MOST INTERESTING ESSAYS 2/5/26: THEORY & TRUTH, MEMORY & INTELLIGENCE, PSYCHIATRY, WRITING, EGYPT IN 2019, LIVE OR DIE, GARDEN OF EDEN, SOCIAL DYSFUNCTION, DEATH ROW, RIGHT & WRONG, FRANTZ FANON, TRUTHINESS, CONSPIRACY, LIBERALITY, LIFE IS LIQUID, BECOMING god-LIKE, TIPPING POINT, VANISHING WORLD, JESUS SAYS
Murata’s satire infers obsession with sex for pleasure, child rearing collectivization, gender dysphoria, and pregnancy equalization are pathways to societal destruction.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Vanishing World (A Novel)
Author: Sayaka Murata
NarratedBy: Nancy Wu
Sayaka Murata (Author, Japanese novelist.)
Sayaka Murata’s subject is clearly revealed in its title, “Vanishing World”. “Vanishing World” is a provocative assessment of how sexual relationship and sex education has changed. Murata satirically reveals how human reproduction, objectification of life, motherhood, and technology may dehumanize society.
Murata’s fictional story is highly informative in regard to sexual difference and similarity between men and women.
In one sense, Murata’s fictional story is highly informative in regard to sexual difference and similarity between men and women. As a reader/listener, Murata offers a detailed description of the physical difference between the sexes. Many who think they know something about sexual difference will find the author’s candor enlightening. However, her depiction of social relationship is off-putting with a satirical exaggeration of socio/sexual objectification.
Murata writes about a single parent family with a young daughter who lives with her mother and is nearing the age of puberty.
(Though not mentioned in Murata’s story, single family homes in America have grown by nearly 30% in the 21st century.) The main character’s name is Amane and Murata’s story is about Amane’s sexual awakening and how she views social relationship. Amane is infatuated with an animated male character on television. She imagines being married to this character before puberty but holds this character in her mind throughout childhood and later life.
Murata suggests reproduction may evolve into a preferential desire for artificial insemination rather than sexual intercourse between a man and woman.
This idea feeds into a listener/reader’s mind as a diminishment of the need for emotional attachment to the opposite sex for procreation. Sex becomes detached from procreation, evolving into only “hooking up” for sexual stimulation and/or personal gratification. Murata infers desire is no longer needed for procreation but only to experience intercourse as an emotional and physical pleasure. Consequently, it seems perfectly natural to transfer sexual desire to a fictional character because it becomes unnecessary to have emotional attachment to humans when a figment of one’s imagination is available.
Murata creates a bizarre world.
The bizarro world that Murata creates is an extension of a belief that society is becoming less attached to their humanity. Marriage, human relationship, and motherhood are replaced by mindful personal’ inwardness and endless pursuit of physical stimulation without emotional entanglement. By extension, Murata suggests science will create wombs for men so that the difference in sexes equalizes childbirth and care of children. Caregiving becomes bureaucratic and collective because caregiving is no longer personalized.
Murata suggests that a new system of childcare will evolve into collective training camps for working parents who are too self-absorbed to raise their own children.
Collective childcare disconnects parents from the management and development of their children. The sterility of conception by artificial insemination, collective childcare, and social acceptance of multiple sex partners diminishes both familial relations and child development. Birthing and raising children becomes a clinical process, i.e., less personal with both men and women capable of experiencing pregnancy and delivery; all without responsibility or obligation for childcare.
In some sense, this satire illustrates the negative potential of socio/sexual equality.
Murata’s story ends with the birth of their first child from a man who is Amane’s husband. She is torn over not being able to take the baby home because the child is already being “cared for” in a ward meant to raise and nurture all newly born children. A final point is made in the story by a visit from Alane’s mother after the birth. She asks Amane where the child is, and Alane explains the child will not be raised by her and her husband. Alane’s mother is aghast. Her mother falls to the floor and dies without any apparent familial concern for her sudden collapse and presumably, death. The next thing to happen is a visit from one of the children born in this new world. Alane chooses to have sex with him and the story ends.
“Vanishing World” implies 21st century science, organizational bureaucracy, and social change threatens survival of humanity. Murata’s satire infers obsession with sex for pleasure, child rearing collectivization, gender dysphoria, and pregnancy equalization are pathways to society’s collapse.
The climax of “Modern Gothic” is where myth enters Moreno-Carcia’s story. The fundamental truths of colonization are revealed in her creative story while its denouement is an entertaining explosion of imagination.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Mexican Gothic
Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
NarratedBy: Frankie Corzo
Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Author, Mexican/Canadian novelist, editor and publisher.)
Moreno-Garcia’s “Mexican Gothic” is a chilling story of colonization, eugenics, ecological contamination, mystical beliefs, and control of society by men. The author chooses the name of Doyle as an English family that exploits the Mexico’ silver mining industry in earlier centuries. A dynasty is created by generations of Doyle’s. They created a colonial manor called “High Place” from which to rule a crumbling empire. As colonizers they capitalize on Mexico’s silver deposits by exploiting native Mexicans’ land and labor to grow their mining operation. The wealth of local citizens is lost to the English foreigners who keep wages low to increase the wealth of the Doyle family.
Over generations, the Doyle men married local women that were related to each other. A common practice of royalty before the twentieth century.
They wished to maintain the genetic purity of the Doyle bloodline by having future Doyles marry genetic descendants of Mexican women that had been their wives. This is not greatly different than the experience of royal marriages in European cultures. The consequence of that marriage tradition is that recessive genetic mutations become more prominent in offspring. Children were more susceptible to diseases like cystic fibrosis and had higher incidents of developmental and cognitive disorders. This is one of many threads of meaning in “Mexican Gothic” because one of these descendants becomes a murderer of Doyle family members and the current Doyle generation seems socially dysfunctional. Added to that dysfunction is the Doyle family’s diminishing wealth.
An arranged marriage is a lynch pin to the story.
The heroine, Noemi, is the daughter of a wealthy Mexican family. She is sent to investigate a letter that was received by her father from a young woman that marries a Doyle. She is a cousin of Noemi’s. The marriage is arranged in part because of her father, and he feels something is wrong and wants Noemi to visit the Doyle family to find what the mysterious letter means. Soon after Noemi arrives, she begins to have hallucinatory dreams. Listener/readers find the hallucinations are because of spores that are in the bedroom of the deteriorating Doyle house. A clever thread of meaning in Moreno-Garcia’s story is ecological contamination that comes from colonization. As one nation colonizes another, it inevitably brings different plants and animals that are not indigenous to the country they are colonizing. The author notes a fungus is growing in the Doyle household that may have come from the original colonizers.
The penultimate theme in “Modern Gothic” is the creation of myths that compound the horrific events that occur in the Doyle house.
From the history of murders in the Doyle household, to hallucinatory dreams, to incestuous relationships, to the gloom and doom of the story, to a myth about the age of the Doyle patriarch, Moreno-Garcia offers a climax to her story that vivifies reader/listener’s imagination. The climax of “Modern Gothic” is where myth enters Moreno-Carcia’s story. The fundamental truths of colonization are revealed in her creative story while its denouement is an entertaining explosion of imagination.
Whether one is of a particular gender, good looking, unattractive, fat, thin, so on and so on, is superfluous. What is not different is we are all human. Murray infers that if leaders can keep humanness in mind, equality is the only thing that matters.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Madness of Crowds (Gender, Race and Identity)
Author: Douglas Murray
NarratedBy: Douglas Murray
Douglas Murray (Author, Bristish political commentator, cultural critic, and journalist.)
All humans deserve equal treatment, rights, and opportunities. No known form of government achieves that ideal. Douglas Murray shows liberal and social democracies show concern about equality, while other forms of government don’t seem to care. What Murray argues is that western nations and educational institutions are not doing enough and what they are doing is maddeningly ineffectual.
Initially, Murray writes about gay rights which are not top of mind for many listener/readers.
However, the point is that sexual preference is a human right that harkens back to the age of ancient Mesopotamia (2000 BCE) and Greece (300 BCE). Mesopotamian law treated marriage as a legal contract. Men were allowed to have secondary wives or concubines with legal codes regulating inheritance rights. Women then, as now, were treated unequally. In Mesopotamia, marriage was tied to economic, social, and legal agreements to ensure social stability through male control. Interestingly, women had some legal rights in Mesopotamia while Greece was more patriarchal with limited legal independence for women. Mesopotamia artwork shows same-sex relationships existed, but contractual agreements in marriage were only for heterosexual relations.
In Plato’s time, legal codes in marriage were less important but social stability and male domination remained in both jurisdictions.
Ancient Greek history shows same-sex relationships were widely accepted but without any legal recognition like that required in heterosexual marriages. Same sex relationships go back to the beginnings of pictographic and written history. So, why is there so much Sturm and Drang about same sex relationships?
American democracy began a civil war in 1865 over the issue of slavery.
American democracy began a civil war in 1865 over the issue of slavery, passed the 14th Amendment in 1868 to provide equal protection for all, passed a Civil Rights Act in 1964 prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, passed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, and the Marriage Equality Act in 2015. Despite all of this history, in 2025, America continues to discriminate against same sex relationships and often violates the aforementioned laws. If a male or female wishes to have sex with a consenting person of the same sex, why should any American care? America has fought and died over equal rights for all Americans. It is maddening to keep reading about Democracies continuing violation of equal rights.
Murray offers numerous examples of protest in western society that reinforce his argument about the madness of crowds.
He reflects on Ivy League colleges like Yale and a small liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington where a crowd of students caused resignations of their professors. In 2015, a Yale faculty member questioned the university’s stance on culturally sensitive Halloween costumes. A crowd of students accused the faculty of failing to create a “safe space” because their professor raised the issue of identity as culturally insensitive. He and his wife who were professors at Yale chose to resign. In 2017, a professor objected to a campus event at Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington. White students and faculty were asked to leave for a day to highlight racial issues. The student protest against the professor for a “day off” event became a threat to his safety. He resigned. Murray’s point is that public discourse is increasingly driven by emotional reactions rather than reasoned debate.
Murray touches on the negative consequence of technology on the growing “…Madness of Crowds”. More than ever, the reach and size of crowds who object to human equality can spread social chaos. America experienced the power of technology with the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The re-election of Donald Trump is a harbinger of a future where the emotion of crowds who have the right to vote is magnified by media paid for by the richest people in America.
Emotions of crowd-think distort the difficult and personal trials of people with gender dysphoria.
The myth of Tiresias embodies the truth that humans are different but equal.
Tiresias is a figure in Greek mythology that was punished by Hera, the wife of Zeus, to be turned into a woman after he struck two mating snakes. He remained a woman for seven years when he was changed back into a man by Zeus. Zeus and Hera debated on whether experience of sex as a man or woman was more pleasurable. Tiresias agreed with Zeus who believed women experienced greater pleasure and Hera struck him blind for siding with Zeus. The debate goes on with Murray noting it occurs in crowd emotion that refuses to deal with the facts of gender dysphoria. One thinks of the many people that struggle with gender identity and how difficult it must be to live life with one’s own confusion, let alone the stupidity of people’s emotional reactions.
And then there is the issue of race.
Nearly 50% of the world is classified as Caucasoid with the remainder of three racial categories being no more than 33.5%. Unique physical characteristics of race are hair color and texture, facial features, average height, eye color, blood type, and skin color. Of course, there are differences beyond these features within each racial group. Whether one is of a particular gender, good looking, unattractive, fat, thin, so on and so on, is superfluous. What is not different is we are all human. Murray infers that if leaders can keep humanness in mind, equality is the only thing that matters.
Like Climate Change, AI seems an inevitable change that will collate, spindle, and mutilate life whether we want it to or not. The best humans can do is adopt and adapt to the change AI will make in human life. It is not a choice but an inevitability.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Deep Medicine (How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again)
Author: Eric Topol
Narrated By: Graham Winton
Eric Topol (Author, American cardiologist, scientist, founder of Scripps Research Translational Institute.)
Eric Topol is what most patients want to see in a Doctor of Medicine. “Deep Medicine” should be required reading for students wishing to become physicians. One suspects Topol’s view of medicine is as empathetic as it is because of his personal chronic illness. His personal experience as a patient and physician give him an insightful understanding of medical diagnosis, patient care, and treatment.
Topol explains how increasingly valuable and important Artificial Intelligence is in the diagnosis and treatment of illness and health for human beings.
AI opens the door for improved diagnosis and treatment of patients. A monumental caveat to A.I.s potential is its exposure of personal history not only to physicians but to governments and businesses. Governments and businesses preternaturally have agendas that may be in conflict with one’s personal health and welfare.
Topol notes China is ahead of America in cataloging citizens’ health because of their data collection and AI’s capabilities.
Theoretically, every visit to a doctor can be precisely documented with an AI system. The good of that system would improve continuity of medical diagnosis and treatment of patients. The risk of that system is that it can be exploited by governments and businesses wishing to control or influence a person’s life. One is left with a concern about being able to protect oneself from a government or business that may have access to citizen information. In the case of government, it is the power exercised over freedom. Both government and businesses can use AI information to influence human choice. With detailed information about what one wants, needs, or is undecided upon can be manipulated with personal knowledge accumulated by AI.
Putting loss of privacy and “Brave New World” negatives aside, Topol explains the potential of AI to immensely improve human health and wellness.
Cradle to grave information on human health would aid in research and treatment of illnesses and cures for present and future patients. Topol gives the example of collection of information on biometric health of human beings that can reveal secrets of perfect diets that would aid better health during one’s life. Topol explains how every person has a unique biometric system that processes food in different ways. Some foods may be harmful to some and not others because of the way their body metabolizes what they choose to eat. Topol explains, every person has their own biometric system that processes foods in different ways. It is possible to design diets to meet the specifications of one’s unique digestive system to improve health and avoid foods that are not healthily metabolized by one’s body. An AI could be devised to analyze individual biometrics and recommend more healthful diets and more effective medicines for users of an AI system.
In addition to improvements in medical imaging and diagnosis with AI, Topal explains how medicine and treatments can be personalized to patients based on biometric analysis that shows how medications can be optimized to treat specific patients in a customized way. Every patient is unique in the way they metabolize food and drugs. AI offers the potential for customization to maximize recovery from illness, infection, or disease.
Another growing AI metric is measurement of an individual’s physical well-being. Monitoring one’s vital signs is becoming common with Apple watches and information accumulation that can be monitored and controlled for healthful living. One can begin to improve one’s health and life with more information about a user’s pulse and blood pressure measurements. Instantaneous reports may warn people of risks with an accumulated record of healthful levels of exercise and an exerciser’s recovery times.
Marie Curie (Scientist, chemist, and physicist who played a crucial role in developing x-ray technology, received 2 Nobel Prizes, died at the age of 66.)
Topol offers a number of circumstances where AI has improved medical diagnosis and treatment. He notes how AI analysis of radiological imaging improves diagnosis of body’ abnormality because of its relentless process of reviewing past imaging that is beyond the knowledge or memory of experienced radiologists. Topol notes a number of studies that show AI reads radiological images better than experienced radiologists.
One wonders if AI is a Hobson’s choice or a societal revolution.
One wonders if AI is a Hobson’s choice or a societal revolution greater than the discovery of agriculture (10000 BCE), the rise of civilization (3000 BCE), the Scientific Revolution (16th to 17th century), the Industrial Revolution (18th to 19th century), the Digital Revolution (20th to 21st century), or Climate Change in the 21st century. Like Climate Change, AI seems an inevitable change that will collate, spindle, and mutilate life whether we want it to or not. The best humans can do is adopt and adapt to the change AI will make in human life. It is not a choice but an inevitability.
What we see today is not reality, but our minds’ interpretation of the material world. It seems that everything in the world is process, e.g., gravity, or time relativity, or quantum unpredictability.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Brain Myths Exploded (Lessons from Neuroscience)
Lecturer: Indre Viskontas
By: The Great Courses
Indre Viskontas (Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from UCLA, performed at Cafe Royal Opera in San Francisco, studies neural basis of memory and creativity, Lecturer at USF.)
Dr. Indre Viskontas offers interesting facts and theories about the brain in her Great Courses lectures. Her educational and musical accomplishments are remarkable examples of brain’ flexibility, human intelligence, and life-long potential. Her lectures show cognitive improvement may occur throughout one’s life while recalling incidents of brain damage and discoveries of science experiments that reveal how the brain works.
Viskontas suggests the belief that humans use only 10% of their brain is a myth.
The brain is made of eight distinctive structures which are interconnected and work together for our thoughts, feelings, and movements. A network of neurons sends electrical and chemical signals between parts of the brain that generate human thought and action; some of which are automatic and others cognitively reasoned. Viskontas explains how interconnections allow continued mental and physical functioning even when a part of the brain is damaged. Experiment and human accident have proven that the brain can adapt to loss of normal thought and action by retraining healthy parts of the brain. Retraining the brain can improve lost function. This may not return the perfect function of an undamaged brain, but it will improve function.
Viskontas explains human memory is a reconstructive process with varying degrees of accuracy.
There are people who have nearly perfect recall of their past. However, experiment has shown that even those few who can recall their personal history in detail are affected by emotion that distorts its accuracy. Furthermore, Viskontas explains personal history’ memory is limited to personal experience rather than any measurement of IQ. Of course, there are a few people who are said to have eidetic memories that can recall images with precision. They have so-called “photographic memories”, but IQ is based on problem-solving abilities that, at best, would be enhanced by a photographic memory. It is the application of recalled information to problem solving abilities that make one a genius like John von Neumann and Nikol Tesla who were alleged to have eidetic memories.
The risk is that “eyewitness” accounts can be influenced and totally wrong.
Scientific experiment has proven memory is a reconstructive process. With DNA analysis, a number of convicted murderers have been found innocent despite many eyewitnesses that identified them at scenes of crime. One is reminded of the gorilla experiment where eyewitnesses are distracted when a gorilla is sitting in a chair just as a human action scene is created in the same room. They do not see the gorilla and are surprised when it is pointed out to them later.
In the era of quantum computing, the concept of reality is evolving at a rate that boggles the mind.
The idea of a probabilistic rather than concrete reality reminds one of the differences between the science of Newton and Einstein. Newton thought of things as concrete reality. Einstein takes steps toward relativity with less emphasis on the concreteness of reality. What we see today is not reality, but our minds’ interpretation of the material world. It seems that everything in the world is process, e.g., gravity, or time relativity, or quantum unpredictability. Life and human beings may only be a pile of atoms in an atomic process of birth, life, death, and whatever comes after death.
As human beings grow older, new things take longer to learn but Viskontas explains it is commitment that makes a difference in learning something new.
Taking piano lessons as an older adult, deciding to become an opera singer after graduating from college as a neuroscientist, or reading/listening to books about science when you are not educated as a scientist takes more time as you get older, slower, and less inquisitive. Dr. Viskcontas’ lectures infer it is never too late to learn something new. It just takes longer for it to become a part of who you are.
Some academics considered Timothy Leary a visionary thinker who pioneered consciousness expansion, psychedelic therapy, and transhumanism. Others argue he lacked scientific rigor.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Acid Queen (The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary)
Author: Susannah Cahalan
Narrated By: Susannah Cahalan
Susannah Cahalan (Author, journalist for the New York Post)
Susannah Cahalan has written a titillating story of the 60s and 70s and Americans burgeoning experimentation with illicit drugs. It focuses on Rosemary Woodruff Leary, the fourth wife of the LSD guru, Timothy Leary. Leary’s first wife committed suicide, his second seemed a rebound companion, his third is to Nena von Schlebrugge, and then Rosemary who eventually becomes his lover, fourth wife, and supporter during their 9 years of marriage. His last marriage was to Barbara Chase in 1978 which lasted for 14 years until 1992. Leary died in 1996 at the age of 75.
Timothy Leary’s time with Rosemary is filled with mutual infidelity but with freely given support by Rosemary of a diminishing intellectual who promoted hallucinogens and their mind-altering effects. The handsome Leary became a significant influence on the use of hallucinogens like LSD and psilocybin as tools for expanding human consciousness. He believed psychedelics could unlock deeper levels of self-awareness, creativity, and spiritual enlightenment. An interesting point about LSD and other hallucinogens is how they have become useful drugs for modern treatment of psychological dysfunctions like schizophrenia and PTSD. On the other hand, Cahalan shows indiscriminate use of LSD can diminish social propriety and become an escape from or harmful distortion of consciousness.
Putting aside the value of hallucinogens, “The Acid Queen” is about the life of Rosemary Woodruff Leary.
Rosemary was born in 1935. Growing into a beautiful woman, she was drawn into the counterculture movement of the 60s and 70s in her travels to San Francisco, Southern California, and New York. Her beauty opened doors of opportunity for Rosemary. She became an airline stewardess until retirement in her early 30s that were required by age limits of airlines in those years. Cahalan infers Rosemary’s attractiveness and free-spirited beliefs led her to use sex as a useful way of getting what she wanted through relationships with men. She joined the beatnik generation because it fit her style of living. This is a generation that rejected mainstream American culture with an interest in artistic self-expression, non-conformity, and spirituality. This was in the 1950s and early 60s.
Rosemary meets Timothy Leary in 1965.
Leary’s use of LSD as a transformative experience fit into Rosemary’s lifestyle. She became one of Leary’s devoted followers. They married in 1967. Art Linkletter’s daughter died in 1969 by suicide and blamed it on LSD. Not surprisingly, the conservative President, Richard Nixon, called Leary “the most dangerous man in America”. In 1968 Timothy Leary was arrested in Laguna Beach, California and charged with marijuana possession. He was tried in 1970 and sentenced to 1o years in prison. He escaped prison with the help of the Weather Underground but was recaptured in 1973. His sentence, in conjunction with his former conviction, was extended to 20 years. He was released in 1976, after 3 years, when he cooperated with authorities by offering information on the counterculture movement.
Cahalan shows how Rosemary followed and supporter Leary in his escape from prison and how their relationship fell apart.
It is somewhat unclear from Cahalan’s story about why Rosemary gave up on Leary. One may have been because of his and her self-absorption or their penchant for attachment to others for the support they believe they deserved. Cahalan’s story of Rosemary is interesting because of her association with Leary. Though Rosemary is self-educated, she appears to have limited formal education with her claim to fame largely based on the men with whom she became intimately involved.
In contrast, Timothy Leary earned a B.A. in psychology from the University of Alabama in 1943, a master’s degree in psychology from Washington State University in 1946, and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1950.
Leary had many intimate women friends and five wives. He had two children, a girl born in 1947 and a boy born in 1949, with his first wife, Marianne Bush. Leary’s daughter died at age 42. She hung herself with her shoelaces tied to a jail bar while waiting to be charged for shooting her boyfriend. His son Jack, at 25 years of age, is noted in a NYT’s article in 1974. The article clearly implies Jack had become estranged from his father.
“The Acid Queen” is a sad story of two self-absorbed people who had exciting and tragic lives.
Timothy Leary had fame and fortune. Rosemary Woodruff Leary had beauty and tenacity. Neither seem paragons of virtue and both seem much less than they could have been. The underlying message of “The Acid Queen” is we need to be more connected to the world, less self-absorbed, and more other-directed. (Easy to say or write, but unlikely to be.)
Some academics considered Leary a visionary thinker who pioneered consciousness expansion, psychedelic therapy, and transhumanism.
Timothy Leary showed himself to be a charismatic and persuasive speaker. However, critics argue he lacked scientific rigor and had little foresight or objectivity about the effects of drugs on consciousness. Rosemary may have been “The Acid Queen” but never achieved the sobriquet of “Queen of Hearts”.
After two or three chapters of Huston’s book, reader/listeners will likely complete it. The difficulty, as with all good advice, is following it.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
SHARP (Simple Ways to Improve Your Life with Brain Science)
By: Therese Huston PhD
Narrated By: Theresa Bakken
Therese Huston (Author, earned an MS and PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University.)
Therese Huston is a well-known public speaker who has written a book that has appeal for those who wish to know what they can do to improve their memory and cognitive abilities. This is not a book some will be interested in either listening to or reading. Many presume they have a proscribed intelligence and memory largely determined by genetic inheritance. Huston infers there is some science-based truth in that opinion but that one’s memory, cognitive ability, and psychological health can be treated, if not improved, at any age.
Huston’s prescription for improved memory and cognitive ability requires effort.
Undoubtedly, we inherit much of our innate cognitive ability but whatever one’s genetic inheritance and age may be Huston argues cognition and memory can be improved. Huston discusses areas of the brain that are the base from which cognition and memory originate, are stored, and then called upon.
Huston notes the hippocampus, amygdala, prefrontal cortex, neocortex, cerebellum, and basal ganglia are key brain areas involved in cognition and memory.
The hippocampus is the primary location of memories, but the other five areas interact with one’s personal experiences in ways ranging from emotion, individual understanding, decision-making, reasoning, skill development, and formed habits. As we age, the way we process, store, and retrieve information deteriorates. We lose some memories, process information more slowly, and find it more difficult to process new information in the context of past experience.
What Huston explains is that exercise, visual, and tactical experience can improve memory and cognition at every age.
Staying active, experiencing the world in ways that stimulate the production of dopamine, and exercising effort to learn and do new things improves cognitive ability and memory. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the human body that regulates mood, focus and behavior. It is released by the body when it is stimulated by exercise, engaging experience, and learning new things. Huston offers advice on how one at any age can improve their mental health and care for themselves and others when they are troubled by various common and extraordinary events in life. Life’s events stimulate the release of dopamine which can illicit rage and bad behavior but also provide focus and beneficial behavior.
Huston suggests 14 generally simple ways of helping oneself and others cope with the stresses of life.
Many of her solutions are commonly understood, others less so. Not surprisingly, she notes exercise, proper nutrition, quality sleep, and deep breathing are important for maintenance and improvement of brain function and memory. Some more difficult and less understood aids to brain health and memory are 1) importance of social engagement, 2) learning new things from personal and other’s recorded experience, and 3) practicing ways of reducing the stresses of life in yourself and others you care about.
One who reads or listens to “Sharp” will recognize the value of Huston’s advice for improving memory and cognitive ability.
After two or three chapters, reader/listeners will likely complete her book. The difficulty, as with all good advice, is following it.
A President who only sees government as a cost and the wealthy as the nation’s only benefactors, compounds America’s inability to solve the problems of poverty with eviction being a preeminent symptom.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Evicted (Poverty and Profit in the American City)
By: Matthew Desmond
Narrated By: Dion Graham
Matthew Desmond (Author, sociologist and a Pulitzer Prize winner, Professor of Sociology at Princeton.)
Matthew Desmond has written about American poverty in “Evicted”. There are two types of poverty. One is a worker who is not making enough money to be anything more than poor. The second kind of poor is grinding poverty where one must choose between having food to eat or a roof over one’s head. One who is poor can live in America, may get an education, find a job, and get along in life. However, those with too little money to eat and have shelter–live lives of desperation. Desmond’s book is about the latter to show how American society is failing desperate citizens. Desmond interviews several poor Americans that offer a clear understanding of the difference between being poor in America and being desperately poor in America.
“Land of opportunity” believers argue there are jobs in America and those who choose to beg for food rather than work deserve their fate. The truth is that many jobs in America do not pay enough for those who have jobs to pay rent and feed their families. Housing is expensive and affordable housing is not being produced in large enough quantities to reduce the costs of housing. Affordable housing is hard to build because many homeowners resist having it built in their neighborhoods. When land is found, it is often too expensive for the builder to make a profit with low rents. The cost of construction is often higher than it needs to be because of high land prices, building code requirements, or rezoning needed to allow multifamily housing.
Education in America is not meeting the needs of its citizens.
School availability is not well enough managed to ensure education for all who live in America. Sex education and contraception are being discouraged in school, which is a foolish, self-destructive societal mistake. Healthcare is too expensive for many Americans with low incomes which compounds the health problems of the poor who cannot afford either medical service or treatment. Grinding poverty causes some to seek relief through drugs which increases medical problems and further aggravates inequality being fed by an illicit industry that is growing in America. Drug abuse kills Americans in many ways; not the least of which is addiction and poverty.
The history of American income inequality is burdened by forms of racism and sexual discrimination that do not treat people equally.
Jobs are changing with automation and outsourcing of goods produced by an international economy. American government has failed to create policies that help those who need more help. As one of the wealthiest nations in the world, America has been incapable of solving the spread of poverty among its citizens.
In reading/listening to Desmond’s research, it seems like there is an American conspiracy making one of the wealthiest countries in the world incapable of solving the housing, education, and employment problems of its citizens.
A President who only sees government as a cost and the wealthy as the nation’s only benefactors, compounds America’s inability to solve the problems of poverty with eviction being a preeminent symptom.
A government designed to use public funds to pick winners and losers in the drug industry threatens human health. Only with the truth of science discoveries and honest reporting of drug efficacy can a physician offer hope for human recovery from curable diseases.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Rethinking Medications (Truth, Power, and the Drugs You Take)
By: Jerry Avorn
Narrated By: Jerry Avorn MD
Jerry Avorn (Author, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School where he received his MD, Chief Emeritus of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics)
Doctor Avorn enlightens listener/readers about drug industry’ costs, profits, and regulation. Avorn explains how money corrupts the industry and the FDA while encouraging discovery of effective drug treatments. The cost, profits, and benefits of the industry revolve around research, discovery, medical efficacy, human health, ethics, and regulation.
Drug manufacture is big business.
Treatments for human maladies began in the dark ages when little was known about the causes of disease and mental dysfunction. Cures ranged from spirit dances to herbal concoctions that allegedly expelled evil, cured or killed its followers and users. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) did not come into existence until 1930, but its beginnings harken back to the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt. The FDA took on the role of reviewing scientific drug studies for drug treatments that could aid health recovery for the public. The importance of review was proven critical by incidents like that in 1937, when 107 people died from a Sulfanilamide drug which was found to be poisonous. From that 1937 event forward, the FDA required drug manufacturers to prove safety of a drug before selling it to the public. The FDA began inspecting drug factories while demanding drug ingredient labeling. However, Avorn illustrates how the FDA was seduced by Big Pharma’ to offer drug approvals based on flawed or undisclosed research reports.
Dr. Martin Makary (Dr. Makary was confirmed as the new head of the FDA on March 25, 2025. He is the 27th head of the Department. He is a British-American surgeon and professor.)
What Dr. Avorn reveals is how the FDA has either failed the public or been seduced by drug manufacturers to approve drugs that have not cured patients but have, in some cases, harmed or killed patients. It will be interesting to see what Dr. Marin Makary can do to improve FDA’s regulation of drugs. Avorn touches on court cases that have resulted in huge financial settlements by drug manufacturing companies and their stockholders. However, he notes the actual compensation received by individually harmed patients or families is miniscule in respect to the size of the fines; not to mention many billions of dollars the drug companies received before unethical practices were exposed. Avorn notes many FDA’ research and regulation incompetencies allowed drug companies to hoodwink the public about drug companies’ discovered but unrevealed drug side-effects.
A few examples can be easily found in an internet search:
1) Vioxx (Rofecoxib), a pain killer, had to be withdrawn from use in 2004 because it was linked to increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. It was removed from the market in 2004.
2) Fen-Phen (Fenfluramine/Phentermine), a weight-loss drug had to be taken off the market in 1997 because of severe heart and lung complications.
3) Accutane was used to cure acne but was found to be linked to birth defects and had to be withdrawn in 2009.
4) Thalidomide was found to cause birth defects to become repurposed for treatment of certain cancers.
5) A more recent failure of the FDA is their failure to regulate opioids like OxyContin that resulted in huge fines to manufacturers and distributors of the drug.
Lobbyists are hired by drug companies to influence politicians to gain support of drug companies. In aggregate, this chart shows the highest-spending lobbyists in the 3rd Qtr. of 2020 were in the medical industry.
Dr. Avorn argues Big Pharma’s lobbying power has unduly influenced FDA to approve drugs that are not effective in treating patients for their diagnosed conditions. Avorn infers Big Pharma is more focused on increasing revenue than effectively reviewing drug manufacturer’ supplied studies. Avorn argues the FDA has become too dependent on industry fees that are paid by drug manufacturers asking for expedited drug approvals. Avorn infers the FDA fails to demand more documentation from drug manufacturers on their drug’ research. The author suggests many approved opioids, cancer treatment drugs, and psychedelics have questionable effectiveness or have safety concerns. Misleading or incomplete information is provided by drug companies that makes applications an approval process, not a fully relevant or studied action on the efficacy of new drugs.
Avorn is disappointed in the Trump administrations’ selection of Robert Kennedy as the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services because of his lack of qualification.
The unscientific bias of Kennedy and Trump in regard to vaccine effectiveness reinforces the likelihood of increased drug manufacturers’ fees that are just a revenue source for the FDA. Trump will likely reward Kennedy for decreasing the Departments’ overhead by firing research scientists and increasing the revenues they collect from drug manufacturers seeking drug approvals.
Trump sees and uses money as the only measure of value in the world.
It is interesting to note that Avorn is a Harvard professor, a member of one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Harvard is being denied government grants by the Trump administration, allegedly because of Harvard’s DEI policy. One is inclined to believe diversity, equity, and inclusion are ignored by Trump because he is part of the white ruling class in America. Trump chooses to stop American aid to the world to reduce the cost of government. American government’s decisions to starve the world and discriminate against non-whites is a return to the past that will have future consequences for America.
Next, Avorn writes about the high cost of drugs, particularly in the United States. Discoveries are patented in the United States to incentivize innovation, but drug companies are gaming that Constitutional right by slightly modifying drug manufacture when their patent rights are nearing expiration. They renew their patent and control the price of the slightly modified drug that has the same curative qualities. As publicly held corporations, they are obligated to keep prices as high as the market allows. The consequence leaves many families at the mercy of their treatable diseases because they cannot afford the drugs that can help them.
Martin Shkreli, American investor who rose to fame and infamy for using hedge funds to buy drug patents and artificially raise their prices to only increase revenues.
The free market system in America allows an investor to buy a drug patent and arbitrarily raise its price. Avorn suggests this is a correctable problem with fair regulation and a balance between government sponsored funding for drug research in return for public funding. Of course, there are some scientists like Jonas Salk in 1953 who refused to privately patent the polio vaccine because it had such great benefit to the health of the world.
Avorn notes the 1990’s drug costs in the U.S. are out of control.
Only the rich are able to pay for newer drugs that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Americans spend over $13,000 per year per person while Europe is around $5,000 and low-income countries under $500 per year. These expenditures are to extend life which one would think make Americans live longest. Interestingly, America is not even in the top 10. Hong Kong’s average life expectancy is 85.77 years, Japan 85. South Korea 84.53. The U.S. average life expectancy is 79.4. To a cynic like me, one might say what’s 5 or 6 more years of life really worth? On the other hand, billionaires and millionaires like Peter Thiel and Bryan Johnson have invested millions into anti-aging research.
Avorn reinforces the substance of Michael Pollan’s book “How to Change Your Mind” which reenvisions the value of hallucinogens in this century.
Avorn notes hallucinogens efficacy is reborn in the 21st century to a level of medical and social acceptance. Avorn is a trained physician as opposed to Pollan who is a graduate with an M.A. in English, not with degrees in science or medicine.
In reviewing Avorn’s informative history, it is apparent that patients should be asking their doctors more questions about the drugs they are taking.
Drugs have side effects that can conflict with other drugs being taken. In this age of modern medicine, there are many drugs that can be effective, but they can also be deadly. Drug manufacturers looking at drug creation as only revenue producers is a bad choice for society.
Avorn’s history of the drug industry shows failure in American medicines is more than the mistake of placing an incompetent in charge of the U.S.
Taking money away from research facilities diminishes American innovation in medicine and other important sciences. However, research is only as good as the accuracy of its proof of efficacy for the treatment of disease and the Hippocratic Oath of “First, do no harm”. A government designed to use public funds to pick winners and losers in the drug industry threatens human health. Only with the truth of science discoveries and honest reporting of drug efficacy can a physician offer hope for human recovery from curable diseases.
A listener/reader comes away from Pollan’s book with a feeling that there is as much at risk as reward in experimenting with hallucinogens without the aid of professionals. A bad trip can kill you.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
How to Change Your Mind (What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence)
By: Michael Pollan
Narrated By: Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan (Author, journalist, professor and lecturer at Harvard and UC Berkeley, received a B.A. in English from Bennington College and M.A. in English from Columbia University.)
“How to Change Your Mind” is a slippery slope examination of hallucinatory drugs. The slipperiness comes from a concern about drug use even though hallucinatory drugs are not addictive. Written by a liberal art’s graduate rather than a physician, psychiatrist, or scientist makes one skeptical of the author’s review and perspective on LSD and other hallucinatory drugs. However, his story is interesting and has an appeal to anyone who has experimented with hallucinogens.
RISKS AND EFFECTS OF HALLUCINOGENS
Pollan’s subject is partly about mushroom drug derivatives, like psilocybin and psilocin, that have hallucinogenic effects. But he also reviews the history of LSD which is a semi-synthetic compound accidentally discovered by a chemist named Albert Hofmann in 1938. LSD is derived from ergot, a type of fungus that grows on rye and other grains.
Albert Hofmann (1906-2008, chemist who synthesized, ingested and studied the effects of LSD.)
Pollan recalls the history of hallucinogenic drugs that evolved from ancient native rituals to public experimentation. Today, medical analysis and treatment with hallucinogenic drugs is being recommended. The revised belief of hallucinogens as a scourge of society is reborn to a level of medical and social acceptance.
One who has lived a long life in the 20th and now 21st century recalls Pollan’s rollercoaster history. Pollan falls on the side of acceptance of the hallucinogenic experience as an aid to society. His reported revisionist belief begins at the age of 60 when he tries a hallucinogenic drug and begins a study of its history. One is somewhat skeptical of Pollan’s objectivity because he is in the business of making a living from writing.
Pollan features several experts in the field of psychedelic research. He refers to Roland Griffiths (upper left corner) now deceased, neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University who conducted studies on psilocybin’s effect on consciousness and mental health. He meets with Paul Stamets (lower left corner), a mycologist who is a fungi guru who explains where psilocybin mushrooms can be found, how they can be identified, while selling hallucinatory mushrooms to become a wealthy entrepreneur. He writes about James Fadiman (right), a psychologist and researcher who conducted hallucinogenic microdosing experiments on patients to show their potential benefits.
Pollan’s history persuasively argues the benefits of hallucinogenic drugs. However, a bad trip can kill you. On the other hand, Pollan notes recent research shows hallucinogenic drugs have alleviated anxiety, depression, PTSD, addiction, and the fear of dying. He notes psychedelics disrupt the brain’s default modes that negatively affect human behavior.
A listener/reader comes away from Pollan’s book with a feeling that there is as much at risk as reward in experimenting with hallucinogens without the aid of professionals.
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 