This & That: Choosing Struggle
Hello and happy Tuesday!
In today’s newsletter I’m sharing an article I’ve revisited a number of times in the last few months, a few multigenerational epics to fill your long summer days, and as always, some great links to peruse.
Let’s get right to it!
Find Something to Get Better At
A few months back I stumbled on a great New York Times article from 2012 about learning tennis later in life.
Though I’m not as long in the tooth as Gerald Marzorati was when he wrote this decade-old piece, I’m finding it eminently relatable as I learn a difficult new skill as an adult. For Marzorati, it was tennis (a sport I’ve known and loved since elementary school); for me, it’s piano. No matter the craft, the desire to “get better at something” — even well into adulthood — is universal.
“I wanted to do something difficult. That was why I wanted to try tennis. I had been good at things. I was still good at things. I didn’t need a hobby, or a way to meet people. I wanted to get better at something; it had been a long time since I’d sensed that. I wanted to learn something that I would not be learning by reading; I had been reading all of my life, had spent the better part of four decades reading for a living. I wanted, one last time, to struggle at something I could control because the last real struggles were going to be ones I could not.”
For many adults, this desire to get better solely takes the form of learning new skills for work. How sad, though, to give something as intrinsically rewarding as learning entirely to your job!
Few things in life are as existentially rewarding as learning something new or getting better at something — just for yourself. Not for the sake of competition (though that can be part of it), not for the sake of starting or growing a side hustle, not for Instagram/TikTok views. Just for you.
I’m aware that I’ve written a version of this before too, but: Find a thing. Work at it. Embrace the struggle.
The Mini-List: Multigenerational Epics
I recently finished Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water, which is an epic story about a cursed family in southern India attempting to solve the riddle of their drowning-plagued village. It got me thinking about other multigenerational epics that I’ve enjoyed. Here are a few of my favorites:
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. One of the best, most memorable books I’ve read in the last 5 years. Read my original review here.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. A slim novel compared to the other two, but just as immersive and powerful. What’s even more impressive is that this was Gyasi’s debut work.
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It’s simply incredible how a 900-page book that’s seemingly about medieval architecture can be so captivating. The entire series is spectacular.
Miscellany
✍️ Old-school blogging is making a comeback. I loved this WIRED article, which gets into the influencer economy at large. When you’re at the whims of the algorithm, it’s liable to bite you. Blogging, on the other hand, gives you total control of your platform.
🏀 For your basketball reading pleasure, here’s a deepish dive into what turned Nikola Jokic into the best player in the NBA and, now, a champion. Here’s the blurb I wrote about it for Longreads.
📺 Before we had kids, Jane and I always enjoyed watching Lara Logan’s reporting on 60 Minutes. I hadn’t been paying attention to her career for the last handful of years, so this article about her hard turn into Conspiracy Land was quite a surprise. I can’t resist articles like this.
🏆 The International Thriller Writers announced the recipients of their annual awards a couple weeks back. If you need a few more books to add to your list, it’s worth checking out the winners list.
Thanks for reading! I really appreciate it.
-Jeremy