Treasures Are Not Things

Sometimes I Know No. 13

Film photograph by Kaley Kocinski / IG

Something I read this week, and loved -

“The cost of hyperconvenience is isolation.

read an essay about this the other day and it’s stuck with me.

you can now live your life without interacting with people or going outside.

all you need is an internet connection and a smartphone.

next time, choose friction. choose the inconvenience. choose connection.

break the mold technology is trying to fit us in.” - m. de mingo

I feel so passionately about this, and that there’s a difference between the independence and creativity that stems from solitude spent reading, making, building, etc… rather than being completely engorged by a screen. One puts us back into our bodies, leaves us refreshed, the other completely groggy, confused, taken out of real time. Our kids will not be adventurous, bold, or strong, in the ways we wish for their own success, if we feed them the one thing that takes the act of it all away. Or worse, be the example.

My recent published notes -

“Thinking you can stop, when you reach a point you once wished to be, is exactly where you will mess it all up. Keep swimming.”

“Success picks a lane and aims to take action in it. Defeat sits undecided, poisoned by overthinking.”

Randomly and often -

Let your kids get dirty on nice days. Redirect with silliness or seriousness, do not yell. Encourage them to appreciate quiet in a world full of noise. Show them how to be still in a life busy with movement. Get ice cream and french fries on Thursdays, and make sure they see you have some too. Give them an impromptu and genuine “yes!” when they really want to do something you might not want to. Tell them you love them randomly and often. Laugh when they laugh. Live through their eyes. Appreciate the seconds in between the minutes - the looks, the late nights, the long days. If flies all at once and is here one time only.

Treasures are not things -

Treasures are not things. They are moments beside someone or those you love - watching their wings grow, flourish, understand, imagine. They are seconds, sometimes hours, of retreat - not from a place, but from thoughts that tempt you to be anywhere but present. Enjoy them when they are introduced to you.

The bathrooms we will never go in again -

It is morning. I’ve just taken the boys to school, gone for my walk, and had a shower. Something about the texture and smell of the towel I am using is identical to my Papa’s downstairs bathroom in Dover Massachusetts. We would visit him every Sunday after church, and swim in his freezing, unheated, unkempt pool in summer. When my father got sick, and his father and siblings decided to tear down our family home to build a new one, anticipating a big profit, my mom, brother and I moved into my Papa’s basement. My room was in the back left corner of the split level house with