Keep asking yourself: What sort of person do I want to be? You may fail to reach your goal. No one may ever notice your efforts. What you must not do, however, is allow others to steer your life, thoughts, decisions in directions that are in their—not your—interests.

Ted Gioia’s eight techniques for evaluating someone’s character. A solid list. Perhaps the most interesting to me is his first: “Forget what they say—instead look at who they marry.” Also, his second and fifth are common enough ideas but I believe that’s because they are indeed revealing.

Today’s solstice celebration food: Swedish meatball soup and pistachio drop cookies. Both highly recommended!

“Ten Theses on Intergenerational Stewardship” by Prince Michael zu Salm-Salm, a German aristocrat committed to long-term care of the land. I don’t hold with aristocracy but this is worth reading.

You know those paragraphs of SEO pablum on recipe sites these days? Annoying. But a garlic bread recipe flavored with leftist politics? I’ll take it.

“Don’t obsess over politics”—click through to read a good quote posted by Patrick Rhone. It’s not healthy for people to think about politics as much as they do. And I understand why: too much is at stake. That’s the problem. Too few people hold too much power. Literally world-changing power. That is the province of the gods, not humans. Our governments and corporations have long since abandoned human scale, and our anxieties have increased accordingly.

Walking through my neighborhood, seeing so many people living on small city lots using leaf blowers powered by electricity or gas. Our wiser descendants will reach for hand tools for tasks like this, reserving energy usage for work that is beyond human strength.

I have no idea if the internet is already over, but this is a glorious essay. Via @joshua

Regenerative agriculture (like what you see in “Biggest Little Farm”) is animism in action.

Theme music for Spooked podcast makes me happy every time.