Dungeon Crawler Carl - Aliens have destroy earth to harvest its resources. All human surviver’s are dumped into a 18-level trap and monster filled underground labyrinth and fight to live.
Reminds me of Ready Player One crossed with Dungeon & Dragons and a bit of Hunger Games but with more gore and humour. There’s also a talking cat named Donut who has a rocket launcher.
They’re making a show of it too, which could be good as they’ve tapped the writers who wrote Thor: Ragnarok, and, the Denis Villeneuve directed, Arrival to adapt it.
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The Meaning of Your Life - Arthur C Brooks is so well spoken, his interviews and narrations are a delight. I started by listening to his interview with Andrew Huberman - HERE. And jumped right into the book after. Arthur identifies three “macronutrients” of happiness that have escaped us as societal and technological advances have rewired our brains: Enjoyment, Satisfaction and Meaning.
There’s lots of good stuff in here: limit digital noise, spend time in nature without a phone, ask deep questions, practise unselfish love through serving family/friends/community. There’s no direct answers, there never are, but I still highly recommend this book.
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The Self Driven Child - This was derived another Huberman podcast. The guest was Joe Liemandt who runs Alpha School in the US. Joe’s ideas about using AI to catch kids up to learning levels they’ve fallen behind on, outside of the classroom setting, really resonated with me.
Joe mentions The Self Driven Child as a cornerstone of the alternative teaching approach used at Alpha School. So I gave it a listen and it was extremely stressful to hear as a parent . . . mainly cause it derailed my plans of helicoptering my kids right through law/med school!
Authors Stixrud & Johnson argue that children need a deep sense of control and autonomy in their lives, one that parents are anxious to hand over, but by doing so alleviates children of stress & anxiety, improves brain development and increases intrinsic motivation.
Allow children to make their own decisions, homework and schedules.
Let them experience the natural consequences of their actions safely.
Don’t tell them / ask them: “What’s your plan for this?” instead of giving orders.
Protect sleep and downtime while setting tech boundaries.
Parents should shift from being strict bosses who manage all details of a child’s life to a more supportive consultant role with advice and boundaries.
It makes sense, the science is there, I’m just working on the “letting go”.
