Dear Community,
Our country is aching, and we are in need of leadership. I'm so grateful that President Obama published this powerful piece yesterday, How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change. He talks about how we need to both mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform. I highly recommend.
In this week’s newsletter, my brother Dr. Jordan Shlain’s latest dispatch, as well as an upcoming talk I'll be doing with Albert Einstein Foundation's G100, podcasts, videos, #ZoomChallahBake info, and an update on our new film.
Stay safe, informed, and awake, and let’s make steps in the right direction based on all that is happening.
Tiffany
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| Dispatch #9 by Dr. Jordan Shlain:
Remember the Future
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A photo from a Georgia Tech home game during the 1918 college football season (AP).
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If one thing is predictable, it’s tomorrow. It is the beginning of June. We have over 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the past two months and we just witnessed the largest human experiment the planet has ever seen: huge, non-mask wearing crowds on Memorial Day weekend. Within the next ten days to two weeks we will learn some very important lessons.
Will there be a spike? Will people die? Will nothing happen? People made clear decisions that their immediate gratification was likely more important than their long term consequences. Erwin Schrödinger eloquently stated, 'In an honest search for knowledge, you quite often have to abide by ignorance for an indefinite period.' It’s okay not to know. Even Socrates said, 'I know one thing: that I know nothing.'
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Our #ZoomChallahBakes have been such a terrific grounding ritual during these times, bringing together community, and talking about life and the pandemic through kneading and yeast metaphors. Jewish Week wrote about our weekly bakes here.
Last week's bake with Dr. Michael Rich was a terrific conversation about mental health, screens, and life during these times. He shared his new Digital Wellness Guide as he baked challah for the first time. You can watch the recorded Facebook Live here.
This Friday we have chef Katie Morford, who just launched a nonprofit to help restaurants and people dealing with food scarcity right now. And next week we'll have my dear friend and activist Kimberly Ellis who will discuss the election while we bake.
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| Other Things to Listen to, Read, and Watch
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I highly recommend listening to Krista Tippet in conversation with Ocean Vuong. It was recorded right before the pandemic, yet the insights are so relevant and even more powerful now. You can listen here. I also highly recommend Ocean's book On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, which you can order through your local bookstore at Bookshop.org.
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The Albert Einstein Foundation’s G100 is having me in conversation with CEO Julie Toskan on June 4 about this new normal and the lessons we can learn from this moment in human history. The conversation will be live (so you can ask questions) at 9 am PT/12 pm ET. Register here.
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I recently discussed "Sudden Futures" with Mark Pesce on his podcast, The Next Billion Seconds. His other guests are fantastic and we talked about how the pandemic has accelerated our journey into the future. Listen here.
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I was grateful to participate in the Long Now Foundation's project on "Long-term Perspectives During a Pandemic." Other contributors include Stewart Brand, Esther Dyson, Kevin Kelly, and more. Read a summary of our conversations here.
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We continue to work away at our short film on this constantly evolving situation . . . and as you can imagine it’s not an easy one. We'll keep you posted.
We look forward to staying in touch through all of this. As always, we love hearing from you.
Tiffany, Sawyer, and The Let it Ripple Film Studio
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