Radical Resources for a Friend

I have a beautiful friend who creates time in her life for deep thinking and, more importantly, deep questioning.

She and I had an open conversation about the sort of countercultural concepts I’ve picked up in order to make a teaching a radical method like the Suzuki approach in our society realistic. When economic, social, and political pressures are pushing you down a particular stream, how do you buoy yourself? Where is shore? How did you get a grip and begin to work, slowly, in the other direction.

I think the key is in what Suzuki suggested: the environment.

We have the power, especially in the 21st century, to cultivate micro-environments which make normal to us what our over-arching society doesn’t.

By tailoring our information diet and our circle of closest friends we actual make ‘counter-cultural’ just ‘culture.’

Just like Suzuki parents, we as teachers don’t have control of the macro environment, but we do have control over the radio station, and the podcast app, and the friends we invite out to coffee.

I’ve ‘subscribed’ to a number of thinkers who I think would self identify as radical. They aren’t radical in a political sense, or to stir up any sort of attention, but radical because they are comfortable with being quite different from the majority. In each case they have decided something– whether it be happiness, or their passion, or excellence– is more important than public opinion.

I surround myself, so to speak, with these thinkers. Some are famous, others aren’t. Some are ambitious in a traditional ‘successful’ way, and some are successful, in my opinion, exactly because they HAVEN’T pursued a successful path. I don’t believe in every thing each person below says, but rather believe in the way they go about believing things, saying things, and doing things in a deliberate, not default, way.

The list below, which I shared with my good friend, is just a list of resources for someone who wants to steep themselves in an environment of radical thinking.

It is a list of things which blew my mind, and totally took my thinking/working/living in completely new directions. These are videos/books/interviews/blogs I’ve been chomping through for 8 years now. It didn’t happen all at once, so no hurry. Better to follow your own interests and have your own mind blown by following bread crumbs away from this list than to absorb everything in order.

Get curious and have fun!

Minimalism

Tynan

Bio of Teddy Roosevelt

Cal Newport, especially ideas/books Deep Work and So Good They Can’t Ignore You and any posts related to ‘Zen Valedictorian”)

Seanwes Podcast (especially back in the 200’s, and on client work)

Gary Vaynerchuk

Chad Robertson

NOMA Fermentation (book, David Zilber, and podcast interview)

John Watson, The Radavist

John Zahorian

Edible Acres