☕ saturday mornings - july 8, 2023

the bottom of your heart, eating cherries & city struggles

Tommy Dixon

Jul 08, 2023

Happy Saturday!

I hope you’re having an excellent start to your weekend.

What I’ve been up to:

I finished Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring, and began to read Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces, to understand myth and The Hero's Journey. If you're looking for a short summary, I loved Vogler's Memo (which introduced Campbell's work to Hollywood).
I published an essay curating the work of my favourite singer/songwriter, Noah Kahan. (Funny, because I work for Noah Kagan... small world.)
On Thursday, I did my first at-home meditation retreat. 5 hours of sitting meditation and 3 hours of walking. I shared my schedule on Twitter.

Here's an inside look at the most interesting ideas I've explored this week.

Enjoy.

✍️ quote i’m pondering:

Japanese author, Genzaburo Yoshino, on following your heart:

“The things that you feel most deeply, from the very bottom of your heart, will never deceive you in the slightest.”

📚 book passage i loved:

'When I have a longing for something myself,' he said, 'do you know what I do?
I cram myself chockful of it, and so I get rid of it and don't think about it any longer. Or, if I do, it makes me retch.
Once when I was a kid—this'll show you—I was mad on cherries. I had no money, so I couldn't buy many at a time, and when I'd eaten all I could buy I still wanted more. Day and night I thought of nothing but cherries.
I foamed at the mouth; it was torture!
But one day I got mad, or ashamed, I don't know which. Anyway, I just felt cherries were doing what they liked with me and it was ludicrous. So what did I do? I got up one night, searched my father's pockets and found a silver mejidie and pinched it.
I was up early the next morning, went to a market gardener and bought a basket o' cherries. I settled down in a ditch and began eating. I stuffed and stuffed till I was all swollen out.
My stomach began to ache and I was sick.
Yes, boss, I was thoroughly sick, and from that day to this I've never wanted a cherry. I couldn't bear the sight of them. I was saved. I could say to any cherry: I don't need you any more.
And I did the same thing later with wine and tobacco. I still drink and smoke, but any second, If I want to, whoop! I can cut it out. I'm not ruled by passion.
It's the same with my country. I thought too much about it, so I stuffed myself up to the neck with it, spewed it up, and it's never troubled me since.'

― Zorba The Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

💡 idea from me: city struggles

If you asked me the main thing I've changed my mind about this year, my answer would be quick: cities.

For most of university, living in a city was perched on a pedestal. I'd be smack dab in the hustle and bustle. Walking distance from everything I need. Chasing ambition, meeting new people, establishing myself in the world.

But now I’m not so sure.

Walking through city streets after time spent in nature, I experience a sensory overload. I can feel my anxiety escalate with the swirl of sirens and screeching subways, the cacophony of cars and clanging construction. Amidst all the noise, I struggle to hear myself think.

Instead of engaging with the world, people seem to crave distraction. Phones travel first class in hands, headphones remain glued in ears, lines for nightclubs swell and snake into the streets.

Cities are breeding grounds for desire and graveyards for commitment. With so many options and so much stimulus, it's near-impossible to be satisfied with what you are doing because you're keenly aware of the near-infinite things you're not doing. There's a certain restlessness. Rootlessness.

A sense of speed permeates. Everyone is in a hurry. Everything moves too slowly.

Nicole writes about living in San Francisco:

Being 20 something in a big city is both agony and bliss. Everyone is lonely, everyone is obsessed, everyone is hungry. A collective era of being lost, hopeful, and distracted. Being overwhelmed with options, feeling unsure about choices. Feeling like everything matters and nothing matters at all.

I think this ties into a bigger idea: the location we live in has a very real impact on our happiness.

I've been living at my family's cottage this month. It's a simple cabin. But the rolling countryside, symphony of birds, and lush greenness feel therapeutic. My mind stills and flattens, like the lake a few paces from where I'm writing this.

In the serene stillness of nature, as Tolkien suggests throughout Lord of the Rings, we can connect to the wisdom of our unconscious, hear the whispers of intuition, feel the murmurings of the heart. Create clarity. Invite epiphany. Discover profound answers to troubling questions.

But I suppose, like anything in life, where you choose to live is a trade-off.

The city promises jobs, convenience, connection. The forest does not. The subtle-not-so-subtle suggestions I get to "get a real job," and abandon this writing fantasy, make me feel dangerously delusional. Insanely idealistic. My head lost in the clouds of the country, while the city is concrete inescapable reality. Especially as a 20-something year old. As A once told me after getting a great job and moving downtown, what else could I do?

Living in a city elevates ambition, offers opportunity, and sparks serendipity... but can also cloud your mind with desire and drown your intuition with noise.

The (exciting and terrifying) quest is to find a place where you feel at home. A place where you feel deliciously happy. A place that calls out, clear through the silence or high above the noise, "You belong here".

❓ question i’m asking:

How much of my day is spent doing things out of obligation rather than out of interest?
Have interests sneakily turned into obligations?

📸 photo of the week:

Thank you for reading! It means a lot to me :)

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Much love to you and yours,

Tommy