Great Life Work James Nicholson

Parenting in tune with our ancestry
Darcia Narvaez, PhD is a professor emerita at Notre Dame, author, and expert in morality, parenting, and neurobiology.

Darcia looks to our ancestral roots as Hunter-Gatherers to inform her worldview and her approach to parenting--incorporating essential human qualities like play, cooperation, and sharing.

Her work on the "Evolved Nest" can be found at Psychology Today and evolvednest.org

Find her academic work on her homepage.

Check out her books Neurobiology the Development of Human Morality and Restoring the Kinship Worldview (with Wahinkpe Topa)

Watch the Breaking the Cycle Video (youtube)

kindredmedia.org

Complete topics include:


James shares how he encountered Darcia’s work when his firstborn son was 6 months old
Why Darcia hears from a lot of first-time Dads
The Evolved Nest--a set of human and animal practices with a 75 million years heritage
The 9 components of the Evolved Nest, all supported by neuroscience
The magic of soothing perinatal experiences
the adaptive power of breastmilk to feed a babies changing needs
Why we tend to ween our children too early
Darcia teases her new book “The Evolved Nest: Nature’s way of raising children”
how the nest “evolved” and why every species nest is a little different
how in the last 10 000 years (or in the 1%) of our existence our development course changed
The importance of a warm social climate in Small Band Hunter Gatherers (SBHG)
How Mayan’s get their teenagers to take out the trash: let them start helping at 1
24/7 presence of caregivers in SBHG
why negative touch is avoided in SBHG
James Prescott study of carrying and breastfeed leading to peaceable societies
Why the nest is for everyone throughout life, not just for babies or children
a space of play, care, nurturing, and touch
importance of self-directed play and the fostering of cooperative social skills and executive skills

Why SBHG never let babies cry
-The evolved nest is immersed in nature



The Sun Bushman and the regularity of healing practices—scheduled weekly or as often needed


Healing practices are how we rebalance and remain connected to the natural world
Why grandparents can be more in tuned to young children then parents
What Rousseau got wrong: no one starts alone—it’s dyadic: mother and child
How parents’ and even grandparents’ stress can be passed on to a child
How can a emotionally disregulated populace raise emotionally regulated offspring?
Brain-Based Parenting (book) (link)
Playful parenting (book) (link)
When parents feel upset or stressed, try to switch into a playful mode as it shifts brain systems
Why parents should start pillow fights—play is the best thing for disregulation
James shares a story about how his son guided him through “big emotions”
Hawaiian idea of the spirit as a bowl of light, where unhealed wounds and trauma are like strips of velcro blocking the light
examples of indigenous healing practices
Richard Katz - Boiling Energy (book) (link)
healing practices as a release—getting back in tune with the greater powers
how to integrate healing practices into a modern family setting

importance of unstructured outdoor play and wrestling
Roughhouse parenting (link book): importance of wrestling for brain development



how folk song games develop the right brain and vagus nerve


The challenges of creating an evolved nest in modern society, especially contemporary USA
Why parents might need to “want less” to establish an evolved nest
how to create a village feel when you don’t have extended family in town
why Darcia think the US is “the worst place to raise a child right now”
In our ancestral heritage, children were the centre of life—their needs are crucial to ancestral and primal societies, as well as other mammals like Bonobos
In traditional societies, a baby’s needs are anticipated, whereas in the west a baby is expected to cry out
How British imperialism spread a culture of com

DEPRESSION AS EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATION
Dr Charles Raison is a professor. psychiatrist, and world-renowned expert in depression. His groundbreaking work explores depression from an evolutionary perspective, and argues that the inflammatory response characteristic of depression may have in fact ensured our survival.

This wide range conversation covers depression, Raison's theory of PATHOS-D, the relationship between autoimmune conditions like allergies and arthritis with depression, and so much more.

Find out more about Charles' work at Emory Spiritual Health

TOPICS INCLUDE:


Why depression is no longer considered a “broken brain” in the scientific community
Why depression is thought of as a syndrome, rather than as a disease—more like a “cloud” or a “cluster” in response to adversity
Why do humans, worldwide and across history, share this constellation of immunological reactions in response to stress and adversity? What function could it serve evolutionarily?
What purpose could depression serve?
How the search for a depression gene has been unproductive: can’t reduce it to a single gene
Depression is part of genetic makeup
Why would depression hide itself from the person experiencing it?
How the “fear of wounding” and infection risk explains the inflammatory response of depression
Stress as a “early warning system for wounding,” which may result in infection
Evolutionary, stress-activated inflammation proved to be advantageous for survival, which explains why depression may have been selected for
Pathos-D helps explain why psychological stress creates a inflammatory response in humans and other animals-
James suggests evolutionary underpinnings to why “chicks dig scars”
Is depression a calling out for help?
Charles’s theory that depression evolved to manage relationships with other humans and the microbial world
Why Charles is surprised people like to visit zoos
depression as a warning sign that you are failing at your chance of reproduction or survival
How unquestionable “must-have” desires are proximally linked to evolutionary survival or reproductive needs
Rather than a disease, depression evolved out of sickness
Increased core temperature and inhibited sweat-response in depression and why that can’t serve as a diagnostic test for depression
Why depression is like an environmental trigger activated by adversity depending on genetic risk factors—kind of like an allergy
Depression as reminiscent of an allergy, albeit operating via different systems
Depression, Allergies, and high-inflammation subtypes
How metaphors are sometimes instantiated in science
Why autoimmune disorders of all kinds are on the rise: an impaired relationship with the microbial world
Graham Rook “The old friends theory” (link)
Why the immune is more like a diplomacy service than an attack squad—it’s about learning what NOT to attack
Anti-inflammatory properties of Microbactorium Baci and cancer treatment, research Chris Lowry and others (link)
Why bugs were our ancient teachers
What if allergies were an evolutionary response as well?
How hyperactive immune responses were helpful in the bubonic plague—why survival is best served by a range of genetic variance in a population
How might something like hay fever serve an evolutionary purpose?
How our response to adversity shapes our perspective and healing.
Why environmental interventions offer the best opportunities for treating “regular ol’ depression”
Use changes in environment to signal wellbeing to the individual
sauna as a treatment for depression
The search for treatment that doesn’t involve the constant external stimulus of medication
Why depression is a catch-22 in modern times—would it be crazy
Psychedelics as a mode of restoring environmental connection
Charles reflects on his English Lit studies and how discovering Freud led him to psychiatry
How Charles read Siddartha at the perfect time in his adolescence
analysis as a double-edge

Marc Lewis is a professor, neuroscientist, author, and psychiatrist whose own personal struggle with opiate addiction continues to inform his groundbreaking work in the field.

In this wide-ranging discussion, Marc explains how addiction isn't actually a disease, but rather a highly motivated form learning--and how this understanding accounts for the ways in which people ultimately overcome addiction: often spontaneously and without external treatment.

To find out more about Marc's work, check out his website or buy one of his books (I highly recommend them!)

Other Topics include:


Why Marc Lewis believes the “disease model” of addiction should be challenged
Why the brain changes in addiction resembles the brain changes in other issues, like binge eating, porn, and internet addiction
How the progress of addiction differs from that of a disease
Reconsidering if “hijacking the brain” is useful metaphor for the addicted brain
Depression as a strategy of self-regulation
The feedback cycle of addiction and the relief of “Now appeal”
Comparing an addicted brain to a brain in love
Lisa Diamond: Research on Pair bonding
How desire, not drugs themselves, “hijack the brain”
The Biology of Desire
Why addictions happen “despite the bad news they bring into a person’s life”
Marc reflects on a recent career change to Clinical Psychology
How can we meaningfully intervene into a person’s reward system?
Internal Family Systems approach
Is the brain like a morality play?
James talks Morning Pages as a loose therapeutic space
Freud and the importance of putting things into words
Marc reflects on his journals of addiction
James Pennebaker - writing to heal (article)
why it’s so hard to predict when addicts quit
Edward Slingerland - Drunk
Huberman Lab - Alcohol
weighing the social effects vs the physical effects of alcohol
Carl Hart - Drug Use for Grown-Ups
fentanyl and the mixing with stimulants
Why Marc Lewis think drugs will be integrated into society in future policy
Huberman on Nicotine
Research into psychedlics, therapy, microdosing
Why you have to have done drugs to understand drugs
Terance McKenna “when you get the message hang up the phone”
How Marc Lewis’ addiction experience became an asset in his career
why the “Streets are Talented”
if we forget the social, we are missing the whole picture

Find out more at GreatLifeWork.com

The felling of the (Allison) Roman Empire and the calculus of the moment with tech columnist Navneet Alang.
If you've read Nav's stuff, you'll be as thrilled as I am to dig into his process, life, work, and, of course, the greatness of Windows phone.

Readers of the Toronto Star will recognize him as the weekly tech opinion columnist whose nuanced takes on tech and modern life offer a richness seldom seen these days in old fashioned newsprint. (His work is also found in Eater, The New Republic, the Globe and Mail, Macleans, Hazlitt and elsewhere.)

A Nav column seems to always command complicated material in a way that makes its depths understandable. And what we find is always a surprise.

In his autobiographical writing, this deftness turns inwards, and the results are at turns raw and personal. Things never stay in one place for long, however. Nav interweaves sophisticated notions of the self, the digital, the psychic implications of capitalism, and sometimes even straight up critical theory, into these unflinching investigations of the self.

I encourage you to check out his back catalogue!

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We cover a lot in this one!

Topics include:


Nav’s upbringing
Moving from London UK at 12
Lived in Etobicoke between wealthy predominantly white area and lower income predominantly brown area
Why Nav’s parents moved from London to the GTA
How the daily racism of London was escaped in Canada
Why Nav maintained his english accent in Canada
reflecting on the boom period of the personal essay
what it’s like to look back on old revealing essays
SSRIs and creativity
The dirty secret of academics: they are trying to solve their personal problems through their study
what brought Nav to the point of working on a dissertation
why a masters is academia's gateway drug
looking back on the dissertation and the stubbornness to finish
why the personal essay era ended
integrating teaching into Nav's life
teaching journalism vs English
how Nav knows he has crackin’ pitch
“too good for twitter” test
“speed of editor reply” test
bodily signals of a pitch
constrained format of the column vs the up and down rollercoaster of a longform piece
why Nav actually likes writing (mostly)
dealing with the “emotional waves of writing”
writing as a place to manage idiosyncrasies
battle to find and embrace your own writing voice
Nav’s drafting process
Nav’s appreciation of early editing from Jordan Ginsberg at Hazlitt
Nav’s experience with backlash from Jordan Peterson’s fanbase
the “calculus of the moment” and when to engage with conflict on twitter
Nav’s tendency to “poke the bear” in his written work
Allison Roman piece
how Nav was way ahead of the game on Alison Roman - stars aligned
Nav on the greatness of the windows phone
why Microsoft was ahead of apple in innovating on smartphone UI but couldn’t pull it off
how network effects limit the ability to drastically alter established smartphone design norms
what will the smartphone be replaced with next?

Thanks for listening!

Contact:
Email greatlifework (at) substack (dot) com
Instagram: @GreatLifeWorkPod
Newsletter: greatlifework.com

EMBRACE THE BOUNCE

Aaron Lammer joins Great Life Work to reflect on CoinTalk, Exit Scam, music, collecting vinyl, and Tokyo audiophile bars (and so much more.)

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We cover a lot in this one!

Topics include:


Reflecting on CoinTalk
Working close to the action, crypto obsession deepening
Why crypto isn’t a final resting place for Aaron’s brain
Why Aaron has no interest in app development anymore
Why Aaron has no idea what his interests will be in 5-10 years
How Aaron’s laziness helps him avoid certain would-be addictive hobbies (he’ll never fly fish)
Wistfully remembered being addicted to video games
Why Aaron is getting into review culture
James explains renunciation (No TV/No Movies)
Aaron is getting into condensed edits of soccer games
Aaron’s reading habits
Learning other people canon’s - books, rare records
Thoughts on record collecting
What Aaron likes in HiFi
A basic starter set up: 2 speakers + an amp + a high-quality source
Aaron talks the role of music-making in his life now and how he currently approaches it
Explains his longstanding musical collaboration
Why Aaron focuses on playing with the tools rather than creating a finished product
Aaron digs into his music making workflow
hoarding bits? Hard drive space is cheap
How to embrace the stereo bounce
Why computer interfaces are not particularly creative
Why you should make decisions and bounce out bits
Aaron’s recommended music gear
Why knobs are infinitely better
A readinbg of John Berryman’s Dream Song #14
The Difference between music and poetry to aaron
James talks about late night “freak show” game
Aaron talks about visiting an audiophile bar in Tokyo
Exit Scam and writing for podcasts

Thanks for listening!

Contact:
Email greatlifework (at) substack (dot) com
Instagram: @GreatLifeWorkPod
Newsletter: greatlifework.com

THE BIG SCREEN MAGIC OF QUIET CONFIDENCE

11 books in 14 years. Two major films coming to Netflix (with more adaptations to come). Bestselling Author Jennifer E. Smith is having a moment right now, but it wasn't always that way.

Old friend of the show, Jennifer E. Smith, reflects on her "irrational (quiet) confidence era," before Hollywood came knocking, and the rejections that laid the groundwork for her remarkable success across formats.

We reach Jennifer on the cusp of the release of the film of her novel, "Hello Goodbye and Everything in Between," to talk about the wonder of seeing a small village build out your fantasy world, the difference between film and novels, how she handled James' ribbing at St Andrews, and so much more.

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Thanks for listening!

Contact:
Email greatlifework (at) substack (dot) com
Instagram: @GreatLifeWorkPod
Newsletter: greatlifework.com