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WELLBEING
The Medium Rockstars of January 2024
Here is free access to the writers and stories that lit my soul on fire this month
As a member of the Friend of Medium program, I love being able to share links that grant free access to the paywalled stories of other writers whose work has moved and inspired me.
Now that my first month as an FOM has just ended, I’m combining three elements of my workflow into a single monthly Medium post: 1) promoting writers I love with FOM Friend links, 2) gratitude journalling, and 3) monthly Mindful Review.
Mindful Review is a powerful productivity hack that I’m detailing in an upcoming article, but the TLDR is that our Future Selves gain massive benefits when our Present Selves reflect on the insights, events, and experiences that have deeply affected us in the Here and Now, and we mindfully plant seeds, leave breadcrumbs and forge digital (and mental) links so our Future Selves can easily remember, find, and use those resources when our Future Selves need them the most.
Mindful Review is the name I have coined for this skillful practice of seed planting, breadcrumb leaving, and link forging… linking the Medium articles that have impacted me the most is an increasingly important part of my Mindful Review process.
These are the Medium articles that impacted me the most in January 2024. I feel that each of these offers a unique and valuable view of our world, and, as a Friend of Medium, I’m excited to grant access to these paywalled works of art for the benefit of those who are not yet paid members of the Medium family.
I’m hoping that you (and my Future Self) find these interesting, insightful, and useful!
And so, without further ado, here are my Medium Rockstars of January 2024:
Taking this month’s prize for Last But Certainly, Not Least (published on January 30th) is Quentin Septer’s wonderful story about his observations about the connections between the Japanese practice of Ensos calligraphy and the 2016 movie Arrival.
Like Quentin, I loved the movie Arrival. I am also deeply fascinated by the art of calligraphy and the unique challenge that we all face as writers to capture and convey the infinitely complex, diverse, and wonderful aspects of our lived experience in written symbols and words.
Quentin’s story is a brief yet touchingly intimate and revealing exploration of these issues.
As a writer deeply intrigued by the challenges of rendering some order to the confusions of personal experience, spirituality, and Western philosophy, I find myself returning time and again to the prolific writings of Benjamin Cain.
He is a rigorous and insightful philosopher who asks tough questions and challenges many of the most entrenched dogmas of our social, political, and religious institutions.
I don’t always agree with Benjamin’s views, but that’s why I love his work: he keeps me honest and sharp. And that’s something we all need.
I was touched by TzeLin Sam’s story about her memories of celebrating Dongzhi. My father was American-born Chinese, but he was born in 1930 and was subjected to terrible treatment as a child during WWII, so he never learned to speak Cantonese like his parents and he followed the sad coping mechanism of being as American as possible. As a result, I didn’t get any of the Chinese heritage when growing up.
I truly rejoice for TzeLin and everyone else who has been blessed with exposure to their cultural heritage and is able, throughout their lives, to drink deeply from those restorative waters when the need arises.
I really loved Charlie Brown’s story about her experience of “Duende” while experiencing a performance of flamenco dancing.
One of my passion projects is probing and expanding the meanings of words that relate to, express, and celebrate the joyfulness of human experience, and I was grateful to Charlie for reminding me about this special word and for sharing how it energized her experience and appreciation of the vitality of life.
Another of my cherished fascinations is the elusive nature of Time and the history of our efforts to measure, capture, and harness it with watches, clocks, and other intricate (and sometimes whimsical) contrivances.
This is a charming, lovely story that touched me in unexpected ways.
I LOVE a good burger.
I am convinced that someday a Nag Hammadi fragment will be unearthed that reveals that, on the Eighth Day, God revealed unto mankind the recipe for the perfect burger, fries, and chocolate shake, and commanded that we should henceforth eat as He intended.
I lived for decades in Los Angeles and David’s story about burgers in Los Angeles instantly awoke many cherished memories of hunting for the best (and the best “worst”) burgers in the City of Angels.
Again, I love words, and writing, but I am tormented by the deficiencies of my native English language.
I am convinced that many other cultures and languages do a much better job of conveying the nuances of human emotion, cognition and soul, and Christine’s story about her bemused struggles with English struck a deep and resonant chord with me.
I loved this story.
We all struggle in life because we are suffering, and we have a deep craving and need for a sense of control. We intuitively believe that the answer to our problem of suffering is to get more and more control over ourselves, others, and our world.
When striving for control no longer worked for Patricia, she tried the exact opposite: surrender.
I hope you’ll read her brief story about what happened next.
This Anon writer (or collection of writers) rocks. I’ve been struggling a bit in my recent explorations of traditional Western philosophy and reconciling the “teachings” of the West with the spiritual teachings and meditative practices of Buddhism.
This story confirmed some of my own suspicions about how the pressures and perverse professional incentives of academic publishing have a devastating impact on the quality, scope, and accessibility of philosophical writing and education.
Last year, my wife and I finally took that trip to Japan that we’ve been dreaming about for years and years.
During our trip, we stayed for several days in a quiet, 700-year-old Buddhist monastery, tucked away high in the mountains beyond Tokyo.
One of the meditative practices that all visitors perform while staying at the monastery is to transcribe Buddha’s famous “Heart Sutra” on rice paper using Japanese ink and brush pens.
We don’t know or write Japanese, but did it anyway, and it was a wonderful experience. It awakened in me a desire to learn brush calligraphy. I was grateful for Andrew’s story, which reminded me of this desire.
“How does language convey emotions and experiences beyond words?”
This is the opening line of this intriguing article about the intersection of the realm of words and the realm of images with the experiences of perception and the expression of human experience.
Another of my ongoing explorations is the intersection (and perhaps convergence) of Buddhism and Christian contemplative prayer.
Any story that cites Thomas Keating and/or the The Cloud of Unknowing in its opening paragraph has me hooked, and this one by Nathan Smith did not disappoint.
I was enchanted and intrigued by this story by Rebecca Romanelli about a bittersweet Japanese folk tale of a man who is transported to a magical land to live with a mystical princess, but when homesickness spurs him to visit his homeland, his own carelessness destroys his ability to return to his true love.
I was touched not only by the wonderful way that Rebecca told this tale, but also by how it affected her both as a child when she first read it, and later as an adult when she re-discovered the tattered fairytale book in her parents’s home 65 years later.
I was also struck by the remarkable parallels of this story with the Irish story of Oisin (pronounce “osheen”), who fell in love with Niamh (pronounced “neeve”), a woman of the Otherworld, and was transported to the magical land of Tir na Nog. Like the Japanese hero, poor Oisin screws up when he visits home.
Isn’t it fascinating, how some tales of love and loss are so fundamental to human experience that they arise, mirroring each other in their likeness, though they are oceans and worlds apart?
As a relatively new writer who writes about wellbeing, meditation, self-improvement, and spiritual practice, I am constantly struggling with not only the challenges of describing and expressing the inner realms of human experience but also with the fear of lapsing (or appearing to lapse) into virtue signaling.
Nanie Hurley is one of my favorite writers over at the Taoist Online publication and I was pleased to have the validation of knowing that I’m not the only one who struggles with the spectre of virtue signaling.
These were the Medium stories that I discovered (or re-discovered) in January 2024 that struck me as exceptional and impactful.
I hope you’ll give them a read, and I’d love to know in the comments whether you also found them as interesting, insightful, and impactful as I did.
I’m going to endeavor a similar review each month, so if you’d like to see more, follow this link to subscribe to receive an email every time I post a new article!
Also, if you are not a paid member of Medium, feel free to follow this link to bypass the Medium paywall to read all of my posts and articles.