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On personal development, mindful productivity, creative lifestyle design, and figuring it out as you go
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Hey There!
It's the end of September already! I've had a roller coaster month of personal and professional events - from YouTube's educational video conference EduCon in NYC, to a client shoot, to a friend's wedding, to the PBS Digital Studios's producer summit. It’s been exhilarating and rewarding getting back to traveling and seeing folks in person, and now it’s good to be back home.
With weeks of back-to-back events, my own creative project Bean Thinking has made less visible progress. But in the snatches of time spent on trains, planes, and subways this month, I’ve had time to read and listen and think.
The video essays on Bean Thinking are starting to grow from seedlings of ideas, branching out to incorporate the thoughts of philosophers, political scientists, economists, and media critics. I’ve been exposing myself to more complex, influential ideas that have affected how we live. I want to draw from the range of human wisdom developed throughout the ages, not just from my own limited experience.
So I’m reading and thinking and letting those ideas germinate underground while I pursue exciting professional opportunities. And soon, when the season is right, the vision I have for this artistic, nuanced, dynamic video series will come into full bloom. I'll patiently tend the garden in the meantime.
Spiritedly,
Ahsante
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For members of the Brilliant Beans Community, I've just published the monthly vlog!
This one is about how I've shifted my mindset from being solely goal-oriented to becoming more process-oriented. There's something I missed by treating points in my education and my career as a means to an end.
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I recently passed 50,000 subscribers on my Ahsante the Artist channel!
While I'm not actively posting there right now, it has been a labor of love for the past 10 years. I'm excited that over 50K people have found the YouTube channel and liked it enough to follow along. And I'm guessing you're one of those folks too - thank you for your support!
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Music to keep your spirits up and let it all out
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Time to get down! Here's a playlist of grooves for you to bop to as we fall into this next season. Enjoy!🏾
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Pieces of media and pop culture that I'm absolutely loving
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Creative Pep Talk - On Incubating Creative Ideas
This one hit me at just the right time. This podcast episode from Andy J. Pizza is a nice encouragement to let your ideas take the time they need. There's so much value in stepping back from a project and allowing your ideas grow and develop in the background.
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Nobody Shares Anymore
This short-ish video essay from Mike Rugnetta chronicles how social media companies used the language of "sharing" to prompt adaptation of their platforms while presenting an idealized image that hasn't materialized in reality.
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Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
I absolutely devoured this book this month. This short, super readable piece of media theory explores how entertaining media, which has become the socially dominant form of media, is structurally opposed to providing the nuanced, complex, well-rounded, contextualized information that is necessary to have healthy public discourse.
Postman isn't against entertainment, rather he insists that entertainment media is inappropriately dictating political decision-making and public life. Originally published in 1985, the book's analysis revolves around the rising dominance of television. I can only imagine how alarmed Postman would be to know that our collective attention is now fixated on 60 second loops thanks to TikTok. It's a fascinating and relevant read.
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What's been keeping my productivity boosted
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This Chrome extension removes the sidebar of suggested videos from the YouTube watch page so you can focus on the current video without distraction. I can't count the number of times I'd been watching a specific video for work or research, and was lured into watching another by those tempting suggestions. For the times you want to watch in focus mode, this extension comes in clutch.
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Live Spiritedly & Think Creatively
Catch ya next time :)
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