“We are more struggling to survive than thrive, more just “getting through” or trying to get to the top than finding out what is really at the top or was already at the bottom.”

- Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

What I’m Listening To:

Feed the Fire — Dawes

Something That’s Got Me Thinking:

“The Story of Us” on Wait But Why

Hey,

I want to take this late night letter, that I’m typing to you in a funky hole-in-the-wall coffee shop in downtown Phoenix, to tell you about a fascinating little study of looking that I’ve been up to recently.

To start at the end, I’ve come to the conclusion that, usually, when people look for something, they find it. Recently, I noticed that a handful of people in my life repetitively look for and find certain things. Which has had me looking at the act of looking itself. I’ve been spending a good deal of time with someone who’s always looking for financial opportunities, someone else who’s always looking for systemic problems, and a third someone who’s always looking for beauty in the world—and it seems to me that all three of them are constantly finding what they seek.

I’ve developed a strong hunch that humans tend to consciously focus on a few different strands of the whole of reality, and because of this, we’re always drawing different conclusions from the same thing.

I find this both fascinating and potentially useful, because it means we can bend reality—or rather, what we find within it—by changing what we look for. And I’m beginning to think the best way to change what we look for is to deliberately choose our influences and consciously allot the time we spend with them. When I spend time with each of those someones I mentioned above, automatically, I begin to find more of the thing they find in the world myself. But that doesn’t just apply to people. It applies to books, movies, TV, news, podcasts… even an email such as this might play a role in bending the details we look for and find in the world.

We can expand our perspective and arsenal of lenses by spending time with a variety of influences. Or, by spending our time with only the same small set of influences, shrink the world we might look for and find. What we see is expanded, contracted, even changed less by us than by them. So, make sure to look at what you’re looking at, because it will shape the very world you see, and in turn, you.

A concrete, positive instance of recent, personal influence: throughout the summer and fall, I helped my mom with a website to share her photographs and what I feel even more important—her particular way of looking at the world. Spending much time with the subtle, brilliant moments she captures has bent the way I look at the world in the best of ways. Did you notice her photograph of the passenger-side door of a Chevy HHR atop this article? Before encountering that photograph, I would never consider looking for beauty in such mundane things. But scroll back up and look for yourself, great depths of awe, feeling, and symbolism most definitely lurk within. The idea that wonder could be found in the door of a thirteen-year-old, jelly-bean-shaped economy car had never crossed my mind, but from her photographs, I’ve learned I can find awe in most anything if I look for it. I do highly recommend a conscious browse through her gallery, to look at how she looks, if you have a few spare minutes.

Lastly, in the name of breadth of influence! Give a couple of the dozen of my favorite podcast episodes below a listen. From rogue filmmakers and genius tech leaders to astrophysicists and Navy Seals, I did my best to compile a true smorgasbord of interviews of humans who look for and find wildly different things in this world, sparks of many a new potential for your slice of reality.

Til next month!

With love & stoke,

Ethan

This Month’s Articles:

The 12 Best Podcast Episodes I’ve Ever Heard

I love podcasts—not quite as much as books—but they accompany daily tasks from driving, to cooking, to working out in the most engaging, fruitful of ways.

As but one human, I’ve only listened to a tiny fraction of all the podcasts ever recorded. However, I’ve scoured the web for quality conversation for half a decade now, and for perspective alone, consider each episode below well worth the time investment.

I could write about how valuable podcasts are for expanding awareness, allowing one to choose their influences, and how this list is just as much as a study of my own choices, but these things are easily inferred.

Let’s dive right in.

Read On >

New Additions to the Bookshelf:

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