Friday Inspiration 368

The title of this video (“How To Impress Someone Who’s Higher Status”) almost pushed me to skip past it, but for whatever reason I started watching it, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a really interesting analysis on how to have a conversation with anyone (much less clickable title, “How To Talk To People”?), using master interviewer Sean Evans of Hot Ones to illustrate. (video)

Let me preface this announcement by saying this is always one of the most fun weeks of my year, every year, because I get to be outside all week and talk to fun people about my favorite thing: creativity. So then: Applications for my Trail Running and Writing Workshop with the Freeflow Institute are now open—it’s Sept. 5-10 in Whitefish, Montana, based out of the Whitefish Bike Retreat. We’ll do a workshop/lecture session in the morning, run 6-12 miles of local trails in the middle of the day, and then do another workshop/lecture session in the evening, leaving plenty of time to hang out. If this sounds fun to you, I hope you can make it this year.

I am sure I’ve shared something from the World Bollard Association here before, but this video of test cars ramming directly into a bollard at 30 mph, then 50 mph, then 80 mph, and so on up to 260 mph, is pretty fascinating. I think. Or maybe it’s terrifying. Anyway, don’t hit a bollard with your car.

I will probably find myself, at some point, buying this coffee-table book about the beauty that lies inside cut-open electrical components.

A British study found that people who had one conversation with a friend per day had lower stress levels and increased happiness (most of the conversations in the study happened in person, but some were over the phone or via online messaging): “Hall and his team identified seven types of communication that are commonly found in social interactions: catching up, meaningful talk, joking around, showing care, listening, valuing others and their opinions, and offering sincere compliments. The researchers recruited over 900 participants and instructed each to engage in any one of the seven types of communication on a given day.”

The Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival starts today, and if you don’t live near Vancouver, the online festival also starts today. I have a film premiering in the festival, which you can watch starting at noon PST today as part of the online festival’s Trail Show.

Why do people over the age of 40 perceive themselves (OK, ourselves) to be 20 percent younger than we actually are?

This is a few years old, but it just came up in conversation with a friend this week, so I thought I’d share it again, and I don’t think I need to do more than share the headline of the story: Meet Tatsuo Horiuchi, the 77-Year-Old Artist Who ‘Paints’ Japanese Landscapes With Excel

Blake Boles does a great job of writing about the joy (and the logistics!) of planning an adventure. And now I’m curious about this thru-hike he is planning.

Last but not least: I am liquidating a warehouse space that holds all of my signed books, and sets of cards and postcards. A bunch of stuff sold out last week, but there are still a few books and cards available:

The New American Road Trip Mixtape — Signed Book — $9.99