Tiny Revolutions ā54: Living at the Wall
+ how to be lucky š¤š¼
Hi, Iām Sara, and this is Tiny Revolutions, a weekly-ish dispatch of personal writing and links about becoming who you are. Reply anytime, I love to hear from you.
This is me lately.
This too is me.
And this too!
Iām tired. Everyone else seems tired. Weāre hitting the pandemic wall again and again and again ā so much so that weāre basically just living at the wall.
Yesterday I rented a car and drove around LA for a while in an attempt to change things up. Ran some errands. Went to visit my brother and his family. Got takeout from restaurants beyond my food delivery radius. I gave up my car last fall when the lease was up, and havenāt bothered to replace it. I can walk or ride my bike to get most of what I need and I work from home and thereās not much thatās even open, so what was the point?
It was funny to drive around and see that familiar neighborhoods are looking less familiar āĀ so many new places keep appearing while the old favorites are dying off. Even in a year when time has seemed to stand still, a lot has changed.
I can feel that Iāve changed a lot too, only itās not clear how. I guess we all have.
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Here are some links and some tweets that capture whatās been rolling around in my head lately. Hope you enjoy.
Speaking of driving around, hereās a cool website some internet genius built that lets you watch video of driving around cities all over the world while listening to local radio stations. May it be a balm for your cabin fever. (Best viewed on desktop.)
If you didnāt follow the incredible Reddit vs. Wall Street battle that erupted last week, itās worth reading up on āĀ a truly fascinating David and Goliath story with major implications. Anyone who knows anything about technology or finance had a lot to say about it, but this was probably my favorite take:
So much is so unknowable and so far beyond our control that creating really does seem like the only sensible thing to do right now. Why not?
Related:
Also related!
Last Tuesday night, a handful of game souls gathered with me on Zoom to spend a silent hour working on a project theyāve been putting off. Together but separately we made headway. It was great fun and weāre planning to do it again this Tuesday at 7:00 pm PT. If youād like to join us, you can RSVP here. Iām in the early stages of writing a book. What are you up to?
āWe tend to think of serendipity as something that just happens to us, when actually itās a process of spotting and connecting the dots, to see bridges where others see gaps. āSmart luckā or serendipity is about creating meaningful accidents ā and making accidents meaningful!
In a time when serendipity seems particularly hard to come by, I appreciated this guide to How to Be Lucky.
ā¦And if youāre not in a place where youāre trying to get lucky because youāre currently just trying to get by, I highly recommend this Checklist to Get Through Anything (via Patricia Mouās excellent Wellness Wisdom newsletter).
Finally, nearly three years after I started writing it, this newsletter passed 1,000 subscribers last week. Thanks for joining me on this newsletter/experiment/art project/mid-life crisis/etc. Letās do more weird stuff together.
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Sara
p.s. Share this with someone who needs a tiny revolution of their own!