Weekly Highlights 2021 Second Half
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 28 DECEMBER 2021 – 2 JANUARY 2022
Looking for quiet places
I really enjoy quiet places. It gives me the energy to refuel and motivate myself, and to feel happy with myself. One of the quietest places that is easily accessible is the NUS stadium during the day. On most days, there is literally nobody there (except during school break, when it often gets quite busy with team sports) and it usually gives me great joy to do my core exercises during times when I am alone.
Another very quiet place is the National Gallery. For the past weeks, I have repeatedly revisited the same room in the DBS Singapore Gallery. And each time when looking at the paintings, it felt like meeting old acquaintances. It is a very calming and meditative atmosphere to stand and look at the pictures in silence.
Ho Ho Ying’s ‘Rhythm of Dance’ – one of the paintings in the DBS Singapore Gallery. It is a painting where knowing the title helps, but once I knew, it was fun to imagine the scenery. I guess being able to imagine and explore things on our own is one thing that makes abstract paintings fun.
There is also the courtyard cafe in the National Gallery, which I like to go to when it is quiet (sometimes during weekdays).
Next to the National Gallery is the Adelphi, probably one of the quietest shopping malls in Singapore. It has a very quiet cafeteria on the ground floor and is home to some great record stores! It is definitely a place I enjoy visiting.
Memories
Since it is the end of the year, I have been going through some of my old belongings, including my old photos. I realized that when I look at my past self, I sometimes feel terrified about how I used to look and dress, while sometimes I still like the way I looked when I was younger. What I also noticed is that I tend to still like my old self when I used to wear more tight-fitting versus wide clothes, dressed in more simple versus loud designs and had shorter versus long hair. It perhaps goes to show that simplicity and emphasis on our natural body are more timeless than extravagancy and following the latest fashion trends…?
THE GOOD (?)
THE GOOD (?)
THE BAD (!)
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 20 – 27 DECEMBER 2021
End of semester feedback
I have received my student feedback for the past semester. My postgraduate module only had nine students, of which only five provided feedback. But for the first time ever, all scores for the module and for my own performance as a teacher were 5.0 (out of 5.0), which made me very happy! The great feedback for this module is probably due to a super enthusiastic and talented team of teachers (!), who have all done a wonderful job.
Our teaching team, which included Zheng Wei, Seow Chong and Phon (Prof Too Heng-Phon)
Apart from the great teaching team, what has probably also contributed to the success of the module are my constant attempts to improve the course over the years, to always introduce new elements and evaluate whether they are effective, fun and interesting. This is a good lesson as I am currently considering whether or not I should try out a brand new idea that I have for my Cell Biology module (which starts in two weeks time). The idea is to let the students throughout the entire semester take the role of researchers and come up with ideas and plans for experiments based on real research problems. It feels a bit scary, as I have never tried anything similar. Therefore, I am not sure how the students will perceive this, whether I manage to find enough research problems to discuss, whether the students can actually solve the problems and finally, how much effort it will be for me. But as I am contemplating this, it is good to remember that without change there is no improvement.
The idea to introduce this element is also not really “brand new”, but is based on a very interesting article by Associate Professor Jennifer Lanni from Wheaton College Massachusetts, which I read this week. In it, the author describes her approach to impart in students the lesson that in scientific research, failure is a common experience. And that this is something important for students to realize. Otherwise, they will go into their lab attachments with the wrong expectations.
What the author did in her teaching was to expose students to real research problems and let them come up with their own ideas and experimental plans. She then provided results. In an example she described, the results would make no sense because some reagents were not working. This let the students learn an important lesson.
What I learned once again is that we should never stop reading, because it is the best way to have new ideas. When we are busy, reading random scientific, education-related or popular articles seems to be a non-essential task. But if we do not expose ourselves to new ideas, we stagnate. And because most other people are moving ahead, we actually fall behind.
And here is the feedback.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 13 – 19 DECEMBER 2021
Certainty and Significance
This week I listened to a very interesting coaching session (entitled Unconditional Love), in which life coach Jeffrey Sooey coached a client on her relationship with her boyfriend. I was super impressed by how the coach brilliantly managed to produce really life-changing insights for the client. It was so good that I listened to the 50min session twice and will probably listen to it again.
Jeffrey Sooey distinguishes between four survival needs that all of us have. They are certainty, variety, significance, and finally love and connection.
In our search to satisfy one need that appears important to us, we often sacrifice other needs. The client in Jeffrey Sooey’s coaching session felt that she was in need of certainty and significance and acted in her personal relationships to obtain these needs. For instance, she expected her boyfriend to be there for her 100% of the time and give her unlimited time and constant attention. She wanted to feel loved (significant) and certain that he loved her. Only if these standards were met was she ready to give love to him. Her love was conditional.
The coach pointed out that the problem was that her standards for being loved were practically impossible to meet. Nobody can be there for someone else 100% of the time. When the boyfriend did not meet her standards, she decided that her boyfriend does not really love her and shut herself down. As a result she felt certainty (the boyfriend does not love her). But of course, it was impossible for her to feel love and happiness. It became clear during the coaching conversation that she took the same stance in her other relationships, and as a result all her close relationships broke down. Interestingly, she was able to love and care for strangers, because here she had no expectations that they would contribute to her significance and certainty.
This reminded me of situations in my life when unexpected things happen. For instance I may have some computer problem, or someone may have given me an ambiguous message. What often really upsets me in those situations is not the problem itself, but the uncertainty. If I am certain that the computer cannot be fixed and I can make a plan to overcome the problem, I am usually okay. I have in fact often wondered why I feel so restless and upset when I face unexpected problems. That this is due to a breakdown in my certainty is an important realization.
What about the other needs?
Significance: Significance is about being unique, special, one of a kind and needed. I certainly strive a lot for being significant, by trying to be unique and by spending a lot of my time and energy to make significant contributions.
However, I realize that my endeavors to obtain certainty and significance do come at the cost of variety and connections with others. For instance, because I want to be certain that things will go according to my plan, I won’t try new things. Because I strive for significance by achieving perfection and becoming good at things, I often don’t dedicate enough time on personal relationships.
This illustrates how we often sacrifice certain needs in favor of others. I must say, though, that I do not really see the lack of connections and variety as something greatly missing in my life. For instance, going out to meet new people is not as important to me to me as working on my goals. Going out with someone to do exercise together is only appealing if there is no compromise in terms of the significance of the work-out and certainty that it will achieve what I have intended. And I also do not feel excited to try out new cultural genres that I have no intrinsic interest based on some past experience. When it comes to certainty versus variety and significance versus love and connection, I feel much unhappier if I lack certainty and significance and I feel happy if I do experience them.
I guess it goes to show that we all have personality types with different preferences.
I guess it goes to show that we all have personality types with different preferences.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 6 – 12 DECEMBER 2021
Supervising undergraduates in the lab – Is it a good use of our time?
One of the most fun and gratifying aspects of being a University lecturer is to supervise undergraduate students in their research projects. As lecturers, we have the privilege to often be the first to introduce students to research. We get to see their excitement when things work out. We get to witness their amazing improvements, where within a few months they go from having absolutely no clue to running experiments on their own.
Interacting with undergraduate students has always given me great joy and hence I have often wondered why any Professor would delegate this task to graduate students, postdocs or research assistants. Yet, many principal investigators do. I even heard one professor say once that he does not actually know the names of the undergraduates in his lab.
It is tempting to give priority to writing grants, attending meetings and networking. All of these are important. But it is equally important to remember that as educators, we can have a huge impact on students performing research projects in our lab.
When I was an undergraduate student, learning through my research project had the most lasting effect. In fact, I still remember most things that I learned through my research project, as opposed to almost nothing of what I learned in my coursework. The main reason for that is that my motivation was very different. When I was in the lab, I needed to learn things, because what I learned was necessary to plan my experiments and understand and interpret my experimental results. It was also interesting to read about my research area because it was so relevant to what I was doing. In contrast, in my formal classes I often could not see why what we learned was important.
In addition, I learned many practical and transferrable skills through my research. I even managed to publish a couple of papers. And I realized that I really liked scientific research. For all these reasons, I have always felt that there should be much more emphasis on teaching through research projects, ideally from year 1 onwards.
Unfortunately, not all undergraduate research projects are perceived as satisfactory by students and there is a considerable percentage of students who leave their research projects early, or consider doing so. There are a variety of reasons for this, including too difficult or boring projects, a poor lab culture and personal conflicts between the undergraduate student and other members of the lab.
A very interesting study that I read recently looked at the effect of undergraduate student supervision as a factor for whether the students complete or discontinue (or consider discontinuing) their research projects. According to the paper, prior studies related to this topic have been primarily done in research-intense universities, like NUS. The authors point out that the way undergraduates are being supervised is likely different between research universities (that award undergraduate and PhD degrees) and smaller institutions that do not have PhD programs and award only Master’s and undergraduate degrees. Knowing about these differences could perhaps help to understand the reasons why undergrads are dissatisfied with their research experience.
One major difference is that Master’s or primarily undergraduate degree universities and colleges do not have PhD students and postdocs, which suggests that in those institutions the professors are more directly involved in the supervision of the students. Hence, the authors of the study asked whether the persistence of undergraduates in research programmes differs between institution types and if yes, what factors may be involved in this.
The study found that students in Master’s granting and primarily undergraduate universities and colleges were less likely to leave their research project or consider leaving it than students at research intense universities. For instance, compared with students in public research-intense universities, undergraduate students at Master’s granting institutions were 4.5 times less likely to leave their research project. Similarly, students at primary undergraduate institution were 2.8 times less likely to abandon their research labs.
Undergraduate students in Master’s degree granting or primarily undergraduate institutions (PUI) are less likely to leave their research projects compared to undergraduate students in public and private research universities (R1)
When comparing the characteristics of the research projects in the different institutions, the most striking difference was who was mentoring the students. In Master’s degree granting and primarily undergraduate institutions, the Principal Investigator of a lab guided undergraduate students directly in 76% and 74% of cases, respectively. In contrast, in public and private research-intense, PhD granting universities, very few Principal Investigators (28% and 26%, respectively) mentored undergraduates directly. Instead, in the majority of cases the undergraduates were mentored by graduate students.
Undergraduate students in Master’s degree granting or primarily undergraduate institutions (PUI) are more likely to be directly mentored by the Principal Investigator/professor
The researchers found no significant differences between the different types of institutions in the number of hours students spent on their research, in the percentage of students who were paid and whether modular credit was obtained for the research projects. Hence, whether or not undergraduate students wanted to stay in their research programs correlated best with who guided them. This is of course only a correlative effect, and it would have been interesting to study if students who actually left their research program (or were considering it) were less likely to be mentored by the Principal Investigator of a lab.
Why would being directly mentored by the Professor make a difference to the experience of undergraduates in research projects?
The article discusses a number of possible reasons. One reason is that students who are directly supervised by the PI are more likely to be doing their own projects, as opposed to helping with the project of a more senior lab member (like a graduate student). By doing their own project, undergraduates are given more ownership and autonomy in their research, and they can use more creativity. Based on my experience, ownership, autonomy and creativity are very important for students to be motivated in research.
When I was an undergraduate, I was always directly supervised by my professor, and I had my own project, which I discussed with my Prof regularly. And because that is how I came to like and be excited about research, I have always used the same approach, irrespective of whether the students had some experience or were complete novices from high school.
The article also discusses that who is mentoring the undergraduate student also determines the quality of the assigned tasks. If there are no PhD students or postdocs involved in the project, the undergraduate student gets to do the more interesting and complex parts of the project himself or herself. In contrast, PhD student or postdoc mentors may assign tasks to undergrads that they themselves do not want to do, like preparing reagents, repeating experiments or doing control experiments.
From the perspective of the Principal Investigator, I have been spending time with each student not only because that is how I used to experience research as an undergraduate, but also because it is one of the things I enjoy about being a Prof. In addition, being directly involved in the undergraduate student supervision also has a number of other advantages. It helps me to know what is going on in lab and to stay connected with practical lab research, and it forces me to keep up to date with methodological aspects. This in turn enables me to continue to be able to guide students and troubleshoot problems. And after all, being involved in lab research is usually the reason why we started this career in the first place.
With the right supervision, undergraduates can also be very productive and even publish papers. And most importantly, seeing undergrads develop and be excited about what they do sparks great joy in me!
On the other hand, being directly supervised by the professor could also pose some difficulties for undergraduate students. For example, the undergrads may feel less comfortable to share concerns regarding their work or problems they face with a professor as compared to a graduate student or postdoc mentor. I feel, however, that this depends on the supervisor’s approach. All if often takes is considering the possibility that the undergraduate may face problems and asking about it.
On the side of the supervisor, spending time with undergrads takes time and could limit our success in terms of securing grant money and publishing high impact papers, and this is one major reason why many Principal Investigators delegate tasks involved in undergraduate supervision. Ultimately, everyone has to decide what is his or her priority and how one defines success and impact. Some professors also manage to find a middle way by showing care and interest in the undergraduate students and their projects without guiding them through every step of their journey.
Me as an undergraduate researcher with my Prof June, who was also my direct research mentor
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 29 NOVEMBER – 5 DECEMBER 2021
Reflections on team-based learning using Learning Catalytics
This week my blog article for NUS teaching connections on team-based learning was published and can be found here.
Be happier by focussing on goals and learning
Lately I have been taking up more and more things, all with some loose direction towards my longer term goals. But because I have not really thought about my long term goals in a while, I must say that the link of these activities to my goals has become a bit blurred. And perhaps as a consequence, I find that I do not feel particularly motivated to pursue these activities…
Hence, I spent some time reflecting on what I really want in my future and what I feel excited about. I did what is often recommended, think about how I want to spend my days in five years or ten years time, and then assess if my current pursuits align well with these visions.
Without going into details of what came to my mind, I can say that this exercise was really effective. Firstly, it helped me to decide what things I want to prioritize in order to achieve what I aspire to. What is more, the exercise had the effect to make me a lot more excited about those activities that are likely to help me to achieve my dreams. At the same time, the exercise helped me to feel more relaxed about some things that I am currently struggling with, because I realized that these things are of no real consequence in the long term.
Finally, thinking about my longer term vision and trying to align my current actions with this vision gives me the feeling that I am moving into a certain direction, and this is a great great motivation.
Another eye-opening revelation I had this week relates to how I can approach difficult tasks. This was actually an insight I obtained during a coaching session, which goes to show that coaching can also provide new awarenesses for the coach.
Achieving our aspirations often involves learning new skills. For me, one of the biggest hurdles to mastering new skills is that it is difficult to be a beginner, especially for an adult like me. I am worried that others will judge me for performing poorly and looking stupid. On top of that, I am also lacking motivation if the goal I want to achieve appears difficult.
What I realized is that one possible approach that I want to adopt is to not focus on what others might think or on the difficulties I might face, but instead try to enjoy the learning process. That is what children normally do when they learn. They enjoy every step and are not afraid of mistakes. They are not trying to be good, but instead are amazed about every progress. Learning is fun, and not a means to an end to become perfect.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 22 – 28 NOVEMBER 2021
Intermittent fasting
Three weeks ago I wrote about an interesting study about intermittent fasting, which involved human subjects. The study compared continuous calorie reduction by 25% with intermittent fasting (alternating days of fasting and 150% calorie intake). Both fasting regimens resulted in the same overall calorie reduction, and indeed caused a similar overall weight loss. Interestingly, though, continuous calorie restriction caused more fat loss, whereas intermittent fasting caused more loss of non-fat tissue (mainly muscle mass). Although it is believed that intermittent fasting has other, non-weight loss-related beneficial effects, the study did not find any.
The research study is of significance because it was a randomized control study performed in humans (and not in model organisms). Nonetheless, as in any study, there are limitations and there could be many factors for why intermittent fasting did not result in beneficial health effects. These factors include that the subjects were not obese and that the study period was only three weeks (which, in practical terms, is probably the average time period that most people are able to maintain a strict fasting regimen…). Furthermore, it is only one study and definitive conclusion can rarely be drawn from an individual study alone.
Another important factor that may have affected the results is the time of day of intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting commonly involves not eating during an extended time period including the night time and not, as in the human study, alternating between one whole day of fasting and one day of eating.
Interestingly, in another recent study that I read the researchers investigated the effects of overnight intermittent fasting. The authors used Drosophila, i.e. fruit flies, as a model organism and did not actually look at effects on weight, but at effects on lifespan and the so-called health span (the time period in our lives up to which we remain healthy).
In their study, the researcherrs subjected flies to a regimen of 20-hour fasting periods that included the night (when fruit flies, like humans, are least active). The fasting for 20 hours was alternated with feeding periods of 28 hours. The researchers chose this specific schedule of 20 hours of fasting and 28 hours of feeding because it produced to the most robust extension in lifespan in the flies.
Intermittent time-restricted feeding (iTRF) increased the lifespan (% survival over time) compared to flies with free access to food (Ad lib). The intermittent fasting regimen was implemented for 30 days between day 10 to day 40 of the flies’ lifetime (blue area in the graph).
The 20 hour fasting on alternate days increased lifespan by 18% in females and by 13% in males compared with flies with unrestricted access to food. Importantly, when the researchers shifted the 20 hour fasting period by 12 hours, so that the fasting period occurred mostly during the day instead of at night, the life extension effect was lost. This suggests that the beneficial effects of intermittent fasting are dependent on extended food deprivation including the nighttime, which is the commonly suggested intermittent fasting regimen in humans.
Interestingly, the intermittent fasting did not lead to an overall decreased, but actually an increased calorie intake (meaning that the flies overcompensated by eating more during the feeding periods). These results indicate that the beneficial health effects of intermittent fasting are not dependent on eating less calories, at least in flies. That said, in order to lose weight with intermittent fasting, an overall calorie reduction is probably necessary, as shown in the human study.
It is also noteworthy that the intermittent fasting did not only increase lifespan, but also the health span of the flies. Thus, intermittent fasting improved muscle function, which in the flies was detected as less age-related decline in climbing ability relative to flies on a normal diet. Intermittent fasting also protected against a decline in neuronal function, which is important, given that one of the major group of diseases associated with aging are neurodegenerative disorders.
Age-related neurodegenerative diseases have been shown to be associated with and be at least partially due to the formation of protein aggregates. To measure the amount of protein aggregates, the authors extracted detergent-insoluble proteins from aged flies. They found a decrease in protein aggregates in flies undergoing intermittent fasting. Given the involvement of protein aggregation in neurodegenerative disease, this result suggests that fasting intermittently may help us to avoid age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease for longer.
Protein aggregates are usually detergent insoluble and modified with the small polypeptide ubiquitin. Hence, to measure protein aggregates, the researchers prepared the detergent (triton)-insoluble protein fraction of flies and analyzed this fraction by Western blotting using a ubiquitin (Ub) antibody. Remarkably, there was a huge increase in protein aggregates from day 5 to day 40. Intermittent time-restricted feeding (iTRF) reduced the amount of protein aggregates compared to flies with free access to food (Ad lib). The bar graph on the right shows the average of four independent experiments.
What is the mechanism through which intermittent fasting reduces cellular protein aggregates?
Degradation of protein aggregates normally involves a process called autophagy. Autophagy literally translates into “self eating”, which means that cells digest parts of themselves (parts of the cytosol, organelles, and protein aggregates) and break these parts down into small molecules such as amino acids and sugars. Autophagy is important during times of starvation, where the breakdown of cellular components helps the cell to generate fuels for energy production and building blocks for the synthesis of essential macromolecules. Autophagy is also important to eliminate damaged organelles and toxic protein aggregates.
What the researchers found in the study is that intermittent fasting increases autophagy activity. What is more, knocking down the expression of critical autophagy genes prevented lifespan extension induced by the intermittent fasting.
Why is it important that the calorie reduction includes the night period?
This may be partly related to the fact that autophagy occurs mostly during the nighttime. For instance, the expression of critical autophagy genes peaks at night. However, it is not the increased expression level of autophagy genes alone that is responsible for the beneficial of nighttime intermittent fasting. Thus, the authors have shown that nighttime specific overexpression of critical autophagy genes mimics the effect of intermittent fasting on lifespan extension, while daytime specific overexpression does not. This means that likely there are other factors involved.
Of all the results in the paper, the discovery that overexpression of autophagy genes (during nighttime) can actually extend the lifespan is the most exciting finding for me. It suggests that by only activating autophagy, we can live longer!
The study also suggests that one reason why getting more sleep (by potentially activating autophagy?) may be important in preventing neurodegenerative diseases, which is something I have been concerned with for some time. It has prompted me to take some time and analyze my sleep hours (which I record daily) over the past year. And I discovered that encouragingly, there is an upwards trend, and I hope this will continue!
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 15 – 21 NOVEMBER 2021
Movie Review: “feet unbound”
This week I watched a really interesting documentary movie, “feet unbound”. It is the story of the “Long March”, a 9000 kilometre long march in which the Red Army of the Chinese Communist Party retreated from the army of the dominating Kuomintang party. During the 370 day march from 1934 to 1935, the soldiers walked an average of 25 kilometers per day. What made this much worse was that the soldiers had no proper food and ate seeds and grass or whatever they could find, that the terrain was really difficult and that there was constant fighting with the enemy.
The movie focussed specifically on the story of the women’s regiment, which originally had 1300 women, most of which died during the march or in the fighting. In the movie, the writer, director and narrator Khee-Jin Ng revisited the entire long march route (not on foot, but by using an SUV) and interviewed the few surviving women from the march.
I must say that the movie really gave me a new perspective of China today, a perspective that is very different from the modern China we see in the movies and the news.
First of all, there was the landscape. The movie made me realize how beautiful parts of China are.
The beautiful landscape is probably not something that the women soldiers appreciated during their march. Based on the interviews, the woman fighters were more concerned with how difficult the landscape made it for them. For instance, when they had to pass the Zoige wetlands in the in the eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau in the West of China, they walked in knee-deep swamp, and many soldiers drowned or starved to death due to the difficulties to find any food.
I also saw villages in the countryside and the people living there, which painted such a different picture of what life in China is like today.
I realized how incredibly difficult live used to be, how much suffering humans used to endure.
I saw and was impressed by the political conviction and the unbelievable strength of the women soldiers.
And I saw the spirituality that can be found in the countryside of China.
Watching the movie was an eye-opening experience.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 8 – 14 NOVEMBER 2021
Although the semester is ending, I seem to have a lot of things going on these days. Apart from assignment marking there is coaching, marking, preparing for my module next semester, doing experiments to finish up papers, writing papers, trying to write a review and thinking about research projects.
It is easy to get into the mechanical mode of just ploughing through these projects and commitments on a daily basis in order to make progress and get them done. But it is important to remind myself that the main reason I took up all these things is not to get them done, but to develop new skills and awarenesses and most importantly, to enjoy myself in the process of doing them. And by being conscious about this, it is easy to discover things that I can appreciate about each activity.
For instance, marking of my writing assignments can be a very gratifying experience, because I get to witness how much the students have learned. Through analyzing each manuscript I also gain really valuable experience in recognizing shortcomings and how to improve them. In fact, I feel very thankful that I chose this type of assignment because it really helps me to improve my own writing and analytical skills.
Preparing for my undergraduate module next semester is also exciting, as there is a chance that the course could actually be held live in person. The prospect of moving my Learning catalytics team-based learning approach from the online to a live setting is going to be really interesting.
And with the right mindset, all the other activities can be similarly exciting. Often, it is not what we do, but how we do it, that makes the difference as to whether we enjoy doing a task or view the task as a burden. It is our choice.
The activity that I am currently spending the most time on is improving my coaching skills. And I have been very frustrated by the slowness of progress and improvement. However, I realize that this is not really a helpful attitude. It would be better to not have too high expectations and enjoy the learning process. Learning anything takes time and being willing to be a beginner.
Movie review
This week I also watched an amazing movie, the story of the production of a baroque opera at Paris’ Opera Bastille. The opera was Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Les Indes galantes. It is an opera about European colonialism, which is presented from a romantic viewpoint by describing four separate love stories in different exotic places. In the version of the director of the Paris’ Opera Bastille production, Clément Cogitore, the opera plays in cosmopolitan Paris and the love stories happen among immigrants from different backgrounds.
Les Indes galantes is actually an opera ballet and what is so special about this opera is that the dancers are street dancers recruited for the production, and they dance in modern hip hop, vogue, krump and break dance styles.
The movie really showed that opera is alive, or needs to be brought to live through human singing, acting and feeling, and that is why some operas have stayed relevant until today. The movie also showed that opera is for everyone. It was really moving when the street dancers described how they grew attached to Rameau’s opera and how the music managed to move them to tears.
I think that unlike other types of music, opera needs more investment, in terms of listening repeatedly and spending time to get to know a piece (as they also tend to be quite long – in the case of Rameau’s Les Indes galantes over three hours).
Most importantly, I also discovered that I really enjoy listening to Les Indes galantes. It is an amazingly powerful and at the same time often intimate opera.
… and here is a great studio recording of Les Indes galantes, which I have been enjoying very much.
Les Indes galantes – Download HERE
Finally, I recently also discovered really great live recordings of Bellini’s “I puritani” and Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale”.
I puritani – Download HERE
Don Pasquale – Download HERE
Study places
While going through my old pictures, I realized that I used to have very conducive study environments at home when I was younger. This is my wonderful antique desk (which my grand-parents gave me) in my very first own apartment in Berlin. I used to study here for all my medical school exams, often until early morning.
I did not only like my desk, but the whole room, in fact, the whole apartment. The room and the apartment were very spacious and I did not have that many things at this point. Hence, there was a lot of open space which gave the apartment a calm and relaxed atmosphere. When it comes to apartments, less is definitely more. And this is also why in museums spacing is really important, and why people (or at least myself) enjoy looking at wide open spaces in nature.
And this is our reading room from the time when I was a postdoc in Boston. I used to sit here every day morning and read papers. It was such a great way to start the day.
Looking at these pictures made me realize why I now prefer to study and work outside my home and office, as I don’t have such cozy study places anymore. On the other hand, in those days there was also literally no distraction coming from the internet or mobile phone. In my Berlin apartment I did not even have any phone, not even a landline, nor a computer. The only welcome distraction were my records.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 1 – 7 NOVEMBER 2021
This week I watched another movie about the COVID pandemic, The Year of the Everlasting Storm, consisting of seven stories with sometimes not so obvious links to the pandemic.
There was the Iranian grandma who missed being able to see her grand-children.
There was the young couple from Wuhan experiencing many conflicts in their relationship brought on by the lockdown and the need to stay in the same home 24/7.
There was the father from California who lost custody for his three kids and suffered because the pandemic made it even harder for him to see his kids and to fight in court to get them back.
There was the Israeli internet hacking company who intruded the privacy of outspoken people by taking advantage of their personal relationships.
There was the Texas woman who went on a search to find her long-dead brother.
And strangely, in the last episode, there were only insects (no humans), and they seemed to live and sing in harmony, but in actual fact they took no notice of each other.
All this goes to show that Covid really affected human relationships, and made us realize how important they are in many aspects of our lives.
And I in fact also watched two other movies about human relationships on DVD. One was “A Simple Life”, a movie from Hong Kong about the relationship of a successful movie producer (played by Andy Lau) and his retiring maid of many decades. Although the maid lived a much simpler life compared to the famous movie producer, her life had great meaning, because she cared for others and made them happy. The movie showed highlighted the importance of family and personal relationships and prompted me to think about how can I make others happier…
Finally, there was “Isabella”, starring Isabella Leong. I did not really know what to make of this, as the movie did not fit into common genres – love story, comedy, drama. It was a personal life story, but not one that I could relate to very well. Nonetheless, the movie was enjoyable with great acting by Chapman To, who is currently blacklisted in both the Chinese and Hong Kong movie market due to his political outspokenness. There were also some interesting historical insights about life in Macau before the handover to China.
There was no clear winning movie this week. One thing I realized, though, is that I probably could not live in either Hong Kong or Macau (or China), because I am really not used to the way people eat, as illustrated in the clip below. Perhaps, though, this has been a bit exaggerated on purpose in the movies or changed in recent years.
Intermittent Fasting
Two weeks ago I talked about the benefits of intermittent fasting, which include improved insulin sensitivity, a reduced inflammatory response and lowering of our blood pressure. Needless to say, a lot of people are probably committing to intermittent fasting or considering it in order to lose weight. There is of course an alternative way to lose weight (or not gain weight), which is generally reducing calorie intake. And I must say that I personally find this much easier to do.
Given that intermittent fasting is really difficult for me, I was very interested in a new research article in which the researchers studied the effects of fasting and energy deprivation in a randomized control trial. The researchers compared three fasting regiments (see figure below), 24-hour fasting with 150% calorie intake on alternate days, continuously reduced calorie intake (75% daily calorie intake, corresponding to the same total energy intake as the first group), fasting without net calorie restriction (alternate days of fasting and 200% energy intake) and a control group with matched calorie intake (daily 100% energy intake). These regimens were maintained for 3 weeks followed by measurements of body mass and composition as well as a number of other measures of cardiovascular health.
What were the results?
In terms of weight loss, daily calorie restriction by 25% reduced body mass by 1.9 kg. Intermittent fasting with overall 25% calorie reduction had a similar effect (1.6 kg body mass loss). In contrast, intermittent fasting without energy restriction did not lead to significant weight loss.
Although in terms of the weight loss, it did not make a big difference whether fasting was continuous or intermittent, what was interesting was that the weight loss after daily 25% calorie restriction was almost entirely due to a reduction in body fat mass. In contrast, intermittent fasting caused equal loss of both fat and fat-free mass (which is generally mainly due to loss in muscle mass). Notably, the authors also found that the subjects in the intermittent fasting group showed a reduction in energy expenditure due to less physical activity during the fasting days (~100 kcal per day). Hence, the loss in fat-free (muscle) mass may be because intermittent fasting made subjects more sedentary, which is not really the desired outcome.
Of note, continuous and intermittent fasting caused a similar decrease in the amount of visceral fat. This indicates that compared to intermittent fasting, continuous fasting only had a greater effect on the loss of subcutaneous fat. The similar loss in visceral fat is not entirely surprising, given that visceral fat is more dynamic and usually the first fat we lose. Although visceral fat is more harmful, it is often the subcutaneous fat that is less cosmetically desirable. Hence, continuous fasting seems to offer a better result to reduce our overall fat.
Apart from weight loss, the study did not find any improvement in various blood markers of cardiometabolic health and insulin sensitivity (such as blood levels of glucose, insulin, lipids including cholesterol).
The only parameter that changed significantly was the leptin concentration, which decreased most in the continuous calorie restriction group, and also significantly in the intermittent fasting with calorie restriction group. In contrast, leptin levels did not change in the group that fasted intermittently without reducing their calorie intake. This is not surprising, given that the release of leptin by adipose tissue is a function of the amount of fat in the body. The result illustrates that the cellular leptin concentration is really a very sensitive marker of weight loss or gain.
The decrease in leptin upon fasting also highlights why it is so difficult to lose weight. Leptin normally inhibits the appetite and increases our metabolism (energy expenditure). Hence, if we lose weight, the decrease in leptin levels will increase our appetite and slow down our metabolism, and we quickly re-gain our original weight.
The authors also discussed that there could be different reasons for why intermittent fasting did not produce health benefits. One possible explanation is that the intermittent fasting time period of three weeks in this study was not sufficient to elicit or detect any beneficial effects on markers of cardiometabolic health. However, the authors argue that this may be unlikely as other studies actually found beneficial effects after similar time periods.
Another, according to the authors more likely explanation is that the study participants were not overweight. The authors point out that one major reason for how obesity affects cardiometabiolic health and insulin sensitivity is the accumulation of ectopic fat (in other words accumulation of fat in tissues other than adipose tissue, such as the liver (fatty liver disease), skeletal and cardiac muscle). Intermittent fasting is likely to reduce these ectopic fat deposits, because it results in the depletion of glycogen (the storage form of glucose) stores in these tissues, promoting the utilization of lipids. This also explains why a minimum period of 12 to 14 consecutive hours of intermittent fasting is required to achieve health benefits, as this time period of nutritional withdrawal is required to cause the near complete depletion of glycogen reserves and the consequent transition toward oxidation of lipid-derived substrates. Hence, the authors suggest: “Further research should therefore repeat this experiment in an overweight or obese population.”
In conclusion, the study did not really motivate me to consider intermittent fasting for myself, as there is no improved weight loss effect. Nonetheless, it is always important to keep in mind that we cannot draw definitive conclusions from just one study. Moreover, the study did not look at the most common form of intermittent fasting, which is prolonged overnight fasting…
I am personally also not very concerned about the potential benefits of intermittent fasting for my cardiomatabolic health and insulin sensitivity. I am more intrigued by the reported effects of intermittent fasting on cellular protein aggregates, which play a major role in neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer’s Disease). … which brings me to another interesting study I read and that I’ll discuss next week.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 25 – 31 OCTOBER 2021
My actual classes for this semester are over and I have more time for other things. And so this week I actually watched three movies.
Of those three movies the least enjoyable was “Berlin-Alexanderplatz”, a painful 3 hour marathon about an immigrant from Africa coming to Berlin and failing to become a good person. It is a fascinating topic, but the execution was all based on action and event after event without any chance for introspection about what goes on in people’s mind. And the lack of any climax at the end really left me frustrated for having wasted 3 hours of my life. I guess it helps to read movie reviews beforehand when deciding to go for a movie. But then again, I have seen movies that I liked a lot despite poor reviews (and vice versa).
My runner-up was Jack Neo’s “Long Long Time Ago Part 1”. After previously watching and really enjoying part 2, I finally watched part 1 on DVD. And I must say that there were parts that I liked and parts that I didn’t.
I am a very nostalgic person, so any movie that reflects on past, long gone times resonates with me. The movie also gave me a (admittedly simplified) historical perspective on many aspects of life in Singapore. This included why floods are so rare in Singapore (the government’s continuous investment in an elaborate drainage system starting after the major Singapore flood in 1969), why there is no organized crime (the government’s crackdown on gangs in the 60s and 70s), or why racial harmony is such an important issue (race riots between Chinese and Malay that used to happen in the 60s).
What I did not like was that everything seemed a bit exaggerated, the superstitions of elderly Chinese, the meanness of the government inspectors, and people being critical for the sake of just being critical. Although this was probably meant to make the movie more fun to watch, I felt that this limited the credibility and effectiveness of the movie and made me empathize with the characters less.
After reading some reviews, I decided that I won’t watch parts 3 and 4 of the series, which play in the 1980s. Nonetheless, reading the reviews and hearing some of the soundtrack prompted me to explore the 80s Singapore music genre Xinyao 新謠 and to come up with my own compilation, which most locals are obviously familiar with. I also discovered a great orchestrated version of the songs by the famous Xinyao singer Liang Wern Fook.
Xinyao collection – Download HERE
And the winning movie this week is … Lela Manja, an amazing black and white Malay movie from 1960. I watched it in the cinema and the audience included mostly older Malay couples (who to my dismay talked a lot). But because I kind of anticipated this, I chose a seat in the second row where there weren’t many people near by.
The movie was the story of two Malay children, Lela and Manja, who were abused by their step mother, eventually driven away from their home and separated and reunited at the end of the movie.
It was a sentimental movie evoking a lot of emotions. At the same time it was an action movie, with really fascinating and skillful martial arts displays. The soundtrack was also amazing, so powerful in creating the atmosphere of the movie. And finally, the movie had some amazing traditional Malay songs, such as this one, sung here by Siti Nurhaliza (one of the few Malay singers I am familiar with). It goes to show that sometimes taking chances with a movie (or anything) can be worth it.
Last but not least, I also managed to go for a Singapore Symphony Orchestra performance at Victoria Concert Hall, featuring the super-energetic and charismatic violinist Kam Ning. Listening to Bela Bartok’s Divertimento for String Orchestra was great. And there was also a really fun encore, Leroy Anderson’s Plink, Plank, Plunk.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 18 – 24 OCTOBER 2021
Intermittent Fasting
I am injured again and won’t be able to run for a long while. This means that I not only have to look for alternative ways to stay fit, but also to maintain my weight.
I have always been impressed by people who subject themselves to any kind of fasting, be it long term fasting for several days, fasting intermittently on specific days each week or fasting for prolonged periods of time daily (for instance not eating from 7pm at night to 11am the following day). I remember a time in my thirties where I declared Monday as a fruit day, and only ate fruits until having a proper dinner. Even this was so difficult for me that after only a few months I stopped.
Fasting has the obvious goal and benefit of losing weight. Notably,intermittent fasting,an increasingly popular form of fasting, has been reported in humans to have additional advantages. These include improving our response to insulin, reducing inflammation, lowering our blood pressure and even inhibiting tumor growth.
Why would intermittent fasting, reportedly even without reducing our overall calorie intake, produce such beneficial effects? It is probably to a large extent due to the general phenomenon that experiencing stress makes us stronger by inducing an adaptive response.
The best example for how stress-induced adaption can exert beneficial effects is exercise. No doubt, exercise causes more damage to our joints and muscle fibers than resting, and we often feel tired and in pain after engaging in strenuous exercise. But in the long run, exercise elicits a compensatory response to repair damage, produce more muscle filaments and adapt our metabolism. This makes us stronger and more resilient when experiencing stress again.
Not all stresses seem to lead to a beneficial adaptive response. For instance, we could imagine that eating lots of junk food might lead to a response that helps us to burn fuel better and avoid the harmful effects of high glucose and lipid levels in our blood circulation. Instead, the opposite is true, eating food that contains lots of sugar and fat promotes and worsens our health, for instance by promoting the development of diabetes.
High levels of glucose and lipids in our blood induce,via a process termed glucotoxicity and lipotoxicity, the dysfunction of insulin producing pancreatic beta cells. Insulin normally lowers blood glucose, for instance by promoting glucose uptake in our peripheral organs. Consequently, lack of insulin results in elevated glucose concentrations in our blood circulation, which in turn leads to the various organ complications associated with diabetes (kidney disease, nerve damage, loss of vision etc.). In addition, lipidsand sugar (which when in excess is converted to fat) also inhibit the response of our tissues to insulin (i.e. makes the tissues insulin-resistant).
The fact that eating lots of fat and sugardoes not lead to an adaptive response probably has to do with our evolution. For our ancestors, lack of food was a more prevalent challenge than too much unhealthy food. During starvation, fat is mobilized from our adipose tissue and lipid levels in our blood rise. Thus, high lipid levels function as a starvation signal and induce resistance of our peripheral organs to insulin. Consequently, less glucose is being used in muscle tissue or stored as fat in adipose tissue. As a result, sufficient glucose can be reserved for the brain, which is unable to utilize fatty acids and is dependent on glucose for energy production.
Another major consequence of eating junk food is the accumulation ofabdominal (visceral) fat (so-called belly fat), which is a major risk factor for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Converting sugar, when it was available to our hunter and gatherer ancestors, into visceral fat used to be a good thing. Given that visceral fat can be quickly mobilized, it can serve as a readily available energy source when needed. This comes handy when food is only intermittently available. It is only in the modern age where constantly accessible sugar leads to the massive accumulation of belly fat.
One reason why visceral adipose tissue is so harmful is that it releases pro-inflammatory cytokines, primarily interleukin-6 (IL-6) and also TNF-alpha. These cytokines play an important role to increase insulin resistance in peripheral organs. These cytokines also induce an inflammatory state in our body. Given that inflammation is known to induce endothelial dysfunction and is also critically involved in tumorigenesis, visceral fat accumulation may also promote atherosclerosis and cancer formation.
Why visceral adipose tissue releases pro-inflammatory cytokines is harder to explain. It is believed that the amount of adipose tissue is an important signal for the nutritional status of an organisms. For instance, adipose tissue releases the hormone leptin and the production and secretion of leptin is proportional to the amount of fat tissue. When leptin levels are low, appetite is increased, and at the same time energy expenditure and energy requiring functions such as reproduction are inhibited.
Immune function and inflammation also come at a great energy cost. Hence, it appears plausible that these functions are also regulated by the amount of adipose tissue in our body, specifically by visceral adipose tissue, which changes more dynamically with nutritional status. Low amounts of visceral adipose tissue would inhibit immune function and inflammation, while abundant visceral fat promotes these processes. But there are likely other reasons why visceral adipose tissue secretes pro-inflammatory cytokines (although they seem to be not known at the present time).
Based on all this, it is not so clear why intermittent fasting would improve insulin resistance, given that under fasting conditions it would be advantageous if the peripheral organs are less sensitive to insulin and take up less glucose to preserve glucose for the brain. But it may be related to the fact that lower blood glucose and insulin levels during fasting periods sensitize the insulin receptors to become more responsive to insulin.
More importantly, intermittent fasting seems to have other important adaptive functions. According to an interesting website, intermittent fasting induces the production of antioxidants, promotes the repair of damaged DNA and decreases inflammation. The latter effect could be because starvation also leads to lower levels of stimulatory hormones in our blood, resulting in reduced inflammatory responses.
Finally, one very important mechanism for how intermittent fasting promotes health is the induction of autophagy, a cellular mechanism where under starvation conditions a cell digests its own macromolecules and organelles. This process takes place in organelles called lysosomes. Autophagy is the main mechanism through which cells eliminate damaged mitochondria as well as protein aggregates. This is important, because the accumulation of both damaged mitochondria and toxic protein aggregates is associated with many age-related neurodegenerative diseases.
I was prompted to read up on all of this because this week I read a very interesting research paper in which the authors looked at how intermittent fasting may be promoting weight loss and health in humans. But since I already wrote such a long introduction about the topic, I will discuss the paper next week.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 11 – 17 OCTOBER 2021
The Karims
This week I watched a great (online) play by the Checkpoint Theatre company. It was the story of one local Malay family and how they (mis-)communicated with each other, leading to much conflict. It was a wonderful play with great acting.
What the play highlighted really well is that communication is often not about exchanging information. Communication is listening, trying to understand, asking about feelings and re-considering our assumptions.
It is often believed that to effectively communicate and avoid conflicts we should leave out the emotions, but just focus on the facts. However, the facts are rarely what is in dispute. What usually causes the controversy is how we feel about the facts and react towards them. In the play, the father felt it was an obligation to attend a family function of their relatives. The son-in-law felt it was unfair that he had to attend it, because it was his only night off work. He brought up that there was no official invitation and that he was only notified the day before the event. This may sound like a practical issue, but what is at the heart is that he felt it was unfair. If he would have been notified earlier, it would have made no practical difference, because he had no other plans for that evening. The problem was likely that he felt that his time constraints were not acknowledged and that he was not appreciated as a person.
At the end, it became clear that the father did things with good intention, but his words and actions were interpreted wrongly because he did not reveal his emotions. It showed how important good communication is.
I realized that conversations where emotions are left out, where there is only an exchange of facts and observations, are often not only ineffective, but also unsatisfactory for me. Such practical conversations do not reveal anything about the other person and do not help us to learn anything new about ourselves. And the only way we can break this pattern is probably by opening up ourselves.
That said, there is a place for practical conversations, when we are discussing topics that are relevant and helpful towards achieving our goal or that of the conversation partner. In this regard, when preparing for my lecture this week, I was reminded of a really amazing suggestion of how we can best ask for advice and help, which I originally heard on the Asianefficiency podcast.
Finally, this week, after many months, I finally managed to attend a live concert by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra at the Esplanade again. It was a wonderful experience, especially Schumann’s violin concerto and a piece that I had never heard, Bruckner’s Adagio from String Quintet in F major, arranged for string orchestra.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 4 – 10 OCTOBER 2021
Last week I wrote about the documentary film about Michael Schneider, who was escaping from East Berlin to West Berlin, in search of freedom. Last week I also watched a documentary at the Projector, which explored a similar topic, freedom. And the movie was so good that I watched it again this week. The movie is called “The Alpinist”, and it is the amazing story of the extraordinary Canadian climber Marc-Andre Leclerc, who climbed many incredibly difficult mountains alone without any ropes (which is called ‘free soloing’).
What was even more amazing was his motive for climbing. When he accomplished his incredibly difficult and scary ascents, he did not care about being recognized for it. In fact, he did not even care if other people knew. Instead, his motivation was the experience of the climb, being out there alone, just him and the mountain. In fact, there was one point during the shooting of the film where he escaped the camera team and disappeared for weeks without a trace. Marc-Andre Leclerc felt that with a camera team around, he was no longer ‘free soloing’ and it was not the experience he was looking for.
One reason why I watched the movie again was because I was distracted by someone sitting close to me who ate her potato chips throughout most of the movie. I can still understand that people want to eat popcorn or potato chips while watching a comedy. But when it comes to a movie where it is about the atmosphere and the visuals, making noise by eating snacks really spoils it for oneself and the others. In fact, I think that eating should probably not be allowed for certain types of movies.
But the more important reason for watching the movie again was because I really wanted to understand what drove Marc-Andre Leclerc. And I must say that watching the film for the second time was much more insightful because I was no longer only concentrating on the scary climbs. I realized that by focussing on the mountain and nothing else, he felt free. I believe he did not use ropes because they distracted his focus. By only directing his attention to climbing the mountain, he leaves all problems and everyday worries behind, because they don’t matter there. Everything else becomes meaningless. It is just about one move at a time. I believe that during those climbs he felt really alive, living in the moment.
I realized that when I go running, cycling or skating, I like to go alone. As a result, after the exercise, I feel mentally reinvigorated. If I imagined to go cycling together with others, I would probably feel not only physically, but also mentally exhausted.
I remember how during my army training near the mountains I used to go running on weekends in the winter in the fresh snow, feeling the fresh air and seeing the blue sky. Those were amazing moments. The movie made me realize how important it is to have breaks where we are mindful of ourselves and nature around us.
After watching the movie for the second time I felt happy because I think I could understand what drove Marc-Andre Leclerc to do those unbelievable climbs, why he risked everything to experience freedom, and why he himself did not actually experience this as risky.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 28 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2021
This week I watched an amazing documentary movie about Michael Schneider, who at the age of 19 escaped from Communist East Berlin to the Western part of the city. Michael and myself used to be in the same youth tennis team as teenagers, and so I grew up under very similar circumstances to him. East Berlin was the capital of communist East Germany, and as East German citizens, we were normally not allowed to travel to West Berlin or West Germany, which were part of the “free world”. In fact, we could not travel anywhere, except to other Communist countries, like Poland, Czechoslovakia or Hungary.
On rare occasions, East Germans were allowed to visit West Berlin or West Germany if they had relatives in the West and if there was a special occasion. Whether or not such visits were approved by the German authorities was dependent on the likelihood with which someone would actually come back. For instance, my dad’s father (my grandfather) lived in the West. Because my dad was married with two children, the authorities in East Germany considered it likely that he would return from visiting his father and other family and he was allowed to travel to the West on several occasions. When my dad came back from these visits and told us about what the West was like, I used to imagine it as paradise, where everything is modern and you can buy anything, even things that we in East Germany could only dream of (jeans, fashionable trainers, records, exotic fruits, sweets, etc.). And me and my sister were always anxiously awaiting the presents that my dad would bring!
My dad with my sister and me, having fun
Michael Schneider was very discontent with the lack of freedom in East Germany. While working as hotel staff in a major hotel in East Berlin, he had access to passports from Western tourists. One day he came across a passport from a Danish teenager who showed some resemblance to him. So in that moment he decided that he would use the passport to try to cross the border pretending to be a Danish tourist. The fact that he did not speak Danish did not deter him from his plan. As he did not have much time before the loss of the passport would be discovered, he quickly packed a bag with things that a tourist would bring and went to the checkpoint at the border. When he described how he approached the immigration officer with the wrong passport, being really scared and nervous but not able to show it, I could only imagine what he went through at that moment. And I asked myself, how can someone be so courageous, knowing that if the wrong passport was discovered, he would have to face a long prison sentence.
But what was most moving and relatable to me was when Michael described his feelings after passing through the checkpoint and riding on a subway train in West Berlin. He was literally crying. It was the release of all the pressure he had felt. But it was probably also the realization that what lay ahead of him was a new life with all new possibilities, a brand new beginning. It reminded me of the excitement that I used to experience when I first moved into my own apartment or of the times when I moved to a new town or country. You wake up in a new place and feel exhilarated about all the possibilities for new experiences and new emotions.
Looking back at my own life, new beginnings really have been the most exciting things in life. I believe that a major reason why new beginnings are so exciting is because it liberates us from everything that normally captures our daily attention. Moreover, a new beginning triggers us to be fully present and be truly mindful because there are so many new impressions and things to discover. Hence, we feel that we are really living.
Unfortunately, we often tend to shy away from new beginnings because of the inconveniences they will bring. But perhaps we can also try to create our own new beginnings, by being mindful that every day is a new beginning where we can discover new things, if only we open our eyes and have an open mind, and remember that it is a gift to experience a new day.
Unfortunately the documentary is in German:
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 20 – 27 SEPTEMBER 2021
This week I began a new chapter in my ontological coaching training as I started on a new 5-months coaching course. And the course kicked off with another weekend conference. Once again, I learned a lot, for instance how to smile genuinely, which surprisingly has been really difficult for me. I realized that it is not enough to just stretch my lips. Genuine smiling involves the whole face, including the muscles surrounding my eyes! What a life-changing insight!
I still need to practice smiling!
The conference felt rather intimidating and during our coaching practices I felt a bit discouraged, because the other students were really good. But after all, I am in this course to improve! And I am there to learn how to help my coachees, not to be the best coach.
I also experienced great learning during our practices when I played the role of a coachee. I chose to talk about how stressed I feel when I am coaching others that I would “run out of questions”. I likened this to my experience in Toastmastersduring “table-topics”, where one has to come up with a story to a given topic on the spot. I have perceived this as super stressful.
At some point in the conversation, the student who played the role of a coach (who had a non-science and non-medical background) asked me what what my job is. When I told her, she expressed her admiration that I am a biochemistry professor. I did not really want to talk about this and tried to bring the conversation back to the coaching topic. After a while, our master coach teacher intervened and asked the group if they had noticed how I brushed off the topic when being praised about my accomplishments. And he asked the coach to ask me how I felt at that moment. When exploring this, I discovered that I felt very uncomfortable. I talked about how much I hate being in the center of attention. I realized that I am happy to receive feedback in a written form, but I feel very uncomfortable when it is expressed in person. Even a simple things as being congratulated to my birthday can make me feel uncomfortable.
Then our master coach did an intervention and asked everyone in the zoom breakout room to express some praise about me, while I just had to listen and describe how I felt. I was literally clinging to the arms of my chair and was just thinking “When will this be over”. I was not even listening!
The experience made me realize that I feel uncomfortable and stressed in situations where I lack control, whether it is when being praised or when I am in settings that cannot be planned (such as coaching or Toastmaster table topics). And I realized that I lack openness, which is something I need to work on.
Praise is more about the person who gives it than the person who receives it. If someone makes the effort or brings up the courage to say something good about us, it is not about whether we agree, but about what the other person is perceiving and wants to express. And we need to acknowledge this very generous gesture.
And finally, this experience also allowed me to realize how much insight good coaching questions and interventions can achieve!
Movie: Drive My Car
This week I watched the much talked about 3 hours long Japanese movie “Drive my car” at the projector. The movie won three prizes at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and so I had high expectations. Although I enjoyed the movie, I must say that there wasn’t anything that stuck with me afterwards. My only realization was that people’s lives are complex, much more complex than it seems on the surface.
For instance, there was the point where the main character of the movie, the stage actor and director Yusuke Kafuku, asked his driver where she has learned driving so well. The driver, a girl in her twenties named Misaki (played by Toko Miura), told the story of how she used to pick up her mother every day from the train station. Her mother worked in a night club. And so she wanted to sleep while driving home and scolded her daughter Misaki whenever she was riding the car roughly. Misaki ended by saying that she was really thankful to her mother for helping her to become such an accomplished driver. And I felt really fascinated by her perspective. But at the end of the movie Misaki revealed that her mother died when a landslide hit their house. And Misaki did not try to rescue her because her mother brought her so much suffering.
And similar to the driver, the movie showed that the lives of the main character Yusuke and his wife were equally complex. This was hardly a surprise. I only need to look at my own life to know that lives are indeed complex. For instance, even though I have a lot of aspirations, I don’t always live according to those aspirations.
Nonetheless, I wasn’t sure if I was “supposed to” realize other things from the movie. And so I read the Guardian movie review, which interestingly made the exact same point: people’s lives are complex.
This reminds me that I recently met up with two of my first students here in Singapore, big and small Jess (big Jess isn’t big at all, in fact she is the opposite from big, but just taller than small Jess). Meeting them again after a long time made me amazed about how grown up and mature they have become. They have gone a very different path from what I had imagined. Lives are complex, and people make decisions that are influenced by many factors. But what I realized is that as I got to know them more than 10 years ago as really caring and sincere students, I will like them no matter what they decide to do now or at some point in the future. Knowing someone well really changes the perspective of how we look at other people’s actions.
Big and small Jess did not send me the photo that we took together, even though they still look beautiful. This may be a good thing because I am probably the one who got old compared to this picture from more than 10 years ago.
Running
We also did a 2400m time trial with the NUS staff runners and I was super happy that I can still run pretty fast, 9:10 min. It was tough, but I felt really happy afterwards! These are the moments when I love running.
Feeling happy after the run while working at Coffee Bean. Sadly with the new Covid restrictions, staff running is on hold again.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 13 – 19 SEPTEMBER 2021
SMTFA 5,000m race at Home of Athletics stadium
I achieved my goal to stay below 20:30, finishing in 20:26 min. It was not my best time, but a great achievement for me given my current fitness and the time I had to prepare. There were a number of factors that helped me to achieve this goal:
The weather: It wasn’t sunny. In fact, it rained just before the race.
I prepared myself mentally for how difficult it would become. The night before the race I also read some stories of how elite athletes endured pain to ultimately succeed.
I told lots of people about the race, so I felt compelled to give my best and do well.
I used my intermediate goal strategy, whereby I initially only focussed on the first 6 laps, then the next 4 laps and then the last kilometer.
I imagined how I would feel at the end of the race if I finished with a good time or with a bad time, or if I did not finish at all.
It was also helpful to see myself running in the video and I realized that there are some important improvements that I can make in my running style!
Why do I never have enough time and why do I still get resentful?
I have been really busy during the last week and not particularly happy. In fact, my average daily happiness score dropped from 5.9 out of 10 last last week to 5.3 during last week. One reason was probably that I was too busy, with another three day coaching conference (see below) while still trying to do lots of other things. The lesson is that if I have to much to do, it is difficult to enjoy doing things that I normally give me pleasure.
In theory, there can only be two reasons for feeling too busy. One reason is that I am wasting too much time or work too inefficiently, which most of the time I don’t. And the second reason is that I am trying to do too much, which is likely the main issue for me.
The problem is that all the things I (try to) do on a daily basis mean a lot to me (except dealing with emails and other admin matters) and hence it is difficult to drop them from my daily schedule. On top of that, I also try to keep up with my exercise and to also still have some time to enjoy other things. The good news is that I still do those things. But the bad news is that this often means that I am rushing my work. While I normally enjoy my work, I do not when I need to rush.
I believe that one important point to remember is that sometimes it is okay to let go and do less. This is especially true when on top of my personal daily tasks there are additional commitments, such attending a conference or preparing for a class.
I also felt resentful about noise outside my office, which I tried to overcome by being mindful of the needs of others and practicing to be more flexible. But these approaches did not really work. In the end, I bought some second hand wireless headphones for my office. And I am really happy I did, because this really seems to make me less worried about impending disturbances. And I realized that I can even enjoy my work more. It goes to show that sometimes practical solutions can be the best approach to overcome difficulties.
I also faced some issues during my coaching conference, where I felt upset that my suggestions were not being recognized during our group project. In hindsight, this highlighted to me the inherent challenges with group work, which students probably face all the time. And our assignment was not even graded, so I can only imagine how stressed some students might feel about working in groups.
What I also realized is that it is often not enough to have good ideas, but we also must be able to bring them across well so that others can see the benefits and are excited by it. In addition, it is also important to acknowledge everyone’s contributions, whether or not they are ultimately part of the “final product”. This is why it is important to agree at the beginning of a group project on a set of standards, which includes acknowledging everyone’s contribution and agreeing on what to do if someone does not contribute to the group effort.
Having said this, I really want to acknowledge the brilliant idea of one of our group members and the great video editing skills of another. And as a result we ended up with the best video, despite not really spending much time on this.
It is important for me to realize that group work is different from individual work. In group work, the goal is to find what works best for the whole group. At the same time, it is important to see the positive sides, for instance that I managed to come up with a scenario that at least I thought is funny and that I have learned important lessons from this experience!
And here is our video!
We had our last three-day coaching conference as part of the NUS School of Medicine coaching course. Probably the greatest insight that I obtained from the conference was learning about Robert Kegan’s mental lenses of adult human development (as described HERE). According to Kegan, how we view things and make decisions in our lives actually changes during adulthood (or at least CAN change). Adults (from being a teenager to ultimately becoming a senior) can go through four stages.
As teenagers, we generally start out with the instrumental lens, where we focus on trying to follow the rules and strive for the rewards associated with this. In this stage, we are following the rules for the sake of the rule, not because we try to fit in or because we see the benefit. For instance, as a child and teenager I just studied, not because everyone did or because I knew it would help me, but because this was my rule. And I got rewarded (with praise) by my parents if I did well, and faced their disapproval and disappointment when I didn’t!
Most teenagers, however, do not stay with this lens for too long, and sooner or later adopt the socialized lens. Here, we try to align with social norms and expectations. For instance, as a teenager we often do what everyone else does, what is expected in our peer group. The most extreme example are gangs, where the social pressure is so great that teenagers commit crimes.
We can maintain the socialized lens for our whole life or we can move on to a self-authoring lens, where we focus on our own internal values without considering what we are supposed to do. This then can lead on to a self-transforming lens, where we critically assess our own value system and are open to those of others. The self-transforming stage is usually only reached late in people’s lives, if ever.
Usually we are not aware of what lens we use to assess the world around us and make decisions, and even if we were to know, it does not mean that we can just change it. Changing mental lenses is a gradual process that depends on exposure to social groups and role models and a lot of reflection.
Robert Kegan, clearly self-authorizing …
Why is knowing about these developmental lenses important? I must say that for me learning about this was really powerful, because it helps me to interpret behaviours of colleagues and students with whom I interact. I often wonder why others behave so differently from me and make decision that make no sense to me. But I realize now that people’s decisions and actions can often be explained by their different lenses. I realized that many adults, at least in their work life, tend to use a socialized lens and do what is expected from them, instead of thinking about what may be good for them.
When it comes to students, knowing about the lenses helps me not to judge, because the students could inhabit different lenses due to different backgrounds and external circumstances. More importantly, it helps me to realize that students are moving and may be on their way to develop a new lens, and that I can even try to help them to achieve this.
Not taking the lenses into account can also lead to misinterpretations.
For instance, if a student wants to do an internship, it could be because it is a requirement for certain jobs (instrumental lens). It could also be because everyone else does it (socialized lens) or because the student consciously decides that doing an internship is the best to help him to her to achieve their goal (self-authoring lens).
Based on what I learned, it is also important to remember that people can have different lenses in different situations or areas of life. However, my own experience is that if someone has a self-authorizing lens, he or she tends to apply this to all areas of life.
Isn’t it an amazing concept that we can actually authorize ourselves to do something!
Time 杀出个黄昏
This week I also watched a wonderful gangster movie, a genre that I am normally not interested in. But “Time” had some very human gangsters and was more a comedy with some interwoven social aspects, namely how older people often feel and are left out from society. It is difficult to change that. The only thing an individual can do is to try to stay relevant! In the case of the movie, the three elderly “gangsters”, who used to earn their living through carrying out contract killings, stayed relevant by switching to help out with assisted suicide…
The movie featured wonderful and moving singing and acting by Petrina Fung and an amazing Patrick Tse, who proved that one can still be cool at the age of 85!
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 6 – 12 SEPTEMBER 2021
This week I participated in my first virtual run, “Run as One Singapore”, a 12.8km course around Marina Bay. This was quite fun, especially since we joined as a group of runners. The only difficulty was maneuvering through a really crowded Marina Bay area without bumping into other people and bicycles. I managed to meet my target and stay below 1 hour (just), and I was surprised to find that I ended up in second place in my age group (and 50th overall)!
More running
My preparations for my 5000m race in less than two weeks have initially gone well and I had managed to stay on track. However, I have not been able to achieve the improvement that I was hoping for. Running fast is really difficult, and I realized how important having a good coach is. It made me remember those days when I was fortunate to experience great coaches, whom I never really recognized for their contributions as much as I should have. There was coach Robin Tan and coach Shan Silva. If I think back, the effort they made to know each runner and help each of them was really amazing. And it was also amazing to see how much thought they put into the training sessions to make each session count. And while they were both amazing, they were amazing in different ways. Coach Robin made running and training fun. He made everyone look forward to the session by showing care and by coming up with all kind of games and a very motivating time trial scheme. Coach Shan was amazing in his almost scientific approach to bring out the best in everyone, by focussing on running, coming up with really innovative and effective programmes but also addressing nutrition and motivation. And he indeed succeeded to bring about amazing improvements. Since it has been teacher’s day last week, I would really like to thank them for their passion, care and inspiration!
Coaches Robin Tan and Shan
After my “test run” on the Home of Atheltics track. Despite not feeling ready, it has been exciting to prepare for this race.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 30 AUGUST – 5 SEPTEMBER 2021
My class this week
I taught another postgraduate class online and I tried my usual Learning Catalytics activities. And as usual, the activities have worked very well. I have really mastered the technical side of it well now. Experience really helps here and I must say that I am quite curious to find out how the Learning Catalytics team based learning would actually work out in a live class.
But irrespective of the format, the real difficulty is coming up with good questions. This really requires time and like with most other things, it is tremendously helpful to re-visit the questions several times. This changes my perspective and with the distance of a day, I often come up with new ideas to improve the questions. It is also super important to prepare the answers, which helps the students, but more importantly, it makes me realize mistakes, inaccuracies and ambiguities in my questions.
I was very excited about my second activity, in which I wanted to apply what I read about recently in a fascinating article, “Full Disclosure“. The article the discussed that doing research as a PhD student, or at any other level, is for the most part a road of failure. Most experiments fail. Often whole projects fail. Supervisors fail to support, and the lab fails to be a supportive environment. But what we hear about is almost always only the success stories. Every day in our email inbox we receive messages describing new discoveries researchers in our institution have made. If we attend a talk or read a research paper, we witness how scientists have uncovered mysteries or discovered new therapies. But what we don’t hear or read about are the many failures that are behind those success stories. And it can be very discouraging when we then reflect on our own struggles.
Hence, what the article talked about is the impact that emerged when PhD students started to share their failures in their presentations and in informal discussions. It helped to reassure students that they are doing okay and it helped to build more meaningful and supportive relationships between students.
So based on the article, I explained about the importance of sharing failures, and then gave the students a couple of minutes to think of an experience that they would like to share, before sending them into Breakout rooms of three to four students for the sharing session. For some reason, though, I believe that students seemed not very engaged in this. When I checked in the breakout rooms, I realized that most students had their cameras turned off. When I then told the students that they could stop the activity and leave the class at their own leisure whenever they finished sharing, all groups wrapped up within a very short time.
After reflecting about this, especially the surprising fact that the students had their camera turned off, I realized that the students perhaps were not very comfortable sharing their failures with the others, because they did not know each other. Thus, it probably would have been much better to first include some activities to “break the ice” between students! I think this was a good lesson that I will definitely keep in mind in the future.
Looking at my life as an experiment
There are a some things almost every day that I do not really enjoy, but rather dread or feel indifferent towards, whether it is meetings, organizing the lab, evaluating assignments etc. This is not an ideal case because in an ideal world we should enjoy all our activities. Some time ago, I discussed this in one of my coaching sessions with my master coach, who asked me what things DO I enjoy. There are of course quite a few, and one of them is actually doing experiments. That is when the coach suggested that instead of looking at things as a chore or a burden, I could look at things as an experiment, which is kind of a metaphor for being curious. By being curious, we make what we do more interesting and fun. For instance, when attending a course, I can be curious about what we may learn, or how the course is conducted. Perhaps I can even find out something for my own teaching. When organizing the lab, I have the choice to see it as an exciting activity that will create a more orderly and efficient place to work, instead of seeing as a chore. It is always my choice. But making this choice requires that we anticipate and envision our daily activities, and avoid going through the day in an autopilot mode.
After all, every day of our life is special, and deserves our effort to make it special. Often it is not it is not necessary to find things that we look forward to, but to look forward to the things that we have to do.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 23 – 29 AUGUST 2021
This week I watched a very interesting documentary movie about Gerhard Gundermann, an amazing folk singer and person to whom I could relate very well. He grew up in communist East Germany, around the same time as I did. He was a very good student and managed to be admitted to the extended high school, just like me. Attending the extended high school was a requirement for attending University in East Germany and used to be rather competitive.
Unlike me, he decided to become a professional army officer, which suggested that he was rather loyal to the East German communist government. However, contrary to this, he was soon expelled from the army due to his political beliefs. And after this, his biography continued to be highly contradictory.
After having to leave the army, he was confined to work as a miner and excavator operator in East Germany’s Brown coal mines. But instead to being bitter about his imposed fate, he joined the Communist party as well as the East German state security agency Staasi. In the Staasi, his role was to provide information about his fellow workers. After 7 years, he was again expelled from both the Communist party and the Staasi due to his political beliefs. From then on he was investigated and observed himself by the Staasi.
What struck me is that throughout his life in East Germany, Gundermann acted out of conviction, did nothing for his personal gain and was critical of the East German government. But when his work for the Staasi secret service was revealed after the fall of communist East Germany, it highly damaged his reputation.
This goes to show that even if we do a lot of good things, if we are also doing bad things, the good and bad things do not really cancel out. In other words, the damage that our bad deeds do to us cannot really be offset by how much good we do. This often seems unfair, especially if the bad things lie in the past and the person committing them has learned from it and done a lot of good.
It reminds me of the autobiography by Tookie Williams, which I am currently reading. Tookie Williams was the leader of the notorious Los Angeles Crips gang. While on death row, Tookie Williams wrote many books to prevent gang violence and discourage children from joining gangs. But in the end, he was still executed by the State of California.
It is indeed my experience that most people tend to focus on the negative side of things. This may have been important for human survival in the past, where it was not helpful to believe that a wild animal does not have bad intentions, and where anxiety and anger where important to escape from danger or defend ourselves. But a mindset where we focus on worrying, being resentful and not forgiving does not serve our happiness in a society where most of these dangers no longer exist.
But there may be another reason for why people may tend to condemn the bad deeds of others. I believe that sometimes we believe that making other people look bad makes us look better. This may be unconscious and we may not realize it. But there is a fundamental error in this way of thinking. Success in our society is not limited. If someone else succeeds, it does not mean I can succeed less. Or if someone else gets credit, it does not mean I will get less. The credit I receive is ultimately dependent on my own actions, and not how much (or how little) credit I give to others. Life is not a sports competition where only one person can win. We can all win, we can all gain credit and we can all be happy.
In fact, the opposite is often true, by being generous with credit towards others, we ourselves receive more credit.
The movie also raised the interesting question of whether it is bad to do something wrong with a good intention, as Gerhard Gundermann said he did when he worked for the Staasi. I think the answer is yes if we are hurting or damaging other people. Nonetheless, it is also important to always remember to consider the specific circumstances under which someone did certain things. It is easy to judge and condemn, but it is another thing to imagine what we would have done in similar circumstances.
I was fortunate that I was never pressured to join the communist party or do things that I might have regretted later. I was asked once to join the party back in East Germany during my army time, but it was relatively easy to turn the request down because I was soon to leave the army, and hence there were no repercussions. I remember that my personal (unexpressed) reason for saying “No” was that I wanted to maintain my freedom, because I knew that joining the Communist party was a permanent decision. In hindsight, I realize that it is never good to commit to something from which we cannot opt out. That is of course not to say that we should not give our best when making a commitment.
One thing that really impressed me about Gerhard Gundermann was that when he was at the height of his success as a singer in the 1990’s, he did not quit his day job in the Brown coal mine. This meant that when he was on tour, he drove back to his workplace after every concert to work the next day and then after work, re-joined his band for the next concert. This sounds crazy because this lifestyle was incredibly stressful, and was likely the main reason for his early death at 43 years from a stroke. He said that he had to keep his construction work job to be authentic, to sing about things that he represents and experiences. I can somehow understand his way of thinking. As a researcher and scientist, I do feel very uncomfortable to only sit in my office without actually doing science with my hands. But there must be a compromise. For me it is to work in the lab during the semester breaks, because with ongoing teaching and wanting to teach well, there just isn’t enough time.
Trailer of the documentary movie “Gundermann Revier”
… and here is a compilation of his music
DOWNLOAD here
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 16 – 22 AUGUST 2021
It seems that things gradually go back to normal again in Singapore, and so the first race after the pandemic is coming up on 18 September. I only found out about it this week and I feel rather unprepared. But I realized what a great motivation a short term goal can be. I feel very excited about the race and I constantly have something to look forward to and think about.
While a short term goal can be a great motivation, I find it often very difficult to motivate myself to do things that I know are good for me but that are not associated with an immediate goal. This includes not only sports, but also things like practicing mindfulness and taking care of practical things (like admin work, money issues etc.), or even brushing my teeth. The answer is complex, and probably requires a different approach for each issue.
For instance, when it comes to exercise, I find it NOT helpful to focus on how good I would feel afterwards, because that makes the exercise seem like a chore that I need to go through in order to feel happy. The result of this approach is that I usually put off the exercise until the last moment after procrastinating for a long time. I find it much more helpful to focus on enjoying – finding ways to make the exercise more fun and envision it as something exciting and joyful.
When it comes to mindfulness, there is the formal practice of it, which requires time and commitment, and there is also the mindfulness that we can practice at all times of our day. I personally feel that when I am feeling good about myself, it is easy to be mindful (in other words be conscious of my own feelings and appreciative of my environment. When I don’t feel so good, formal practice of mindfulness is helpful. For this, it is important to not pack my day too much, so that I do not constantly feel in a catching-up mode, which makes me less likely to stop and center my mind.
When it comes to practical chores, it is really hard to motivate myself to do those because I can’t find joy in either the process or in the result. There actually are beneficial results when taking care of practical things, but these results are so distant that they fail to motivate me. Again, it is not helpful for me to plan to give myself a reward after doing these things, as this makes me think of them as a chore and results in procrastination! Things I could (and should) do is to allocate some time to it on a daily basis and combine it with something that I enjoy (like listening to music).
How to make brushing my teeth fun at night when I just want to sleep? I haven’t found the answer, yet.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 9 – 15 AUGUST 2021
I re-watched what is probably one of the most famous inspirational videos ever, Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement speech. One thing that struck me is when Steve Jobs raised the question: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”
When I asked myself this question on the morning of National Day, I decided that I would use the day to watch a movie and paint. I watched a Korean movie called “The Taxi Driver” about the Gwangju uprising in 1980. Afterwards, instead of painting, I ended up on a youtube spree of inspirational TED talks and other videos. What they all had in common is that some terrible thing happened, inflicted by governments or individuals. But these things were resolved through the generosity and selflessness of human beings.
There was the foreigner who gave money to the North Korean woman so that she could get her parents out of jail in Laos on their escape route from North Korea. There were the friendly gestures of prison guards in a North Korean prison. There was the flight attendant who helped a girl being abducted. And in the movie “The Taxi Driver”, there was the driver who risked his life to help a German journalist report the genocide that the South Korean military committed. And this raised the question of why some people are so caring and selfless while others make whole nations suffer for their own benefit?
Coincidentally, I found a new study this week that provided some insight into this question. The paper found evidence that people can be both “generous with individuals and selfish to the masses” (which was in fact the title of the paper). Or as expressed more scientifically, “selfishness in the large (high-impact decisions affecting a large group) is compatible with evidence on pro-sociality in the small (bilateral, typically low-stakes)”.
In the study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, the researchers recruited participants and divided them into two groups, group 1 (assigned a role as “robbers”) and group 2 (assigned to be the “victims”). The study subjects then participated in two types of games, firstly the Big Robber Game and secondly bilateral games (involving only two participants). In the Big Robber Game, the subjects in group 2 (the victim group) were told that they have a certain income, but that part of this income could be taken away. Subjects in group 1 were told that they can anonymously take away up to 50% of the earnings of the other group for their own personal gain.
In the bilateral games, the participants were divided into groups of two, in which essentially one player is a donor and the other a receiver. The donor received a sum of money and could decide how much of a given income he/she can transfer to the receiver.
All players received part of their payoffs at the end of the games. One robber was selected at the end to actually receive the whole amount of the money he or she gained. But when the robbers made their decisions, they did not know whether or not they would receive this extra bonus.
The results showed that in the Big Robber Game, 53% of the people who could rob took the maximum amount (half of the income of the victims). Only 2% of the people who could rob took nothing! On the other hand, in the bilateral games, participants donated between 20 to 35% of the money to the receivers. Although the participants who took the maximum amount in the Big Robber Game donated less in the bilateral games, they still donated a significant amount.
What is really surprising, according to the authors, is that in the Big Robber Game more than half of the robbers took 50% of the earnings of others, even though they clearly did not deserve this money. On the other hand, in the bilateral games, the donors would not have actually deprived the receivers of money if they chose not to donate, as the receivers were not really entitled to the money. Yet, the donors chose to donate to other individuals.
There are probably various potential explanations for why individuals take money from a large group of people but donate to individuals, or why they display a behavior that is selfish to the masses but generous to individuals. What I feel is most regretful is that the study illustrates that money has taken such an important place in our society that is often dissociated from its real purpose to enable people to live a comfortable life.
But coming back to Steve Jobs’ question “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”, when I asked myself this question on a weekday, at first sight the answer seemed “no”.
When thinking about how to change this I came up with an idea. I have been keeping what is often called a gratitude journal, where I write down every morning at least three things from the previous day that were positive and that I feel thankful for. I believe it is something that many people do in one form or another. Perhaps, though, it might be more effective to write down every morning what I look forward to in the day to come. This is what I have been doing for the past few days and it has so far proved really effective. Not only does it make me look forward to the things that I truly enjoy, it also helps me to see less pleasant things as something exciting and positive. I think this may be because when we superficially anticipate a looming task or activity, it often appears challenging and overwhelming. However, when we really think about the task or activity, we often realize that it is not really that challenging, but could actually be exciting. It is all up to how we envision things and with what emotion we approach a task or activity.
In other words, although we can’t always change what we do, we can change how we do it.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 1 – 8 AUGUST 2021
This week I watched “Gagarine” at the Projector. This was a very interesting movie. Firstly, there is really an estate in the Paris suburbs named after Russian first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (Cite Gagarine). And Yuri Gagarin himself came to inaugurate the estate in 1963. The estate was a project by the French communist party, very much in the Soviet spirit of giving the working class decent housing and making living a more communal affair. And this was how life at the estate was portrayed in the movie, although in more recent years the estate was apparently more associated with unemployment and was no longer a popular place to live.
The movie plays in the period before the estate was torn down in 2019, up to the actual demolition. It is the story of two characters, Youri and Diana and their dreams. Diana wanted to go to the US to feel freedom. Youri, fittingly, wanted to be an astronaut, and in a way experience a different type of freedom And he in fact had built something like a space station in his apartmemt. His imagination (and that of the movie director) was really amazing. His ceiling was a star-lit sky and he even built a green house in the apartment block.
I think everyone longs to experience some freedom in their lives. For some people it is travel or to be in nature, or for some it may be to lay in the sun and dream. And this may explain why favorite movie is still “Into the Wild” (the story of a college graduate leaving everything behind and traveling through the US and eventually to Alaska), and why I regularly watch parts of it (like I did this week). Seeing how Alexander Supertramp lives free of our daily cares and discovers new beauty in his country every day makes me feel good. And I believe the reason why we yearn for freedom is because when we feel free, we are mindful of our surroundings and our own existence. We feel detached from the routines and worries in our lives, and feel happy and thankful for our existence.
I shall go for a walk now to experience this!
Oh, and the movie also featured an amazing song!
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 26 JULY – 1 AUGUST 2021
The effect of Botox treatment on depression
I have realized that what I choose to do and what I choose to think about has an important impact on my emotions and my mood. If I do exercise or paint or just go out for a walk, I can be sure to feel much better. (The difficulty is only to actually start doing these things…) Likewise, if I recall joyful memories from the past or anticipate good times in the future, I can transform myself into a happier mood.
But is it possible to feel happier by just smiling and taking up the body and facial expression of a happy person. This is a question that I came across when I recently read an article about Botox treatment, a common procedure that removes facial wrinkles, but also changes the facial expression.
Our facial expression as well as our body disposition have a huge effect on our interactions with others and their reactions. Approaching someone with a smile and open arms would elicit a completely different response from putting on an uninterested facial and body expression. And the response that we elicit in the other person may very well make us happier, too. But what I want to discuss here is whether our facial expression can also have a direct effect on our emotion.
What does this question have to do with Botox treatment?
In Botox treatment, a bacterial neurotoxin (Botulinum toxin, normally produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum) is injected into the facial muscles of the forehead or other parts of the face. The facial muscles become paralyzed and as a result, Botox treatment gets rid of wrinkle lines.
Getting rid of forehead wrinkles also results in an inability to frown. It has hence been hypothesized that Botox injection may eliminate a negative emotional feedback that frowns feed to the brain. As a result, Botox treatment may relieve depression.
The scientific basis for studying the effect of Botox treatment on depression is the so-called facial feedback hypothesis, which suggests that an “individual’s experience of emotion is influenced by feedback from their facial movements”. Or as expressed by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh: “Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”
To examine whether Botox treatment can decrease depression, Schulze et al. (2021), in a recently published study, carried out a meta-analysis. A meta-analysis combines and analyzes published results of multiple past studies on a specific subject or research question. Schulze et al.’s meta-analysis concluded that patients treated with Botox showed an improvement of depressive symptoms compared to subjects that received placebo injections. The authors proposed that Botox injection could in fact be an effective treatment of depression.
However, a reply to this study by Coles and Larsen taught some important lessons about how science works and what to consider when interpreting scientific studies.
Coles and Larsen discussed that the observed unexpectedly large effect sizes of Botox treatment should be a cause for concern. They pointed out that “Botox’s effect was four times larger than in tests of the facial feedback hypothesis, in which people’s emotional states are measured after they hold a facial expression for a few seconds or minutes.” The authors also stated that “treatment is over 4 times the size of typical facial feedback effects and 2 times the size of established antidepressant treatments. Such a large effect would revolutionize the treatment of depression and the study of facial feedback theory—if real.”
Coles and Larsen also discussed potential explanations for the large effect sizes. For instance, both Coles et al.’s own study from 2019 and the new study by Schulze et al. acknowleged that there may be problems with the placebo control group. Thus, for subjects who received placebo injections this would be quite obvious because their wrinkle lines did not go away. And if someone knows that he or she is in the control group, they will likely not report any effect. Another potential reason for the large effect of Botox treatment on depression could be the improved appearance, self-image and social treatment, which may make the subjects more optimistic.
Coles and colleagues also found that a large proportion of registered studies and trials on the effect of Botox treatment were not published, potentially because the investigators found no effects. And finally, the authors pointed out that four of the five trials used in the meta-analysis of the effects of Botox treatment on depression were conducted by researchers who received payments from the Botox manufacturing company Allergan.
Coles et al. concluded that the conclusion that Botox treatment is an effective treatment for depression is premature. Based on their own analyses they believe that in general the overall effect of facial feedback on our emotion is significant, but small, and it depends very much on the specific circumstances.
So perhaps it may not be so effective to smile to ourselves in order to get into a better mood. The best approach then remains to do something that would ultimately change our mood. This could be anything that makes us feel detached from our anxious, resigned or resentful emotions, by changing an action or becoming mindful of ourselves and our surroundings. And afterwards, we can try to choose a different and happier mood.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 19 – 25 JULY 2021
This Sunday was an amazing day. The day actually scored 7/10 on my daily happiness scale (7/10 corresponds to “a day where on several occasions I truly felt happy and the overriding mood of the day was happy”). The next day, Monday, the score dropped all the way to 2.5 (where 2 is “depressed, lack of motivation” and 3 “slightly depressed, still motivated to do things”).
What happened? The strange thing is that nothing happened. I had the whole day to do my work and engage in things that I enjoy, and yet I felt unhappy. I did not enjoy what I was doing and was lacking motivation. In the end, I went to sleep well ahead of my usual bedtime and woke up really early, but still with the same mood. It was only later the next morning when I suddenly came up with a good idea for my upcoming education talk, when I had an idea for an experiment and when I finally made a start to record my first pre-lecture video for my postgraduate course next semester. And then I realized that on the previous day I was lacking excitement and anticipation about things to come, and instead felt anxious and worried.
I realized that in order to feel happy, it is important for me to have new things coming up. But what I also realized is that I can view these future plans and events in two ways, as a reason for anxiety and worry, or as a reason for being excited. And this choice really determines how happy I feel.
This week I watched “Saving Face” at the Projector, an amazing Alice Wu movie from 2004. This was a feel-good movie, in which the two main characters found each other, fell in love and after many difficulties came together! And the movie really made me feel good, happy for and with the characters in the movie and dwelling in my own past happy memories. And all that despite the fact that I of course know that this was a purely fictional story. In fact, this fictional story is likely to move me more than a similar real story that I might have read or heard about. The reason is of course that our feelings are the result of our emotions, not that of actual facts. “Feelings are the conscious experience of emotional reactions.” Therefore, it is good to sometimes expose ourselves to experiences that elicit feel-good emotions. And a touching and heartening movie is indeed something that can create such emotions and make us feel happiness.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 12 – 18 JULY 2021
The Tookie Williams story
This week I watched “Redemption: the Stan Tookie Williams Story”. It was the story of Tookie Willimas, co-founder of the notorious Crips gang in South Central Los Angeles. As an individual and leader of this gang, Tookie Williams was responsible for the death and suffering of many people. In 1981, he was sentenced to death. During two decades on death row imprisonment he underwent an amazing transformation and became very spiritual and self-educated. He wrote numerous books, including a series of children’s books meant to educate kids and steer them away from joining gangs. Through his influence, even while in prison, he played a major role in ending the decades-long bloody fight between the Crips and Bloods rival gangs. For his writings and actions he was nominated for the Nobel prize for peace as well as for literature.
The movie made me think about the question whether we can forgive someone who has committed horrific crimes, but has changed to not only recognize and regret what he has done, but who also has done tremendous work to help prevent that similar crimes will be repeated? This is indeed a very difficult question.
I think that most people would agree that forgiveness is generally a good thing. Without forgiveness, close human relationships are not possible. If I hurt someone and that person cannot forgive me, I would not have a chance to learn from my mistakes and improve the relationship. If people we hurt would fall out with us and resent us for the rest of their lives, our society would be full of hate and unhappiness.
When we forgive someone, we do not say that what the person did is right and that it does not matter to us anymore. Forgiving just means that we have drawn a line where we will not bring the issue up again because we trust that the other person has learned his or her lesson. As a result, when we forgive, new possibilities arise, for both the person who forgives and the one who is forgiven. In contrast, if we don’t forgive, we are often stuck and unable to move on.
So if forgiveness is a good thing, why do we often not consider forgiveness possible under circumstances of severe crimes. Is this because a severe crime causes permanent suffering and damage that cannot be repaired? Probably not, because we can often forgive deeds causing suffering and damages that are permanent and cannot be repaired, provided that they are relatively minor. I can usually forgive someone who is late for a meeting, even though the time that I spent waiting is lost forever and will not come back (although it is more likely that I am the one who is late…).
It appears more likely that the reason why we cannot forgive people who committed horrific crimes is because of the severity of the deed. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that people act as a result of their circumstances and that people have the capacity to change. As Carl Jung said, an evil person lurks inside all of us, and only if we recognize that fact can we hope to tame them.
There is another reason why people are put in prison for life or even sentenced to death: the people are believed to constitute a danger for committing more crimes, and hence imprisonment or execution becomes a means to protect the public. On the other hand, people who have finite prison sentences are considered to be able to change for the better. But how do we draw the line? As history has shown, even the most notorious criminals can take a turn. And Tookie Williams is a point in case.
The horrific crimes that Tookie Williams committed will always be such. But if he is trying to use his life to prevent similar crimes, which otherwise would inevitable happen, I feel that he should be given a chance to live to do this.
The movie was made in 2004. In 2005, Tookie Williams was executed. The message that this may have sent out to young gang members is that their society does not appreciate transformation.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 5 – 11 JULY 2021
Losing weight and gaining muscle mass
It is good to reflect on positive things that happen in our lives and that we have achieved. One thing that I have been happy about is that I have been able to maintain my body weight well and persist with my two-times per week core exercises. Both have not been easy, because I feel I have to eat in order to do any productive work and I also do not enjoy strengthening exercises at all.
In terms of keeping slim, apart from my “genes”, which probably contribute a fair bit, there are three things that have been important. Firstly, what has helped me immensely is to give up certain foods. I started with meat, then chocolate, and then adding sugar in any form. Giving up these things meant that there is a lot of food that I no longer eat, and one might think that this makes my life quite sad. To the contrary, I find it liberating, because I am no longer forced to struggle with deciding whether or not I should eat something that I know isn’t good for me. It also feels great to see the results of my actions, and those make it really all worthwhile.
The second winning strategy is my tracking of my food intake, which I have been doing for over two years now. I have a system where I assign certain points to different types of food. Unhealthy food like refined carbohydrate and cake have very high points (for instance a bagel with cream cheese and butter has 1.75 points), whereas vegetable or fruits are “free” (zero points), except for oily veggies or a banana, which has 0.25 points. (What makes it easier to use such point system is that I eat similar things on most days.) Over the past few months, I have been trying to stay at maximum 6 points per day, which I achieve on most days.
Lastly, and no surprise here, there is exercise. There are the endurance type of activities like running, which I enjoy a lot, but which are also very beneficial to lose or maintain my weight (although the duration of the endurance exercise really matters!). On the other hand, I really feel that doing regular exercise also changes my metabolism to burn more fat and energy.
And there are also strengthening and core exercises, which I don’t really like at all and for which I always need to invent new ways to make them less painful. Seeing other people is often also very inspirational. For instance, this week I saw a senior, who must have been in his seventies, but he looked (in terms of his body shape) and moved like he was 30 year old. It was really inspiring to see that we can keep fit until old age if we make an effort. It reminds me of my Singapore National Games experience a couple of years ago, where I saw men in their eighties who looked and moved like real athletes! But I don’t need to look further than to my own dad, who even in his eighties still walks for miles, plays great golf and fixes everything around the house himself!
This week I watched “Weekend” at the Projector, a movie from 2011 about two gay men spending a weekend together. Firstly, I felt immediately connected to this movie because it was shot in Nottingham, my past home for three and a half years and a place where I felt very happy.
The movie was a love story that in some ways could have happened between a heterosexual couple. However, in other ways it could not. The movie gave a glimpse of what life is like for people who are different from the majority and how it affects every aspect of their life. The movie also showed two ways of dealing with ”being different”. One man accepted people’s prejudice as a fact that cannot be changed and tried to fit in and compromise as much as possible. The other was very upfront about being gay and stood up for himself. It became very clear to me that the former approach, although less confrontational, is not really a strategy that leads to happiness.
In the story, the first man was a swimming life-guard and the other an artist. More than their different occupations, their different views towards their homosexuality and life itself made them quite incompatible for me. And I must admit that when the artist character at the end of the movie went through with his intention to move from Nottingham to the US for his studies and leave his partner, I felt it was the right decision. But I also realized that everybody has different priorities in life and there is never a right or wrong.