Things that have caught my attention this week:
Seth Godin’s new book Linchpin came out this week, and in conjunction there are a lot of blog interviews and supporting material floating around. Two sites in particular I’d recommend are 43 Folders and Godin’s own site – his post this week on “The Lizard Brain” is one I’ve especially been thinking about – how that voice in the back of our heads is sometimes the worst form of sabotage we can experience.
Interesting post on the Tebow/Focus on the Family ad here. As the author notes:
“Mostly, there seems to be an overwhelming group in the middle that doesn’t care about Tebow’s affiliation with Focus on the Family, one way or the other… Some will love seeing the ad. Some will hate seeing the ad. But how about most people?
“Most will watch it, take 5 seconds to have an opinion about how it made them feel — I’m predicting mostly “what was the fuss all about?” — and then they will either (a) hush the other people in the living room because the next commercial is on, (b) forget about the ad because the game is back on, or (c) hustle out to go to the bathroom or to the snacks table.”
Although I’m a gadget geek and mac-fanboy I haven’t found myself getting too excited about the iPad. Scott Heiferman (via twitter) pointed me to this posting that asks some interesting questions about the implications of the new device. A couple key quotes, which Scott hits on:
“Apple is marketing the iPad as a computer, when really it’s nothing more than a media-consumption device – a convergence television, if you will.”
“…the iPad isn’t so much new technology as it is a shiny, pretty doorway to a mall where you can buy everything from books to movies.
The iPad hasn’t brought us forward into the future. It’s taken us backward to a world of strip malls and televisions.”
The consume vs create distinction is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while now, even as I confess that I spend far more of my time reading, watching and consuming rather than flexing my own creative muscles. And while I’d like to think that people will find ways to make the iPad a device that allows for creative expression, I wonder about it being just one more way to feed our media consumption.
I know Scott from my days in college radio, and another friend from that same time and place, Ryan (“root for the home team”) Nelson, just posted a series of photos from a treasure trove of vinyl albums he found in a crawlspace in his house. I’m a little jealous. You can check out his collection here.
Finally, this week, I’ve been in love with this quote from Mark Batterson – this is his Lion Chasers Manifesto:
Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Accumulate experiences. Consider the lilies. Criticize by creating. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away.
Chase the lion.
And though I’ve gotten off track with the whole Friday afternoon playlist idea, I’ll bring this one to a close with a song from Matisyahu: