George Saunders: what writers really do when they write

Many years ago, during a visit to Washington DC, my wife’s cousin pointed out to us a crypt on a hill and mentioned that, in 1862, while Abraham Lincoln was president, his beloved son, Willie, died, and was temporarily interred in that crypt, and that the grief-stricken Lincoln had, according to the newspapers of the day, entered the crypt “on several occasions” to hold the boy’s body. An image spontaneously leapt into my mind – a melding of the Lincoln Memorial and the Pietà. I carried that image around for the next 20-odd years, too scared to try something that seemed so profound, and then finally, in 2012, noticing that I wasn’t getting any younger, not wanting to be the guy whose own gravestone would read “Afraid to Embark on Scary Artistic Project He Desperately Longed to Attempt”, decided to take a run at it, in exploratory fashion, no commitments. My novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, is the result of that attempt, and now I find myself in the familiar writerly fix of trying to talk about that process as if I were in control of it.

We often discuss art this way: the artist had something he “wanted to express”, and then he just, you know … expressed it. We buy into some version of the intentional fallacy: the notion that art is about having a clear-cut intention and then confidently executing same.

The actual process, in my experience, is much more mysterious and more of a pain in the ass to discuss truthfully.

Steph Curry Literally Sees the World Differently Than You Do

In the third quarter of game two of this year’s Western Conference finals, the Golden State Warriors were ahead of the Oklahoma City Thunder by ten points. Then, Steph Curry, in the words of one sportswriter, went “supernova”: With 7:10 left in the quarter, Curry sunk an open three-pointer, then got fouled on another triple — plus a technical — making a four-point play, then made another triple, then a long two, then another three-pointer. Fifteen points in under two minutes. Golden State up by 20. Game over.

It was yet another display of Curry’s absurd abilities, a collection of talents that have transformed NBA basketball. After winning the most valuable player award and the league championship last season, Curry followed up by leading the Warriors to the best single-season record in NBA history (73–9) and claiming another MVP award (unanimously, for the first time in league history). Now, the Warriors are a win away from another title, thereby setting off an explosion of barroom arguments about whether they could be the the best team ever, and if Curry is the best shooter ever — if not, heretical as it is to say, the greatest player of all time.

NYmag.com

The affair that saved our marriage

If any couple can be credited with pulling their marriage back from the brink, it’s surely Tal and Samara Araim. After 16 years and with two children together, Tal embarked on an all-consuming affair with one of Samara’s closest friends. It lasted two years, until Samara’s “oh-my-God moment” when suddenly, from nowhere, she knew. They separated immediately and didn’t speak for months. Samara wiped Tal’s number from her phone, changed her name on her email account and all communication was through lawyers. All the divorce papers were signed except one.

Fast-forward four years and here they are on a sofa talking openly, easily, lightly – and laughing a lot. Their journey has been so revelatory that Tal has not only written a book in an effort to share all he has learned, but also turned their former family home in Surbiton, south-west London, into a therapy centre, Compass4Couples. Downstairs is a lecture space that hosts free seminars and workshops. Upstairs, qualified counsellors provide individual therapy.

Tal is a man on a mission – his vision is a kind of “relationship gym”, not for couples in crisis but for those who are ticking along. “We have hospitals where you go when you’ve had a heart attack and gyms where you go to stay healthy,” he says. “With marriage, we only have the hospitals – we look for help when it’s almost too late. If Samara and I had gone somewhere like this at the beginning, the whole thing might never have happened – because, honestly, when I look at our ‘issues’, they weren’t that major.”

The Guardian

This Is Your Brain on Nature

When you head out to the desert, David Strayer is the kind of man you want behind the wheel. He never texts or talks on the phone while driving. He doesn’t even approve of eating in the car. A cognitive psychologist at the University of Utah who specializes in attention, Strayer knows our brains are prone to mistakes, especially when we’re multitasking and dodging distractions. Among other things, his research has shown that using a cell phone impairs most drivers as much as drinking alcohol does.

Strayer is in a unique position to understand what modern life does to us. An avid backpacker, he thinks he knows the antidote: Nature.

National Geographic

Making Music Boosts Brain’s Language Skills

Do you have trouble hearing people talk at cocktail parties? Try practicing the piano before you leave the house.

Musicians—from karaoke singers to professional cello players—are better able to hear targeted sounds in a noisy environment, according to new research that adds to evidence that music makes the brain work better.

National Geographic

Daniel Kahneman’s Favorite Approach For Making Better Decisions

Bob Sutton’s book, Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less, contains an interesting section towards the end on looking back from the future, which talks about “a mind trick that goads and guides people to act on what they know and, in turn, amplifies their odds of success.”

We build on Nobel winner Daniel Kahneman’s favorite approach for making better decisions. This may sound weird, but it’s a form of imaginary time travel.

It’s called the premortem. And, while it may be Kahneman’s favorite, he didn’t come up with it. A fellow by the name of Gary Klein invented the premortem technique.

A premortem works something like this. When you’re on the verge of making a decision, not just any decision but a big decision, you call a meeting. At the meeting you ask each member of your team to imagine that it’s a year later.

Farnham Street

Not Getting Enough Sleep? Camping In February Might Help

It’s tempting to keep the computer running late and promise yourself an extra 30 minutes of bed rest in the morning. It’s tempting to do it again the next night, too. But sleep inevitably loses out to getting up early for school or work.

There’s a simple way to combat this: End all artificial lights at night for at least a weekend and drench your eyes in natural morning light, says Kenneth Wright, a professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado, Boulder and senior author on a study on resetting sleep cycles. The most straightforward way of doing this is to forbid any electronics on a camping trip.

In the study, published Thursday in Current Biology, Wright reports on the latest of a series of experiments where he sent people out camping in Colorado parks to reset their biological clocks. Small groups of people set out for a week during the summer, an experiment published in Current Biology in 2013.

NPR

When Scientists Hate Science

With Donald Trump’s recent picks to head the Environmental Protection Agency (Scott Pruitt) and the Energy Department (Rick Perry), it appears that science denialism has now been institutionalized. Pruitt, Perry, and Trump deny the fact that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the environment have trapped heat, causing an increase in the Earth’s surface temperature (“the greenhouse effect”), and consequent climate disruption. Although climate change is undeniable, the current administration has managed to deny it. 

Climate change denialists couldn’t take their anti-science stance without the support of certain scientists. Although the overwhelming consensus among environmental scientists is that global warming is a real and present threat, a few disagree. Sadly, throughout history, science-denying scientists haven’t been hard to find.

Daily Beast

Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories

Did NASA fake the moon landing? Is the government hiding Martians in Area 51? Is global warming a hoax? And what about the Boston Marathon bombing…an “inside job” perhaps?

In the book “The Empire of Conspiracy,” Timothy Melley explains that conspiracy theories have traditionally been regarded by many social scientists as “the implausible visions of a lunatic fringe,” often inspired by what the late historian Richard Hofstadter described as “the paranoid style of American politics.” Influenced by this view, many scholars have come to think of conspiracy theories as paranoid and delusional, and for a long time psychologists have had little to contribute other than to affirm the psychopathological nature of conspiracy thinking, given that conspiricist delusions are commonly associated with (schizotype) paranoia.

Yet, such pathological explanations have proven to be widely insufficient because conspiracy theories are not just the implausible visions of a paranoid minority.

Scientific American

My Life Inside ‘The Family’ Cult

“Do you remember me?” she asks, as a hopeful smile spreads on her face, like she’s trying to tease the right answer out of me. We’re not children anymore. We’ve left. Some of us left with our families, some with our friends, and some alone. Now we’re living in this other world where we keep having to explain—why we lived in so many countries, why our accents change when we talk to strangers, why we didn’t go to school, why we can’t sleep. But to one another, to those of us who grew up like me in the Family, we don’t have to explain.

Yet on message boards, on Facebook, and now, outside a coffee shop on South Congress in Austin, this same question—“Do you remember me?”—comes up over and over. It’s usually followed by the volley of questions we’ve tested to figure out who we were then. “What was your name? Who were your parents? Were you in Osaka? Switzerland?”

Part of the problem with growing up in something so secluded as a cult is that our pasts are so unbelievable we need a witness for our own memory. And so we seek out those who remember.

Daily Beast