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The dinner party question we all dread and ask in equal measure: ‘What do you do?’ It’s a peculiar cultural shorthand that attempts to compress our entire existence into a job title and industry. The way we’ve elevated professional identity to the centrepiece of selfhood comes at a considerable cost, narrowing our understanding of value and connection to something that can be neatly added to LinkedIn.
Simone Stolzoff beautifully captures this over-identification with work in his recent TED talk. You might remember his book The Good Enough Job (featured in DD214), which examines this theme at length. In this condensed pitch for a less work-centric life, he reminds us that “we are all more than just workers. We’re parents and friends and citizens and artists and travellers and neighbours. Much like an investor benefits from diversifying the sources of stocks in their portfolio, we, too, benefit from diversifying the sources of meaning and identity in our lives.”
Stolzoff offers three practical steps to help us ‘diversify’ our identities: creating time sanctuaries where work is forbidden, filling those spaces with activities that reinforce alternative identities, and joining communities that couldn’t care less about our professional achievements. It’s blindingly obvious advice, though it feels almost radical in our achievement-obsessed culture.
“If we want to develop more well-rounded versions of ourselves, if we want to build robust relationships and live in robust communities and have a robust society at large, we all must invest in aspects of our lives beyond work. We shouldn’t just work less because it makes us better workers. We should work less because it makes us better people.”
“This is about teaching our kids that their self-worth is not determined by their job title. This is about reinforcing the fact that not all noble work neatly translates to a line on a resume. This is about setting the example that we all have a responsibility to contribute to the world in a way beyond contributing to one organisation’s bottom line.”
And here’s a bit of dinner party advice that might just salvage our collective sanity: rather than asking ‘What do you do?’, Stolzoff suggests adding two small words: ‘What do you like to do?’
“Maybe you like to cook. Maybe you like to write. Maybe you do some of those things for work. Or maybe you don’t. ‘What do you like to do’ is a question that allows each of us to define ourselves on our own terms.”
In a world obsessed with productivity metrics and career trajectories, perhaps this tiny adjustment to our social script might help us recognise each other not just as economic units, but as the complex, multifaceted beings we truly are.
– Kai
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Apps & Sites
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A global conflict tracker designed to help decision-makers and the public stay informed about ongoing conflicts and crises worldwide. CrisisWatch offers a comprehensive overview of their status and progression, and identifies patterns, trends and insights into potential escalations or resolutions.
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Streamin helps you figure out where to watch specific movies or TV shows. Enter the name and the app will automatically check availability for the country you’re in. Set up alerts to get notified when content becomes available.
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A lovely use of AI: Chance is an iOS app that “uncovers the stories, meaning, and cultural context behind everything you see”. Scan a painting, piece of architecture, landmark or plant and it will dig up more background info but also “curated news, including exhibitions, local events, intriguing book insights, and stories behind images”.
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TasteAtlas is an online platform dedicated to traditional food, local ingredients and authentic restaurants. It’s a guide for food enthusiasts and travellers who want to explore and experience the culinary heritage of different regions around the world. Enter the name of a place and find the restaurants and shops that serve the best local food and drinks.
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Web Wanderlust
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Charming discoveries from the internet’s back alleys that you don’t need but might love.
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Blend live Air Traffic Control with ambient music for perfect focus.
A growing directory of painted fire hydrants from around the US that are processed into colour palettes for free use by artists and designers.
This is your ticket to the world’s first and largest online photo archive of inflight meals.
Live-tracking the 5,601 orbiting satellites launched into space by Starlink.
A (printed) zine that explores the intersection of UX writing and poetry.
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Books & Accessories
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Virtue and violence intertwined
The Goodness Paradox investigates the complex interplay between human violence and virtue. Professor of Biological Anthropology Richard Wrangham argues that while humans possess an inherent capacity for violence, it coexists with a strong inclination towards cooperation and altruism, leading to a paradoxical relationship that defines our morals. “We Homo sapiens can be the nicest of species and also the nastiest. What occurred during human evolution to account for this paradox?”
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Machine gambling in Las Vegas
Cultural anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll explores the intricate relationship between gambling machines and user behaviour, revealing how design exploits psychological vulnerabilities and how the immersive nature of these games creates a form of addiction that reshapes players’ identities and life choices. “The mechanical rhythm of electronic gambling pulls players into a trancelike state they call the ‘machine zone’, in which daily worries, social demands, and even bodily awareness fade away.”
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Overheard on the Socials
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Folks are looking for the radical and revolutionary in the convenient and pleasurable.
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Food for Thought
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Simone Stolzoff offers an alternative to our work-obsessed culture with practical steps to build an identity beyond your job title. “We live in a society that loves to revere people whose jobs and identities neatly align. ... If we want to develop a healthier relationship to work, we can’t just think about work-life balance in terms of how we spend our time. We have to think about how we construct our identity. What we do is part of but not the entirety of who we are.”
”
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US American travel writer and television host Rick Steves reflects on his career as a ‘travel teacher’. There are lots of nice little nuggets about tourism and travelling, like his distinction between ‘escape travel’ and ‘reality travel’: “[With reality travel] I want to go home a little bit different, a little less afraid, a little more thankful, a better citizen of the planet.”
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Liz Plank shares her experience of the devastating LA fires and her sense of collective grief for lost homes and a future worth fighting for. She believes that acknowledging this grief can help foster resilience and a new vision for the future. “I miss my 2015 brain, the one unburdened by the weight of relentless catastrophes, and I miss my 2015 problems, those small, manageable worries that felt so monumental at the time. But more than that, I mourn the 2025 happiness I once allowed myself to envision, a life shimmering with possibility, untouched by the shadow of all we’ve lost. I grieve the future I was so certain would be mine, the life I thought I was building towards.”
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Aesthetically Pleasing
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Joyce Lin is a Houston-based sculptural furniture designer known best for her creative chair designs, such as the Ghostwood Chair, which beautifully blend ecological themes with a scientific approach, encouraging us to rethink our relationship with the natural and artificial worlds.
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The artwork by illustrator, animator and comic book artist Evan Matthew Cohen explores themes of human relationships, connection and the emotional experiences that shape our lives – with a distinct graphic, illustrative style. Prints available in his shop.
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This small residential building in Nakano City, Japan, combines a serene living space with a small baked sweets store. I love the simplicity of the material palette: concrete, timber, metal. Despite offering a pretty compact living area, the space feels expansive and open.
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Font of the week: Brulia is a modern sans-serif font family with pronounced ink traps.
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Notable Numbers
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India now hosts the world’s largest tiger population, despite having the highest human density and just 18% of global tiger habitat, according to a new study. In just over a decade, India has doubled its tiger population to more than 3,600, accounting for 75% of the world’s tigers.
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According to the latest estimates, 99% of livestock in the United States is factory-farmed. Factory farms are defined as ‘concentrated animal feeding operations’ where many animals are held in an intensive feeding operation for more than 45 days.
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Some 6.1 million Chinese couples registered their marriages in 2024, a plunge of 20.5% from the previous year – despite sweeping government efforts to encourage young people to tie the knot and have babies to halt demographic decline.
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Classifieds
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Join 13,000+ readers. Subscribe to The Slowdown newsletter to tune in across the cultural spectrum – from art and architecture to food, travel and beyond.
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The Week in a GIF
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Reply with your favourite GIF and it might get featured here in a future issue.
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