Writer, artist, filmmaker, columnist for Outside Magazine. My newsletter about creativity, adventure, and enthusiasm goes out to 15,000+ subscribers every week.
Friday Inspiration 497
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I was talking to a friend the other day about writers who can create great writing out of the smallest events. I was thinking of Bill Bryson, in one of my favorite passages he wrote, where he’s on a road trip, staying in a hotel in a small town in South Dakota (I think?) and he makes this incredibly funny essay about all the restaurants in town being closed, as well as the hotel dining room being closed for some private event, and he ends up just buying a bunch of candy bars from a vending machine and eating them on the hotel bed. And then yesterday I read this essay on Substack, about a barista writing someone's name on a coffee cup, and the reaction the writer had, and it’s the same exact skill. So, my hat is off to Michelle? for this one. (Also, this video was mentioned in the comments, and I somehow had never seen it before.)
My friend Ed sent me this short blog from Seth Godin, Scarcity and Abundance, and it partly captures something I have been thinking about often, which is a mindset of scarcity vs. a mindset of abundance, and how much more I gravitate toward other people who believe they can “win” without other people having to “lose”—and of course, vice versa, how I’d rather just avoid people who think the only way they can be happy is if they somehow “beat” other people. And how we should all think about that sort of thing more (especially when driving automobiles?).
I am starting to make a packing list for a bigger adventure I’ll mention here in a few weeks (and in my next update for Patreon supporters), but I am psyched to be going somewhere I hope to have to pack a layer or two, including this 4.4-ounce wind jacket from newsletter sponsor Janji that I have scarcely worn all summer but am excited to potentially pull out of my vest when a cool mountain breeze picks up, fingers crossed. (Here’s a link the women’s fit version)
A while back, I started looking more and more to Reddit for interesting things to include in this newsletter, and I am not sure why I like it so much more than social media—maybe it feels more likely that I’m goign to find weird stuff, instead of things the algorithm(s) decide are successful? Anyway, it seems like every few weeks I find a new subreddit that I think is hilarious, and I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve encountered the WhyWomenLiveLonger subreddit, which appears to be mostly comprised of videos of men doing dumb things (which seem like they must quite often end in personal injury), but also this screenshot of a post that I think is hilarious, and doesn’t need a trigger warning.
Maybe you’re not in the space today that you want to look at a bunch of breathtaking astronomy photos in the shortlist of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition, but I’m going to share the link here and mention that a) experiencing awe is good for you, b) the universe is incredible, and c) people who have mastered their craft to the extent that they can photograph things like comets, blood moons, and solar eruptions are inspiring.
I am not a running streak person, but I’m impressed by people who are, and even if I wasn’t, I think I’d have to admit that the presentation of the data of this person’s 10-plus-year running streak is kind of amazing.
Is this level of research about the best way to dice an onion necessary? It is absolutely not, but I love it when people go this hard on math and science for something as non-essential as dicing an onion, and then put some love into the presentation of it.
Finally, I posted these two poems to my Strava a few days apart, then realized that together they kind of made a fun little saga, so I created some image slides to put on Instagram. I thought I’d include them here, just in case you’d like to read about my attempt to get rid of an old radiator that had been partially buried in my backyard (which is the kind of content I assume everyone needs nowadays).
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Semi-Rad
Writer, artist, filmmaker, columnist for Outside Magazine. My newsletter about creativity, adventure, and enthusiasm goes out to 15,000+ subscribers every week.
Friday Inspiration 500 Well, today is the 500th edition of this Friday Inspiration newsletter. Aside from a couple of short breaks (one for some time off in 2021 and the other for the first few weeks of Jay’s life back in 2022), I’ve been doing this every week since November 20, 2015. Which is a long time. If you open this email every week or every once in a while, thanks for reading. If you are supporting this whole operation via Patreon or a paid subscription, thank you again for your...
I Hope You Like Mountains I’m walking my kid to the library in Chamonix, holding hands, or rather, he’s holding my middle finger in his hand. I get a tug on my finger every few steps, because he’s looking down as he jumps from seam to seam on the sidewalk, and I am looking up at the Aiguille du Dru, one of the six classic north faces of the Alps, 850 meters of steep granite, trying to remember the history of climbing routes on it. It’s almost a mile and a half straight up from where we’re...
Friday Inspiration 499 I kind of think this idea—having kids dream up fairytale characters and then having those characters professionally designed—should happen more often? (video) We are hopefully getting toward the end of fire season here soon-ish in the western U.S., but I thought it might be useful to share the app I use to track wildfires around Missoula during the summer and early fall. I’m sure many people have heard of it, but Watch Duty is a free app (which you can support for...