These Things: August (adj.): Inspiring Reverence or Admiration. Venerable; Eminent.
Polecat Gulch, North Boise, Idaho. August 2018.
“Time is the least thing we have of.” - Ernest Hemingway
This doesn’t help. But I love to read Hemingway’s “Garden of Eden” in late summer because August is an annual angle of repose unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere and so maybe August means something totally different to you than me but I love to see how your maps differ from the ones I’ve been presented all my life by the Imperialists. There’s also the film version.
Here are some things that are helping me through the general sadness and/or exhaustion I experience this time of year.
Reading Hemingway and especially the short stories or “Garden of Eden.”
The Science of Stress and How Our Emotions Affect Our Susceptibility to Burnout and Disease - via Maria Popova of the BrainPickings blog (which was a huge inspiration toward me creating this blog/email newsletter).
Taking control of the chemical in your brain that keeps good ideas moving forward - via the Art of Manliness blog which provides practical life advice for people but focused on how men could maybe be the best men they can be in the contemporary United States.
T-Shaped People have a breadth of knowledge and also a depth of mastery - I know, I know, another AOM reference, but he uses Ernest Hemingway’s life as an example. It’s a little TLDR, but scroll through the section headers to the bulleted list at the end of the article. At least.
Bonus and the Bicycles
Surely you didn’t think I could not include something about the bicycle(?)(!).
Well, ok, and but first...Danny Casale as @coolman_coffeedan on Instagram creates an interactive series of short videos where you can help Flat Butt get out of Hell.
“A Bigger Swingset” - You have to take six minutes to watch this short bicycle documentary about how a guy was told by his dad about these mystic bicycles that could fly, how he fell in love with BMX riding in skateparks, and eventually mountain biking. It’s great storytelling whether you care about bicycling or not.
I’m trying to create a conversation between this blog/email newsletter and “The Morning Ride” podcast that I record every morning on my bicycle commute into the office.
I promise I have some news about Oliver Bicycle Works coming. Soon. Like, you’ll likely hear it on “The Morning Ride” podcast before you see it in “These Things.”
Hey folks, if you love riding a bicycle, get out on a bicycle! (“bicycle” is a variable for [INSERT: the thing you love] so “riding,” the verb, is requisite in that an object without a verb:
it cannot happen/does not exist.
(or it’s a French novel named “Le Train de Nulle Part (The Train from Nowhere)” written by Michel Thayer (pen name) without the use of any verbs (inspired by George Perec’s novel, “La Disparition (A Void)” written without the use of any word with the letter “e” (OMG! The Ouilipo))).
Until the or a I'm mostly,
Jeff O.