Proceed as the way opens

What do you do when things are confusing and bad? Plus recs for Mariama Bâ, Kareem Rahma's Subway Takes, and Jeremy Rosenholtz's debut novel.

I’m not a Quaker, but several of my friends and one of my favorite professors from college are. A saying they taught me that I’ve kept written down on a notecard on my desk is:

That’s been on my desk for years now. I’ve moved it with me from apartment to apartment to house and from state to state. Proceed as the way opens. To me, that means that I don’t need to know exactly how I’m going to get from here to there. I don’t need to see it all laid out before me clearly. I just need to find where the next step is and take that step and then do the same thing for the step after that. Proceed as the way opens.

I can’t say that I’m shocked about the outcome of the election. In 2016, I was speechless. It made me question my understanding of reality to be that wildly wrong in my predictions about what would happen in the world. This time around, I knew this was a real possibility even if I didn’t think it would break this way.

A lot of people in L.A. have told me that they’re “intuitive.” They think they have a sense of what’s going to happen before it does. I think I might be “anti-intuitive.” When we went in for the first ultrasound when Mollie was pregnant with our kid, I told the nurse “I have a strong feeling it’s twins.” She gave me a very strange look, “You think it’s twins?”

Five seconds later, the ultrasound confirmed that it was NOT twins.

Several months later, I confidently said, “I know it’s a little girl” moments before they told us we were having a boy.

My point being, I am not intuitive. I might be anti-intuitive.

I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I don’t have any answers, I only have some questions I’ve been turning over and over in my head:

At a moment, when it seems like vengeance and mean-spiritedness are ascendant, where is there space for kindness and care?

What is a vision of masculinity that doesn’t involve hurting, controlling, or dominating other people and how can young men find space for themselves in that alternative vision?

What tangible, concrete steps can I take to help protect and stand up for trans people and immigrants and reproductive rights when they are being targeted for political gain?

Across political parties, what would it look like to reject war and violence? To say that killing is morally unacceptable?

How can I, as a comedian and a writer and a person, make space to still be funny and silly and to laugh and not have my life exclusively be dominated by politics?

Where is the way opening and how can I proceed?

Today’s list has three suggestions that are not election related, in case you need a break and a respite. But two of the best pieces I’ve read about the election itself were this piece by Rusty Foster, written from the Appalachian Trail where he’s currently thru-hiking, and this piece by Heather Cox Richardson, which puts the election in some broader context.

Ok, on to this week’s list.

My projects and upcoming events:

TED TALK: How to find laughter anywhere - My TED talk is online and on YouTube. Please watch and share! You can find it here

PODCAST: How to Be a Better Human (TED/PRX) - Ronald Young, Jr. is a delight of a human being. He’s able to talk about weight, body image, and self-worth in a way that I have never heard from anyone else. His podcast Weight For It has won all sorts of awards in the past year, but he made the time to come on our show. I’m so grateful that he did. You can listen to the conversation here (or wherever you get podcasts).

This week’s list

GREAT:

Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter is one of the books that has most stuck with me since reading it. It’s a shame that she’s not more widely known or widely read, but I’m glad to see the NYT feature her in their series, Overlooked, which goes back to retroactively write obituaries for remarkable people whose deaths were not reported in their own time. “She carved a path for future generations of women as an advocate, a teacher and, perhaps most notably, a literary trailblazer after Senegal achieved independence from France in 1960.” Mariama Bâ

FUNNY:

Subway Takes with Kareem Rahma is one of the most reliably hilarious and entertaining shows on social media. The format is simple. While riding on the subway, Kareem speaks into a microphone attached to a Metrocard and asks a guest for their spiciest opinion. Then he says whether he agrees or disagrees with them. It’s always a a delight. Here are a few of my favorites: Hasan Minhaj on Happy Birthday in Restaurants, Zach Shiffman on Birthday Invites, and Ike Ufomadu on Krazy

INTERESTING:

One of my former high school teachers, Jeremy Rosenholtz, who was always such a supportive and friendly figure, just had his debut novel published this week! It’s a “dark and often hilarious metafictional fable about celebrity obsession, growing older, and the search for meaning.” It’s written as a series of letters to Taylor Swift that become increasingly obsessive and hilarious but also reveal a lot about the middle aged man writing them. I don’t want to spoil anything so I’ll just say check it out for yourself: Jeremy Rosenholtz’s Your Biggest Fan

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That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

Proceeding, and hoping that we get to keep proceeding,

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

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…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.