Sentimentality

• NEW YORK, Nov. 16, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- This holiday season, 75% of employees are hoping to receive a gift from their company, with 57% seeing a gift as a sign of their employer's gratitude and appreciation.
• Snappy's report shows widespread enjoyment of the holiday season overall, with nearly three-quarters of those surveyed (74%) expressing their delight during this festive time of year.
• Snappy is committed to enhancing the gifting experience with its unique "gift of choice" platform, which alleviates the pressure of holiday shopping.
• The platform's curated gift collections empower recipients to choose the present that most resonates with them, guaranteeing the perfect gift every time.

• Reasons include accidental overspending (29 per cent), an attempt to impress dates (28 per cent) and seeking intimacy (19 per cent).
• But another survey by Finder also reveals that 44 per cent of Gen Zs consider debt a romantic deal-breaker when considering a partner.
• This highlights potential ties between accumulating dating-related debt and barriers to the chances of success in forming meaningful romantic connections.

‘Costly signalling’

• Accumulating debt for romantic engagements has its roots in an innate human desire — namely, the urge to signal status.
• It argues that humans and animals use resource-intensive or risky behaviours as genuine, hard-to-fake signals indicating their desirable traits and availability.
• While these acts add a layer of individuality to a relationship, they come with the risk of potential financial instability.

Retail marketing

• Retailers often employ strategic marketing tactics to link luxury with love, capitalizing on the emotional connection between these two powerful concepts to entice consumers into purchasing high-end goods.
• They often showcase couples exchanging luxury gifts in opulent settings, fostering an aspirational connection between luxury products and romantic ideals.
• These strategic marketing tactics linking luxury with love contribute to more debt by enticing consumers to overspend on high-end goods with premium price tags.

False sense of connection

• This sheds light on a fascinating discrepancy in self-versus-other evaluations when it comes to luxury consumption.
• Gift-givers often believe that more expensive gifts are more appreciated, assuming they convey greater thoughtfulness.
• But gift recipients don’t necessarily share this belief because they don’t consistently link gift price to their level of appreciation.
• Indeed, many people prioritize their independence and question the giver’s motives behind such gifts, fearing power imbalances and expectations.

• Canadian scientist, author, and environmental activist David Suzuki knows firsthand the power of books.
• Suzuki, now 87, may be one among millions active in today’s environmental movement, but he is one in a million.
• This is the sacred balance: that people might achieve “rich, rewarding lives without undermining the very elements that ensure them”.
• Read more:
  David Suzuki: Australian scientists should be up on the ramparts

Soil and life

• Consider the opening few pages of the chapter on soil, or the element “earth”.
• the fundamental connection of soil and life is expressed in different ways; in some, the first human is fashioned from material produced by earth - carved from wood, moulded out of cornmeal, shaped from seeds, pollen and sap.

‘You are what you do’

• On the 25th anniversary of its release, a new edition has been published.
• They bring renewed urgency to his message that “we have to see ourselves in a different relationship with the rest of nature”.
• The major crises we face – “pandemics, climate disruption and biodiversity loss” – “all have roots in our lack of recognition of our place in nature”.
• One of these is Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, emblematic of a “new generation of young people” fighting for climate action.
• I don’t want your hope […] I want you to act as you would in a crisis.

Indigenous worldviews

• Of course, those familiar with Indigenous knowledges and worldviews will recognise Suzuki’s view of human-nature connection is not at all new.
• As he acknowledges, it has been at the heart of Indigenous worldviews for millennia.
• Indigenous ways of teaching could be beneficial for all children

  Indigenous perspectives are central to the discussions in The Sacred Balance, although the sense in which non-Indigenous sciences are presented as a “corroboration” of ancient, continuing Indigenous wisdom and knowledges feels outdated amid contemporary postcolonial and decolonising critical discourses.

• We already live in the presence of the model and the guidance of Indigenous worldviews, which marry science with spirit, gift and responsibility.
• at a time when 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity is safeguarded by Indigenous Peoples, yet they legally own only 10% of the land mass, this book recognises the imperative for Western science to learn from Indigenous knowledge.

Wins and losses

• But he notes that,
  no matter how many wins we celebrated, new threats arose: protected land nibbled away, mining and logging allowed in parks, halted projects renewed and environmental legislation overturned.
• no matter how many wins we celebrated, new threats arose: protected land nibbled away, mining and logging allowed in parks, halted projects renewed and environmental legislation overturned.
• What matters now is that “we shift from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism” and “reformulate” our legal, economic and political systems.

A form of devotional reading?

• Perhaps a book we read for information in 1997, is now read more for love; the need to be informed has transformed into the need to be encouraged.
• Amongst these is the practice of devotional reading, or partaking in a “calibrated daily dose of ideas”.
• Wall Kimmerer suggests The Sacred Balance “sows a vision of the future we want to live in, with guidance to get there”.

• Americans are heading into this holiday season increasingly stressed and less optimistic about the economy, according to the latest Consumer Spending & Saving Index from Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company ( MassMutual ).
• The financial impacts of inflation and the increasing concern about a recession are continuing to put pressure on Americans financing, impacting their optimism and leading them to seek change.
• Notable findings from the survey include:
  The stress of inflation is increasing, with more Americans changing their spending habits in the face of a worsening economy.
• The MassMutual Consumer Spending & Saving Index tracks financial outlooks and behaviors in a changing economic environment.