📪 Hello again my stoical existential impressionist lover friends your Sunday existential medicine is here.
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As always, I will make sure that there is not a second wasted here. Before we continue, I am adding and deleting some parts of my post structure, so if you ever want to share your thoughts and/or suggestions for me please leave a comment, shoot me an email, or a DM on LinkedIn.
✨ Fact or Graph
This is a graph posted on Reddit 2 years ago. Situation can be worse than this now and I believe it is much worse especially on Facebook and Instagram. Zuckerberg gives you no rest.
My beloved platform Twitter is not so bad, I hope someday they roll out a subscription plan with no ads.
🐦1 Tweet Thread
You need to give Alex & Books a follow on Twitter and Instagram. He is my go-to source for new book advice.
My favorites from the documentaries Alex recommended:
📘 1 Book:
7 and Half Lessons About the Brain:
Our brain is not evolved for thinking. Nice realization, comforting a little bit.
In fact, the idea that our brains evolved for thinking has been the source of many profound misconceptions about human nature. Once you give up that cherished belief, you will have taken the first step toward understanding how your brain actually works and what its most important job is—and, ultimately, what kind of creature you really are.
We do not know exactly why our brain evolved. However its’ first job is to manage your energy, trying to predict what you will need energy-wise in the near future.
So, returning to our original question: Why did a brain like yours evolve? That question is not answerable because evolution does not act with purpose—there is no “why.” But we can say what is your brain’s most important job. It’s not rationality. Not emotion. Not imagination, or creativity, or empathy. Your brain’s most important job is to control your body—to manage allostasis—by predicting energy needs before they arise so you can efficiently make worthwhile movements and survive. Your brain continually invests your energy in the hopes of earning a good return, such as food, shelter, affection, or physical protection, so you can perform nature’s most vital task: passing your genes to the next generation.
Your brain is not just made up of neurons. It encompasses vessels, fluids, unexplained glial cells, and microbiomes. Even in the intestines there are microbes that can be counted as part of your brain.
Your brain is more than just neurons. It includes blood vessels and various fluids that I haven’t talked about. It also includes other kinds of brain cells, called glial cells, that function in ways that scientists don’t fully understand yet. Your brain network may even extend, surprisingly, into your gut and intestines, where scientists have found microbes that communicate with your brain via neurotransmitters.
We do not have 3 brains. We have one.
Prefrontal cortex - So called thinking and planning guy
Limbic system - Governing our emotions
Lizard brain - That governs our primal functions.
So you don’t have an inner lizard or an emotional beast-brain. There is no such thing as a limbic system dedicated to emotions. And your misnamed neocortex is not a new part; many other vertebrates grow the same neurons that, in some animals, organize into a cerebral cortex if key stages run for long enough. Anything you read or hear that proclaims the human neocortex, cerebral cortex, or prefrontal cortex to be the root of rationality, or says that the frontal lobe regulates so-called emotional brain areas to keep irrational behavior in check, is simply outdated or woefully incomplete. The triune brain idea and its epic battle between emotion, instinct, and rationality is a modern myth.
More spaced repetition, more practice and using more senses to learn something is a better way of doing it. Memories or learnings are not stored like a file, they are reconstructed every time we need them.
Brains of higher complexity can remember more. A brain doesn’t store memories like files in a computer—it reconstructs them on demand with electricity and swirling chemicals. We call this process remembering but it’s really assembling.
Your brain predicts (almost) everything you do. We can intervene in this process. By being more mindful, trying new experiences and expanding our horizons we can create some control.
Your brain always asks : The last time I encountered a similar situation, when my body was in a similar state and was preparing this particular action, what did I see next? What did I feel next?
Your brain secretly works with other brains. It was good for homo sapiens to keep in touch with, learn and teach from each other.
Being a social species has all sorts of advantages for us Homo sapiens. One advantage is that we live longer if we have close, supportive relationships with other people. It may seem obvious that loving relationships are good for us, but studies show that the benefits go beyond what common sense would suggest. If you and your partner feel that your relationship is intimate and caring, that you’re responsive to each other’s needs, and that life seems easy and enjoyable when you’re together, both of you are less likely to get sick. If you’re already sick with a serious illness, such as cancer or heart disease, you’re more likely to get better. These studies were conducted on married couples, but the results appear to hold for close friendships too, and even for pet owners.
Words can kill you. This is not just a metaphor but a scientific fact.
Why do the words you encounter have such wide-ranging effects inside you? Because many brain regions that process language also control the insides of your body, including major organs and systems that support your body budget. These brain regions, which are contained in what scientists call the “language network,” guide your heart rate up and down. They adjust the glucose entering your bloodstream to fuel your cells. They change the flow of chemicals that support your immune system. The power of words is not a metaphor. It’s in your brain wiring. We see similar wiring in other animals too; for example, neurons that are important for birdsong also control the organs of a bird’s body.
Do not boast about yourself that much:
“Your brain is not more evolved than a rat or lizard brain, just differently evolved.”
📝 2 Articles:
This one was the one of the most insightful articles I have read in a long time. Long time means 5 days or so for me, you know I am a sick reader, sorry. This is a disease and my doctor wife cannot solve it. Medicine is a lie :)
Remember, every masterpiece was once unfinished. Do not fear, embrace the incompleteness.
There is a vast body of research that shows that instead of fearing, we should actually embrace things that are unfinished. After all, everything that was ever finished, was at some point unfinished. The tension and feeling of unfinished can work both for and against us. In order to understand how we can leverage it to get more done, build better products, and design more compelling experiences, we need to understand how unfinished affects our mind.,
If the task is important to you, do not fear not completing it. Let it wait a bit. Your mind will wander on the task without you noticing it.
Indeed, what we learned is that once you start a task—without completing it—you will find yourself thinking of the task until, step by step, you eventually finish it.
Power of the unfinished is masterfully used by tech companies. You can also utilize it, spice your headline up next time. Or leave the podcast hanging, making listeners crave for more.
Trailers, teasers, and promotions all lean into the power of unfinished. They give insights about the conflict, without revealing how the conflict is resolved. Titles of articles and videos ask questions with subtle hints to the answer, while savily leaving out the answer itself. Movies with abrupt ends get debated, while the ones with predictable ends get forgotten.
After reading this article, you won’t be needing any more article to learn how to stay healthy and fit.
Cook with olive oil instead of butter, prefer extra virgin olive oil.
Eat more beans and nuts.
Fill your stomach %80.
Experience hunger. There is no need to eat 3 times a day and also no consensus on how many hours you need to stay away from putting a meal into your belly. However, experiencing hunger is good for your mental health.
Coffee and tea are always good idea.
Exercise in the cold.
Do not blame your genes.
When less than 25% of your genetics are accountable for your personal longevity, it doesn’t make much sense to deterministically pin your fate (or blame your behaviors) on what happened to your parents or grandparents.
📺 1 Video:
This video was an interesting experience for me. Change is always constant, the most destructive power or the law of physics maybe. I do not know about you but I do always think I would be a happier person if I were a young person around 1820 in 1960s or in 1970s. Not in Turkey, but in America.
I adored the clips, movies, hair styles, hippies, every crushed souls’ fight against the government.
I love the design of couches. Jackson Brown, Marvin Gaye, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones. Ah I do not know, maybe it is true what Woody Allen told us in Midnight in Paris: Everyone longs for the life in the past, thinking they would be happier in simpler terms. Everyone was more perfect, purer, and quality. The relationships and connections were more real. Life is lived only forwards though, and that is the curse of our species.
How about some fun?
📽️ 1 SERIES / FILM or DOCUMENTARY:
I am sure you have heard of this film. However, it is worth mentioning again. This film’s every frame is a painting and cinematography is beyond perfect. It is a simple story where painter falls in love with her subject, both women. However the quality of cast, shooting and all the emotions are masterfully crafted.
“Is that how you see me?”
“If you look at me, who do I look at?”
📜 2 Quotes:
Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.
― SOCRATES
When you don’t have any money, the problem is food. When you have
money, it’s sex. When you have both, it’s health. If everything is simply
jake, then you’re frightened of death.
—J.P. DONLEAVY
📼 1 Playlist:
This playlist arrived in my inbox via Aposto. I am very moved by the creativity of some covers that add a higher music quality to originals. MSQ turns every Britney Spears song into a musical masterpiece.
Song of the week will take you to your lonely nights. Lonely is good. Lonely is better sometimes but do not get too lonely. Your efforts to make your life meaningful is not complete without some companion to share it with.
I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps
I look from the wings at the play you are staging
While my guitar gently weeps
As I’m sitting here, doing nothing but aging
Still my guitar gently weeps
In case you have missed the news or forgot donating money and receiving your book, here is my book and Instagram post for the details. The book is in Turkish, compiles a lot of dear thinkers and quotes into one to make sense of our messy world and our quest to catch happiness.
📱 1 Useful App/Website/Tool
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Until next time,
Forward, always.
Ratip.