9.3, Been fine, still a ten
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence.
Hello, friends!
As a certified Beyoncé stan (with no plans for recovery), I’ve been preparing; mentally, spiritually, and emotionally, for the Cowboy Carter concert at MetLife Stadium, a venue that perfectly captures the American spirit: a little confusing, a little expensive, and somehow always damp.
I’ve spent the past week working, parenting, and internally debating which denim cowgirl look will allow me to dance, laugh, and praise in 90% humidity while still locating the nearest bathroom.
We’re all explorers, trying to make sense of the world, with curiosity as our compass and, if we're lucky, a killer soundtrack.
Anyways, on with the links.
The Links:
50 years of travel tips from Kevin Kelly. Here's three of my faves:
Organize your travel around passions instead of destinations.
The most significant criteria to use when selecting travel companions is: do they complain or not, even when complaints are justified? No complaining! Complaints are for the debriefing afterwards when travel is over.
Go to a cemetery. Look for sacred places. People live authentically there. Don’t just visit the markets, but also go to small workshops, hardware stores and pharmacies – places with easy access to local practices. See how it’s different and the same all at once.
Read: This story about a scary experience after ordering takeout
Listen: Extraordinary cover of Creep by Erin Morton, a junior in the BFA Musical Theatre program at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
Useful: The free Adobe Scan Mobile App quickly turns physical documents into searchable, editable PDFs. It’s noticeably faster and more user-friendly than the scanner built into Apple Notes.
For my Beyhivers 🐝: Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter x Hunter Harris 🎉
What I've Been Reading
The Obstacle Is the Way, by Ryan Holiday
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
The central idea in Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle Is the Way is that problems or challenges aren’t obstacles; they are fuel. Adversity isn’t your enemy; it’s your opportunity. Holiday’s message is: lean in to your problems, get better, don’t flinch. At only 224 pages, it’s a very quick read.
It’s also a crash course in ancient Stoicism, especially Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca. You’ll read about Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas Edison, Amelia Earhart, Martin Luther King, Jr., Steve Jobs, etc all treated as Stoic case studies. The vibe is very “control what you can, accept what you can’t, dominate the rest.”
There are some parts that edge close to hustle-bro energy, but the book mostly stays grounded. Holiday doesn’t sugarcoat pain or ask you to smile through it; he treats difficulty as the starting point for transformation. Pain, failure, and frustration are the raw materials for creating something meaningful.
To me, the most powerful takeaway is this: You don’t get to choose the obstacle. But you do get to choose your response. That statement resonates with me, as I wrote about earlier in my summary of Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
—Viktor E. Frankl
Life is unfair. Plans implode. People disappoint you. Systems fail. But if you can learn to respond with clarity, creativity, and strength? That’s the way.
In Quotes...
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.”
—Albert Einstein, "Old Man's Advice to Youth: 'Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'" LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955) p. 64”