*Hope for Rats* Cling to the beauty of the world * Planted, cooked, baked, or found in the woods*

Butterfly bush in Fullersburg Woods

Hope for Rats*

From To Do Institute Email

Back in the 1950’s, Prof. Curt Richter conducted a remarkable experiment with wild rats. Today this kind of experiment would never be approved, but that’s all the more reason for us to learn what we can from the gallant efforts of these involuntary subjects.

Prof. Richter first wanted to measure how long wild rats would swim before drowning. Turns out that wild rats swim for about 15 minutes before drowning.

In the second stage of the experiment, he had a second group of rats go through the same swimming scenario, except these rats were saved about 15 minutes into the experiment, right before they were about to drown. He then let them catch their breath and dry off a bit, before putting them back in the water.

How long do you think these rats swam on their second time around? Five more minutes? Another 15 minutes? 30 minutes? No. Ready? 60 HOURS!! Not 60 minutes, but 60 hours!  Two and a half days!

This experiment demonstrates the connection between hope and resilience.  If we think there’s a chance of being saved, or if we believe that an opportunity might arise, we may find unimaginable reserves of strength and persistence within us.  Hope seems to be a magic resilience factor.

Cling to the beauty of the world *

Margaret Renkl  in NYT  

Genius is a lightning bolt. Very few of the slings and arrows that we will inevitably suffer could ever be fashioned into anything as enduring as "Hamlet." But they can make us cling to the beauty of the world, newly reminded of how fleeting it all is. How fleeting we all are.

I spent the end of 2025 immersed in the lush language and visual palette of "Hamnet," just as online algorithms, anticipating the season of fruitless goals, fed me promises of transformative weight-loss plans and exercise routines and methods for achieving a life that is calmer/happier/better-organized/fill-in-the-blank-here.

The repeated collision between commercial manipulation and high art became almost comical. We're here such a short while, 1 kept thinking. Aren't most of us basically OK as we are? Will it matter in 400 years if we're a little overweight, a bit out of shape, somewhat dis-organized, definitely too distracted?

Sure, it's facile and shallow to draw any simplistic moral from a story as magnificent as "Hamnet" never mind a moral related to the futility of New Year's resolutions. Never-theless, wouldn't it make more sense to skip the self-improvement resolutions this year and look instead for great works of art to surrender to? To let our hearts keep breaking as the fleeting world makes us just a little more human?

Because the rest, as Shakespeare knew, silence.

Planted, cooked, baked, or found in the woods*

from Things that Disappear by Jenny Erpenbeck

(from chapter 5: Miezel )

Back when I was her neighbor, she would always carry something in her hands when she came to visit me -- a head of lettuce, or two or three apples, or some mushrooms, or a plate of cakes. "A few Buchteln," she'd say, Austrian sweet rolls. The things she brought were things she'd planted, cooked, baked, or found in the woods herself. Later, when she couldn't go into the woods or work in the garden anymore, or even cook or bake, she made me open-faced sandwiches. White bread with cheese or salami, with slices of egg or halved sour pickles on top.  She arranged the slices of egg on the bread with her bony hands, and if I didn't manage to eat it all, I had to take the rest home with me wrapped in aluminum foil -- for this evening, for tomorrow -- along with a package of cookies for my child.