Set your gearshift
Helping Friendly Newsletter, 07.02.21
GM! ☕️
Here’s what you’ll find in today’s email:
Set your gearshift
The cult of busyness
Welcome to the internet
Tiny book reviews
Fun fact
1. Set your gearshift
These lyrics capture something about my current state of mind. I am itching to rush back into life.👇🏼
Set the gearshift
for the high gear of your soul.
You’ve gotta run
like an antelope, out of control.—Run Like an Antelope, Phish
And yet. The pandemic taught (reminded?) me that I thrive at a slow pace. I feel fierce about that hard-won awareness. Must we run so fast, or can high gear look more like a slow burn?
I suspect the answer has less to do with speed and more to do with liberation. The idea, then, is to slip the knots that constrain us and move towards the good. If this is true, the antelope’s freedom from control, rather than its pace, is the thing to mimic.
2. The cult of busyness
In “The Cult of Busyness,” Shayla Love explores the ways in which our culture values busyness, how busyness acts as a social signal, and how the pandemic could change things. I feel strongly that, if you want to resist busyness in your life or organization, you will get farther with practices that investigate and challenge these constructs than you will with time management or wellness hacks. There are no shortcuts, but, then again, what’s the hurry?
3. Welcome to the internet
Bo Burnham’s “Welcome to the Internet” is a humorous and haunting take on the totalizing energy of our favorite tool to love and hate. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s worth your five minutes.
4. Tiny book reviews
See my reviews and ratings for these books.
5. Fun fact
The name of this newsletter is another nod to Phish, whose Gamehendge mythology tells the tale of the Lizards and their struggle to reclaim the sacred Helping Friendly Book. It’s a whole thing, and I love it, and now you know a little more about my exact kind of weird.😉
The Helping Friendly Book, it seemed,
possessed the ancient secrets
of eternal joy and never-ending splendor.The trick was to surrender to the flow.
—The Lizards, Phish
Thank you for reading
This newsletter is a labor of love. 💌 If you would like to show your support, you can forward to a friend, venmo me a coffee, or engage my services. If you’re seeing it for the first time, you can access the archive or subscribe here.
Thank you to TB, LKP, JL, TH, JA, and RF for last month’s java! ☕️
Treasure chest
I bet you find a gem ➔ what, to the slave, is the fourth of July? | this master builder’s family has restored temples for 38 generations | how to get buy-in | editors explain the difference between good and great writing | the 21 best comedies of the 21st century (so far)1 | happy 17th to my husband and Phish bestie, Andy Jaspen👇🏼
Have a great long weekend, and enjoy the 4th. I’ll see you again soon.
Jenny
Via Austin Kleon.