“What Does Daddy Cry About?”
This is beautiful piece on what it feels like to lose a child.
“I froze: It was a Tuesday. My wife was due home from her hospital shift in about 20 minutes. My shoulders ached and there were still dishes piled in the sink. I was not ready to tell the truth. But I didn’t want my son to hear hesitation in his father’s voice, so I said, evenly: ‘Well, buddy, your daddy cries sometimes because he misses your sister, and he wishes she were here. But you make him feel better.’”
Why Recycling Doesn’t Work
I feel like by sharing all of these environmentally pessimistic articles in my newsletter, people might assume that I don’t care about the environment.
This is far from the case. I share these articles because I think it’s important that we don’t pretend that know the solutions to these problems and that the remaining problems are merely political.
“The limitations of a market-driven system mean that, once industrial- and commercial-waste streams are factored in, about two-thirds of Canadian waste still ends up in landfills.
Recycling persists not because it’s efficient (it isn’t) or effective (it’s much less so than we think) but because we feel obligated to do it.”
Residential recycling itself also comes with a significant environmental footprint of its own, especially tied to transportation and carbon emissions. In some circumstances, recycling could actually end up as an environmental liability. “In rural areas you have trucks going half a kilometre between houses picking up recyclables,” Hoornweg says. “It makes no sense.” Once you tally up the emissions associated with picking up products, sorting them at a mrf, and sending a batch to far-flung end markets, it’s not difficult to imagine that it’s sometimes better to send recycling to the dump.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t recycle - but it does mean recycling alone is not enough. Eliminating waste seems at least 10x as effective.
My Journey Out Of Mormonism
Religion is a tricky subject. I found this article fascinating - but it’s important to keep in mind that it is just one anecdote.
Regardless of your religious beliefs - I think almost everyone can relate to questioning a belief or viewpoint, despite pressure from those around them to believe something else.
By the time I was 14, I was the only one of my peers in church who had never born his testimony. I felt like I had the spiritual equivalent to late-onset puberty (an ironic malady for someone with a prophetic namesake!). Adults would ask, with a note of concern, whether I’d ever born my testimony and whether I was intending to serve a two-year proselytizing mission when I turned 19, an obligation for males. I told them honestly that I intended to serve a mission and that I would bear my testimony as soon as I received it. They’d often reply with well-meaning words: “a testimony comes in bearing it.” In other words, if I would bear my testimony to others as an act of faith, belief in what I was saying would follow.
That couldn’t be right, I felt instinctively. Surely I should know that my beliefs were true before I asserted them for the edification of others.
A Daughter’s Portrait of Her Mother Through Dementia
I loved this piece from a family friend.
It seems like there’s so few stories out there on what it’s like to see your parents grow old. I think this is especially relevant to current/future generations as parents start to have kids later in life.
Should you send your parents to a senior living facility? Or let them stay in their house where they feel most comfortable. How do you make the time that you DO have while your parents are still healthy as meaningful as possible? I’m not sure…
I also love The tail end on this subject.
Meditation on ambition
My ambition is not a singular state
It is not binary
I don't sometimes have or feel it
And then other times I don't
It is an energetic continuum–
Omnipresent and changing all the time
Sometimes more, sometimes less;
Never the same
Gimlet 11: Know Your Customer
An old podcast that covers a wild story from Trevor McKendrick. He created the #1 Spanish language bible app, grew it to 1 million+ users, and then sold the company because he didn’t believe in the product he was selling.
I actually had dinner with Trevor this past week. He’s hilarious - and now works at Lambda School, a company I’ve covered quite a bit on the newsletter. It’s a programming school that’s free until you get a job (😮).
I highly recommend his newsletter.
Denver just voted to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms
I mentioned that this was going to a vote a few months ago… exciting to see some movement on it. Should be interesting to see what happens in the coming years 🤷♂️
What I’m listening to
Personal
- Haven’t been reading as much as I want lately :(. I did get a chance to reread some of Shantaram… forgot how good it is.
- Life has been a bit crazy recently. It’s a bit cliche, but it does seem that whenever you feel like you’re starting figure things out - life tends to throw something new your way 🙃.
Thanks for reading ❤️💛💜
- Taylor