(009) 75 Summers
I spent this week feeling very sorry for myself, nursing a bug that took me down from Sunday to Thursday. This rendered me incapable of doing or thinking anything productive - which I’m not used to.
This also meant I wasn’t able to keep to my morning ritual of getting to a cafe nice and early, ordering a cold drip, and getting about drafting my newsletter. This made me quite sad, as writing has become an important part of my routine. I find it super satisfying getting my thoughts down in some coherent form. Its a cleansing of the chaos in my mind.
Something I did spend time thinking about this week between cold sweats, was that it’s already October. I googled it, and as of the penning of this post, Christmas is only 11 weeks away, which means I’m flying back to Australia in 10 weeks (this may have been a contributing factor to prolonged cold sweats).
The realisation this year has flown past (as they always seem to), was reinforced when I stumbled upon this gem from Eddie Murphy, where he puts it all into perspective for us:
75 years is nothing and I’ve already spent 33 of them.
This video came at quite an interesting time for me, as for the past year or so I’ve found myself grappling with a deep sense of unrest in the trajectory of my life.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my life. I live in an incredible city on the other side of the world to where I grew up, I have a beautiful wife, a healthy and supportive family, an amazing group of friends, I am fortunate to travel more than most, and I have a great team in my business that make each day an absolute pleasure. Someone asked me he other day what it was like being 33 and I told her it was my best year yet.
That said, I can’t help but feel there is *something* missing.
I am a deeply creative person, yet what I’ve come to realise is that I’ve starved myself of any real creative pursuit or hobby. I became so focused on establishing a career and building my business that I neglected any creative impulse, deeming it unproductive. I identified as creative, but presented as anything but.
So, as I approach my 34th year, I want to be more intentional in cultivating my interests and finding my creative edges.
I want to get my hands dirty in different types of design. I want to learn more about industrial design and architecture, and want to bring physical objects and spaces to life. I want to continue writing daily, and I want to continue learning about myself along the way.
So, what are you going to do to make your remaining summers more meaningful?
Matteo x
MOOD
I curated this playlist in Shoreditch, so hopefully you can hear the decidedly differently tone to any playlist I’d typically curate in Notting Hill.
FINDS
Each week I collect a bunch of interesting links from across the internet and share them here so you can sound more interesting at your next dinner party.
I’m an avid cook, but I’ve never had my own kitchen. They’ve always been supplied to me by my landlords. This idea of a modular kitchen by TERMINO that you can take with you from home to home is quite a vibe. I still don’t have space for it, sadly.
A timely poem on enjoying the little things:
A note on why the best things in life require a degree of embarrassment.
I heard the term “neuroaesthetics” for the first time this week and it suggest that beautiful things, from art to the smell of nice flowers, can have a positive impact on us. So filling your house with nice things is actually in the name of science.
Go deeper on the design decisions behind Nuevo Tokyo’s VIEWFINDER camera.
Perhaps the real work of art isn’t the iPhone 15, but rather its pricing strategy.