things i think i think

Matthieu Ricard from TED 2004. Fantastic:

An excerpt from the latest Adbusters (#88) by Banksy:

People are taking the piss out of you every day. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are “The Advertisers” and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, rearrange and reuse. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

Your ow the companies nothing. Less than nothing. You especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have rearranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission. Don’t even start asking for theirs.

I just finished reading Michael Pollan’s brief (think one-hour read) ‘Food Rules.’ It’s a pretty good collection of general ways to think about what we eat — and then how and where to go about eating better.

Some of my favorite tips:

“#12 Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.” Because supermarkets are designed to get you lost in the middle, stick to the outside where the (mostly) fresh produce and meat are located.

“#24 Eating what stands on one leg is better than eating what stands on two legs, which is better than eating what stands on four legs.” So, mushrooms and plant foods > fowl > cows, pigs and other mammals. Interestingly enough, this Chinese proverb ignores one of the healthiest foods on the market — the legless fish.

“#39 Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.” You’d be much less likely to eat french fries or chips if you had to peel and cut and bake or fry the potatoes yourself, right? Same goes for churning your own ice cream.

“#51 Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it.” Fairly self-explanatory.

Above all else:

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Chris Jordan is trying to change the way we see statistics and numbers. Prepare to be startled, humbled and angered. To view some of his work, visit his website.

At IKEA.