Walk it out

Having a conflict with someone? Walk it out. That's the suggestion from a social psychology paper I like by three Columbia psychology professors.* Why would this work?

 

First, there are the intrapersonal benefits of walking. People evolved to think on our feet, so we generate more creative ideas while moving. History is full of stories of authors, scientists, and philosophers (like Darwin, Kierkegaard, and Thoreau) who professed to formulate their best ideas while walking. Nietzsche famously said that "all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking." How many times have you been stuck on a problem and hit on the solution after getting up and moving around? The authors cite various studies finding, for example, that participants were much more likely to generate novel, high-quality analogies when walking compared to sitting. That counteracts the narrowing of vision created by conflict. In addition, other studies have found that physical activity increases positive affect and lowers stress. If you're in a better mood and less stressed out, then you're going to be more receptive to working through conflict.

Conversation starters, Mom style

After a recent dinner, Brad complained that our conversations are always the same, that is, boring ("How's work?"; bad political news, etc.). There are plenty of conversation starters available on the internet, so I clipped some out and stuck them in a jar on our table for when the need arises.

 

The ultimate conversation starters are the 36 deep questions developed by social psychologist Arthur Aron and colleagues. Their now famous paper is titled "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings." But the method they developed to generate "interpersonal closeness" is better known as the "fast friends" procedure. An article in the New York Times "Modern Love" series ("To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This") that went viral in 2015 described how the author and a "university acquaintance" fell in love going through the 36 questions together.

It never gets old

The book sale ends today, though it's long since been picked clean by the final half-price Sunday. This year, Cassie and JC came for the FotL member pre-sale on the Friday evening before the book sale's official start on Saturday morning at 10:00 AM. Everyone did pretty well, though Mom took the prize as usual with not one but two big bags of books. Mom didn't want to take the time to line her purchases up nice and neat, so you won't see her piles below. But here are photos of the stacks of books that Cassie, JC, and I picked up. Can you match the stack with the book buyer?

Attention is love

One of my favorite quotes conveying a principle to live by is from The Power of Fun by Catherine Price: "Our lives are what we pay attention to." She has explained elsewhere that what she means by this is that "when we decide what to pay attention to in the moment, we are making a broader decision about how we want to spend our time alive."

 

After I responded to this idea, I started seeing variations on the theme all over. In How To Know a Person, David Brooks wrote that "[t]he quality of your life depends quite a bit on the quality of attention you project out onto the world." In The Good Life, Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz quote the French philosopher Simone Weil as saying, "Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."

 

When Paul Met Karen

I recently started listening to the Love Factually podcast, which is one of the most "Paul" podcasts ever. The idea is that two relationship scientists — Paul Eastwick, who is a professor at the University of California, Davis, and Eli Finkel, who is at Northwestern — talk about famous rom-coms and tell you what they get right and wrong about how relationships actually work. I love that their substack [1] cites and links to all of the academic papers Eastwick and Finkel discuss in each episode, so I can read the science for myself if I so choose.

 

They discussed "When Harry Met Sally" in Episode 1, because where else would you start if you're doing a podcast about rom-coms? One of the things that movie gets right is that the lead characters start out as friends first (well, frenemies first really). Relationship scientists have mostly overlooked "The Friends-to-Lovers Pathway to Romance," say the authors of a paper with that name,[2] because friends-first initiation is much harder to study than dating initiation of a romantic relationship. [3]

Pizza Day!

It's a big day today! No, not the Super Bowl, who cares about that? It's National Pizza Day! (And apparently World Pizza Day too.) I tried to make a big deal last year, but everyone pooped on my pizza parade. This year I insisted though, and Dylan was on board because pizza is his favorite food, which got the ball rolling. So I made Shortcut Sicilian-Style Italian Pizza:

Fast food, episode XV

It's been too long since my last installment in the "fast food" franchise, even though I have posted other under-30-minute recipes since then. As quick and easy go, they don't get much quicker and easier than this, an Indian-style variation on a rice-and-beans dish using only pantry staples (if you go with canned over fresh tomatoes). This one is definitely worth keeping in mind for when you're home late from work and don't know what to make but don't want to order in or go out. We all thought it was really tasty, especially given the small amount of time and work involved. Stock up on black-eyed peas next time you're at the grocery — they're delicious and have a great texture compared to some other beans. (They're great in the Four "Pea" Usal, too.)