Journaling, Fire Pits and Dances with Wolves

I write in a number of different genres, but a theme has developed and it’s become the tagline on my website: Slow down. Live Deeper.
 
As such, I’d like to take a play out of author Austin Kleon’s playbook. Every week, he sends an email to his list in which he shares ten tidbits he believes his readers will be interested in. It's always thought-provoking and it leads me deeper.
 
I want to begin doing something similar for you, keeping my theme in mind. My weekly list will only be seven items, though. I hope it inspires you. And if it does, I hope you'll forward it to a friend.
 
Here’s the first one:

• In January 2015, I downloaded a journaling app for my iPhone called Day One. Since then, I’ve written 1,917 entries. The beautiful thing about it is, you don’t have to stop for 30 minutes at the end of the day to journal. Instead, you write the equivalent of several text messages per day. Check it out if you have an iPhone.
  

• A couple of Fridays ago, I began getting together with friends around a fire pit in my backyard and it has led to some rather deep conversations. It makes me wish I had purchased a fire pit years ago.

• Here’s a quote from “Dances with Wolves” (which I just watched recently for the first time) that I’m pondering: “I pushed him [Ten Bears] as far as I could to move the camp, but in the end, he only smiled and talked of simple pleasures. He reminded me that at his age, a good fire is better than anything.”

• In a recent episode of “Dancing with the Stars,” Marilu Henner spoke about having “highly superior autobiographical memory,” which means she can remember every day of her life. Can you imagine? According to this article, she’s one of only twelve documented people to have H-SAM.

• In the past month, I’ve written two letters to my brother. It’s our only way of communicating right now, and I’m enjoying it immensely. I’d forgotten my tendency to go so much deeper when writing a letter, as opposed to simply answering questions via text. If you get a chance this weekend, write a letter to somebody.
  

• I stumbled across an iPhone app recently called Leio. It tracks book reading sessions, the number of pages read, the number of sessions, the average time per session, etc. And it calculates how many more reading sessions you’ll need to finish your current book. Then it archives everything. How cool is that?

• Author Tina Tamman (@tinatamman) shared this on Twitter recently: “Reflections are as fascinating as sunsets.”