Sunday Supplement #58 (June 19th, 2022)
Below is another Sunday Supplement with a quote worth sharing, a book worth reading, a movie worth watching, brainfood worth consuming, and a spiritual passage worth pondering.
I hope you take something away from these recommendations that enriches your week ahead!
Quote of the Week:
“Empathy begins with understanding life from another person’s perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It’s all through our own individual prisms.”
– Sterling K. Brown
Book of the Week:
Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
Octavia E. Butler was a bestselling author with multiple Hugo and Nebula awards. She became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship in 1995.
Kindred is a standalone novel telling the story of a young African-American woman, Dana, as she inexplicably finds herself forced back and forth through time from present-day 1976 California to antebellum Maryland.
Dana’s first trip back in time puts her in the situation where she decides to save a drowning white boy from drowning.
Dana’s subsequent trips back have her encountering the same young man. Her trips to the past become longer, and she must face difficult choices to ensure survival and return to her own time.
Butler’s Kindred brilliantly traverses race and gender issues, the history of slavery, and prospects of future egalitarianism.
Kindred is one of Butler’s most famous books and well worth checking out.
Movie of the Week:
Spike Lee is a legendary director and writer. His output as a filmmaker is phenomenal, and his Spike Lee “Joints” catalog contains many brilliant films and powerful stories.
Lee’s love of basketball is prolific, from the sidelines of New York Knicks games to commercials with Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant’s documentary Kobe Doin’ Work.
However, one of Lee’s most prolific contributions to basketball might be his film He Got Game.
He Got Game tells the story of Jesus Shuttlesworth, the number one high school prospect in America, as he contemplates what college to ply his trade.
Jesus’s decision is preyed on by almost everyone who knows him. An unexpected influence comes from his absent father, Jake.
Jake Shuttlesworth is serving a long-term sentence for the death of his wife. He gets released on parole for a week to try and persuade his son to play for the governor’s alma mater in exchange for a reduced prison sentence.
The story is beautifully told with standout performances from Denzel Washington as Jake and the young Ray Allen as Jesus.
Lee’s themes of acceptance, family strife, and the struggles of Black families living in the projects shine throughout.
There is much to appreciate in Spike Lee’s He Got Game, and it should be on any film lover’s or basketball fan’s watch list.
Brainfood of the Week:
Oprah Winfrey: The Secret of My Success
Oprah Winfrey spoke at Stanford Graduate School of Business’s View From The Top speaker series in 2014. This is a clip of Oprah answering a question about the secret of her success.
Oprah begins by explaining that her doing comes from her being. Compassion, willingness to understand and be understood, and wanting to connect make up her being.
Later, Oprah talks about the importance of her work on consciousness.
The video finishes with Oprah explaining that the core of her success was in the connection and understanding of her audience.
These are brief highlights of the video. The clip is five minutes, but the full video is worth checking out as well.
I’ve featured Oprah Winfrey in a few other Sunday Supplements. Her SuperSoul Sunday program is an excellent source of information on self-care and self-improvement.
Closing Spiritual Passage:
“Watchfulness is the path of immortality. Unwatchfulness is the path of death. Those who are watchful never die. Those who do not watch are already as dead.”
– Dhammapada 21
This verse from the Dhammapada reminds me of the importance of being open to view outside your own narrative.
Often we find ourselves filtering all our experiences through our own perspectives and passing judgments based on our viewpoint.
Keeping an open eye and observing without judgment is the key to welcoming a fresh perspective and leaving room for growth.
Our judgments and perspectives are often used to protect ourselves from foreign experiences and can be dangerous.
However, we are limited to our surroundings when we stay in our shells. We don’t let in any new sights and lose opportunities to grow.
The Dhammapada verse depicts how watchfulness allows us to love, experience new things, and continue growing—closing ourselves off does the opposite.
Observe without judgment, be open to new experiences, and have a blessed week ahead!