[Vol. 2 Issue #29]

Monday

A newsletter exploding with new ideas, story highlights, and a great sprinkling of song references from Bob Marley, R.E.M., and The Beatles. Let's talk about how we feel about life and how it doesn't always match the data.

Bigmouth Strikes Again:

Stories | News | Music | Art & Design - With A Shout (out)

🤘We are here every day, and every minute you spend with us sends ripples of gratitude through our souls! 🤘

Big Stories

BIG PEOPLE:

Inspiration Nation

The Big Lie

The archive of interesting stories in the [digital] With A Shout library is over 500 deep in 2023 alone. Here is a story pulled but not highlighted until today. The Guardian wants us to know every little thing gonna be alright. The article goes through several items we see on our feeds every day and may cause doom-scrolling or rabbit hole drowning. The truth is it's never as bad (or as good) as it seems. We love The Guardian, but there is a bit of irony when the media writes a story about reality... Headlines and telemarketing still work and they give us the news dope hit we want.

Perception and Reality

It wasn't long ago that we trusted the media; we felt that for a story to be published or reported on the news, it was vetted and, with few exceptions, safe to believe in. Most of us grew up with that distinction, our thought default. Now that distribution has gone from vetted professionals to anyone with a phone, our natural instincts are being overwhelmed; the zone has been flooded, and the flood has become our perception. Then reality steps on it, and researchers who tend to look at data and results determine that, in many cases, people are good and growing. Things continue to improve, and those improvements are making it to more people.

The Results suggest that every day, we wake up and get to work, making the world a better place and trying to help when we can. When the day is done, we power down and watch the planet's destruction unfold on social media and revel in the wonder of how any of us have survived for this long.

Of the findings, the culture war debates were interesting; according to polling, British social attitudes seem more open and inviting than the closed populism we usually hear about. The Guardian is based in the U.K. Similar data came from a blurb on echo chambers; the data shows a larger portion of moderates than extremes. A.I., in general, is believed to be a positive for the world and only bad if you are an actual Terminator. Finally, the data on kids today, our beloved Gen Z, suggests they will be the most diverse, open, and educated generation yet. We agree; we helped produce a few of them and can't wait until they take over a from a few of the zombies running things when they grow up.

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Big Words

Thought Blocks

A 12” Remix in Words

I took a quote from one of Eckhart Tolle’s books and removed every unnecessary word. The result captures the meaning but expects more from the reader – the words I pulled out turn the idea into a challenge. Take the challenge and see if this is a spark for your week.

Lights & Sounds

Sound Checks

Day Tripper

Sir Paul McCartney wrote a quick hit for Vanity Fair and supported several legs of the expression table for me today. First, the headline grabbed me – The Beatles Day Tripper was the first riff my dad taught me on the guitar as a kid. It's still an iconic riff, spawning so many other riffs. Second, the article tells the story of Paul McCartney's family going on day trips because longer vacations were too expensive. I first heard this song in the 70s and 80s, and the term "tripping," especially in music, meant something else.

The War

Finally, McCartney talks about The War and post-WWII – that's not something most of us think about when we think about The Beatles. But they were all babies of the war, which shaped so much about them.