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Hi! I'm Hugh Hollowell.

The Hustle |LISB

Published about 1 year ago • 4 min read

This is Life Is So Beautiful, a weekly email from Hugh Hollowell, devoted to the idea that our hope for survival in this brutal world is rooted in finding the beauty that is everywhere, but sometimes hard to find.

Click here to read this on the web

Hey Y'all!

Two weeks ago, I got a phone call I had been dreading for almost three years - I had been exposed to COVID. By the end of Tuesday I had an annoying cough. By Wednesday morning I had a severe headache and would test positive later that day. Thursday my wife, who is immunocompromised, tested positive. I emailed my members to let them know I wouldn't be blogging or sending any newsletters until I got better.

Luckily, our cases were relatively mild. I had bad headaches and cough and lost all taste and smell, but I never ran a fever. Renee ran a fever for a few days and had a cough, and we both had a lot of fatigue, but the worst of it was over by Monday night.

Had it been 2019, I would have been back at work on Tuesday. I was functional, if foggy, and I was past the five days recommended by the CDC, and my symptoms were decreasing. But I am fortunate to do the sort of work that is easy to shift to working from home, and most of it is project based, and I had no deadlines looming, so I worked at maybe 20% of capacity last week. I got tired easily, and took naps every day. I gave myself permission to be easy on myself, and to turn my phone off for long periods of time.

I recognize this is a huge privilege. (Don't be afraid of the P word!) I'm fortunate to do the sort of work that allows me this freedom, but just because I have that freedom doesn't mean it's easy for me to take it, mentally. The old scripts run deep, the ones we learn as children in a capitalistic society, the ones that tell us that being sick is somehow a moral failure, that as soon as you can function you should be back at work, the ones that tie your worth to your ability to produce.

We are not responsible for the scripts we were handed. But we do have responsibility for the things we decide to keep, and this insistence on my value being tied to my productivity is a thing I am desperately trying to put down. So, I rested. I resisted answering the phones. I puttered in my yard. I took lots of naps.

So why am I telling you this? Because there are lots of voices out there telling us how to "hustle", extoling the virtues of "grind culture" and telling us how to "crush it." And I just wanted to tell you what I wish someone had told me years ago" It's OK to rest. Your value is in your existence, not your productivity. And if all you did this week is survive it, that's enough.

Five Beautiful Things

Like many a kid in the 80's, I grew up with ACDC on my Walkman (remember those?). This folk cover of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap is far better, and far more sensual, than it would seem like it ought to be. It's like a whole other song.

Check out this video about a man who rescued a Zebra Finch, and then hatched and nurtured a super-tiny baby finch. Totes adorbs as the kids say. (Do they still say that? I feel so old.)

Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has a new exhibition featuring the works of Vermeer, with 25 of his 34 known works. That's cool. But since I won't be going to Amsterdam any time soon, what's also cool is the online virtual tour, hosted by Stephen Fry. I love everything about this, from Fry's narration to the database and UI that drives it. This is just amazing all the way around.

Chinese acrobats doing a lion dance. I have watched this like 20 times, and it still blows my mind.

I struggle sometimes with classification of a link - in other words, what makes something "beautiful"? But I am including this "Cabinet of Wikipedian Curiosities" this week here, because it is full of strange things that are right under our nose, and the compilation of such a list serves no purpose other than the joy of sharing it, and if that sort of joy is not beautiful, I don't know what is.

Last week

The most clicked link in the last issue was Bohemian Rhapsody being played on the largest organ in the world. Party on!

Because I was out sick, I didn't publish anything on my blog the last two weeks.

Check this out.

Can a penguin be a cougar? She's 43. He's 13.

Bear selfies.

I feel this GenX screed against influencer culture in my bones.

Thank You!

This is the first week of Lent in the Christian world, which means it has been 8 years ago that I sent the first edition of this newsletter to a couple of dozen folks. I'm constantly amazed I'm still doing this, and that people are still reading it. This newsletter remains free and ad-free because of the support of my members, who insist on my making it free for everyone else. Other ways to support this project include buying me a cup of coffee or forwarding it to your friends or even just replying and saying hi.

Take care of yourself. And each other.

Hugh Hollowell Jr

Publisher

soverybeautiful.org

Hi! I'm Hugh Hollowell.

Every Monday since 2015, Hugh wakes up, makes coffee, sits down, and writes an email to thousands of folks in at least five different countries. There’s an original blog-length reflection on where he sees beauty in the world right then and links to five things he saw that week that struck him as beautiful. Because the world is beautiful, but sometimes it’s hard to notice.

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