Thing-Finder

I am not sure what I make of the overall research as reported in the New York Times (This is Your Life) but the piece-parts are interesting.

Researchers have found that the human brain has a natural affinity for narrative construction. People tend to remember facts more accurately if they encounter them in a story rather than in a list, studies find; and they rate legal arguments as more convincing when built into narrative tales rather than on legal precedent.

and

. . .most people do not begin to see themselves in the midst of a tale with a beginning, middle and eventual end until they are teenagers. "Younger kids see themselves in terms of broad, stable traits: ‘I like baseball but not soccer,' " said Kate McLean, a psychologist at the University of Toronto in Mississauga. "This meaning-making capability — to talk about growth, to explain what something says about who I am — develops across adolescence."

An interesting article in City Journal this past fall by Nicole Gelinas (A Social-Uplift Program that Works) on the power of books and libraries.

There is an interesting debate among economists and policy mavens regarding how to measure standards of living - e.g. from a quality of life perspective, would you rather be in the top 5% of income earners in 1850 or in the top 50% today? I am currently reading Boswell's London Journal 1762-1763 and came across this passage that highlights the practical implications of many of the small things we so take for granted.