The Doldrums of Summer

emmett.freedman July 13, 2020

I went through a few drafts of the newsletter this week before I settled on what I wanted to write about. I went deep down the JK Rowling rabbit hole and toyed with writing something about discourse and hurtful words, but it’s 88 degrees outside, I’m sunburned and hungry, and that’s not where my mind is right now. It’s an important conversation, and Rowling’s comments on gender/sex gave me a lot to think about, but that’s for another day.

Some wins this weekend: Our friend Johnny came to visit, we got delicious Korean food, and I finally got a haircut. I can feel the breeze on my scalp again and the summer heat is a bit more bearable. I’m in the middle of my second Robert Ludlum WWII spy novel in the last few weeks, I can’t wait to watch Eurovision Song Contest on Netflix and we still have a handful of engagement cupcakes left (thanks Mackenzie!). The doldrums of summer don’t seem so bad.

I listened to a Debbie Millman interview with Tim Ferriss (yes – I’m a Tim Ferriss fanboy) this afternoon and she mentioned an exercise she has her design students do each semester called “Your Ten-Year Plan for a Remarkable Life.” Here is how she describes the writing exercise:

“So, let’s say it is winter, 2030. What does your life look like? What are you doing? Where are you living? Who are you living with? Do you have pets? What kind of house are you in? Is it an apartment? Are you in the city? Are you in the country? What does your furniture look like? What is your bed like? What are your sheets like? What kind of clothes do you wear? What kind of hair do you have? Tell me about your pets. Tell me about your significant other.

Do you have children? Do you have a car? Do you have a boat? Talk about your career. What do you want? What are you reading? What are you making?

What excites you? What is your health like? And write this day, this one day ten years from now. So, one day in the winter of 2030; what does your whole day look like? Start from the minute you wake up, brush your teeth, have your coffee or tea, all the way through until when you tuck yourself in at night. What is that day like for you? Dream big. Dream without any fear. Write it all down. You don’t have to share it with anyone other than yourself. Put your whole heart into it and write like there’s no tomorrow. Write like your life depends on it because it does. And then, read it once a year and see what happens. It’s magic. It’s magic, Tim.”

Debbie Millman designed the Burger King logo, the Kleenex logo, and had a hand in the branding of ~20% of the products in a grocery store. So I’m intrigued by any exercise she describes as “magic” and am going to do it myself this week. If anybody else is interested in giving it a try, let me know how it goes. If you share your end product with me, I’ll share mine with you. And remember – what would you like your life to be in ten years if you weren’t worried about failure?

I realized recently that my website is not set up well to promote older pieces of writing, so I’ve linked to the three essays I wrote almost a year ago when I first created the site. They’re important to me and it would be a shame if they got relegated to the graveyard just for being first out of the gate.

Also – a photo from this weekend!