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Operation: Human,
 the only science-backed weekly newsletter dedicated to developing your human intelligence in the age of AI.

Issue 40: On Finding Peace of Mind in Mrs. Dalloway and Joan of Arc 

 
01.
Intuition
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The Wash, 1950s, Clementine Hunter
 
What detail surprises you in this painting?
 
Speaker, author, and creativity enthusiast Cristy Burne noticed that “garments for just one adult and one child hang on the line.”
 
What story can you imagine around those clothes? 
 
Who makes up the adult/child duo and what is their life together like? 
 
Who are the three in the foreground if there are only two sets of clothes?
 
Why do we do this exercise?
It sharpens your intuition, which is your brain's ability to focus on spotting exceptions to the system, rather than pattern recognition.
 
Developing this skill enables you to identify emerging possibilities faster than others do.
 
First name / Reader, , would you like to be featured in an upcoming issue? 
 
 

 
02.
Emotion
Certain works of art give you peace of mind. Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway is one.
 
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Mrs. Dalloway features a narrative technique— stream of consciousness— and doubles down on it, spreading the technique from character to character to create multiple running streams of thought.
 
All those flowing voices run alongside one another, each distinct and sure, activating a sense of psychological freedom in your mind.  You feel your nerves calm just as they would beside a babbling brook. 
 
I can't recreate the experience of many voices here, but we can plunge into Clarissa's perspective:
 
 “How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen….”— Virginia Woolf, Mrs . Dalloway
 
Why do we do this exercise? 
So you get better at identifying what you feel and why. 
 
So we have a reference library of literary works to help you alleviate hard feelings when they hit and to flourish by building up stores of positive emotions. 
You can learn more about the narrative technique that gives you peace of mind in chapter 17 of Wonderworks.
 

 
03.
Commonsense
How to Earn Sainthood
 
Imagine that you’re born into a peaceful farming village in a time of war.
 
You work alongside your parents, spinning wool and tending to the fields. Your mother teaches you about God and shares the stories of your faith.
 
Life is peaceful. Until the war arrives in your village. 
 
You're 13 when it happens: a nighttime raid leaves cattle lying dead in their stalls and flattens homes and fields. 
 
Do you: 
 
 
 
If you chose option B, you have the kind of commonsense that could make you the Patron Saint of France.
 
Commonsense is matching the newness of your plan to the newness of the situation.
 
Joan of Arc had her first vision after the raid that nearly destroyed her village.
 
Joan's response to both events was pure common sense— whether her own or (as she believed) from God. Her village was at war and saints and angels were appearing in her backyard. It was time to take equally dramatic action.
 
Joan would later testify that this vision was the first of many in which virgin saints encouraged her to pledge her body to Christ.
 
She did so, and made sure those around her knew. Joan even fought a public legal battle against a man who claimed she broke her promise to marry him.
 
Pledging her virginity gave Joan an edge when it came to her battle plans. A prophecy, familiar to her countrymen, foretold of an armed virgin that would one day save France from its enemies.  
 
Joan heavily implied that she was that virgin. It took several attempts, but she was finally able, at age 17, to convince a nearby garrison commander to give her an audience with the Dauphin.
 
Joan told Charles VII that she had come to raise the siege of Orléans and to lead him to Reims for his coronation. Joan's determination and the possibility that she brought with her divine intervention eventually won the Dauphin over.
 
Invoking God's will to rally her men, Joan led France to a decisive victory against the English at Orléans. She then made good on her promise to accompany George VII to his coronation as King off France.
 
Caught and executed by the English and their French collaborators as a heretic at age 19, Jeanne D'Arc is honored as the patron saint and savior of France. 
 
Why do we do this exercise? 
The more you familiarize with real-world, commonsense decisions of the past, the more you improve your own ability to calibrate your response to the challenge at hand. 
 

 
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As always, thank you for reading,
Sarah & Angus
 
 
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