#59: What are your 5 Things?
Happy Friday!
Last Sunday, I was the beneficiary of some friend-wisdom - that variety of wisdom that you can only hear from friends because otherwise it just doesn't sink in.
What 5 things do you love doing? 5 things that invariably fill you with joy every time you do them. Feed yourself with them.
I've probably read this advice in countless self-help, be-happy, life manuals, but only conversation ripens the brain to act. As someone wise twice wrote: Self-help is an oxymoron. (I can't remember where I read this; it wasn't a friend.)
In response to my friend's question (that she herself was asked by a friend), I dug around in my cortex and came up with my five. Not the first five, and there are probably more lurking in the foreground, but these five raise me up (in the persistent words of Westlife).
I notice that there are two common threads running through the five:
companionship: self-help being an oxymoron
the search for peak experience, or flow: I long for transcendence, that loss of self that digs up buckets of contentment
The second stage of finding your five is to schedule. After the ecstasy, the laundry (Jack Kornfield). I've already plugged these into my 2018 calendar (it's a spreadsheet).
We're here now, so what's yours?
1. Seeing good friends and loved ones (like you)
Making new friends too. That doesn't happen too often, but there’s exhilaration in finding someone new.
2. Probably something about generosity
Giving gifts, or – better – helping friends or serving strangers. It's not all altruism: empathy is a buzz.
3. Learning shit
I really like learning shit, ideally with other people in a semi-structured setting. One thing that I’d like to extend this to is learning skills: practical worldly skills away from the computer and the internet, and even away from words and books.
4. Physical exercise
Or any treat for my body, including but not limited to: stretching and saunas and cold showers and cycling and hiking and jumping in the sea and breathing and dancing and sex and table tennis. Again, these are also enjoyable with other people - and some would be a challenge without!
5. Holidays
I’m not sure what I mean by this, aside from getting out and switching off – literally and figuratively. My trips late last year to Scotland, the Lake District and Bristol were exemplars for my idea of a holiday. Displacing myself in time and place. Seeing the world anew, with the credulous eyes of a tourist. Space for forgetting. Café breakfasts, long bus rides and photographs.
>> INPUT
Five things that have inspired me this week. Thanks for sharing yours - I'm all ears.
RADIO: James Burke on the End of Scarcity: How in 50 years' time we're all going to have nano-fabricators growing our food from motes of dust. The only possible snag is that we might subjected to eternal domination by a non-empathic artificial super-intelligence.
TRAVEL: Slow ride home by Anna Hughes: A timely reminder that the Great Outdoors is only, well, outside your door. Written by someone who lives as they believe.
BOOK REVIEW: Escaping Poverty Requires Almost 20 Years With Nearly Nothing Going Wrong by Gillian B White: A discussion of MIT economist Peter Temin's new book The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy. Although Peter's talking about the United States of America, I suspect the analysis holds for the UK. And I love the fact that the reviewer's name sums up the best financial strategy in both our societies: B White.
POETRY: Pressing by E.R. Whittington. I'll warn you: this is prose poetry; for me, that makes it prose, but she's put in line breaks where they shouldn't be so I suppose that makes it poetry. Either way, I was charmed.
ESSAY: The Empty Brain by Robert Epstein for Aeon: Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer.
OUTPUT >>
As you may have noticed, this mailing list is the engine room of my writing. I really appreciate all you do to make me want to be a more thoughtful human. Here's some you might have missed:
2017: No News is Good News (January)
After the Christmas, the Crisis (January)
Dave's Books of the Year 2017 (December)
Learning Arabic from a Syrian wanted by ISIS (December)
Tomsleibhe, Isle of Mull (November)
...COMING UP...
We're starting work on Series 2 of Foiled this week. We've got a bit of extra time to write this year, so we'll do everything in our power to make your radio explode.
I'm doing a First Aid at Work course on Tuesday. Huh? I don't even have a workplace. I told you: I love learning shit.
I'll leave you with the polite suggestion that you might want to vote in the British Comedy Guide awards. 385 different comedies were broadcast on TV and radio last year. But which were the best ones? Good question. I can't imagine who you'll vote for...
In COMPLETELY unrelated news, the final episode of Series 1 of Foiled is still available to listen on BBC iPlayer, but only for another 2 days.
"O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible." — Pindar, Pythian iii
Be possible,
- dc
p.s. You know there's always a pretty picture if you scroll to very, very end, don't you?
SALESY BLAH
I (try to) make a living by writing. If you could use my writing services, or know anyone who could, please get in touch. Stone the crows! I'd be thrilled if you fancy...
buying a book: I'm told Life To The Lees: Cycling Around Britain is good
supporting this mailing list by sending me a tip on PayPal
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Thank you!
www.davidcharles.info
@dcisbusy
Medieval illustrations of what Europeans thought elephants looked like.
Via Kottke.org.
