№ 693. Trivial Pursuits

Saveur

My habit of treating toothpaste as a souvenir is about celebrating rather than elevating the trivial — I’m not chasing quality, authenticity or meaning, those most overrepresented pursuits among world travelers. So I pick whatever seems fun, interesting or tame, depending on my mood. It’s a low-stakes exercise with just one rule: My selection must comply with the 100-milliliter limit for packing in my carry-on.

The effect of this habit is Proustian but its origin is not. About a decade ago, I chose to ignore some advice I was given before moving to Japan for a study-abroad program. Japanese toothpaste, I was told, might not be to my liking, so I should pack a few tubes of my favorite brand to take with me to Tokyo. Shunning even the most inconsequential new experience seemed to me a bad way of approaching a new life in a new country. I was 32 and had learned to wring all that I could from my days as a working stiff. Why shouldn’t I do the same as a slightly-too-old university student in Japan? I stretched my student loans and scholarship money so I could quench my thirst for novelty by drinking from the well of everyday experience — which, in Tokyo, runs deep with small consumer delights.

Among these delights, buying toothpaste I would never find in an American drugstore proved to be a reliable way of enlivening an otherwise unremarkable daily activity — one that we often treat as routine but that I try to embrace as a ritual for chasing the fog of sleep from my waking hours. Each new and unfamiliar flavor recalls a time and a place, but also serves as a gentle tap on the shoulder — a reminder to look at myself, not through myself, in the bathroom mirror and to appreciate even those moments spent brushing away the seeds of inevitable decay.

 

№ 692. Trust in the Process

Cracked

“You can have flaws, be anxious and even be angry, but just remember that your life is the world’s biggest enterprise. Only you can stop it from failing. You are appreciated, admired, and loved by so many. 

 

Remember that happiness is not having a sky without storms, a road without accidents, a job without effort, a relationship without disappointments.

 

№ 691. How long will you live?

Performance Excellence Network

 

By Susan Ople

The average life span of a cockroach is one year. But, a cockroach does not know this. It does not scurry into safety at the sight of a giant shoe looming overhead, waiting for the perfect moment to squash it to extinction.

You and I differ from a cockroach. We are born knowing that eventually we will die. Like bread crumbs to pudding, our ashes will comingle with the Earth, thus offering nutrients to earthworms. An earthworm is far luckier than a cockroach. Its life span varies widely, from six to nine years, with the luckier species able to survive for at least 20 years.

That we, humans, are gifted with the knowledge that our umbilical cords come with an expiration date appear to be lost on people who live aimless lives. To wake up each morning and feel that this day is no different than the other is such a grievous error in judgment. Every sunrise is an opportunity to live a day better and more productive than the previous one.

№ 690. Kindness

 

№ 689. Lonely Planets & Happy Feet

We’re most transported when we’re least distracted. And we’re most at peace – ready to be transformed, in fact – when most deeply absorbed. I’d much rather converse with one sight for 60 minutes than 60 places for one minute each. When I travel with the Dalai Lama – as I’ve done for 10 recent Novembers across Japan – I’m convinced that the wide-awake responsiveness he brings to every last convenience store and passing toddler is partly the result of the three hours he spends at the beginning of every day in meditation. Destinations can only be as rich as what we bring to them.

During this new season of the virus, I’ve been spending many happy hours on the tiny sunlit terrace outside my apartment in Nara, Japan, with the poet laureate of lockdowns, Marcel Proust. I think of him also as the patron saint of travellers, precisely because he was confined by severe asthma to spending three years alone in his cork-lined bedroom. What allowed him to read with such acuity the small print of every crowded soiree? To recall with such fresh immediacy a long-ago gaggle of young beauties on a beach? To record with wakeful precision the sight of a loved one asleep? That time in solitary, I suspect. It was Proust, I never forget, who reminded us that the point of every trip is not new sights but new eyes. Once we have those, even the old sights are reborn.

 

№ 688. Miroirs / Mirrors

Gibet Gaspard-Nuit

 

For some, that sense of containment makes Ravel easier to appreciate than to love. Yet he inspires adoration as well as admiration. Why? I think the containment is key. From the outside, Ravel appears small, self-contained, even buttoned-up. But anyone who has a heart can see that he is bigger on the inside. There is anguish within the Passacaille of the Piano Trio, mystery in the Miroirs, endless tenderness in the adagio of the second Piano Concerto, with its “mile upon silver mile” of melody. There is vivacity in the Violin Sonata, innocent wonder in Mother Goose. Nature is writ large in Daphnis and Chloe; in Histoires naturelles, human nature is writ small. These are intimations of the ineffable, not expressions of it. You don’t need to look behind the mask to feel them; look at it.

 

№ 687. 8 Habits for Longer Lives

Want to live up to an additional 24 years? Just add eight healthy lifestyle choices to your life at age 40 and that could happen, according to a new unpublished study analyzing data on US veterans. 

• No. 1: First on the list was exercise, which many experts say is one of the most important behaviors anyone can do to improve their health.

• No. 2: Not becoming addicted to opioids was the second most important contributor to a longer life, reducing the risk of early death by 38%, the study found.

• No. 3: Never using tobacco reduced risk of death by 29%, the study found.

• No. 4: Managing stress was next, reducing early death by 22%, the study found. Stress is rampant in the US today, with devastating consequences for health, experts say. And there are ways to revamp your outlook and turn bad stress into good stress.

• No. 5: Eating a plant-based diet would raise your chances of living a longer life by 21%, the study found. But that doesn’t mean you have to be a vegetarian or vegan, Nguyen said. Following a healthy plant-based plan such as the Mediterranean diet full of whole grains and leafy green vegetables was key.

• No. 6: Avoiding binge drinking — which is having more than four alcoholic beverages a day — was another healthy lifestyle habit, reducing the risk of death by 19%.

• No. 7: Getting a good night’s sleep — defined as at least seven to nine hours a night with no insomnia — reduced early death from any cause by 18%, Nguyen said. Dozens of studies have linked poor sleep to all sorts of poor health outcomes, including premature mortality.

• No. 8: Being surrounded by positive social relationships helped longevity by 5%, the study found. However, loneliness and isolation, especially among older adults, is becoming more widespread and worrisome, experts say.

№ 686. Doubt