Greetings from Taipei! Enjoy this weeks reads!
#1: China vs. Russia: A fascinating deep dive on the social media strategies of Russia of China on US social media platforms. TL;DR: Russia is trying to rile people up and China is trying to show how amazing China is; Russia getting more clicks
#2 Breathing (h/t Jonny): This deep-dive article on breathing offered many perspective on the breath that I never thought of before and is a nice compliment to anyone wanting to learn more about meditation.
The Ancient Egyptians thought that all bodily fluids passed through the heart, even urine and semen. Hippocrates had no idea that the lungs were involved in breathing, and Aristotle thought that they were merely a cooling mechanism for the heart. The great physician Galen thought that we absorbed air through our skin. It wasn’t until the 17th century that our understanding of breathing advanced in any real way.
#3 Millennials: The "this generation is different" narratives are elusive, yet there is little evidence that millennials are all that much different than previous generations.
#4 Swedes At Work: There is a Swedish "art project" that is offering someone a job with lifetime employment at a train station and their only job is to show up and turn the lights on. Perhaps inspired by Bullshit Jobs, the job comes with no requirements other than showing up every day:
An employee shows up to the train station each morning and punches the time clock. That, in turn, illuminates an extra bank of fluorescent lights over the platform, letting travelers and commuters know that the otherwise functionless employee is on the job. At the end of the day, the worker returns to clock out, and the lights go off. In between, they can do whatever they want, aside from work at another paying job.
This kind of humor, contempt for the modern working condition is no surprise coming from Sweden where ideas like the 6-hour day have been tested.
#5 Workism & Leadership: Stowe Boyd has a great take on the recent "workism" articles and why we should be more skeptical of leaders:
Behind the discourse about new ways of working, employee engagement, innovation, and organization, there lies a deep-seated belief — one that often goes completely unexamined — namely, the central role of leaders in all human endeavors, and perhaps especially in business.
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