⛔️ don't take it for granted.
welcome to sam’s brain drain, a weekly collection of thumb-stopping things to tap, read, & watch.
estimated reading time: 3m 55s.
🙃 oh hi there.
i missed a week.
i do apologise—let me explain.
i got a very exciting email from our national airline (aer lingus) asking me if i wanted to fly anywhere in europe for a weekend, and so naturally i immediately said yes.
what followed was a weekend of walking, eating, filming & soaking up everything that venice had to offer. you can see the resulting video here.
on the agenda this week: familiarity, dirty shoes, & a glimpse of the future.
⚡️ tag me on instagram or twitter if you enjoy this week's brain drain!
📄 a note on the familiar:
people often say things like, “you shouldn’t take that for granted”.
this is often sage advice—dished out in the face of deteriorating friendships, relationships, or a rapidly disappearing bar of chocolate.
that being said, do you know how cashews grow? it’s safe to say that i absolutely did not.
their natural habitat to me is either in my hand or mouth, & therefore i have not once given thought to their origin.
if you are like me, take a moment to compose yourself.
the true fruit of the cashew tree is a kidney shaped drupe that grows at the end of the cashew apple. the drupe develops first on the tree, and then the pedicel expands to become the cashew apple.
the more you know.
et cetera.
👂 earworm:
it's time to get acquainted with la-based musician, alexander 23.
this song caught me by surprise. it’s about missing someone you love, specifically some of the little details and quirks.
some genius from the renaissance said that brevity was the soul of wit; while i believe that he was referring to acting, the same applies to good music as well. sometimes all you need to deliver a great song is a great instrumental and lyrical topic, and you can succeed. “dirty af1s”, the latest song from alexander 23, is a perfect example of this; with a solid instrumental and a great sentiment embedded in its songwriting, it’s a must listen!
instrumentally, “dirty af1s” is surprisingly experimental in its execution. the main skeleton of the beat is composed mainly of a dreary horn loops that lingers over alexander’s pained vocals like a perfectly gray raincloud. it serves as an excellent backdrop for the emotional tale penned by alexander.
read more via heart eyes magazine.
stream now:
listen on spotify or on apple music.
📚 word of the week
“ineffable”:
incapable of being expressed in words. indescribable.
a relevant word for me this week.
one of the themes that recurs in her poetry is longing—not a longing that is negative or envious, just a reach toward something ineffable in the human heart.
- hartford courant
🤪 mildly humorous:
quite honestly in pain reading these this week.
🧠 brain candy
🌍 hello from the year 2050:
this is one article in a series by time on the state of the planet’s response to climate change:
let’s imagine for a moment that we’ve reached the middle of the century. it’s 2050, and we have a moment to reflect—the climate fight remains the consuming battle of our age, but its most intense phase may be in our rearview mirror. and so we can look back to see how we might have managed to dramatically change our society and economy. we had no other choice. there was a point after 2020 when we began to collectively realize a few basic things.
one, we weren’t getting out of this unscathed. climate change, even in its early stages, had begun to hurt: watching a california city literally called paradise turn into hell inside of two hours made it clear that all americans were at risk. when you breathe wildfire smoke half the summer in your silicon valley fortress, or struggle to find insurance for your florida beach house, doubt creeps in even for those who imagined they were immune.
🏊♀️ the 54 hour swim:
the endurance of the human body—and of the hardshell-encased-floating-squishy-matter that is our brain—is a constant shock to me:
swimming four lengths does not sound like a particularly impressive achievement. but when those lengths add up to nearly 134 miles (215km) in the open sea, and when they have been completed by a breast cancer survivor a year after treatment, they look more like an extraordinary world first.
over 54 gruelling hours from midnight on sunday until dawn on tuesday, the american ultra long-distance swimmer sarah thomas, 37, became the first person to swim the channel four times without stopping. thomas dedicated her achievement to fellow breast cancer survivors.
thomas’s feat was accomplished in the face of strong tides that extended a route that had originally been expected to cover 84 miles, far less than the distance she eventually completed. the british endurance swimmer lewis pugh described the achievement as “extraordinary” and “superhuman”.
that’s all for this week.
i hope you hold me accountable to keep this interesting 😝.
😌 see you next monday!
🦶 footer:
did you know that word of mouth is the only way something like this grows?
tell one of your colleagues what they’re missing out on 😈.
they can sign up here.
you can also share this on facebook
or tweet about it.
🚨 if you post a screenshot to instagram stories of your favourite part of the email & tag me (@sam.travel), i’ll repost the best ones.
🎉 get social:
instagram: @sam.travel
twitter: @sammcallister
email me: smcallis[at]gmail.com
website: sammcallister.me
👋 read more of my posts:
👁 an eye for an eye in hong kong.
🚶♂️ everywhere, everywhen.
🇺🇸 a note on death.
😏 new emoji?
⚡️ the power of aligned incentives.