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Hi! I'm Hugh Hollowell.

Our Brain is a Liar | LISB

Published over 1 year ago • 3 min read

Hey y'all,

Our brains lie to us.

That is the premise behind a podcast I'm really enjoying these days, called The Happiness Lab. From their website:

Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy. But what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will make us happy? The good news is that understanding the science of the mind can point us all back in the right direction.

Bold claims, but so far, it tracks.

I've been in a bit of a state over the last two months. After more than two years of mostly being at home, and mostly having my days scheduled only by myself, I've been thrown in the deep end of a new gig, with more travel than I've done in two years, busy weekends, and new responsibilities. I'm a creature of ritual and routine - it's an essential part of my self-care plan - and all of that has been disrupted. Balls have been dropped, promises broken, and I generally feel not great about any of it.

My poor brain is overwhelmed with it all, and when it gets a quiet moment, the temptation to lay on the couch and do nothing but doom scroll on my phone is powerful.

For years, I have sought solace in my garden and yard. The bees and birds and butterflies thank me for this, and the flowers that bloom nearly year-round here bear witness to my efforts. But over the last few months, the weeds have taken over my flower beds, and my yard has been sadly neglected. I know I need to deal with it, but just the thought of voluntarily doing tasks that nobody is screaming at me to do - hell, that nobody is even asking me to do - seems overwhelming. My brain is sure it will be much happier if it stays on this couch, thank you very much.

But yesterday I had a few hours when nothing much was going on. So I put on my old shoes and spent a few hours raking the pine straw in my yard, cleaning out the flower beds, and mulching the rose bushes. As I worked, I noticed the birds singing to me from the magnolia tree, felt the wind on my face, waved at neighbors passing by, and felt my muscles in a different way than I feel them when I'm just exercising.

In short, my brain was wrong: It was exactly what I needed. Now I just need to remember this.

Five Beautiful Things

Carla Hall is the author of the amazing cookbook Carla Hall's Soul Food (highly recommended), and so she knows a thing or two about biscuits. If you read this article and watch the accompanying short video, you will know more than you do now, and while I can't promise you biscuits will be as beautiful as hers (mine aren't), they will be better than they were without her help. She's also funny and entertaining, which never hurts.

The endless creative potential of our species will never cease to amaze me. Like how Congolese street children are turning trash into sculpture and other folk art.

Miles Bonham is playing the sax, the trumpet, the drums and more these days. He's also mixing beat and doing audio production. Oh, and he's six years old. This Instagram account fills me with joy.

Reading these postcards written to strangers makes me feel better about humanity in general.

Greg Isenberg asked a billionaire, a math professor and a 99 year old man about what their points of self-reflection are. This Twitter thread lists them. Lots of good stuff here.

Heads Up

There are changes going on under the hood here at Life Is So Beautiful. I'm in the midst of moving platforms for a number of reasons that have to do with a combination of simplifying my workload, increasing your privacy, and reducing my financial costs of putting this newsletter out. It should be fairly seamless for you, but if you notice anything amiss, please let me know.

Thank You!

This newsletter remains free and ad-free because of the support of my members, who insist on my making it free for everyone else. Other ways to support this project include buying me a cup of coffee or forwarding it to your friends.

Take care of yourself. And each other.

Hugh Hollowell Jr
Publisher
soverybeautiful.org

Hi! I'm Hugh Hollowell.

Every Monday since 2015, Hugh wakes up, makes coffee, sits down, and writes an email to thousands of folks in at least five different countries. There’s an original blog-length reflection on where he sees beauty in the world right then and links to five things he saw that week that struck him as beautiful. Because the world is beautiful, but sometimes it’s hard to notice.

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