Listen to this while you read on
I’m reading a book right now called The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price (author of How to Break Up With Your Phone) and it’s really slapping me in the face. I’m only halfway through, but so far Price has enlightened me on her theory of what True Fun is and how we can seek more of it. According to the author, you’ll find True Fun at the intersection of connection, playfulness, and flow. Moments so vibrant and vivid and easy and breezy, they shine on your dusty shelf of memories. Moments of True Fun are filled with gusto and make you feel alive.
In this post-burnout existence I find myself in, I’m starting to realize the things that used to make me feel alive aren’t anymore. The places that used to enthrall me don’t. But that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me! It doesn’t mean I need to push to find enthusasim and inspiration where I feel nothing— it means I need to let go of what was to make room for what can be.
And in that space that I am trrying to now make, The Power of Fun is helping me learn how to fill it with a new sense of self. What I’m striving for now is not a successful career or project or business or whatever the hell else people here (LA? the internet?Creativity in 2022?) want to see.
It’s simply to seek the things that energize me. I caught a glimpse of this in Paris, and I’m starting to catch on it again. Now I feel certain— feeling alive is the only that matters right now.
Profile of a Chef: Finding a Happy Balance with Francesco Allegro
Well here’s something I’ve never done before and might be my favorite thing I’ve done in a long time. I wrote a profile on a chef aand it could not have come at a better moment.
Last week Chef Francesco Allegro gave me a combined 5 hours of his time while he prepped in the kitchen and after service at the bar, Capri Club. He’s a pasta chef, musician, humble human and Italian native from a region in the south called Puglia (where I lived for a winter! dai, mi mancha tantissimo!). He is the head pasta maker at Rossoblu in Downtown LA and the head chef for the new Capri Club in Ealg Rock (it’s a bar, not a restaurant!) We spent a lot of our time talking about balance and how he finds happiness while juggling his life here in LA and there in Italy.
“We’re not trying to be ambitious,” Francesco kept telling me. “We want to enjoy the best life we can also have while we’re doing service.”
This became my favorite recurring line he kept saying throughout our conversations. It was a breath of fresh air, a sigh of relief that someone creative can have this mindset and prioritize a good life over a climb to fame (or *cough burnout cough*) . By the time I left Capri Club after our last meeting, I could feel something inside my gut screaming at me: wait! omg! you don’t need to be ambitious either.