Friday's Five ✋ #433
Contemplation
Happy Friday! ☀️
“What is […]?” was the question I have answered several dozen of time in the past four days. As part of my professional development course, this month’s module was an extensive contemplation retreat. In silence with other participants, but in regular dialogues with our trainers, the aim of the contemplation was to start from one basic yet big question and let the process evolve from there. Question from the trainer, contemplative answers from me, debrief with the trainer, followed by a new question derived from the previous answer. Four intensive days, an all-you-can-eat buffet of emotions, daily body and intuitive breath work, lots of slow walking under trees, sixteen hour days. I’m just landing back in Vienna and will re-integrate into family life after this enriching experience.
What I’m reading 📖
Fitting the theme of the week, I finally read and finished The Overstory by Richard Powers. This book has been on my shelf for many years and every time I picked it up and read the first few pages, the timing didn’t feel right. This changed a week ago when I picked it up again, read the first ten pages and then couldn’t put it down. First to wake up in the morning, I rushed downstairs to read as many pages as I could with a first cup of coffee before the family awoke. This is such a beautiful book–my favourite part was the introductions of the characters in the first third of the book. More about the book.
What I’m listening to 🎧
For the most part of my seventeen years in Berlin, the band Moderat were everybody’s darling. For years it would be on in bars, clubs, brunch & dinner parties, and everybody went when they played live. Sounds like they are back after a long radio silence and it calls for more. To find in my first playlist of the year, my month in music:
What I’m watching 📺
Last year, my friend Pmoe recommended that I watch Fallout. I found it one of the most creatively refreshing shows of the year and he was bang on with his recommendation. If you like Walton Goggins from the last The White Lotus season, he’s in Fallout and season 2 is out. I didn’t watch anything this week, so it’s added to my viewing queue. Here’s the trailer.
What I’m thinking about 🧠
Here’s one of my favorite passages from The Overstory. The backdrop to this breathy paragraph is that one of the protagonists takes a photo of a chestnut every month of every year, just like his father did before him. The passage describes what’s happening behind the lens:
The photos hide everything: the twenties that do not roar for the Hoels. The Depression that costs them two hundred acres and sends half the family to Chicago. The radio shows that ruin two of Frank Jr.’s sons for farming. The Hoel death in the South Pacific and the two Hoel guilty survivals. The Deeres and Caterpillars parading through the tractor shed. The barn that burns to the ground one night to the screams of helpless animals. The dozens of joyous weddings, christenings, and graduations. The half dozen adulteries. The two divorces sad enough to silence songbirds. One son’s unsuccessful campaign for the state legislature. The lawsuit between cousins. The three surprise pregnancies. The protracted Hoel guerrilla war against the local pastor and half the Lutheran parish. The handiwork of heroin and Agent Orange that comes home with nephews from ’Nam. The hushed-up incest, the lingering alcoholism, a daughter’s elopement with the high school English teacher. The cancers (breast, colon, lung), the heart disease, the degloving of a worker’s fist in a grain auger, the car death of a cousin’s child on prom night. The countless tons of chemicals with names like Rage, Roundup, and Firestorm, the patented seeds engineered to produce sterile plants. The fiftieth wedding anniversary in Hawaii and its disastrous aftermath. The dispersal of retirees to Arizona and Texas. The generations of grudge, courage, forbearance, and surprise generosity: everything a human being might call the story happens outside his photos’ frame. Inside the frame,through hundreds of revolving seasons, there is only that solo tree, its fissured bark spiraling upward into early middle age, growing at the speed of wood.
What else?! 💯
My notebook is filled with pages of answers to the questions from the contemplation retreat. Granted, not all questions were problems, but I’ve found it helpful to turn to writing when faced with a problem. It forces me to get out of my head, be disciplined in specifying the problem, and the solutions often come through this process. This Substack essay by Magdalena uses the same method by giving it a good frame and time box.
Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!
David
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