A weekend away was definitely needed. And then I came home to some sweater weather vibes, and it was even better.
I went upstate this weekend to visit one of my best friends, Jess. Another friend, Danielle, and I drove four hours up to Jess' house, not far from the Canadian border. She moved up there for the room to mush. Jess has nine dogs (mostly huskies) and she writes about her adventures. Plus, she recently acquired a gaggle of chickens. She has a small garden too and she even fed Danielle and I a salad of her own growing!
It was a quick weekend for the amount of driving we did, but we made the most of it. We caught a few eyefuls of a meteor shower one night. We went into town for some diner breakfast (in a local park) and then rooted around a antique & flea market. We chased the dogs around her property, took a few tours with her ATV, floated around the local reservoir, and grilled up some burgers before sitting in front of the fire.
I don't know if you necessarily ever signed up for this newsletter to read about my adventures, but there they are. As a matter of fact, I can't say I know why anyone has subscribed to my newsletter. (Most likely you know me or knew me at some point.) For years now, my writing has been all over the place. It all started during a cross-country roadtrip and morphed into my musings about personal development. Lately, I've tried to offer some sliver of perspective in this wild and crazy world. But this week I don't have anything profound planned and I don't think I can sort it out before the weekly machine gets cranking again.
Right now, I'm just happy. And I think that's the ticket. Sometimes it's too much to worry about all the big stuff. Call me irresponsible, but lately I think we can all agree the world is much bigger than one person can handle. We can all shout from the rooftops, but at the beginning of the day, you still need to feed the chickens and let the dogs out.
This weekend made me recall a bit in Think Like a Freak, another book from the Freakonomics' authors Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt. They described the premise of thinking like a freak as thinking small, not big. Why? "For starters, every big problem has been thought about endlessly by people much smarter than we are."
I'm ready to think like a freak. I'm ready to write about the small stuff in my life. And have more fun.
That's not easy for me to say. I feel like I should always do whatever I can to make the world a better place. But somewhere along the way, we started convincing ourselves we needed to be serious to make an impact. Dubner and Levitt thought differently and I think I'm taking notice. They wrote, “Why do so many frown so sternly at the idea of having fun? Perhaps out of fear that it connotes you aren’t serious. But best as we can tell, there is no correlation between appearing to be serious and actually being good at what you do. In fact an argument can be made that the opposite is true.”
With that being said, let's check out some links from the past week:
Just like me, Casey Neistat admits "i don't know what im doing anymore"
Comedian Andrew Schulz drops the hammer once again - TikTok & Ellen Share Evil Secret
I frickin' love Dan Soder's word choice. Check out his stand-up bit - A Week with Grandma
If you watched Love on the Spectrum on Netflix and you need more, you're welcome - Where are they now?
Rob Lowe was an incredible guest on the Joe Rogan Experience recently. He has an infectious zest for life and a ton of killer stories and insight from the decades of his successful career. Here is a piece - "What's the Point of Being Famous Today?"
Until next time...