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SHOW NOTES:
Is it getting harder to be around other humans? Today I explore this phenomenon and what can be done. If you’re an introvert or just someone who’s been using technology more in the last five years, you’ve probably noticed that your in-person interactions take more energy than you would like and might not be as deep. Something has fundamentally changed in our ways of being and being together and there’s a way to encounter each other that we’ve left behind. Have you noticed?
Rolf Potts is a celebrated travel-writer and best-selling author (over a million books sold!). Besides writing best selling books, teaching writing in Paris each summer, occasionally hosting a television travel show, and inspiring the polymath, phenom Tim Ferriss to embrace the Vagabonding philosophy (as well as give Potts’ book of that same name the coveted spot of “first book in the Tim Ferriss book club”), Rolf Potts lives in rural Kansas and saves for extended world travel. And there’s also the gangsta rap project.
Scroll down to the Click to Listen Button and read the shownotes.
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A philosophy of life, travel and seeing the world.
Vagabonding and the “time-wealth” value-adjustment from which action naturally follows.
(video by Tim Ferriss)
Time is treated as a commodity but thinking of how we will spend our days and our lives can poorly reflect a life we really want and actualize time well.
Travel is not an expensive indulgence. Freeing up the time to travel can be the greater obstacle (mind-frame) for living well.
“time-wealth”
Seeing Time as the true wealth of our lives.
5:20
The repercussions of “the selfie stick” for the modern traveler.
How technology affects how we travel.
6:30
Technology can have you living through a screen instead of traveling or living at a firsthand level.
Tourists of everyday life. Is performance engaged enough?
7:40
Counting selfie sticks in Paris.
It can advertise that you are there to harvest photos. (The least obtrusive selfie stick I could find, in case the temptation for better shot is too much.)
Comic book Wenamun the ancient Egyptian travel story.
If we get bored, lost, or lonely while traveling you are forced to be more imaginative and be more engage with the people and place where you actually are. These are gifts of travel.
10:20
Discipline and the ability to wean off technology and allow life to happen can give us richer experiences. More surprises and more vulnerability can make for a better trip.
Put the smart phone away.
12:10
Asking people where to eat who actually live there.
14:40
How he has evolved as a world traveler?
16:00
Being a Korean ex-pat for a few years and understanding how cultural is a gut-level thing that helps to learn while living there so that the abstractions change into lived experiences.
18:30
Rolf on having a provincial perspective and how it has been a benefit to him because he appreciated the smaller towns and places and not judging the place for their perceived lack of sophistication. People have more time for you in small towns. Big cities can have more arrogance toward other more rural places.
21:00
His recent travel adventure: Renting a car in France with a 100 page road atlas but no guide book. Seeing the beautiful town and eating Beef Burgundy.
Ladder of abstract in writing. We meditate the world through abstractions. Root myself in the concreteness of travel and use my 5 senses.
25:00
The crap shoot of how he choses where to travel.
Visiting friends feels less like travel than it does like reunions.
On traveling alone and winter traveling.
29:20
Places with bad reputations can be the best places to travel. Syria, though, has become too dangerous, but had been one of his favorites.
Egyptians are very accommodating except near the pyramids where it’s very tourist-heavy.
China is a giant country with many things to experience.
Russia also has a lot to experience.
32:00
Less traveled parts of the world can be more interesting and people can have more time for you.
New projects:
Comic book (Wenamun) inspired by reading about travel in the ancient world. The anti-hero is Wenamun who bumbles through his travels. Proceeds go to help Syrian Refugees, Save the Children Fund.
Gangster rap was about the crack-era urban decline of certain areas.
Gangster rap in the 1980s and 1990s was the first black music form in the 20th Century that wasn’t appropriated and sold “with a white face”. Authenticity was so important in the art form is was done differently.
40:40
First exploring the 5th Ward in 1995 and going on a police patrol ride-along and seeing the crime from that vantage point and coming back in 2015. People ride horses in parts of the 5th Ward. The inner city in often a troupe. In Houston, the ghetto is place-specific and Rolf enjoyed writing about the history of it too.
Investigation of place.
44:30
Where to find Rolf, his writings, his books, and travel photos: rolfpotts.com
visit roofpotts.com to view more
May you see world travel in a different way. It is accessible.
Sorry, this is only a partial recording! The LIVE viewers got a great Q & A with Rolf. Don’t it out on the next one. Show up on TUESDAYS at 8pm EST / GMT -4 for the guest of the week.
BANANA CART?
(Your ears are not fooling you. In Columbus, Ohio at 9:30 pm a man rides a bike around and rings a bell as he sells frozen chocolate covered bananas. Too funny. And it sounds delicious, if not suspicious. That’s why I’m featuring chocolate in the wine segment today! Enjoy it. It’s bananas, after all.)
Want to try the practice of EXAMEN?
In this episode Ed and I chat about one of his favorite spiritual practices. It’s been very transforming for me too. It’s the practice of Examen (typically pronounced: EGGS-Aye-men).
This age old practice of reflection, mindfulness, and prayer to begin and end one’s day goes back ages in Christian History and is reflected in spirit throughout the bible. Like in David’s sentiments in the Psalms (like Psalm 119) and in Isaiah 26:9.
“My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you…”
So today I offer you my personal version of the Examen practice!
I call it “The Daily Sharpening Ritual”
–It’s the perfect way to supercharge and renew personal and spiritual awareness in your life.
It’s a simple but effective worksheet makes the practice easier to sustain. I hope you give it a try. The practice takes just 3-5 minutes each morning and just before bed. • You can see surprising changes in awareness in only 5 days.
(Simply print out 5 copies and follow-through for 5 days!)
Both EXAMEN-like worksheets below work like an Examen practice, but the 2nd one features prayer more fully in addition to reflection and mindfulness.
Check them out to see which one you like best. Print out both if you’d like:
(Enjoy these resources with my compliments…tipping what you can is optional.)
How we find spark:
We are in this together. As you listen and become part of what is happening here, it will be obvious that I spend a lot of time and a bit of money doing the show: website, paying for media hosting, producing it, editing, adding music, finding and speaking with guests, more editing, more research, and all the rest to bring you something of value in the Spark My Muse podcast.
Lots of heart, sweat and occasionally tears for your enjoyment and inspiration. You get to decide what that means and what it’s worth.
So, I invite you to just listen, read, and contribute what the episode is worth to you.
• If nothing, I apologize. Please, come back and listen again soon.
• If you think it’s worth one dollar, five dollars, twenty-five dollars, six hundred billion-gazillion dollars…you see where I’m going with this…, or offer something of equal value that is not monetary, simply contribute what it has been worth to you. HERE.
(or contact me here if it’s not monetary. Be creative!)
Thank you!
With Love,
~Lisa
WINE SEGMENT
MINUTE 2:30
Best tips for the tastiest pairing Party of chocolate and wine!
A how-to.
A chocolate and wine tasting party is so much fun.
• It’s ideal for groups of 3-12 people.
• Have each person bring some wine and provide samples of high quality chocolate and let the fun start!
It’s the acid:
One of the tasty things you can do is pair chocolate and wine. Both chocolate and wine have higher levels of acidity which makes them a naturally delicious match.
Well-paired wine and chocolate work together to make each one taste better. Delicious qualities come out in both the wine and the chocolate and even form a third taste. A careful selection is needed.
Here are some ideas of which wine to pair with which kinds of chocolate treats.
TIP 1
The most important tip to remember is to keep the wine sweeter than the treat it’s pair with.
(If you don’t it can make the wine seem less tasty and flavorful or heighten its bitterness. yucky.)
TIP 2
Make sure you have high-quality chocolate.
Many supermarketers have a premium chocolate section and you probably only need one bar of each kind or just a good quality box assortment. Baked good work as well and you can search online too.
TIP 3
Taste test the chocolate ahead of time: Pick out certain fruit flavors, determine the sweet and bitter components they have, check for nuttiness qualities and levels of acidity. If the chocolate has a creme center this will take on added complexity that might pair well with fruit-forward wines.
TIP 4
A rule of thumb is that darker wines tend to pair better which darker chocolate and should be served first: More full-bodied, (heavier feeling in the mouth) dark and drier (not a sweet style) red wine pair well with the more bitter chocolates that have a higher cocoa %.
White wines tend to pair well with milk chocolate blends and chocolates that have sweeter and fruitier flavor notes.
TIP 5 Remember TIP #1 one …keep the wine SWEETER than the chocolate!
MAKING A MATCH
Pick your wines according to the flavors you’ve tasted in the chocolate, and ask your guests to bring a specific variety of wine.
Here are some specific ideas for the kinds of wine you may want to serve, but you can feel free to experiment and see if your palate prefers something different.
Bittersweet chocolate (70% to 100%): This chocolate type enters the bitter range with deep intensity. Good choices include Bordeaux wines (merlot, cab franc, cab save), Beaujolais, Shiraz, Port, Malbec.
Dark chocolate (50% to 70%): Pair this with more robust wines, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Pinot Noir, off-dry chamborcin and Port. A Chianti can match well with chocolate around 65 percent cocoa content.
Milk chocolate: Try Merlot, Pinot Noir, Riesling, Muscat, and dessert wines. Champagne is also a natural match for milk chocolate. The crisp, dry flavour of the bubbly contrasts perfectly with the creaminess of a simple milk chocolate tablet. Be careful of the higher sugar levels in milk chocolate, as these may cancel out any fruitiness in dry red wines, leaving them tasting bitter.
White chocolate (which is really cocoa butter) : Match with Sherry, Muscato (a.k.a. Muscat) a fruity Chardonnay (un-oaked), These wines will pick up on the buttery, slightly oilier tones of the cocoa butter. Vidal Blanc, Niagra blends, catawba blends.
Champagne or sparkling wine goes well with all chocolate types. It is a variety that compliments many kinds of wines. Many fortified dessert wines work well across the chocolate spectrum as well because they tend to be sweeter.
PARTY TIP To keep every one sharp and feeling well, Offer your guests some bread or light fare before you begin and keep the wine samples to just an ounce.
HOW TO TASTE THE PAIR 1. Take take a small sip of wine and note the aromas and tastes. Some hosts offer guest a sheet to jot down their observations.
2. Then bite into the chocolate and note what it happening as you taste and eat it.
3. Then you sip the wine again and note the new flavor notes and changes that the chocolate brought to the wine. It’s amazing how much the taste of the wine will change according to what it is paired with.
4. Don’t rush through the pairing. 7-10 minutes per pairing is about right. Allow people to really luxuriate on the experience and talk about the flavors and taste combinations they are experiencing.
AMBIENCE TIP This is not a consumption event, it’s a sensory group experience where enhanced awareness is key. Relax and take your time. Chocolate and wine are luxury items.
THE TAKEAWAY It’s a great lesson for life too. The point isn’t to bulldoze through life and get it out of the way, but to really notice what is happening and take it all in deeply. Downshift to a better appreciation of encounters with others, with our surroundings, and ultimately with ourselves and to God who makes a home within us.
• Enjoy yourself and let me know of the pairings you came up with (in the comments section) and how your pairing experimenting went, or what your plans are. I’d love to know. You can post pictures at the Spark My Muse Facebook page too.
Do you have questions? Leave them here, use the voice mail feature, or use the contact page and I’ll try to answer them in future episodes.
Never a moment wasted because of technology…but at what cost?
21:00
(Ed) on not having times for his brain to slip into neutral..
21:30
Ed says walks helped clear his mind, and he had to detox and ween from media.
22:30
We have a loss of self and fear of quietness.
22:45
40 Day Ignatian retreat bringing a terrifying and alone sense after 2-weeks until she found God in the quiet.
24:00
Ed’s method for unplugging and creating space:
Relent technique-going offline after 5pm and weekends.
25:30
Leaving my phone in my car when I go for walk to eating out. (Lisa)
• I’ve experienced less anxiety (to my surprise).
27:00
(Ed’s sarcasm) College students in the 1990s would die all the time, every week, because they didn’t have cell phones. Funerals every week for the mobile phone-less.
27:30
In the 1980s my dad got collect calls from “pick me up”. (Lisa)
29:10
UK study showing that teens are more anxious because of tech and over-connectedness.
29:40
Maybe because the media (they are using) is socially consequential and not neutral: like watching tv or listening to radio. (Lisa)
Trying to encourage others to be redemptive and holding back if he can’t do it in a redemptive way. Waiting is important.
43:30
How we change. Example: Women in Ministry and how Ed’s mind changed.
44:20
“God is all about the long game.”
(It’s not helpful to create animosity)
44:50
(Lisa) “The power of heightening Empathy (to solve problems). Sharing stories helps.
The job of a person who is called to communicate for something bigger than themselves is to ask…
‘Am I able to show people something that they haven’t seen, but then once they see they know it’s true. And they can’t unseen it’.”
“And to feel it too…what that (other) person is feeling.” -Ed
(If you’d like to have Ed back to discuss how writing can be “soul-killing” and what to do about it, please let us know and leave a comment! Was the show too long? Too short? Ed and I decided we are curious about this, so let us know.)
:)
Friends, readers, listeners…I need a little help with this anonymous survey.
It’s takes under one minute. It’s 100% anonymous. The survival of Spark My Muse just may depend on it.
Thanks for your kindness and coming back each Wednesday for a new show. (You can subscribe here and get an alert sent to you. No fuss: no worries…and you can unsubscribe any time).
BREAKING NEWS:
Shane Claiborne is joining Spark My Muse as a guest this summer! WHOOP whoop !!!
Managing a wine tasting room is a great job for a writer because, when it’s not too busy, you can become a kind of social scientist: observing people and trying to see why humans do what we do.
You can even allow your curiosity to navigate some of the deeper questions about the human experience.
One recent observation:
The “poison apple” of the smart phone has changed how we do things alone–eating, drinking, or traveling, in particular.
FACT: People rarely come to taste wine by themselves (at our place).
That may seem obvious. Wine tends to bring people together, right? Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised that people only rarely come alone.
But it IS strange.
Think about it like this:
Shopping for food or clothes alone isn’t considered weird and people tasting wine are really just shopping for wine.
The only difference perhaps are presumptions, previous experiences, or maybe subterranean social exceptions.
• Feeling low…solo
When people visit the tasting room alone, I can usually sense their social discomfort. They might suddenly offer me a reason why they are alone this time or they might neurotically use their phone to look busy or connected.
The alternative, of course, would be to interact with and absorb the environment they are truly in or look for ways to subvert social fear through some modicum of meaningful interaction: friendliness, conversation, inquisitiveness, for starters. So terrifying is the prospect of looking lonely at a winery, that many solo customers barely experience it at all.
• Confronting fear
This observation got me to thinking of ways I try to numb or avoid these fears or points of discomfort in myself and in my life. What am I missing that I shouldn’t be. The default is to use technology to connect, but at what cost?
When I interviewed Rolf Potts, famed travel-writer and best-selling author, he talked about his own wrestling with the seduction of “not being where he was” by engaging with technology. One of the most memorable things he said was this:
“When you travel alone you are forced to confront your own loneliness and boredom, and interact with your surroundings in ways you can’t [when you’re] with a companion.”
We miss our chances for new experiences with the advent of constant so-called “connectedness”, don’t we?
The habit forms quickly. Only thoughtfulness will heal this malady.
(Here’s the video. He covers that bit around min 2:40.)
Do you question how you use technology and confront what it might be stealing from you?
Encountering our loneliness more deeply could create epiphanic moments of self-discovery and new insights into what we fear and what makes us each unique.
Maybe it’s time to do something alone to test your social fears, deepen your healthy sense of self, and develop a new sense of social, and even spiritual, courage and strength.
Maybe leave your phone is the car for the 30 min you shop, eat out, or exercise. Good things could happen.
If you like what you’ve read, consider getting my in-depth but consice weekly correspondence, starting soon. Learn about it here.
Determining Threats: Sarcasm and the Secret Service
This post is rich in irony. Reader beware.
Sarcasm is a normal part of our human communications. It helps us blow off steam, indicate preferences, or feel superior. But, it tends to be misunderstood in written form.
This includes, letters, emails, texts, and even sky writing, theoretically.
The internet is replete with sarcasm misunderstood and the government unsatisfied surveilling our every move online, on our mobile devices, game consoles, and God-knows-how-else, wants to know if we really mean what we say.
This summer, the Washington Post reported the U.S. government’s request for software to detect sarcasm out of the vast stream of questionable internet postings. And they want it to be compatible with Internet Explorer 8. (Let that last bit sink in for a minute…that bit of software was released in 2006.)
Thwarting dangerous threats is the aim! Not dangerous like cutting off their supply of prostitutes–mind you–but something more terrorist-like or destructive.
It’s seems like a reasonable idea on paper, perhaps. (If you don’t have to worry about competence or merit to keep your job.)
“It’s difficult not to be sarcastic about the idea of the Secret Service automatically, algorithmically, examining all of your social-media posts to determine, among other things, that you’re being sarcastic,”
says Peter Eckersley who is technology projects director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation–a group that defends online civil rights.
The fact is that sarcasm used outside of voice-to-voice or face-to-face interactions proves to be indistinguishable from threats. Only another human person, with a sense of linguists, could figure that out, and even then misjudgments are apt to happen.
The study of humor and its uses gets into a lot of grey territory and even idiocy. It turns out our sense of humor is like a sense of balance. It can deteriorate or suffer from maladies.
As we use sarcasm online and in any written form, it makes sense to be aware not only of misunderstandings that are par for the course, but also that big brother is watching…and that’s no joke.
Determining Threats: Sarcasm and the Secret Service