Snapshot Serenity: Reaping Memory Dividends

Plus dopamine culture and how to practice

Howdy! If you’re new around here, welcome to Traipsing About, my newsletter about reclaiming creativity and ditching tired personal paradigms.

I’m flying high after a masterclass taught by two pianists—one boogie woogie and the other a classically-trained guy whose improvising skills wowed me. Music pursuits continue to captivate me!

The masterclass. Students played and then the pro gave them feedback while the audience watched. So many great insights.

After the masterclass, an evening performance featured the two pianists doing call-and-response playing as well duets.

This week’s flashbackforward:

If this was 2640 (or perhaps six years from now?), I’d zap this newsletter out using quantum entanglement. I'd encode it into quantum bits, pair them with distant bits and WHAMMO, you’d instantly grok the contents.

Instead, you have to actually read it. And maybe I should read less scifi. (Never!)

At least there’s a T. Rex at the end.

This week on Photoing About, Edition #132:

• Memory dividends for the win 💭💰

• Slow⏳, fast 🚀, and dopamine culture 💊

• How to practice 🎻📚

• Traipsing Tidbits:

  • A new Substack I’m digging. 📰👀

  • Plant tips from Chelsea. 🌱

  • A cool video short. 🎥

  • DIY electrical questions. ⚡

ICYMI: Last time, I wrote about sitting in that beginner’s mind realm and not getting frustrated.

The river in Bend after a March snowstorm.

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Memory dividends

Recently I talked with a couple of friends who rarely take pictures. Of themselves, of their kids, mountain views, whatever. It’s just not a priority for them.

For me, it’s entirely the opposite. I love bookmarking moments, even with just a crappy selfie. I also keep my photos curated and organized for easy searching.

Beyond that, I often scan through Google Photos—I have a weekly Sunday evening reminder in my calendar. (Type A personality warning!) I also revisit them via “on this day ___ weeks/months/years ago.” Seeing prior events, be it a walk with a friend, a trip to somewhere beautiful, or a goofy moment joking around with Chelsea, always brings me a wash of joy.

There’s an actual phrase for this, which I learned from the excellent book Die with Zero: Memory dividends.

Yup, similar to investments that pay out repeatedly from an initial sum (unless one sinks it into crypto altcoins), memories can pay dividends. Have an experience, then revisit it over and over without having to sit in airplane steerage again or bike across Iowa in brain-melting temps counting corn and soy bean farms. Cheap, easy fun from your couch!

Even better is that I enjoy revisiting the “bad” moments. That time my friend Mason and I raced lightning over a 14k pass in Colorado? In the moment, terrifying. Today? A fabulous adventure, though one I might approach differently…

Mason huffing over a steep pass at sunset in the San Juans, weather on the way.

Beyond that, when a meaningful photo pops up, I often send the photo to the person who was there with me. (If I feel the pull, I just do it, no overthinking!) Fun, goofy, dangerous—whatever the experience, it serves as a way to connect us, strengthen our friendship. Since connection with friends is a priority for me, I deeply value this part of revisiting photos.

Even with people I’m no longer in touch with for whatever reasons, the photos still serve up memories of good times together before kids/jobs/geography intervened. For former friends I choose not to spend time with anymore, it strengthens my conviction about no longer having that person in my life. Negative feelings seeing a photo of them = great feedback.

Memory dividends, people! Figure out a way to regularly review past photos and I bet you’ll dig them too.

(P.S. A photography tip I love: if you’re traveling and take a photo of a special moment or scene, spend an extra 5-10 seconds to make a video after you take the photo.)

The rise of dopamine culture

The image above is from Ted Gioa’s essay on dopamine culture. It got me thinking about where I’m most happy existing, which I’ve decided is somewhere between slow traditional culture and fast modern culture. I love the conveniences of Spotify, email and so on, but when I stray toward dopamine questing, my happiness, connection to others, and fulfillment decrease. Hence me bailing on social media and generally avoid the news or trending culture (no offense, Kim Kardashian, but I just don’t care).

Have you thought about how you interact with culture and if it’s serving you? A worthwhile recurring checkin for us all.

Memory dividends from Nebraska. Corn soy soy soy corn… My fav place from the trip? No way. A positive glow when I look at this photo? Yup!

How to practice…better

Until a few years ago, I’d never studied how to learn. My efforts were scattershot and less productive than ideal (or so I’ve realized). My oh myyy do I wish I’d dug into it earlier!

Related to that, I enjoyed this TED Ed video, How to Practice Effectively.

To summarize:

1. Mastery isn't simply about the amount of hours of practice—the quality and effectiveness of that practice matters more.

2. Effective practice is consistent, intensely focused, and targets content or weaknesses that lie at the edge of one's current abilities. Brain smoldering, but not on fire.

3. Tips for effective practice:

   1. Focus on the task at hand (no TV, phone on airplane mode)

   2. Start out slowly and in small chunks (e.g. one vocab word, not a sentence; one bar of a piece of music, not a page).

   3. Frequent repetitions with allotted breaks (say 25 min on, 5 min off).

   4. Mental imaging: once you establish the task (e.g. shooting a free throw or a fast guitar scale), picture it in your mind. As an example, I just memorized Chopin’s Aeolian harp etude in a handful of hours using mostly mental imaging. (Playing it will take much longer cuz it’s harrrd for me.)

Further learning: Scott Young, author of Ultralearning, writes a fantastic newsletter if you’re interested in supercharging your learning.

Speaking of practice, my sister just passed her 4th and final board exam and can now work as an acupuncturist. Woot woot!

Traipsing About Tidbits

Note: none of these links are ever affiliate links, just stuff I use, enjoy or admire.

• I’ve loving my friend Cass Randall’s new Substack, The Wilder Path. She’s written for many big publications, but this is her more personal take on mountain culture.

• Plant tips from my green-thumb master gardener wife:

  • Always provide drainage in your plant pots (i.e. water should never just stagnate).

  • Christmas cacti are tropical cacti and needs regular watering.

• I’m a big Roald Dahl fan, so I had to check out Wes Anderson’s adaptation of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (←trailer). Delightful!

• A followup for my electrical upgrade to our Airstream (here’s the final product pic if you’re interested):

  • I used three batteries, the 230 Ah units from LiTimes. Amazing deal and solar expert Will Prowse’s pick for best value/performance mix.

  • I had the needed skills from past projects, but double-checked with Explorist.life’s tutorials and wiring diagrams. The best resources for DIY electrical work on a van/trailer that I’ve found!

Plans have changed: My mom is on the lam in Santa Fe!

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Quote to ponder

The right kind of busy is indicative of a mind in touch with itself and in deep connection with others. It’s constantly recalibrating, re-examining, rethinking: what’s enough? What should I do more, and what should I do less? It means having a calendar that’s at once full and with built-in flex. It breathes deeply and sleeps soundly. The right kind of busy is a feast.

-Via the ever-fabulous Anne Helen Peterson’s Culture Study newsletter.

Thanks to quantum upload, you’ve skipped directly to the end of Traipsing About newsletter #132.

This week’s unsolicited advice:

Use your photos and videos to reap memory dividends from experiences you’ve had!

Onward!

Dakota

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