7 for Sunday

There is a well-known trumpet player named Rick Braun. Although a few years younger, he was born in the same city and went to the same high school as my dad. And if my memory serves, they were in high school at the same time and at least knew of each other. My dad played the trumpet…

There are countless instances where I’m reminded that “tomorrow” is not a given. I pay attention to those, and do my best to do it now. To say— Thank you. I appreciate you. I appreciate what you did there. I appreciate you’re taking the time to… You get the gist. For me, I’ve tried to take…

I recently cracked open Listening: Interviews, 1970-1989 by Jonathan Cott. The Introduction alone knocked one of my socks off; I leapt out of my reading chair to search the Internet hoping the Introduction might be published publicly so I could share it. Alas, instead I found this: There ought to be a word in English that describes…

For years now I’ve been fascinated by groups of three. These perspectives are not just useful literary devices. They are core practical perspectives that we adopt toward the world and our place in it. As we pursue our projects and pleasures, interact with others, and share public institutions and meanings, we are constantly shifting back and…

Sometimes I sit in a chair on the patio in the afternoon sun. If I’m just the right combination of tired, relaxed, and comfortable, and if the wind, sun, temperature, and soundscape are just so, I can drift into a trance. Time passes. After which, I have no clear sense of whether it was a…

Agent K put it best, “Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.” Some things once known, cannot be unknown. There’s…

I am often stuck in the resistance right before actually writing. It usually takes me several attempts to approach the work. It feels like walking up the slippery slope of a small hill, where the initial speed and direction has to be perfect, and then with continued effort—a penguin waddling judiciously—I reach the gently rounded…

Taking a break is really difficult. A short break is often easy enough if you’re comfortable simply ignoring everything… for 10 minutes. But if you really want to take a real break, the difficulty escalates rapidly. I recently spent a long weekend camping a short, walkable distance from the beach. Each of the three full…

At the kickoff of an unusually long issue of 7 for Sunday, I’ll try to keep this first part short, because (as I often say, because I really do mean it) I appreciate your time and attention, and I don’t take it for granted. Civility fades in the face of entitlement. ~ Seth Godin from, https://seths.blog/2023/10/no-thank-you/…

Festina lenta is a phrase I once used as my touchstone for a year. It means, to make haste s l o w l y. It’s inherently ridiculous, but also points to the very old and very excellent point about taking one’s time. It’s an antidote to the venoms busy and hurry. “These days” things are not…