Welcome!

There's 45 of us gathered in this one. Wowza. We're a respectable keynote conference audience. We could divide into three groups of 15 for an activity. The person upfront would say "you folks from here are group A... you lot are group B... and you're C...". We'd raise our hands in response to a live survey, and each data pool would have breadth to feel anecdotally relevant. Certainly more so than if we were three groups of 3 doing the survey.

In honour of being a multiple of 15, today's postcard is gonna be a SpeedRun experiment. I've set a timer for 90min (15x6) and I'm gonna see what it produces.

I typically spend 2-3hrs on the postcard. I don't really mind how long it takes, cuz I enjoy writing it. But experiments have revealed every other aspect of this postcard. I haven't played with a time constraint yet, so let's see what it reveals...

Thanks for being an early subscriber to my digital postcard. I prefer the description postcard (rather than newsletter) cuz it feels more casual, personal and specific to a moment in time.

TIP: First-time recipient? A reply will help prevent these emails being marked spam. Don't feel obligated to say something kind or clever. In fact, I encourage the opposite. Make your reply as conveniently incoherent as possible. A quick: "sDGHsdasd" is splendid :)

Punish-The-Pause!

I've thought of this article's title 2-4 times each day since I read it a month ago. It's written by my friend Arthur, and puts a phrase to one of my worst habits.

I rarely make space to enjoy stillness and silence. Yes, I meditate 48-60min each day. But I chase conversation, podcasts + music every other minute. It's something I highlighted with #3 of my 12 favourite problems:

Last week I'm picking up Thai food for dinner. There's a woman ahead of me paying. I recognize the need to wait and impulsively reach for my phone... then 'punish the pause' whispers from my subconscious.

I look up and spot a painting by the door. Looking deeper I notice the painting's background is textured with leaves. I pause and enjoy this quiet moment.

Then my opportunism noticed this'd be a good anecdote to capture for my postcard and the pause ended... 😂 Baby steps :)

Rachel, Christin, Jake, Kari - I think you'd particularly enjoy this link. And yes, the irony of sharing this article in my newsletter speed run is intentional :)

Read: "Punish-The-Pause!"

Michelangelo

I don't pay attention to lyrics until about the 8th time I hear a song. Initially it's all about the vibe and the build. Any song that grows from a gentle guitar strum to Brian May-esque (Queen) grandiose guitar fuzz is a winner.

The 9th time I played this track I discovered the poetry of its lyrics. This week Spotify Wrapped (year end round up of my 100 most-played songs) revealed I've played "Michelangelo" by Cassandra Jenkins a lot since discovering her words. It's my 4th most played song of the year.

Here are some of my fav lines:

"I'm a three-legged dog
Workin' with what I got
And part of me will always be
Looking for what I lost..."

"...I wanna be the blank white screen
Allow the movies to be seen
Comedy, tragedy
Come and go, but none become me..."

"...I'm Michelangelo
And I carve myself out of marble..."

Michelangelo Cassandra Jenkins

Camo-doge

Snow season has begun in Toronto. Our dog Kiwi loves it. Her fur is snow velcro.

The longer she plays, the more her legs disappear...

That's all till next week!

P.S. I held true to 90min of writing, but added 23min of editing for clarity.

The constraint was a good way of stopping myself from continuously adding sections like I usually do. Alas, it meant I didn't talk about the comedy show my girlfriend and I went to Saturday where we were heckled for being 'venture capitalists'... but already in this brief PS. paragraph I'm ascended up from 23 to 30+ minutes overtime... (I'm definitely the tortoise, not the hare, as a writer)

Perhaps more to come on that story next week 🙃

Thanks for reading,

Tommy

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PS. Replies Encouraged :)

• If you have 27 seconds to jot an impression of this postcard, please do!
• I know each of your lives bustle with activity. If it helps, think of the reply as a text (rather than an email).
• A quick jotted: “This world needs more celebration of multiples of 15” or "tell the heckle tale!" is valuable signal of where to re-invest :)