Friday Fun Flier XXI
A great course I'll be taking this summer, two beautiful books, and the return of my favorite podcast :)
Hey friends! I can’t tell you how excited I am to be writing to you today. It’s the summer of hope! The world is coming alive :) The trees are green, the people are out and about, and the sun is shinin’ away.
I feel like I’m stepping back into my own body and mind, taking them back from a grumpy stranger who hijacked them for a year.
Welcome back, everyone. We’re all going to recover at our own pace, but we’re going to get through this.
I know that we’re not out of the woods yet, but COVID rates have been falling since the end of April. There’s a chance, no matter how small, that the worst is behind us.
Quote of the week:
“I choose to live in peace and witness war—to experience the worst in people but to remember the beauty.”
― Lynsey Addario
A Course That I’m Excited To Take:
Listening to last week’s Tim Ferriss Show episode got me excited about Jacqueline Novogratz’s Acumen Academy. If you haven’t heard of Novogratz, do some Googling! She’s the Michaelangelo of micro-investing in human capital.
Acumen Academy is where some of the world’s foremost thinkers (Adam Grant, Angela Duckworth, Daniel Pink) teach classes on how you can help make the world a better place. Her flagship course, The Path of Moral Leadership (which Seth Godin helped design) is $200, or FREE if you buy a $12 copy of Novogratz’s book Manifesto for a Moral Revolution on the website (All proceeds go to funding Acumen, she’s not some scammy blogger).
I’ll be starting this course in a few weeks, taking it alongside Dr. Lori Santos’s course “The Science of Well-Being” for my summer learning. Let me know if you’re interested in taking either one with me!
Two Great Books I Read This Week:
Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things To Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee
This one came out of left field and surprised me. I was browsing a bookstore in my hometown with my trade credit, and my eye was caught by the confetti-covered cover (which I’m sure Lee would love).
Fetell Lee is a designer who founded the blog The Aesthetics of Joy. She’s been featured as an expert on designing joy into your life by The New York Times and Fast Company, and she’s given a TED talk that brought down the house.
This book is a how-to guide for optimizing our surroundings for joy. Lee is an advocate for intuitive space design, where you let your deepest, most childish desires shine through when designing a space, rather than trying to make your home modern, sharp, and unforgiving.
This book taught me a lot about the importance of personal environment. It introduced me to the concept of light color temperature, something that I had no idea was affecting my mood every day.
If you’re looking to design a little more joy into your life, read this book!
Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri
Oh my God, guys. This book. THIS BOOK!
Have you guys ever read a memoir that just rips you apart in the best way?
That’s what Everything Sad Is Untrue did for me. Daniel Nayeri (whose given name is Khousrou) is an Iranian writer from New Jersey. At the age of eight, he, his sister, and his mother fled the country (I won’t tell you why, no spoilers) then they spent a few years as refugees before ending up in Oklahoma City, where Nayeri grew up.
It’s written in such a beautiful way. Nayeri lays out his life as a seemingly random, loose tapestry of memories, jumping from one to the other like Scherezade (who he identifies himself with early on).
To put it mildly, the guy has “seen some things.” This book is a beautiful testament to the power of storytelling and a look into the mind of someone who deserved much more than they got.
My Favorite Podcast is BACK:
This one’s not going to help your life or social conscience, but it will make you laugh. Season six has started after more than a year off-air. It’s four episodes in, and I couldn’t be happier.
For those of you who have never listened to the endless glory that is MDWAP, You are missing out!
In the twilight of his life, his retirement years, Rocky Flintstone (the pen name for the old Irishman who wrote the porno) decided to start writing erotica from a female perspective.
His son and two friends decided to read it to the world. It is the oddest, most anatomically incorrect erotica you can imagine.
His protagonist is named Belinda Blumenthal, a saleswoman at “Steele’s Pots and Pans.” in London.
This is the funniest content that I’ve ever consumed (As a warning, it is NSFW). The format of this podcast is three English friends, reading through Rocky’s badly written erotica.
And now, the positive news story of the week!
Big Oil Is Having A Gut-Punch of A Year.
Big Oil is still reporting profits for the first quarters of 2021. They’re winning the immediate battle, but they’re not going to win the war.
The Keystone Pipeline was blocked. A Dutch court ordered Shell to cut emissions 45% by 2030, the first time an energy company has been legally obligated to follow the Paris climate accord. Engine No. 1, a small hedge fund, was able to replace three Exxonmobil board members with climate-conscious people in May.
Big Oil is not yet “on the ropes.” They’ve still got an energy stranglehold over our world. But small changes are happening, and public opinion is shifting. Green energy is becoming cheaper and more effective every day.
No matter how dark things may seem, there’s still a chance that our children are going to live in a greener world.