reading, watching & listening to

I read this newsletter for years. This father’s story of his daughter passing away brought me to tears.

What I quickly realized is how many yellow blazers there are in the world and that at many times in my life, I too have been a yellow blazer—opting for easier but less authentic and less interesting routes. The podcast is part of a portfolio of things that I put in place in my life to try to avoid being a yellow blazer, to instead push myself to be more like a blue blazer, exploring anywhere I can.

The idea that we could have so much community with so little effort was an illusion. We are digitally connected to more people than ever and terribly lonely nevertheless. Closeness requires time, and time has not fallen in cost or risen in quantity.

I do not blame anyone but myself for this. This is not something the corporations did to me. This is something I did to myself. But I am looking now for software that insists I make choices rather than whispers that none are needed. I don’t want my digital life to be one shame closet after another. A new metaphor has taken hold for me: I want it to be a garden I tend, snipping back the weeds and nourishing the plants.