clean slate

"I purge compulsively. I'm constantly shedding things."
- Andrew Sullivan

Mentally Ill On The Job

JAN 31 2014 @ 8:26AM

Rob Lachenauer contrasts how large corporations and family-owned businesses treat workers with mental-health problems:

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prevents employers from discriminating against people who have a mental illness. But my experience as a consultant at a very large strategy firm whose clients are giant corporations had been that if someone admitted that he or she struggled with depression or mental illness, that would often be career suicide. Indeed, a former vice president of a major investment banking firm, when told about this blog, warned me against publishing it: “Clients are afraid to work with firms that have mentally ill people on the professional staff.”  …

I myself seldom heard people talk openly of depression in the workplace until I left the consulting firm where I’d worked to begin advising owners of leading family businesses. Much to my surprise, I found that these extremely successful family business owners don’t draw a sharp (and artificial) line between “us” and “them” – the mentally healthy and those less healthy. They don’t because they know they can’t. Those who suffer from mental illness are not anonymous shareholders, or nameless employees, but rather brothers, mothers, cousins, grandfathers, sons, and daughters. In family businesses, “they” are “us.”

Previous Dish on mental illness and employment here.

"... if being in a crowd of unfamiliar people energizes you, you're an extrovert; if it enervates you, you're an introvert."

"I don’t believe in optimism. I believe in optimal behavior. That's a different thing ... Action is hope. At the end of each day, when you’ve done your work, you lie there and think, Well, I’ll be damned, I did this today. It doesn’t matter how good it is, or how bad - you did it. At the end of the week you’ll have a certain amount of accumulation. At the end of a year, you look back and say, I'll be damned, it's been a good year,"

- Ray Bradbury

Source: Andrew Sullivan

Intelligent People Drink More Alcohol

Satoshi Kanazawa reports on the link between smart children, and the larger amounts of alchohol they consume as adults. The studies controlled for "both income and education, as well as childhood social class and parents’ education." The study concluded:

“Very bright” British children grow up to consume nearly eight-tenths of a standard deviation more alcohol than their “very dull” classmates.

It's what Oakeshott called "the ordeal of consciousness." When you have constantly charging brain, you need to shut it off sometimes in order to breathe and live. It's no wonder so many brainiacs self-medicate in this way. The key thing, as always, is moderation.

From Andrew Sullivan.

sieve

"It is consoling to think that reading a lot, forgetting most of it and being slow-witted might add up to a good way of living."
- Andrew Sullivan explores here.

“I've been insufferable before, and I will be again!”

Andrew Sullivan thinks that Bono's new New York Times column is truly dreadful. Daniel Drezner is holding a contest:

...read Bono's column and, in 20 words or less, explain its theme in the comments. Here's my effort: Did you know that I knew Frank Sinatra?

He likes this entry, even though it breaks the 20 word rule:

Not only am I a worldwide star and humanitarian, I am--as of now--a great writer--a point I slam home inside--a great many--em dashes. And abrupt. Sentences. Plus, I still drink in Irish pubs--thus--I am cool. Bono cool.

Sullivan concludes:

Shut up and sing, as they say. But his lyrics are just as meaningless. I like my occasional U2 as much as anyone, but the words make no sense at all. Ever.

Bono's clothing line "Edun" is available here.

Religious Secularist

If John McCain knew how to use the Internet he'd be steamed. A Brit, a Canadian, two Americans.

bolt

The New Scientist publishes the results of the calculations of a team of scientists who tried to determine how much faster Usain Bolt [born 1986] could have run the 100 meters last month had he not started celebrating 20 meters from the end. Their answer: 9.55. [Bolt ran the race in 9.69, which set a new world record.]

Is McCain Smart Enough?

Obama's first serious ad of the fall campaign: