Random bunch of stuff

A long and rambling post. Maybe don't read it unless you are very bored.

Hello all,

It’s been a while. After my lovely French adventure I came home, got mild Covid and enjoyed a flurry of journalism. I think most of the articles are behind paywalls, which may be annoying - I’m sorry. But also I’m trying not to get annoyed by paywalls on account of the fact that they help me get paid, which I am grateful for.

Just in case you are interested, here is a round up.

I interviewed Dr Rangan Chatterjee for the Irish Independent about his new book Happy Mind, Happy Life - which is about the impact our emotions have on our physical health. The line that struck me and which the paper used as the headline is ‘We’re told to chase our dreams but we’re not told our dreams won’t make us happy.’ The TV doctor has a mega popular podcast and talked about overworking and this endless quest to do more and achieve more. He also talked about his dad coming to the UK from India and working two jobs, only to get a chronic illness. If you don’t want to read the piece, this chat with Elizabeth Day was good.

Another one for the Irish Independent was a chat with Irish sexpert Jenny Keane who started holding adult sex education workshops in lockdown and has had 20,000 people join her zooms. Everyone from 20 somethings to 70 somethings turn up for her loving, down to earth sex advice. More than ‘what to put where’ talk, Jenny talks about the importance of taking pleasure whenever and wherever we can. This is frowned upon in our Western productivity obsessed world, but she thinks it’s vital for us to flourish as humans. She is a force for good in the world. You can check her out on Instagram.

I also reviewed Susan Cain’s book Bittersweet for the UK Times. Some of you might remember Quiet which was a book about what it’s like to be introvert in an extrovert world. It had a big impact on me at the time. I always thought introvert meant being shy - but it doesn’t mean that. It means that you recharge by being alone, while extroverts recharge by being with other people. It explained why, even though I love people, too much time with others exhausts me. Bittersweet is about the value of sadness and melancholy - it’s cathartic and helps us feel connected to others. It’s a lovely book. If you don’t want to get behind the paywall, you can listen to this podcast episode with Tim Ferriss.

This one on the future of work and the jobs we’ll be doing in 2040 blew my mind!! I spoke to futurists who talked about a world where bricks will repair themselves, our gadgets will be so intelligent they’ll have feelings and need their own shrinks - and how one day we’ll be getting heart surgery from a doctor who is on a different continent. I also asked career experts about how young people should prepare for an AI future and the answers were: be curious, be empathetic, learn how to communicate well and learn how to adaptable and resilient. I thought this was helpful for us all. The world is changing at such a rate these days it’s giving me the spins - adaptability, resilience and human kindness seem to be the way forward. And a lot of deep breathing.

What else? Maybe that’s it for now.

Life is OK this end. Feel a bit like an egg without its shell after a difficult call with my editors about what’s going wrong with my second book. Quite a lot apparently. There’s lots of good stuff in it too but it’s a long road…

Now for stuff I’m reading/watching etc.

What I’m reading

Diana, Herself and The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck. Beck’s story is the stuff of self-help legend - she grew up Mormon, got a PHD from Yale, got married and had children only to realise that she was gay and so was her husband. She then remembered the buried trauma of being abused by her father who was high up in the Mormon church. Keeping all these secrets was making her sick so she had a year of radical honesty, where she vowed to tell only the truth. The results were cataclysmic - her marriage ended, her family disowned her, she stopped her academic work and she became the happiest she’d ever been. She seems like a very happy woman. I like her. - This podcast between Elizabeth Gilbert and Martha is a good listen (if you don’t mind the love bombing that goes on between the two of them. This is my pet peeve with interviews these days, about ten minutes is spent at the beginning declaring love on both sides. Can’t we just accept that if someone is on your podcast you like them and just get to the chat? Or is that churlish of me?!)

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I’ve read so many good articles lately which I have not kept track of. Probably most of them have come via Emma Gannon and Helen Lewis’s newsletters.

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This touched me today by Viv Groskop about the ‘blur’ that we are in now that we’re kind of post pandemic and kind of not. Most of us are doing our best to get on with things but something feels off. The article talks about the importance of recognising what we’ve been through and the effect that it’s had before carrying on…

On a similar note, I’ve written an article about Post Traumatic Growth that will run in this Sunday’s Telegraph. I’ll share a link next week. It’s a piece about how we can come out stronger from periods of difficulty but it takes time.

What I’m watching

Russian Doll, the second series - so clever and also at times confusing. The main character Nadia (played by Natasha Lyonne) goes back in time and finds herself in her mother and then grandmother’s body. It’s about understanding the trauma that past generations carry. Such an original series and moving too on how we blame our parents and our parents blame their parents etc - but by being in their bodies and living their life, you see how everything happened the way it did. You don’t need to have watched the first series to watch this one - but the first series was great too. On Netflix.

Freeze the fear with Wim Hoff - I love him!! The BBC series follows British celebs dunking themselves in icy water and feeling tearful / euphoric. My friend, who has been a hardcore fan of Wim Hoff’s breathing exercises and ice showers says he’s going too easy on them. ‘It’s like a spa,’ he reckons. If you haven’t heard of Wim, here is a Rolling Stone article.

I cried during the Netflix interview between Oprah and Viola Davis who rose from poverty to become the first Black person to win an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy. The bit that got me was when she talked about the shame of poverty and how people don’t understand the catch 22 of it unless they’ve experienced it. You don’t have clean clothes because the water pipes have frozen and you can’t afford soap. Or you do clean the clothes but there is no heat to dry them with so you go to school wearing damp clothes… She said that acting was her way of surviving; on stage she’d get applause for showing the pain she would be shunned for showing in real life. She talked about how she ran from bullies at school and she has been running ever since. She has written an autobiography which sounds powerful.

After that I watched a generic thing about people murdering people for drugs that I now can’t remember the name of. Don’t watch it.

What I’m listening to

Kae Tempest’s Hold Your Own on loop. Another force for good in the world. If you haven’t heard People’s Faces, check that out too. And if you like their lyrics, I recommend their book On Connection about the power of creativity to bring us together.

Love and runny eggs,

x

PS I am writing a piece about people who find career success later in life - fifties plus - if anyone, UK based fits the bill or has any ideas of who to contact, please do drop me a line. It’s a nice chance to plug your business/ books etc- and I hope uplifting for people to see that it’s never too late.