I talk to my mom on Friday afternoons. Already used to being 1000s of miles apart, family time is a constant thing to look forward to. It’s a part of life wonderfully undeserving of a before and after meme.

This Friday, we talked top of mind + bottom of heart.

Communication is a gift. Especially for worriers.

Her words hovered as I jumped to the next Zoom to color and craft with Animalz.

After work, I spent an hour cutting up pieces of paper and writing down questions, giving curiosity words. Questions have lost airtime the harder it’s been to answer “why” and “what next?” Instead, inquiry shifts inward, intensifying isolation.

On Friday night, we sat on Gregg’s chocolate brown couch.

Let’s play a non-game.

We took turns reaching into a clear vase to pick out asymmetrical pieces of paper:

If you found and successfully kept the money from No Country for Old Men but in 2020 dollars how would you spend it?
What makes you feel appreciated?
What can’t you go one day without?
What makes your feel successful?
What are you looking forward to? Not on the-other-side-of-this, but tonight, tomorrow, this week?

We took turns listening, wondering. Recent worries were replaced with hope as I found answers in myself I didn’t know I knew or needed. And I remembered that we have to choose and create space for the constants we need.

Here are a few things I enjoyed this week:

🧠 growth or stability Strong Towns, 7m

A practical application of the infinite vs. finite games idea from last week.

The development experts were trying to meet a single objective – increasing efficiency – while the peasants were forced to harmonize many competing objectives in an infinite game, one where survival was the ultimate constraint.

+ why you should stop reading about mental models Common Cog, 16m

Understanding how markets work may be an explicit mental model that Buffett and Munger have in their heads, but learning this model is not sufficient to act as they do. You also need to have the iceberg under that model — their tacit knowledge of how to apply it, when to apply it, and what can be ignored in which situations.

+ a theory on Zoom fatigue Convival Society, 6m

The body is there as a two dimensional image before us, interacting with us in something approaching simultaneity. But because we are not actually sharing the same physical space, we can’t quite achieve the optimal grip we’re accustomed to achieving in conversation.

❤️ interview your parents Medium, 6m

I haven’t done this yet but have wanted to for the last year and there’s no time like the present (hi mom, can we extend our call next week?)

🚶🏽‍♀️tabata with me start again today, 45m

Thanks to the 20 people came to sweat last week! I’m donating the proceeds to Clover and Cedar Bethesda, a woman run local business supporting first responders with coffee through the pandemic.

Signup to join live and get the workout and playlist emailed to you after class.

I see you, I miss you, come Tabata with me,

Haley