Mindful Matter
Five Things We Learned About Living Fully and Mindfully in 2017
Jennifer Lioy, Creative and Community Lead at Holstee
Learn moreThe present informs the past.
I was recently listening to some of the mind-bending lectures from the philosopher Alan Watts’ audiobook for “Out Of Your Mind”. At one point, Watts discussed how the present informs the past — the idea that the past is constantly changing with every passing moment. “We must abandon completely the notion of blaming the past for any kind of situation we’re in and reverse our thinking and see that the past always flows back from the present. That now is the creative point of life. So you see, it’s like the idea of forgiving somebody. You change the meaning of the past by doing that … Also, watch the flow of music. The melody as it’s expressed is changed by notes that come later. Just as the meaning of a sentence … you wait till later to find out what the sentence means … The present is always changing the past.” I like to think of myself as open-minded, but I listened to these ideas with some skepticism. Time, as I have experienced, is linear and only progresses. There is no rewind button, there is no changing the past. But the more I let the idea and Watts’ examples sit with me, the more I came to appreciate the truth in them. Watts’ example of a melody resonated most. Every additional note changes the melody of the tune. So while the previous notes don’t actually change, the notes that follow change the tune. In that way, it’s a different tune than the tune in the past. And in that way, the past — or at least how we hear, see and understand it — has changed. Some (chewy) food for thought as we near the end of the year and you take time to reflect on it. Love, Dave RadparvarCo-Founder, Holstee P.S. This year we made our annual Reflection Guide available as a printed journal, as well as a printable PDF and Google Doc template.
Learn more
What does it mean to “live mindfully”?
At Holstee, our mission through our monthly Membership is to encourage people to “live mindfully”. It’s a big goal, but it can also seem like a vague one. In the spirit of reflection, we want to take a moment and consider what mindful living means to us. As a concept, mindfulness has become quite popular in recent years. And as it’s grown in popularity, its definition has become blurry. In talking with our friends and family, we found that “mindful living” means something different to everyone. There were a few common threads, though, and these have contributed to our definition. For us, living mindfully is about five things: presence, awareness, appreciation, reflection, and action. It is about taking moments throughout the day to be fully present with our environment and everything within it. It is about being aware of our individual impact and acknowledging the ripples of each step we take. It is about appreciating what is around us, including the wondrous and serendipitous moments that brought us into the world. Mindfulness is about reflection. It’s about appreciating how the past informs the future. It’s thinking about what we hope to get from our brief lives on earth and what we hope to give back to the forces that brought us here. Finally, it is about action: the steps we take to be present, to internalize our awareness, to voice our appreciation, and to embrace our reflections. Actions are the manifestations of our intentions. We cannot always choose what the world brings to us, but we can always choose how we act in response to it. Mindfully yours, Mike and Dave Mike and Dave RadparvarCo-Founders, Holstee
Learn more
Neurons that fire together, wire together.
A short read on how repetition shapes you — and what to do with it. "Neurons that fire together, wire together" is a phrase from neuropsychologist Donald Hebb. It means that repeated thoughts and actions strengthen the neural pathways that produce them, making those patterns easier and more automatic over time. Repetition is the wiring. What does "neurons that fire together, wire together" mean? It means your brain wires itself through repetition. Each time two neurons activate together, the connection between them strengthens slightly. Repeat the pattern enough times and the brain treats it as the default — the next time the trigger appears, the same neurons fire together more readily. The phrase is a plain-English shorthand for what neuroscientists call Hebbian learning. The everyday version: whatever you do often, you get better at — including things you didn't mean to practice. Worry, harsh self-talk, and rumination wire together the same way gratitude, attention, and care do. The brain doesn't grade the pattern; it just reinforces what gets repeated. Where the phrase comes from: Donald Hebb and Hebbian learning "Neurons that fire together, wire together." — Donald Hebb Neuropsychologist Donald Hebb first proposed the underlying idea in his 1949 book The Organization of Behavior. Hebb was trying to explain how learning could happen at the cellular level — not as a vague metaphor, but as a physical change in the brain. His proposal, now called Hebb's postulate, was that when one neuron repeatedly helps fire another, the connection between them physically strengthens. Cells that activate together start to bind together. The catchy four-word version of the postulate — "neurons that fire together, wire together" — was actually coined later, by neuroscientist Carla Shatz in 1992. It's the formulation that stuck because it captures Hebb's whole idea in a sentence a non-specialist can remember. Both phrasings now appear in the literature; in popular use, Hebb gets the credit because the underlying theory is his. The phrase people sometimes mix up If you've seen it as "wire together, fire together" or "cells that fire together, wire together," you're not misremembering — both variants circulate. Wire together, fire together is the inverted form (sometimes used to describe the consequence rather than the mechanism). Cells that fire together, wire together is closer to Hebb's original cellular framing. The standard version is "neurons that fire together, wire together," and that's the one to search if you're chasing a citation. Hebbian theory and modern neuroplasticity Hebb's postulate was a precursor to the broader story we now call neuroplasticity: the brain's lifelong capacity to change its structure and function in response to experience. For decades after Hebb, the dominant view was that the adult brain was largely fixed. Research from the late 1990s onward — on stroke recovery, learning new skills in adulthood, mindfulness practice, even London cab drivers' enlarged hippocampi — kept showing that the brain stays plastic. The mechanism Hebb proposed turned out to be one of several that drive that plasticity. Repeated co-activation strengthens connections (long-term potentiation); disuse weakens them (long-term depression). The picture isn't quite as clean as four words make it sound, but the four-word version captures the practical truth: your brain becomes what it practices. Why it matters for daily life: how repetition shapes you This is why the practice of gratitude — the regular journaling and the habitual moments of reflection — can be so powerful. It creates and strengthens pathways in the brain for acknowledging what you have to be grateful for. The more you do it, the more ingrained it becomes, and the easier it gets for the brain to find gratitude on its own. A small repeated input compounds into a default state. The same logic runs the other way for less helpful patterns. If your default is to scan for what's wrong, what's missing, or what someone else has — what psychologists call social comparison — that's also wiring. The path to changing it isn't to "try harder to think positively" — it's to give the brain something specific to repeat, on a small enough scale that you can actually do it daily. A simple practice: noticing the wires you're laying One small daily practice is enough to start shifting which neurons fire together. The format matters less than the consistency. One sentence, every morning or evening. Name a single specific thing you're grateful for. Specific beats abstract — "the way the kitchen light hit the counter this morning" wires more than "my health." Pair it with an existing routine. Brushing teeth, first sip of coffee, walking to the subway. The existing habit is the trigger; the new pattern attaches to it. Use a prompt when you're stuck. "Who made my life easier today?" "What surprised me?" "What did I almost miss?" Prompts cut the friction of staring at a blank page. Our Reflection Cards exist for exactly this — a deck of prompts you draw from when you need a starting point. Keep it small. Five minutes daily beats an hour weekly. Repetition is the wiring; intensity isn't. If you want a deeper read on why willpower-based approaches to changing patterns often backfire — and what to do instead — this piece on habits covers it. The Stoics had a version of the same idea two millennia before Hebb did; our Stoicism 101 primer goes into the practice side of that, and our piece on per aspera ad astra sits right alongside it — the Stoic idea that we grow through hardship, not around it. So get those neurons firing! You'll be grateful you did 😉. Dave RadparvarCo-Founder, Holstee P.S. If you want a starting point for your own daily noticing practice, our Reflection Cards are designed to be exactly that — a small repeated input you can pull from each day. And if you're looking for a community to keep the practice going, our membership is built around shared reflection. P.P.S. If this is the kind of idea you find yourself thinking about, Enjoying the Little Things is a natural next read — it's the practice side of the same wiring.
Learn moreSunrises and surprises.
“An individual dies when he ceases to be surprised. I am surprised every morning that I see the sunshine again.” - Heschel Abraham Joshua Heschel was a philosopher, activist and rabbi who was unafraid to challenge norms (even those within his faith). He wastes no words making this point about gratitude. In fairness, I can’t say I am surprised each time the sun rises. However, this quote got me thinking about the little things in life that I barely notice — but which make my life enjoyable and even possible. Electricity is available to light up my home. Clean drinking water allows me to quench my thirst. Most remarkably, I have a body that just knows how to breathe in oxygen. I don’t even need to do anything for that one. Each of these gifts allows my life to continue, day after day. And each of them I usually take for granted, if I’m being completely honest. Applying Heschel’s mindset means allowing myself to imagine, if just for a moment, that I don’t have electricity or clean water running through my home. It makes me think about what would happen if the breath I am about to take was never actually promised. The appreciation I experience might equal Heschel’s surprise at seeing the sunrise again. Or, building off his words, it’s this appreciation that allows me to truly live. Mike RadparvarCo-Founder, Holstee P.S. You can learn more about the fascinating life of Heschel in this On Being conversation. You can also continue exploring the theme of Gratitude with us here.
Learn moreEmotional incompatibility.
“Hatred cannot co-exist with loving-kindness and dissipates if supplanted with thoughts based on loving-kindness.” - Buddha Not only is this a powerful thought, but it’s also backed by science. Dr. Robert Emmons, a professor of psychology, has dedicated much of his career to researching the science of Gratitude. Emmons builds on this sentiment by saying: “You cannot be grateful and resentful at the same time, or forgiving and vengeful. When we are savoring the moment, we cannot be regretting the past.” His point here refers to a phenomenon known as “emotional incompatibility”, which suggests that we are not able to experience opposing emotions in the same moment. I like to think of it this way: when you have a heart full of gratitude, it can be a forcefield against negativity. How does this theory hold up in the laboratory of your own mind? Mike RadparvarCo-Founder, Holstee P.S. Emmons is just one of the great minds whose work inspired our Gratitude Guide. We link to his original works as well as those of other thinkers like Melanie Greenberg Ph.D. and Brother David Steindl-Rast in our Curated Resources on Gratitude.
Learn more
