Hi All!

Here is your weekly round up of what I’m pondering and exploring. Feel free to forward along to a friend if you think they might enjoy.

Going overseas!

Apart from when I was in LA during the fires, and a couple trips to Melbourne, I haven’t travelled much this year.

However, thankfully at the end of this month I will be finally flying overseas again. I’m not going to tell you where yet, but the last time I was this excited to travel was when I went to New York for the first time.

And yes, vlogs will be posted.

I can’t wait.

Indigenous knowledge transfer

Last week I was fortunate enough to get to sit down one-on-one with an Indigenous elder and have him personally tell me dozens of stories, and teachings from the world’s longest surviving culture.

Having so much ancient wisdom imparted on me, was a huge privilege, and it only helped amplify my previously exisiting ideas around the importance of the interconnectedness of all things, and how we don’t own the land, it owns us.

This was particualry important for me as an Indigenous Australian, and has helped me to appreciate even more of the timeless teachings of my own culture.

Earn your title

There’s a blog post by Derek Sivers I recently read called, Keep earning your title, or it expires.

It’s only short but it’s a good one.

To keep it simple, Derek explains the importance of actively embodying either the titles we already uphold, or the ones we wish to have, and retiring the ones that no longer serve us, to make sure we’re not resting on our laurels.

You can read the full post here.

The beauty of the Chinese language

Recently, I’ve started looking into the Chinese language, and beginning to try understand some of the cultural differences between the western world, and the Chinese world, especially because China is rapidly emerging as the worlds new superpower.

One of the first things I discovered that I found really interesting was how in Mandarin there are no verb tenses.

For example, in English we might say, I walked or I will walk, whereas in Chinese it’s expressed only as I walk.

So technically, in Mandarin, there is no past, and no future, only the now.

Which in itself I found extremely poetic.

This realisation made me think more about how language shapes a cultures existence and experiance of the world. Which makes me wonder more about the Chinese lens and how that differs to our own.

Also, I don’t know why but these kind of nuances in language and communication are really fascinating to me, hence why I plan on continuing learning more about Mandarin.

A thank you to David!

Thank you David for sending through the huge list of Australian films last week.

I ended up watching Gettin’ Square, and really enjoyed seeing Australia onscreen, especially the Spit character, he was a funny cunt.

I still plan on eventually checking out the half-a-dozen other films you sent through, but until then, I just wanted to publically thank you for reaching out and continually reading what I share each and every week, I really appreciate that.

Also, if anyone else on here has Letterboxd, feel free to give me a follow so I can follow you back and see what you’ve also been watching!

Hope everyone enjoys their week.

Love,

Jet Williams

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