Notes

From an interview with George Saunders in The Atlantic, where Saunders is talking about admitting to what we have gotten wrong, as opposed to avoiding it in all the ways we can avoid owning up to what we have done or failed to do.

And as they got older, we would have talks with [our kids] where we’d say, You know, we kind of messed that up. Sorry. And it’s amazing how that kind of just takes the wind out of any negative sails, to just admit it.

Yeah.

An association: This reminds me of one of the many 12 step sayings, “You’re only as sick as your secrets.”

If keep something I’ve really messed up a secret, it can really mess with me a lot… it takes effort to keep something a secret. Admitting to what I’ve done wrong, or poorly, or failed to do, is not fun, but it takes less energy than keeping something a secret.

I wish I understood how synthesizers worked.

Looking out the window at the cold slowly day outside brought up many memories of days like this when I was young.

The clearest memories were from when I was a student at a community college who would go to Borders Books, Misic, & Cafe to study… and (rather often) avoid studying by reading things that had nothing to do with my studies.

I found it interesting to notice/pay attention to what it felt like to remember these days from the past in my present.

What stood out was the feeling of wanting to be someplace warm, with a book, in close proximity to (but not talking to) other oeople.

This feeling that was invoked as I stood inside a warm place and looked out into a cold snowy outside, and it was the same feeling today as it was some 20 years (!) back.

The feeling is a bridge, a connection between me then and me now, between an affective experience then and now.

I just made an influences page here (you can see it at the top of the site in the navigation bar). I plan to keep adding to this as I think about who and what have influenced me.

However, when I look at it now, I notice something I think is significant that helps me not be overly focused on making things perfect: Most of the stuff the people on this list make isn’t super polished/overly produced.

• Chris Arnade’s Substack is very well written, but he keeps it very simple.
• Patti Smith’s Substack has videos she makes with a stock webcam on her computer.
• Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files are simple blog posts.
• Rob Bell’s podcast has no intro music and he leaves in the hums and ahh, and repetitive things he says.
• Marc Weidenbaum’s Disquiet website is an example of a simple blog that has been around for a very long time.

Of course, there are some things on this list that do have a rather high production value to them, such as Bella Freud’s videos, and Ezra Klein’s podcast, but these things constitute the minority rather than the majority of things on this list.

Getting to work on editing the next episode of the From78 Podcast. This one is a long interview, so it will take much longer to edit than a normal audio-essay. I’m telling myself not to be overly perfectionistic.

Today is set up in a way I like.

• Family: Morning involved getting my kids ready and to school
• Health: Followed up with cardio exercise today
• Me: Interlude where I was able to do some rolling/stretching and cleaned myself up
• Work: 5 hours working with patients

A good balance.

It’s a cold wet Sunday evening here in the American Midwest as I write these words. I’ve had my kids (ages 6, 4, 2, & 1) inside for most of the day. This is not an ideal situation.

One thing I’ve figured out is that unspent energy goes through some sort of change around 4:00 pm, where it becomes manic-crazy-in-your-face-energy. This is the kind of energy that leads to a high likelihood of something double-plus-unfold happening.

(Other parents: have you noticed this too, or is this something unique to my family?)

So, I need something I can do with the kids. It can’t last long. It has to be free or very low cost.

My first bet was the library, but it closes early on Sunday. By the time I got them there we’d have to turn around and leave fairly quickly. So, that was out.

I consist putting on a video of some sort, but kids programming is psychological warfare against adults. I don’t think it’s great for kids either, but unlike adults, they tend to like it…. And a video won’t really burn off the unspent energy, and will make bedtime more difficult.

Then I remembered that there is a small indoor play place at the nearby McDonald’s.

There was a time I looked down on McDonald’s. I don’t anymore. The main reason for this shift was coming across the work of Chris Arnade, who convinced me that in many places, McDonald’s is an institution that is a sort of community center. This is most noticeable in places where good park districts and good library sbranches are absent.

I thought about Arnade, and the mind changing work he’s done this evening, as I watched my kids climb and play off some of their unspent energy.

I don’t have a big point to make behind this.