Many of us found our creative routines disrupted by the avalanche of news and daily horrors arising from Russia's invasion of Ukraine at the end of February. I kept on plowing along with my teaching and administrative work, but with my writing it took me around a month to readjust to this new reality and figure out a way to continue. Creative pursuits can be delicate at the best of times, and the onset of a war, even on the other side of the world, can make things difficult, especially if you consider following the course of world events a valuable pursuit.
It took me about a month to write Maintaining Sanity While There's a War Going On. Part of the challenge was finding the right combination of quotes from current and past sources while trying to fit them together in a meaningful way. I've been working on new ways to put together ideas and develop them into articles, and I'll be writing about this in the coming weeks.
Another article that took a fair amount of time to think through was 5 More Mental Models that I Use in Daily Life, which started from a re-evaluation of my previous mental models article from around a year ago. This might become a regular subject to revisit as my experiences, ideas, and reading deepen over time.
Here are some interesting articles from the last few weeks:
- A Prophecy Unfulfilled? - Mark N. Grant on "how the rich parallel heritage of African-American classical music has been hiding in plain sight all along."
- The very best parts of the best Beatles songs - a compilation by Tyler Cowen that highlights the soundscape of the Beatles and how it was unique for its time (or any time).
- How to Become the Best in the World at Something - being the best in the world at a single skill can be monumentally difficult, but Tomas Pueyo looks at how stacking a small set of closely related skills is the route to success for many.
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This week's painting is Wendy's "Cherry Blossoms at Midnight" (48x36), which you can find for sale on our online store. Wendy recently appeared in Rhonda Rizzo's article on dual-career musicians, where she talked about managing the various aspects of her singing and painting careers.