Well, this week has turned into a no-desk-time week. What that means is that the essay I started last week is still sitting 1/8 finished in my drafts folder as the time I set aside for writing is has been eaten up with other work (pesky day job). It also means that I’ve spent an excessive amount of time hanging out with a six-foot-tall penguin (Okay, I actually love my day job.), so it’s not all bad.
What I have had plenty of this week is driving time. And driving time often translates to listening time. So I thought maybe a premature dose of EEE would be just the thing to bridge the gap and see if it’s even possible for me to work on at least finishing this essay, even if I don’t get much of anything else written.
What’s Exciting Me?
My birthday was last week, and I had a really nice, low-key, quiet day with some family time and some friend time. I’ve also got another book club coming up in 2 weeks, which is exciting!
What’s Entertaining Me?
📺 So many finales have happened, it’s hard to know where to go next. But one thing that hasn’t finished for the season/series yet is SILO. I’m really enjoying this show. Though I’ve read the series more than once, I am finding the book takes some events out of order, removes some others, and adds in others. But I am a storyteller, and I can appreciate the fact that the show isn’t just like the book—in fact, in my old age I’ve gotten a lot more excited and interested to see how different visual storytellers envision and tell story that was previously published in written form. I don’t think they’ve done anything to detract from the essence of the story, though I’m really anxious about where the season will end. I have a very strong feeling I know where it is going, and if so, it’s a cliffhanger and an event that happens about halfway (don’t quote me) through the first book. If it’s what I think it is, it will definitely keep people tuning in for Season 2.
📖 At long last, I’ve finished City of Day by October K. Santerelli. I really enjoyed the story! I’m pretty disappointed that it ended on a very sharp cliffhanger, but I will definitely read the next one.
🎶 This week’s listening recommendation comes in two parts, and I’m going to go ahead and say these are required listening for anyone on the earth right now. But don’t feel like you need to listen to both if you don’t want to. One has much more context and an interview format; the other is a TED Talk. I learned about Megan Phelps-Roper a while ago, but never knew too much about her until my husband strenuously recommended I not ignore his podcast recommendation (like I usually do) and actually listen to this one. I see now why he wanted me to listen to it, and I strongly recommend you listen to either the Armchair Expert interview (~1 hr) or the TED Talk (15 min) or both. She talks about how we can engage in civil discourse to understand one another and try and bridge some of the divides that have formed in our society and only widened since 2016. I’m embedding it right here because I think it’s that important.
What’s Enlightening Me?
None of this is new, and I’m not the only one saying it. But the only way we are going to get through the ugly part of history we’re living in is to help repair some of this anger, hate, fear, and hurt that has taken over so much of our public discourse lately. I really hope we can begin to take these lessons and applying them. One-on-one is how change happens. These conversations are how our world can heal.
The next essay has more on this, I think. I started writing it, then I listened to the above, and I need to figure out if I have more to add here. I think I do. Here’s a snippet from it:
Chatrooms technically exist today, but they have fallen by the wayside as social media has taken over. And why not? It’s essentially one big network of interconnected chatrooms.
Well, two big networks.
We’ll see where this one goes.
What’s your EEE this week? Let me know in the comments.
See you soon!
Wow, the TED talk 👏🏼👏🏼 thank you for sharing it!