourselves in a world that continues to move away from how we were designed to live. Daily investment in what Dr. Andrew Huberman calls the 6 Pillars is the best way to care for your mind and body.
Here’s my spin on what I have learned from Huberman.
Sunlight in Your Eyes - Get sunlight in your eyes throughout the day. Especially in the morning if you can. Direct sunlight (not behind a window or windshield) so that the body absorbs photons and regulates your circadian rhythms.
Daily Movement - Move every day. Throughout the week, do cardio and strength. Aim for 180 - 200 minutes weekly (Zone 2 cardio - a slow jog, hike, swim, or bike).
Deep Sleep - 6 to 8 hours— and if you can, try to go to bed within an hour of the same bedtime each night. Also, keep your bedroom cool — mid-60s and very dark. Silence all notifications.
Quality Nutrition - Here I will go with the advice from the excellent Michael Pollan — eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
Healthy Relationships - Spend some time thinking about the relationships in your life. The ones you walk away from and feel energized by, those people that when you are alone, you carry on a conversation in your mind with them, and it leaves you feeling generative — generative meaning: more alive, engaged, and interested.
Then think about the people you feel drained by — the people that, when you are alone, you carry on a conversation in your mind that makes you anxious. Spend more time with the first group and less time with the second.
And this one is just from me — tell your friends you love them and, when you can, dance with them. We did a lot of this at the end of 2023 — and what a life force it is. (On a side note — it turns out dancing is ingrained in our species. In a 2017 publication by Julia F. Christensen and her collaborators, they describe cave art findings that imply that human engagement in dance dates back as far as 70,000 years.)
Stress Control - If you are doing the things mentioned above, you are doing most of the things that help control stress, but here are a few things I’ll add. From a mental health standpoint, Paul Conti suggests that the goal is to spend most of your life in a state where you feel the most agency and gratitude. I think gratitude is the doorway to most other virtues.
One other practical tactic I’ll share is one that I taught to my kids. It is a breathing technique called the physiological sigh, which is modeled after our breathing when we are in deep sleep.
Here is the method: The physiological sigh method consists of a breathing pattern consisting of two inhales through the nose followed by an extended exhale through the mouth. The first breath through the nose is almost to capacity, followed by one more quick nasal inhale that further pops open the air sacks in the lungs. (For what it is worth - my youngest son said this helps when he gets stressed during basketball practice.)
Ultimately, shaping our destiny involves making the unconscious, conscious. Then, we have the power to take action — for society, our communities, and ourselves.
Keep looking for connection,
Recommendations
As always, if you have recommendations for me — please send them my way!
What I am reading (I had a lot of time to read over this break.. so this list is longer than usual):
What the Algorithm Does to Young Girls: Unpacking the toxic treadmill of internet addiction and low self-esteem.
Why I'm Increasingly Worried About Boys, Too: Since the 1970s, boys have been pushed away from the real world and pulled into the virtual.
How Our Minds Mislead Us: The Marvels and Flaws of Our Intuition by Maria Popova on Danny Kahneman
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman (really enlightening)
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel (fascinating read)
How to Love the World More: George Saunders on the Courage of Uncertainty
What I am listening to:
“Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, Ph.D., a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University who is a world expert in the science of emotions. She explains what emotions are and how the brain represents and integrates signals from our body and the environment around us to create our unique emotional states. We discuss the relationship between emotions and language, how our specificity of language impacts our emotional processing, the role of facial expressions in emotions, and how emotions relate to sleep, movement, nutrition and the building and reinforcement of social bonds. We also discuss actionable tools for how to regulate feelings of uncertainty and tools to better understand the emotional states of others. This episode ought to be of interest to anyone curious about the neuroscience and psychology underlying emotions and for those who seek to better understand themselves and relate to others and the world in richer, more adaptive ways.”
What I am watching:
Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” Brought to Life in a Spanish Flashmob of 100 Musicians (if you click on one link — pick this one)
If you check any of these recommendations out and want to chat — drop me a line. I love hearing from you all!
And, our latest episode is out!
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