Pretty Human

Tomorrow is the Superbowl, which is famous as much for its commercials as for the football. Although Superbowl ads are usually a cut above typical advertisements, it's still useful to recognize them for what they are and to think critically about them.

So today's activity comes from Australian author Max Barry, who apporpriately writes:

Here’s something to try: spend the next day actually noticing every ad that features a photo of someone looking at you. Magazine ads, bus station posters, billboards: all these. Now think about what kind of situation you’d have to be in for this person to be looking at you like that in real life.

If where you live is anything like where I live, you’ll find that for a very high number of these, the situation would have to be one of:

1. They want to have sex with you
2. You just told them the funniest joke in the world ever
3. You just told them the funniest joke in the world ever and now they want to have sex with you

This is an entertaining exercise not just because it’s amusing to think about Kate Moss wanting your body, but also because it reminds you how far the arms race between advertising agencies and your brain’s perceptual filters has advanced. The more ads there are, and the more they try to get our attention, the better we get at not noticing them, so marketers have to continually up the ante. Apparently we’re now in a state where most ads are full of people looking at us in a way that would heat us up down to our toes if it happened in real life, and we don’t think anything of it.

So as you watch the multi-million dollar Superbowl ads tomorrow, ask yourself: what did I do to deserve that look?

Posted by michael at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (468) | TrackBacks (46)

We live such self-centered lives that it's often easy to forget that there's a huge world, and universe, around us. Sure, we're aware of it at the intellectual level, but we often lose touch with it at the deepest level.

Have you ever seen the 1977 short movie Powers of Ten by Ray and Charles Eames? It's an amazing movie that starts with an image of a man lying in a park. The camera then pulls back to show 10 times more area, then 100 times more area, and so on, until the Milky Way is just a spec of dust. The camera then zooms back in to the open shot, and then begins the opposite journey into the microscopic world in the sleeping man's hand.

Although the movie is wonderful, you can create your own powers of 10, too, and it will likely mean more to you. Here's what I want you to do: tonight, after you get settled in bed, close your eyes and picture yourself from above. Really picture it, in all of the detail you can come up with. This is likely to take several moments as you get past your sketchy "Okay-I-see-myself-now-what" image and really take the time to see yourself in detail. This is your first step on a journey, so put your heart into it.

Next, slow pull back your mind's eye until you see yourself, on your bed, in your room. Again, really see it. Now pull back and see your whole house, and where your room is in your house, and where your bed is in that room. Really feel it. Now pull back and see your whole block, and your house on the block, and your room in the house, and your bed in your room. Imagine all of the things that might be going on on your block. Take a little time to imagine everything. Not just what people are doing, but other things, too. Is the wind blowing telephone wires? Are birds asleep in your neighbor's tree? Is a cat watching the birds? Are ants digging in the dirt in someone's backyard? Spend time appreciating the flavor of the universe that is your very own block.

If you're so inclined, pull back again to see your neighborhood. Have you ever thought about how your neighborhood looks from this high up? Sure, you may have checked it out on google maps, but that's not the same as thinking about it, feeling it. Don't rely on someone else's view of your world. You have your own view, and it's more accurate for you.

You can pull back again to see your town, and where your neighborhood sits. How are they connected? What are some of the things that might be going on in your town right now? Try to spot your friends in this view. How close are they to you? Pull back to see your county. Where are the boundaries? Do you have a sense of it?

Now pull back and see your state. This is really high up (unless you live in Rhode Island). Imagine all of the people, all of the wind on all of the telephone wires, all of the birds in trees being watched by cats, all of the ants moving all of the dirt. But don't lose sight of yourself. Realize that you're right there in the thick of it, just as are all of the other people, and creatures, and things. How close are you to the ocean?

Pull back again and see your country. Then pull back and see the continent. Then the whole world. Can you imagine the whole word, and everything that's going on? Can you see where it's day, and where it's night? Where it's summer and where it's winter? Can you still see yourself? Can you imagine six billion other people spread across this world?

I think you'll find this exercise a bit exhausting mentally, but also very calming. Start small, and work your way up to larger and larger scales over time. Don't rush and try to see it all in one night. The world is meant to be savored, so take your time.

Posted by michael at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (63) | TrackBacks (16)

We lead our lives in a constant swirl of words. They come at us from all directions, from every medium, from the moment we rise until we fall back asleep. Even when we think we're alone, words are with us -- they are how we think.

Due to the sheer volume of words in our lives, and the urgency with which we often communicate, the words around us are often of poor quality. They may get the job of communicating done, but they don't do it gracefully, effortlessly, inspiringly. They're flat and endless.

But to our rescue comes poetry. This remarkable form is all about economy of effort. A poem is exactly as long as it needs to be. No word is without meaning; each one was carefully selected, and no other can substitute. A good poem can be a refuge from the daily fury of words.

One of the best ways to enrich your life is to find a poem that you love and memorize it. It doesn't have to be dramatic, it doesn't have to be deep, and it doesn't have to be from Shakespeare. Just look for one that has meaning for you. For example, here is one of my favorites:

This Is Just to Say
by William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

What makes this poetry at all, and not just a note left on a refrigerator? It's the choice of words, the placement of words, and they way they're broken up. There are layers of possibilities. But this is my poem -- get your own!

A great place to start is the Favorite Poem Project, started by former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, where Americans from all walks of life talk about the poems in their lives. Poke around, read the poems, and watch some of the video interviews. They'll inspire you to find a favorite poem of your own.

Posted by michael at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1916) | TrackBacks (8)

On a dreary Wednesday in the middle of January, it's easy for anyone to feel the winter blues. No motivation, no energy, no desire to do anything but sit around. Rather than forcing yourself to attack it head-on, and rather than just zoning out to what ever's on Must-Flee TV, swing by the video store on your way home from work tonight and pick up a movie that screams "vacation!" to you. Something light-hearted, set in a location that inspires you and makes you want to travel. It might sound like a cop-out, but the restorative powers of two hours of laughing and soaking in a beautiful destination should not be dismissed.

Can't think of anything good? I'll offer up two of my favorites: The Birdcage, a wildly funny movie set in Miami Beach, which warms me right up; and Im Juli ("In July"), a fantastic German comedy (no kidding!) about starcrossed lovers on a road trip all over Europe.

So make some popcorn, dim the lights, and wash your blues away for the night. Tomorrow's another day.

Posted by michael at 08:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2325) | TrackBacks (9)

There is no more profoundly human ritual than sitting down and sharing food with others. Because we do it every day, several times a day, it's easy to lose sight of what a powerful and rich experience it is. There's no physical reason to share food; we do it because we're social animals who long for the company of others, and offering others our food -- the very fabric of life -- shows respect and trust.

Over time, this process of sharing food has become more refined and has turned into an art. A good chef is the most amazing artist, exciting all of your senses at once: the sound of the cooking, the sight of the plate, the aroma and taste of the food, and the texture of the food in your mouth and on your hands. We should all aspire to bring such joy into the world.

Unfortunately, learning to become a chef is hard work, and good cooking takes precious time that we often just don't have. However, there is one easy thing you can do to make your cooking taste twice as good in just thirty seconds: give it a proper presentation.

The vast majority of our communication is visual, and this extends to eating, too. We gather so much information about the food we eat by sight that some restaurants are experimenting with ways to prevent vision from overwhelming the experience. But when you put your dinner together last night, did you consider the way it looked on the plate?

By taking just a few extra seconds to consider the placements of the different foods on the plate, you'll be giving your "diners" a wonderful gift. There's no particularly right way to do it; just look for ways to make the food more appealing. For example, if you're serving steak and mashed potatoes, try putting the potatoes in a clean circle, and lift one edge of the steak onto them, to make it look lighter and more three dimensional. If you're serving green beans, try making them into a cross-hatch pattern. Go for symmetry, go for dimensions -- experiment and find your own expression.

The amazing thing is, by putting this extra moment of care into the food, you'll feel better about the food you serving, your diners will appreciate it more, and the food will taste better. Everyone wins. And it's true even if you're just microwaving a frozen burrito for yourself. Give it a few seconds of presentation attention, put it on a nice plate, and it will simply taste better. Making life taste better -- that's what it's all about.

Posted by michael at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (4824) | TrackBacks (41)

Every New Year's day, there's one resolution that's on nearly everyone's list: to get in better shape in the coming year. For millions upon millions of people, the idea of "getting in better shape" is immediately linked to "join a health club", a notion that the health clubs themselves certainly promote through non-stop advertisements and big discounts.

How can clubs afford all of this advertising and these discounts? You know the answer: of those millions who sign up at the turn of the year, very few will even make it to February. Most of these gym "dropouts" will scold themselves for lack of willpower, but the truth is, gyms often set us up for failure.

Health and fitness aren't meant to be something you do, something you try to find an extra hour for every day after you pull on your gym clothes, hop in the car and drive for twenty minutes, search for a parking spot, and fight for the good treadmill. Health and fitness are meant to be something you live, a natural, integrated part of your life. They should blend in, not be center of attention. Sounds nice, but how do you actually do it?

One simple way is to actually run your errands. You heard me right: run 'em. Instead of hopping in your car to drive to the grocery store that's a quarter-mile away, for example, put on some comfortable shoes and trot on over. Don't wear Lycra (unless you want to) and don't strain -- this isn't a race. If running's difficult, you can briskly walk instread. Just enjoy the process of getting somewhere under your own steam, of truly pulling your own weight.

Not only will you get the benefit of running, but you'll also get a lot of great side benefits. You'll get fresh air, you'll get to see your town in a different way, on a more human scale, and you'll feel much more awake and aware than you would running on a treadmill in a sterile gym, going nowhere, spacing out to the ubiquitous muted televisions. You'll have bragging rights to the rest of your family, too: I hauled this food home myself. Beat that!

You might argue that there are no stores near you, so you have to drive. If that's the case, the stores you frequent are probably located near each other, in a shopping zone. What you can do in that situation is to park at the first store, and then run to the others. Look for ways to succeed. They're all around you.

So, skip the gym this year. Lace up your sneakers instead, and take your town by storm.

Posted by michael at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (34925) | TrackBacks (10)

Did you ever wonder how frogs can catch fast-moving flies so easily? It has to do with their remarkable eyes. Once a frog settles onto his lily pad, his eyes simply get used to the scene and stop transmitting any information to his brain. Only when something changes -- like the movement of a fly -- does the frog's brain "wake up" and see what's happening.

In some ways, people are like this, too. We grow accustomed, very quickly, to what's around us every day. Unless we consciously interject and break this "filtering", we'll simply block out our everyday surroundings, no matter how wonderful. You can find unhappy, bored people living in the most beautiful places in Hawaii. They forget how amazing their environment is until a friend comes to visit and remarks on it. Only then do they "wake up" and say, "Oh yeah! I live in paradise!".

The nice thing is that you don't have to wait for a friend to come along to bump you out of your rut. You can do it yourself, simply by altering your routines slightly. Tonight, for example, try taking a slightly different route home from work. If you drive, take a road you haven't been down before and see where it goes. If you take the bus or subway, take a different line than normal -- or if that's not possible, sit in a different spot than usual and notice the different faces, signs, and advertisements around you. If you walk, take a different route and notice all of the different buildings.

It's a simple exercise, but if you embrace it, you'll likely be surprised by the results. Just going down a single different block can wake you up and rejuvenate you a bit, like a micro-vacation for your mind. Best of all, it's a treat you can give yourself every day.

Posted by michael at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (4618) | TrackBacks (59)

In most places in the United States right now, the days are short and the weather is cold, wet, and windy. So chances are you're reading this indoors, with the lights on and the thermostat turned up. And in all likelihood, unless your furnace has been acting up, you haven't given it much thought lately.

In an era of ubiquitous central heating systems, it's easy to forget the importance fire throughout history -- not just technologically, but socially as well. The light and heat of a fire is localized, so people must gather around to share its benefits. A fire is a unifying force, bringing people together to talk, laugh, or simply sit quietly together to enjoy the hypnotic rhythms of the dancing flames.

So try this: turn off the TV, turn down the lights and the heat, and start yourself a nice fire. (If you haven't had a chimney sweep clean your fireplace recently, be sure to schedule that first!) Lose yourself in the experience of the fire. Smell the burning wood, feel the directed heat, and think of your fire's place in history. People have been building and gathering around fires for hundreds of thousands of years, and your fire continues that tradition. It's remarkable when you think about it.

If you live in a warmer climate and don't have a fireplace, you can still join in the fun with an outdoor fire. Everyplace from hardware to home stores is selling attractive fire bowls these days, so find one you like, pick up some wood, and share the light, heat, and good times with family and friends.

Posted by michael at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1221) | TrackBacks (14)