🍎✨The Nexialist #0052
A Look Back at 2021 | Overhyped 2022 Trends | Effective Altruism | 100 Tiny Life-Improvement Tips | Goal-Setting or Fear-Setting | Stoicism | Forest in the Colosseum | First Street Photography
Welcome to a bunch of beautiful internetic links, The Nexialist
2022 arrived and I guess the main goal at this point is survive (which has been the mode for the past couple of years). I had some needed rest, some reconnecting with my loved ones and mainly with myself. Now it’s time to get back to real life, so I hope this first issue gives you some tools, insights, sparks or ideas to tame and ride this year, while still having fun and lightness. Enjoy!
👁A Look Back at 2021
The first Nexialist started around a year ago with a Look Back at 2020 from Vox, so nothing more fitting than bringing their new flashback. I enjoy it because it doesn’t romanticize 2021 (would that even be possible?), but brings different stories. Of course, it’s impossible to bring the whole of the world and the year, nonetheless, I cried a little bit.
🧊Overhyped 2022 Trends
I don’t know about you, but I feel this Metaverse trend is being shoved down our throats. Yes, it is happening, but I cannot not problematize it. Great to see this piece splashing some cold water in the seven most overhyped trends of 2022: The Metaverse, Catering to Gen Z and Millenials, NFTs, The Cult of Efficiency, Virtual Reality, Direct-to-Consumer Sustainability, Remote/Hybrid Work. I would add space exploration, how about you?
After 20 years, the Y2K era is back. COVID-aside, we’ve watched as techno-optimism, ranging from the Metaverse to NFTs, has been off the charts. Countless millionaires have been minted overnight in cryptocurrency and algorithmically generated art.
But we’re here to splash a bit of cold water on the hype cycle going into 2022, with topics ranging from the blockchain to the hybrid workplace to “sustainable” DTC companies. And we enlisted a team of thoughtful designers to question the status quo of the contemporary hype cycle.
An overhyped trend can be something so sweet that it leaves a sour taste in your mouth, or so in the spotlight that it leaves more important topics in the shadows. “Overhype” might mean something that’s profitable, sure. But it still falls short of its sanctimonious positioning or actual ability to impact and improve our world.
Without further ado, here are the most overhyped trends of 2022.
Read: The 7 most overhyped trends of 2022 - Fast Company
💰Effective Altruism
Talking about overhyped trends, here’s someone who took advantage of the crypto frenzy to do a bit of good hacking: Sam Bankman-Fried’s story is told by Forbes with the title “The Richest Person Under 30 In The World Wants To Give His Fortune Away.” Isn’t it funny to watch the bewilderment of our system towards such a nice story?
FTX cofounder Sam Bankman-Fried built a $22.5 billion fortune at age 29 by profiting off the cryptocurrency frenzy – but he’s not a true believer. He just wants his wealth to survive long enough to give it all away.
Four years ago, Bankman-Fried had yet to buy a single bitcoin. Now, five months shy of his 30th birthday, he debuts on this year’s Forbes 400 at No. 32, with a net worth of $22.5 billion. Save for Mark Zuckerberg, no one in history has ever gotten so rich so young. The irony? Bankman-Fried is no crypto evangelist. He’s barely even a believer. He’s a mercenary, dedicated to making as much money as possible (he doesn’t really care how) solely so he can give it away (he doesn’t really know to whom, or when).
Steve Jobs obsessed over his sleek and simple products. Elon Musk claims he’s in business to save humanity. Not Bankman-Fried, whose philosophy of “earning to give” drove him into the crypto gold rush, first as a trader, then as the creator of an exchange, simply because he knew he could get rich. Asked if he would abandon crypto if he thought he could pile up more money doing something else—say, trading orange juice futures—he doesn’t even pause: “I would, yeah.”
At the moment, Bankman-Fried’s “effective altruism,” the utilitarian-inflected notion of doing the most good possible, is almost entirely theoretical. So far, he has given away just $25 million, about 0.1% of his fortune, placing him among the least charitable members of The Forbes 400. He’s betting that he’ll eventually be able to multiply his giving by a factor of at least 900 by continuing to ride the crypto wave instead of cashing out now.
🍎100 Tiny Life-Improvement Tips
Juan send me this list and it made me happy just to read it, not only because I already do some of these, but also it gave me some simple things to try in the upcoming weeks: 100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying. Below are my favorites:
13 Feeling sluggish at work? Try the Pomodoro technique: 25 minutes on, five-minute break, and repeat.
22 Laugh shamelessly at your own jokes.
24 Start a Saturday morning with some classical music – it sets the tone for a calm weekend.
30 Be polite to rude strangers – it’s oddly thrilling.
70 Skinny-dip with friends.
72 Always use freshly ground pepper.
86 Nap.
96 Keep a book in your bag to avoid the temptation to doomscroll.
98 Make a friend from a different generation.
Read: 100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying - The Guardian
😱Goal-Setting or Fear-Setting
In the time of the year that many of us are setting goals, I found this exercise quite interesting: setting your fears. In 2021 I learned that we fool ourselves by calling our fear something else: procrastination, laziness, busyness… If you are suspicious of toxic positivism, this exercise does the exact opposite: you actually have to think of what could wrong, but also think of what could wrong if you don’t take action.
🧠Stoicism
Tim Ferris mentions Stoicism as something that changed his life, so I went looking for more about it and found this TED-Ed video by Massimo Pigliucci. Gave me some good inspiration to manage the challenges I’m going through.
While we may not always have control over the events affecting us, we can have control over how we approach things. Rather than imagining an ideal society, the Stoic tries to deal with the world as it is while pursuing self-improvement through four cardinal virtues:
Practical Wisdom: the ability to navigate complex situations in a logical, informed, and calm manner;
Temperance: the exercise of self-restraint and moderation in all aspects of life;
Justice: treating others with fairness even when they have done wrong;
Courage: not just in extraordinary circumstances, but facing daily challenges with clarity and integrity.
🌳Forest in the Colosseum
Now, this is a sight I had never heard of before. For a long time, the glorious and imponent Colosseum was taken by nature. This piece shows how writers and painters depicted the time when the monument was its own ecosystem. It was only in the beginning of the 20th century that it became what we know today.
Plant life was so abundant in the ruined arena that at certain times in history, peasants had to pay for permission to collect the hay and herbs that grew there. It had become its own miniature landscape, and formed a perfect microclimate for biodiversity: dry and warm on its south side, cool and damp in the north. Pink dianthus grew down in the lower galleries, while white anemones dotted the stands during spring.
Read: Rome’s Colosseum Was Once a Wild, Tangled Garden, by Paul Cooper | The Atlantic
📷First Street Photography
As a 19-year-old university student, Carl Størmer used a hidden camera to photograph life in Oslo, Norway from 1893 to 1897.
Another story that seems to be from a time traveler. So different to see the style of a different era in this point of view and in such a casual way.
See more photos: My Modern Met
🥲Tears in The Club
I just have to finish this Nexialist with the song that has been on repeat around here, from one of my favorite artists, FKA twigs.
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If you like what you see here and your project, brand or business needs some ideas or inspiration from outside your bubble, maybe you need a Nexialist to help you out 🙋🏻♂️ I can participate in brainstorms and workshops, guide inspiration sessions, or provide you with creative research. You can always send me an e-mail to figure something out together.