5 Quick Things #291 👋

getting older, ending well, becoming unignorable, & SUMMER SCREEN BREAKS

Hi friends,

Hello from my neighborhood coffee shop, where I've decided to write to you this morning because these days when I'm home I just want to do homey things (as it should be, right?). The plan is to send this email, write more words for my current book-in-progress, then be home by lunchtime so my nerdiest kid and I can hit up the used bookstore.

Yesterday my youngest and a friend of his walked to the library for the weekly knitting club meeting. He did not have one iota of a clue how to knit, but later he spent the afternoon in the living room slowly knitting while watching other people play Minecraft on YouTube¹, and I have to say, he's doing quite well! He made a new friend named Dorothy. “Mom... She's a senior.”

I love our Mayberry town.

As I mentioned in last week's 5QT, this issue marks the start of my annual summer screen break, which begins this Monday. In previous years I've done things like have other people write here, or schedule pre-written stuff by me, but I've come to learn that ...you honestly don't need that. There's plenty elsewhere to consume on the internet, there's plenty of archives here if the mood strikes you, and hey, like me, there's plenty for you to do offline, too. Enjoy a scant fewer emails in your inbox! Having now written online for 15-plus years, I'm no longer worried that I'll somehow be “forgotten².” People don't work that way.

Regardless of my break, I'm insanely grateful, as always, that you're reading here! I hope I never take that for granted, because all these years later I’m still astonished to have readers. It's because of you, not in spite of you, that I take time away. It makes me more of the writer, thinker, friend, and human I'm supposed to be.

Might I encourage you to do the same, if you’re so inclined? I find July is the just-right season for a screen break. It’s smack in the middle of the year, a lot of us travel anyway, and with people typically free from the rigamarole of school, it’s a bit easier to connect with real-life, in-person community.

Gloucester Mansion, by Edward Hopper (1924) #

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5 Quick Things ☕️

1. New episode of A Drink With a Friend!

Seth Haines

and I chat about some of our favorite finales: the last lines of books, the final songs on an album, the ultimate episodes in a TV series. What makes a good ending? And what helps us forgive a story's less-than-ideal finale? —In this spirit, episodes will take a brief hiatus for some offline summer revelry, but fear ye not, we’ll pick back up again soon.

2. What are the poetics of family life? Poesis is Greek in reference to the art of “making,” which is different from techne, also Greek for “making” but in a more practical, tool-creating sense. The poetics of family life, then, refer to the “source of cultural production and creative resistance to a world that would define us in terms of our economic value.” I love this exploration of the idea that home life should be a starting point for cultivating culture to move us out into the world, instead of only a refuge to merely protect us from it.

3. Those of us who’ve been in this writing, saying-things-online world know what They™ have said since the internet has taken off—platform is everything. Not to sound like the fuddy-duddy on the internet I’ve increasingly become³, but to that I say: balderdash. 👵 I love this reminder from my friend,

Shawn Smucker

: “How would you change the way you spend your time, if your goal was not to build a platform or an audience but to instead focus solely on the work, to be so good they can’t ignore you?”

4. Hopefully it’s not just another blip in the zeitgeist, but I love, love, love this current trend of Gen-Zers shunning smartphones as reported by

The Free Press

. Both my youngest two teenagers, ages 13 and 15, actively ask us not to get them one and we are happily obliging⁴. “I’m not afraid of my kids being exposed to screens,’ he says. ‘I don’t want their understanding of themselves to be changed by having social media accounts, or by constantly being attached to a smartphone.”

5. And finally, I loved these reflections about turning forty. As someone only a few years ahead of that milestone, there are so many one-liners of his I nodded in agreement with, culminating with, simply, “I’m not sure if it’s possible to ever feel the age you are, when in fact, you are all of them.” Beautifully said,

Jeff Goins

.

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Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

• How Fiction Works, by James Wood

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Quotable 💬

“Home should be made so truly home that the weary tempted heart could turn toward it anywhere on the dusty highway of life and receive light and strength.”

— The Royal Path of Life #

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Do you use a GPS even when driving to familiar locations? 🧭

I have to admit I’m pleasantly surprised by these results because I thought they’d be the opposite. For brain health reasons, I’m actively working on not using GPS for familiar destinations. For a while, I’ve used the traffic reason—Waze not only gives me directions but also updates current traffic. But I’ve come to embrace that unless I’m seriously late for something, it just doesn’t matter enough to not use my brain’s native GPS and not succumb to the modern default of “easy everywhere.”

Find this week’s poll here.

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Announcing My 2024 Pilgrimage: Greece! 🇬🇷

I’ve been dropping tons of hints, so I know you’re not surprised. But it’s officially open for registration, so sign up! If you’ve ever hesitated to go on a group trip with strangers, I understand. Truly. I was the same. But …just go. You’ll be shocked at how much you love it. And I promise I’m not a matching-shirt, flag-waving, “we’re walking, we’re walking” trip leader.

If you’ve ever wanted to walk in the steps of St. Paul, hop around the Greek islands, and meet kindred spirits of all ages and walks of life you never knew you needed in your life, you won’t want to miss this.

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Quick Links 🔗

• 📐Create your own Rule of Life

• 🎧 Listen to A Drink With a Friend

• 📔 Releasing August 29, 2023: First Light & Eventide

• 🇬🇷 Greece: June 20-30, 2024

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ICYMI: Periodical, Vol. 5 🗞

If you're a paying subscriber of The Commonplace, check your inbox for the new quarterly edition of the digital-print periodical! It's 14 pages and includes a short story and archived essay from me, several other essays from a few friends, a summer classics crossword, a new drink recipe, a link to the issue's playlist, and more.

My eventual hope is to make this a community-created, real-life print newsletter I send to your actual mailbox, but until The Commonplace increases its paying subscriber base⁵, we can at least do the community-created part. If you're interested in submitting a piece for future editions, read how on page 14.

And if you'd like a copy, consider becoming a paid subscriber! It's only a few dollars per month, and you'll have my undying gratitude.

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Question(s) For You to Ponder… 🤔

What are three small things I’m grateful for right this minute?

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Have a lovely July! I may post a few pics of Ireland on my micro.blog, but I may not depending on my mood at the moment. Regardless… I’ll see you again here in August. It’ll fly by!

Take care,

- Tsh

p.s. One-hundred percent accurate.

1. Because this is a thing modern adolescents do, to my bewilderment.

2. A legit thing I was concerned about when I took my first internet break back in 2010. This is because gurus on the internet make us feel like we must always say Smart, Important Things to be noticed, we will become irrelevant if we’re not constantly in the loop with today’s zeitgeist, and in general, we’ve become short-sighted with what life’s really about.

3. I mean …I might as well own this persona I’m not-so-subtly taking on, right?

4. At his request, we’ve ordered the new Wisephone 2 for our middle guy for when he turns sixteen later this year. Not a sponsor, I just like what they’re about.

5. Shameless plug.