Gathering of the vibes
Helping Friendly Newsletter, 04.28.23
Every other Friday, I share 5 things to consider and a treasure chest of links. If you like them, please subscribe (it’s free).
GM!1 ☕️
Here are this fortnight’s 5 things to consider:
It’s been deadline city over here. Naturally, I made it a priority to rewatch Tim Urban’s relatable (and funny) TED talk, Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator. 😉 No shade to Urban’s instant gratification monkey, but here is what’s really going on when we wait until the last minute.
For perspective, I’ve been making a point to get outside and listen to what Jeff Chu calls ”the testimony of the trees”:
As I sat there in the presence of trees that have borne witness to so much change and so many eons, I felt a gentle but insistent rebuke: Patience, they said. Patience…[I]n the rustle of their leaves and in the abundance of life amidst their branches, I also felt a call to comfort—comfort in the resilience of life, comfort in the endurance of beauty, comfort in the knowledge that change is a reality that, yes, can happen quickly but that can also take a lot of time. —Jeff Chu
Ezra Klein’s 2021 interview with science writer Annie Murphy Paul on the extended mind is fascinating.2 She teaches that the mind is not a computer, a muscle, or a workhorse. Rather, it functions more like a magpie, collecting odds and ends for its nest, or an orchestra conductor, making music from many instruments. Our minds gather input not only from the objects of our direct focus, but also from our bodies, environments, and relationships. Because of this, a grinding focus on work limits what we can accomplish. Klein calls this the “productivity paradox”:
What so often feels and looks like productivity and efficiency to us are often the very activities and habits that stunt our thinking. And many of the habits and activities that look like leisure, sometimes even look like play, like if you’ve taken a walk in the middle of the day or a nap, those end up unlocking our thinking. If the question is, how can we be the most creative or come up with the most profound productive insights, you need to do that stuff. —Ezra Klein
I did a research dive on remote work culture for a client this month. Here are tiny reviews for a few of the books I found helpful:
The steady ease of this poem sends me:3
Happy National Poetry Month!
Bonus book love:
I love the movement to reimagine bookstores as civic centers. We can all join in tomorrow, for Independent Bookstore Day. C’ville readers, New Dominion has some fun stuff planned. Wherever you are, purchases at Bookshop.org and Libro.fm will support your local bookstore.
Treasure chest
I bet you find a gem ➔ how to parent in a climate crisis | what’s your listening style? | a 2-minute burnout checkup | 8 secrets to a (fairly) fulfilled life | reality check | the notebook snob meets the humble composition book | photo essay: life on the Faroes | the short order cooks of Las Vegas | how to solve your rat problem like a New Yorker | oh i love this guy and his squirrels | ✨ it’s in the stars ✨👇🏼
Have a great weekend! I’ll see you again soon.
Jenny
P.S. This newsletter is a labor of love. To support it, please share this post, venmo me a coffee, or engage my services. You can learn more about my work at jenniferlphillips.com. Thank you!
This weeks’ title and my weekly check-in are a tip of the hat to onetime northeast music festival, Gathering of the Vibes (1996-2015, RIP).
Via Austin Kleon.
Via Fanny Priest.