Last issue had a time theme and the circular time vs. linear time link below follows that thread.
But when I saw this list of questions passing by, I knew it'd be great to include them in a January issue.
Though, I can say: asking them throughout the year makes sense too!
- What was one of the moments you were most proud of in 2019?
- What does that tell you about what you want to spend your energy/time/money on next year?
- When were you genuinely surprised this last year?
- What was your best failure this year? (i.e. what thing that didn’t go well eventually taught you something critical?)
- What was your most overrated success? (i.e. something you thought would feel great that was sort of a let down?)
- Who really enriched your life this year in a big way? Who is someone you want to get to know better in the year ahead?
- What community are you a part of right now that you find most nourishing?
- What kind of community are you craving?
- What goals—personal or professional—are you releasing in 2020?
- Who did you feel most jealous of this year? What is that person up to that you want to bring more of into your own life?
- Where and with whom were you most resentful in 2019? How can you get straight about your own needs and articulate them so you can stop feeling that shit in 2020?
- What piece of art, movie, or book really inspired you this year?
- What conversation was most memorable in 2019?
- What made it stick with you so powerfully?
- If you had to articulate a mantra for 2020, what would it be?
- When were you most physically joyful in 2019?
- How can you get there more in 2020?
- What is one question that you found yourself asking over and over again this year? What version of an answer are you living your way into?
- What was the most sacred experience you had in the last decade?
- What makes you despair and what gives you hope right now?
Some of these are quite heavy. I hope you like that. ; )
As always, thank you for reading! And welcome to the new subscribers (recent uptick is a welcome trend!) Please do reply with feedback,
Jon
p.s.
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Cycling
Parallel Webshop
Welcome to Parallel Handbuilt's new website. Joergen has been building world class wheels and custom bikes in the world since 2015.
New Year, New Tricks: Danny MacAskill's Gymnasium
▶︎ Watch: Scottish Trials Bike legend Danny MacAskill shows us in his new film ‘Gymnasium’ that there are other ways to make your mark in the gym.
Burning Brexit Challenge – BEAT Cycling Club
I'll be riding in England on the 1st day of Brexit with BEAT Cycling Club. I can say to be there on such a grim day will be strange indeed.
Influences
Onboard Transcontinental Film
Antonin of ahstudio.fr made this film about The Transcontinental Race.
Bas from Wheelrunner and I on behalf of Twotone will host an Amsterdam screening in March.
Stay tuned!
Big Mood Machine
As an admittedly regular listener of my Discover Weekly playlist, this peek inside Spotify’s emotional surveillance-driven quest for total ad domination caught my eye.
✖️ The music business in the 2020s through the lense of global trends 🌪️
Building of the Spotify link above, what are the anticipated bigger trends in the music industry on a global scale in the coming decade?
New Ideas
Circular time vs. linear time
Jocelyn Glei links to Austin Kleon's post the differences between a circular and a linear view of time.
Austin illustrates linear time with an excerpt from Olga Tokarczuk’s 2018 novel Flights:
Every moment is unique, no moment can ever be repeated. This idea favors risk-taking, living life to the fullest, seizing the day. And yet the innovation is a profoundly bitter one: when change over time is irreversible, loss and mourning become daily things.
In Keep Going, he advocates however for a return to circular time — thinking of the creative life as more of a loop, or a spiral:
not
At first I thought linear was a no-brainer. Now I'm not so sure...
For more head scratching, click here.
In fact, for a head whack: The 2010s Broke Our Sense Of Time. 💥
The Outer Fringes of Our Language: A Conversation with Werner Herzog
Robert Harrison speaks to Werner Herzog.
A quote I liked:
"The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot." - Werner Herzog
... I like to think this can apply to cycling too but acknowledge walking does it so much more.
Emotionally Extreme Experiences, Not Just "Positive" or "Negative" Experiences, Are More Meaningful in Life
At the end of our lives, will we look back and remember most poignantly all of the calm and tranquil meditation sessions we had, or will we remember the moments that plumbed the depths of our emotional life, that made us feel most alive?
Radness
OpenStreetMap Haiku
"OpenStreetMap is a revolutionary project, it's the most complete map of the world ever made. An idea that is usually conveyed by enumerating grand statistics: 5 million users, 5 billion nodes, 3 million changes a day, 100 million distinct tags, etc. We think this can and should also be expressed in a more sensible manner and with a pinch of randomness." - Erik EscoffierSatellite Studio
The original inspiration for this is a project called every thing every time by Naho Matsuda. (more about it on their blog)
And if you're on insta, reply here in the next 24hrs and I'll share the answers.
I love this. : )