Weekly Mix #169 - What We Worship, Minimalism, Gap Years and Eco-Packaging

Weekly Mix #169 - What We Worship, Minimalism, Gap Years and Eco-Packaging

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Happy Monday!

This week I have an ask: if you enjoy the newsletter, can you please hit reply and provide a quick testimonial? I'll be putting a few on my site to help guide future subscribers. Thank you!

I'm now almost in the final third of writing mini-essays for 30 days straight. You can view them all here.

This was my favorite from this week:

Behaviour over knowledge

In most of the important areas of our lives, we already know what to do.

To have good relationships, we need to care.

To succeed professionally, we need to show up and do the best work we can.

To stay fit, we have to eat good food and exercise regularly.

To become wise, we have to read.

To become wealthy, we have to save.

We already have the knowledge.

What we do is what matters. Doing those things over and over. Demonstrating with our actions what we already know.

You already have the knowledge. What you need to focus on is the behaviour.

In this week’s newsletter:

Blog Post: What This Blog Is About​

Speech: This Is Water by David Foster Wallace​

Article: Is minimalism a subculture?​

Article: 2020 Gap Year - Matt Maiale​

Product: EcoEnclose​

Have a wonderful week!

Graham
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Blog Post: What This Blog Is About​

Last week I mentioned I'd come to realize what my blog and this newsletter is really about: living a better life.

This post goes into a little more detail about how I came to that realization, some of the benefits of writing online, how I believe people build audiences, and why I'm even choosing to define a theme for the blog and newsletter at all.

Speech/Transcript: This is Water by David Foster Wallace​

I've heard this speech referenced many times, but read through the transcript for the first time this week.

The whole transcript is worth reading, or you can watch the speech, but here are a couple quotes that stood out to me:

On what we worship:

Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.

On what real freedom is:

Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

Article: Is minimalism a subculture?​

This Reddit post captured well what I believe is the main benefit of minimalism.

It also suggests the term "enoughism," which I think is a good term.

"minimalism - to me - has very little to do with minimizing per se. For me, minimalism is a shift away from consumerism. If I were to coin a label for the movement, I think "enoughism" would have been a better description."

I like this distinction. True minimalists may indeed try to live on as little as possible.

I prefer to think of it as a tool for focus. Realizing that we need very little to be happy, and minimizing the possessions we have that don't contribute to happiness, instead of just minimizing for it's own sake.

Article: 2020 Gap Year - Matt Maiale​

For those of you who have friends or family graduating university this year (or in university at the moment), you may find this interesting.

Matt writes about why he took a gap year, and what he's done in the meantime.

I'd love to see gap years become normalized in North America, or at least more mixing of industry experience with education.

Some of Matt's highlights:

Realized what he was studying (finance) didn't align with his goals (tech entrepreneurship)

Offered to work for some tech startups (unpaid, part-time)

Found a position at a venture capital fund

Got exposed to a bunch of different areas of the tech world, learning what he did and didn't like

Product: EcoEnclose​

I received Derek Sivers' new book this week, and the packaging it came in was fully compostable!

It uses algae ink, recycled paper for padding/insulation, and recycled paper. Their website has ideas for eco-friendly gifts and brands, plus a bunch of great resources on eco-friendly packaging.

Ordering online has increased during the pandemic, understandably, but being cognizant and conscious about how we consume is one of the ways to improve our impact on the environment.

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