1. 120 Things To Remove From Your Life from Be More With Less.

2. Writers and the War Against Nature by Gary Snyder on Lion’s Roar. Especially this: “Wild is a valuable word. It is a term for the free and independent process of nature…The wild is self-creating, self-maintaining, self-propagating, self-reliant, and self-actualizing, and it has no ‘self.’ It is perhaps the same as what East Asian philosophers call the Dao. The human mind, imagination, and even natural human language can also thus be called wild. The human body itself, with its circulation, respiration, and digestion, is wild. In these senses, ‘wild’ is a word for the intrinsic, non-theistic, forever-changing natural order.”

3. Good stuff from Austin Kleon: Clichés, puns, and hooks, and Absence of certainty, awareness of ignorance, and Rob Walker on curiosity. In related news, Sharing is Caring, a podcast interview with Austin Kleon.

4. 40+ Larger Fat Instagram Accounts You Should Be Following.

5. Grief Belongs in Social Movements. Can We Embrace It? “A Black activist reflects on intergenerational trauma, community, and coming to terms with death in movement building.”

6. With Capitol Sit-In, Cori Bush Galvanized a Progressive Revolt Over Evictions on The New York Times. “Refusing to move from the Capitol steps, the first-term congresswoman from St. Louis intensified pressure on the Biden administration and showed her tactics could yield results.”

7. Spiritual Bypassing In an Age of Climate Change and Vaccine Disinformation. “Action follows philosophy; philosophy follows attention. Right now, a growing number of people are paying attention to unimportant or irrelevant social trends, fueled and funded by a small cohort of wellness influencers spreading the gospel of disinformation. How long the illusion will hold is a question we’ll continue to face until it’s too close to our faces to ignore.”

8. You’re Still Exhausted. “I think the real problem is that life is still exhausting because the pandemic was and remains exhausting in so many invisible ways — and we still haven’t given ourselves space to even begin to recover. Instead, we’re just softly boiling over, emptying and evaporating whatever stores of energy and patience and grace remain.”

9. “The antidote is always turning deeper towards each other.” “Garrett Bucks on community building and white grievance snake oil salesmen.”

10. Some Of Our Favorite Olympic Photos, So Far. In related news, More Of Our Favorite Olympic Photos, and The Biggest Highlights From the Oddest Olympics on The New York Times.

11. Shoe Obsession for the Ages: Prince’s Killer Collection of Custom Heels, Now on View on The New York Times.

12. Republicans treated Covid like a bioweapon. Then it turned against them. “Trump’s team reportedly believed that coronavirus would hurt Democratic states – and Democratic governors – worse. But the virus does not discriminate.”

13. COVID news: Breakthrough cases aren’t the cause of the US Covid-19 surge, and Delta Is Surging. Here’s What You Need To Know To Stay Safe, and Former vaccine skeptics reveal what convinced them to get the Coronavirus vaccine, and An ICU Nurse Made An Emotional Appeal For People In Louisiana To Get Vaccinated.

14. “Delta” a poem by Rachel Mallalieu. “I am an emergency physician who’s been on the front lines of the Covid battle for 18 months. I also developed an autoimmune illness this year, which makes every Covid encounter feel even more dangerous. As spring gave way to summer, it felt like we had turned a corner. I went weeks without seeing cases in my ER. My teen children were vaccinated, and my younger kids went to camp. Suddenly, my ER has multiple Covid patients every shift again. They’re younger, sicker, and some are dying. It is exhausting to be in this battle; we finally have the weapon with which to fight, and some refuse that weapon. These days, I just try to do right by my patients and take care of myself and my family when I’m off.”

15. Japan Created a Kimono for Every Nation at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

16. #PBSForTheArts Artist Spotlight: Brian Jordan Alvarez.

17. For Your Summer Road Trip from This American Life. “Hitting the road this last month of summer? These stories will make the miles fly by.”

18. How I Made It: Ada Limón, a podcast interview with one of my favorite poets.

19. Pray Away Lays Bare Conversion Therapy’s Cruel History. “The new Netflix documentary dives deep into the notorious ‘ex-gay’ organization Exodus International.” In related news, ‘It doesn’t leave you’: the toxic toll of LGBTQ+ conversion therapy.

20. Taking Self-Care Beyond its Commercialized Version. “Self-care that fails to address the full dimension of individual healing simply isn’t enough.”

21. Trauma and the Nervous System: A Polyvagal Perspective, (video). “This video was developed to give a basic introduction and overview of how trauma and chronic stress affects our nervous system and how those effects impact our health and well-being.”

22. Hiking as Medicine. “In this new life, I’ve come to understand that while my diagnosis limits the intensity of my outdoor activity, it doesn’t prevent me from engaging in it.”

23. Key takeaways from the new IPCC report. Not gonna lie, this read is depressing AF. “A hellish northern summer laced with deadly heat waves, perilous floods, and massive wildfires may be just a preview of coming attractions, according to a blockbuster new assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The assessment lays out how the planet’s air, oceans, and ice are pushing relentlessly into new territory.” In related news, Landmark IPCC Report: Climate Catastrophe Ahead If Humans Don’t Act Quickly and A Major Report Warns Climate Change Is Accelerating And Humans Must Cut Emissions Now.

24. “Dumpster Diving”: 124 Of The Best Things Some People Threw Away That Others Gladly Took Home.

25. 50 Pics Of Dorky Dogs. In related news, 50 Photos Of Animals Just Living Their Best Life.