The Reading List - May 2023

Procrastination as a job and this month's books

I was bit by the procrastination bug the past couple months. There are an infinite number of topics available to the writer. But one of the more important, and dare I say novel, aspects of writing is to actually, you know, finish what you start. Sure the practice is great, but not completing the process is just avoidance of the outcome. Some of us fear success. Some of us fear failure. And that’s what we try to avoid. Of course it’s important not to get wrapped up in the outcome, as if it is the most important part of the process. It isn’t.

The funny thing I’ve realized, the less writing I finish and put out into the world, the more likely I am to demand perfection out of my writing. Perfection doesn’t exist, but it’s totally backwards thinking anyway. It takes consistent practice to get better at writing, like any form of art. Or we could just say like any form of work, exercise, or anything that is beneficial to us.

So where does this put me now? Sitting here with a couple months of drafts and it's unlikely I'll finish most of it. I believe there is a moment when the muse is speaking to you and once that moment passes, it's nearly impossible to capture the moment again. So if you don't use that time the right way, it becomes a waste (maybe "waste" is a little drastic). We can attempt to push through, but this can be painfully hard. It's like reading a book you don't want to read. You just aren't in the right headspace to get anything out of it. How else can we describe when ideas come to us and disappear out of nowhere? I don't believe this is because we figured out we aren't all that interested in the idea. I think it has a lot more to do with our brain not accepting the idea. This can happen because we judge the idea. It can happen because we don't have the mental capacity to handle it. But it can also happen for the simple reason that we aren't open to it. And I think this shows a lack of care as to what the muse is whispering to us. This may be a little woo-woo for some of you, but all art has a mysterious presence to it and I think embracing the muse is how we create the closest version of the thing that we actually want to create. Otherwise we are forcing something out of us that isn't quite ready to be shared.

Let's dig into some books.

The Creative Act by Rick Rubin

“Success occurs in the privacy of the soul. It comes in the moment you decide to release the work, before exposure to a single opinion. When you’ve done all you can to bring out the work’s greatest potential. When you’re pleased and ready to let go. Success has nothing to do with variables outside yourself.” -Rick Rubin

I love books on the creative process. Especially from someone like Rick Rubin who has spent decades mining the universe of creative discovery. For those that have read Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, this has a similar appeal to it. This is one of those books you can pick up to read a chapter, which in most cases are no more than a few pages, and spend time pondering the message. This isn’t a “how to” book, although there are plenty of how to messages inside. It is a mediation on creation and the way in which we enrich our lives through the process. Pick up this book and read it. This is definitely one I will revisit again and again.

I highly recommend pairing this with The War of Art, as mentioned above, and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.

Death-Bringer by M.S. Bourland

“Our dreams are pieces of us - to be afraid of them is to be afraid of ourselves.” -M.S. Bourland

It’s hard to find modern novels that explore deep philosophical themes like death and free will vs. fate. That’s just one aspect of this that I enjoyed. The setting of ancient Greece wrapped with Greek mythology appealed to the side of me that loves ancient civilization history. What we get is a plot filled with power games - familial, political, and of the gods. This makes for interesting dialogue, relationship choices, and most of all where trust is placed. I’m looking forward to M.S.’s second novel in the series, which she is currently working on now.

What's Our Problem? by Tim Urban

“Weird things happen to your thinking when the drive for truth is infected by some ulterior motive. Psychologists call it “motivated reasoning.” I like to think of it as Reasoning While Motivated—the thinking equivalent of drunk driving.” -Tim Urban

I'm a huge fan of Tim Urban and love his blog, Wait But Why. He typically tackles big concepts in long-form essay format accompanied with his own drawings. This is his first book and it is a long one at 700+ pages. But it is engaging, as is all of his work.

We tend to think about politics on a horizontal scale of left, center, right. Tim adds a vertical scale based on the level of thinking especially in our excessively polarized world. Lower level being less open to new ideas and challenging ourselves. The upper level being more open to questioning ourselves and our ideas. This is the echo chamber vs idea lab mentality. But I prefer the term Benjamin Franklin used instead of idea lab, Junto. Which for him was a place where people could meet, talk out their ideas, and share their honest opinions. It was especially important for Franklin in the political realm. This is not something we do well. We tend to ride hard on our side and not budge, whether it's politics, religion, or whatever. People have become religious about their politics when they should think more scientifically. You have a hypothesis (an idea) and you challenge the hell out of it to see if the idea can stand up to scrutiny.

For most of us, this is a scary proposition. The last thing we want is someone telling us our idea sucks. But this is what helps us form better ideas and it's how we can better use our brain. People who are unwilling to question their beliefs and ideas are unwilling to find out why they are wrong and how they can improve upon them. I’ll let you in on a secret: we’re all pretty much wrong about everything. That shouldn’t deter us to form opinions and ideas. It should free our minds to form a lot more. Fuck your batting average. Don’t sit on the sidelines with your ideas because you can’t handle being wrong.

It’s also equally important to have these conversations with the right people. Someone who isn’t open to a discussion with critical thinking more than likely won’t provide you with accurate feedback.

Whether you are right leaning or left leaning, you will find that this book is not one-sided. It is more of an argument to recognize and remove low level thinking, whether it’s right or left.

Speaking of procrastination, I also have to recommend Tim’s TED talk. If you are unfamiliar with his work, this is a good place to start. If you want to find out more about Benjamin Franklin’s Junto - The Leather Apron Club - read his autobiography, which has a lot more of value than just this one thing.

The Love Prescription by John Gottman & Julie Schwartz Gottman

“We are often much too rigid about what we categorize as a need. You may ask yourself: Is it a want or a need? Our answer: It doesn’t matter! We have a misconception that wants are not as valid as needs. Wants, we’ve internalized, mean you’re greedy or selfish. Not true. Wants and needs exist across a nuanced range, and like colors across the light spectrum, there are almost infinite possibilities - from yellows to reds to blues to violets and from our most urgent needs to our deepest desires. They are all valid. And they should be expressed - especially to your partner.” -John & Julie Gottman

It takes a certain kind of awareness to understand the type of person you are in a relationship. And I think a good chunk of this comes from understanding the environment where you grew up.

Enter John Gottman. Some of you have likely heard of John Gottman and possibly even read one of his books. The Gottmans are world renowned relationship experts and they've been doing this for more decades than I've been alive. This book is a 7-day step-by-step plan on getting more out your relationship with your significant other. These aren't big, lofty things that are hard to do. It’s also not about conflict reduction. It’s a proactive approach to connecting in the right way. This is whether you have a troubled relationship or a strong relationship.

If you want to find out more about the book or the Gottmans before diving in, I would highly recommend this podcast with Adam Grant (Apple, Spotify).

The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

“The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, is priceless. It is the highest dividend money pays.” - Morgan Housel

What I like about this book, it isn’t a step-by-step guidebook on how to run your financial life. It is a study of our financial behavior and Housel uses stories from all parts of history to explain our relationship with money - especially as it relates to greed, ego and happiness.

A lot of people have a fear of talking about and dealing with money. What I dislike about a lot of personal finance books is they don’t take steps to dispel that fear. Instead, they just give you instructions, which is theoretically supposed to make you comfortable with your money. But it doesn’t address the deeper psychology of what we all think. For example: if you are someone who has credit card debt, in a typical personal finance book you might find the instruction to focus on paying off your debt. What you likely won’t find is a psychological explanation on what creates that spending habit internally. And that’s what I like about this book. It focuses on the behavioral aspect instead.

Out of the 19 stories that Housel walks us through, one of my favorites is about the freedom that money creates. Controlling your time is a dependable predictor of happiness. Which leads me to the next book…

Die With Zero by Bill Perkins

“You retire on your memories. When you’re too frail to do much of anything else, you can still look back on the life you’ve lived and experience immense pride, joy, and the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia.” -Bill Perkins

I agree a lot with Perkins’ philosophy on money. As we age we tend to accumulate more wealth, but our health is in an ever declining state. So, at a certain age, we are no longer physically able to have some of the life experiences we might otherwise have had 10, 20, or 30 years ago. We are taught to work our butts off and save as much as we can, but by the time we have the wealth and we retire, we aren’t as likely to have the ability to enjoy it in the last season of life. Perkins makes a great case for using some of your money earlier to enjoy the experiences you truly value.

I highly recommend both of these books. They have sort of a yin and yang appeal to them, but they expound on similar points: Freedom and understanding what you value most.

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

You won’t see a lot of novels like this in this newsletter because I don’t usually read novels for entertainment. I went to my local bookstore and saw this as a recommendation by one of the staff members. The entire novel takes place inside of a corporate Slack chat. It’s a quick read and pretty funny. It will make you wonder why we are so tethered to all of our devices, apps, and social media. All of these things are built to drive us insane.

Other Reading:

• “How Do You Serve a Friend in Despair” by David Brooks. David Brooks wrote one of my favorite books, The Second Mountain. He’s a political commentator for The New York Times, although this piece is nothing of the sort. This is an important commentary about depression and suicide. Unfortunately, we still know little about depression and how to help people out of it as it can be a recurring problem. Depression is a dark dark road. Fortunately, mental health awareness has taken leaps forward over this past decade and it’s something we need to continue to improve and understand. This article is hidden behind a paywall, but I can gift a link to a couple people that would like to read it.

• The Last Question by Isaac Asimov. I discovered this from Tim Ferriss’ weekly newsletter, which, as an aside, is one of my favorite newsletters. The Last Question is a ~15 minute short story by Asimov and it is fantastic. I won’t say anything else because I don’t want to spoil it, but it’s worth your time. Just don’t spoil it for yourself by googling a synopsis.

• “Life’s Work: An Interview with Jerry Seinfeld.” This is a six year old interview that I recently discovered. It’s short and interesting, but I want to hone in on one thing that Seinfeld said about his eponymous hit sitcom: “If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way.” This was in response to a question if there was a better model or more sustainable way to write Seinfeld, which he and Larry David suffered from major burnout at the end. Burnout is the result of life revolving around one thing. Not having a range of relationships, work, hobbies, etc. Sure, you can make a lot of money being all about work, but there is a mental cost to it.

• This isn’t reading, but Ramit Sethi’s Netflix docuseries, How to Get Rich, came out a couple weeks ago. This is based on his New York Times bestselling book, I Will Teach You to Be Rich. He also has an awesome podcast where he works with people one-on-one to help them achieve their financial goals. The Netflix series is basically a deeper dive into this and is enjoyable to watch. So if you worry about money, are afraid to talk about it with your partner, or even not, this is a great watch.

Children’s Books:

• ABC’s of Art by Sabrina Hahn. (H/T to Katie Dozier.) We’ve been reading this one quite a bit. It’s been perfect for both of my kids.

• Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat. This is part of a 30-volume series that was first introduced in the 1970s. This was also our first chapter book that we read. Nate is the world’s greatest detective and each of the volumes centers around a different case.

• Nelly Gnu and Daddy Too by Anna Dewdney. My youngest is loving this one right now. The Llama Llama books, in general, have been popular in our house.

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Thank you for reading! If you have any book recommendations on similar topics, please feel free to pass it along via comments or email.

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