Ordinary Abundance
What a beautiful website & a beautiful reminder of the absolute abundance that many of us live with compared to our very recent ancestors – https://ordinaryabundance.com/
Hey hey! Below are my most recent posts – see also popular & archives :)
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US Energy Cost Explorer
US Energy Cost Explorer is a classic website that takes open, publicly available data on energy costs and makes it usable, useful & interesting – https://energy-maps.com/
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America’s Driving Mandate: Don’t Call It “Freedom”
In the beginning, there was public right of way – the freedom of movement between & amongst property. And then, America decided to mandate a specific vehicle for the public right of way above all else – https://mateosfo.substack.com/p/americas-driving-mandate-dont-call
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The Individuals Who Championed Each National Park
Over the past few years, I’ve been able to visit a few of America’s National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, and other public lands in addition to reading several excellent histories. For the Parks that I’ve visited so far, it seemed like there was an outsize influence of either single individuals or small groups in getting the Park established.
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3 Useful Radio Resources for Streaming Live
Even in a world of Spotify, YouTube, Podcasts, etc – I still think radio is deeply underrated as a communications…
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The End of an Era [for Writers] via Hugh Howey
I thought this post was an evergreen take amongst the white hot discourse -> https://hughhowey.com/the-end-of-an-era/
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A Philosopher’s One-Word Theory for Why the World Feels So Weird
Derek Thompson interviewed Agnes Callard about the idea of the unicontext. I thought it was a useful framework for thinking…
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Roadless Rule Area Interactive Map
I don’t love posting about current events, but this resource is timeless -> https://www.onxmaps.com/onx-access-initiatives/roadless-rule
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5 Reasons You Should Use Mozilla Firefox for Your Browser
If you actually care about an open web, about real privacy, about making sure one company doesn’t control the entire internet – Firefox is still the only real choice.
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TIL about Prairie Remnants
This infographic from Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota explains how much of the Earth’s prairie ecosystem we’ve lost over the past couple of centuries. More than 70% of America’s Great Plains have been lost to development, and what is left is all in pockets.
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TIL about the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s land classification system
What I did not know is that in 2008, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature – a UN-like body* – decided to create a formal system that countries can use to systematically conserve lands based on management objectives. It’s very similar to the US system, except that many US designations (like National Monuments) can span multiple IUCN categories depending on how they’re managed. It’s used by the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre.
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TIL About The Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service
Exhibit 5000+ that Jimmy Carter was a brilliant President & was deliberately slandered by Ronald Regan -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage_Conservation_and_Recreation_Service
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Clearing Blowdown on Conasauga River Trail
The most satisfying parts of volunteering with a Forest Service Trail Crew (specifically the amazing Cohutta Wilderness Trail Volunteers) is the direct connection between work and result.
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Doing More is Often Easier
Doing more is often easier -> https://www.raptitude.com/2025/04/doing-more-is-often-easier/
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It’s All a Blog. It’s All a Post.
A newsletter-shaped-blog, or a blog-shaped-newsletter? -> https://buttondown.com/blog/blog-vs-newsletter
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Lewi Blake – Remote Bikepacking Adventures on YouTube
Lewi Blake is a travel vlogger unlike anyone I’ve ever seen. He’s just an independent guy with some camera gear, a sense of storytelling, a skill for editing, and the wherewithal to post it to YouTube.
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Kids’ Freedom To explore
This is why kids are on their phones. They aren’t allowed to do anything else whether by law, by parents, or norms. -> https://ifstudies.org/blog/new-ifs-brief-more-screen-time-less-play-for-americas-kids
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The Case for Blogging in the Ruins
An excellent blog post on why blog posts are best -> https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-case-for-blogging-in-the-ruins/
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Inflation but Only In Human to Human Services
I love a good chart. This chart shows two major economic trends. First, Baumol’s Effect which is the tendency for wages in jobs that have experienced little or no increase in labor productivity to rise in response to rising wages in other jobs that did experience high productivity growth.
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The Upper Middle Class Trap via Nick Maggiulli
I see this everywhere -> https://ofdollarsanddata.com/the-upper-middle-class-trap/
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40 Little Sayings That Have Held Up Over 40 Years
I’ve been around for a full 40 years now. I, like everyone on Earth, still have no real idea about…
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The Wonder of Modern Drywall by Yassine Meskhout
We take the modern world completely for granted -> https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/the-wonder-of-modern-drywall?gift=j9r7avb6p-KY8zdjhsiSZ_F90_8PNfpEYF00xv8NJPA
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Flannery O’Connor Predicts The Internet Troll
Flannery O’Connor had possibly the keenest eye for the characters we meet in life. This passage struck me as either ahead of its time…or just timeless.
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Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger and the Reading Unlock
Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger and the Reading Unlock -> https://www.readtrung.com/p/warren-buffett-and-the-reading-unlock
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What the actual science says about “brain rot”
I love the channel Howtown on YouTube. They do an excellent job wading through academic research on trendy topics. This piece on “Brain Rot” is especially apt for the 2020s.
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Where Do the Children Play? via eli Stark-Elster
The biggest misconception about American childhood -> https://unpublishablepapers.substack.com/p/where-do-the-children-play
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Salaam Springs at Grant Park
Salaam Springs (aka “The Pond”) is the main only water feature in Atlanta’s Grant Park. It’s not huge and it’s more of a stormwater catchment than a landscaped lake TBH. However, it was re-built & re-landscaped a few years ago with a viewing deck, a working water fountain, and native plants around the edge.
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A World Appears by Michael Pollan
Pollan has a rare talent. He goes beyond journalism into something harder to name — a deep, patient synthesis of science, history, and lived experience that makes even the most tangled topics feel useful and graspable. He did it with food in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. He did it with drugs. And A World Appears is him doing it with the biggest, strangest question of all: what is it actually like to have a mind?
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The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
Debord’s central argument is that the “spectacle” goes well beyond what most of us picture when we hear that word — the Super Bowl, the Olympics, a presidential election. He argues that any representation of the world that turns people into passive spectators qualifies.
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A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk
A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk is one of the Top 5 best novels I’ve ever read.
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Appalachian Trail Backcountry Shelters, Lean-Tos & Huts by Sarah Decker
Sarah Decker went out and photographed and documented every single shelter on the Appalachian Trail — all 2,200 miles of it. The result is a beautiful, deeply niche reference book that, for the right reader, is an absolute treasure.
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Conasauga River in Summer
Conasauga River in Georgia’s Cohutta Wilderness, Chattahoochee National Forest
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Great Hiking Trails of the World by Karen Berger
Great Hiking Trails of the World by Karen Berger is a coffee table reference book put out by Rizzoli. I’ve collected nine of these Rizzoli books now, and they’re all lovely — the kind of thing you keep on the coffee table not as decoration but because you actually flip through them.
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Miracles & Wonder by Elaine Pagels
Pagels is one of the original researchers of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts and a lot of the Coptic and Gnostic texts that scholars are still working through today. She’s been doing serious, primary-source work in this space for decades. I did not know she was still actively publishing so it’s genuinely impressive to see her add another strong book to an already massive bibliography.
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A History of the World in 500 Walks by Sarah Baxter
The premise is straightforward: if history happened in real places, you can go stand in those places. And when you do, history stops being a mental movie and starts feeling like what it actually was — real people, real terrain, probably a lot more boring and weird than your imagination gives it credit for.
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Gospel of Thomas Edited by Stevan Davies
I picked up the Gospel of Thomas recently while working through Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. I hadn’t read the Gospel of Thomas in a very long time, and MacCulloch’s treatment of the early church controversies reminded me just how much insight this text provides.
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India: A Cultural Journey by Putumayo
India: A Cultural Journey is a coffee table reference book — large-scale photography paired with written context at the opening of each chapter. It’s not a history. It’s not a travel guide. It’s more of a visual immersion into what India looks and feels like culturally.
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Electra by Sophocles
Electra follows the family of Agamemnon after the Battle of Troy — specifically his daughter Electra, who is consumed by grief and rage over her father’s murder and her desire for justice.
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100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
I picked this one up at the library with a pretty specific checklist in mind: I wanted a long novel, a Latin American novel, and something with a thread of magical realism running through it. I already love the way magical realism shows up in Haruki Murakami, and I’ve always had a soft spot for Southern Gothic — so a book that pulls both of those threads into a sweeping multigenerational epic seemed like it would check every box.
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James Baldwin on America
I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. -James Baldwin
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Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Ministry for the Future is one of the better science fiction novels about climate change that I’ve read. It’s fast-paced, well-written, and grounded in realistic scenarios. The setting works. The characters work. The whole thing works.
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The Redeemer by Jo Nesbo
The Redeemer is not Nesbø at his absolute best, but “not his best” for Nesbø still means it’s a very good book. The plot pulls Harry Hole into the world of the Salvation Army, a contract killing, and a web of secrets that gets darker the further in you go.
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Siblings Without Rivalry by Adele Faber
If you’ve read How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk (also by Faber), you already know the format: real-world scenarios, illustrated examples, and a very practical, non-preachy tone. Siblings Without Rivalry follows the same approach and lands just as well.
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Soul Boom by Rainn Wilson
I stumbled across Rainn Wilson’s podcast Soul Boom the way I stumble across most things I didn’t know I was interested in — serendipitously. One episode led to another, and after just a few episodes I had a decent sense of what he’s been up to since The Office wrapped. The short version: he’s been on a genuine, years-long mission to make big philosophical and spiritual questions feel normal to talk about. Soul Boom is the book version of that mission.
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Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson
Back when I was a freshman in college, I picked up Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson (a pen name) while falling down a very specific rabbit hole — the world of 1980s South Florida hustle-culture business people. Mail order, media, direct response marketing. Not exactly the role models section of a business school syllabus. But it’s one that I picked up – and stuck with me.
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Click by Ori Baufmann
Click by Ori and Rom Brafman is a fun, fast little pop science book about why some relationships just…click. Why do some people go from strangers to fast friends in an afternoon while others stay awkward acquaintances for years?
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Notes On The Death of Culture by Mario Vargas Llosa
I pulled Notes on the Death of Culture by Mario Vargas Llosa off a library shelf somewhat serendipitously after reading…
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Boiling Springs Lake at Lassen Volcanic National Park
Boiling Springs Lake in Lassen Volcanic National Park is exactly what the name says. It’s absolutely fascinating to see. It’s accessed via a short hike up the Warner Valley. Also, the Pacific Crest Trail goes right by it!
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Sequoia Tree in Ashland, Oregon
I stopped by Lithia Park in Ashland, Oregon on my way Crater Lake National Park. First off, they have the loveliest city park. It’s great. Second, they have a small but perfect Japanese Garden (I’m a huge fan of Japanese Gardens). But third, near the Japanese Garden, they have a full-grown Sequoia tree!
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This Land: A Guide to Western National Forests by Robert Mohlenbrock
Lands of the Western National Forests by Robert Mullenbach is a directory-style reference book covering the national forests west of…
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The Natural Navigator by Tristan Gooley
The Natural Navigator by Tristan Gooley is part of a trilogy — alongside How to Read Water and How to Read Nature — and the whole series is about learning to read the world around you rather than a screen in your hand.
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How To Read Water by Tristan Gooley
How to Read Water by Tristan Gooley is the third book in his natural navigation trilogy, alongside The Natural Navigator…
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How To Read Nature by Tristan Gooley
How to Read Nature is the third book in Tristan Gooley’s nature-reading trilogy, alongside The Natural Navigator and How to…
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Redwood Grove
On my visit to Redwood National Park, I learned that Redwoods generally grow in a grove around a “mother tree” – so you’ll often get this cluster of tall trees around a mega tall tree…or a giant shaded circle where the “mother” used to stand.
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The Wealth Ladder by Nick Magiulli
The premise of Wealth Ladder is deceptively simple: the rules of personal finance depend on what wealth tier you’re currently in.
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Best American Short Stories 2015
I picked up The Best American Short Stories 2015 at a used bookstore sale. The price was right, the premise was appealing – a curated collection of the best short fiction published that year – and I’ve always been curious about the short story as a format.
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Flying over Bay Area Suburbia
One of my favorite parts of flying is getting a true birds-eye view of the pattern of a large metro area. I found Northern California’s land use to be absolutely fascinating.
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Visiting the Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge has reached a rare status as a global icon—a distinction few places on Earth will ever achieve.
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Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco
I picked up Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco for the same reason I pick up most literary fiction I know nothing about — it won a pile of awards and the setting intrigued me. A murder mystery that opens in New York City and winds its way back to Manila? That sounded like exactly the kind of ambitious, globe-spanning novel I’d enjoy.
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TIL about the Virtues in the Library of Congress
In the main hall of the Library of Congress, there are 8 virtues listed on the walls.
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Redwood Forest & Ecosystem
On my trip to Redwood National Park, I learned that the story isn’t really about the Redwood trees – it’s about the entire ecosystem, which is both under threat and at the center of conservation efforts today.
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Flowers on a Volcano
I took this photo atop Cinder Cone in Lassen Volcanic National Park.
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Boardwalk at Lassen Volcanic National Park
In Lassen Volcanic National Park, there is a trail headed up past Drakesbad Guest Ranch to Boiling Springs Lake. It goes through the Warner Valley, which is something out a story book…that has also been recently hit by a wildfire. The creeks, grasses, and trees are all just idyllic even with the burnt up trees.
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Redwoods
Sequoia sempervirens, known as the Coast Redwoods of California, are the most majestic & most perfect trees on Earth.
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Banana Slug Exploring Leaf Litter
Banana slugs are a hilariously adorable resident of the Pacific Northwest. On my trip to Olympic National Park and Redwood National Park. I was carefully looking for them in their perfect habitat. Never saw one. But then this guy shows up right at our door step in our cottage parking lot near Willow, California.
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View of Fantastic Lava Beds from Cinder Cone at Lassen Volcanic National Park
I first saw “Fantastic Lava Bed” on a map of Lassen Volcanic National Park and was like “ok, that’s a funny name” – but yeah, they totally live up to their name. They are huge, scenic, and quite fantastic!
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Sacred Places of a Lifetime by National Geographic
Sacred Places of a Lifetime by National Geographic is an excellent coffee table style reference book showcasing some of the great sacred places around the world.
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Elk Meadow at Redwood National Park
The Elk Meadow in Redwood National Park was, only a few decades ago, a giant paved lumber yard with trucks, oil spills, giant cranes, warehouses, and piles of felled old-growth Redwood trees. Now, the National Park Service has helped nature along and the land is a fully restored meadow with bubbling creeks and Elk grazing in the distance.
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Lake Delanor at FD Roosevelt State Park in Georgia
Lake Delanor is a man-made lake at the center of Roosevelt State Park’s cabin & campground area. It connects to the Pine Mountain Trail system and the picnic area. It’s lovely, peaceful, and a perfect setting for cabins & camping.
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Sunflower Farm in the Sacramento River Valley
Driving along I-5 in California, I was taken how seemingly every town was like the world’s producer of some random crop. We drove through a town that produces like 95% of the world’s apricots, another one that does rhubarb, another one that does sunflower seeds. It’s really incredible to see. Also, they all had huge bee boxes along the fields letting the bees do their thing.
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Black Bear Cub Waiting To Cross the Road in Six Rivers National Forest
I got to see a small Black Bear cub crossing State Highway 96.
On the same trip, I also had a massive male Black Bear dart across the highway in addition to weasels, birds of prey and more. The highway goes through some of the most remote areas that I’ve ever traveled through but still been on a State Highway.
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Redwood Tree on the Trillium Trail in Redwood State & National Parks
It’s really hard to over-hype Redwood trees. They are the most majestic flora on Earth. And even though they are scattered throughout Northern California, seeing them clustered together in an intact ecosystem is awe inspiring.
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The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor
The Complete Stories is the only collection that includes every short story Flannery O’Connor ever wrote — including “The Geranium,” which she submitted as part of her master’s thesis at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. If you’re going to read her, this is the one to get.
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Erskine Fountain in Grant Park, Atlanta
The Grant Park Conservancy has been restoring old, abandoned features of Grant Park over the past decade. The Erskine Fountain is a special addition, which really shines with all the blooming lilies (and it’s very close to Zoo Atlanta’s entrance).
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6+ Favorite Books About Trees and Forests (So Far!)
A Roundup of My Favorite Books About Trees and Forests…so far.
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Abundance by Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson
I don’t usually read best-selling political books of the moment. They feel too tied to whatever news cycle is happening right now, and I’d rather read something that has aged a bit.
But it feels like we’re at a genuine inflection point in American politics. The party coalitions that formed in the late 60s and early 70s—now going on 50 years old—are breaking down.
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Consolations by David Whyte
Consolations is a collection of short essays and poems. Each entry is just a page or two—a few hundred words at most. But Whyte packs an incredible amount of meaning into that small space.
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No Nonsense Spirituality by Britt Hartley
I picked this book up after hearing the author interviewed on a podcast — and by “picked up” I mean it was on sale on Amazon and seemed worth a quick read.
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6+ Favorite Books on Religious Violence (So Far!)
A Roundup of My Favorite Books on Religious Violence…so far.
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Discourses by Epictetus
I picked up The Discourses by Epictetus from Standard Ebooks, then ended up buying the print Penguin edition as well. Stoic philosophy has had waves of popularity over the years, and I love that the most recent wave has brought a blossoming of new translations, resources, and accessible texts.
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6+ Favorite Books on Urban-Rural Divides (So Far!)
A Roundup of My Favorite Books on Urban-Rural Divides…so far.
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Useful Not True by Derek Sivers
The core premise is straightforward: humans create stories and frameworks that aren’t literally true, but are still incredibly useful. Not useful in a “white lie” kind of way. Useful in a “this is how civilization actually functions” kind of way.
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6+ Favorite Philosophical Novels (So Far!)
A Roundup of My Favorite Philosophical Novels…so far.
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DK Eyewitness Chicago (or, Why Printed Travel Guides Prevent Overtourism)
I’ve found that printed travel books do something that no algorithm can – they help you discover places you don’t know that you don’t know.
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Lassen Volcanic National Park
Definitely one of the most underrated National Parks. There is not a lot of tourist infrastructure, but my goodness, it is wild, scenic, and alive.
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Pink Azaleas
Spring in Georgia brings azalea and dogwood blooms. They never get old.
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6+ Favorite Books on Urban Wildlife (So Far!)
A Roundup of My Favorite Books on Urban Wildlife…so far.
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America’s Great Forest Trails by Tim Palmer
I picked up America’s Great Forest Trails by Tim Palmer after seeing it on a shelf at my local bookstore. It’s a coffee table reference book highlighting America’s great forest trails—of which we have thousands and thousands of miles.
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6+ Favorite Books on Modern Africa (So Far!)
A Roundup of My Favorite Books on Modern Africa…so far.
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6+ Favorite Books on Personal Identity (So Far!)
A Roundup of My Favorite Books on Personal Identity…so far.
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A Southern Magnolia Flower So Beautiful That It Looks Fake
No filters, no edits. Taken with a Pixel 7a.
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6+ Favorite Haruki Murakami Novels (So Far!)
A Roundup of My Favorite Haruki Murakami Novels…so far.
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Why Japanese companies do so many different things
Fascinating business case study -> https://davidoks.blog/p/why-japanese-companies-do-so-many
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Lassen Volcanic National Park after Dixie Fire
Lassen Volcanic National Park was hit pretty hard by the Dixie Fire of 2021. We got to visit in Summer 2025 and saw not only how the land was recovering, but also how much it still impacted the Park after 4 years.
