The Week on the PAHM: 10 October 2026

The Week on the PAHM is a Saturday series: five headlines from the week, each placed on the map. The Present Attention and Happiness Matrix sorts every moment of attention by when it is about, past, present or future, and how it feels about it, liking, disliking or neutral. News is mostly made of the past and the future. This series asks one question of each story: where did it put everyone's attention?

The short version

• A Nobel Prize for switching brain cells on with light: the brain has switches, and the map has one too
• A study of 165,000 workers found that where you work matters less than who you work for
• Americans now expect 3.9 percent inflation next year, the highest expectation since 2023, before any of those prices have arrived
• Australian parents want children off social media, while almost nine in ten of them use it every day
• A Formula One driver starts from the back this weekend and the title talk has already moved into the future

Which of these does your mind visit most? See your mind score - free.

1. A Nobel Prize for a light switch in the brain

On Monday, Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for optogenetics, a method that uses pulses of light to turn particular brain cells on or off (Nature, 5 October). A light-sensitive protein from an alga, placed in a neuron, lets researchers switch that cell in milliseconds while an animal is doing something, and watch what changes.

On the map: Present + Neutral (presence). The science is theirs and the map claims nothing about neurons. But it is a good week to say what the map's switch is. You cannot reach into your own brain with light. You can notice where attention is right now, and that noticing is the only switch the practice uses. Everything in the nine attention states rests on it.

2. Your boss matters more than your desk

A study of nearly 165,000 American employees found that once pay, appreciation and development were taken into account, fully remote workers were no more satisfied than anyone else. A good relationship with the direct manager was linked to higher satisfaction under every arrangement (The Conversation, via Carrier Management, 8 October).

On the map: Future + Likes (anticipation). "I will be fine once I can work from home" is a condition, and the study suggests that meeting it changes less than expected. My book describes this shape in detail: happiness placed in a circumstance that has not arrived yet. The post on I will be happy when covers the same pattern with a different condition in the blank.

3. The inflation that has not happened yet

The New York Fed's September survey found that households now expect prices to rise 3.9 percent over the coming year, the highest one-year expectation since May 2023, and more of them said they were worse off than a year ago (Benzinga, 8 October).

On the map: Future + Dislikes (worry). The survey measures where attention is, not where prices are. Inflation expectations are a thought about the future with dislike attached, held by millions of people at once, and it has real effects, because people act on it. The feeling it produces at the kitchen table is the one described in why do I feel stressed for no reason: the stressor is a forecast.

4. Parents want children off social media, and use it daily themselves

A survey of 726 parents of young children in Western Australia found broad support for a social media ban for under-16s, and that nearly half would delay a smartphone until the same age. Of the parents who use social media, 96 percent use it every day (Gazette, 8 October).

On the map: Present + Likes (holding). This is not hypocrisy. It is the clearest possible statement that the pull is real, from people who feel it daily and do not want their children to. The map calls that pull holding: a pleasant present you keep reaching back into. Why pleasant pulls are the ones nobody trains is the subject of why feeling good is the blind spot.

5. A title written off before the race

George Russell will start this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix from the back of the grid after an engine failure in Bahrain, 84 points behind his team-mate Kimi Antonelli, and has described his title hopes as exceptionally unlikely (Morning Star, 6 October).

On the map: Future + Dislikes (worry), with the race still to come. The points are a fact. "Unlikely" is a thought about Sunday, and the only thing a driver can actually do is the next lap. That is the whole of the practice in how to stay calm: calm is returned to, lap by lap, not held for a season.

One practice for the week

What this does not do

This post uses the Present Attention and Happiness Matrix, the author's own model from The Return of Attention. It describes experience, not a diagnosis. How the matrix works.

It does not judge the news or the people in it. The stories are theirs; the map only says where they put attention.

It is not advice. Inflation, work and children's phones all need practical decisions, and the map does not make them for you. If worry about money or work has become constant, or comes with low mood that has lasted two weeks or more, please talk to a doctor or a crisis line.

Common questions

What is the Week on the PAHM? A Saturday post that takes five headlines from the week and places each on the Present Attention and Happiness Matrix: when the story put attention, and how it felt about it.

Why look at the news this way? Because news is where attention goes for most of the day, and most of it sits in the past or the future. Seeing that is the first step the book asks for.

Where do the headlines come from? From the week's reporting, linked in each item. The summary is ours; the reporting belongs to the sources.