Honeymoon Blog Part I: Hong Kong and the Marital Opium Wars

Greetings, esteemed reader, and welcome back to my blog. Been a while since I last wrote, so let me catch you up on my personal life really quick so that what follows makes sense to you. Here we go:
1. I married a lovely young woman by the name of Rebecca Dominick a couple weeks ago
2. She's quite a catch, and I still don't quite understand what she sees in me
3. We're very happy together, but hoooooo boy we're more opposite than Paula Abdul and that feisty cartoon cat....which makes for some great blog fodder!

My wife is probably too young to understand this photo.

4. We're on our honeymoon as I write this: First two days in Hong Kong, followed by 10 or so in Sri Lanka.

Now that you're caught up, on to blog post #1!

Part I: Opium Wars, Noise Canceling Headphones, and My Imperialist Wife

Before European imperialists descended upon Hong Kong in the 1830s, Chinese culture was largely free of European influence. In 1842, however, the British expanded their empire, usurped Hong Kong, and changed the cultural landscape forever. At the time, European demand for Chinese goods--silk, tea, porcelain, etc.--was high, while Chinese demand for European bullshit was almost non-existent. Naturally, the Brits turned to the drugs to tighten their stranglehold and to have their way with the unsuspecting, peaceful Chinese. By getting Hong Kong locals addicted to Opium, the selfish Brits assumed, they would be able to exploit the Chinese, make money off of them, and enjoy higher quality tea and crumpets.

Historians now refer to this time period as the Opium Wars between Britain and China, and history doesn’t look too kindly on the Brits for this one. I mean, the Chinese were leading tranquil lives in a beautiful landscape, having never heard of Opium. What sort of jerks would go to great lengths to make them a nation of addicts?

In a shockingly similar parallel, the newly-founded Galvin Family (established June 9, 2018), began what historians are already referring to as the Noise-Cancelling Headphone Wars (N-CHW) less than three weeks later. Rebecca, playing the role of the oppressive British in this story, inaugurated the N-CHW somewhat peacefully by first asking me if I was intersted in obtaining a pair. I politely declined, informing her I was already struggling with the disease of more. In short, the disease of more refers to the unfortunate human condition that implores us to always want more than what we have. What makes the disease of more even more tragic, is that once we’ve obtained whatever we are chasing, that becomes the norm and we can never go back to the way things were. A few examples: heated seats in your car, smartphones, Pandora without commercials, air conditioning.

She seemed to understand me, but when a package of brand new N-CHs arrived at my door shortly before we departed for Asia, it became apparent that Rebecca was hell bent on making me an addict.

...it begins

I didn’t know what to do. I knew I needed to prove a point to her, and that if I let the N-CHs through, I might very well be setting myself up for a lifetime of chasing ever shinier and fancier objects, gadgets and gizmos (psychologists refer to this endless pursuit as the hedonic treadmill). However, do I throw these things in the trash, thus starting this marriage/honeymoon off on a negative note?

I caved. Upon boarding the 16 hour flight from Chicago to Hong Kong, I begrudgingly packed the N-CHs, popped them on, and proceeded to watch three delightful movies on the flight. Then, when it came to nodding off, I switched to the soothing sounds of Jackson Browne, none of them interrupted by background noise or that loudspeaker that tells you how to put on a seatbelt.

I’m ashamed and embarrassed to admit: Rebecca has prevailed in the Galvin Family Noise-Canceling Headphone Wars. Much like my addictions to my iPhone, my butt-warming car, and Amazon Prime, I can no longer go back to the days of flip phones, a lukewarm ass, and ambient sound.

Rebecca: 1
Sean: 0

How to Read More: Episode 1 of 3 - Understanding the Naive Phase

5 Minute Read

Whatever you're working on right now, whatever problem you're struggling with, is probably addressed in some book somewhere by someone a lot smarter than you. Save yourself the trouble of learning from trial and error. 

-Ryan Holiday

Ah, the benefits of reading. In addition to objectively making us smarter, habitual reading also has proven to reduce stress, improve memory and analytical thinking, increase vocabulary, and even stave off Alzheimer's. All this with no negative side effects. Put another way, reading makes everything better.

Despite these undeniable benefits, we don't read much. We claim we're too tired, we don't want to spend money on books, and we just don't have the time. Then, we plop down on the couch and watch an average of nearly three hours of television while shopping online. In fact, despite not having time to read a book, 95% of texts are read within three minutes of being sent.

Welcome to a three-part journey (my first miniseries!) where we'll be exploring our peculiar relationship with books (Part I), an audiobooks manifesto of sorts (Part II), and some sort of dramatic conclusion that will make you say, "today begins the new me!" as some sort of musical montage begins in the background.

The Naive Phase

Understanding our relationship with books requires a quick trip to the beginning of our lives and to the dawn of our relationship with the recorded words of others.

In his 2012 book Mastery (which is certain to make my top five books of this year), Robert Greene explains that compared to other animals, we humans enter the world remarkably weak and helpless. While baby birds fly after just a few days and infant giraffes can walk within a half hour and run within a day (!), baby Homo Sapiens are weak, vulnerable, and comparatively helpless for anywhere from 12 to 18 years (give or take) before we can truly function on our own.

This extended phase of dependence serves a vital purpose, Greene asserts, as it gives us time to develop our most powerful weapon--the human brain. This period comes at a peculiar price, however, as our childhoods involve idealizing our parents, teachers, and anyone in an authority role whose strength and reliability we depend on.

We are corralled into classrooms, mandatory books are imposed on us (which is Bad Idea Jeans), and we are instructed to carefully read every page because there might be some irrelevant detail in there that will show up on some bullshit scantron test. Then we're in big trouble, as our grade would be affected and our future employment prospects would certainly suffer. Scare tactics, baby!

As if this weren't torturous enough, anyone who went to elementary school in the 80s and 90s certainly had to deal with the judgement-fest that was popcorn reading. If you want to make a 9 year-old with a speech impediment (me in 1990) hate reading for 25ish years, force him to popcorn read in front of his peers.

Love the movie, but this scene haunts me

As a result of this Stalin-like approach to our literacy, we feel sensitive and vulnerable about our reading abilities.  Books become associated with chores, nerds, and feeling like we don't measure up to some arbitrary ideal, and many of us end up with contempt for books and a bizarre pride in how much we don't read. This is Greene's Naive Perspective to a T, and many of us (including the leader of the free world) never outgrow it.

Consequences

As we enter adulthood, this naive approach ceases to make sense. There are no tests on our reading anymore, it doesn't matter if we skim or skip a few pages (or chapters), and there's no absolutely no reason to feel any negative emotions whatsoever toward books. 

Considering the availability of the works of the greatest thinkers and leaders in human history (you can access them using the very object you're looking at right now!!), failure to move past this phase has undeniable consequences. As Greene explains, our naivete subtly drains us of curiosity and replaces it with conformity to social norms, pursuit of leisure and immediate pleasures, and a general propensity toward a mechanical, robot-like existence. 

Graduation

If you're still with me at this point, congratulations! You've recognized that the naive approach is for cowards, and you're ready to change your relationship with reading. Next week, we will explore several techniques to upgrading our approach to books. These include, but are not limited to the following:

• Audiobooks are not cheating
• Neuroscience proves the impact on the brain is identical to traditional reading
• The art of nonfinishing
• Develop the habit of nonfinishing that which is boring or unproductive
• You don't have to start at page one
• It's your book
• Talk to the text
• Write notes and make highlights
• It's your book

Until next week!

Our Evolutionary Need for Silence

4 Minute Read

Saying nothing sometimes says the most.

-Emily Dickinson

We're now at a point where noise is almost unavoidable. As I type this in my mother's backyard, I hear pleasant sounds of nature: birds singing, leaves rustling in the breeze, and the occasional bumblebee. In addition, the M-14 expressway, about a mile from where I sit, constantly hums in the background. Two houses down, a power saw has been in intermittent use for the past two hours, and two neighbors just began mowing their lawns. To top it off, some lady set off her own car alarm and apparently doesn't know how to disengage it.

A few months ago, I wrote of learning to not let car alarms infuriate me. More recently, however, I've learned I don't really have a choice in the matter. The human body has evolved to constantly scan the environment for dangers and opportunities, thus it subconsciously reacts to every stimulus it encounters. In the case of noise, sound waves vibrate tiny bones in the ear, and these vibrations fire electric signals directly into the auditory cortex of the brain.

Even while we sleep, environmental noise causes stress hormones to be released, and recent studies have found that people who live in cities experience chronically high levels of these hormones--particularly cortisol. Cortisol increases blood pressure, which contributes to heart disease and cellular damage, and has a debilitating effect on the immune system. As Michael Finkel writes in The Stranger in the Woods: "Noise harms your body and boils your brain."

Noise is pretty much global now

For evidence of this brain-boiling, look no further than a recent global survey by the World Health Organization which concluded that people in wealthy countries--equipped with expressways, power tools, and Steve Miller's Abracadabra--suffer from depression as much as eight times the rate they do in poor countries where the sounds of nature are more common. Further, suicide rates have shown to increase alongside economic prosperity. To paraphrase Sebastian Junger, rather than buffering people from depression, increased wealth in society seems to foster it.

Silence is Beyond Golden

You don't need to voyage to a Tibetan Monastery to win your brain back from lawnmowers and car alarms,  but you do need to regularly seek out a soothing environment. Researchers have found that a daily fifteen-minute walk in the woods will cause significant decreases in cortisol, and that two hours of silence per day prompts cell development in the hippocampus--the region of the brain responsible for memory.

Other studies, including one conducted at the University of Michigan titled Your Brain In The Woods vs. Your Brain on Asphalt, have found that time immersed in nature makes us calmer, less depressed and anxious, with improved cognition and memory. In other words, silence makes us smarter and happier. Evolutionary psychologists believe our bodies relax in quiet, natural environments because our senses evolved there and thus remain calibrated to them.

The burgeoning world of neuroscience agrees. An experiment at New York University placed 20+ Buddhist monks and nuns inside MRI machines, tracking brain activity while they meditated. The result? When we choose to sit in silence, the brain is as active as ever. What changes is where the activity occurs. While talking, texting, and keeping busy, the activity occurs in our cerebral cortex--which is a thin layer on the brain's surface. When we experience silence, the cerebral cortex rests, allowing deeper and more ancient brain structures to come alive. Those of us living busy, noisy and distracted lives almost never get access to these areas. As Finkel brilliantly writes, "Silence, it appears, is not the opposite of sound. It is another world altogether, literally offering a deeper level of thought, a journey to the bedrock of the self."

Afraid of Silence?

Despite the obvious benefits, few of us seek out silence. In fact, a University of Virginia study recently found more than half of men and at about a third of women would rather endure painful electric shocks than to sit in silence for 15 minutes. How can this be? Too much technology? Too many obligations? When we were hunter-gatherers, the average Homo Sapiens needed about 4,000 calories of energy to get through the day. This was pretty much food and a daily campfire. Today, Americans burn an average of 228,000 calories per person per day to feed our stomachs, propel our cars, charge our devices, and to keep our homes between 68 and 72 degrees (I'll be damned if I put on a sweatshirt or open a window!). We're burning 60 times more energy than our ancestors. Is life 60 times better?

Perhaps this is all a result of the disease of more. In our modern culture, as my man Yuval Noah Harari points out, the idea seems to be that if we have a problem we probably need more stuff. To get more stuff, we must produce more.

We don't have to buy into this idea. 2,500 years ago a Chinese fella named Lao-tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching, and there's a reason it's the 2nd most popular book in the history of the world (next to the Bible). "Those with less become content," says the Tao, "those with more become confused."