Writer exploring culture, technology, life design, and the human experience. Writing at BarryFralick.com
Sunday Notes 4/21/24
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Hello from Upstate, NY. Here are this week's notes. From me: Thoughts on grief, mourning, and shame Grief is the overwhelming feeling that comes with loss. It is something out of our control. A visceral response that only fades with time and mourning. Mourning is the process of dealing with grief. It is the deeply personal and internal comprehension of events. Mourning is the creation of a map that guides us forward. Shame is the concealed element. It hides amongst grief. Thoughts like: 'I should have spent more time with this person.' or 'I should have told them how I truly felt.' There are a lot of 'shoulds' within shame. I'm not sure how you confront shame. Maybe you don't. It seems irreconcilable. But I do think it's preventable, just like regret. The risk of shame is lessoned by giving time, caring words, and loving attention to people and things held dearest. Each day is an opportunity to prevent shame. -- A quote: There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading ― that is a good life.
― Annie Dillard
-- Interesting: How To Die In Good Health As we grasp that our days are limited, we seem to abdicate our need for control; we may try to close the gap between what we want and what we have. Healthy aging seems to require a shift in mind-set as much as a shift in muscle mass. -- Life Design: Jung's Five Pillars of a Good Life TL;DR
-- Work: 37 Pieces of Career Advice I Wish I'd Known Earlier -- From Twitter: On summertime. -- Lastly, a question: Via Martino Pietropoli: What is one thing that might change your life? As always, thanks for reading. ❤️ Barry |
Barry Fralick
Writer exploring culture, technology, life design, and the human experience. Writing at BarryFralick.com
Greetings and Happy Mother's Day. Here are this week's notes. From me: On choosing reactions My writing was plagiarized this week. I couldn't believe it. This has never happened to me before. Another writer stole a summary I had written word for word. At first, I was furious. I thought about calling the guy out on Twitter. I follow him there. I've shared his work here. He has a large following. He is a popular writer and one I respect(ed). I did nothing. The thing is, for all I know, it could...
Hello and welcome to the the magnificent month of May. The trees are coming alive here in Upstate NY, and once again, we are on the cusp of another splendid summer. Here are this week's notes. From me: On wishful anticipation. A melodramatic tweet I wrote on Twitter the other day: There is no precursor to an ideal life. No free trial. It is a perilous mirage. It is happening now. We're living the real thing despite wishful anticipation. Waiting and wanting is an unknowingly slow march through...
Greetings friends. Here are this week's notes. From me: A PSA I'm writing this email, except I'm not writing at all. Instead, I am organizing the refrigerator, wiping down the outside of the stove, and going through the spice cabinet. Writers are notorious for distracting themselves with dumb tasks. My home has never been so clean. Why? Because cleaning's easier than doing the hard thing. Writing, in this case, is the hard thing. But it doesn't feel good. I know this email is more important....