Kale and Kant

Food, family, health, and the meaning of everything

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Ego-dissolution as the Path

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As I walked around “Day on the Town” in Birmingham a couple Saturdays ago, a large, noisy, and fun annual sidewalk sale, the title of the 2006 Nora Ephron book, I Feel Bad About My Neck, kept coming to mind. This was in no small part due to the throngs of beautiful twenty-somethings with their annoyingly perky little figures and glossy, flowing manes. I had left the house earlier that morning thinking I looked not-too-shabby for a woman in her fifties, and I returned thinking: What were you thinking? I felt bad about my neck—but also my face, hair, boobs, glutes, and legs.  Other than that, I was riding an epic wave of confidence.

Luckily, as I arrived home later, deflated in my self-estimation by the ravages of the three decades and four pregnancies I had on these gorgeous girls, I also returned to find an email awaiting from Jules Evans, a British philosopher I worship. His mailing that day riffed off of Socrates’ observation that, “To philosophize is to learn how to die.”

This particular post profiled a pair of Buddhist friends who do a lot of work in hospice. In discussing their mission, Evans noted that, “When we focus more on death, life comes into greater focus—its mystery, its poignancy, its brevity, and its purpose and value.” Then the kicker: “What things do I worry about that don’t really matter?” Immediately my neck came to mind.

A little further down in the post, Evans pondered the issue that distracts us from the real meaning of it all: “How often do I get lost in the ego-dream?” and then later still threw out the term “ego-dissolution.”  It was as though a flashing sanity marquis suddenly illuminated my brain. Of course we’re miserable and riddled with self-loathing when we fixate on appearances. Lose the ego, find the way. Why is it so hard to keep this obvious idea front and center as we move through the day?

Once my consciousness had abruptly shifted, I immediately felt better about my neck. It still holds up my head and allows air and food to pass through it. “What does matter?” Evans asks. “My working hypothesis is that the purpose of life is to realize our divine nature, over multiple lives, by learning to love more, and cling to the ego less.” I’ll leave you with that laden idea to ponder, along with a reminder of Einstein’s formula:

Ego = 1/Knowledge

Let the ego go if you want to find wisdom, happiness, and peace—and, by the way, self-acceptance and self-love.

 

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Regret and The Middle Passage

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My second son, Robert, started high school recently at Cranbrook-Kingswood, a college preparatory school that opened in 1922 whose 319-acre campus is a national historic landmark. We live a mile from school, and it has long been my destination for biking, running, and meditative nature walks with my children. Its architecture and physical beauty are almost surreal, leading me to wonder whether mere mortals inhabit the place.

When I was twelve I asked my parents if I could go there. I recall learning about it from camp friends and somehow just knowing it was for me, kind of the way Robert felt after he spent a day shadowing another student there in eighth grade. The story of where I ended up in middle and high school, and why, is too annoying to recount, but suffice it to say that I never got over my love affair with Cranbrook, and reflect to this day with regret on what might have been. When I drop Rob off on campus or hear about what he learned that day, the joy that I feel for him, because he understands how magical a place it is, is tinged ever so slightly with sadness.

It’s an obvious cliché that everyone has regrets. Not always from lack of gratitude or unhappiness, but perhaps just irresistible wonder at all of the possibilities that might have been. Where would we be today? Doing what? With whom? What would it have felt like? What intriguing thoughts, which, according to some, should not themselves be regretted. Henry David Thoreau advised: “Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.”

Perhaps not if you’re Woody Allen, though, whom most of us probably channel more so than wise Thoreau in feeling that, “My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.” Much of what we do involves a struggle to be other than who we are, and it comes to a head during midlife and its proverbial “crisis.” I recently read this truly weird little book on the subject called The Middle Passage which was sent to me by a thoughtful friend.

The author, a Jungian analyst named James Hollis, frames midlife as a transition from living according to (what we perceive as) others’ expectations to living in harmony with our own. During childhood we conform to our interpretation of our parents’ behaviors and attitudes, and starting in adolescence we mold ourselves according to our perception of our peers’ and society’s demands. The rift between our true nature and reactive one becomes increasingly untenable as we reach midlife and, as Hollis puts it, our “capacity for self-deception is exhausted.” First, most of our youthful dreams and delusions crash down to earth: “To flounder amid ordinariness is the sour leaven of midlife.” Men go out and buy the red race car and the trophy wife. Women suddenly feel what psychologist Marcia Reynolds calls “the burden of greatness.” They were always told of their endless potential, and now they look around and wonder why it wasn’t achieved and what they can do to fix that.

Next, our desires amp up just as our body starts refusing to cooperate. As Hollis notes, this was expressed most poetically by W.B. Yeats in Sailing to Byzantium, which reflects on the harsh conflict we endure in midlife between our still-nascent dreams and our failing bodies:

Consume my heart away; sick with desire 
And fastened to a dying animal

 

That phrase, “fastened to a dying animal,” haunts me as the small pains and indignities of aging slowly creep into my awareness. Hollis fortunately finds a way to put all of this in a positive light, observing that increasing awareness of “the fact that one is mortal, that time is limited, and that no one will deliver us from the burden of responsibility for our lives, serves as a powerful incentive to be more fully oneself.” Midlife offers us each the opportunity to come out in the fullest sense of the term. It requires courage and much effort, but the rewards are rich.

I’ve been searching the annals of western philosophy for insights on the nature of the middle passage and how to reflect clearly upon it. So far I’ve found interesting thinking by the ancient Stoics but not much else. Soon I hope to share their insights on the topic, as I can hardly suppose I am alone in feeling its weight.

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To Be Happy, Don’t Try To Be Happy

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DSC_0109 (3)What does the Dalai Lama’s wisdom have in common with blogging? I ran into this quote from him several times recently, and it was too good to let go: “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” One thing it called to mind—aside from the gut sense that the DL had identified the meaning of life in seventeen words—was a remark that my favorite nutty, always brilliant blogger, Penelope Trunk, wrote about blogging: “Your life is boring. I’m sorry to tell you this. But actually all our lives are boring.” Why, then, does she or anyone else bother to blog? “To give the reader something they want.” It boils down to kindness: “I try to focus on this with every post I write. But in fact, this is advice about how to do anything in your life: Help people as much as you can. Give people what they need, and if you focus on that, the rest will fall into place.”
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The Unexamined Trip is Not Worth Taking

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IMG_1722 (2)So, my friend, Jim Bellinson, called me and asked a favor. He was headed to Africa with his own and two other families and wanted a daily philosophy topic for group discussion. He felt the kids would learn something and enjoy it—and the adults, too. I loved the idea, and I’m sharing this list of issues today in the hopes that it will spark some thoughtful conversation—whether you’re traveling for the holidays with your kids or just sitting around with them on a winter’s night.

Philosophy majors are the butt of many a joke, but I guess the joke is on anyone who is concerned at all with the big questions—where we humans are, what we know, and what we should do about it—and those interested in learning how to think rationally about these questions and everything else.

Even if your adult brain has slipped into what Kant called a “dogmatic slumber,” have fun broaching these topics with your children and teens, who, you will discover, genuinely wonder about this stuff. But be careful or you may make philosophers of them.

Where does the universe come from and what brought it about? Does its existence require a first cause, an intelligent designer, or ongoing conscious direction?

Does God exist? If so, what is God and what is God’s relationship to both the universe at large and to human life? If God exists, is God good, and if so, how do we account for the great deal of evil and suffering in the world?

What determines the course of human life? A deity? Pre-determined causes? Free will? Or is what happens to us simply random?

What are humans made of? Are we primarily mind or matter? If both, how do they affect each other? What is consciousness?

How do we identify reality and discover truth? Is truth objective or relative to each individual’s unique perception of things? What is knowledge and how do we acquire it?

What are good and evil? Are they objective? If not, what determines them—personal belief, society, religion, law?

What is happiness? Is it an emotional state or a more objective condition of wellness and flourishing? What are its requirements—pleasure, wisdom, freedom, health, wealth, friends, family, or perhaps some combination of these?

What are the elements of a good society? How should the individual and his interests relate to the collective—both community and state? What is the function and proper form of government? What is the origin and function of rights?

What is art and what is its purpose? How does it relate to beauty? To truth?

What is death?  Is the soul immortal or does it die with the body? If it continues to exist, where does it go and what befalls it? How do we know?

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Self-help: I’m Over It (But Not Really)

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IMG_1373The self-help industry is bumming me out. As a blogger, I subscribe to a myriad of health, nutrition, and wellness sites and newsletters. While this allows me to keep up with the latest thinking on a topic I love, and while some of the writers I follow are a total inspiration, I’m bombarded with postings telling me that my life falls short in the departments of mindfulness, stress-reduction, nutrition, hydration, supplementation, cardio, strength-training, flexibility-training, social connection, solitude, stillness, goal-orientation, time-management, reading, writing, cooking, parenting, spending quality time with my kids, spending quality time with my spouse, community involvement, political activism, continuing education, and, paradoxically, both altruism and self-love. Apparently, I don’t even breathe correctly.

Here’s what happens when the self-help message du jour arrives in my inbox. I quickly scan it to see if I’m guilty of the specified failing. If no, I delete. If yes, which is almost always, I read the post a little more thoroughly and reflect on my inadequacy in that area and whether it offers any realistic ideas for self-improvement. If no, I delete. If yes, I spend another few seconds reflecting on the matter, then I move on to reading more pressing emails, like my Edison e-bill or the sale announcement from J. Crew. The self-help email then slowly travels to the bottom of my inbox as new mailings flood in. From time to time as I purge the inbox, I revisit it briefly and mournfully note that I just don’t have time to deal. It continues its southern migration. Finally, perhaps months later, I banish all delusions and hit delete. But I don’t have to feel like I gave up on that particular concept; rest assured, another blogger has already emailed me on the same topic with similar advice. This new email then embarks on its journey through my email system. . .

Now, I don’t deny that K&K is guilty of some of this—we bloggers so love to share the Kool-Aid—but being on the receiving end grows tiresome. Blogland of course has a remedy for that too: don’t be too hard on yourself, accept your failings, love yourself unconditionally, etc. The question is how to address this complaint without offering more self-help advice. Is this even possible?

Further reflection suggests not really. The reason we even consider these emails is that human beings are preternaturally goal-oriented and aspirational. My dog, Mike, would tell a dog-blogger to step off at any suggestion that he should work on peeing less on my white flokati rug. But we humans can’t help ourselves at striving to be better, stronger, and smarter than we are right now.

This is actually a phenomenal gift, and we can capitalize on it by focusing on what is realistically within our power to improve—assuming we want to improve it. And here’s the rub: If you are fine with, e.g., your sedentary lifestyle, don’t hand-wring over every email that comes in touting a new workout regimen that’s “too easy to fail.” If you do not want to start working out, even the one-minute ab-blast system will fail. This should be your litmus test. Not “should” I try this new form of self-improvement, but do I truly want to improve in this area? If yes, consider whether the post offers you realistic steps for doing so; if not, hit delete.

Sticking with our workout example, what if at the meta-level you want to want to start working out? No good. Hit delete. Meta-aspirations do nothing to address your current lack of motivation and are no friend to self-esteem.

Here’s a better solution. Reflect on why you want to have a stronger, healthier body, but never get off the couch. What is stopping you? One of my coaching clients did this with brilliant success. After some deep conversations, she realized that she found working out lonely. She looked into more social forms of exercise, found a very social cross-fit studio, and now happily goes there five days a week. She actually enjoys and looks forward to it.

Another client had a different outcome, but no less important. He came to me desperate to lose weight and start turning around some of his weight-related health problems. He said he’d “tried everything.” We kept working on finding changes to his eating patterns that were small and incremental enough for him to incorporate and build upon from meeting to meeting. But he’d inevitably come back having not followed the steps he’d committed to. After a few go-rounds, and again some deep reflection, he let on about his rather heavy drinking and frequent pot-smoking habits. Despite wanting to want to improve his lifestyle, he was not willing, or perhaps able, to address the fact that his substance abuse made this virtually impossible. After gently suggesting AA and counseling, we went our separate ways. Wanting to want something will get you nowhere and, sadly, there was nothing I could do to offset that.

So I have indeed offered you self-improvement advice, which was inevitable and for which I apologize. You can overcome the annoying self-help email deluge by deleting unwelcome posts (including this one), or better yet, unsubscribing to offending sites (but please not this one!). But if you are past merely wanting to want to improve something about yourself and are actively ready to change, consider how you may be standing in your own way. Once you’ve deconstructed that issue, by all means go ahead and see if any of those formerly offending emails offers some real guidance on how to move forward. If not, there’s always delete—and the next day’s email.

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Pop Philosopher, Marci Shimoff

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MARCII recently attended a talk given by Marci Shimoff, bestselling author of Happy for No Reason, as well as six Chicken Soup volumes. She stood on stage in a sequined red suit, perky and funny and impossible not to like, and, it turned out, had some deep things to say about the thing that back in the 4th century BC, Aristotle described as the goal of all human activity: Happiness.

Aristotle and his fellow Athenian brainiacs concurred that Happiness is the ultimate goal of our lives, but they disagreed on what it consists of. The major contenders were virtuous activity, pleasure (of the “proper” sort), or tranquility. Aristotle was insistent that happiness had to be an activity (otherwise you could sleep your life away and be happy) and also that it had to engage the highest facets of human nature.

I’ve discussed in some detail what his actual theory of Happiness looks like, and why it’s compelling. Shimoff’s ideas come from a different, more pop-psychology angle, but are helpful reminders for where its best to direct our daily attention—namely, on our inborn “happiness set-point,” which is very malleable it turns out. In order to “move the needle” toward greater joy, we must do three things.

1. Develop a “kind mind.” We process around 60,000 thoughts daily, 95 percent of which are repeats, and 80 percent of which are negative. Shimoff surmises that this tendency is a carryover from our ancestors who lived in a state of fear and worry due to their precarious circumstances. Whatever the reason, if we focus on what’s good—for example, by every day noting five things for which to be grateful—the needle on our set-point moves toward Happy. We have read about the importance of gratitude ad nauseam in recent years, but that’s probably because it is that important. To the extent you’re focusing on what’s good and amazing in your life, you’re not complaining about what’s not.

A big piece of re-focusing your attention concerns focusing on what’s good about you. Our culture invites us to view sleek, photoshopped perfection against which to compare our own lumpy bodies and lives, which must of course come up short. The next step is buying whatever product is being sold as the remedy. Happiness does not, of course, lie in the collection of material things, but, and here goes Aristotle again, in the kind of activities we engage in, and in the extent to which our full humanity (i.e., our highest rational and emotional potential) is engaged by them. So, try engaging in the activity of showing gratitude, starting with yourself, and with the fact that you are (hopefully) breathing and moving around without assistance today—that alone is an immeasurable gift, and many would trade much to receive it.

2. Give love, service, and appreciation. For whatever reason, maybe just evolution, we are built to serve. There is something about losing yourself in loving and serving others with which self-pursuits simply cannot compete when it comes to Happiness. On this subject, Shimoff discusses some fascinating research. The first study was done at the Heartmath Institute which researches heart-brain communication. It shows that when we’re angry and negative, our heart rhythms actually become less coherent, whereas a positive, loving mindset evens them out. So our mindset feeds and correlates with our physical state; it’s not just your emotions then that feel toxic when you walk around angry and mad—your body suffers.

The second study was conducted by Dr. Masaru Emoto, a Japanese doctor of alternative medicine. This one involved talking to water. Hear me out. Dr. Emoto had people speak both negatively and positively to containers of water. Here is what the different containers looked like on the molecular level as a result. Guess which is which. And, by the way, our bodies are around 60 percent water.

you-make-me-sick

 

love-and-gratitude

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The water in the first photo was told, “I hate you.” The water in the second photo had love and gratitude expressed toward it. A little unsettling, but just saying.

3. Live your passion and dreams. Put another way: Move toward what makes you feel expanded. Shimoff did a little exercise to illustrate why this is important and which you should try. First, contract your muscles up as tightly as you can and try to smile and feel joyous and happy; it’s not so easy. Next try to do so while extending your arms as wide as they’ll go, opening your chest, raising your gaze, and expanding your body wherever else you can. Can you feel the difference? Your spirits instantly rise. Check your gut and identify the pursuits in life that feel like this and go do them.

Shimoff is no Aristotle, but she’s damn smart and well worth heeding. Most of all, she’s a shining example of what she preaches: doing what she loves, serving others, and genuinely happy.

 

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Have a Nice Day

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IMG_3738 - Version 2After reading a KaleandKant post last summer on the toxic chemicals that sustain manicured lawns, my husband, David, joked: “Why don’t you launch a blog that’s called: If you like it, it’s bad for you.com“? We are, of course, bombarded in the media with the sick, the bad, and the evil. But since our run on this planet is pretty short, it’s sad not to process the worrisome as quickly as possible and move on to the good, the life affirming, and the fun.

Since we adults sometimes need help with that, one idea I really like is Dr. Andrew Weil’s concept of a periodic “news fast.” When was the last time you turned on CNN or opened the NYT and heard about an act of kindness, a positive health trend, or something good going on in Russia, the Middle East, or even Washington DC?

The worst news outfits are those that devote 24/7 coverage to things like a little girl falling down a well and the ensuing, painstaking rescue effort. It’s horrible, terrible, and I pray that the child is rescued quickly. But do we really need Nancy Grace’s play-by-play for twenty hours? What good could this sick voyeurism do?

Today, let’s pause to reflect on what’s inspirational and wonderful. Here are some of my favorite quotes. David, and everyone, please enjoy and have a nice day!

“Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they’ll turn out.” Randall Munroe

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” Soren Kierkegaard

“The best time to plant a tree is twenty-five years ago. The second best time is today.” Unknown

“Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.” Oscar Wilde

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” Albert Einstein

“We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.” E. B. White

“Use those talents you have. You will make it. You will give joy to the world. Take this tip from nature: The woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best.” Bernard Meltzer

“Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let’s not be afraid to receive each day’s surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy. It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity.” Henri Nouwen

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Tidying as a Philosophy of Life

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DSC01817 KonmariI’m reading a book that is revolutionizing my life. It’s about tidying—as in organizing your home. Like your home, mine accumulates stuff. My family is pretty neat, but a household of six can’t avoid some disorder. So what’s the big deal about keeping unused and unwanted things around, assuming the mess they create is small and unobtrusive? Marie Kondo explains in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.

Kondo is a celebrity in Japan, where she is the author of bestsellers, featured in a TV movie, and has a three month wait list for her organizing services. Her approach to tidying is revolutionary because it is philosophical. Even though her methods are supremely practical, she doesn’t approach home organization in a utilitarian way. Getting rid of the unwanted and unused is not ultimately a material endeavor in her view, but a spiritual one.

Her method comprises two central principles:

1. “Keep only those things that speak to your heart, then take the plunge and discard all the rest.” The litmus test is always whether an item “sparks joy.”

2. Don’t buy organizational products: You have everything you need, and they only enable you to store things you probably should be discarding.

A couple of corollaries:

A. Sort by category, not location. Meaning: Don’t organize the office supplies in your kitchen versus those in your den or home office. Do them all together at once.

B. Get rid of kimono: miscellaneous stuff like old phone chargers, computer cords, buttons, etc. Free up your space for what sparks joy.

Here’s an example of how I used her method and its effect on me. In my formerly overflowing T-shirt drawer the majority of shirts fell into one of these categories: unneeded duplicate, too loose or tight, never liked, gift I felt too guilty to get rid of, nostalgic but unworn, bad color, or littered with those stupid holes where the shirt hits your belt buckle. This drawer was folded pretty nicely, but taking a philosophical angle, what happened each morning when I went to dig up a shirt I actually would enjoy wearing and feel good in?

1. I felt guilty about having so much stuff I don’t want or wear, and a tinge of anxiety as I plunged into an overstuffed and thus hostile drawer.

2. I wasted time finding what I do want to wear and then refolding or tidying the unwanted stuff that got messed up during my search.

3. I ended up forcing myself on some days to wear things out of guilt that didn’t make me feel good about the way I looked and impacted my confidence that day.

4. I was being ungenerous by not sharing with others shirts that I hated but that they may have loved.

We could continue this list, but the point is plain. Surrounding yourself with the unwanted and unused is not innocuous: In some real sense, it depletes and diminishes you.

I spent about a half hour on this drawer, following Kondo’s method: I dumped everything out onto the floor, and then only allowed myself to return to the drawer shirts that I actively wanted to be wearing. I was ruthless and put everything else in a giveaway bag.

The result? Crazy as it sounds, I felt light and joyful! Every time I go to use this drawer now, I see only things that I love—that speak to rather than drain me.

I was excited to share my discovery with my kids, so over the course of the next several weekends, I helped them “spark joy” in their rooms. Out went the unliked or outgrown clothing, the boring and unwanted toys, the broken crayons and dried out markers in the desk drawers, and all of the clutter that made their rooms, closets, and dressers messy and unfriendly. I can’t tell you how utterly delighted they were by the end result, and how transformed they felt in their rooms.

By clearing your environment and surrounding yourself only with beloved and special things, you “change your mind-set.” It really isn’t about material things at all. It’s about fashioning a reality in which you are surrounded by only that which pleases you and uplifts your spirit. Kondo promises that “When you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order, too.” She’s right.

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Who’s Happy?

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IMG_4736We just returned from a ski holiday, where I had an incredible time enjoying the Rocky Mountains with my family. I am nursing a couple of overuse injuries, so I walked and hiked more than skied, but it doesn’t really matter what physical activity you’re engaging in when the snowy Rockies tower around you against the blue sky and the Colorado sun warms your back. My kids skied all day, every day, so I also had time to peacefully read, shop, nap, and eat some great local food. By the time I had to ferry them from the mountain at 3pm daily, I was relaxed and ready to enjoy them.

Which made it somewhat jolting when mid-vacation, as the two of us chilled in his room après ski, my fifteen-year-old son, George, inquired: “Mom, are you happy?”

Now, he didn’t mean at that moment. He wanted to know if I liked my life, if I regularly enjoyed myself, if, at forty-eight, things had so far turned out as I’d hoped.

I was taken aback and could only stammer, “Yes, of course. Why? Don’t I seem happy?”

“You often seem so serious,” he replied.

In the conversation that ensued, we talked about adulthood, and how the needle on the fun-responsible spectrum started trending toward the right the older one got, as life made its demands and responsibilities mounted. It was an opportunity for me to explain to him why finding meaningful work was critical to being a happy adult, and why finding loving relationships was equally so. I told him that I had both of these, and that even though I didn’t skip around the room most days, I felt deeply content with my life, not to mention exceedingly grateful.

Later that night, as I lay in bed waiting for the melatonin to kick in against my lingering jet lag, I had to ask myself: Were you being honest with him? With yourself? You do often feel overwhelmed by your responsibilities raising a large family, you don’t walk around always smiling and giggling like your kids. Is there a fundamental lack of happiness that only your child had noticed? Moreover, is it everyone—or just you?

As often happens in such moments, my thoughts drifted to Aristotle (4th c. BC). As a biologist, he observed that all living things are goal-directed, and as a philosopher, argued that the supreme goal of human beings—that for the sake of which everything else is sought, but which is not itself sought for any further reason—is Happiness. What is Happiness, though, he wondered?

Well, it can’t be the pursuit of mere pleasure, for that would be too animal-like, not elevated enough for a thinking being. It also can’t lie in the accumulation of honor or wealth. These are external goods, that rely on others and are too easily taken away: “Happiness depends on ourselves.”

The key to the happiness or well-being of anything lies in the perfection of its function. So, say that a knife could be happy; its happiness would lie in its being a phenomenal cutting instrument, thereby fulfilling its purpose, realizing its maximum potential as a knife. Since what makes human beings unique is their rationality, living a life of activity guided by reason is what brings out the best in us, and most fully actualizes and perfects our human nature.

What exactly does this look like for you and me? It does not dictate the same life and lifestyle for everyone, but rather the structure of the particular life we each choose to lead. It suggests that no matter what our individual talents, passions, relationships, or pursuits, we find the most overall fulfillment as human beings by pursuing them and making our decisions in a manner that expresses our rationality. On the day-to-day, this means using practical reason to guide our decisions and actions, not allowing ourselves to be moved along by life’s forces, but rather taking the reigns ourselves.

This isn’t to say that a fully human life is devoid of feeling. For Aristotle, making proper rational choices involves having the right sorts of feelings for the right sorts of things, where one’s feelings support ones decisions rather than contradict them. Say you are a successful businesswoman making philanthropic plans for the year. Being “happy” in this activity involves having generous feelings that undergird your decisions about how much to give, and when, and to whom. A person whose passions are at odds with what reason says must be deeply unhappy. (I discuss how he believes we develop proper feelings here.)

Can I tell George that, according to the “master of them that know,” I am, albeit often “serious,” nonetheless happy?

In light of the choices I’ve made and how they’ve made me feel about myself and my life, I think that I can—with the addition of Aristotle’s caveat that a thoroughly rational life still needs a few additional things to perfect it, including friends, adequate wealth, and, of course, good health. He didn’t mention sheer, mindless fun, but to George’s point, I think it deserves prominent mention in his list, and perhaps we as overworked, harried adults need to remind ourselves of this more often. I know that I do. Happy 2015!

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Have We Been Feeding Our Kids All Wrong?

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DSC_0850 - Version 2Who doesn’t struggle to teach children healthy eating in our culture of fake, ubiquitous foodstuff? Our approach is often twofold. On the one hand, we instruct kids on how fruits and vegetables make them big, strong, smart, and healthy. On the other, we strive to fill their plates with salads and vegetables, perhaps thinking the more, the better. Today I’m summarizing some recent research that suggests we’ve been going about this all wrong—myself included.

Here are the findings, in no particular order.

1. The best way to introduce new foods to a child (or adult, for that matter) is with no “message” whatsoever. Talking about a food’s health benefits affects the perception of its likely tastiness. It’s also a mistake to talk about the food’s tastiness, however. The kids consumed the most of a healthy food who were spared any messaging entirely.

2. “Repeated exposure is the simplest and most convenient method to enhance vegetable intake in children. . . However, mothers often give up after only 5 exposures yet current recommendations suggest at least 8–10 exposures.” (See study here.)  So, we are just not being persistent enough. [Read more…]