Zach’s Top 5
A Podcast, Album, Song, Book, and a Daily Practice
2021 was a lot. Here are five things I kept coming back to this year:
Huberman Lab Podcast:
Podcast
From Stanford neurobiologist Andrew Huberman, the Huberman Lab Podcast discusses science and science-based protocols related to learning, sleep, and athletic performance.
The protocols include breathing practices, manipulation of body temperature, and mental strategies — each a means of tuning hormone levels or activating neural circuits in pursuit of various health results.
The Huberman lab podcast straddles parts of myself that are often in tension; it fuels my excitement for ‘bio-hacking’ and self-improvement strategies, while maintaining the rigor necessitated by my skeptical mind; The podcast shines a light on evidence-based findings in the often murky field of health and self-betterment.
If you give the podcast a listen, you might find yourself thinking ‘That is not how I thought that worked’ or ‘Why did I never learn this in school?’
(I’d recommend starting with this episode on social bonds or this one about dopamine. The episode lengths might be intimidating, but much can be learned without listening to the entirety of an episode)
Terra Firma by Tash Sultana
Album
Australian born singer-songwriter Tash Sultana, who uses the pronoun they, entrances listeners with building beats, compelling bass lines and intricate electric guitar riffs in this 2021 album.
A talented multi-instrumentalist, Sultana largely performs all instruments featured in their music. If you haven’t seen one of their tiny desk concerts, do yourself a favor. Their face is full of contagious joy and passion as they layer vocals upon bass upon keyboard synth upon trumpet.
My time with Terra Firma highlights a common pattern of repeated album listening:
First, the most accessible and radio-ready songs catch your ear and invite you back. Then, just as those first songs, while still enjoyable, sag into repetition, you grow familiar with the previously overlooked songs of the album. These ‘sleeper hits’ soon surpass the original favorites, and become the new repeat warriors on your playlist.
An album like Sultana’s Terra Firma allows for many moods and phases of listening. The songs I started out skipping are now my favorites, and the greater familiarity with the album as a whole brought a more nuanced enjoyment of the original favorites.
Album honorable mentions:
- Local Valley — Jose gonzales (2021)
- If This Isn’t Nice, I Don’t Know What Is — Still Woozy (2021)
- The Garden — Zero7 (2006)
TSLAMP by MGMT
Song
“TSLAMP” from the indie-rock band MGMT combines electric drum kits and distorted keyboard with a funky bass line for a haunting yet upbeat feel. This song was, for me, a sleeper hit from their 2016 Little Dark Age.
“TSLAMP”, an initialism for Time Spent Looking At My Phone, captures some of the undesired realities of life in a smartphone era.
I’m wondering where the hours went / As I’m losing consciousness
My sullen face is all aglow / Time spent looking at my phone
These lyrics capture the all-too common experience of getting “sucked into” my phone. As the world has appeared more chaotic in the past year, it’s become ever easier for me to look for escape in cute puppy videos on my phone. I don’t have a feel-good spin or profound commentary to extract from this song, but I appreciate it because it reaches me where I’m at. Also, you can ignore the lyrics and enjoy the sonic qualities — it just slaps.
Sapiens by Yuval Harari
Book
If the prior song helped me see the present world anew, Sapiens’ light shone bright on our ancient world, and our place in it. Yuval Harari’s insightful book offers fresh takes on the human ancestry/historical stories we’ve always been told.
Sapiens opened my eyes to the little-told benefits of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and its advantages over early agricultural lifestyles. It also has played a significant part in my shifting understanding of humanity–from a garden of eden-like understanding of humanity as outside of and greater than nature, towards an understanding of humans as a part of nature that has simply forgotten it IS nature.
A Walk around your neighborhood
A Daily Practice
I suppose there are two phases of your life:
- The first, where walking is boring and slow and stupid, and “why do I have to go on this walk with the family, Mom”
- The second, where walking is slow and amazingly relaxing and you’re the one dragging others along with you
The year 2021 found me in transition: I started the year living in a college house with 6 guys who were around all the time — even more so with so many remote classes. As the year ends, I’m living in a condo with my best friend Liam, who commutes 30 mins to work, leaving me with every daylight hour of the day to figure out by myself.
This gave me more solo time than I’m used to, and I used some of that to discover the ancient (and in a pandemic world, quite modern) art of walking around the neighborhood. And what a great time to, as my move brought me to the eclectic neighborhood of Ocean Beach, San Diego.
Therefore in closing I offer my review of walking (and you can decide which phase I’m in).
Dislikes:
- The aforementioned boring and slow
- The dance of when and whom to make contact with
- The dance of how to interact: eye contact? head nod? Smile?*
Likes:
- Seeing people IRL, especially after spending 8 hour days working in your room
- Breathing fresh air and feeling the sun on my face
- Dogs!
* For the record, here’s my observations of my sidewalk interactions:
- Adult man >= my age: downwards head nod.
- Middle aged woman: smile + nod.
- Woman 20–30: smile or complete stonewall
- Kids + teens by themselves: stonewall
- Little kids with moms: smile
- Dog: smile
