THE BESTOF’S
As the election race nears the finish line it has become a straight coin flip between ‘lose’ and ‘lose harder’.
And because you can’t be certain which is which you might as well flip a coin
Not our call here in Australia, but while a divided—hopefully not burning— America will demand much on the homefront, the certain incompetence at the helm from either outcome will reach far beyond their shores, sure enough.
There are predictable enough winners and losers if we take it case-by-case:
Good for Israel is bad for Ukraine.
Bad for Russia is good for Iran.
Good for China is bad for Russia.
Et cetera. The permutations are many.
All with differing downstream effects Down Under, but as Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist and historian Anne Applebaum, suggests, ‘case-by-case’ is an illusion we’d better quickly dispel.
If today’s autocracies have anything in common, it’s their identification of a common enemy: the US, the EU, and NATO. In short, the “free” world and its purportedly liberal, democratic, and humanistic values.
https://bigthink.com/the-present/autocracy-cold-war/?
Collapsing the world into a black-and-white binary might seem overly simplistic but the geopolitical stage has resolved into a very distinct them and us. Failure to acknowledge an axis that has long been coordinating and manoeuvering against the West— and respond accordingly— is only to play into their hands.
All this before the revelation this past week that North Korean troops are now fighting for Russia in Ukraine.
But the enemy is also within and if the self-inflicted wounds of the West could be neatly captured in any single event it would be an election race to the bottom— and even the possibility— if not probability— of its aftermath.
All music to the ears of bad actors however it plays out, and all the more sobering if you consider the US is likely now electing a wartime president.
And we’re not far downstream at all.
One will become commander-in-chief at the most perilous geopolitical moment since the Cold War—and perhaps since World War II.
BEST IN SHOW
On a happier note. A great article from The School of Life closely describes my meditation retreat experience back in July that, as promised, I’ll write about at some point. I include it today for the observation that despite our pain and protestations we rarely make any real effort towards resolving our problems, resorting instead to superficial or symbolic actions that only make us feel better about not doing enough.
That will sound familiar and while fitness is an obvious analogue to the serene calm exampled in this fantastic exercise much of it can be taken literally.
The idea is not to raise the bar so high as to make any effort seem impossible, and nor is it to suggest it must dominate your life, but it does serve as a counterpoint— and a far more useful reference— to mealy-mouthed platitudes like doing what you love, I wrote about last week.
That— if we are sincere in our desires —we can forget fads and fantasies and realise the levers, the true mechanisms of effect.
On the understanding, they must continually be employed.
And further underlining this requires a holistic approach. Not only in what it captures— sleep, nutrition, lifestyle, etc— but in its structure and placement —in and of your life, not as afterthought or accessory.
And should you step back to view it in that light and make whatever meaningful steps towards that end make sense for you, you will be Leftfield Training.
And you’ll arrive at something that can never be realised working from the other end: a practice.
It would – of course – be very hard for us to live like this but this deliberately somewhat dramatic proposal at least gives us a sense of what we might need to do if we are sincere in our aspirations to lead calmer lives.
https://www.theschooloflife.com/article/the-need-for-a-modern-monastery/?
Raptitude with an echo of the idea shared here: that a desired behaviour is largely a product of how we set the table and included here to reinforce both our natural inclination to arrest negative momentum with a drastic ‘regime-change’ and that this is more likely—almost certainly— destined for trouble.
The rueful recognition you’ve been acting like a damn fool for too long is one only compounded by impatience.
If the bitter pill of making slow sustainable changes can be made any sweeter it’s the physiological fact your body (and mind) will not be hurried.
The shortcut is the long way.
The natural temptation, once the bad snowball has become big and awful enough, is to try to steer it into a brick wall. You don’t want steady improvement; you want total and utter regime change.
https://www.raptitude.com/2024/10/two-ways-to-change-your-momentum/
Godin with a decision-making matrix to help sort out the important problems. Like not being fit, that’s an important problem. And urgent. But worth it.
What truly matters, though, are the important problems…They’re here. Right in front of us. Simple but difficult. But worth it.
https://seths.blog/2024/10/important-problems/
Losing fat is a complex, multi-factored and nuanced process — this describing only the biological and social mechanisms let alone the behaviour change required to make it sustainable.
Nevertheless, if you create the necessary circumstances it will happen. It can’t not.
So instead of trying to lose fat, you could stop doing what is necessary to maintain it.
It sounds obvious but it can serve as a circuit breaker to snap you out of the same problematic patterns of behaviour —that will only lead to the same place. And while the other 100+ factors remain in play, here’s Dr Jade Teta with the big 3 to avoid, especially in combination. And the chief suspects scrambling your bodily cues.
The combo alters brain chemistry in a way that disrupts the natural ability to self-regulate calorie intake.
https://t-nation.com/t/the-insidious-formula-for-fat-gain
…are you making progress, or just making yourself tired?
thttps://gmb.io/push-yourself/?
The perfect complement to avoiding the fat gain formula above and how to lose 1lb of fat in a month without trying.
Researchers concluded that getting adequate sleep leads to better food choices. On the flip side, crappy sleep makes it easier to reach for more sugar and more low-nutrient junk.
Unconsciously and effortlessly, the participants dropped 150 sugary calories from their daily intakes.
https://t-nation.com/t/lose-1-pound-of-fat-per-month-without-trying/284075
When you finally decide to start going to the gym
MISCELLANEOUS
Recommendations reflect what I’ve been reading/listening to/watching/using recently but, in most instances, and especially where music is concerned, will not have been released in the past month.
MUSIC
BOOKS
TV
1923
APP
CLIP
Have a great weekend.
- OLI