What I learned last week (#13)

An excerpt from a book that I’m pondering: “Some writers, as Hemingway said in Green Hills of Africa, are born only to help another writer to write one sentence. I hope this collection will contribute to the making of many sentences.” – from Ernest Hemingway on Writing by Larry W. Phillips. If I have a a goal associated with my sharing, writing, and drawing that is better than this, I can’t name it.

A perspective on protecting those you love from pain: A friend at work and I were talking about our kids. I was expressing a hope I have that I can provide my kids with the experience of unmooring that I had experienced as a child when my parents divorced, but without as much isolation and sadness. We were discussing whether this is a realistic, or even desired, thing to achieve. I will write about this more soon, but after our conversation she came across this Instagram post and sent it to me:

A great documentary and story: Alone in the Wilderness is an assembly of footage from Dick Proenneke, a man who moved to the Alaskan wilderness alone, built a cabin by hand, and lived there alone for 30 years. The footage is grainy and it’s short (and short on context), but fantastic. I recommend getting some background from the site prior to viewing.

A great piece of storytelling: The Amazon Race is a really fun and ingenious way for a story to be told. Actually it’s just like the stories I’ve been experiencing for 30 years, except those are almost exclusively fiction. I’d like to see more mini-video games narratives like this. (Hat tip: Steve Wiens)

Get On With It