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Sloww Sunday Newsletter 142 (Apr 30, 2023) — Quitting Alcohol, No Memory, Zen Mind, & More
Sloww Sunday shares creations from Sloww along with curations of fascinating finds to 10,000+ students of life. If you enjoy this issue, please help grow Sloww by forwarding the email version of this newsletter to other lifelong learners.
📚 Lifelong Learning
Reading List Updates
I just made some updates to my full reading list. The list now includes 399 books, and I’ve read 107 of them so far (27%).
“Sit in a room and read—and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.” — Joseph Campbell
🌎 Lighter Living
Anyone here quit alcohol?
My relationship with alcohol spans 20+ years. I’ve quit different types of alcohol for different lengths of time (had a period where I was wine-only for a year or two). I’ve attempted to quit completely a few times in recent years, but I think the longest I’ve made it is 45 days. Eventually I slip up with the thinking, “Well, it’s just a drink.” That one drink then turns into a few more drinks the next day or weekend. And, sure enough, I end up with a hangover and questioning why I ever decided to drink in the first place. I’d really like to just be done with it (luckily, finding purpose in recent years has drastically reduced my total alcohol consumption in general). It’s obvious to me now in my late 30s that alcohol is poison to my body and my sleep. If you’ve successfully quit, please comment and let me know what worked for you.
Personally, my repeated experience (“I’m quitting” to “Well it’s just one drink” to “Well it’s just one more drink”) seems to be an example of drift to low performance until I realize it and do another reset to quitting:
- “People summon the energy to solve a problem when they sense a gap between their goal and their present state. In a drift to low performance that gap closes, not because performance improves, but because the goal is allowed to slip. Standards erode. The kind of performance that used to cause consternation begins to be defined as normal. Lower expectations, no discrepancy between goal and actuality, no action. Everyone goes to sleep. Drift to low performance feeds upon itself. As everyone gets used to mediocrity it’s easy for standards to slip still further—which lowers expectations and allows even worse performance.” — Donella Meadows
Explore more: How do I design a lighter life? (Sloww Stage 1)
🧭 Deeper Purpose
Who are you without your memory?
Henry “H.M.” Molaison (1926–2008) had surgery in 1953 at age 27 to cure his epilepsy—unfortunately it also resulted in an inability to form new memories (Wikipedia). More specifically, he developed severe anterograde amnesia, and he could not transform information in his short-term memory into long-term memory. He couldn’t remember his most recent meal of the day or even the researcher who had been working with him for decades. However, his other intellectual functions were preserved, perceptual skills were normal, IQ was above average, he had no psychiatric symptoms, and he was not depressed. Here’s a video of Henry answering questions in his own words.
When asked about how he felt answering so many questions and doing all the research testing, Henry said:
- “I don’t mind. What is found out about me, helps you to help others.” — Henry Molaison
According to No Self, No Problem by Chris Niebauer:
- “For Henry, nothing new had happened since 1953 … As he grew older, his ongoing belief that he was in his twenties resulted in a profound sense of shock upon seeing his aged reflection in the mirror. Henry passed in 2008, and living for 55 years without new memories puts in stark relief something that all of us take for granted: We know what happened a few moments ago, and a few moments before that. In a famous quote describing his own experience, Henry stated, ‘Right now, I’m wondering. Have I done or said anything amiss? You see, at this moment everything looks clear to me, but what happened just before? That’s what worries me. It’s like waking from a dream; I just don’t remember.'” — Chris Niebauer
Was Henry happy?
- “When Henry died at the age of 82, he had no egoic collection of personal memories from his final five decades. For most of us, these are the kinds of memories that define who we are. To an outsider looking in, Henry’s story had a huge piece missing. This begs the question, if we use our memories to define ourselves, what does that mean for people like Henry? Did Henry need the story of a self beyond 27 to be happy? In an interview near the end of Henry’s life, he was asked if his life was happy even without these autobiographical memories of a self and his response was yes.” — Chris Niebauer
What’s the lesson?
- “One of the lessons we can glean from Henry is that being attached to our personal story based on autobiographical memories doesn’t make us happy. In fact, I believe the less we are attached to it, the happier we can be. So, while what happened to Henry was tragic and we wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, perhaps the lesson is that it’s good to have the memories, but we don’t have to identify with them so much or look to them for happiness. Our memories don’t have to control us.” — Chris Niebauer
Explore more: How do I find higher purpose (Sloww Stage 2)?
Get the eBook: Ikigai 2.0: A Step-by-Step Guidebook to Finding Life Purpose & Making Money Meaningfully (+ Bonus Workbook)
🧠 Mental Wealth
Original Position (or Veil of Ignorance) Thought Experiment
If you’ve been following Sloww for a bit, you’ve probably heard me mention the lottery of birth or ovarian lottery. But, where do those concepts come from? I finally looked into the source material for the “original position” (or “veil of ignorance”) thought experiment by skimming through A Theory of Justice by John Rawls. Here’s a new summary overview.
“Each person finds himself placed at birth in some particular position in some particular society, and the nature of this position materially affects his life prospects.” — John Rawls
Explore more: How do I master the mind (Sloww Stage 3)?
Get Mini Mind: 365 Daily Emails of Bite-Size Brain Food
☯️ Timeless Wisdom
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
I’m not sure I’ve ever taken so many notes from such a short book! It took me most of this week to organize these two new posts on Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki (Book Summary | 🔒Premium Summary). This is the best book I’ve read so far this year, and the Premium summary is especially comprehensive and thoroughly organized.
“Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense.” — Shunryu Suzuki
Explore more: How do I embody wisdom (Sloww Stage 4)?
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Go with the Sloww,
Kyle Kowalski
Synthesizer & Solopreneur
