Hello, friends. Remember me? I’ve been in a weird place lately. Some of it is that I’ve been busy, sure. But I’ve also just been a quieter person for a while. My personality changes in waves. Sometimes I think that of course people want to read weird emails from me. Other times I think that’s utterly absurd.

Lots of things in life actually started to make a lot more sense when I stopped believing in the common assumption that a person is the same person all the time. Don’t you change from hour to hour, day to day, week to week, and year to year? I agree with Grey that the person you were ten years ago is hardly you in any useful sense at all.

Anyway, it feels fine to me to send regular letters for a while, and then not send regular letters for a while. I’m a living creature, not an automaton, right?

The Lord of the Rings Audiobooks Are Very Good

I’ve never made it through the Lord of the Rings, but I’ve always been fascinated by it from afar. Well, right now the unabridged audiobook performed by Rob Inglis in 1990 has me captivated. I don’t usually like audio for fiction, because I’d like to use my own imagination as much as possible. But Tolkien seems like a special case: a mythos that originated in bedtime stories, written by a linguist to resemble great legends passed down by oral tradition, full of songs and rhymes.

Inglis does the voices, reproduces the songs as accurately as possible given what Tolkien left behind, and overall makes you feel like you’re gathered around a fire with friends to hear a timeless tale that’s been told many times before. Even Tom Bombadil, whom many find tiresome in the books, comes to life and becomes charming indeed when he’s singing his goofy songs and speaking in his rhythmic style.

Some Links You Could Click

I went to &yetConf and it was a transformative experience that will stay with me for a lifetime. I am not going to write much about it. But these lovely people did:

• Paddy
• Ivana
• Willow
• Bryce

A lot of people have been writing a lot of valuable things lately. Inspirational grab bag GO:

• Health as Personal Brand by Susan Lin
• Locked doors, headaches, and intellectual need by Max Kreminski
• Hiring Isn’t Enough by Catt Small (There is a boys’ club, but it isn’t all boys and not all boys are in it.)
• Dialing Down by CGP Grey

Thank You and Be Well

Thank you. Be well.