The Weekly Circle #13
Welcome to the thirteenth episode of The Weekly Circle! A free Circles in Time newsletter released every Sunday.
Hey everybody,
I experimented with something new this week. A three day (72 hr) fast.
Why? Partly because I was curious. What would happen? How would I react? How would I change? In this way, I treated the whole experience very much as an exercise in self-exploration.
I was also persuaded by research looking at the links between prolonged fasting and important health factors. The key ones being the lowering of blood pressure, an increase in autophagy, improved insulin sensitivity, decreasing of inflammation, and a white blood cell reset, leading to a general strengthening of the immune system.
The consequences being a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes (better insulin regulation), coronary heart disease (lower blood pressure), cancer (increased autophagy) and neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’’s and Parkinson’s disease (lower inflammation, increased nerve cell generation).
Basically, all the things likely to give my future self a hard time, according to the global burden of disease study.
Going a step further. There are also early whispers of physiological and cognitive enhancements associated with regular fasting (extended lifespan, increased brain activity). This has only been proven in animal studies though, so treat the enhancement-side more like speculation than science at this point.
If you’re interested in learning more about my experience or the protocol I used, get in touch. I’d be happy to share. I also plan on doing a longer post in the future that covers all the details.
WORLD VIEWS
Here are the ideas I’ve been circling around this week.
THE WORLD AROUND US
The Rituals of Deep Work
The authors, Cal Newport (Deep Work, Digital Minimalism) and Scott Young (Ultralearning), recently put together a three-month program to share everything they know about focus and injecting it into your work, life and mind.
As part of the build-up, Scott shared seven essential rituals that can help us do the deep, focused work we all need.
Here are the seven rituals to perform before you start working:
Put on Noise-Cancelling Headphones
”Wearing headphones has two effects. First, you can block out some of the ambient sound around you. Second, headphones create a social cost for interrupting you.”Switch Off All Notifications
“Turn off all notifications on your phone. Make sure your email inbox is closed. Turn off notifications on your computer. Put your phone in a desk drawer.”Put Up a Do Not Disturb Sign
“This is especially helpful if you work from home. You may have kids, spouses or roommates that want to engage with you.”Plan Your Work Session
“Much of why we struggle with focused work have to do with internal distractions. We get restless, bored, frustrated or simply feel anxious about the task ahead. The best way to deal with these uncomfortable emotions is to plan out your session.”Move to a Focused Space
“Our attitudes and habits flow from the environment we’re in. You’re more likely to feel the urge to eat when near the fridge, than when driving your car, for instance.”Note Your Starting Time
“Maintain a tally or timelog of when you do focused work throughout the day. This makes focus more salient than the simple feeling of being busy all day.”Go Easy on Yourself
“Write “I’m just going to show up” on a post-it before you start, reminding you that what matters is giving yourself space to focus, rather than reaching arbitrary performance standards.”
There isn’t anything miraculous about these rituals. They’re the basics. The fundamentals. But so often we forget to do the easier, more obvious things.
These activities aren’t as sexy as edgy ideas like listening to binaural beats, nootropics like citicoline or micro-dosing on psilocybin. But they work for many people. And that’s the point when aiming for effectiveness.
Start experimenting with what is most likely to work, and move outwards from there.
THE WORLD BETWEEN US
Collective Skin in the Biological Game
For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the coordinating capabilities of ant colonies, bee swarms, fish schools and especially the flocking behaviour of social birds. The collective intelligence that these creatures showcase is remarkable.
And yet none of these creatures are the main actors in nature’s show here. The (current) paragon of collective intelligence is taking place all around us all the time. In fact, it is taking place within each one of us right now. It is just too small to see with our own eyes.
Cells. Interlinked.
Cells connect, communicate, and coordinate in such a synchronised manner that they allow for the formation of higher-order functions to emerge. It is truly one of the most beautiful things in the universe once you take the time to appreciate it.
How do cells do this?
How do they transcend their individual functions for a higher purpose? This question fascinates me, and fortunately, it is something that Daniel Dennett and Michael Levin find interesting too. They explore the question in great depth within an eye-opening essay they wrote for Aeon recently.
Here is how Dennett and Levin frame the question:
“There seems to be a fundamental problem here. Evolution runs on the principle of selfishness. How could complex living systems implement group goals toward which their cellular subunits would work? How can such cooperation ever arise from the actions of selfish reproducing agents?”
They go one to unravel this seeming paradox, and at the same time, speculate about new and paradigm-shattering ways to make sense of what is going on.
“When two cells connect their innards, this ensures that nutrients, information signals, poisons, etc are rapidly and equally shared. Crucially, this merging implements a kind of immediate ‘karma’: whatever happens to one side of the compound agent, good or bad, rapidly affects the other side. Under these conditions, one side can’t fool the other or ignore its messages, and it’s absolutely maladaptive for one side to do anything bad to the other because they now share the slings and fortunes of life. Perfect cooperation is ensured by the impossibility of cheating and erasure of boundaries between the agents. The key here is that cooperation doesn’t require any decrease of selfishness. The agents are just as 100 per cent selfish as before; agents always look out for Number One, but the boundaries of Number One, the self that they defend at all costs, have radically expanded – perhaps to an entire tissue or organ scale.”
The collective skin in the game is what gives rise to higher-order functions, transcending the identities and desires of individual cells in service of something greater. And it doesn’t end there. Those synchronised cells form tissues, that then coordinate in service of organs, which in turn services organ groups like bodies and brains, and eventually selves.
This scaling-up process, from cells to selves is simply exploiting the same biological process as every stage of synchrony. As Dennett and Levin eloquently put it:
The key dynamic that evolution discovered is a special kind of communication allowing privileged access of agents to the same information pool, which in turn made it possible to scale selves. This kickstarted the continuum of increasing agency.
So then… an interesting question reveals itself.
Just like individual cells go about their business, yet contribute to the goals of tissue, and the tissues do the same for organs— could each of us be coordinating in service of high-order functions we know little to nothing about?
One thing is for sure. We have been wrong about these kinds of questions before. Copernicus showed us that we weren’t at the centre of the universe. Darwin helped us see that there was nothing particularly special about our place in nature. Perhaps we’re in for a surprise about our place in the hierarchy of goals and agency.
There are many people who wouldn’t be astonished by this. Out of all of them though, it is James Lovelock’s reaction I’d be most curious to see. I imagine him holding a wry smile, while gracefully resisting the urge to tell us all, “I told you so.”
THE WORLD WITHIN US
The ‘Mr Potato Head’ Theory of Perception
I’m reading David Eagleman’s new book at the moment. It's titled, Livewired: The Inside Story fo the Ever-Changing Brain.
The book is another stamp of support for the new weird, and wonderful way in which scientists are coming to understand the brain, and how perception and action actually works. That is to see the brain as this pattern hungry prediction engine, that is relatively agnostic to the sorts of sensory data it receives, as long as there is a clear structure, valid feedback and some level of regularity.
To make the new model of the brain more intuitive, Eagleman developed the ‘Mr Potato Head’ Theory of Perception. A metaphor that he believes maps neatly to the way we should think about perception and our senses.
For those who don’t know, Mr Potato Head is a popular Toy Story character and customisable children’s toy. You can easily add or move any of the features of the toy, including the ears, mouth, nose and eyes.
Eagleman eloquently makes the case that Mr Potato Head’s agnosticism to his features is kind of how the brain works. There isn’t a particular atonomical structure in the brain that is specifically built to provide us with sight, touch, smell or hearing. It is all just pattern recognition, and as result, you can add or move sensory organs, in the same way, that a child would do so with Mr Potato head’s flexible features.
The brain is a plug and play system. Plug a new data stream into the cortex, and brain will figure out how to use this. This is why there are blind people who can use their skin to see, adults that hold professional jobs with only half a brain and people experimenting with adding entirely new senses to their bodies.
If you want to learn more, you can watch or listen to David Eagleman’s Talks at Google conversation with David Levin.
WISE WORDS
The quotes I’ve been circling around this week
ON MUSIC
“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent” ~ Victor Hugo
“Music is the universal language of mankind.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.” ~ Albert Einstein
“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.” ~ Maya Angelou
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“My ambition was to live like music.” ~ Mary Gaitskill
ON POETRY
“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci
“Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.” ~ W.H. Auden
“Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.” ~ Novalis
“Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone.” ~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti
“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.” ~ Charles Darwin
SAMPLE OF ONE PODCAST UPDATE
The Sample of One podcast series is alive and kicking! I released two new episodes this week. Let me know what you think and subscribe to the podcast series if you’re enjoying them.
Episode #3 | Vita Benes | Getting to the roots of procrastination
Episode #4 | Jared Peterson | From aspirations to everyday actions
COMMUNITY UPDATE
With the third edition of the Circles in Time programme now officially complete, I am going to be focusing a lot more on improving the community membership space. If any of the members have feedback, insights or opinions on how I might improve the quality of your experience, please do reach out.
This week’s live conversation will be with Bec Weeks, co-founder of an exciting new behavioural science app called Pique. You can download and check it out here. Look out for the invite in your diaries, inboxes and calendars, and give some thought to any questions you’d like to ask Bec.
SOMETHING TO EXPERIMENT WITH
Carve out a small part of your day to do one meaningful activity that truly makes you feel happy.
The caveat is that you cannot do anything else during this time. NOT A THING.
This may seem easy, but according to Ashley Williams, the author of an interesting new book called Time Smart, the modern, always-on world has made even small moments of sanctuary, a virtual impossibility.
As she demonstrates in a recent article for the Behavioural Scientist:
“We used to enjoy the gym. Now we one-handedly type out a reply to the boss while trying not to fall off the treadmill. We used to have uninterrupted family dinners. Now we have hushed phone calls over cold meals. We used to have relaxing picnics. Now we have phone meetings in “private” park-side bathroom stalls. We carry the office in our back pockets, making it difficult to disconnect.”
Deep work isn’t the only part of our lives where deliberate architecture is required. The digital world even makes doing the things we enjoy difficult. So be intentional, plan ahead, and start small.
SOMETHING TO PART WITH
A timeless and touching reminder by Fred Rogers— to be grateful for all those who have helped you become who you are today.
Until next week,
Take care,
David
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