PÅ«‘olo mea maika‘i is ‘a bundle of good things’ you return home with.
Things you feel are gifts.
Noun or verb? Depends on your kaona… you can decide :-)
Add this post to our hau‘oli‘oli listing of weekend diversions…
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One of the things I am totally embracing in this 2010 Change it up! world of ours, is an end to my previous habits of conspicuous consumption. The timing is pleasing, and just right for me.
I no longer have any desire to read Martha Stewart’s “Good Things” which used to be my favorite part of her Living magazine, or skim through Oprah’s O Lists. I cancelled both magazine subscriptions a while back, and I’m not missing them.
I embrace all the economic reasons of currently in-vogue frugality, and fresh realizations that there are better things to do with one’s money, like giving to causes nobler than self-indulgence. There’s also an aging self-indulgence: Hubby and I are now empty nesters, with glorious permission from both of our baby birds to “oh please mom, do throw away anything I’ve left behind.” Those sweet tweets are no longer falling on deaf ears as we seek to purge and unclutter, freeing ourselves from all the stuff we’d once thought made a house a home (and did, during another time, if we kindly forgive ourselves for past lapses in better judgement). We make new lists: Places we want to see, vacations we want to take, dinner parties we can have in the house instead of on lawn chairs in the carport… most things on our list no longer have to do with collecting or buying things. They’re about experiences to have before time runs out or we simply get too old and tired.
Dealing with physical consumerism has been very easy. However what I still struggle with, is bundling my mea maika‘i of treasured knowledge and digital information.
I still want to read most of it,
wading through to filter it.
I still want to collect the good bits,
keep them indexed and archived for best-possible retrieval,
and then savor them at opportune times.
Yet one (just 1)
good (and only good)
trusted system
of how to do so eludes me.
It’s driving me crazy.
Two of my favorite Tumblrs got me thinking about this again this past Thursday. Frank Chimero started it when he posted Text Playlist:
…one made of the best writing on the web I come across. I take this list and revisit and reread it every 4 to 8 weeks. You could almost consider it a playlist of text: it’s very select (I artificially limit it to 10-15 articles), I typically read them all in one sitting, and the order and pacing is very purposeful. Most revolve around what it’s like to be making things in 2010, and a lot of the people that I respect the most have pieces in it. It’s almost a pep talk in text form. I visit it when I’m down, when I’m lazy, when I’m feeling the inertia take over.
Take a look at his playlist: 10 articles are listed, all very good for your mental gymnastics this weekend.
A bit later in the day, Liz Danzico followed suit with this story:
In a bricked basement in Savannah earlier this year, I found myself trading playlists with a woman I’d never met. She, writing a somewhat academic second edition of a book that wasn’t hers the first time around, was experiencing some sort of block. Have you read the “Clackity Noise,” I asked?
It was then I realized that I had a writing playlist.
I explained to her that whenever I’m feeling uninspired, I reread a handful of things that remind me, ground me, reframe and reposition me, sometimes frighten me frankly, back into or out of where I was. I have websites of this sort. Posters. Trees. Scraps of letters. But these, these were the most threadbare. Does she not have that? She did not. I presented her with the playlist.
Take a look at her playlist too. 10 more articles are listed. Between the two you will feel quite a palena ‘ole abundance [MWA Key 9], I promise you.
For now I am resisting the oh-so-strong urge to come up with a playlist of my own for you, for these two are enough, and I want to share without overwhelm so you can savor too.
Don’t skim or scan: Read slowly and deeply. It’s the weekend, so take your time. Don’t miss the dessert of paragraphs from Liz when you get to the end of her playlist.
Within my own May weekend I am likely to read both playlists through again for myself. Slowly, and with warming sips of gently brewed green tea. I’m going to resist the urge to write and think more on this digital archiving I am still pulled toward figuring out.
Photo Credits: Empty nest by Rocketships-Jellyfish on Flickr
The dessert was one I had while on a trip to see my baby birds :)
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