Social Health

Human relationships have to be rediscovered and reinvented every day. We have to remember constantly that every kind of meeting with our neighbour is a human action and so it is always evil or good, true or deceitful, a kindness or a sin.

Notes & Highlights for The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg

Brandy Cerne

Friendships grow strong across varying topologies when aided by readily available knobs. The evolution of our friendships often get pigeonholed in the context from which they first emerged. Work friends stay work friends, intellectual friends stay within that realm, emotional support friends stay out of the work realm, etc. Friendships that are mul... See more

Brandy Cerne

Good spaces provide bonding and bridging mechanisms. The field of urban planning first introduced the concept of public spaces that bond or bridge. The former serves to aid similar individuals to meet and reinforce ties. The latter bridges diverse people together to coexist and broaden one another’s perspectives. What seems to be working for us is ... See more

Brandy Cerne

There is the constant struggle to live as an effective giver and receiver of gifts. There are millions of people around us whose lives are defined by generosity and service. Personal being, Mounier continues, is essentially generous. But our society does not teach us how to be an effective giver of gifts. The schools don’t emphasize it. The popular

David Brooks • The Relationalist Manifesto

Brandy Cerne

Hyperconnected 'Kakao Kingdom' - "Everything is hyperconnected on KakaoTalk. It connects people, as well as numerous services affiliated from taxi-hailing to banking."

Maria Carolina Suarez

When things are going well, there’s a process weaving from the bottom to the top. When relationships are forming well, microscopic neural networks weave together in the brain, individual personalities weave together and are made stronger, families weave tight bonds and are made more resilient, neighborhoods become more coherent, towns more vibrant,

David Brooks • The Relationalist Manifesto

Brandy Cerne

The best adult life is lived by making commitments and staying faithful to those commitments: commitments to a vocation, to a family, to a philosophy or faith, to a community. Adult life is about making promises to others, being faithful to those promises. The beautiful life is found in the mutual giving of unconditional gifts.

David Brooks • The Relationalist Manifesto

Brandy Cerne

Being free is, in part, achieved through being connected.

Notes & Highlights for How We Show Up by Mia Birdsong

Brandy Cerne

The relationalist doesn’t walk away from the capitalist meritocracy, the systems of mainstream life. But she balances that worldview with a countervailing ethos that supplements, corrects, and ennobles. She walks in that world, with all its pleasures and achievements, but with a different spirit, a different approach, and different goals. She is co

David Brooks • The Relationalist Manifesto

Brandy Cerne