After reading a New Yorker article on America’s biggest selling books, many of which are “self-help” I realized I’d read many of them and none helped me help myself (although plenty of other things in my life have). Soon after, I stumbled on the penultimate self-help advice.
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Since we discovered the remarkable effects of reading a poem every morning several years ago, we’ve looked for ways to weave poetry more widely into our life. We found a trove of dazzlers to listen to anywhere.
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Traumatized by seeing her aged face on Zoom, actress Kathryn Grody rants, despairing and conflicted, to her son Gideon as he films her with his iPhone. It is one of the many illuminating moments captured on @Mandy Patinkin, documenting the everyday life of actor Mandy Patinkin, Grody and Gideon as they shelter at their upstate NY cabin.
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The past week working at our desk, we listened to soundscapes of forests in Malaysia, Estonia, Portugal, China and France… Through a remarkable website, we found ourselves transported into tranquil environments AND quickly able to gift trees to friends…
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Frequent contributor S.B. Dworski dives into John Koenig’s deeply beautiful concept, Sonder, which has poignant resonance today.
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After a particularly rough period of her life, artist and gardener Lorene Edwards Forkner embarked on an unusual daily practice, that quietly taught her some very big lessons.
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We’re loving comic artist Edith Zimmerman’s wonderful site,, Drawing Links. It features comics that tell the story of an experience she’s had along with links she’s found apropos. Subjects include Time, Tao Te Ching, Home Decor… Here’s a favorite…
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At the New Yorker, cartoonist Roz Chast takes on the kind of equation we are seeing everywhere, of “experts” assessing the level of risk in commonly enjoyed activities of human existence.
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When Radio Garden starts to load, the words “planting seeds” appears on the screen. Then a virtual globe appears around which you travel to tune into thousands of live radio stations around the world. It is magic.
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Transported via the virtual tour of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera’s Casa Azul in Mexico City, we found ourselves wandering through gardens, studios and living spaces: much-needed escape and delight.
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Just about every week, we find something useful in Kevin Kelly’s newsletter Recomendo, a handful of “cool stuff” from really smart people. The latest is The Immediacy Filter.
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Over half a century ago in 1967, John Lennon’s ‘A Day in the Life” nailed the feeling of hurried daily life infused with dark news that continues to reverberate today. Check out this antidote to the relentless daily barrage of bleak news…
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At #Consider Journal, a remarkable post ranges from W.S. Merwin’s last book to the “cyclical effect of nature and art” to the bigger question of how our expression might come to resonate in bigger ways.
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Core 77’s Weekly Design Roast gives our Annals of Bad Design a serious run for the money. Rain Noe deconstructs high-minded, idiotic design, channeling the hilarious design thinking behind it.
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If you’re in need of illumination NOW, here’s how to scroll through everything ever posted on Improvised Life.
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Realizing we disliked Instagram for the “junkfood” feeling it gave us, we embarked upon a rigorous edit. Our criteria: whatever we follow must illuminate.
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One of the most magical places I know of to take stock of life and transform it is Omega Institute, a true catalyst for change and possibility thinking. I’ll be teaching a workshop there this summer…
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Though we’re not fans of Twitter, we are enthralled by British writer Robert Macfarlane’s feed for its remarkable ability to connect us to nature, landscape, heart…
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The Slowdown, a daily 5-minute long podcast from U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, is remarkable in its power to truly slow down time and transport you OUT of the busy mulit-tasking present.
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Among the email newsletters I subscribe to, From the Curious Mind of Jocelyn K. Glei is one where I always find something that challenges my thinking and/or makes my life better.
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