[antifragile 4 🔥 - peace 😌] an almost disconnected walk across Japan, ice skating under the Auroras, phoneless fools, poems
#23: a weekly 4-item newsletter created to inspire dads to use the challenges of fatherhood as fuel for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind.
🍁 Do you ever stop and chuckle at the absurdity of the fact that we live in a world where leaves turn bright colors, fall to the ground, and are reborn a few months later…but we also have the capability to marvel at it?
How lucky are we?
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Welcome to the 23rd edition of the antifragile 4 🔥.
It’s a weekly 4-item newsletter from The Antifragile Dad created to inspire dads to use the challenges of fatherhood as fuel for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind. Some weeks will have a theme, others will meander. Expect it every Friday.
This week; the peace edition 😌. Modern life is filled with many things that pull us away from peace. I hope this edition nudges you towards it.
Here’s this week’s antifragile 4 (er….5) 🔥:
the story 🇯🇵 of one man’s glorious almost-disconnected walk across Japan
a short clip ⛸️ of ice skating under the Auroras in Finland
a quote 📱 about some poor phoneless fool
a poem….just a poem 📖
[BONUS] another poem! but one you can watch 👀
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1.) the story 🇯🇵 of one man’s glorious almost-disconnected walk across Japan
One of my favorite articles of all time. (If you’re getting blocked, using an incognito window should work).
It’s long but worth it.
The author is a computer programmer who decided the only way he could escape the gravitational pull of the modern condition was to walk…just walk…for 620 (almost) disconnected miles across Japan.
There’s something about truly disconnecting that (after a few days) releases the tension from your shoulders. I’ve experienced it a few times as an adult. I seek to do it more often
…but 620 mile disconnect walks don’t work when you have kids, so…we’ll need to hit the drawing board 🤔
2.) a short clip ⛸️ of ice skating under the Auroras in Finland
A magical scene in Finland.
Can we put this thing on loop, please?
3.) a quote 📱 about some poor phoneless fool
I’m as pro-technology as you can get. I think our lives would be way worse without phones.
But…
BUT!
The way we use them to mainline information - 99% of which is completely useless and unactionable - takes a real toll.
So, perhaps this is the impetus for you to think about making a change and bringing more boredom & more peace into your days.
(Despite how I ragged on app/website blockers in the past, I do think they can be helpful early in the process of detoxing from social/news. I like 1Focus for desktop & Refocus for mobile. They’re not easy to disable and provide you a little space to reconsider your decision to open Twitter, Instagram, etc)
4.) a poem….just a poem 📖
The more poetry like this I read, the more my resting heart rate drops.
Take a second and read it…slowly.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Barry
5.) [BONUS] another poem! but one you can watch 👀
I came across this during 2020.
There is such intense beauty in the way the poem is read.
Enjoy 😌
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Two last things for you this week:
Seek out one (small) way to bring more peace into your life. Maybe choosing a book over TV. Maybe silence over a podcast. Maybe get up early and watch the leaves blow around. The options are limitless.
Be fire and wish for the wind 🔥
With love,
Chris