Food For Thought (8/1/21)

Hi Friends,

This month I got many good recommendations from many of you on different resources that help open our eyes and see the world in a slightly new way. There were so many good recommendations that I barely had time to go through them all. 

Thank you for sending them, and please NEVER stop. Of the ones I did manage to check, here are a few of my favorite ones.

I hope you enjoy them too!

Book recommendation:

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcom Gladwell - How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true?

While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you'll hear the voices of people he interviewed--scientists, criminologists, military psychologists. Court transcripts are brought to life with re-enactments. You actually hear the contentious arrest of Sandra Bland by the side of the road in Texas. As Gladwell revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, and the suicide of Sylvia Plath, you hear directly from many of the players in these real-life tragedies. There's even a theme song - Janelle Monae's "Hell You Talmbout."

Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don't know. And because we don't know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world.

Worth pondering:

Author and writing teacher Julia Cameron on what it takes to improve:

"It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time.

Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one."

Source: The Artist's Way

Worth watching:

Fantastic Fungi - Fantastic Fungi is a consciousness-shifting film about the mycelium network that takes us on an immersive journey through time and scale into the magical earth beneath our feet, an underground network that can heal and save our planet. Through the eyes of renowned scientists and mycologists like Paul Stamets, best-selling authors like Michael Pollan, Eugenia Bone, Andrew Weil and others, we become aware of the beauty, intelligence and solutions that fungi kingdom offers in response to some of our most pressing medical, therapeutic, and environmental challenges.

Worth listening to:

Hidden Brain: Playing the Gender Card  - Annie Duke was about to win $2 million.

It was 2004, and she was at the final hand of the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. Annie had beaten some of the best poker players in the world — all men — to get to this point.

But she wasn't sure she deserved to be there.

"I'm sort of thinking, if I fold and I'm wrong, everybody's going to be like, 'See, she plays like a girl, look how he pushed her around,' " said Annie.

In this Hidden Brain show, they tell the stories of two people who grapple with gender stereotypes on the job. In the first part of the show, Annie Duke takes us through her experiencing competing at the 2004 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions.

Later in the program, we hear the story of Robert Vaughan, a former Navy sailor who decides to pursue a new career as a nurse.

"The first thing that went through my head was, well, that's a woman's job," Robert said. "That's not something that, really, men go into."

Picture highlighted:

I took this photo at my good friend’s home in Sheboygan Wisconsin. A 1891 home that she purchased during the pandemic and transformed with her own bare hands into the most beautiful, artistic, cozy sanctuary you could imagine. Being there and seeing the fruit of her labor was so special and I can’t wait to go back again.

Until next time,

Dena 👋🏽

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