Under Construction
Volume 1, Issue 11: Under Construction
(Originally Published April 13, 2019)
What’s New This Week
Welcome back and thanks for joining us again in the Winter Hearth Epic Life Playbook, where each week we explore the human experience through different mediums, gleaning useful and practical insights to become socially and emotionally powerful.
Following last week’s digest on Building Your EQ, the theme of this week’s content is Under Construction. A few months ago, we looked at how the people, places, ideas, and perspectives we encounter every day work to refine the frameworks through which we view life (check out the playbook edition here). It’s often helpful to think of these frameworks as being “under construction”, because if your mental framework is too rigid and unchanging, it becomes easy to get stuck in one mindset and become “closed-minded”.
It’s also worth noting that there is just not enough time in a lifetime to assume that one’s mental framework can ever be “fully constructed” — because as humans we are always learning, always growing, and always evolving. This week’s content is great to refine those perspectives.
Listen
This week, we’re going to check out a really cool podcast called Something You Should Know. The selected episode highlights a common form of discrimination that we may often overlook and even commit ourselves if we aren’t careful. They shed light on the things that having an overly-solidified mental framework can lead to — you won’t want to miss it! Check out the episode!
Learn
In this week’s Learn section, we’re back with another great episode of Ear Hustle. This episode is really great in the way it humanizes inmates and even allows them to seem personable, though we who live on the outside of those grey walls might not always be able to see it so clearly. Check out the episode “The Birdbath and the Lockbox” from Ear Hustle below! Check out the podcast!
Level Up
This week’s Level Up section presents you with a quick article from Premium Beat. The article covers different ways to keep your perspective fresh and ways to keep yourself from becoming “set in your ways”, so to speak. It’s written relative to a video/film editor, but the ideas apply just as well to anyone trying to boost their creativity and design as epic a life as possible. Check out the article!
Fireside Spotlight
In last week’s Fireside Spotlight, we saw our first character — Westro, a witty outlaw from the south side of town who loves robbing ice cream shops for popsicle sticks. This week, we’re back with another thoughtful, poetic piece from Winter Hearth Studios called “Here Comes a Thought”:
Here Comes a Thought
Maybe the heat of hot, streaming tears is where true strength is found
Maybe kindness is impossible, implausible, intangible
Maybe words are more than bricks piled high in clean façades
Maybe you’ll skip town and never come back
Maybe the still water lies in wait, ready and willing to breathe her first breath
Maybe there’s beauty in a spider crafting its web
Maybe the morning dew is a warning that goes unnoticed
Maybe the big bug is looking down at you under the lens
Maybe sundrops quench our thirst more than water ever will
Maybe the symphony of blue frogs won’t wake the sun today
Maybe today is the day when the shadows finally fight back
Maybe looking up to you never was a good idea
Maybe we can do better, and maybe we really can’t
Maybe our bliss rests among the stars, but no one ever remembers to look up
Maybe the feathered stretch of nightfall is only big enough for one of us and
Maybe, the dark, unfurling abyss is where you secretly long to be
Maybe there are worse things in life than death
Maybe it’s time for Atlas to take a break — I’ll carry the world for a while
Maybe I’ll be the one to stand in the gap
Maybe I’m crazy, or maybe crazy is me
Maybe heat lives in fear of the cold
Maybe nature’s first green wasn’t gold
Maybe the sky really isn’t blue
Maybe my words are reading you
Maybe when a song and dance just won’t do, we strike the red music and charge up the blue
Maybe simply put, I still love you — and that will never be enough.
-Elgin Davis
Walk It, Talk it
Thanks again for joining us this week in the Winter Hearth Epic Life Playbook! In the words of Dale Carnegie, “Knowledge isn’t power until it is applied.” How can you apply the ideas in this digest to your life? How can you use it to gain power in living a more epic story? Talk to your friends and family this week about something you found interesting in the digest.
This weekly personal development playbook is a labor of love, so if you enjoy reading it each week, please share it with your friends to assist us in reaching our goal of helping the world achieve a better human experience :)
Your Greatest Chapter Awaits
Until next time,
Elgin
Hey, I’m Elgin, and I love to create. I’m the creator of Winter Hearth Studios and the Winter Hearth Epic Life Playbook, a space where we explore the depths of the human experience, discovering the keys to crafting a better life and inspiring you to Live An Epic Story.
I’m currently a 4th year student at Harvard University studying computer science and design, and in my free time I love to travel, draw, read, and pursue bold, exciting adventures.
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