Five minutes is actually quite a long time.
Especially staring down a blank page.
Reading speeds can vary widely; for some 700 words is 5 minutes, for another it’s 3 minutes. In audio books, we can adjust reading time to our speed. (I usually listen at 1.5 times and would have loved the option to speed up or slow down some of my undergrad professors.) Still, I made myself pick a limit (700 words).
In my iPhone’s Notes App, I’ve got 3,192 notes of my quick thoughts, links to what prompted the thoughts, and long meandering paragraphs. These words could be a comment, an essay, or a book seedling. Yet it is precisely their endless possibility that keeps them inaccessible. Too much of my digital and analog scribble has been lounging in the waiting room of You should write about this. Launching this Substack is one way to open my door and start seeing patients.
I also picked a limit because, regrettably, I sometimes find myself struggling to stick with something that is more than 5-to-6 scrolls on my phone. There is a time and place for reading longer works, but when I’m numbed by all the visual input and noise of social media, I really enjoy a short read (like The Keep Things or Brevity Magazine).
Alternatively, Easily Fascinated for 5 Minutes can also be read in an email. Remember email? The last time I recall enjoying email was in 2011 when I received a forwarded-copy-paste (don’t do that) of Jenny Lawson’s post about buying a giant metal chicken. I laughed so hard that I still remember how hard I laughed twelve years later (that’s a special type of power I think).
I’m happy that platforms like Substack and Patreon are slowly pulling me back to email where I can read and enjoy friends, writers, and creators without the social media din. I hope you’ll enjoy seeing me in your inbox too.
Why spend 5 minutes here?
In the past I’ve viewed my interest in so many things from too many places as a negative distraction (pick a lane!). Previously (and currently), my random ponderings and obsessive rumination mostly fueled anxiety and depression.
But what if other people are just as easily distracted fascinated by lots of different things? And what if, by entertaining those conversations—however silly or serious—we can give our squirrel-brains something to chew on other than ourselves?
Here are the Rabbit Holes
🐰 Included in each 5-minute read are side adventures, “off-topic” thoughts, and influences that were swirling in the mix as I wrote. Maybe they belong. Maybe they don’t. But they’re distracting fascinating me.
“Still, I made myself pick a limit.” 🐰 In Random Acts of Medicine by Anupam B. Jena and Christopher Worsham, their research studies the way arbitrary limits can result in poor medical outcomes. I.e., A patient 49.5 years old may receive a less aggressive treatment than 50.5 year old, not because of a discernible biological differences but simply because of the arbitrary cutoff of 50 years old. (Similar to the cut off of 18 years as “adulthood.”) Still, the authors admit that removing all guidelines or limits based on age is impractical and could also harm patients.
“I’ve got 3,192 notes of my quick thoughts” 🐰 I usually dismissed my Notes App “addiction” as procrastination until I read Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte. Turns out, I wasn’t wasting time, or rather I don’t have to be wasting time. Just because the writing wasn’t done at a desk or in a notebook didn’t mean it wasn’t useful. I’ve learned to be more intentional when making a note so I can more readily retrieve it.
I hope you find respite and curiosity in Easily Fascinated for 5 Minutes and, if you’ve got the time and inclination, I hope you’ll comment—one spark always spawns another fascination.