Seth Godin, though always on point, had a blog post that piqued my interest recently. The premise:
Consider for a moment a party that chose instead to run its primary on Facebook.
I think voting is so interesting -- and so important. This summer, I'll be working at the Brennan Center for Justice with their Democracy Program. I'm excited to dive into the fray of issues relating to voting and elections.
I recently listened to Tim Ferris's podcast interview with Josh Waitzkin (the basis for the book and movie Searching for Bobby Fischer). Waitzkin is an extraordinary mind devoted to how presence can open the moment to both joy and true mastery. I enjoyed the most recent interview so much that I listened to it twice. Josh's approach to parenting is beautiful and reminds me a lot of what my childhood was like. The episode is chock-full with lots of goodies. For more goodness, check out Tim Ferriss's original interview with Josh as well.
Also from Tim Ferriss, I've been thinking a lot about a blog post he wrote recently on "deloading your life":
My Tuesday experience reinforced, for me, the importance of creating large uninterrupted blocks of time (a la maker’s schedule versus manager’s schedule), in which your mind can wander, ponder, and find the signal amidst the noise. If you’re lucky, it might even create a signal, or connect two signals (core ideas) that have never shaken hands before.
My week at Green Gulch was definitely a deloading phase.
Relatedly, Nicholas Bates touches on the importance of the "slow life":
The slow of life is vital. Sometimes in the search for efficiency and convenience we just leave the fast; that's OK for a quick buzz but ultimately it's a little unsatisfying and just leaves us seeking the next and bigger bit of speed. Which surely means it's all over too quickly.
Really living the slow life is the subject of the YouTube channel Primitive Technologies. I heartily recommend his first video where he makes a hut and his most recent where he creates a bow. Watching these videos is absolutely mesmerizing.
To close this collection, I love a passage by Erich Fromm that Maria Popova highlights in this post:
To have faith means to dare, to think the unthinkable, yet to act within the limits of the realistically possible; it is the paradoxical hope to expect the Messiah every day, yet not to lose heart when he has not come at the appointed hour. This hope is not passive and it is not patient; on the contrary, it is impatient and active, looking for every possibility of action within the realm of real possibilities.
Even as a nonbeliever, I identify with the conception of faith as active hope. It's a powerful idea.