Note from Tucker:

Hi all, it has been another week! Very busy in my world. I hope as we move to July you’re staying cool and safe. We’re now in the heat pocket of summer.

On a recent Ezra Klein episode, Ezra spoke with the novelist Gary Shteyngart about the joy of pleasure. Gary is into watches, martinis, travel, suits — life outside of the scroll, basically. Because many of us would agree just scrolling on the phone for long, long periods of time can feel like the opposite of pleasure. A giant boulder of loneliness starts to grow within, at least for me.

This is what Gary’s new book will be about: delightful pursuit of pleasure.

Watches brought Gary closer to a community of watch collectors. Drinking a martini is fun, but so is hanging out at the bar with your friends — where you try to work your problems out and share your victories. Something, Gary tells Ezra, he used to do more often and notices younger people not doing. Here’s what Gary thought of the conversation:

What started as a conversation about the horrors of social media, looksmaxxing, Venezuelan invasions, etc. (all portrayed in Super Sad), segued wonderfully into what it’s like to look at beauty, to feel it, hear it, smell it, touch it, and to create beauty yourself. Martinis, watches, and of, course, capybaras, figure in the chat, but we also touched on things like how our society is structured to contain joy rather than to promote it, and what parts of the world like Southern Europe can teach us. We talked, a touch Buddhistly, about living in the present moment and taking in the world around us with an eye lazily attuned to beauty.

The overall conversation is like 70% great. It sort of flags, and can feel like guys outside of the group talking about that group, but at its heart there is a powerful idea: Letting go of an obsession with optimizing your life. Almost deoptimizing your life. Do stuff that won’t earn you likes or ranking. Let go of maxing out your looks. Let go of being perfect. Get out there and experience something.

Today’s adventure prompt: Do something that de-optimizes. Do it for the pleasure of it. Not because it will earn you social media points or any money. Do it because it feels good. Bake rosemary short cake. Go to a concert. Have a smoke. Take a read. Go dancing. Go for a walk. Go to the local bar. Play guitar or piano. Ask to meet up with a friend to catch up. Go to the library and find your next obsession. It must be something that brings you pleasure, and no money. You may even spend money doing it. You may spend, dare I say, waste you’re time. Embrace it that wasted time and do it for you.

Resources

A cool mid-western job search site: I’ve only recently discovered Big Shoes Network. A job board for “Top advertising, communications, design, marketing, social media, sales and development jobs throughout the Midwest.” I’ve already found jobs here that I haven’t seen on other job search sites. Check out if you need that type of job in the midwest!

Stuff I did lately

• First episode of Book Stuff is out! You can listen here on the feed website, or on Apple and Spotify. For the first episode, I talked to New York Times bestseller Craig Fehrman to chat about his recent book THE VAST ENTERPRISE: A NEW HISTORY OF LEWIS & CLARK. I’m thrilled to have gotten this started. I’m proud it’s out and alive in the world. I’m the host, producer, web manager, editor, designer, etc. I did it! And, I’m also so excited to be doing this in partnership with the Chicago Review of Books. See our post.

• I was elected to the board of WORTFM! I am excited to help this beautiful station out and be part of leadership strategy for the organization.

• If you’re not subscribed and would like to be: