Week #35 of 2025 has arrived... I'm sure this makes me sound like an old man, but the zinnias are absolutely killing it this time of year. I planted a whole bunch of zinnia seeds in the spring and they are bringing me so much daily joy.

Time to walk over to your 4K Weeks poster and fill in another square.  Done?

I know that one of the reasons I so enjoy the changing of the seasons is because I am now old enough to have lived through them and have seen things growing and changing.

What an absolute blessing to have finally lived long enough to see the cycle of it all enough times to recognize it as a familiar friend.

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ON WEEK #35 OF 1961...

Bob Dylan got booed at for playing an electric guitar at a concert in Forrest Hills Tennis Stadium, New York City.

The band was 1,057.29 weeks or 20.27 years old.

WHAT I CONSUMED THIS WEEK

	Read this. This is, of course, a repeat, and I'm sorry, but I'll probably leave it in here for a long time. That's how pivotal I think this book is. Attention... Attention is the most important natural resource in the world right now. And it's important to protect yours and value how other people are using theirs. This book is a result of the Nine Dots Prize. Because of that, this link takes you to the actual PDF of the book. It’s spectacularly relevant reading. A change is coming. The only question is which direction
	This Article in the Atlantic. Shared as a gift.  It's a great read. Here is a taste:   "One of the problems with living in a society with no shared moral order is that we have no way to settle arguments. We have no objective standard by which to determine that one view is right and another view is wrong. So public arguments just go on indefinitely, at greater levels of indignation and polarization. People use self-righteous words to try to get their way, but instead of engaging in moral argument, what they’re really doing is using the language of morality to enforce their own preferences."
	DOAC: Alain de Botton Alain de Botton is absolutely wonderful. His TED Talk about the Sundays is spectacular, and this is just a short 18-minute synopsis of how he thinks about achievement and meritocracy in the modern world, and what the downside of a meritocracy might be. It's great listening.
	The Magicians, Lev Grossman I needed a book, and as often happens, I asked my wife, and she recommended this one. I was about halfway through before I realized, I've read this before. But I had forgotten enough of it that it was delightful to read again. I do love a good adventure about magic.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed." - Vaclav Havel

Isn’t this it. We’re all walking around, terrified to start something because what if it doesn’t succeed.

Seth Godin talks about this a lot.

It’s something that we all do. 

It’s so painful to imagine something you’re dreaming about accomplishing falling short, that most of the time it’s better to continue to dream the dream where it can’t succeed or fail than to try to do the work and risk failure

But as far as we know, you’ve only been given this body for somewhere between zero and 114 years and there’s no guarantee you’ll ever get to try anything ever again.

So stop being so damn afraid of not succeeding and just work for something because it is good.  

WHAT I AM THINKING ABOUT THIS WEEK

Transitions.

I don’t know about your house, but it’s been a pretty big week at our house.

Our kids are going to traditional school for the first time in years. (MAN! School starts early...nine more months of this!!)

It’s so clearly a beginning that is also hiding an ending. Beginnings and endings are painful either way, but beginnings benefit from being the pain of growth which is always more tolerable. 

As we grow through this transition, I am noticing that I have a lot of difficulty with my lack of control. I’ve been trying to remind myself that I actually have control over nothing. Things happen as they will. It’s good to remind myself.

Stacked on top of the kids' transition is a transition in our lives as well… We are working on one of the hardest questions to answer… What should we do? What should we fill our days with? What should be the north star that we are grinding towards?

I've spent the last two years working on 4K Weeks and a few other small projects. And now in the last six months I have refocused my attention on the sculpture studio again.

It’s so easy to fill a month, a year, a life with days full of doing things that don’t actually move the needle. 

And it doesn’t really matter what your north star is as long as you have one and you’re heading towards it. It’s totally fine to intentionally shift which north star you’re heading towards.

What isn’t fine is wandering around in the dark and wondering why you aren’t getting anywhere. 

Pick a direction, pick a mission, pick a north star and head towards it confidently. Keep your head up and keep looking around every now and again to make sure that you are still headed the right direction.

When you know what your mission is, today's to-do list mostly writes itself.

Until next week!

Spencer,

Owner of 4KWeeks

P.S. Click on this reward if you feel like letting me know you read the whole newsletter: Spec-FREAKING-tacular