Hello, friends!
It’s the first Friday of 2023. What does this mean? A New Year, a New First Friday, a season of newness? New Year Resolutions, or Anti-Resolutions?
You do you.
What I know is this blog/newsletter/Substack thing is new (read this). Perhaps, new for you. I will say, I’m having a good time, and enjoying connecting with you all.
I’m trying a Friday newsletter with 7 Things I Paid Attention to This Week. Perhaps a staple on the Substack from now on? How does that sound? Great, grand, let’s do it!
These 7 Things will be a mixture of books, shows, articles, quotes, music, podcasts, and other sightings worth sharing.
Okay, here we go:
1. You’ve most likely heard about Damar Hamlin going into cardiac arrest on Monday Night Football. A touching article showing the realities of professional sports from a former player.
2. A quote I’m putting into my attention-collection from Abraham Joshua Heschel. Something I aspire to:
“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ... get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
3. My teenage son and I are obsessed with the new season of Last Chance U (Netflix). The rivers of grace running through the show are good for my soul.
4. I took a pilgrimage to my favorite bookstore (Half Price Books) and found a gem from the iconic novelist Joe R. Lansdale. This work is a mystery/thriller set in the 60s. Nobody writes like Joe. I also had the privilege of interviewing Joe years ago.
5. Speaking of podcasts… my back catalog of podcast episodes (The Prolific Creator) is now loaded on the Substack. I’m also relaunching the show as The Art of Paying Attention. I look forward to sharing what I’m cooking up soon.
6. We want to go fast, live fast, make the thing, do the thing, and then what? At what cost? And then what??? I’ve been carrying this question around for weeks. Read this.
7. I'm building this newsletter on the premise of what the poet Mary Oliver said in a poem on the instructions for life:
“Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”