Notes on a Nervous Planet: Matt Haig

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To create our own bubble of peace and happiness away from technology and the other things the ‘modern’ world drags us down with. Yet much of his advice about “How to exist in the 21st century and not have a panic attack” applies to all of us modern cavepeople. Particularly fun and illustrative was the observation that in the 16th century only around 40 books per year were published in England ( fictional book club: what are we reading this year Cedric?

Effectively the beach has written an ode to us humans, about how we shouldn't obsess about who's "watching us" on the beach, about how we look, as no-one's really interested.Meu primeiro contato com esse autor foi com Razões para continuar vivo (em 2018) e desde então já sabia que iria querer ler tudo o que ele escrevesse. As discussed in the book, everyone has different opinions on books and I loved Reasons to Stay Alive but this I found really boring. That mental wellbeing counts as much as physical wellbeing – indeed, that it is part of physical wellbeing.

Breakdown is an unspecific word, which might explain why medical professionals shy away from it these days, but at its root we understand what it conveys. The whole of consumerism is based on us wanting the next thing rather than the present thing we already have. Life moves pretty fast OF COURSE, IN the cosmic perspective, the whole of human history has been fast. If I catalogued every boneheaded thing he said in this book, we'd be here for days, but (paraphrased) highlights include: "Just unplug for a while!You might not agree with everything Matt Haig says or does, but I think everyone who reads this book will find something in there that will speak to them or at least make them think.

The singularity is the point at which artificial intelligence becomes more intelligent than the brainiest human being.and happy cyborgs, or our sentient robots and laptops and toasters will take us over and we will be their pets or slaves or three-course meal. Through the internet, we can access a huge amount of data on everything, from recipes to personal opinions to historical events. Moving house, losing a job, getting married, an increase or decrease in income, a death in the family, a diagnosis of a health problem, turning 40, whatever. intolerance and economic injustice prevalent in our species, there are – on the most global of scales – also reasons for pride and hope.

If nuclear weapons have been on the news – which seems to happen on increasing amount these days – I can visualise mushroom clouds through every window. Whether it is our attitudes toward sleep, the marketing messages that inundate us daily, the constant and hysterical news cycle, social media or even the way we educate our children, we are programming ourselves to put our bodies and minds at odds and setting ourselves up with expectations for our lives that prevent our happiness. The modern work culture of constant assessment and ever-higher aspirations, combined with widespread work-place bullying and sexism, is toxic.And, just as technology has always been the deepest root of social change, so this dizzying pace of technological change is triggering other changes. The interesting thing about the survey was that it showed that how you feel about your looks is surprisingly far more determined by the nation in which you live than by, say, your gender. Couldn’t aspects of how we live in the modern world be responsible for how we feel in the modern world?