Idea. Potential. #5

It’s been a little longer than usual (sorry!) but this time we’re onto the newsletter and podcast issue. Everyone needs a little bit of written and spoken word funnelled into their brain from time-to-time. But not all of us can do a Bill Gates and consume a book a week. So here’s a shortlist or shorter-form text and audio from which you can still derive a lot of value.

Read 1

We all get lots of newsletters and if we’re honest, few of them we actually read. But I always look forward to the le cool newsletter. It’s a weekly digest of the most interesting things happening in London. And I don’t even live in London anymore! The way the recommendations are written wets your appetite, and there’s more than a few ways to save money in there on your weekend.

Listen 1

George the Poet. Discovered him yet? I’m sure you will, regardless of whether you take my advice or not. If you do take my advice, please go and put your headphones on now and treat yourself to the opening 40 minutes of mind-opening, perspective broadening sound waves. It’s less of a spoken word podcast and more of an audio immersive experience. But that doesn’t devalue the words that are spoken. In my humble opinion, George is necessary, and ‘Have you heard George’s podcast?’ Is a triumph of the format. I would rate it as up there with Serial in terms of the potential it has to impact culture.

Read 2

If you haven’t started digesting Tim Ferris’s Friday newsletter then someone is about to tell you that you have to do it. So ubiquitous is his impact on productivity, cognition, and positivity, that he is probably waiting around the corner with James Clear to give you a pep talk and audit your habits. The interesting thing is always what Tim is getting into or reading, and these things can be catholic and obscure sometimes, but always rich in their potential to aid your own discovery. Check it out for yourself and subscribe.

Listen 2

I have learned a great deal by listening to ‘1619’. Published by the New York Times Magazine, the podcast leaps between historical periods and cultural forms to provide you with a different, but compelling interpretation of what has happened to African Americans in North America since the first moment slaves were landed on the East coast. It describes historical conditions that lead to some difficult questions: isn’t redress of some form fair? How do I as a white male limit my contribution to a continuingly repressive system? It’s not easy to listen to at times. But it infiltrates the quiet moments long after you’ve heard it and even if you wish some moments within it away, you do feel you’re a better person for knowing what the podcast teaches.