HELLO!

Its been exactly 12 months since our first lockdown was announced in Australia. And what a 12 months it has been.

I thought we’d become somewhat used to strange times, but this past fortnight has raised the bar. Or not so much strange - because I think it is mostly what we expected - as upsetting. (And if you’re far away from Australian politics this week, I sincerely hope your elected officials, health care system and police force are a big improvement on ours.)

Despite that, I think the only thing we can do is push on with doing the work to create. The thing I’m only recently realising at 35, is that the process of learning just how to do that is where the important learnings, insights and experiences really are. So even if we never get there, it was always worth it anyway.

xx Lara

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10 THINGS

1. Speaking of this week’s goings on, this piece by Louise Richardson-Self for The Ethics Centre is a good exploration of the Porter case. And this piece by Rachel Withers for The Monthly is also worth your time.

2. Also relevant was this recommendation from Jessica Stanley titled “Bring back the nervous breakdown: It used to be ok to admit that the world had simply become too much.”

3. In a fortnight that also included International Women’s Day, this NYT piece about how the pandemic has made it impossible for us to ignore the way the economy disadvantages those in caring roles, or doing caring work articulates what we already know - but it does it very well.

4. We all need more examples of unapologetically badass creative women in our lives. This interview with Kelis on Annie Mac’s podcast Changes and this one with Roisin Murphy on Adam Buxton’s podcast will have you wanting to take a leaf out of their books.

5. The distinction between virtue and contentment, two common approaches to happiness, are well articulated in this piece, complete with insights from the ancient schools of philosophy.

6. I can’t quite figure out if my fascination with this story about people who are “Fake Famous” is mostly schadenfreude, or horror, or something else. If anyone still thinks social media is making us more in touch with each other, this should be the final nail in that coffin.

7. Given the announcements around industry stimulus this week, this article is a timely reminder of the impact of the currently dormant tourism industry. It looks at spots all around the world, including our own Apollo Bay. This piece from Meera Dattani for Adventure.com (owned by my former employer Intrepid Travel) thinks about how we might decolonise travel in a post-2020 world.

8. A few rolling recommendations… I brutally cull my social media follows and my email subscriptions on a regular basis (and I highly recommend that, for a start). The upside of this is that I have more time for a few really amazing personally curated email newsletters. (Inevitably my favourite bits of these tend to appear here.) A couple of my favourites are: Read Look Think by Jessica Stanley and the Friday Fourteen by Slice Agency.

9. I also have a handful of favourite written emails / olden days blogs that bring my inbox joy via Substack or similar if that’s more your style - Courtney E Martin’s, Jamie Varon’s Friday Letters, and David Cain’s Raptitude.

10. To end on a high (light) note, the Sentimental Garbage Sex and the City miniseries is just as good as I hoped. We’re already through seasons 1 to 4, and it is just getting better.

SOUNDTRACK

This week’s tunes include this list of mostly newies which is pretty chill, and this one that was tailor made for my runs. Once you’re done with those, this awesome cover of The Corrs’ Breathless by Caroline Polacheck has prompted me to put together a list of covers I like as much if not more than the originals. Would love to hear any other recommendations that are worthy of a listen.

BORROWED WISDOM

“Oh how you have grown in wisdom since February last year.”

I feel like everyone needs to be reminded of this, with thanks to Morgan Harper Nichols.

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