🌶️ October; spontaneity, crying at documentaries, long books about the apocalypse.
Hey there,
I’m currently trying to re-train (or maybe just train) myself to be more spontaneous. I am The Organised One. Since I started work at 18 I’ve always started a year with my next year of holidays plotted in the diary, will happily put things in the calendar months in advance, am the one who makes a reservation, and I am chronically early to all of the things, always.
My friend Ed is the opposite. He’s the one who on a 2007 group holiday, detoured half the group for an unexpected banana boat ride whilst on the way to a BBQ (where the rest of us were waiting), just because they drove past the beach and he thought that looked fun.
(I realise you would all much rather be friends with Ed than me, I understand.)
There’s a certain contradiction in all of this because two things I really value in life are freedom and novelty. Give me two choices and I’ll typically pick the one that gives me the most freedom, and/or a new experience.
But, one of the things I’ve noticed more in the last 12-18 months is that my (exceptionally well laid) plans have sometimes meant I’ve missed out on something great that pops up later. Clearly, this is just a fact of life as you can’t do everything, but it’s made me think about what I can do to allow a little more wiggle room.
One idea I picked up from my pal Leanne was the idea of booking one way flights; book a trip somewhere, but work out the return flight later to allow flexibility for unexpected fun. I’ve got a couple of trips already planned for next year and so I’m using these as a playground for this with either one way, or more changeable options.
(Of course, one-way and flexible flights are usually more expensive / there’s a sweet spot of an advanced booking window to avoid monstrous prices / airlines seem to generally hate passengers, but that aside….)
Funnily enough, on Sunday I saw a friend who said he was also trying to be a little more spontaneous (I’d say he’s probably even more of a planner than me). Which made me wonder if maybe this is actually a bigger signal of the next phase in our collective re-learning-to-live-post-covid zeitgeist.
Or, maybe it’s simply the seasons changing that give us a little more pep in our step. The sort of pep that causes us to imagine ourselves to be the sort of people who seize a sunny Sunday afternoon with a group text that launches the picnic / rooftop drinks / ice cream parlour crawl / banana boat ride that we’re all still talking about sixteen years later.
I think I’d quite like to be that person.
Being more Ed,
Steph
PS. I am in Sydney for SXSW this week. I’ll be sharing daily updates of all the things I see, do, and hear (both spontaneous and planned!) on LinkedIn.
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The it list 🔥
Here’s a few other things I’ve been obsessing over, enjoying, or doing recently…
Podcast - How to Fail With Elizabeth Day, featuring Arlo Parks: My buddy Jess Kelly recommended this episode in her great weekly newsletter, and I’m glad I paid attention. You might remember that Arlo Parks’ new album My Soft Machine was on heavy rotation during my Canada/Europe trip earlier this year, and so I was keen to hear her views on the world. This conversation is beautiful, profound, and full of amazing wisdom about the pursuit of creativity and perfection for someone so young. Spotify | Apple
Album - Carrie and Lowell by Sufjan Stevens: In the above podcast, Arlo mentioned this album, and in particular the song All of Me Wants All of You. I actually sort-of knew the song, but now I am obsessed. Listen
Newsletter - Bulletin Board #198; Grief: Jess is getting two plugs in one newsletter. I might have to send her an invoice for all this promo. Anyway, last week Jess made my heart hurt with this newsletter about the far-too-young loss of an old friend. Read it and tell your friends you love them.
Audiobook - Perfect Sound Whatever by James Acaster: James is one of my top five comedians and this book has been sitting on my to-read list for a while. So, looking for a bit of light relief from some of my recent reads, I decided now was the time. It’s the story of how James overcame the worst year of his life (2017) in which he faced with a difficult relationship breakup and a bunch of professional problems, by buying over 300 albums released in 2016, and discovering that 2016 was actually the best year ever for music.
Documentary - McQueen: I’m not really a big crier when watching things (unless an animal dies) but I spent the last 25 minutes of this documentary with tears running down my face. It’s the story of Alexander McQueen, his incredible talent, the prolificness of his work, his friendships, and just the sadness that followed, and ultimately overwhelmed him.
Netflix - The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar: Wes Anderson has adapted a some of Roald Dahl's short stories for Netflix. Whilst being heavily laden with Wes’ signature colour saturation, momentum, aesthetics, regular cast members, and fast, clippy dialogue, it still has the feel of Roald’s work. I loved the Roald Dahl books growing up (I know some of them haven’t aged particularly well), so this felt like a warm hug.
Album - Turn the World On by Bombay Bicycle Club: It’s become quite cool in the last few years to drip a bunch of singles/EPs in quick succession before an album drops. Whilst I love hearing the new music, I don’t love the fact that when the album does launch, you’ve heard half of it. That aside, I am VERY pleased that Bombay Bicycle Club have new music out and are touring again (fingers crossed they’ll be back here next year). My Big Day and I Want to be Your Only Pet are my favourites from the new EP. Listen
📚 What I read this month 📚
Ministry For the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
The book is about the formation of an international climate-crisis body who are “charged with defending all living creatures present and future who cannot speak for themselves”. The book follows the members of this Ministry For The Future, and the decisions they are faced with in a world that’s melting and burning. It’s essentially science fiction / a possible future based on today’s climate trajectory and reality.
🙃 Things I Liked 🙃
🌎 The ideas included in the book are very imagination-expanding. It covers the decisions and impacts that climate change will have on geopolitics, policy, terrorism, geoengineering, financial systems, societies, nationalism, food systems, healthcare, and more. In every single chapter there was something I hadn’t heard of or ever considered.
🌎 It doesn’t present a techno utopia as the solution, and acknowledges history, wicked problems, and complexities of getting things done at an international scale. Also, America are not the heroes in this story. These decisions were both pretty refreshing.
🌎 The first chapter is brilliant. I accidentally read it whilst sitting in an infrared sauna, and I canot recommend that experience enough. (No spoilers).
🌎 The structure is pretty cool. The chapters are written from lots of different perspectives and includes things like meeting minutes summarised by the team’s AI, and inputs from some non-human, and inanimate entities.
🙁 Things I didn’t 🙁
🔥 The characters are pretty insufferable and two dimensional, as is their dialogue.
🔥 The book is looooooong, which I’m not totally against, but when a lot of the length is because the annoying characters and their annoying stories, it feels more painful.
🔥 I personally found some of the writing style quite confusing. Some sections are meant to not easily flow (eg the meeting summaries), but others took a few reads to get the gist.
Overall, not an easy read (in multiple ways) but very much worth making it through it for the ideas shared, especially if you feel like we’re stuck where we are.
Some places I popped up recently 👋🏻
Podcast - My Millennial Career: Last month I finally got to meet the legend that is Shelley Johnson in person, and we recorded this very fun episode of MMC together. Spotify | Apple