Download or read book The Fragile Wisdom written by Grazyna Jasienska and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-14 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women’s physiology evolved to aid reproduction, not to reduce disease. Any trait—however detrimental to post-reproductive health—is preserved in the next generation if it increases the chances of having offspring who will survive and reproduce. For this reason, the author argues, many common diseases are especially difficult for women to prevent.
Download or read book The Fragile Wisdom written by Grazyna Jasienska and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-14 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: So many women who do everything right to stay healthy still wind up with breast cancer, heart disease, or osteoporosis. In The Fragile Wisdom, Grazyna Jasienska provides an evolutionary perspective on the puzzle of why disease prevention among women is so frustratingly difficult. Modern women, she shows, are the unlucky victims of their own bodies’ conflict of interest between reproductive fitness and life-long health. The crux of the problem is that women’s physiology has evolved to facilitate reproduction, not to reduce disease risk. Any trait—no matter how detrimental to health in the post-reproductive period—is more likely to be preserved in the next generation if it increases the chance of giving birth to offspring who will themselves survive to reproductive age. To take just one example, genes that produce high levels of estrogen are a boon to fertility, even as they raise the risk of breast cancer in mothers and their daughters. Jasienska argues that a mismatch between modern lifestyles and the Stone Age physiology that evolution has bequeathed to every woman exacerbates health problems. She looks at women’s mechanisms for coping with genetic inheritance and at the impact of environment on health. Warning against the false hope gene therapy inspires, Jasienska makes a compelling case that our only avenue to a healthy life is prevention programs informed by evolutionary understanding and custom-fitted to each woman’s developmental and reproductive history.
Download or read book The Nature of Fragile Things written by Susan Meissner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco just before daybreak, igniting a devouring inferno. Lives are lost, lives are shattered, but some rise from the ashes forever changed. Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right. Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved. The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear. From the acclaimed author of The Last Year of the War and As Bright as Heaven comes a gripping novel about the bonds of friendship and mother love, and the power of female solidarity.
Download or read book Protecting Wisdom written by Kathryn Selig Brown and published by Prestel Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This elegant volume is the first published study of the finely carved wooden covers designed to protect fragile Tibetan Buddhist texts. From the 11th through 14th centuries, Tibetan monks worked tirelessly to transcribe the life and teachings of the Buddha onto paper. Highly skilled craftsmen then covered these pages with wooden boards that had been elaborately and painstakingly carved, gilded, and painted. The MacLean Collection, based in Chicago, has significant holdings of these extremely rare and ornately decorated objects. The first and most comprehensive study of its kind in English, this lavishly produced, oversize volume features numerous illustrations of magnificent book covers from Tibet as well as several examples from other cultures. The volume tells the fascinating history of these objects, examines the materials from which they were carved, and traces stylistic influences from Kashmir, India, Nepal, and China. AUTHOR: Kathryn H. Selig Brown is a former curator at the Rubin Museum of Art, New York. She is the author of Eternal Presence: Handprints and Footprints in Buddhist Art and a former Luce Fellow at the Asia Society. 195 colour illustrations
Download or read book A Fragile Life written by Todd May and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-03 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is perhaps our noblest cause, and certainly one of our oldest: to end suffering. Think of the Buddha, Chuang Tzu, or Marcus Aurelius: stoically composed figures impervious to the torments of the wider world, living their lives in complete serenity—and teaching us how to do the same. After all, isn’t a life free from suffering the ideal? Isn’t it what so many of us seek? Absolutely not, argues Todd May in this provocative but compassionate book. In a moving examination of life and the trials that beset it, he shows that our fragility, our ability to suffer, is actually one of the most important aspects of our humanity. May starts with a simple but hard truth: suffering is inevitable. At the most basic level, we suffer physically—a sprained ankle or a bad back. But we also suffer insults and indifference. We suffer from overburdened schedules and unforeseen circumstances, from moral dilemmas and emotional heartaches. Even just thinking about our own mortality—the fact that we only live one life—can lead us to tremendous suffering. No wonder philosophies such as Buddhism, Taosim, Stoicism, and even Epicureanism—all of which counsel us to rise above these plights—have had appeal over the centuries. May highlights the tremendous value of these philosophies and the ways they can guide us toward better lives, but he also exposes a major drawback to their tenets: such invulnerability is too emotionally disengaged from the world, leading us to place too great a distance between ourselves and our experience. Rather than seeking absolute immunity, he argues most of us just want to hurt less and learn how to embrace and accept what suffering we do endure in a meaningful way. Offering a guide on how to positively engage suffering, May ultimately lays out a new way of thinking about how we exist in the world, one that reassures us that our suffering, rather than a failure of physical or psychological resilience, is a powerful and essential part of life itself.
Download or read book What Really Matters written by Tony Schwartz and published by Bantam. This book was released on 1996-03-01 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the height of his career as a journalist, Tony Schwartz hit an unexpected wall. Why did success suddenly feel so empty? How could he add richer meaning to his everyday life? What guides could he trust on the road to wisdom? During the next five years his search for answers took him from a meditation retreat in the mountains of Utah to a biofeedback laboratory in Kansas, from a peak-performance workshop at a tennis academy in Florida to a right-brain drawing course in Boston. Blending the hunger of a seeker with a journalist's hard-headed inquiry, he discovered the best teachers and techniques for inner development--and identified the potential pitfalls and false gurus he met along the way. What he found dramatically changed his life. It may change yours as well.
Download or read book A Fragile Hope written by Cynthia Ruchti and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Josiah Chamberlain's life's work revolves around repairing other people's marriages. When his own is threatened by his wife's unexplained distance, and then threatened further when she's unexpectedly plunged into an unending fog, Josiah finds his expertise, quick wit and clever quips are no match for a relationship that is clearly broken. Feeling betrayed, confused, and ill-equipped for a crisis this crippling, he reexamines everything he knows about the fragility of hope and the strength of his faith and love. Love seems to have failed him. Will what’s left of his faith fail him, too? Or will it be the one thing that holds him together and sears through the impenetrable wall that separates them?
Download or read book Fragile written by Lisa Unger and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thrilling novel from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger about the hunt for a missing girl and one community’s intricate yet fragile bonds. “[A] nail-biting nuanced whodunit.”—People Everybody knows everybody in The Hollows, a quaint, charming town outside of New York City. It’s a place where neighbors keep an eye on one another’s kids, where people say hello in the grocery store, and where high school cliques and antics are never quite forgotten. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows’s insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients’ lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie’s intuitive gift proves useful to the case—and also dangerous. Eerie parallels soon emerge between Charlene’s disappearance and the abduction of another local girl that shook the community years ago when Maggie was a teenager. The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely. Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn. In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father. As she tries to reassure him that Rick embodies his father in all of the important ways, Maggie realizes this might be exactly what Jones fears most. Determined to uncover the truth, Maggie pursues her own leads into Charlene’s disappearance and exposes a long-buried town secret—one that could destroy everything she holds dear.
Download or read book Fragile X Fragile Hope written by Elizabeth Griffin and published by YWAM Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by a mother whose son has fragile X syndrome and autism this book is about her reaction and coping strategies in relating to her son. She openly discusses working through her grief, anger and fears that her son's diagnosis brought and reinforces that it is possible to survive and find joy in parenting a special needs child.
Download or read book Fragile Power written by Paul L. Hokemeyer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Impacted by narcissism? You’re not alone. Celebrity culture drives us to aspire to be like the few who seem to have it all. But is it possible they simultaneously have everything- and nothing? Behind the glitz, wealth and fame of the celebrities we follow, there is a common trend that impacts all of us. The popular label of “narcissism,” and “narcissist” surfaces in all of our lives and results in self-destructive behaviors common to modern life, including stress, addiction, anxiety, fear, imposter syndrome, infidelity, and depression. Having treated some of the world’s most successful, wealthiest people and celebrities, Dr. Paul Hokemeyer applies his findings to tell us why so many people get trapped in narcissistic relationship cycles and shows how we can diminish their impact on ourselves and the people we love. Dr. Paul Hokemeyer (J.D., PH.D.) is the founder of Drayson Mews, a global resource for UHNW individuals, couples and families seeking clinically effective mental and relational health services, a licensed marriage and family therapist and graduate of the Global Leaders in Healthcare program at Harvard Medical School. In his book, Fragile Power, Dr. Paul shares from the therapist’s chair how feelings of shame, insecurity, abandonment, and emotional pain are all part of the human condition and how all of us, regardless of our levels of wealth, can heal ourselves, our relationships and the world we are privileged to live in.
Download or read book Finding the Mother Tree written by Suzanne Simard and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the world's leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and to other living things in the forest—a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide. In this, her first book, now available in paperback, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths--that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own. Simard writes--in inspiring, illuminating, and accessible ways—how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies--and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them. And Simard writes of her own life, born and raised into a logging world in the rainforests of British Columbia, of her days as a child spent cataloging the trees from the forest and how she came to love and respect them. And as she writes of her scientific quest, she writes of her own journey, making us understand how deeply human scientific inquiry exists beyond data and technology, that it is about understanding who we are and our place in the world.
Download or read book The Greek Search for Wisdom written by Michael K. Kellogg and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead once said that all of Western philosophy was "but a series of footnotes to Plato." By the same token, one could argue that all of Western civilization is but an extension of the ancient Greek cultural legacy. The Greeks invented tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, history, philosophy, and democracy. They also made remarkable advances in science, medicine, and mathematics. In the author’s view, what ties this wide-ranging intellectual ferment together is a restless search for wisdom. The author looks at ten outstanding examples of Greek wisdom, offering fresh and engaging portraits of the epic poets (Homer, Hesiod); dramatists (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes); historians (Herodotus, Thucydides); and philosophers (Plato, Aristotle) against the background of Greek history. In each case he asks what the author has to tell us— regardless of genre—about our place in the world and how we should live our lives. By surveying some of the highest peaks of ancient civilization, the author argues that we gain perspective on the historical terrain that lies below. This book presents an eloquent and convincing case that a study of the Greek classics, as Gustave Flaubert explained, makes us "greater, wiser, purer."
Download or read book Fragile Finitude written by Michael Fishbane and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world we engage with is a vibrant collage brought to consciousness by language and our creative imagination. It is through the symbolic forms of language that the human world of value is revealed—this is where religious scholar Michael Fishbane dwells in his latest contribution to Jewish thought. In Fragile Finitude, Fishbane clears new ground for a theological life through a novel reinterpretation of the Book of Job. On this basis, he offers a contemporary engagement with the four classical types of Jewish Scriptural exegesis. The first focuses on worldly experience, the second on communal forms of practice and thought in the rabbinical tradition, the third on personal development, and the fourth on transcendent, cosmic orientations. Through these four modes, Fishbane manages to transform Jewish theology from within, at once reinvigorating a long tradition and moving beyond it. What he offers is nothing short of a way to reorient our lives in relation to the divine and our fellow humans. Written from within the Jewish tradition, Fragile Finitude is intended for readers across the religious spectrum.
Download or read book Fragile Resurrection written by Ashley E. Theuring and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do we practice hope after trauma? What shape does hope take after abuse? In grappling with these questions, Ashley E. Theuring implicates the entire church and advocates changing our theologies of hope and our understanding of resurrection. Reimagining the Empty Tomb narrative from the Gospel of Mark in light of the experiences of domestic violence survivors, Fragile Resurrection reveals the possibility for everyday practices and relationships to mediate hope and resurrection. Theuring constructs an embodied imaginative hope found in the wake of trauma, which can speak to our current context of trauma and uncertainty.
Download or read book The Wisdom Of Finance written by Mihir Desai and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-05-23 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Entertaining and informative. Desai takes us on a journey through the fundamentals of finance, from asset pricing to risk and risk management, via options, mergers, debt, and bankruptcy."- John Lanchester, The New Yorker "A fascinating new perspective on modern finance," --Oliver Hart, 2016 Nobel Laureate in Economics "Lucid, witty and delightfully erudite...From the French revolution to film noir, from the history of probability to Jane Austen and The Simpsons, this is an astonishing intellectual feast." --Sebastian Mallaby, author of The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan Longlisted for 2017 Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year A 2017 AMAZON PICK IN BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP A WealthManagement.com BEST BUSINESS BOOK OF 2017 In 1688, essayist Josef de la Vega described finance as both “the fairest and most deceitful business . . . the noblest and the most infamous in the world, the finest and most vulgar on earth.” The characterization of finance as deceitful, infamous, and vulgar still rings true today – particularly in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But, what happened to the fairest, noblest, and finest profession that de la Vega saw? De la Vega hit on an essential truth that has been forgotten: finance can be just as principled, life-affirming, and worthy as it can be fraught with questionable practices. Today, finance is shrouded in mystery for outsiders, while many insiders are uneasy with the disrepute of their profession. How can finance become more accessible and also recover its nobility? Harvard Business School professor Mihir Desai, in his “last lecture” to the graduating Harvard MBA class of 2015, took up the cause of restoring humanity to finance. With incisive wit and irony, his lecture drew upon a rich knowledge of literature, film, history, and philosophy to explain the inner workings of finance in a manner that has never been seen before. This book captures Desai’s lucid exploration of the ideas of finance as seen through the unusual prism of the humanities. Through this novel, creative approach, Desai shows that outsiders can access the underlying ideas easily and insiders can reacquaint themselves with the core humanity of their profession. The mix of finance and the humanities creates unusual pairings: Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope are guides to risk management; Jeff Koons becomes an advocate of leverage; and Mel Brooks’s The Producers teaches us about fiduciary responsibility. In Desai’s vision, the principles of finance also provide answers to critical questions in our lives. Among many surprising parallels, bankruptcy teaches us how to react to failure, the lessons of mergers apply to marriages, and the Capital Asset Pricing Model demonstrates the true value of relationships. THE WISDOM OF FINANCE is a wholly unique book, offering a refreshing new perspective on one of the world’s most complex and misunderstood professions.
Download or read book The Four Things That Matter Most 10th Anniversary Edition written by Ira Byock and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2004-03-08 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This beautiful book, full of wisdom and warmth, teaches us how to protect and preserve our most valuable possessions—the relationships with those we love. It shows that the things that matter definitely aren’t ‘things,’ and how to empower your life in the right direction.” —Dr. Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Four simple phrases—“Please forgive me,” “I forgive you,” “Thank you,” and “I love you”—carry enormous power to mend and nurture our relationships and inner lives. These four phrases and the sentiments they convey provide a path to emotional wellbeing, guiding us through interpersonal difficulties to life with integrity and grace. Newly updated with stories from people who have turned to this life-altering book in their time of need, this motivational teaching about what really matters reminds us how we can honor each relationship every day. Dr. Ira Byock, an international leader in palliative care, explains how we can practice these life-affirming words in our day-to-day lives. Too often we assume that the people we love really know that we love them. Dr. Byock demonstrates the value of “stating the obvious” and provides practical insights into the benefits of letting go of old grudges and toxic emotions. His stories help us to forgive, appreciate, love, and celebrate one another and live life more fully. Using the Four Things in a wide range of life situations, we can experience emotional healing even in the wake of family strife, personal tragedy, divorce, or in the face of death. With practical wisdom and spiritual power, The Four Things That Matter Most gives us the language and guidance to honor and experience what really matters most in our lives every day.
Download or read book The Fragile Face of God written by LeeAnn Taylor and published by . This book was released on 2013-06-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this heart-rending true account, LeeAnn Taylor opens with an urgent prayer for death. With unrelenting honesty, she describes her harrowing battles raising three children with Fragile X syndrome and autism, the frightening episodes with her disabled sons, and the anguish of mothering these fragile children. When her ordeal escalates, she turns to death as her only escape. LeeAnn's story takes the reader deep into the heart of the human spirit. It is the luminous account of one woman's tragic descent into the darkness, and, ultimately, her triumphant emergence into the light of redeeming love. Chronicled by her own journal entries, The Fragile Face of God is a celebration of humanity-both the fragile and the sublime-and an intimate view into what makes our journey here one of purpose and eternal significance. Can our darkest hour give rise to miracles? Can departed loved ones intervene on our behalf? And can the most fragile among us light the way?