58 New Things to Binge on

When you’re done watching Squid Game.

For instance, binge on…

1. Going naked (i.e. being in public without your smartphone/social crutch)
2. Olive oil. Cook with it. Spread it on someone you love
3. Apples. There are 7,000 varieties, for crapsake! Start now before it’s too late.
4. Entry forms and applications. (Races, contests, graduate schools)
5. Pitches to people who are smarter, better connected, or luckier than you are
6. Sons of pitches (the work, in embryonic form)
7. Calls home
8. Travel. I recently spent three weeks in Alaska, without leaving my reading chair. Right now I’m In Patagonia.
9. Hyper-local travel. Awe walks, for instance, where you spend 15 minutes ambulating in search of awesome stuff near where you live. Study participants “reported greater joy and prosocial positive emotions during their walks and displayed increasing SMILE INTENSITY over the study.”

1. SMILE INTENSITY

1. Narratives. What stories do you have to tell? Is that it?
2. The thing you do every day, because it’s that important to you.
3. Monogamy
4. Prepositions: Behind, before, between, above, below. John Donne made them sound particularly exciting.
5. To-do lists
6. Striking things off to-do lists

1. Stuff not on your to-do list, because it’s more fun than what’s actually on the to-do.
2. Honesty (self, others)
3. Massage (self, others)
4. Brainstorms. Not just brainshowers. Or cranial drizzles. Actual storms. Cold air meets warm. Ying meets yang. One idea sparks with another. Then lightning strikes.
5. Beethoven. Sure: Symphonies 5 and 9. But that leaves 1 to 4 and 6 to 8, right?
6. Beethoven…while high!

1. Sunsets.
2. Sunrises. No, wait…
3. Sleep
4. OK, contradictions
5. Planting. Not every seedling lives, and that’s OK.
6. Harvesting months (or years) later. Herbs, for instance. Rosemary comes back every year, like your bad prom date on Facebook.
7. Protein. Which came first, the chicken, the egg, or the cricket powder?
8. Reading. Like, you know, books. One after another. Stieg Larsson, Patrick O’Brian, Elena Ferrante have got something for you along those lines.
9. Book group. You don’t actually have to talk about the book, remember.
10. Adult-ed classes. Study Italian. Or cooking. Or Italian cooking. Or Elena Ferrante novels.
11. How-to Youtube videos. That leaking faucet is a cry for help.
12. Tai chi. Monks have been doing it for 5,000 years and still can’t get it right. Plenty of progress for you to make, as well.
13. Team sports. For every two hours watching, spend two hours playing. Trash-talk your friends.
14. Specifics
15. Details
16. One step, then another. Then another.
17. Moon phases

1. Meditation. Prayer. Silence. First thing in the morning, with your cellphone off.
2. Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and other candy officially sanctioned by Mother Nature.
3. Something old (sourdough)
4. Binge on Road 2 Elsewhere!
5. Something new (Instant Pot)
6. Something borrowed (cultural inheritance)
7. Something blue (Why is the ocean that color? Answer here.)
8. Tolerance
9. Remembrance
10. Forgiveness
11. Forgetting. (If you fail at forgiveness.)
12. Making shit. The messier the better.
13. Making art. Sure, you can draw. Let Peng show you how.
14. Making dinner
15. Making out
16. Making the best of it
17. Making a move. Any move. It beats just sitting there.
18. Starting
19. Finishing