Happy Friday,
Greeting from Dallas! We are in the big city this weekend, as part of our final preparations for our move. We managed to dodge most of the ice and snow this week and are enjoying the clean, fresh air in the aftermath of yesterday’s winter storm.
Here is the best from around the internet this week:
The question: “How can parents respond to silly questions from their children without stunting their creativity or inquisitive spirits?” Mortimer Adler’s response includes advice applicable to us all. The most telling sentence is , “They [parents] should be able to tell a hard question from a silly one, and not treat everything that perplexes them as foolish.”
Derek Thompson explores bi-phasic sleep – the habit of sleeping overnight in two sessions – which was the custom for many pre-Industrial generations. This BBC article makes an excellent pairing and details biphasic sleep with much detail, including the designated sleeping positions families observed, and common activities during “the watch,” the time between the two sleeps.
Perhaps short-term discipline sows long-term stability. A survey of 86 cultures reveals short-term limits on pleasure may establish security and stability in the long-term. J.D. Unwin, an Oxford social anthropologist, looked specifically at how attitudes around sexuality impacts subsequent generations within a culture. This is a summary of his 1934 book, Sex and Culture, and offers an interesting interpretation of sexual revolutions, cultural collapse, societal norms, and how those factors influence one another.
Will Berlin ban cars from its city center? More and more cities are addressing the overcrowding of streets with vehicles and taking steps to make their streets more safe and appealing for pedestrian traffic. Bogota, Colombia, similarly keeps its streets motor-free most of Sunday, a custom I would love to see catch on in the US.
“The deep life cannot be reduced to concrete steps. But without concrete steps, you’ll never get closer to it.”
Currently reading: The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltazar Gracián
Have a great weekend.
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
