Tiny Revolutions №54: Living at the Wall

+ how to be lucky 🤞🏼

Hi, I’m 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.

Sara Campbell @janedonuts

Phone screen —> computer screen —-> phone screen —-> peloton screen —-> tv screen —-> kindle screen —-> phone screen —-> repeat until death or insanity A covid story

This too is me.

Richard Lawson @rilaws

Did the dishes, made some tea, climbed into bed, looked at my phone and realized it was 7:15 PM

And this too!

Hieu Minh Nguyen @HieuMinh

I miss my friends and will probably still miss my friends even when we get to see each other again. We are all a little different now. All the new friends inside the old. I’m excited to meet them.

I’m tired. Everyone else seems tired. We’re hitting the pandemic wall again and again and again — so much so that we’re 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 haven’t bothered to replace it. I can walk or ride my bike to get most of what I need and I work from home and there’s not much that’s even open, so what was the point?

It was funny to drive around and see that familiar neighborhoods are looking less familiar – 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 I’ve changed a lot too, only it’s not clear how. I guess we all have.

+

Here are some links and some tweets that capture what’s been rolling around in my head lately. Hope you enjoy.

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Speaking of driving around, here’s 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.)

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If you didn’t follow the incredible Reddit vs. Wall Street battle that erupted last week, it’s worth reading up on – 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:

Josh Constine - SignalFire @JoshConstine

Everyone is accountable to capitalism. Until the short-term incentive structure changes, we can't be surprise that tech plays the game to win. Systemic change is slow, but the best an invidvidual can do is band together with some friends and make something that matters to them

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:

Matthew Burnside @MatthewBurnsid7

making art in a world obsessed with money, guns, & power over other people is radical as hell. i hope u make something weird & beautiful today

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Also related!

Last Tuesday night, a handful of game souls gathered with me on Zoom to spend a silent hour working on a project they’ve been putting off. Together but separately we made headway. It was great fun and we’re planning to do it again this Tuesday at 7:00 pm PT. If you’d like to join us, you can RSVP here. I’m in the early stages of writing a book. What are you up to?

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“We tend to think of serendipity as something that just happens to us, when actually it’s a process of spotting and connecting the dots, to see bridges where others see gaps. ‘Smart luck’ or serendipity is about creating meaningful accidents – and making accidents meaningful!

In a time when serendipity seems particularly hard to come by, I appreciated this guide to How to Be Lucky.

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…And if you’re not in a place where you’re trying to get lucky because you’re currently just trying to get by, I highly recommend this Checklist to Get Through Anything (via Patricia Mou’s excellent Wellness Wisdom newsletter).

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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. Let’s do more weird stuff together.

😘

Sara

p.s. Share this with someone who needs a tiny revolution of their own!