We’re all moved in! The boxes are gone, our venus flytraps are looking healthy and adjusted to the new light and there are multiple reading nooks set up in the house of nerds now. We’ve already hosted a few folks and it feels like home now.
Here is this week’s art-as-a-habit-and-not-just-a-hobby, inspired by Mateusz Urbanowicz - a polish artist who lives in Japan. It was my way of settling into the new digs, finding a good spot to sketch and paint. I’m quite pleased with it!
This week, we’ve been talking about social contact a lot more than usual. While COVID feels like a distant memory for many, it’s impact on the social fabric will continue to be felt over decades. For the young, it stunted the muscles that would help them connect with others. For the old, it broke the social contract that they were counting on for their own sanity.
When I wrote about the contrast of the loneliness epidemic in the east vs the west, I still framed the problem as zero-sum - either you’re lonely or you’re not. I failed to consider the vast middle of withering social ties. A few family incidents, conversations with friends and general observation of the world has made us think that we all need our own social fabric plans - just the way we have financial plans and physical health plans. We don’t live near friends, we don’t go to the office as often as we used to. We need to actively manage how we will surround ourselves with people. Like these two Vietnamese grannies who know where their priorities lie:
Here are your finds for the week:
- DUO-STRATEGY The WSJ goes deep on the economics of the language-learning app Duolingo - it makes around $500 million annually, despite offering all of its lessons for free. The company is using AI, A/B testing, and weird little birdie to keep users hooked.
- COATHERAPIST In the Bay Area, therapists are embracing a new kind of practice: advising executives on becoming their best selves. Leadership coaching can look a lot like therapy — two people talking about the challenges and aspirations of one of them.
- DARK KAWAII The image of Japan is inextricable from the throngs of fluffy, cute imagery, chibi portraits and expressive anime eyes. But the reality of many in the country is anything but. Artists like Yoshitomo Nara explore how cuteness can be used as a tool to question the world we live in.
- GAME. SET. MATCHA. The Japanese tea powder was once hard to find in the UK, but now you can have it in everything from iced lattes to energy drinks, bubble tea, pancakes and mousse. The commodification of matcha has sparked conversations about cultural appropriation. Is the drink being taken too far from its original form and traditions? I believe in no such thing - the world is big enough, messy enough and diverse enough to not dilute a cultural artifact when shared widely.
- FERN MADNESS Nearly 200 years ago, a new obsession gripped Britain: the Victorian Fern Craze. I love me a good fern. Plants were, and are, pets.