Tag Archives: Health

Hope for 2026 – Gen Z’s voice?

Mediation, Musings, , , , ,

At my health club, regular face-to-face chats are vital to my cognitive and emotional health. There are benefits beyond the weight training & aerobics. A space for multi-generational exchanges. Including among and with Gen Zers.

While a small sample, I’ve been both inspired by Gen Z and concerned. Inspired because they have something to say about all the sh*t that’s rolled downhill (as the saying goes) on them. A sensitivity.

muddy or not, here we come …

I’m concerned about their social skills – to voice their predicament (as discussed below). To take on debate, dissent, discomfort. To carry conversations beyond the black & white framing of so much that’s hit the fan.

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Mental & emotional health for 2026 – diary of social media detox

Mediation, Musings, , , , , ,   1 comment  

I read a lot about the effects of chronic, daily hours-long engagement with social media. Endless smartphone scrolling. The go-to thing when there’s any idle time. I see such behavior play out in the gym at my health club as well.

Replica of Thoreau’s cabin near Walden Pond (August 30, 2010). Attribution: RhythmicQuietude at en.wikipedia
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‘Brain rot’ – word of the year 2024

General, Musings, , ,   2 comments  

My personal word of the year is demonize. But …

A commentary on how “we are using our free time” … an ongoing “cultural conversation about humanity and technology.”

• AP News > “How to sum up 2024? The Oxford University Press word of the year is ‘brain rot’” (December 2, 2024) – chosen by a combination of public vote and language analysis by Oxford lexicographers, it beat five other finalists: demure, slop, dynamic pricing, romantasy and lore.

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Taking plastic to heart – a health narrative

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I sort of cringe when I hear about microscopic images which show “visible, jagged-edged ‘foreign bodies'” in our cells.

And yet, there’s the more familiar lead thing. Who wants lead in our water supply (tap, bottled, etc.)? Aren’t all parents concerned? How have perspectives and perceptions changed in the past? In the present.

Even with modern chemistry, microscopes, chemical analysis, lab research & group studies, what does it take for collective agreement on the data? To trust the science? To take collective (political) action? To change habits?

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The future of forever chemistry

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PFAS chemicals are characterized by a carbon-fluorine backbone (the “F-C” in “forever chemicals”) – the carbon-fluorine bond is one of the strongest bonds in organic chemistry.

The incredible complexity of our global ecosystem … at so many levels …

Well, then there’s “better living through chemistry” … the plastic ocean, plastic in our food chain, and PFAS in our tap water (and blood).

Here’s one of many articles in the news cycle this week prompted by a recent study from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) – which “analyzed water collected from over 700 taps and kitchen faucets in homes, offices and schools across the country.”

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