7 Things I Paid Attention to This Week #004

Wonder is where the juice is ...

Happy Friday!

Our city is buzzing with the Kansas City Chiefs playing in the AFC Championship game on Sunday. Most of you don’t care, no hard feelings.

Hope you have some beautiful things to give your attention to this weekend. 

Here are seven things I paid attention to this week:

1. I did a little ditty on the podcast, and wrote an essay about wonder earlier this week. I believe wonder is where the juice is, and trying to grow my Wonder-Game.  

2. Here’s a quote on wonder I’ve carried around this week from Rick Rubin’s latest book. You can replace the word “artists” with "humans":

“As artists, we seek to restore our childlike perception: a more innocent state of wonder and appreciation not tethered to utility or survival.” (26)

3. Eye Candy: I watched two fantastic films this week. Manchester by the Sea is a meditation on family, loss, grief, and a tour de force acting job by Casey Affleck. I also enjoyed this documentary, Master of Light, from a local Kansas City guy who was incarcerated and found healing through art. 

4. Ear Candy: I’m digging the most underrated album and band from the early 2000s, Zwan. The supergroup made up of Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins fame is on a spiritual quest in their one and only album. Too bad they were short-lived. 

5. Books: I’ve been doing a deep-dive into the spiritual writings of Thomas Merton. If you're curious about Merton, I recommend The Seeker and the Monk, for an entry point into his work. I’m also obsessed with this short novel, and this series of novels from Kent Haruf. 

6. I’m following the Tyre Nichols story in Memphis. It made me think of this Thomas Merton quote:

“In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.” -Thomas Merton

7. Let’s finish on a happier note with an exhortation to make great art with your life from Neil Gaiman:

“It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that society is huge and the individual is less than nothing. But the truth is individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.”

― Neil Gaiman, Art Matters

Paying attention is our “proper” and “endless work”… talk soon!

-Ryan