The Mixed Bag, January 2025

a bunch of happy things + a preview of the dance I'm learning!

The Mixed Bag is a curated list of stuff I’ve enjoyed this month: books, podcasts, talks, the occasional movie or TV show, and more. We’ll be back to regular programming in the next issue.

🐾 in case you missed it

• You know what? I don’t want to age gracefully after all.

• “Pre-gretting”. This is the kind of thing that will make you want to change something.

• The Joy Experiment and the launch of The Lounge

• This month’s In Profile is Trevy Thomas of Our Hundred Years.

• On the Second Breaks podcast: Eschewing Comfort Zones, Playing, and Staying Youthful with Yvonne Marchese

🔗 finds

• “More than pleasure, delight is a radical act of presence — a reclaiming of joy in defiance of the mundane.” —

  Alexander Lovell, PhD
  dives deep and comes up with a beautiful analysis of what delight truly is.

• Speaking of,

  Austin Kleon
  ’s 100 Things That Made My Year (2024) is quite delightful. A wonderful reminder that it’s all about the ordinary.

• Morgan Hausel (of Psychology of Money) writes, “The ultimate success metric is whether you get what you want out of life. But that’s harder than it sounds because it’s easy to try to copy someone who wants something you don’t.” Do it your way, Hausel reminds us.

• We all have to promote something at one point or another, and if you hate self-promotion, 🙋🏻‍♀️ this one’s for you by

  Michael Thompson
  of Shy By Design.

• “Loving the difficult and painful aspects is not the same as liking them, condoning them or perpetuating them.”

  Susan J Tweit
  ’s essay about Terraphilia and Unconditional Love is a beautiful meditation.

• MP Kennedy
  wrote about everything I ever wanted to say about embracing the third and fourth quarters of our lives in Do The Happy Dance. She’s a hoot!

📚 reading

• In my third Lincoln Lawyer book, The Reversal. I’ve been pulled to read novels set in LA, and this series was the first one that came to mind.

• Getting ready for my major reading project for 2025. I wanted to read (re-read in some cases) all of Edith Wharton's books. There are 15 on my list. I’m trying to decide if I’ll read them according to when they were published or just randomly. Any suggestions?

🍭 you said…

In response to the question on this post, “What’s your next jump-off-a-cliff moment?”

Kaarin Marx Smith

said:

My "jumping off a cliff" moment is (re)learning how to scuba dive and heading to Tahiti in two weeks to give it a go. I first learned how to scuba when I was in my twenties and my father took me diving in the Red Sea. It scared the shit out of me, and I never did it again — until now. Believe it or not, I'm actually looking forward to it.

Can we give her 👏🏼!!!

💬 last word

Thanks so much to everyone who came by to cheer on The Joy Experiment. It’s the first time I’m doing a public experiment that comes with guaranteed awkwardness 🫣, so I really appreciate the support!

The first activity on my list is to learn a choreographed dance routine,¹ and my first attempts were laughable!

Here’s one of the students doing part of the dance I’m learning. EEEK.

ralphbeaubrundanceclasses

A post shared by @ralphbeaubrundanceclasses

Okay, she’s good, but really this one here is my inspiration ⬇️ (doing the same dance).

ralphbeaubrundanceclasses

A post shared by @ralphbeaubrundanceclasses

Isn’t she AWESOME?!

I’ll report on these experiments throughout the year inside The Lounge, our newly launched community. My grand vision 😊 is that it becomes our special place where we share our experiments, swap encouragement, and cheer each other on as we explore fun, fulfillment, and friendship together. I hope you’ll take advantage of the special launch rates² and join me there.

May the odds be ever in your favor,
Lou Blaser

1. The dance routine I’m learning is taught by Ralph Beau Brun, a Haitian singer, choreographer, professional dancer, and actor. Here are his dance classes on IG.

2. Special launch rates end on Jan 31st!