The nervous system

10 things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

And suddenly, it’s December. This time of year can be very hard on my nervous system. Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:

1. “Nerves do not break down,” writes James Hollis in What Matters Most, “but our ‘maps’ do.” If you need a little map for the rest of the year, try a 31-day challenge. It’s tempting to pack it in right now and tell yourself you’ll start fresh in January, but if you start today, you’ll get a big jump on whatever it is you want to accomplish in the new year. (As guitarist Robert Fripp says, “Discipline, primarily, is our capacity to make a commitment in time.”)
   
   

2. “Children are not our projects. They are to share life with.” I highly recommend this On Being interview with Sara Hendren, who wrote one of my favorite books of the year, What Can A Body Do?
   
   

3. “This is what irreverence gets you – the frankest love of all.” Patricia Lockwood on meeting the pope.
   
   

4. Neil Gaiman on how the future of the internet might be in its past: “I miss the days of just sort of feeling like you could create a community by talking in a sane and cheerful way to the world.” (I am grateful to still be enjoying those days thanks to this newsletter.)
   
   

5. I’m reading two books right now that talk to each other in interesting ways: writer and artist James Bridle’s Ways of Being, a look at different kinds of animal, human, and plant intelligence, and Ed Yong’s An Immense World, about the hidden sensory worlds of animals. (Both are inspired by the term “unwelt” — the Bridle is new-to-me, while the Yong is so dense it’s taken me over a year to finish.)
   
   

6. Copy cat: I was featured in a BBC program about the art forger David Henty. (A while back I wrote about forgery as a better model than plagiarism for making art.)
   
   

7. Stamped: In last week’s studio gift guide, I sang the praises of my Trodat professional self-inking date stamp. I’ve recently been playing with their DIY ink stamps and having a good deal of fun.
   
   

8. Netflix: The reviews seem to be mixed, but I quite enjoyed David Fincher’s The Killer, a movie about an assassin who isn’t very good at his job and listens to a lot of The Smiths. (To quote Jessa Crispin, “2nd gear Fincher is still Fincher, so it’s more thoughtful and stylish and fun and interesting than 99% of what gets made these days.”)
   
   

9. TV: I am extremely annoyed to have to wait a week for a new episode of A Murder at the End of the World. (I feel the same about the new seasons of Fargo and Slow Horses.)
   
   

10. ”If I should fall from grace with God / Where no doctor can relieve me / If I’m buried ’neath the sod / But the angels won’t receive me / Let me go, boys...” RIP Pogues singer Shane MacGowan.
    

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xoxo,

Austin