For me this is really my natural state. I love to make things. I love to see how others receive them. I’m motivated both for artistic reasons – I think of something and simply need to see its realization – and practical reasons: I want to make an impact (and a living) with some of the stuff I do.

This is how I spent my time in Junior High and High School. I made a number of computer games. One of them was pretty popular when it was released. It took 2 years to make it!

I then lost some of this spirit during college and at job post-college. I was doing interesting work, but it felt very different. Something was wrong.

Now I’m making things again. I readily admit that I was super naive when I started. This naivete is fine for artistic projects, but it’s a death sentence for practical projects. I did not understand how to make stuff people wanted and when I made stuff they didn’t want I was mystified as to why that was the case.

I’m planning to write about a few of the things I’ve learned along the way. Here is the first.

Help people learn about themselves.

Who are the most important people? Me, myself, and I. People love to learn about themselves. That’s why they take endless personality tests, go to psychics, read horoscopes, and so on. Help them learn about themselves and they will love you.

My first taste of this principle came from my simple Facebook app, “How original are your parents?”, which was released in early 2011. This app takes your first name and birth year and tells you how original your parents were in naming you. It also tells you facts about the name like the year it peaked in popularity and what it might have been had you been the opposite sex (and your parents been just as original).

This app got really popular really quickly – it was used by about 15 million people in a week. Now this was helped by Facebook’s inherent virality, obviously. But people were clearly very, very interested in the results it gave. They were bombarding me with complaints when the server went down. They were pissed when it got their nicknames wrong. They posted their results in a bunch of different internet forums off Facebook.

The app struck a nerve. As simple as it was, it was clear that it was more than just a time waster – it provided people something they wanted.

People love to learn about themselves. It’s not about you, it’s about them. Help them learn more about themselves and they will love you.

To be continued … ]]> http://www.miketuritzin.com/writing/lessons-learned-through-painful-trial-and-error/feed/ 0 http://www.miketuritzin.com/writing/classes-gradually-coalescing-into-one-interconnected-blob/ http://www.miketuritzin.com/writing/classes-gradually-coalescing-into-one-interconnected-blob/#comments Sun, 10 Jul 2011 17:34:26 +0000 miketuritzin http://www.miketuritzin.com/writing/?p=1322 Classes. I’ve been taking a bunch of ‘em recently. I think I’m going through a phase where I want to try out as many things as possible and see what I like and what I don’t.

Why classes? They’re a great way of jumping into something and immediately getting a taste for it. They’re also structured and regular, so it’s easy to do them. Just sign up and you’re in. (Well, as long as you actually show up.)

These are the classes I’ve done recently:

1. A public speaking seminar that happens every 2 weeks
2. An improv class
3. A singing class
4. A “band workshop.” Kind of like School of Rock.

Doing all this stuff has given me even more of an appreciation for the sheer depth of everything in the world. I’ve always found that things tend to appear simpler and more straightforward from the outside. Once I immerse myself in them, I realize the depth and complexity of everything.

Any activity you can think of has people who devote their lives to it. There really is so much to learn.

Take public speaking, for example. Most people don’t think public speaking is easy. (It’s feared more than death, right?) But that doesn’t mean they think it’s complicated. Get up on stage and give a speech. Done. Right? It’s just standing on a stage and delivering some prepared remarks – get the hand gestures and eye contact right, and you’re good to go.

That’s pretty much what I thought. But there’s so much going on beneath the surface.

To start, public speaking is – as with almost everything, I’ve found – very much about internal mindsets and emotional foundations. It’s not so much about techniques – though those are important – as it is about having the right attitude and frame of mind.

For example: To be a good public speaker you need the following:

1. The belief that what you have to say about whatever you’re talking about is engaging enough to captivate a room full of people. If you don’t think it’s engaging enough, it’s unlikely they’ll be engaged.
2. The ability to be at least moderately comfortable on stage. If you get up there and immediately go deer-in-the-headlights, it’s unlikely you’re going to do a very good job. Stiff and uncomfortable = weird and/or boring.
3. The ability to go “all in.” This is a concept that Peter, the guy who runs the seminar, has taken from method acting. The idea is to be completely engaged and “in” the set of whatever you’re talking about. Both emotionally and spatially. If you’re telling a story, you’re fully “in” the physical environment you’re describing and feeling the emotions of the story.
4. The ability to speak extemporaneously and be totally comfortable with that. Partly because a speech that is totally “on the rails” will tend to feel rehearsed and boring, partly because so much public speaking is extemporaneous. Most public speaking that goes on in the world is unplanned and unprepared.

That’s what I can think of off the top of my head, but there’s obviously much more.

I love the feeling of diving into something new and opening my world to its intricacies. There is so much depth and subtlety to everything.

I’ve also found that by doing many different things I start to notice connections between things that I would have never guessed were connected. The mass of seemingly-disconnected pursuits and activities gradually coalesce into one interconnected blob.

Poetic, isn’t it?

I remember in a freshman class in college called “The Good Life” (this was part of a required humanities program), the TA asked my section what we thought the “good life” was. Everyone else in the class listed a bunch of positive attributes of a good life. I responded that you couldn’t have good without bad – good was only good relative to bad and vice versa. The “good life” was only possible if it came along with the “bad life.”

I wasn’t trying to be profound, just speaking from personal experience. For me, the periods in my life where I was most happy were always followed by periods of depression. I didn’t think of the “happy” times as having a manic quality, but in retrospect they did.

This pattern continued for years. I would feel either blah, manic, or depressed. Mania was generally followed by depression. The depression never got that bad, but it could last for months and was sometimes pretty miserable.

It’s now been over a year since I felt depressed for any significant length of time – never more than a day or two at a time. This is due to a number of factors, and I can’t go into all of them here. But the biggest one, I think, is that I managed to break the cycle of mania and depression.

Did I do this by trying to calm down and cut back on the extremes? Not at all. In fact, I did the exact opposite.

You see, for the longest time, I responded to feelings of mania by fleeing from them. They scared me. I felt like I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t do the work I wanted to do, and couldn’t sit still. I felt like I was losing control.

For background, the symptoms of my mania are:

• Increased energy, confidence and drive. Feeling like I can do and be anything.
• Decreased need for sleep. Staying up later and waking up earlier.
• Increased extroversion and desire to be in social situations. Especially parties and other social events.
• Mind racing. Many ideas sprouting and plans forming.

(These are in line with description in the Wikipedia article.)

My response to my manic feelings was to withdraw. I felt like I wanted to (and could, and should) do more, more, more, but I actually did less during these periods. And I think that’s what led to the depression.

I think I got depressed because all the energy had no where to go. My body and mind were giving me a shot of energy – the mania – and I was suppressing it. Rather than acting on the feelings, I was doing less, dwelling on them, and spending more time by myself.

Anything is bad in large amounts, and mania is no exception. See bipolar disorder. But that doesn’t mean mania is a bad thing. I’ve come to see it as a great thing. It’s like a shot of adrenaline that lasts for days or weeks. It makes life more exciting, more fun, and more spontaneous.

In the last year, I’ve felt most passionate during periods of mania. They’ve been the most exciting and rewarding. And they haven’t been followed by periods of depression.

What has changed? I have embraced the mania rather than being scared of it. I’ve started to view it as a gift rather than an impediment. Rather than forcing myself to sit still and concentrate, I’ve been embracing the stuff I want to do when I’m feeling manic. (It helps that I haven’t been in school or had a normal job for 2 years ).

I look at mania as a natural response to circumstances, like a shot of adrenaline. If someone tries to start a fight with me, my body gives me a shot of adrenaline. This gives me an instant burst of energy, allowing me either to fight or to flee (maybe if the other guy’s a UFC fighter).

Mania is the same type of thing. It’s a shot of energy and inspiration. Maybe there’s some subconscious reason or trigger for it. I can resist it or I can ride the wave. If I choose to ride it, I benefit greatly. I feel energized, passionate, excited. I have the energy to move outside my comfort zone. I have the creativity to push the envelope. I have the confidence to do more than I thought I could.

I’ve been experimenting recently with trying to maintain a permanent mild state of mania. In past years I’ve lived for months in a state of mild depression – I see no reason the opposite shouldn’t be possible with mania.

The manic lifestyle? Bring it on!

Sorry about the sporadic updates lately! I’ve been so busy!

But I’m gonna be better now. Soon enough the posts will be coming fast and furious. Just you wait.

(This type of post is usually followed by a new post or two and then another long period of silence. This second period often spells the death of the blog.)

Now don’t worry — I am planning to continue to update this blog. (And thanks to those who have asked.) But my updates will likely be more sporadic in the coming months than they were last year. I’ve decided to refocus my priorities a little.

Let me explain. When I first left my job about one and a half years ago, I set up a daily schedule for myself. In the beginning, this involved working on music, writing, and reading for some number of hours each day.

The schedule morphed over time. I eliminated the reading component. I still read every day, but I’m more casual about it. At one point, I added “networking” to the schedule. It’s not really on there anymore because networking is now a part of my regular lifestyle. I had to force it at the peak of my hermit-dom.

The writing on this blog has changed a lot since its inception. At first, it was mostly essays on personal things I was working through. Then it got more self-helpy. Then it got philosophical. And finally it entered its present phase, where I’ve been doing immersive experiments and mini research projects.

I’m most happy with the most recent content. Something always seemed off before the last few articles. They’ve been my favorites, and they’ve also gotten the best response.

So why slow down now? New developments. As The Big Lebowski‘s Dude says: “New shit has come to light.”

Earlier this year, on a lark, I made a small Facebook app. I was interested in virality and inspired by my brother, who had had success with Facebook apps.

Long story short, my app — a one-shot deal — got about 15 million users in about a week. Its usage is near zero now, but for a brief period it was a pretty big deal. It was #3 on Alexa’s “What’s Hot” list. It’s name was a “hot query” on Google Trends. Threads popped up all over the place with people discussing it.

So I had my 15 million users and 15 minutes of fame. And also more than 3,000 complaints in my e-mail inbox. And 70,000 “fans” on the app’s Facebook page.

That was fun. Stressful at first, but fun. When else in human history has some dude — me in this case — been able to make something that is used by millions of people within days? It’s crazy. Fast viral growth has always existed on the internet, but Facebook just makes it crazy.

My takeaway from the Facebook experience wasn’t that I want to devote my life to Facebook apps. That would be kinda dumb. But I did get a taste of the world of web development and the leverage you can have.

I’ve spent a huge amount of time in my life programming computers. I started at the age of 9. It’s been almost 20 years now. I majored in computer science in college, and I got a software job after graduating. But by the time I left the job, I was feeling pretty burnt out on programming. I had spent so much time on it and neglected other areas of my life.

For more than a year, I did zero programming. I think it was a good break. Over that time I realized that what I’m really interested in is creating awesome things that people use, not just programming for programming’s sake. I’m ready to start creating software again, but only if I’m really excited about the project. I’m not going to start doing it just because I’m good at it or “I shouldn’t waste my education” or that’s where the money is, or whatever.

Recently I’ve been devoting more time to a couple new online projects. And I’ve realized that I really can’t have three focuses. Music, writing, and software, all at the same time, is too much for one person. I can do all three to some degree, but one of them has to be on the back burner. I’ve decided that one will be writing.

Partly I’ve been feeling a bit less excited about writing lately. Or perhaps just more excited about other things. I’m going to keep doing it, but my current level of interest isn’t high enough to justify spending a couple hours every day. That time would help a lot if devoted to other stuff.

Music? Despite my lack of output recently, I’m actually really excited about that right now. I’m made a lot more progress in the last few months, and I’m excited about putting together some type of act in the coming year — more to come. I’m actively composing new material right now.

So, in summary: Expect more articles here. They’ll be good. I already have some cool ideas. But expect fewer of them. I’ll be spending less time writing in the coming months.

Of course I could get inspired and post a flurry of content. We’ll see. But I’m not going to force it.

Ciao!

Factory farms exist because it’s cheaper to produce meat, eggs, and dairy products in confined conditions. Animal suffering is irrelevant as long as it doesn’t cut into profits. Even premature deaths are acceptable as long as overall production per unit cost is higher.

Since you’re reading this, I’m assuming that you care about animal suffering and want to minimize it. But there are other reasons to buy humanely-produced animal products. For one: meat, eggs, and dairy produced in more natural conditions are provably healthier than factory farmed alternatives. Not all steaks and eggs are created equal.

Growing awareness of factory farming conditions has led to an abundance of labels. Eggs are “cage free,” “free range,” and “vegetarian fed”; meat is “free range,” “grass fed,” and “certified humane”; milk is “rBST free.” The problem is that these labels are deceptive. Some aren’t controlled or verified at all, while others require only minimal protections for animals. You can bet that factory farms, which compete mostly on price, aren’t doing any more than their labels legally require them.

In this article, I’ll explain what these labels actually mean and which of them indicate humane conditions for animals. (Very few of them do). I’ll also explain the health benefits of eating products from naturally raised animals. And finally I’ll look at prices and availability.

A warning: The humane stuff isn’t cheap. Factory farms have gotten meat, egg, and dairy production down to a science. We’re used to unrealistically low prices for these foods.

Eggs

By all accounts chickens are one of the most poorly treated species of food animal. In the worst case (and also the most common one) they’re crammed into tiny “battery cages,” each about the size of a filing cabinet drawer and holding eight to ten hens. The chickens don’t have room to lie down or stretch their wings, much less engage in natural behaviors.

It’s safe to assume that any eggs not labeled as “cage free” or “free range” come from hens living in battery cages. The cheapest eggs — the ones you can get for $1 to $2 per dozen (or less) — fall into this category.

"Cage free" chickens, taken from linked New York Times article

“Cage free” and “free range” eggs are better from a humane standpoint than battery caged eggs, but they’re not as much better as you might think. “Cage free” hens are packed into large warehouses often containing more than five thousand birds apiece. Though the hens aren’t in cages, they get only a square foot or so of space each and are kept awake in artificial light to increase production. The ends of their beaks are chopped off to prevent them from pecking each other to death — which will happen when thousands are jammed together and they can’t establish a pecking order. The warehouses reek of ammonia from the hens’ urine.

The “free range” label is deceptive. All it means (according to the US Department of Agriculture definition) is that hens are given “access to the outside.” This generally means hens can exit their cage-free warehouses (see above) and roam in a small outdoor lot, which is often little more than a fenced-in patch of dirt. Because the hens’ food is stored indoors, there is little incentive for them to go outside, despite their “access.”

Google satellite view of "Judy's Family Farm"

The imagery on egg cartons is usually a total fabrication. Factory farms strive to project a quaint, family farm image. Their packaging materials show small barns and chickens roaming in idyllic settings. (See, for example, egg cartons for “Judy’s Family Farm,” which is nothing more than the marketing work of a large factory farming operation.). When these images are juxtaposed with the labels “cage free” and “free range,” they give consumers the wrong impression.

So what eggs do come from humane conditions? Unfortunately, none that you can find in the typical supermarket or grocery store. In many areas, however, it’s possible to buy humanely-raised eggs directly from small-time farmers or from specialty stores that buy from these farmers. The key is to look for eggs from “pasture-raised” or “pastured” chickens. These chickens spend their days outside in the grass, scratching in the dirt and eating bugs. See the section on price and availability below.

Pastured eggs are quite a bit more expensive than normal, factory-farmed eggs. They’re also healthier to eat. I’ll get into that later as well.

Meat: Chicken, Pork, and Beef

Factory farmed chickens raised for their meat have it about as bad as “cage free” chickens raised for their eggs. They live in large warehouses packed with thousands of their own kind. Their beaks are clipped and they live amidst the ammonia stench of their own urine.

The “free range” label means the same thing it does for eggs: the chickens need only be given “access” to the outdoors. The amount of time they are given access and the quality of their outdoor area — and most likely whether they use it at all — are up to the factory farmer.

Pigs in a factory farm, courtesy Wikipedia

Factory farmed pigs have it especially bad. They’re crammed together into small cages in large warehouses where they have little room to move. They bite at each other out of frustration and boredom. They develop sores on their bodies from lying on the hard floor. While pregnant, sows are confined to “gestation crates,” where they don’t have enough room to turn around and can do little more than eat and lie down.

Cattle probably get the best treatment of the bunch. They spend the beginnings of their lives on pasture. When they’re about 6 to 12 months old, however, they’re shipped off to dirt feedlots, where they’re packed together with thousands of others, forced to stand in piles of their own manure, juiced up on hormones, and stuffed with grain and whatever other food can be bought cheaply — stale candy, sugar beet waste, chicken feces, etc. Because cows’ stomachs are designed to digest grasses, this diet gives them painful and constant indigestion. Feedlot cows are given regular doses of antibiotics to ward off diseases stemming from their lifestyle.

So how to get humanely-raised meat? The key words again are “pastured” and “pasture-raised.” “Free range” and “grass fed” aren’t good enough. All cattle are grass fed before they’re shipped to feedlots. Look for beef that is “100% grass fed” or “grass finished” instead. However, even some cows that are “100% grass fed” are confined for most of their lives, so it’s necessary to verify that they were pastured.

As with eggs, meat from pastured animals is substantially healthier than meat from factory farmed animals. See the section below on health.

Milk and Other Dairy Products

Dairy cattle have it at least as bad as beef cattle. They’re also confined to feedlots. They’re artificially inseminated yearly to keep them lactating and separated from their calves shortly after giving birth — which is traumatic, judging from their reaction. They’re given hormones to increase milk production far beyond natural levels and then antibiotics to ward off diseases that result. Mastitis, a painful udder infection, afflicts about half of them.

Once again, look for milk from cows that are “pastured.” From what I’ve seen, most pastured dairy cows are confined indoors for part of the year or during certain seasons — but that can be done in a sanitary and humane way. Look for dairy products from cows not treated with any hormones (all organic products pass this requirement).

Health Benefits

Humane treatment of animals isn’t the only reason to by pastured eggs, meat, and dairy products. The pastured versions of all three are significantly healthier than factory farmed equivalents along a number of dimensions.

For example: Eggs from pastured hens have less saturated fat, less cholesterol, double the omega-3′s (health-promoting fats), three times the vitamin D, and substantially more vitamin A and E than factory-farmed eggs (whether they be caged, “cage free,” or “free range”). (See, for example, this article.) The difference comes from the pastured hens’ diet and lifestyle — rather than staying indoors and eating grain, pastured hens are outside eating bugs (and some grass) as they would naturally.

Pastured eggs are immediately recognizable: their yolks are a bright, deep orange color (factory farmed eggs’ yolks are more yellowish). This coloring comes from carotenes in the grass.

Factory farmers have started to do ridiculous things to appeal to current health trends. For example, many stores now carry “Omega-3 Enhanced” eggs, which come from hens whose diets have been supplemented with flaxseed (which is high in omega-3). This micro-nutrient approach to health has failed in the past, and it’s just a band-aid, anyway. You get none of the other health benefits of pastured eggs from “Omega-3 Enhanced” eggs.

Decline of omega-3's in feedlot cows, courtesy EatWild.com

Meat from grass-fed animals is similarly better for you. It has substantially less total fat, less saturated fat, less cholesterol, more of vitamins E and C, and more omega-3′s than factory farmed meat. 100% grass fed beef, for example, has about three times the omega-3′s of “normal” beef. Though all cattle start out grass fed, the nutritional content of their meat degrades as they spend time in feedlots (see graph right).

Milk from pastured cows contains more omega-3′s and more of vitamins A and E (see this article). These benefits come from the cows’ diet and the fact that they’re producing less milk.

These health differences aren’t well known. Factory farmers are used to competing only on price. The corners they cut don’t just increase production (and animal suffering); they also produce an inferior product. The eggs, meat, and dairy products we’re eating now are the least healthy in all of human history.

Price and Availability

So pastured eggs, meat, and dairy products are humane and healthy. What’s not to like? Well, two things: price and availability.

You have to do some work to find pastured products, and it’s harder to find them if you don’t live relatively close to farming areas. It’s usually best to buy directly from farmers, either through farmers’ markets or “community supported agriculture” (CSA) programs, which distribute boxes of farm-fresh goods on a regular basis. Some CSA’s distribute eggs, meat, and dairy products.

The "egg matrix" at Rainbow Grocery

It’s also possible to get this stuff from some grocery stores. You won’t have any luck at typical supermarkets like Safeway, but independent ones sometimes carried pastured products. In San Francisco, I found two: Bi-Rite Market and Rainbow Grocery. Both of these places were very clear in their labeling of their products. It’s easy to be fooled by marketing language and imagery on packages, so you have to make sure you’re getting the real thing. I also checked out the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market and found three suppliers of pastured eggs and meat there.

Prices aren’t low. Partly this is a San Francisco thing — there’s a lot of demand for these products here, and land prices in the surrounding area are high. But it’s also unavoidable: Factory farming exists because it’s cheap. It’s cruel to animals and produces an inferior product, yes, but it’s cheap. That’s the whole point.

The cheapest pastured eggs I found in San Francisco were $7.50 / dozen. Compare that to $3 – $4 for “cage free” eggs at Safeway and $1 – $2 for eggs from chickens in battery cages. That’s a huge difference, but keep in mind that these products aren’t the same. Pastured eggs are substantially healthier — and tastier, many say — than the alternatives. (Note that pastured eggs are about $6 / dozen from a CSA in my hometown of Modesto, California.)

In general, meat from pasture-raised animals was about 2 to 3 times more expensive than the factory farmed alternatives. For example, ground beef was $6 / lb at the farmers’ market, compared to $3 – $4 / lb at Safeway. A whole chicken was $5 / lb vs. $1.50 / lb at Safeway.

EatWild.com has a great state-by-state directory of farms selling pastured animal products.

So how to afford these more expensive products?

There are two options: either hunker down and accept that we’re paying too little for animal products right now (and start paying more), or eat less of them.

Though people like to complain about rising food prices, our total expenditure for food (time- and effort-wise) is, in the context of human history, at an all-time low. Maybe we should be paying more for food (and buying it more responsibly).

Americans eat a lot of animal products. Do we need to stop eating them entirely? No. But do they need to be the centerpiece of every meal? Also no. It’s possible to afford humanely-produced animals products simply by eating less of them.

Is there a middle ground between pastured animal products and bottom-of-the-barrel factory farmed ones? Yes — but it’s more similar to the latter than the former. Organic animal products are usually at least marginally better than normal ones from a humane standpoint — no hormones are used, for example. Some factory farmers are producing better, more-humane products than others. Niman Ranch beef, for example, comes from cattle “finished” in feedlots. But they aren’t given hormones or antibiotics and minimum living and handling standards — over normal industry conditions — are specified.

So there you have it. It’s not easy or cheap to buy humanely-produced animal products. But considerations of animal welfare and personal health provide a strong argument for doing so. Any step in the right direction is better than no step at all. I know I’m changing my buying and eating habits.

I blocked out a week of my life. The plan: to help other people out, full-time — eight to ten hours per day, for seven days straight. Everything I’d do beyond sleeping, showering, eating, and a bit of relaxing would be devoted to others.

This week would be about them, not me.

I’ve become interested recently in immersive challenges as a means to personal growth. A month ago, I spent 16 hours in the kitchen over a single weekend after a decade of avoiding cooking. The experience was fun, enlightening, and exhausting.

I thought afterward: I need to do this more often. Despite its arbitrariness, the challenge was exhilarating. It brought me fully into the present moment. It shook up my reality: Here I was thinking about and preparing food to the point of exhaustion after a decade of procrastinating. It was almost an out-of-body experience. (No kidding!)

There’s something about an immersive challenge that brings me to life. The focus, the determination, the immediacy. The doing of things completely foreign to me. The fear of failing. These challenges are so much more fun than taking baby steps, making routines, analyzing, planning. Why do things the boring way?

I’ve wanted to become more other-focused for some time now.

It’s a long story. I’d like to say it’s not about my having been selfish, per se, but about my being an individualist. I’m sure my feeling of being an outsider, which came from my childhood, has something to do with it.

The point of this experiment is to shed what’s-in-it-for-me thinking for a week. It’s to immerse myself in others’ perspectives. It’s to understand what they want and to give it to them — without asking for anything in return.

I craft a plan: I block out a week where I would make no other commitments. I’ll spend the majority of each of these seven days helping other people.

How will I help them? I could spend the week doing unsolicited favors for people — cleaning my entire 5-bedroom apartment (which I share with roommates), volunteering at the homeless shelter, cleaning garbage in the park, etc. Or I could ask people how I could help them and simply do what they request — run their errands, do their laundry, whatever they want.

After waffling between extremes, I decide to do both. Why limit myself to one form of help? The two types take different mindsets, and I want to experience both.

I generate a long list of ideas. Once I’m sure I have enough — it’s not easy to fill an entire week! — I get started.

This is how things go.

Day 1 – Cleaning house

Deciding to start close to home on day 1, I spend about seven hours cleaning the common rooms of my five-bedroom apartment. The apartment doesn’t get cleaned very often, and when it does it takes my roommates and me several hours working together.

After seven hours of scrubbing toilets and mopping floors, I still have more to do, but I’m tired — and to be honest, I’m starting to feel a bit irritable. Helping out is easier said than done. After finishing, I shop for food and cook fried rice for the roommates and myself.

Day 2 – Trash pickup

I start day 2 a little farther from home, heading over to Dolores Park, a well-known hangout in San Francisco’s Mission District.

I’m not here to hang out, though. The weather’s gloomy, it’s 10 AM, and I have a few large trash bags.

The park itself is already pretty clean, but the public rail tracks beside it are covered in garbage. I’ve found the mother lode: There’s plenty of trash to pick up — as long as I can avoid getting hit by the train. Dying wouldn’t be very helpful.

I spend two hours filling two and a half large trash bags with liquor bottles, candy wrappers, burrito remnants, and what look like nitrous oxide canisters. At one point, some hippie-looking dudes look down at the tracks and yell, “Right on, man!” — marking the high point of what may have been the low point of my week.

It starts raining, so I can’t pick up any more trash. I head home and post a Facebook message to all my friends, asking them how I can help them. I get a big response. Everyone has things they want me to do. That’s good, because I have plenty of time over the next six days.

I do my friend Christine’s laundry. While at the laundromat, I begin affixing 500 stickers to 500 cards for my friend Arvel’s fledgling record label. I finish a couple hours later. I sign up for work in a soup kitchen the next day at a friend’s suggestion. I research techniques for getting a good night’s sleep for my stressed-out brother Chris (at his request) and send him a report. I end the day by cooking a large stir fry for the roommates.

Day 3 – Meatballs for the homeless

Day 3 begins with community service work at Glide, a soup kitchen in San Francisco’s slummy Tenderloin district. I’m here to serve lunch to the homeless and otherwise down-and-out.

While there are a few other volunteers, it’s clear that a number of the helpers are doing their mandatory community service work. I make eye contact with one tough-looking guy and say, “What’s up?” His response: “I’m having a bad day.”

The permanent kitchen workers are all, by contrast, very friendly. They assign me to be the “runner,” meaning my job is to ferry trays, cups, and silverware from the cleaning room in the back of the cafeteria to the service area in front. The cafeteria itself is in the basement of the building and has the look of a slightly spruced-up prison mess hall.

Soon a large line forms and people are streaming in. On the menu are cabbage, some kind of rice, and meatballs and gravy on a hotdog bun. The room gets crowded very quickly. I carry utensils back and forth and refill pitchers from a garbage can full of water.

People are scraping food off others’ trays before it gets thrown out. One guy waits by the garbage for 20 minutes, filling a plastic bag with scraps for his dog.

At one point, a fight breaks out. Two men are rolling on the ground under a table, and some others are shouting and rubber-necking to see what’s going on. Security comes over to break it up. I walk around the crowd with another rack of cups.

The experience overall is interesting and quite rewarding. I head home and finish cleaning the house, which takes a couple hours. I spend the rest of the day researching loose leaf tea prices for my friend Ameeth and editing my friend Rachel’s grad school application essay.

Day 4 – Habitat restoration

Day 4 — a Saturday — starts early. At 9 AM, I arrive at Mount Sutro in San Francisco, ready to do some habitat restoration with an organized group. I found this gig on OneBrick.org, a great site that pairs volunteers with projects for one-off events.

This event is popular: over 40 people show up. I join a group heading to the top of the mountain to do some weeding. Apparently the entire mountain was overgrown and inaccessible prior to the founding of this project a few years back.

I spend about three hours pulling sow thistle, forget-me-not, french broom, and some kind of ivy from the ground. These are all invasive species; they’re crowding out the less-hearty native plants. The work is fun, and it’s nice to get my hands dirty. The people are cool, too.

Later in the day I spend a couple hours collecting band review data for my friend Arvel’s record label, at his request. I start reading excerpts of my friend Kim’s novel, which she is submitting to agents and planning to use in her grad school applications.

Day 5 – Reading about pyrates

For day 5, I choose an ambitious project: I will record a chapter of a book for LibriVox, on online library of public domain audiobooks recorded by volunteers. I found out about LibriVox a month ago, and I’ve been listening to books from it in the gym.

After some deliberation, I choose A General History of the Pyrates, a 1724 book containing biographies of contemporary pirates — you know, Blackbeard, Calico Jack, Black Bart, etc. I wouldn’t want to deprive the world of eighteenth century pirate audiobooks, now would I?

To make a long story short, it takes about 8 hours before I have an (almost-)finished product. It takes a while to create an acceptable recording setup, and it’s hard not to stumble over sentences like this one:

We find him Commander of a Pyrate Sloop of eight Guns, and 80 Men, in the Month of September, 1716, cruising off Jamaica, Cuba, etcetera, about which Time he took the Berkley Galley, Captain Saunders, and plundered him of 1000 pounds in Money, and afterwards met with a Sloop call’d the King Solomon, from whom he took some Money, and Provisions, besides Goods, to a good Value.

Yarr. When I’m done, I continue reading Kim’s novel — she’s sent about 70 pages! It’s good.

Day 6 – Sweeping the sidewalk

I return to the outdoors on the morning of day 6, sweeping leaves off the sidewalk on my block. This is the urban equivalent of raking the front lawn.

I feel a bit dumb doing this. But hey, it’s helpful, right? I’ve seen other people sweeping the street in my neighborhood, so they at least must appreciate the work. And the sidewalk is damn clean when I’m done an hour and a half later.

I finish Kim’s novel excerpts and send her feedback. I research technical details for my friend Brett’s consulting project, which aims to create online gallery software for existing art collections.

At this point I’ve done everything my friends requested, and I need to make a little work for myself. The most exhausting part about this project isn’t the helping itself; it’s the constant search for things to do. It’s not easy fill a whole week with helpful activities.

I sign up for Aardvark, a social search / question answering site that started recently. Unfortunately, I spend a lot of time looking for questions to answer and only find one that I’m actually qualified to answer. That’s not very helpful!

Oh well — the day’s almost over. I end it by cooking a large batch of mint brownies for everyone.

Day 7 – Stuffing envelopes

The week is almost up! I’ve enjoyed it, but I’m getting really tired. It’s been about 10 days since I had a day off.

I spend a couple hours editing and finishing up my Pyrates recording. My friend Raja says he doesn’t have anything specific for me to do, but he’d like me to read Gandhi’s autobiography, which he says will help maximize my positive impact on the world. Sounds good! I start reading.

Before heading off to my last volunteer event, I head downtown and walk around for a little while, giving a dollar to every panhandler I see. This is an interesting experience — I’m actively seeking out panhandlers after avoiding them for years.

In the evening, I head over to the offices of Streetside Stories, a non-profit that helps children improve their literacy skills. I’m here to stuff donation-request envelopes. Though this sounds mundane, it actually ends up being pretty fun and social.

After writing “Hi [name], We hope you can join us!” on envelope inserts for a couple hours, I chat with the other volunteers and then head home.

The week is over!

I’m tired, but satisfied. I’ve spent more than 60 hours helping others, done a bunch of interesting stuff, and met some cool people.

My intent during this week was to give the world what it wanted; it wasn’t to impose my will on it. I tried not to question the motives or intentions of others. I wasn’t choosey about how I helped; no task was below me.

I can already feel my perspective shifting. That was the main goal of this project. It wasn’t so much about the specific acts of helping as it was about taking the perspective of others. It was about immersing myself in their perspectives.

This week-long experiment will, I’m sure, filter into the rest of my life. And that’s what I love most about immersion — though temporary, its effects are often permanent.

—

Image credits:

Help Wanted by kandyjaxx
Dolores Park Tracks by atp_tyreseus
Mount Sutro Vegetation by Whole Wheat Toast
Glide Line by Andrew Turner
Leaves on the Sidewalk by me.

A few weeks ago I challenged myself to go from microwaving corndogs and boiling pasta to cooking a fancy meal in a weekend. Sixteen hours of work later, I emerged successful.

Are my food problems all solved? Not yet. Though being able to cook fancy is great for special occasions, it’s not something I can do every day. It’s time-consuming, expensive, and, unless I watch carefully, not very healthy. On a day-to-day basis, I want food that’s cheap, healthy, and quick to prepare. (Oh, and tasty — but let’s ignore that little detail for now.)

Preparation speed isn’t such a big issue — I can always reheat leftovers. But what about the other two? How cheap do I want my food? And how healthy?

I want it to be as cheap and as healthy as possible, of course. But those goals seem opposed. After all, I could heat up Ramen noodles and live — at least for a little while — on about a dollar a day. But that’s a terrible idea: I want to save money, but I don’t want scurvy.

Healthy food is more expensive than Ramen. But just how much more expensive is it? A week ago I issued a new challenge to myself:

I want to find the cheapest daily diet that meets all common nutritional recommendations.

Now, nutrition is tricky business. Nutritional guidelines change often. New nutrients are found. “Good” nutrients are discovered to be bad, and vice-versa.

For this reason, some experts — Michael Pollan comes to mind — recommend ignoring complex nutrition advice altogether. Instead, they suggest keeping it simple: Eat a variety of fresh, unprocessed foods. Focus mostly on produce and, if you’re an omnivore, choose high-quality meats.

I don’t want to stray too far from that advice. Besides the health arguments, I’m drawn toward unprocessed food on an aesthetic level. I want to keep things simple. But at the same time, I want to make sure I’m not straying too far from standard nutrition advice — stuff about fat percentages, vitamins, minerals, and so on. I’m not a nutrition expert, after all.

So I’m making sure my hypothetical cheap and healthy diet meets the following requirements, which come mostly from the standard USDA recommendations:

1. Provides 2000 calories per day
2. Maintains the standard caloric ratios: 20-30% of calories from fat, about 10% from protein, and the rest from carbohydrates
3. Meets standard vitamin recommendations for A, C, E, K, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Folate, B12, Pantothenic acid
4. Meets standard mineral recommendations for Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sodium, Zinc, Copper, Manganese, Selenium
5. Meets standard fiber recommendation
6. Keeps saturated fat to a minimum
7. Keeps cholesterol to a minimum

Sounds complicated, right? Fortunately I’ve found a handy website that gives me nutritional breakdowns for lists of foods and quantities.

Of course, I could really geek out and write a computer program that solves a constraint optimization problem given nutrition data and prices for a variety of foods. But let’s not get carried away. Nutrition isn’t an exact science and prices vary, anyway. (But if anyone else wants to do that, let me know the result!)

I decided early on that I want the staples of my theoretical diet to be rice and beans.

Both are extremely cheap by calorie. Beans are high-protein and filled with vitamins and minerals. Together they contain all essential amino acids, which forms a complete protein. (I don’t really understand what that means, but it sure sounds good, right?)

It turns out that beans — kidney, pinto, black, white, etc. — are pretty equivalent as far as nutrition goes. They’re cheapest when bought dry. The best deal I found was on pinto beans at Safeway, where you can get a 20-pound bag for $15.19 — or $0.76 / lb. That equates to 2042 calories and 126 grams of protein per dollar!

Brown rice has more fiber and other nutrients than white rice, so I chose it. I wasn’t able to find any great deals in local grocery stores, but you can buy 50-pound bags of the stuff online for $61.48 (including shipping), or $1.23 / lb. That equates to a still-impressive 1364 calories per dollar.

Unfortunately — or perhaps for variety’s sake, fortunately — rice and beans form a very incomplete diet. Both contain almost zero fat, and it’s important to get a substantial portion of calories from fat. Their combination is also low in a number of vitamins and minerals — most notably vitamins A, C, E, K, and B12, riboflavin (gotta have it!), and calcium.

I turned next to fruits and vegetables. Of the two, vegetables seem most nutrient rich for the money. After looking at a lot of vegetables, I decided that broccoli and sweet potatoes looked most promising. Both are reasonably priced by the pound and packed with nutrients. They’re both often called “superfoods.” They’re also both in season right now.

The lowest price I could find on broccoli was at Golden Produce, a local shop, where it was about $1.33 / lb. Sweet potatoes sell for $0.99 / lb at KJ Produce, another local shop.

At this point, the major holes remaining in the diet were fat — there was still almost none — calcium, and vitamin B12. For fat, I decided to use a combination of oil and seeds or nuts. I couldn’t use only oil, as way too much would be necessary.

I chose olive oil, which seems universally regarded as healthy and is quite reasonably priced. At Safeway, I found a 44 oz (88 tablespoon) bottle for $15.99. That equates to $0.18 per tablespoon.

Peanuts are the cheapest nut, but I didn’t pick them. They’re pretty high in saturated fat and less nutrient-rich than many other types of nuts. Almonds are a lot better, but they’re also a lot more expensive.

I settled on sunflower seeds, which are somewhere in the middle nutritionally. They’re a good source of vitamin E, niacin, and zinc, which were still lacking. They sell at Safeway for $1.59 / lb (unshelled) in bulk.

The remaining nutrients needed were calcium and vitamin B12. Calcium is easy — milk is the best source, and it’s pretty cheap. It costs $2.99 per gallon at Safeway.

Vitamin B12 is tricky. There’s some in milk but none in any of the other foods I’ve chosen so far. It’s the one vitamin that’s missing in vegan diets, and all the foods I’ve selected (other than milk) are vegan. It’s recommended that vegans supplement their diets with B12, either in fortified health foods or as a separate pill.

Why not just include meat in the diet? Well, first, it’s not very cheap. But more importantly, I’d rather buy the cheapest grains and vegetables than buy the cheapest meat. Bargain basement meat is likely produced in atrocious factory farming conditions and pumped up with hormones.

So … B12. I’m copping out. Take a supplement! It’s only a few extra cents a day. This diet provides adequate quantities of all other vitamins and minerals.

Time to wrap up.

I settled on the following daily quantities of each of the foods listed above, with prices listed:

1. 3 cups cooked brown rice ($0.53)
2. 2 cups cooked pinto beans ($0.23)
3. 2 stalks cooked broccoli (360g) ($1.06)
4. 1 baked sweet potato (180g) ($0.40)
5. 1 tablespoon olive oil ($0.18)
6. 1/2 cup sunflower seeds, shelled ($0.22)
7. 2 cups nonfat milk ($0.37)

The total cost per day is $2.99.

This diet supplies 2090 calories and all essential vitamins and minerals (with the exception of B12; see the discussion above). Fiber is high. Saturated fat and cholesterol are very low. 23% of calories come from fat, 15% from protein, and the rest from carbohydrates.

This diet is quite high in protein (at 174% the daily recommended value). I don’t think there are any problems with that, but it’s something to keep in mind. (And it’s interesting to note, since many think vegetarian diets are low in protein.)

See the vitamin and mineral charts below, courtesy of NutritionData.com:

(Notes: add salt to taste if you want more sodium. Vitamin D comes from exposure to sunlight!)

Am I recommending eating exactly the foods listed above every day?

No.

And would you do that even if I were recommending it? Didn’t think so. My goal here isn’t to suggest an exact diet. It’s only to see how cheap it’s possible to go while remaining healthy.

The diet above is very nutritious. I’m sure, in fact, that it’s quite a bit more nutritious than what I’m currently eating. And it’s only $2.99 per day.

I’ll definitely be looking more closely at what I’m eating. With substitutions for variety, spices, and interesting recipes, the basic diet listed above is actually very workable. Of course, I’m not planning to adhere strictly to any diet. I’m too lazy, and exceptions make life interesting.

But for run-of-the-mill daily meals, it’s nice to make sure I’m eating healthily and cheaply. And clearly it is possible to do both.

The best insights, I think, are the ones that seem so obvious — so trivial and even dumb — that I can’t believe I ever missed them. My past self must have been a real moron … What was he thinking?

Yesterday I finished writing an essay about my feelings of outsiderness – how I’ve always felt like an other, an outsider looking in, separate from any larger community.

I’ve only recently connected this feeling to experiences I had in the third and fourth grade. The short version: When I seven, my parents moved cross-country and I started at a new school. Then a year later, I was forced to transfer again to enter a new program. The new class was quite insular — the kids had been together for years at that point and weren’t very open to newcomers. I spent several formative years of my life feeling like an outsider.

I’m not going to post that essay. It’s only been a day since I finished it, and I already can’t relate to much of it. The facts are still the same, but my attitude has changed.

I realized in the course of writing it that my personal identity has become wrapped up in the idea of outsiderness. It helped form my tastes in music. It made it hard for me to feel a sense of belonging in groups. It made me feel separate, a lone wolf off on his solitary journey.

I also realized this feeling has shaped my personal myth — the story I tell myself, even if only subconsciously, about the arc of my life, my path, and my destiny. My myth has been that of the outsider.

It can be a tragic myth. I don’t think anyone really wants to be an outsider. But that doesn’t mean it’s not easy to come up with a story where you are one and then make the facts of your life fit that story. It’s not fun, but it’s easy.

So what’s the face-slappingly obvious part? It’s that I became so wrapped up in this outsider identity — this myth — that I couldn’t see its contingency. I couldn’t see that it wasn’t handed down from the gods but was instead the result of arbitrary experiences I had as an eight-year-old.

Pretty dumb, right? That’s a good thing.

The dishes need to be fancy. It remains to be seen whether they’ll be edible.

I’m starting my cooking challenge. The rules: one man, one weekend, no prior planning. The goal: one fancy meal, cooked and ready to eat.

What’s so challenging about cooking? If you’re me, a lot. I’ve avoided it my whole life. When asked to illustrate a recipe in high school German class, I diagrammed Ramen noodle preparation. Through college, I chopped vegetables for others but never did the cooking myself. Right now, cooking means heating up pasta and pouring sauce out of a jar — and that’s if I’m feeling ambitious.

Every year for the last decade I’ve thought, “I really should learn to cook one of these days,” but I haven’t done anything. The years have passed by; I’ve procrastinated and come up with excuses. There’s always been something else to do.

Well, no more! A week ago I decided to undertake this cooking challenge. The goal: to eliminate my fear of cooking once and for all — and to do it in a single weekend.

So here I am on Saturday morning.

I need to decide what I’m going to cook and then I need to get all the ingredients. As planned, I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do.

I head to the bookstore. There are a lot of fancy cookbooks — French Laundry, Chez Panisse, etc. — but the first thing I think is … Top Chef! If you’re not familiar, Top Chef is a popular TV reality show that pits chefs against each other. Fancy dishes are usually the result. I’ve watched a couple seasons, and I like it.

Unfortunately, the Top Chef cookbook doesn’t look very good. It’s high on trivia and low on recipes. The recipes seem vague. They use obscure ingredients I probably won’t be able to find.

That’s actually something I’m worried about — I don’t know what’s in stock at the grocery store, and that makes it a little difficult to plan what I’m going to make. I just need to hope that everything important is there. I’m not going to bet on finding quail eggs.

But I do like the Top Chef idea. (After all, it lets me use “Top Chef” in the title of this article, right?) So I pick up a copy of Tom Colicchio’s Think Like a Chef. If you’re not aware, Colicchio’s the stern, bald judge on Top Chef. He’s founded a couple famous restaurants in New York City.

Colicchio’s book looks good. The recipes seem doable, and he explains the techniques well. There’s even a lot on his cooking philosophy. Great! I buy it and head home.

I spend the next couple hours reading about half of the book. I learn about roasting, braising, blanching, and so on. I think about what to do. I finally decide on four recipes — three from this book and one from another of Colicchio’s books.

These are the dishes I plan to make:

• Artichoke Hearts Braised in Olive Oil and White Wine, with aromatic vegetables
• Roasted Tomato Risotto
• Roasted Herbed Leg of Lamb with Apple Cider Sauce
• Banana Upside-Down Cake

Sounds pretty good, right? I make a huge list of all the ingredients I’m going to need. There are about 40 of them! This could take a while…

I also list the equipment I need to buy. I live in a large apartment with a lot of useful stuff — pots and pans of every size, strainers, lemon juicers, etc. — but I still don’t have everything. Among other things, I need to get a cake pan, a meat thermometer — I’ve never used one before — and twine for tying meat.

I buy all the produce first. I’m able to find almost everything at Golden Produce, a local shop, and Safeway. Fresh tarragon is out, so I have to settle for dried.

Then I get the rest of the ingredients, mostly from Safeway. Luckily Safeway stocks legs of lamb, which are about five pounds each. Nowhere else I looked does.

I have to take about three separate trips to the store to get everything, and I’m pretty exhausted when I finish. So many new concepts and recipe details are floating around in my head. I’ve spent about eight hours today on this challenge: first looking for cookbooks, then reading them, then deciding what to make, and finally getting all the ingredients.

Time to go to sleep and prepare for day two.

I sleep fitfully. I’m nervous about how this is all going to turn out. There are a lot of things I’m going to need to do tomorrow that I’ve never done before. Will they all work out?

Sunday comes. After taking a shower and eating, I procrastinate for about an hour. Then I get started.

First I come up with my plan of attack. I’ll roast the tomatoes and garlic first. They’re needed for the risotto, and roasting them takes a few hours. Then I’ll make the braised artichokes and upside-down cake, both of which can sit at room temperature. I’ll prepare the lamb and start it roasting. Finally, I’ll make the risotto and the apple cider sauce.

I’ll spare you the details of everything I do. I work methodically and try not to have too much going on at once. It’s easy to let things overcook if you’re not watching them. I learn techniques as I go — clarifying butter is hard without the right tools! – and improvise where necessary.

The most challenging part comes when it’s time to cut the hearts out of the raw artichokes. Doing so isn’t easy, even with directions. The artichokes fight back every step of the way. It’s not clear where the hearts begin and end. It takes me several artichokes before I feel like I know what I’m doing.

Everything else goes surprisingly smoothly. I credit that mostly to my attentiveness: I watch everything cook with eagle eyes, making sure not to let it go too long. Overcooking would have been particularly disastrous for the risotto, where I have to add more stock every few minutes.

After about eight hours of cooking, I’m done! I’m tired, but it’s great to see all the finished food — and, of course, to eat it. I share it with my brother Chris, his girlfriend Terra, and my apartment-mates Arvel, Sarah, Steve, and Brett.

Everything is good. The artichokes are tender, the risotto is creamy, the lamb wasn’t overcooked, and the upside-downcake is, in my brother’s words, “perfectly executed.” (I think he may have been channeling Tom Colicchio!)

So, success!

In a mere sixteen hours spread over two days, I have all but eliminated my fear of cooking. Sure, there’s a lot more to cooking than following recipes — and most chefs don’t even like recipes — but for the casual cook they work well.

What have I learned? First, cooking isn’t such a big deal. No huge surprise there, I guess.

But more importantly: Sometimes it’s best not just to face fears, but to kick their ass. After a decade of procrastination, I’m glad I got down to business and did this in one weekend. I could have taken a more measured approach — researching, planning, trying one thing at a time — but I’m glad I didn’t. The measured approach is boring, slow, and probably less likely to succeed, anyway.

Screw that. I want my roasted, herbed leg of lamb with apple cider sauce now!

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Pictured below: My four dishes

The rules: I’m listing only stuff that’s current and that you may not have heard of before. You don’t need to know that I like to watch Teletubbies or eat at Chili’s (and boy, do I!). The point is to give helpful recommendations.

I hope you find something here interesting.

Blogs

	The Art of Nonconformity is run by world-traveller Chris Guillebeau. The site focuses on independent living, travel, and entrepreneurship. On it, Chris chronicles his quest to visit every country in the world — of which there are about 200, depending on how you count. He’s visited more than half of them. I love Chris’s writing style. His travel keeps what he says grounded in real-world experience and provides plenty of interesting stories. He’s also an expert networker and social media user — I’m amazed at how quickly he’s risen to internet fame.
	Derek Sivers is a musician and the founder of CDBaby, an online store for independent musicians. He blogs mostly on entrepreneurship and marketing, with a focus on music. Derek is one of the guys (along with Seth Godin — see below) who have turned me on to marketing. (It’s not as bad as you might think.) He writes short and engaging posts, and he knows a lot about the music industry. He’s one of those guys who seems to communicate, either in-person or over the net, with hundreds of people per day. I’m impressed.
	Seth Godin is already pretty well-known. He keeps a blog, writes books on business and marketing, and speaks at conferences like TED. He’s an engaging writer and speaker. Seth’s blog is interesting, but I’m actually a bigger fan of his books. They’re short and expensive, but they’re full of insights on leadership, community building, and earning people’s attention (rather than buying or demanding it). Check out Purple Cow and Tribes. Seth’s books get bashed on Amazon for various reasons, but I’ve found them very helpful.

Books

Talent Is Overrated, written by Geoff Colvin, argues that virtuoso performance (in pretty much anything) is the result of thousands of hours of focused practice. Talent — meaning any genetic disposition to do well without putting in the work — is much less important. I loved this book. Colvin does not merely speculate or pontificate: he provides plenty of evidence to support his view. Talent tends to be imputed after-the-fact, when someone has already shown themselves capable of great work. Colvin shows that early talent (as judged by instructors) is a bad predictor of later success. The best predictors are, by far, practice hours and what he terms practice “deliberateness.” Deliberate practice involves identifying and isolating weaknesses and working to overcome them. It requires intense focus and determination, and it’s not usually very fun. Colvin describes in detail how a number of sports stars, writers, and performers have used it.

Brain Rules, written by molecular biologist John Medina, is a breezy summary of the practical findings from the last few decades of brain research. It’s organized into sections on exercise, attention, memory, sleep, and so on. The book’s section on exercise is illuminating: Besides the obvious physical benefits, exercise — well, mostly aerobic exercise — has a big positive impact on cognitive performance and mood. It also increases neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to learn new things. Medina also discusses the brain’s need for breaks in attention. He relates that to his teaching (and, in particular, lecturing) experience. He argues in support of taking a short afternoon nap and against multi-tasking. There’s a lot in this book, and I found almost all of it extremely interesting.

Music

	Ensiferum are an awesome Finnish viking metal band. (Well, now that I look at their Wikipedia page, I see they describe themselves as “heroic folk metal” — go figure.) The band is cheesy and over-the-top, but not in an annoying way. Every Ensiferum album opens with an epic folky passage that would fit perfectly in movies like Braveheart and Lord of the Rings. The music that follows is usually heavy and fast, highly melodic, and upbeat. Vocals vary from harsh and raspy to clean and deep.
	Primordial are one of the most emotionally compelling bands I’ve come across in the past year. They’re a metal band from Ireland, but their recent output has been straying into hard rock territory. I saw them live earlier this year and was blown away by their vocalist. The guy’s been touring with this band for almost 20 years, and he sounds like he’s singing the last show of his life every time. I’m having trouble describing Primordial’s music. It’s heavy, epic, and emotionally intense. Check out the song “Empire Falls” on their MySpace page.
	Star of Ash is the work of Norwegian musician Heidi Tveitan. I discovered her only because she’s the wife of Vegard Tveitan (aka. Ihsahn), the brilliant force behind symphonic black metal band Emperor. Heidi Tveitan’s music is best described as cinematic. It’s atmospheric, moody, and often haunting. Her most recent album, The Thread, should be listened to as a single unit. Its songs tell a story and flow into one another. Though mostly instrumental, the album is punctuated by beautiful vocal performances from Tveitan and others.

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There you have it. Have any recommendations of your own?