Issue #168: Everything You Do Has Endless Meaning To It

Let cognitive dissonance be a compass.

🎥 ‘MARTHA’ on Netflix: Martha Stewart was, in many ways, the original influencer, inspiring women to create beautiful homes and surroundings, even as this documentary shows the unhappiness that existed beneath the shiny exteriors she created. It’s particularly interesting to watch this after reading Ina Garten’s book (as we did for our October book club). Both women came from similar backgrounds, insofar as they were both held to impossibly high standards by militant fathers that contributed to serious work ethics, but where Ina always valued relationships and welcomed the messiness of life, Martha seems married to perfection. This documentary, which features interviews with Martha (although she wasn’t a fan of the final product), is a fascinating look at a women who carved a role for herself, blazing trails as she went.

📚 Eleanore of Avignon by Elizabeth DeLozier: I met Elizabeth when she interviewed me on my book tour stop in San Diego, and we immediately bonded over our shared fascination of the Black Plague (which featured heavily in an early draft of You’re Safe Here…), but I became a super-fan of hers as soon as I finished her debut novel, Eleanore of Avignon, about a midwife and herbalist who finds herself in the unlikely position of discovering a treatment for the plague alongside a court physician. Opening this novel is like stepping into 14th century France—you can practically smell the stench of the sickness, alongside the concoctions Elea creates to treat it. A wonderful and encompassing novel, out today!

📺 “Social Studies” on Hulu: This serial documentary follows L.A. teenagers as they return to school after COVID, having spent a year-plus entirely immersed in creating and interacting with other online personas. The social anxiety is palpable and difficult to watch, but provide an important warning around the impact of social media, especially on teenagers. Quotidien parts of being a person—interacting with the world IRL, for example—are, to them, terrifying. As one student puts it, “In person you can’t mute yourself and you can’t turn off your camera. You have to show up to school and you have to be perceived by every single person there.”

P.S. You voted (a bit on the nose for today) and our Morning Person Book Club selection for November is Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker! Start reading and save the date for a Zoom discussion on December 4th!

Before we get into things, I wanted to share that I recorded myself reading the full post, available to paid subscribers. I hope it makes engaging with this post, or reading it on your commute (or in the midst of obsessively tracking election results), a little easier. Let’s get to it…

On Saturday afternoon, I sat in an auditorium listening to one of my favorite novelists, Richard Powers speak at the Portland Book Festival. “Next week,” he said, referring to today’s presidential election, “is a referendum on the larger question about the anxiety of what we can do.” We are limited, he acknowledged, by the binary choices that an election forces us into, but added, “every tiny thing we do has endless meaning to it.”

Since realizing that this post would go live on Election Day, I’ve been laboring over the question of what to write. At this point, you probably don’t need to read another endorsement to vote for Kamala Harris, an appeal to get to the polls, or encouragement to take care of yourself— although I sincerely hope you do all three. It is difficult to summarize just how impactful today’s results will be, particularly for marginalized groups. What I, and I’m guessing you, are consumed by is a profound sense of anxiety around the limitations of what we are able to do. At this point, outside of casting our ballots, we’re largely along for a wild ride that comes down to just a few states (looking at you, Pennsylvania).

The last time I voted in a Presidential election, I was a very different person. I cared about the same fundamental issues—climate change, reproductive freedom, gun control, education—and voted accordingly.  But in the four years since, I’ve come to think not only about content, but about process. It’s not only what I care about, but also how I care about it.