Hello Readers and happy November! Our apologies for neglecting to get out a newsletter last week. Sometimes it just doesn’t come together. This week David shares a bit of a closer look into his annual ritual of taking inventory, and shares some lovely thoughts about what writing this newsletter has become for him. We hope you find something here that gives you something to think on. As we get to the end of our first year, with a pretty darn good success rate of putting out a weekly newsletter, we are feeling into what we want to do with this project. If you’ve enjoyed reading or have benefited in any way, we’d love to hear from you. Thanks for spending a bit of your time with us.

-Mindy

November is when I look back on the previous 12 months and inventory my feelings and thoughts on what I filled my life with. In practice, this process typically starts on my birthday, mid-September, and by November, I’ve identified major themes. 

I’m not prone to looking back or spending much time in the past, except when I’m arguing with Mindy–then it’s so tempting. But, character flaws aside, I find it most helpful to go mindfully into the past. Like everyone, sometimes the past just sneaks up on me; it is rarely a pleasant experience for me. I know that a big part of why I do this practice is to work with the past in a container aimed at the future, which feels helpful–I love dreaming of the future, so looking backward to look forward feels safer to me.

I’ve let the practice evolve, and I think that’s best. Too much stricture seems to rob my practices of the zestiness that makes me want to do them. In that way, taking inventory takes on some ritualistic components. For me, practices feel more like exercise or preparation, such as meditation, lifting weights, scheduling, etc. In contrast, rituals are pleasurable in and of themselves, often serving as experience and preparation, like running, envisioning the outcomes of my work, cuddling with Mindy before we start our day, etc. 

Initially, I focused my self-assessment on three simple categories: People, Projects, and Places. In the first year, after carefully considering what occupied these categories, I decided how to either double down (increase my investment of time, energy, and attention) or begin the process of letting go. I tend to view my life choices as bets. In the past, what I hoped to win was nebulous—something like “winning at life,” which looked outside of myself for validation or confirmation. It wasn’t all bad, but it wasn’t that great either. I now see that some of the challenges and limitations of my initial perspective stemmed from my belief that happiness was “the domain of the dim.” Nice, eh?

My perspective has completely shifted. Increasing my capacity for and experience of happiness is now my primary motivation for updating the bets I’m making. In the past, my focus was primarily on the projects in my life. I firmly believed that whatever satisfaction (satisfaction being my stand-in for happiness) I might experience in my life was rate-limited by those things I thought a successful career/business could bring me. Now I see my ability to navigate my life calmly and my capacity to feel good being alive as the main components of a beautiful life. I trust that career success will come, mainly as a function of my ability to think clearly (see being calm), skill development, and good fortune.

To that end, the category of People has become the one on which I focus most. Forming more relationships has helped me expand my capacity to respond to life’s events with calm more than anything else. 

The categories this year are essentially the same as those I started with, but over these many years, the categories have taken on more depth and nuance:

• People: the individuals or communities that are actively in my life

  • In my day, week, month, year

  • In my thoughts

• Projects & Practices

  • Projects are the efforts, tasks, hobbies, pastimes, etc., intentionally or otherwise, in my day, week, month, and year. These very often are people/community-focused or place-focused; as such, identifying and assessing are usually done in connection with a place or person.

  • Practices are the intentional, instinctual, or otherwise in my day, week, month, or year. They are less often connected to a person or community but are frequently linked to a place.

• Places: the locations and mental spaces I occupy daily or at whatever frequency or because of some trigger. 

It’s unimportant to me to isolate something in my inventory as belonging only to a single category. Rather, I let the categories help me identify where I’m investing my life force and, to some extent, why I am investing. Often, the impetus to let something go is the fuller recognition that the life force energies alive in me in connection to something aren’t the kind of energy I wish to nurture in my life.

This year, I asked Mindy to join me on this journey to whatever level she wanted to engage. For various unpleasant reasons and challenges, we’ve not had a strong practice of planning or coordinating together, so asking her to engage took a fair bit of courage on my part and on her part to be willing to engage. Something that has resulted from asking her is that I’ve felt it necessary to formalize my prioritization of those things in each category. I won’t be sharing everything I write and collect in this process with Mindy, nor will I expect her to share everything with me. This is a deeply personal process, but I hope we’ll take the results of our separate efforts to inventory our previous year and come to the table in December with the energy to plan some of our efforts together for the next 12 months. 

I’ve always sorted the lists with those things high on the list, taking priority over those lower on the list, but I’ve mainly used intuition or unvoiced rationale. This year, I adapted a value sorting exercise Mindy introduced me to and ended up with four clusters of values:

• Juicy connection: within this cluster, I have things as varied as friendship, humor, sexuality, spirituality, and intimacy

• Nurturing family: within this cluster, I put things ranging from family, wealth, cooperation, creativity, forgiveness, and tolerance

• Being with myself: This cluster contains values I want to foster in my experience of myself, such as mastery, beauty (both being and appreciating), risk, self-acceptance, and fitness.

• Not important to me: I think every value in the list will likely be very important to someone, but for me, the heuristic for putting things in this cluster was if my reaction to a value was to feel my heart close. I won’t list this because I don’t want anyone to feel picked on for valuing something I may not now or ever be able to appreciate. 

These near-weekly posts are a practice I’m choosing to double down on, making a specific renewed investment. Reflecting on what that commitment truly means, I’ve realized that some of my posts have come more from my head than my heart; several were rewritten or scrapped due to their triggering or upsetting nature for Mindy. And this stands to reason, given that what’s in my heart is so often connected to Mindy and our shared life. I didn’t feel inauthentic about rewriting a post, but they tended to come from a more meditative, mind-centered place.

I’m grateful for the reflection because it has helped me identify the different kinds of energy I put into this writing and what each type of writing feels like in me.

For the last 35 years, my prayers haven’t been directed toward any concept of God, but I found a way to engage that either felt meditative (praying by myself) or connecting (praying with a group). As my religious involvement waned, so did my practice of prayer. I’ve missed it.

Reflecting on these months of writing, I see now how my writing is akin to that practice of prayer. Many prayers are meditative, almost chant-like—think of the Lord’s Prayer or a Hindu intoned mantra. The content may vary, but the core of these prayers is about grounding, reflection, and cultivating a more intentional response to life. Many of my posts have been like this—more meditative, tending towards ideas over feelings. It's pleasurable but not quite as juicy as other posts. 

Then there are the prayers that beseech and implore. These are raw, vulnerable, and risky. They seek connection with something beyond the self. For a long time, my materialist view of the world left me struggling to connect with anything outside myself in that way, and as a result, I struggled and eventually just stopped trying to pray in that way.

But in this simple act of writing, I’ve realized that my heart’s understanding is being shared with the literal collective consciousness beyond myself comprised of those who read it. This practice has given me something beautiful to believe in—a way to engage with something beyond myself that taps into my yearning to implore all of human existence, myself included, to be kinder and more lovingly aware.

As I approach the close of this year’s inventory process, I realize how profoundly the practice has shifted my approach to both life and writing. Reflecting on my choices over the past year—what I’ve doubled down on, what I’ve let go of, and how I’ve made those decisions—has revealed the core of what I value most. It’s not just about choosing what I want to invest my time and energy in, but more deeply about aligning those investments with what nurtures my capacity for joy, clarity, and connection.

This process of inventory and reflection is more than just a way to assess what’s working in my life—it’s a practice of self-love and clarity. It allows me to shape my journey, focusing on relationships that matter, projects that reflect my passions, and places that ground and connect me to the here and now. And in this space, I’ve found a renewed sense of connection to my heart and a deeper way to share that with others.

In writing these posts, I see how they have mirrored my own spiritual practices. Some posts have been meditative, quiet and reflective, grounding me in the present, while others have been more vulnerable, even pleading. It is through this balance of quiet reflection and heartfelt yearning that I’ve found a way to make my writing a form of prayer, not directed outward but shared with the collective, something that resonates within me and beyond.

This commitment to writing, to sharing my heart and ideas, is a practice I’m embracing fully. And as I move forward, I will continue to double down on this work—leaning into the energy that feels aligned with my most authentic self, and trusting that in doing so, I am nourishing the connections that matter most, to me and to the world.

-David/Gonzo

NEAT!

Stuff we think is neat enough to share! (David⚡️ & Mindy✨)

• Arco Iris by Flavien Burger 🎶✨

• Tilted by Christine and the Queens 🎶✨

• Feeling Good by Nina Simone 🎶✨

• I always love a good Ram Dass talk and this is a good one. ✨

• How psychedelics ruined my life and career, and how I eventually got over it (Part 4). I wrote this (and the other parts of the series) as part of last year’s taking inventory practice. ⚡️

SOMETHING TO TRY

It’s CRUNCHY LEAVES TIME!! At least it is around here. David and I both love the sensory experience of walking through and on top of crunchy leaves, either just hearing the crunch as you go over the top or kicking them up while you walk with a more dragging step. If you haven’t had the chance this fall to walk through some crunchy leaves yet, go do it! 🍂 🍁

-Mindy

PARTING

WORDS

PIC

Our friend Sue Bergin makes these lovely nature lays almost every day. I (Mindy) have had the joy of going out with her on a collecting walk and it is magical to be with her and see what catches her eye. Seeing her art always delights me, and sometimes it absolutely takes my breath away. If you’re on Instagram, check out her stuff. 😍

That’s all for this week! If you’re into this, share this newsletter with all your friends. Connecting with new subscribers is magical! 🧚🏻‍♀️

DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice.