☕ saturday mornings - april 29, 2023

work vs play, storytelling & cultivating a beautiful life

Tommy Dixon

Apr 29, 2023

Happy Saturday!

I hope you’re having a lovely start to your weekend.

What I’ve been up to:

Both Write of Passage and the altMBA are underway and keeping me busy. Despite all the valuable information, my favourite part is meeting kind, curious, thoughtful people from all walks of life. I'm reminded of how many good people are out there.
I published my first essay on Substack, a story on how one of the scariest days of my life taught me about love. It was difficult to write. I've rarely shared it with friends and family, never mind publicly. But, vulnerability is the heart of connection. I've been thinking about how I can express more love as I move through life. The world needs more love.
I've also started a part-time job helping entrepreneur Noah Kagan launch his first book, The Million Dollar Weekend.

Here's a recap of the most interesting ideas I've explored this week.

Enjoy.

✍️ quote i’m pondering:

E.B. White, American writer, on balancing work and play:

“I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time.
Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.”

📚 book passage i loved:

“Somehow we realise that great stories are told in conflict, but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness of the story we are actually in.
We think God is unjust, rather than a master storyteller.”

― A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller

💡 idea from me: notes on beauty

A few thoughts on beauty:

Beauty is objective.

Different people can find different things beautiful (there's an element of personal preference), but some places/objects/atmospheres are objectively more beautiful than others.

Last November, as I was hiking the Camino de Santiago outside Pamplona I spotted a single timber cabin nestled in the grassy slopes with a big balcony overlooking the expansive snow-capped Pyrénées mountains, light spilling out over the horizon, not a speck of modernity in sight. And I thought, "Gosh, this is definitely a more beautiful place to live than my noisy, construction-ridden suburban neighbourhood".

I had the same felt sense of objectivity staring at The Coronation of Napoleon in the Louvre, basking in the reverence of St. Peter's Basilica, and watching a storm blow over in the ancient stillness of a cave while hiking the Bruce trail in Ontario.

I believe a sensitivity to beauty is something we should try to cultivate. Then, surround ourselves with beauty to the extent we can. Not because beauty is a virtue, but because I’ve found a beauty-filled life to be a richer one.

How can you create an environment filled with things you find beautiful?

II.

Beauty is five-dimensional.

We tend to forget that beauty isn't just visual. It can be felt across each of the five senses. When you remember beauty can show up everywhere, you attune to it in the details of small, simple, elegant moments.

Pause for a moment. Take a deep breath. Slow inhale. Realllly slow exhale. Savour that feeling of ease at the end of the exhale. Look up. Be present. Feel your surroundings.

What’s beautiful right now?

journaling on how I experience beauty across the five senses

III.

Modern architecture has ignored beauty for efficiency and convenience.

Buildings have become ugly and boring. They lack the flair of energy that inspires people. We've lost the attention to detail and craftsmanship that endows a building with soul and makes it come alive.

In the pursuit of efficiency, we've stripped away everything non-essential. Buildings are objects of pure utility. But, when you lose detail, you lose identity. Everything takes on the same neutral and bland look.

Buildings used to be multi-decade projects, painstakingly worked on by craftsmen who knew completion would exceed their lifetime but extend their legacy.

Outside the Duomo Cathedral in Florence, I remember staring at a section as wide as my hand, where someone (800 years ago!) patiently carved figures in stone to depict a scene in the Bible. Inefficient, unessential, and slow. But it's that type of detail that gives the cathedral identity and that identity makes it come alive.

In the pursuit of convenience, we've created cookie-cutter structures that all look the same.

The new homes I’ve seen follow the same bland minimalist modern style. Copied and pasted. 4,000 square foot glass and steel monstrosities, towering over neighbouring 1960s bungalows. They look more like pieces of lifeless 21st-century art, rather than a welcoming home where families and friends commune.

Philosopher and writer Sir Roger Scruton wrote: "There is a deep human need for beauty, and if you ignore that need in architecture, your buildings will not last, since people will never feel at home in them."

Commercial buildings are also becoming homogenized. The business districts of major cities across the world are virtually indistinguishable.

❓ question i’m asking:

If you were 80 years old right now, looking back at your life, what would you be most disappointed to hear you never did?

📸 photo of the week:

Last May, I took this photo while touring the Klementinum library, located in the heart of Prague's Old Town.

Arguably the most beautiful library in Europe and certainly the most beautiful room I've ever seen.

Staring into the library was one of those moments you simply don't to end.

What's the most beautiful room you've seen? Reply and let me know so I can check it out someday!

Thank you for reading!

PS—If you want to support my work, the best way to do so is by sharing it with others who would benefit from reading it. Beyond that, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it.

Get in touch—If my writing resonated or if you just want to be friends, please reach out 😊 Reply to this email, leave a comment, or find me on Twitter!

Much love to you and yours,

Tommy