Cure for Our Existential Loneliness and the Three Tenets of a Full Life Existential loneliness

“We rise by lifting others”

 – Robert Ingersoll

Opium Traces Found in 3,500-Year-Old Pottery Suggests the Ancient Canaanites Were the First Humans to Use Psychoactive Drugs Artnet

There is a reason why the original Latin use of the word genius was in the phrase genius loci — the spirit of a place. We become who we are in the crucible of where we are.

Barry Lopez on the Cure for Our Existential Loneliness and the Three Tenets of a Full Life

“Existential loneliness and a sense that one’s life is inconsequential, both of which are hallmarks of modern civilizations, seem to me to derive in part from our abandoning a belief in the therapeutic dimensions of a relationship with place.”

Hua Hsu’s new memoir does not try to explain the Asian American experience. That represents a giant step  forward  

"Art either captivates the public or it doesn’t, and the same, it would seem, is true of art heists  »

Mosman boat trailer parking debate reignites after Facebook complaint

What does it take for an international work to break into English? The tireless labor of translators, agents, literary magazines, and brave publishers, for a start  translators  »

C. Wright Mills was an intellectual godfather of the New Left. Now his views are echoed by the populist  right »

The Banquet of Life: Some of the Finest Advice on Growing Old, Growing Young, and Becoming Your Fullest Self

“People ask: ‘Would you or would you not like to be young again?’ Of course, it is really one of those foolish questions that never should be asked, because they are impossible… You cannot unroll that snowball which is you: there is no ‘you’ except your life — lived.”

Washington Post: “The next time you take a pain reliever for that headache, you may want to consider your posture. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found whether you’re standing upright or leaning, as well as which side you’re leaning to, could affect how fast the contents of a pill are absorbed into your body. 

The bottom line: leaning to your right side after swallowing a pill could speed absorption by about 13 minutes, compared to staying upright. Leaning to the left would be a mistake — it could slow absorption by more than an hour…”

NPR: “It’s well known that weightlifting can strengthen our biceps and quads. Now, there’s accumulating evidence that strengthening the muscles we use to breathe is beneficial too. New research shows that a daily dose of muscle training for the diaphragm and other breathing muscles helps promote heart health and reduces high blood pressure. “The muscles we use to breathe atrophy, just like the rest of our muscles tend to do as we get older,” explains researcher Daniel Craighead, an integrative physiologist at the University of Colorado Boulder. 

To test what happens when these muscles are given a good workout, he and his colleagues recruited healthy volunteers ages 18 to 82 to try a daily five-minute technique using a resistance-breathing training device called PowerBreathe. The hand-held machine — one of several on the market — looks like an inhaler. When people breathe into it, the device provides resistance, making it harder to inhale…”