Newsletter

Low Tea, 90s Films, and More!

All the highs and lows of the last week.

This week, I put together an impromptu low tea for us here at home because our favorite tea house closed! We’d had a reservation for one of the last days it was open, but since Covid’s been ramping up (and there are other illnesses about) we felt we needed to cancel it. Luckily, I was able to bake us scones and a meat pie, and Katie is a genius at cucumber sandwiches.

What’s new this week?

I was interviewed this week by SubKit regarding Round Table Writers! You can read the full interview here. If you want to hire the Unenlightened Generalists for personalized coaching, you can check out our SubKit page, here.

I’ve been way overloaded as the old year turns into the new, trying to tackle personal projects, the start of my MLIS program (the first class opens on Monday!), and a new writing job for a startup company. That’s meant that my creative writing has been basically shoved to the wayside. Coupled with storm preparations making it hard to meet my friends at RTW, there’s been a sense of loss and heaviness surrounding my creative stuff. That’s one of the reasons it was so nice to have the SubKit interview come in!

I’ve got a number of articles for you this week, running the gamut of my interests, from cult 90s films, to Joseph Campbell’s mythology studies. I also have some videos and a few tidbits from the world of the web.

The year ahead is certain to be interesting. What are your plans? How are you going to improve yourself and be a positive example to the people around you? How are you going to have fun?

Articles

Brave or Firefox? What’s the Best Privacy-Respecting Browser? Two of the largest names in browser privacy, but which is better?
Covid’s Back, Baby! (It Never Left) Does the new variant pose a severe risk? The answer lies in your community’s hygiene habits.
How to Become a Hero (or just be a better human being) The famous mythologist, Joseph Campbell, has the answer to becoming a better person. And it only takes two steps!
You Can Become "Moderately Good" at Any Skill in Just 40 Days The key lies in a combination of specificity, atomization, and diligence.
The Most Underrated Science Fiction Films of the 1990s With the millennium nearing, some brilliant science fiction hit the scene.

Other Projects

The Unenlightened Generalists’ workout challenge continues! It’s been a tough one to fit in because I’ve been really tired this week, but it’s been super rewarding to have a daily exercise routine back in play. I made a little video about modifying weights for workouts, here!

We also needed a new fridge, but our home kitchen was built stupid, and we couldn’t find a new fridge that would fit. So, I moved the kitchen cabinet above the fridge in order to make room! I look mildly insane in the photo for the thumbnail, lol.

Holidays that we celebrate

Our biggest goal this year is to build a sense of ritual into our lives, by taking holidays from around the world and letting them inform a natural flow to our sense of time. I loved waking up every morning to a small fire ceremony and chant, taken from Katie’s time living in an Ashram, for the first week of January. This was also an intentional cleansing time, where we ate healthier, focused our minds inward, and tried to connect with the simple things in life.

Friday was Twelfth Night, as well as Wassail, which is all about blessing the orchards. There’s actually a lot more depth to this day, and you can read about it on our site, here! The day following (Saturday) is now formally the day we take our Tree and other holiday decorations down. It’s nice to have a specific time when that happens — now.

Katie even took me completely by surprise and got me some lovely Twelfth Night gifts! A lovely bento box and Japanese cookware (inspired by our general enjoyment and appreciation of Asian cuisine, as well as our watching this channel).

Later this month we have Pride and Prejudice Day, as well as Burns Night. I’m looking forward to both!

News in the world

I wrote a whole Medium article about this, so I won’t reiterate everything here. The basic gist is: The new Covid XBB.1.5 variant boosts the threat level, but most deeply in communities where vaccinations and masking aren’t in effect. At this point, people with autoimmune issues and underlying conditions remain the worst-affected, while communities with high levels of vaccinations shouldn’t see too much of an increase in immediate* practical danger.

Immediate danger: Why do I stipulate this? The symptoms of so-called Long-Covid are still being analyzed, but we do know that repeat infections drive up the likelihood of serious health consequences.* ([1], [2], [3], [4]).

Read the details from The Guardian.

Basically, folks… just wear a mask in public! It protects other people, as well as yourself—and not just from Covid! I don’t want to catch the ordinary flu, either. ;)

In my neck of the woods, flooding is pretty bad this week, and with rains continuing into the next week, it’s not likely to get better. We’ve picked up sand bags and a small portable battery pack, and earlier in the week, Katie made a massive load of granola, so we have some treats in case the power went out. C’est la vie!

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From the World Wide Web

IN 1978 A LOCAL VERMONT NEWSPAPER ASKED FOLKS TO SHARE THEIR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS. THIS WAS BERNIE’S: “In 1978, as in other years, I hope to be able to play some role in making working people aware that the present day reality of poverty, wage slavery and mind-destroying media and schools is not the only reality — but simply a pathetic presentation brought to us by a handful of power-hungry individuals who own and control our economy.”

I’ve always been annoyed by the so-called “Tragedy of the Commons” rhetoric because it’s blatantly false, yet gets repeated everywhere. This essay is a superb look at the history of this phrase, as well as why this pernicious myth is so devastating for our societies.

The miracle of the commons Far from being profoundly destructive, we humans have deep capacities for sharing resources with generosity and foresight

For something on the lighter side: This is just one of the most joyful bubble creations in all of history.
Hey, you need to read this. I’ve dropped some heavy stuff in this newsletter, so let this post be the meditation that closes things out.

What’s next?

With the first week of January down, I’m going to be spending all my time working on my MLIS, my new job, or my projects (like Fight for the First). I’m going to also try to get some fiction work done. We’ll see.

Until next week, my friends; go easy. And, if you can’t go easy, then go as easy as you can.

~Odin