I’m ending this month kicking and screaming. August went by way too fast for me; feels like I’m missing a few days! It definitely didn’t feel like the dog days of summer, lemme tell ya. I was too busy — and not with fun, summery stuff either. Chores! Long to-do lists! Ugh.

But through it all, I managed to read a few books and see some films I enjoyed quite a bit. Here’s what stayed with me.

Hope you’re having a fun-tastic summer.

Talk soon,
Lou

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“Bring a sweater. What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while. People don’t notice your mistakes as much as you think.”

What struck me about this list is the simplicity. The plainness to the point of banality. I sat there looking at the bulleted items thinking, “This is what she calls secrets?!”

I don’t know about you, but I spent my 20s and 30s exploring and collecting. I tried on different identities — different hats — to see what fit. I collected ideas and all sorts of frameworks for living, and experimented with other people’s blueprints for success.

Complexity felt like growth. I even had complicated relationships. The more nuanced my thinking was, the more serious it felt. It had gravitas, and I therefore did too.

I think my favorite sentence was, “It depends.” And I’d launch into fifty shades of grayness that proved (in my brain) how complex — and therefore good! — my thinking was.

I remember seeing Charles Darwin’s early notebooks — filled with observations, questions, half-formed theories from his voyage on the Beagle. Everything was potential. Everything was data. How wonderful was that!

The more, the better.

Isn’t it?

• • •

Somewhere in my 40s though, something shifted. Or something must have. I can only see it in hindsight.

I still kept on exploring, but the center of gravity was changing. It wasn’t simply “What else can I try?” anymore, but more like “Of all these different things and ideas I’m trying out, what’s actually holding water for me?”

As I look back, I recognize a paring down. There were lessons I had to learn over and over before they finally stuck. Ideas and beliefs that had to be battle-tested — by me, not by anyone else.

And what’s left on my list is surprisingly simple and practical too.

Don’t worry; be happy. Keep a Chapstick in all your purses. Say “I love you” more.

Nothing remarkable. No grand pronouncements or universally applicable principles for living. Just things I know to be true for me because I’ve tested them, often repeatedly and against my better judgment.

Which is making me look at Rubin’s list differently now. Her “Bring a sweater” is plain. But I think what’s interesting about it is everything that had to happen before something that simple ended up on her list.

• • •

I thought again about Darwin’s notebooks.

Those pages may have been crowded, but On the Origin of Species is a distilled argument. He had to go through all that exploring and collecting to get to his magnum opus.

My own years of collecting (sometimes random and chaotic, true) maybe weren’t something I just needed to outgrow.

Maybe we need some of that complexity. We need to explore, accumulate, try things on, change our minds, say “It depends” a few hundred times. How else would we discover what holds up for us?

Rubin’s “secrets” are the farthest thing from dazzling, let alone life-changing. They actually read more like the kind of things you’d tape to the inside of a cabinet door.

“Don’t overthink it. Ask for help. Do good, feel good.”

But I’m thinking they’ve earned their place. The simplicity is what we see. We don’t see all the complexity that came before it.

You know, I’ve come to believe the most interesting thing about getting older isn’t how much we’ve accumulated but what actually remains.

After all this exploring, what do I stand behind? What do I keep?

Talk soon,
Lou

Lou Blaser exchanged PowerPoint decks for essays and has yet to regret the trade. She writes Shaping Life, where she follows her curiosity through books, conversations, films, and whatever else refuses to leave her alone.

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I’m talking about AI, of course.

But look... I write about what’s caught my attention, right? And this one particular discussion of AI did lodge itself in my head. So here we go.

I was listening to the Sustainable Ambition podcast, hosted by Kathy Oneto, and her recent guest was anthropologist Dr. Adam Russell (previously of DARPA).

The conversation wasn’t only about AI, but a good chunk of it was. And there’s this bit Russell said that, when I heard it, it was like a flashlight in the wilderness. (Really, Lou, such melodrama.)

Think about it, he says, as a question between being on a construction site versus being in the gym. (Paraphrasing here.)

If you’re a carpenter on a construction site, you want the best tools to help you with your work. A power saw. A power screwdriver. A power... whatever. I know nothing about construction. But if you’ve ever been to Lowe’s, you can imagine a variety of these muscled tools. You want powerful tools to help you cut, lift, bend, attach... in the most efficient and precise way possible.

Now, think about you in a gym. Running on that treadmill, lifting those weights — that’s the work. That’s the whole point of going to the gym. Using a tool to lift those dumbbells isn’t going to help build your muscles. Having iRobot finish an impressive route on the Peloton bike for you isn’t going to do anything for your heart. You doing the work is the whole point.

Russell says this is how humans need to think about and approach AI. We need to ask ourselves, are we on a construction site, or are we in the gym?

• • •

David Perell: “Have you written with AI at all?”
Yann Martel (author of Life of Pi): “No.”
David Perell: “Why not?”
Yann Martel: “Cause why would I? It’ll be like hiring someone to have sex for you.”1

Know what? I’m with Martel.

• • •

For better or worse, I self-identify as a writer these days. So sweating it out and grappling with the words to come up with something halfway decent, is gym work for me.

Having the AI2 write for me makes no sense because the work is the writing. Producing wonderful prose isn’t what I’m trying to accomplish. Figuring out how to put words around what’s in my head — developing my writing muscle — is.

I don’t outsource the writing because it doesn’t make sense for me to do so. It’s just logic.

Having said that, there are parts of my “job” where I use the AI as an assistant. Coming up with ideas for titles, for example. I’m lousy at that task, and do not necessarily want or need to get better at it. So, I ask the AI to give me suggestions. I feel zero guilt using the machine for this task.

I also ask the AI to help me draft the short blurb that shows up in Google search results. Again, zero guilt. I don’t see coming up this 150-160 character meta description as something I need to become an expert at.

Some who read those two things I use AI for may violently disagree. I understand. But I’m not losing sleep over it. No guilty conscience here whatsoever.

• • •

This does not mean I am entirely at ease with the rise of AI, though. I am miserably conflicted about it.

Russell may have given me a metaphor that helps me explain why I use this technology the way that I do. Deciding whether I’m in the gym or on a construction site tells me when to use it. But it cannot explain away my discomfort with what it’s doing in the world. It doesn’t help me swallow the data centers, the massive layoffs, graduates entering a transformed labor market.

Like I said, I’m conflicted.

But maybe I can find consolation with F. Scott Fitzgerald. “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” (Not to mention getting to consider myself a first-rate intelligence. LOL)

• • •

Fitzgerald’s wisdom aside, I am uncomfortable with my contradiction.

I am disturbed by what this technology is doing in the world. And I use it anyway.

You know, being able to hold contradictory ideas may be a sign of intelligence (ahem), but it doesn’t absolve us of having to live inside the contradiction.

This essay really didn’t end up where I thought it would. Dang it.

[Funny, I think I accidentally proved to myself why I don’t use AI to write. I had to wrestle with these thoughts in my head — do the gym work — to find out what this essay is really about. Huh.]

Talk soon,
Lou

Lou Blaser exchanged PowerPoint decks for essays and has yet to regret the trade. She writes Shaping Life, where she follows her curiosity through books, conversations, films, and whatever else refuses to leave her alone.

Thank you for reading. If you’re enjoying Shaping Life, consider becoming a supporting subscriber or sharing it with someone who might enjoy it too.

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I mean, who wouldn’t want that, right? I seriously could have used a club like that years ago when I quit my career.

So, the book was, let’s just say… okay.1 I did one of those turn-your-life-upside-down operations — like what the characters in the book were doing — and I know they’re not the simplest things to execute. I just feel the book made things a little too tidy. Complications resolved too evenly for my taste.

But no matter. This isn’t a book review because we don’t do book reviews in Shaping Life. 😉 We’re interested in what caught our attention and why that thing didn’t want to leave us alone.

And for me, that thing turned out to be Marie.

• • •

Marie was one of the four friends in the quitters club. And just like her friends, something in her life wasn’t working anymore. She needed for that thing to change, stat. But unlike her friends, the thing she wanted changed wasn’t completely hers to change.

So much of what she wanted to happen depended on Kyle, the husband. Marie needed him to do things differently, needed him to change himself, even — and that wasn’t something he signed up for.

Marie was the one that caught my attention because she was like a flashing red light. A reminder that not all change is equal.

Some changes belong almost entirely to us. Quit smoking. Leave a job. Eat healthier. Whether we succeed or not depends largely on what we’re willing to do.

But a lot of other changes don’t work that way.

Repairing a marriage requires two people. Being forgiven requires someone else’s willingness to forgive. Wanting a friend to reconnect. Hoping a child calls more often.

Those aren’t really solo projects. They need at least one other person to be in the same boat with us, wanting to rock the boat, or at least change the status quo, like we do.

• • • 

I started wondering how often I fail to make that distinction. How often I approach these shared changes as solo projects. Thinking that if I can put my head down and work very hard at it, what I want will eventually happen.

Make a plan. Apply yourself to the goal. Expect progress = effort expended.

Works beautifully for quitting sugar or learning French. But breaks down entirely when another person’s involved. Because at that point, no amount of my determination can supply someone else's willingness.

I can bring honesty. Patience. Effort. Persistence. But I can't do the other person's part for them. And yet, you know, I’m not sure I remember that before I start making plans.

• • • 

The more I thought about it, the more examples I found in my life outside of one-on-one relationships. Wanting more readers for this project. Sharing an idea and hoping other people buy into it. Wanting people to get along better and create less drama.

All reasonable things to want but they’re not projects I can complete on my own.

I can write the best essay I’m capable of writing. I can show up consistently. I can keep learning my craft. But readers decide whether they stay.

I can have difficult conversations with kindness and honesty. But I can’t decide how the other person responds. That’s their part of the project.

No wonder I get so frustrated sometimes. I keep expecting results that weren’t mine to produce.

• • •

The thing was, Marie didn’t really want to quit her marriage. What she wanted was for things inside it to change. More specifically, she wanted Kyle to be a different kind of husband. Talk about a recipe for frustration and disappointment. So much of her happiness hinged on someone else making a different choice. There she was stewing and waiting for something she couldn’t make happen.

I’ve done this too, no doubt about it. I have mistaken a shared project for one I thought I could somehow finish if I just wanted it badly enough.

Is that optimism? Delusion? Probably a little of both.

But thinking about Marie left me with a different kind of question than the one I usually ask. Instead of asking, “How do I make this happen?”, perhaps I should first ask, “Is this actually my change to make?” I’m not sure I’ve asked that question often enough.

Talk soon,
lou blaser

1

It got rave reviews though. So, what do I know? Good thing, I’m not doing a book review.

Lou Blaser exchanged PowerPoint decks for essays and has yet to regret the trade. She writes Shaping Life, where she follows her curiosity through books, conversations, films, and whatever else refuses to leave her alone.

Thank you for reading. If you’re enjoying Shaping Life, consider becoming a supporting subscriber, or sharing it with someone who might enjoy it too.

Subscribe now

For the first time in my life, it felt like I “get” him (my dad, I mean, not Holiday). The only thing is he’s been gone for many years already. Sure, it helps that he’s making sense for me finally, but it’s a shame, you know. I wish I could walk up to him and say, “I know why you’re doing what you’re doing or why you’re thinking that way.” Though, Dad will probably just look at me like I’m nuts. I don’t know that he would call himself a Stoic. I think he just lived it.

• • •

Anyhow, that’s how my interest in Stoicism got started. I knew practically nothing about it at the time. I mean, I think I’ve heard the word Stoic but it had a kind of cold or uptight connotation in my head. How wrong was I!

Now, I call myself a student of Stoicism. Parts of it are (still) very hard for me — like rewiring how I’m built, you know? But my nervous system is definitely happy I’ve gone down this road. There was too much stressing in my life over things I couldn’t control. Never were within my control really but somehow I thought they were too.

• • •

I read The Daily Stoic every morning, with my fresh brewed. Okay, most mornings... I skipped some days. The book’s a year-long, page-a-day philosophical reflection guide. Four trips through the book now. And every now and again, something snags and stays lodged in my head for a while, nudging and poking.

This year was the July 30th entry about joy.

Here’s what Seneca had to say about it in Moral Letters:

“Trust me, real joy is a serious thing. Do you think someone can, in the charming expression, blithely dismiss death with an easy disposition? Or swing open the door to poverty, keep pleasures in check, or meditate on the endurance of suffering?

Oof. Tough questions. I must have come across those questions in my previous read of the book, but this time, I paused and really thought about them. Especially that “death with an easy disposition” thing… because, you know, getting older.

Seneca said those who are comfortable with these are “truly full of joy, but hardly cheerful.”

“It’s exactly such a joy that I would wish for you to possess, for it will never run dry once you’ve laid claim to its source.”

I think we (and by “we” I mean “I”) throw around the word joy willy nilly. “That puppy video gave me so much joy.” “I feel so joyful just sitting in the park with a book.” Or sarcastically, “Another meeting that could have been an email. Joy.”

But these things aren’t the kind of joy that Seneca was talking about and are really closer to cheerfulness. Seneca’s all about a deep state of being. What we feel inside. And it’s got little to do with laughing or smiling.

I read that page and thought, “I want this kind of joy.” And I think I’m closer to it now than I’ve ever been. Certainly closer to it now than when I was climbing the corporate ladder, that’s for sure. I had more money then, a more active social life, and owned more things. But looking back, the joy I experienced then felt surface-level when compared to how I feel these days. I don’t know. Maybe I’m stretching things too far. I’ll keep thinking more about this.

• • •

Circling back to my dad, I think this was the kind of joy he felt and lived with. A serious kind of joy, like Seneca said.

Dad laughed a lot too, but more than that, I always thought he was truly content with his life. When he died, I told him I wanted to be like him. And what I meant by that was that I wanted to be content too in my life, like he was.

On this July 30th reflection page, Holiday adds (emphasis mine):

“But can you be fully content with your life, can you bravely face what life has in store from one day to the next, can you bounce back from every kind of adversity without losing a step, can you be a source of strength and inspiration to others around you? That’s Stoic joy — the joy that comes from purpose, excellence, and duty. It’s a serious thing — far more serious than a smile or a chipper voice.”

• • •

I suspect I'll be rereading that July 30 page a few more times. Because I think I may have been chasing happiness (or cheerfulness more like) all my life, when what I’m really after is what Seneca was talking about.

Talk soon,
Lou Blaser

Lou Blaser exchanged PowerPoint decks for essays and has yet to regret the trade. She writes Shaping Life, where she follows her curiosity through books, conversations, films, and whatever else refuses to leave her alone.

Thank you for reading. If you’re enjoying Shaping Life, consider becoming a supporting subscriber or sharing it with someone who might enjoy it too.

Subscribe now

It’s been a month since Shaping Life was officially born. Thank you for your welcoming and encouraging words. I feel sufficiently Rah-Rah’d 😊.

In that spirit, I’m introducing something new: a monthly “What Stayed With Me” note — a few things that caught my attention, didn’t turn into essays, but hung around in my head anyway. A passage from a book. A line from a conversation. Something I read and haven’t stopped thinking about. These are entries in my notebook, offered as a small thank you for supporting Shaping Life.

This first issue is going out to everyone, so you can see what it is. Starting next month, it becomes a gift for paying supporters only — my way of saying thank you for keeping Shaping Life going.

Talk soon,
Lou Blaser

1. I love Italian food and all things Italy. Florence is my favorite city in the world. That’s why I gasped when I read this BBC piece about the things one ought not to do when eating in Italy. I’m so guilty! How did I not know these things? 😂

2. A few pages into Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions For You, and this passage leapt out. Ooff. I can feel this in my bones.

   “It was the one where we were all young enough to think someone smarter had the answer.”

3. This Joan Didion excerpt from her commencement address to the UC Riverside class of 1975 (emphasis mine):

   “I'm not telling you to make the world better. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment.”

   Though really, the whole address is worth reading a few times over.

4. A secretive Silicon valley startup is trying to squash a podcast interview where the co-founder and COO talked about developing organ sacks... essentially growing non-sentient humanoid life-forms for purposes of growing and harvesting organs for implantation into human bodies (e.g., kidney replacement). My knee-jerk reaction was revulsion. “What? Organ sacks?! Where do I even begin with the ethical questions?!” But then, I started to think about the legit medical applications. People waiting for organ donations. The lives saved; the illegal black market for organ donations potentially squashed. Necessary medical testing done without endangering humans. Could there be a way to weigh my ethical questions against what’s at stake? I don’t have an answer and I’m uncomfortably sitting on a fence.

5. This book by Kirsten Miller had me laughing and cheering on. A hilarious novel about something quite serious and important.

Lou Blaser exchanged PowerPoint decks for essays and has yet to regret the trade. She writes Shaping Life, where she follows her curiosity through books, conversations, films, and whatever else refuses to leave her alone.

Thank you for reading. If you’re enjoying Shaping Life, consider becoming a supporting subscriber or sharing it with someone who might enjoy it too.

Subscribe now

Curiously, there is only one thing about the book or my reading experience that I remember: I was terrified! It took me 6 months to finish reading the dang book. I’d get so scared that I’d had to close the book every few pages, and put it away for a bit to settle the nerves (and be able to get back to sleeping with the lights out).

As I’m someone who gets spooked easily, you might ask why on earth would I read The Historian to begin with. Beats me. It’s not like I didn’t know what it was about.1 I must have been seduced by all the hype surrounding it when it came out.2 It’s the only explanation for why I rushed to Barnes & Noble to grab me a hardcover.

But here’s the other equally crazy thing: this book has been on my “to re-read” list for several years now. Talk about insanity, right? I don’t really get why it’s on that list either — this has to be some form of reader masochism.

The physical book had long been donated to my local library. (I couldn’t hold on to it; just seeing the book on the shelf reminded me of my terror.) But when I saw BookBub offer it at bargain discount recently, I grabbed a Kindle version immediately.

Before I started the re-read, I wondered if I was going to have the same experience as before. If I’d get spooked as much as I did the first time. How long would it take me to read the book this time?

• • •

I took precautions this time. I started the re-read while traveling; a plane-full of people should be enough to keep me from getting spooked.

Want to know what happened?

The Historian the second time around felt like an entirely new book! Is this even the same novel I read twenty years ago?

There’s so much here that I don’t remember from before. So much 15th century Eastern European history. Kostova must have done loads of research for this book.3 There’s the end of the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire (and its bloody legacy), the cultural tension between the Christian West and the Islamic East. I’d somehow forgotten that this was also a novel about empires collapsing, borders shifting, and centuries of conflict layered beneath every city the characters visited.

At times, the book read like a travelogue. The geography, the monasteries, those train rides from one beautiful, eternal city to another. Kostova slows down, lingers on scenes in these ancient cities. The streets, the cafes, the libraries... the romance and leisure of unhurried travel experiences so atmospherically described you’d want to experience these places yourself. (Okay, maybe not so much the scary places where something, you know, happens.)

“The Historian is suffused with the sensual and intellectual pleasures to be found in dusty old libraries, with their leather-bound books and fading maps.” — Susan Larson, The Times-Picayune

And then there’s the deeply loving father-child relationship, albeit tinged with unexplored trauma. The father’s love for books and research and travel, all passed on to his daughter. The part of me that will forever be my father’s daughter, felt these scenes deeply. In the pages where Kostova described the father at home with a book and his papers, I imagined my father reading in his small home office/library.

Were all these there the first time?

None of these registered with me from the first reading. The only thing I could remember was the fear.

Why is that?

• • •

Had I really forgotten six hundred pages of medieval history? Had Kostova somehow rewritten the novel over the last twenty years?

Or had my fear during my first reading simply crowded everything else out?

The history was there. The libraries, the train rides, the father-daughter relationship. They were all there. I simply wasn’t able to notice them.

These two experiences reading The Historian made me think about how fear works. My first instinct was to say fear hijacked my attention in the first reading and didn’t leave much room for anything else. It seemed to ask the same question over and over: Am I safe? Everything unrelated to that question became background noise.

But I wondered if there was another angle to this.

The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty argued that we never experience the whole world at once. Our attention is always bringing some things into focus while letting others recede into the background.4

Perhaps fear didn’t hijack my attention so much as reorganized it. It became the foreground of my experience, while everything else faded into the background.

That would explain why, twenty years later, it felt as though I were reading an entirely different novel. Those other parts had not been missing the first time. They had simply never been the thing I was looking at.

I started thinking about what this reading experience says about my other experiences where fear (or some equally strong emotion) was involved. How my perspective of those times might be distorted too, my attention focused on the one thing and ignoring everything else because it had no space for anything else.

I wonder, if I were given the chance to do those experiences over, would I still only notice what I remember about those times? Or would an entirely different experience emerge?

It made me consider whether we experience much of the world this way. That we're always seeing less than what’s really there, because whatever currently holds our attention pushes everything else into the background. But when that narrowing loosens, our attention can relax and take in more. A widening of the lens so to speak.

• • • 

Twenty years ago, I thought I’d read The Historian. Looking back, I’m not so sure. I may have spent six months reading fear instead.

Talk soon,
Lou Blaser

Lou Blaser exchanged PowerPoint decks for essays and has yet to regret the trade. She writes Shaping Life, where she follows her curiosity through books, conversations, films, and whatever else refuses to leave her alone.

Thank you for reading. If you’re enjoying Shaping Life, consider becoming a supporting subscriber or sharing it with someone who might enjoy it too.

Subscribe now

Look, no one’s going to claim this is a serious film. It’ll hardly show up in director Rob Reiner’s “must see” collection. Honestly, I can’t even believe it was the one that won over the hundreds of (better?) options! But I did watch it, and wouldn’t you know it, something stuck and no, it wasn’t the plot.

It was the image of a man who had stopped expecting anything from life.

Monte Wildhorn, played by Morgan Freeman, is a writer who arrives in a small lakeside town with a bottle, a wheelchair, a bad mood, and no great interest in being restored. He is not looking for transformation. He’s definitely not trying to begin again. He seems like he’s simply waiting out the rest of his days with as little disturbance as possible.

It’s that image that got to me. I thought about how easy it would be to drift in that direction — you know, checked out of one’s life, no longer expecting life to offer any surprises. It’s a sad state of affairs, but I suspect it’s more common than we might think.

• • •

I think people end up withdrawing from life in different ways. Some are dramatic — something monumental happens, a lifequake as Bruce Feiler might say2, and we get thrown off our axis. We retreat for a bit, hide in our hole. But then a week becomes a month becomes a year, and before long, it’s become the norm.

But I suspect it isn’t usually the dramatic that pulls us into a hole. Or rather, it’s not ONLY the dramatic that could land us in a hole. We could get there too through the seemingly unremarkable, the weight of ordinary days, in succession, one after the other.

Signs that someone’s withdrawn from their life will often be clear and evident, as was the case with Monte. Anyone can see them “giving up” — bitterness, or boredom, or resignation. I think the danger zone is when it’s not as obvious… when checking out looks like one’s simply being “realistic”, or wanting peace and quiet, or telling oneself they’ve already had their turn.3

When we confuse being tired with being finished. And we don’t even realize we’ve stopped expecting life to surprise us.

It’s easy to fall into a hole and not even realize we’re in one.

• • •

Some years ago, I got myself in some nasty negative spiral. My life didn’t feel like it was working the way I wanted it to, and making any effort to right things felt like asking too much. It was easier to crawl into a cave and hide from the world. The pantry was stocked with bags of tortilla chips and jars of cheese dips. Time to hunker down. In my case, it lasted barely a week. My roommate at that time refused to live with a cave dweller. And to this day, I still wonder, whatever would have happened if she hadn’t pushed and pulled me out of the apartment to rejoin the world.

• • •

The movie does have an upbeat ending; it is a Rob Reiner film after all.

In the film, Monte begins to wake up again through small interruptions: a neighbor expecting him to attend a wake, a child with an inconvenient question, a stubborn dog that isn’t even his technically, an interesting story request.

Nothing grand happens. There isn’t one single thing that pushes him out the door. Just tiny moments and slow inconveniences of being needed, noticed, and pulled back into relation with the world.

Reiner makes it look too tidy for real life. Climbing out of a hole can be the most difficult, most vulnerable thing a person might ever have to do in their lifetime. Sometimes, that’s reason enough to stay in the hole to begin with.

But as Hallmark-esque as it is, Reiner’s ending reminds me that we can find our way out — usually. The world throws us ropes every now and again to get us out of holes, though they may not always be obvious and are easily overlooked. And of course, finding the rope is just the first step. One actually has to grab it and make the laborious climb out.

Life is remarkably persistent; it keeps inviting us in, if we are still willing to pay attention.

Talk soon,
Lou Blaser

3

Oddly enough, I'm currently reading The Quitters Club by Jessica Strawser, and one of its characters has begun reminding me of Monte. At first, her friends thought she’s simply grieving the loss of a loved one. Only later did they wonder whether she quietly stopped participating in life altogether.

Lou Blaser exchanged PowerPoint decks for essays and has yet to regret the trade. She writes Shaping Life, where she follows her curiosity through books, conversations, films, and whatever else refuses to leave her alone.

Thank you for reading. If you’re enjoying Shaping Life, consider becoming a supporting subscriber or sharing it with someone who might enjoy it too.

Subscribe now

What serendipitous occasion it is that you somehow landed here!

If you’re new to me or Shaping Life, I think a brief introduction is apropos here. (If we’re already acquainted, well, this will be a refresher of sorts!)

I write Shaping Life, a weekly conversation about ideas we encounter through books and films, and where they lead us.

There’s a boat load of things competing for our attention on the daily. I’m interested in the ones that stick around and shape our thinking. Maybe it’s something a character says in a novel. A scene in a film. The way the author ended a story. Something that makes me stop and wonder about something I hadn’t wondered about before.

I follow those things here.

• • •

Most of my life, my attention was focused on one thing: building a career. I left that career in search of something else. I didn’t really know it then, but what I was really after was a different way of living.

After fumbling around for a bit, I eventually realized that changing how I live starts with changing what I paid attention to. Somewhere along the way, I ran into this quote by American psychologist and philosopher William James:

“My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind.”

That idea has stayed with me ever since.

When I look back, I can trace who I’ve become through the books I’ve read, the films I’ve watched, and the conversations and experiences I’ve had. The things that took space in my mind. Together, they’ve (re)shaped how I think about work, relationships, purpose, and what makes for a good life.

Which, come to think of it, is probably why I’m so interested in the things that stick!

• • •

In our noisy world, there are a variety of people, events and things that catch our attention, of course. For this project however, the main starting points are books and films. There may occasionally be other things — podcasts, videos, conversations, etc. But mainly books and films.

Each essay begins there but these aren’t reviews. I’m less interested in whether a book was good or a film was worth watching than I am in whatever idea got stuck and followed me around.

Each week, I take one of those ideas and follow it to see where it leads.

Maybe something that catches mine will catch yours too. And maybe following it will spark an idea or question of your own!

• • •

I publish new essays most Sundays. Most are free to read.

Paid subscribers also receive access to the complete archive, the monthly What Stayed With Me (a curated collection of ideas and references to revisit), as well as occasional invitations to small gatherings with fellow readers.

I’m glad you’re here. Whether you’ve been reading for years or just wandered in, thank you for joining me.

Talk soon,
Lou Blaser

P.S. You may notice older posts referring to We’re All Getting Older. That was this publication’s previous name. In July 2026, I renamed it Shaping Life to better reflect the broader conversations you’ll find here.

Lou Blaser exchanged PowerPoint decks for essays and has yet to regret the trade. She writes Shaping Life, where she follows her curiosity through books, conversations, films, and whatever else refuses to leave her alone.

Conversations about learning, becoming, and building a coherent life.

Hello,

I suppose there comes a time in the life of a project when the end arrives, or maybe, the end of its current incarnation.

I’ve been struggling with this idea for a while now. A part of me resists accepting that I’ve reached the end of a creative project, THIS writing project in particular. It’s not a problem with letting go — I do that all the time. But the thought of letting this one go sticks in my throat.

I think it’s because this project means something more for me, represents an ideal, a kind of response to a calling. And if I were to say that it’s run its course, what would it mean about my ability to respond to that calling? Does it mean I failed? Or that the calling no longer exists?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about not knowing what’s next and lingering in the in-between hallways. That’s exactly where I’ve been lately: stuck in the hallway staring at doorknobs and various doors. Which way do I go next?

Th…

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Conversations about learning, becoming, and building a coherent life.

Hello,

I’ve taken a short break from my reading projects and switched to lighter reading, a sort of palate cleanser. Cozy mysteries are not my usual jam, but one author I like in the genre is Emylia Hall, and her Shell House Detectives series is one I enjoy.

Hall’s plots aren’t formulaic, unlike some of the other cozies I’ve read. I’ve not been able to guess the culprit (much as I tried) or what’s really going on. The stories are set in Cornwall, and I love reading about the Cornish coastline. And she’s got a most interesting sleuthing duo in the series: Ally Bright, a Caucasian artist and a widow in her 60s, and Jayden Westen, a mixed-race ex-cop, barely in his 30s, and a new dad.

While it was the female lead, Ally, who initially caught my attention, I have to say that it’s Jayden who’s really grown on me. His positive spirit, despite whatever’s happening, is what stays with me after each book.

“Cracked…

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I’ve been travelling the last few weeks, and then at the end of it, caught the bug and went down with the flu. I suppose in one way, the body forced me to rest after a period of running around (instead of jumping back in and running around in a different direction).

One thing I noticed during this busy season was that the writing easily fell by the wayside. I deliberately did not prepare or pre-schedule anything ahead of time. I thought I might take a break from writing for a week or two at most, and it surprised me that I did not go back to the writing desk for much longer than that. I don’t know what this says about me and my writing life/practice. Maybe it just means that, just like with everything else, a break was needed to refill the cup.

But through it all, the reading never stopped — not that I’m surprised. I always, always, found time for reading, no matter what was happening in my life. Even during some difficult and trying times in the past, the reading never stopped…

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If this is your first time getting one of these, this is where I’d be like “Wait, you have to check this out,” if we were catching up over coffee.

The world is full of little portals. These are a few I fell through these last few weeks.

🐾 previously, on WAGO…

• I don’t know what’s next.

• On attention and the things that shape our minds

• What would we tell our younger selves

• In Profile: Nicole Giordano

• • • • •

🔗 other people’s brilliance

• “You’re trying to tell me that September allll the way through to the end of December is one season? I don’t think so.” Jonathan Edward Durham’s “A man for all (eleven) seasons” is a hoot and a half.

• Bernadette Jiwa’s “On Certainty” is a short read and worth it. Featuring a boy who cast a bottle into the Indian Ocean and the reply that arrived fifty years later.

• “Culture shock is when you’re waiting in line for the toilet and the grandma behind you walks into another stall, takes down the broken sign sitting on the toilet and uses it anyway.” talks a…

Read more

Conversations about learning, becoming, and building a coherent life.

Hello,

We are back in that time of the year again. The season of new beginnings. Nature’s way of reminding us that everything restarts — whether we’re ready for it or not.

March has a way of insisting, doesn’t it? Open the windows. Step outside. Embrace what the season brings. But I’m not sure I’m there yet.

March finds me restless this year.

I recognize this feeling. I’ve been there before. It is me in the process of closing a door and leaving something behind. Me in the hallway, in between. I wander around, touching doorknobs, wondering if this one or that one is the next thing... the right next thing.

You can’t really tell, though, unless you walk through. But I am not ready, so I stay in the hallway.

• • •

I have outgrown the space I was in before, and that is a good thing.

Growing is always good. Never mind that it results in you finding yourself in awkward spaces that no longer fit — wh…

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If ’s life has a theme, it might be movement.

Nicole has lived in New York, Singapore, and Thailand, currently calls Philadelphia home, and spends part of each winter in Spain. She and her partner have visited more than forty countries together and still try to add two new ones each year. Along the way, she’s built a career as a creative entrepreneur, running her own businesses for nearly two decades. Most recently, she launched The Midlife Creative Studio, a new venture focused on creative practice for people in midlife and beyond.

When she’s not building companies or planning the next trip, Nicole is usually reading — or lately, writing essays of her own about identity, creativity, and the emotional landscape of midlife.

IN WHICH GENERATION DO YOU BELONG?

Gen X: 1965 - 1980

DO YOU WORK? IF SO, WHAT DO YOU DO?

I have been self-employed for almost 20 years. My company is called StartUp FASHION. We support independent fashion designers in building and growing businesses, doing something they love. Recently, I launched my new company, The Midlife Creative Studio. We offer online art and craft classes for those of us in midlife and beyond who see having a creative practice as an important part of our emotional well-being. It’s very new, and I’m excited about all the ideas I have to build this new company.

WHAT WOULD THE 25-YEAR-OLD VERSION OF YOU THINK OF YOU TODAY? HOW ARE YOU MOST DIFFERENT FROM HER?

I think she would be delightfully surprised that I have been able to travel and live abroad as much as I have. Not because she didn’t dream of it, but because growing up with modest means made it difficult to picture the possibility. I remember being in my early twenties and meeting a thirty-something woman who was selling everything in her apartment, except her books and clothes, because she and her husband were moving to Europe. I was in awe.

I’d say that the biggest difference is that I no longer start with all the reasons something won’t work, and instead focus first on all the reasons something will work. When things inevitably don't work out exactly as I planned, I adjust and keep going. That wasn't me 20 years ago.

LB: I love this approach so much — starting with all the reasons it will work. How often do we sabotage our own dreams and goals by listing all the reasons it won’t work?

WHAT HAS NOT CHANGED ABOUT YOU?

My independence, love of change, and creative entrepreneurship. I have been saying since I was a teenager that I “would” work for myself, even if I didn’t have any idea what that would look like.

GOOD OR BAD, WHAT ABOUT YOUR STAGE IN LIFE HAS SURPRISED YOU SO FAR?

One of the big surprises for me has been how up and down this stage of life is. There are two prevalent messages for what midlife is “all about”, especially for women. You’re either lost and struggling to figure out who you are now. Or you’re taking the world by storm, midlife super power, giving zero fucks. But this has not been my experience. For me, I wobble between these two identities, from day to day, sometimes hour to hour. It’s a rollercoaster. I don’t think that’s talked about enough.

WHAT’S ONE THING YOU THOUGHT FOR SURE YOU’D HAVE FIGURED OUT BY NOW, BUT HAVEN’T YET?

I don’t mean to sound like a jerk, but I truly cannot think of an answer to this question. It is part of my personality to decide on what I want, then figure out how to make it happen.

WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THE PHRASE ‘FULFILLING LIFE’? HOW HAS YOUR PERSPECTIVE ABOUT THIS CHANGED AS YOU GOT OLDER?

I love this question because — and I’m not exactly sure how — but I have, for a very long time, known that success (or fulfillment) is a relative term and everybody gets to define what that is for themselves.

For me, it has always been about being able to lead a flexible life — my time is my own. Because life flies by really quickly.

Working for yourself is not easy; it takes discipline and focus and sacrifice. I knew that building a business that didn’t require me to be in one place, where I wasn't answering to investors or a board or a boss, where I made my schedule, was my version of professional success. Financially, I just wanted to make enough to lead the life I wanted to lead, which was a lot of travel, great food, and a cozy home in the heart of a city.

For personal fulfillment, it’s been about time. Having time with my partner, with my friends, with my family, and for my hobbies. I feel fulfilled every day when I wake up and get to do an hour-long morning routine without having to rush out the door. I feel fulfilled when my partner and I spend an evening having a delicious meal together, whether cooked by us or at one of our favorite spots. I feel fulfilled when I can drive to see my family on a random weekday or plan an evening with my best friends (p.s., midlife sleepovers with your besties is FANTASTIC!); when I spend long periods of time reading a wonderful book or a Sunday afternoon writing.

I’m fulfilled by a slower approach to being, which doesn’t mean I don’t have goals, just that I accomplish them my way.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT THESE DAYS?

The Midlife Creative Studio! There is nothing like the early days of building a business when you're excited about all the possibilities and having fun figuring things out, and not yet thinking about all the roadblocks that are part of the journey. LOL.

IF YOU COULD GIVE SOME WORDS OF WISDOM TO SOMEONE 20 YEARS YOUNGER THAN YOU, WHAT MIGHT IT BE?

Prioritize travel. See the world. Experience other cultures. Understand that there’s so much out there besides your own existence. I think the world would be a much more loving and beautiful place if more people did this.

AND THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION: WHO WAS YOUR FAVORITE SINGER/BAND GROWING UP?

There wasn’t one favorite. Even though I grew up in the eighties and nineties, because of my parents, I loved everything from The Beatles to Janis Joplin to The Temptations to The Doobie Brothers.

• • • • •

Lou Blaser writes We’re All Getting Older, an essay series about change, meaning, and the lives we’re unfolding. She also maintains The Filtered, a digital library for reading, learning, and thinking better.

Conversations about what we are learning, who we are becoming, and how we are building a coherent life.

Hello,

“My experience is what I agree to attend to,” said American philosopher and psychologist William James. “Only those items which I notice shape my mind.”

I love that quote. It’s like an entire philosophy for life in a nutshell, especially the second part.

James’ observation is a reminder for me to mind where my attention goes, because what I choose to attend to shapes my reality, shapes the world I experience. And the older I get, the more careful I am about this.

But maybe “careful” is not the right word — although I very much want to be so.

Careful implies choosing. Being deliberate ahead of time. And although I have done that to some extent, my attention still seems to get arrested, way too often, by one thing or another, without much forethought.

So, I haven’t always been careful. But I have become very aware of where it’s gone, which I think is the second-best thing. Being aware allows me to interrupt, stop my attention from being continuously directed toward something I may not particularly want to care about in the long run.

Becoming aware of our attention is akin to waking up in the middle of a dream sequence, and it’s not always easy. When I look back to my so-called “career years”, I’m not entirely sure that all the things I attended to were deliberate. I imagine a good number of them were out of momentum or consensus.

The trek toward awareness of attention — noticing what I’m noticing, so to speak — began as I studied philosophy, Stoicism in particular. To the Stoics, a disciplined life begins with monitoring where the mind goes. As I got into the practice of pausing and noticing and examining, I recognized not only what I was paying attention to but how it was shaping my experience and by extension, my life — and not always to my liking.

• • •

Noticing the object of my attention is interesting, but so is noticing how my attention is being captured. I find that my attention isn’t usually wandering around, but rather is being pulled. And understanding how this is happening helps me retain agency over what I choose to attend to.

News

Paying attention to the news has always been a tricky thing for me. There’s a constant tug-of-war between wanting to be informed and wanting to safeguard my emotional and mental well-being.

News is designed to pull our attention by urgency. And there aren’t any boring days when nothing much is happening in the news these days. Every single day presents a new kindling to keep the fire going. And there are days when it feels like kerosene is being poured to keep it raging.

I’ve had to be extra deliberate about news consumption since the beginning of the year, when back-to-back horrific events hijacked my attention, so much so I spent days curled on the couch in despair. But I can’t just cover my eyes and ears and completely ignore what’s happening. Epictetus’ rule of thumb is: know what’s happening, but don’t hand over your peace of mind to events you cannot influence.

So, I’ve resolved to put boundaries on how I give my attention. If news is going to occupy part of my mind, I want it delivered in a form that doesn’t hijack my emotions. For the last few weeks, I’ve not consumed any news apart from what I read in The Economist. Its typical dry, understated, minimal drama presentation makes it the best courier of news for me for the moment.

Television

Paying attention to what I’m watching on TV is interesting. Because while the news drags my attention through urgency, TV invites it in through story and mood.

Watching TV holds our attention through immersion. I fall into stories and stay in a world. And while that is a kind of choice, it’s not always obvious to me why.

Mind you, I’m fully aware of the kind of moral baggage TV has. It is passive; it wastes time; it rots the brain. And a lot of people talk of TV-watching almost like a vice: “I watched too much TV last night.” So there’s a kind of guilt narrative around it.

But I don’t find attention to fiction and stories trivial. We certainly don’t feel guilty about going to the theatre and watching plays. So, I think the tension is about mindless consumption versus chosen absorption.

The legitimacy of attention depends less on the medium and more on the consciousness with which we give it. What are we watching? What shows have we chosen to attend to?

Three shows that are currently holding my attention are Belgravia (MGM+), Poldark (PBS Masterpiece), and Bookish (PBS Masterpiece). I don’t feel drained or numbed after watching these shows. And while an episode may move me to tears or a character may infuriate me, the experience feels satisfying as a whole.

Reading

Where I am most deliberate about attention is reading — books, publications I subscribe to, etc.

I regularly cull publications that I allow in my inbox, that’s for sure. And when it comes to books — well, that’s an even more careful consideration! There are way too many books and so little time, as they say, and I’m quite deliberate about the ones I attend to.

Reading — and reading books in particular — cultivates sustained attention. It is self-paced and entirely voluntary. We decide how long we stay, where we linger, whether we might pause in the middle of a page and think.

Unlike news or television, reading places the tempo of attention in our hands. We set the pace of attention when we read.

In the last couple of years, I’ve been more conscious about the structure of my reading experience. I didn’t have a word for what I was doing until I read describe her approach to “reading projects”. That is what I’m doing. I have reading projects. And framing it that way gives it a sustaining and self-contained arc.

My current reading projects are:

• The Gilded Age study

• Deep dives of Edith Wharton, Ian McEwan, and John le Carré

• Revisiting Assigned Reading

It might look like a lot, but I only have a list of 5-6 books per project for this year.

• • •

I do want to be selective about what I notice, as James suggests. That is the goal. As careful as I might want to be, though, I realize I won’t always be able to choose where my attention goes. But I can notice it sooner, interrupt it when necessary, and sometimes, steer it toward things that matter more.

✴️ In which parts of your life do you feel most deliberate (or least deliberate) about your attention?

Leave a comment

🏷 Thinking Life

💬 last word

The finale in the musical Hamilton is a meditation on legacy and the subjective nature of history. Our impact is determined not just by our actions but by those who record them. And perhaps most powerfully, the song is a reminder to put ourselves “back in the narrative” and tell our story ourselves.

“And when my time is up
Have I done enough?
Will they tell my story?”

All my best,
Lou Blaser

Conversations about learning, becoming, and building a coherent life.

Hello,

There’s this question that’s been around forever, a favorite by interviewers... what would you tell your younger self if you met her?

Many say they’d impart some hard-earned wisdom, some philosophy they’ve proven to be true, or a worldview shaped from their experiences. I imagine myself as some kind of wisened Gandalf visiting a younger me, who, for some reason, looks suspiciously like Frodo.

But I do wonder if this were to happen, if I were able to visit my younger self, would I do that? Impart some advice? And if I did, would she listen? You know, I’m not entirely sure.

In this admittedly fantastical imagining, it may be useful to look at other fantastical works to help us out. Stories have been playing with the idea of meeting our younger selves for years, and pop culture has given us plenty of versions of this scenario. But three encounters in particular stick with me.

In Star Trek …

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Conversations about learning, becoming, and building a coherent life.

Hello,

A fellow writer, Daniel Puzzo, in this recent Profile, wrote something that has stuck with me: “By all means, make plans,” he said, “but don’t stick to them.”

That’s the kind of advice that would have given me hives back in my 20s. Come to think of it, it would have still given me the hives in my 40s!

I’m a planner to the core. I don’t know where I’d end up if I didn’t have a list. In the much-maligned MBTI type, I’m an INTJ... and my J is off the charts.

Flexibility is a must, yes. But in my desire to impose order in my corner of the universe, I’ve learned even flexibility can be planned. I even learned how to plan for serendipity. Like, you know, on a well-itemized vacation itinerary, there’s an open afternoon or two for “surprise discovery”. Loose as ever.

But in the last few years, I’ve noticed a slight easing up on this mad grip at control (or attempt at control).

It wasn’t until I s…

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is a singer, artist, and writer who lives in her great-grandmother's house in Wilder, VT. She is married to a handsome fiddler and, despite her reluctance to embrace organized sports, has become a certified soccer mom to one third-grade goalie in training.

Jes tells me she doesn’t always remember to brush her hair, so she cuts it really short and calls it shaggy hip. She thinks the only way to stay sane in northern winters is to play in the snow as much as possible, and loves to start her day with a run down her local ski hill before the to-do list takes over. She also loves to dance and does so as often as possible despite the mortification it occasionally causes the aforementioned third-grade goalie in training.

IN WHICH GENERATION DO YOU BELONG?

Gen X: 1965 - 1980

DO YOU WORK? IF SO, WHAT DO YOU DO?

I am a working artist, which means I do too many different things for work. Sometimes it's gigs — jobs where I exchange creative services for money, like playing fiddle tunes at the cocktail hour of one of Vermont's many rustic chic barn weddings. Sometimes my money comes from my own art, presenting my own songs in a concert or selling copies of my prints or collages. Sometimes it's kind of a combination of the two — like writing a theme song for the pilot of a children's show about a kid named Blue Ocean Bob.

I work on all sorts of projects, but they do have some unifying themes. I am adamant about the benefits of daily creative practice. I believe wholeheartedly in the necessity of art and music in our day-to-day lives and the transformative and healing power of live music and storytelling. That's what I write about in my newsletter, A Wilder Wonder.

WHAT WOULD THE 25-YEAR-OLD VERSION OF YOU THINK OF YOU TODAY? HOW ARE YOU MOST DIFFERENT FROM HER?

When I look at 25-year-old me, she is scared that she won't be able to pull it off. Now at 48, I have learned that I can trust myself to figure things out. I would tell her she doesn't have to know the whole plan, just the place she wants to go and the first step. It's taken me a really long time to get to that place.

WHAT HAS NOT CHANGED ABOUT YOU?

I'm still in love with music. Straight out of high school, I went to music school on a scholarship to study voice. For a whole bunch of reasons that are probably a series of essays I should write, I lost my scholarship and dropped out after two years. I moved into a cabin in the woods, and until I was 25, I did whatever I could to just have as much of my time as possible to be in the mountains, write songs, and practice my guitar.

At 25, I went back to finish college at The Evergreen State College, the only public liberal arts college in the country. I was studying music, natural history, psychology, and mythology. I was in love with learning, working for the school's Outdoor Program, and playing in an all-girl bluegrass punk band.

When I graduated from college, I was offered the job as the climbing ranger on Mt Olympus in the Olympic National Park, or the chance to go on tour in a minivan with my all-girl bluegrass punk band. I remember a drawing I did in my journal at the time, a very cartoonish illustration of myself on stage with a whole crowd of people dancing, and I chose the tour. I'd still make that choice. I'm still the most in love with music; it's the strongest medicine I've got to share.

GOOD OR BAD, WHAT ABOUT YOUR STAGE IN LIFE HAS SURPRISED YOU SO FAR?

I'm surprised at how much I have grown to love writing. Writing songs in my twenties and thirties was more of an oral and aural thing for me. I mean, I want to have something real to say, and I always wrote in journals and things like that to figure that part out, but more of the process was about finding the words that sounded right together, and people didn't read my lyrics; they listened to them.

I rarely tried to create anything that was meant to be read. In fact, I'm a really slow writer with horrible spelling and grammar, so I actively resisted any task that included writing. I was notoriously bad at responding to emails and always last-minute with papers. I once convinced a professor to let me do a series of woodcut prints as my final project instead of a paper.

The last couple of years have really changed writing for me. I started writing on Substack just because it was a free newsletter platform, and Mailchimp was charging me every month for my subscriber list that I built up touring for 10 years. I switched it all over for that reason alone, just when notes started to come out, and I discovered some writers that I really enjoyed reading who were teaching craft. I started to look at my newsletter as a creative practice instead of a chore I had to do, and it changed everything. I found out I actually love working with essay forms. I love how much more deeply I have been able to express myself, how much deeper my reading has gotten as I practice writing for writing’s sake, and how it has helped me connect in a real way with my audience off stage.

WHAT’S ONE THING YOU THOUGHT FOR SURE YOU’D HAVE FIGURED OUT BY NOW, BUT HAVEN’T YET?

I definitely did not think I would still be winging it quite as much as I still am. Between moving across the country before my son was born and all the changes in the music industry, I do an awful lot of throwing spaghetti at yonder wall to see if anything sticks.

WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THE PHRASE ‘FULFILLING LIFE’? HOW HAS YOUR PERSPECTIVE ABOUT THIS CHANGED AS YOU GOT OLDER?

Good food, good movement, and good relationships. Plus, I want to be of service to my community with a vibrant, creative life. I want to stay connected to the natural world.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT THESE DAYS?

I've got a bunch of projects that I am excited about. My husband and I have finally started recording our duet project, BEECHARMER, and I'm hoping to have an EP out by spring. This is the second year I have made “A Wilder Wonder” postcard calendar. I made cut paper collages this year from illustrations that I made for my newsletter, and I'm stoked with how the calendar came out. I have also somehow gotten myself to develop a daily yoga practice, and that is really exciting me. Partly because I can't believe how consistent I have been, and partly because I can finally do the crow pose, which I surely could not do at 25.

IF YOU COULD GIVE SOME WORDS OF WISDOM TO SOMEONE 20 YEARS YOUNGER THAN YOU, WHAT MIGHT IT BE?

You are worth what you want, so decide to be brave. The world needs kind people who are prepared to do things that scare them, and to get what you want, you will have to do things that scare you.

AND THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION: WHO WAS YOUR FAVORITE SINGER/BAND GROWING UP?

This question is so unfair! Pick only 1?! Ahh! Okay, I loved The Cranberries. But also Dolly Parton and the soundtrack to Les Mis. Beck. And Pearl Jam. Vince Gill. Joni Mitchell. Ani DiFranco. Whitney Houston. The Shirelles..... Clearly, I can't do it. Before college, I was steeped in a brew of folk-singer songwriters, 90's pop and alt rock, Broadway musicals, my Dad's bluegrass and classic country, and my mom's order from TV album sets with like a hundred songs of Female Stars of the 50's.

LB: I’ve heard from others before that this “one-favorite-singer-band” question was tricky. But clearly, it’s torture for someone like Jes!

Lou Blaser writes We’re All Getting Older, a weekly essay series about change, meaning, and the lives we’re unfolding. She also maintains The Filtered, a digital library for reading, learning, and thinking better.

Conversations about who we are becoming and the lives we are unfolding as we get older.

Hello,

I’m reading How to Begin by Michael Bungay Stanier, and its subtitle tells you what the book is about: Start Doing Something That Matters. What has struck me so far is his discussion of ambition, and how his framing complicates another concept I’ve been thinking about: enoughness.

Stanier begins his book with the most soaring of prompts, Mary Oliver’s, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

What indeed! We’ve only got one crack at this life… how do we make it worthwhile? How do we make sure we’re doing something that matters?

Stanier says the key to answering these deep (and sometimes elusive) questions is to be ambitious. Doubly ambitious in fact — for our lives and for the world.

Ambition for our lives, as he frames it, is not about money, fame, or status.

“Ambitious for your life means unlocking your greatness and becoming the bes…

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