Sunday Paper Edition 013: Raising Our Game In 2022
31 December 2021
What’s Catching Our Attention
To raise our game in 2022, we are reading Johann Hari’s beautifully written and deeply researchedStolen Focus – Why You Can’t Pay Attention. In this essential volume, he makes a compelling argument for how our attention spans have been highjacked by causes such as technological distraction and a culture of stress and chronic sleep deprivation. The result is that on average, people working in an office are only able to spend 3 minutes focused on one task whilst university students manage a mere 65 seconds. Hari has spent the last three years searching high and low to come up with solutions for how we can reclaim our lost attention spans and to become the deep thinkers we are meant to be. The captivating story includes pitstops to a wide range of likely and less likely places such as Silicon Valley, the favelas of Rio and even Graceland. Fans of Stolen Focus are similarly wide-ranging and include Hilary Clinton, Stephen Fry and Naomi Klein.
How We’re Making A Better Move
Since launching the Métier chess set a few months ago, we have been obsessed about honing our strategic and tactical skills on the board. One of the ways we are doing this is by watching Garry Kasparov’s highly addictive Masterclass. Arguably the greatest chess player who ever lived, Kasparov spends over seven hours teaching us how to unleash our creative potential and sharpen our decision-making skills in what he calls the “game of unlimited beauty”. For good measure and historical balance, we have of course also been studying the timeless classic by Kasparov’s main rival, Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess
How We’re Finding Our Way In The Dark
Although the days are starting to grow slightly longer, we are still just a few weeks past the winter solstice and we therefore feel in desperate need of some light therapy. To brighten our mood, we are turning to the genius works of the American contemporary artist James Turrell. We know that some Métier family members are lucky enough to live in cities where his installations are on public display such as Berlin, Oslo or Houston, but if you’re not, we highly recommend the short film You Who Look which can be accessed for free. If you want to go all out for the ultimate and most immersive Turrell experience, make a booking at House of Light, located about three hours north of Tokyo. Here you can not only view but actually stay overnight in a building filled with his installations. Commissioned as a meditation house, Turrell was given a copy of our favourite essay by Junichiro Tanizaki,In Praise of Shadows, as part of the brief. Thus, reminding us that great beauty can be found amidst the darkness as well.
“Light is not so much something that reveals, as it is itself the revelation.”
- JAMES TURRELL
How We’re Upgrading Our System
Given the year we’ve just left behind, January will be the month where we give a boost to our immune system by giving some TLC to our microbiome. The research community is virtually exploding with exciting new science about how the trillions of bacteria living in our gut are responsible for as much as 70% of our immune defence. So, looking after these important ‘houseguests’ should be a top priority for anyone who wants to enhance their health and wellbeing in 2022. Ed Yong’s exquisitely written I Contain Multitudes is a great first step into the mind-blowing world of the microbiome, showing us how it defends us from disease, affects our mood, infiltrates our genome and even sculp our organs. (You can find a great talk by Yong at London’s Royal Institution here.) Dr Megan Rossi, MD PhD and her Gut Health Clinic is another great resource for a more hands-on and fad-free approach to how we should cook, eat and exercise in order to live in harmony with the army of beneficial bacteria we all coexist with. Like any long-term relationship, it requires work.
How We’re Entering The New Year With Style And Function
Lastly, we are pleased to announce that the Perriand City in Marrakesh suede is now back in stock. To us, this is a true hero piece. Virtually weightless, it elegantly yet effortlessly, takes us from day to night. Large enough to hold all our essentials, including a laptop, this will be our office-on-the-go as work and travel commence after the holidays. Like our entire range, it is ingeniously designed with modularity in mind where the inner compartment snaps out and can be transformed to a clutch or crossbody bag when you have less to carry.