Things I sent to Bob

What I'm paying attention to, May 2022

Dear reader,

Here is a roundup of things that recently made me think, the things I sent to my best friend. Maybe some things I didn’t want to know but needed to or things I still don’t fully understand. I will do my best only to make these lists when it feels absolutely enriching and not to steal your attention with nonsense. It is the end of May, 2022. I’m sprawled on a different bed in Mexico after a 10 hour drive. I’m three hours from the border, full of baked beans and french fries, a dog barks next door.

1. This essay by Jessica Dore which I recommend taking 10 minutes to listen to if you are able. Dore writes, “I am back to thinking about wailing. I am thinking about how a fixation on solutions and competence relates to repressing emotions.” She references the work of two of my favorite authors, Wendell Berry and Joanna Macy, and shares this sentence that I can’t get out of my head: “I’m a lot more curious about the avoidance that lives in the heart of hypocrisy than any value judgment on it.” Just listen to it okay?

2. This essay called The Creator Economy by Nadia Asparouhova which speaks to something different and yet plays very nicely with the essay I shared above. They write, “I wonder whether the creator economy, as it matures, will resemble less of its original promise (a way for people to do the things they love), in favor of a “creator industrial complex.” Part of the problem is that creativity comes in fits and starts, and can’t always be tamed into a predictable routine. If you’re obligated to create something every day, rather than when it feels right, you’ll start putting things out there that aren’t very interesting in order to fill the space. Like the nonprofit, preserving the “creator” identity matters more than what is accomplished.” Ummm, yeah. This is Nadia’s Substack, too.

3. This solo-episode of the Mark Groves podcast from early April that I will keep bookmarked forever. Mark’s podcast is one of my favorites, listening to it is a non-negotiable for me.

4. This essay by Charles Eisenstein called Compartmentalization: UFOs and Social Paralysis about the separation of spiritual knowledge and everyday beliefs into separate compartments. About the ways in which “establishment knowledge authorities” sequester spiritual experiences away from what we call reality, and how in doing so “their disruptive potential to expand our reality, our lives, and our selves” is neutered.

5. I came across Eisenstein’s substack only after discovering his books, one of which I am currently reading on my e-reader but is available for free online. It is called Sacred Economics and I am really into it.

6. This 10-minute reflection by Sarah Blondin that completely decimated me. I am afraid to listen to it again and therefore pretty sure I need to listen to it again. I discovered it through Lisa Olivera’s newsletter that I subscribe to and work with weekly.

   Anna