Good morning, wanderers and wonderers, and you know who you are. It’s another great day here at the mile-high broadcast tower and media complex of The 200 Project, and this is your Take 5 Daily Alignment.
How to make sense out of ten thousand “authorities” whispering in your ear at the same time? Let us do the heavy listening for you. Here are five of today’s best in message, best in product, best in show, and best in health. Here we go:
1. Minimalism means never having to say “I just bought a jet ski.” How do we step off the merry-go-round of stuff? Tough stuff, fluff stuff; how much stuff is enough stuff? Do we even need stuff? Josh and Ryan – even minimal names! – the dynamic duo known as The Minimalists, answer all this and more, to quiet your stuff reflex and let you live a simpler, more fulfilling life. Check out their site, at a minimum.
2. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a – conspiracy? Nah. But don’t folks say and do the darnedest things when they’re being paid with big-industry money. Why has “the association of nutrition with cancer … been so difficult to understand”? Why will “our future … be bleak if we continue on the present path”? Read all this and more about renowned researcher T. Colin Campbell’s experience following his publication of a report linking dietary animal protein and cancer. You’d’ve thought somebody got touched with a red-hot branding iron.
3. And speaking of minimalism – weren’t we? – Do you plan to be in Houston sometime before February 25, 2018? Then you should plan to visit the art Mecca known as the Menil Collection to check out Mona Hatoum’s exhibit there titled Terra Infirma. Hatoum’s work “explores how shifting geographic borders and institutional structures limit, if not violently define, how we comfortably find a home in the world.” Bring your curiosity and use it to stretch your awareness.
4. World Ocean Review gives us the down and dirty on the state of the world’s fisheries. Yeah, it’s kind of nerdy, and it sort of reads like a public policy piece, but the takeaway is clear: The world’s fisheries are in a state of decline and getting worse, BUT – some sort-of good news – recovery is possible. Is there something fishy in the state of the fishies? Read this – just for the halibut. Oh!
5. Clash of the Titans! The struggle between reductionism (i.e., identify THE nutrient or THE gene, etc.) and holism (i.e., look at the bigger or overall picture) can be seen clearly in this article, out in this week’s New York Times. Reductionism asks: Is there a genetic key to longevity? – and spurs research like that in the article. Holism would take the broader view: longevity’s connection to diet, physical activity and social connectedness, shared by super-ager communities the world over. Fascinating stuff, and a useful lens to use to focus the debate on diet, health, and aging.
