Morning Walk #25
Taking care of youself, limiting news consumption and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Hi. I’m Stepa Mitaki. Morning Walk is a personal weekly newsletter where I share some musings on tech, working on startups, productivity and some nerdy stuff.
This issue was sent out to 80 subscribers (+2 from the previous week). Last week’s issue received 132 views.
Unfortunately, this week again I won't cover any tech, startup, or business-related issues. It's simply impossible to even think about when the war is unfolding.
📰 Personal news
Today is my birthday. I turned 34. Few of my Russian friends had birthdays within the last month, and everyone is saying that this is their weirdest birthday ever. You can celebrate, but you can't think about being joyful at this moment when Ukraine is under attack from your government.
Lots of people are talking about what we can do these days. How can they contribute? Spread the word about Putin's crimes, volunteer to help Ukraine, fundraise; basically, every skill can be helpful. But among other things, it's essential to make time to take care of yourself. You can easily go nuts reading about these horrible events every hour. You can easily become more aggressive, lose faith, and become depressed. You can't let yourself do that. Especially now. So within the last week, I've started limiting news consumption, allowing myself to walk more and enjoy some small things.
I'm spending my 34th birthday in Thailand. Me and my family have been here for almost four weeks now. The biggest advantage to Thailand – is it's cheap, far away from Europe, and you can think more calmly here. The downsides? The weather is too hot, and I can't get used to the local fauna. Just this week, I had to drop off from work Zoom call because a flying cockroach started circling my apartment 😬
In other news, this week, I've talked to my wife and noticed that we were thrown back a few levels on Maslow's hierarchy of needs within just one day.
I considered myself being on the Self Actualization level, but now I'm definitely on a Safety Needs level. And it may take months to crawl back one level up. I'm not saying it's a terrible tragedy; it's just an unusual experience we're going through. We will make it through and I'm glad I'm sharing that experience with so many friends these days. It helps.
👓 Things I've been reading/watching/enjoying
Doomscrolling isn’t just bad for your mood, it can harm your cognition too
My content consumptions habits went down the drain on February 24th. Since that day, I’ve been reading the news every hour or so, immediately opening up news outlets first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I knew it affected my mood. It turns out it can affect my cognitive abilities as well.
Such conditions can over time have a huge effect on our minds, leading to actual cognitive impairments such as reduced attention or problems with memory and reasoning. After all, if negative information hijacks our attention and memory, it will drain cognitive power that could be used for other things.
Philosophers' ships
As tens of thousands of middle-class people in Russia are fleeing the country, the term coined in the 1920s seems more appropriate than ever. The story is worth a read.
Philosophers’ ships is a term used for steamships which transported intellectuals expelled from Soviet Russia in 1922.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading.
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