Reddit Reads, Gerry Lopez, Therapy, and Joyce Carol Oates

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📚 I. Reddit Book Recommendations

I keep a long list of books I want to read. I build the list from personal recommendations, podcasts, and books mentioned in other books. From time to time, I look at the list, buy five to ten books, and get back to reading.

This simple process works and has left me with enough books to fill my remaining time, so I generally don’t actively look for more recommendations.

That said, I stumbled upon Reddit Reads, a website that scrapes comments on Reddit and provides a searchable list of books recommended by Reddit users. The site is a fun way to explore your interests and get unique book recommendations that you may not otherwise find.

The best part of the site is that you can search by subreddit. So if one day you find yourself interested in beekeeping, origami, hunting, cryptography, golf, gaming, or the hundreds of other things you may someday want to learn more about, you can see what books people with similar interests recommend for those topics.

🌊 II. The Yin & Yang of Gerry Lopez

I’m a sucker for surf films and really enjoyed watching Stacy Peralta’s documentary about the legendary surfer and yogi Gerry Lopez.

Gerry’s life reminds me of the path that has captured my spirit over the last few years, which is about learning how to connect fully with myself and nature, rather than pursuing any form of material or career achievement.

If you’re interested in watching, find the full description and link below:

“From award-winning documentary filmmaker, Stacy Peralta comes Patagonia’s The Yin & Yang of Gerry Lopez, a film that lifts the veil on one of surfing’s most enigmatic heroes. While “Mr. Pipeline” is famously known for his calm demeanor in the tube, Gerry built his early career on cutthroat, aggressive surfing. Gerry is as radical as he is Zen; he transcends categorization. He’s one of the most influential surfers and surfboard shapers of all time, an entrepreneur, a family man, a movie star, and a lifelong yogi who brought surfing to new frontiers. His influence on modern surfing is immeasurable, and his story is being told in full for the first time.”

👩‍💻 III. Interview I Enjoyed

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most prolific writers and teachers of the last decade. In the 1970s, she gave a wonderfully detailed interview in The Paris Review about her life, creative process, and thoughts on writing. If you’re a creator or writer, the full interview is worth a read.

One of my favorite exchanges from the piece:

Interviewer: “Do you find emotional stability is necessary in order to write? Or can you get to work whatever your state of mind? Is your mood reflected in what you write? How do you describe that perfect state in which you can write from early morning into the afternoon?”

Oates: “One must be pitiless about this matter of “mood.” In a sense, the writing will create the mood. If art is, as I believe it to be, a genuinely transcendental function—a means by which we rise out of limited, parochial states of mind—then it should not matter very much what states of mind or emotion we are in. Generally I've found this to be true: I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing has seemed worth enduring for another five minutes . . . and somehow the activity of writing changes everything. Or appears to do so.”

🗣️ IV. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

I finished listening to Lori Gottlieb’s Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.

It’s a well-produced audiobook in which Lori weaves in her life story and career as a therapist to explore what it means to improve your life with therapy and related modalities.

If you’re interested in therapy and especially if you're skeptical about its utility, this book is a good entry point for moving beyond the classic tropes and stigmas that stop many people from seeing a therapist.

🧠 V. Something I’m Thinking About

That's all for now. See you next Sunday.

— Cal

🌎️ Three other things you might enjoy

1. Doing Time Right: Everyone wants to get more done in less time. This course will show you exactly how to do that with the eliminate, automate, delegate, and iterate framework.

2. Foundations. Looking for good books to read? Check out Foundations, a growing digital notebook with notes & lessons from 100+ timeless books.

3. Listen to the Podcast: Feel like school didn't prepare you for adulthood? The Sh*t You Don't Learn in School podcast exists to help make up for this societal failure.