Busy Monday, the Stoic 21-Day Challenge finished today; we added another chapter to the Book Report section and podcast updates in the music section.  In the news today, we were introduced to a gravity battery concept; we met a pessimist who turned over a new leaf and saw a closeup picture of a plant that ate two baby salamanders.  Enjoy!

The final challenge in the 21-Day Stoic Challenge is about other people.  After spending several weeks; reading, thinking, and making plans to be a better person, it fits that helping someone else would follow.  If you were fortunate enough to grow up in a time and place where service and charity work were the expectation, you know how it feels to give without expectation and help others.  You indeed get more out of helping someone else than the person you are helping.  You are also in a better position to help another person when you are in a healthy and happy place.  None of these are absolutes; a better you is generally better for them. 

Personal experience has also proven that one of the best ways to get out of your own head is to experience what it's like to be in someone else's experience.  Often if you have worked at a food bank or soup kitchen, many of the people you serve are grateful to you for being there to help them out.  It is humbling to see those with nothing; thank you for giving up a couple of hours out of our days of plenty. 

People will ask for support in time, talent, and treasure.  They are all important; to get the most out of service, give the only thing you can provide… your time.

Changing the Night Journal post, ask yourself the same three questions, throw your answers into the comments, and we will highlight some of the responses.

Austin Kleon is a writer and artist we discovered last summer in Austin, TX.  We continue to highlight , Keep Going 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad. 

In Make Gifts, Kleon highlights that art and creative work can't all be a way to generate revenue, and if it becomes too much of that, it's just a job.  To quote from the chapter:

If you are trying to build an audience based on shared experiences and a love of music, writing, and art, make it with that in mind.  Build slow, don't spend when you don't have to, and you won't have to charge for more than you should.  If you do it right in this space, you should never need to advertise or discount based on how you set it up.

With a strong base of creating art, you can and should make art and give it away as a gift.  Not all of it, but some of it, and if you are in that space, giving away the gift of art will pay back tenfold over time and keep your inspiration nation growing.

A final note from Chapter 4, did you know C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles Of Narnia) talked J.R.R. Tolkien into writing The Hobbit?

In a story we read in Techspot, the Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) has been conducting experiments with gravity batteries.  The article briefly explains that dropping a heavy weight, like water or sand, down a large area, like an abandoned mine shaft.  When the weight drops, it spins a turbine and converts the energy from gravity.  The closest visual we could think of is a hydroelectric dam, which uses the speed and massive volume of water to spin turbines and creates energy.  Further research is necessary, but there are a lot of abandoned mines, most are near or already hooked up to a power grid, and it could bring back jobs to areas that lost them when the mines closed. 

Rachel Feintzeig wrote a humorous story in the WSJ about becoming a positive person.  Feintzeig, a self-proclaimed pessimist, decided to take on the challenge of going glass half full in January.  She experimented with Grammarly's tone suggestions when she wrote email replies.  Played around with a smile mirror and tested the theory of Trusting Loudly.  There was nothing earth-shattering or revelatory about Feintzeig's experiments; the way she told the story made the article a joy to read.  Part self-deprecating, and other parts, laugh-out-loud funny; it's a great way to start the week!

The Verge wrote an article on new podcast creation in 2022.  Another victim of life after a pandemic, podcasting seems a lot harder to do when you aren't locked in your house all day.  Other factors mentioned in the article include the time and effort that goes into producing a podcast and how new podcasts show up in podcast players, making it difficult for a new podcast to get traction.

[Music Notes]

Shadow music and Goth Tees

Words | Music | Art | Unknown

Waterboys.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

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With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

X/O