Sunday Supplement #44 (March 13th, 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:
“It’s not how we make mistakes, but how we correct them that defines us.”
– Rachel Wolchin
Book of the Week:
A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin was an American novelist whose career spanned from the late 1950s until her death, aged 88 in 2018.
Le Guin was the first woman to win both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel for her work The Left Hand of Darkness.
A Wizard of Earthsea is the first novel in her classic Earthsea Cycle series. It tells the story of Ged, the greatest wizard in the archipelago of Earthsea, when he was a reckless youth known as Sparrowhawk.
In his quest for knowledge and power, the young Ged meddles with dangerous dark secrets and releases a wicked shadow upon the land.
The novel then follows Sparrowhawk as he journeys forward to master the words of power and eventually face the shadow he loosed upon Earthsea.
There are other novels in the series worth reading, but the first one can be read as a standalone and is worth checking out.
Movie of the Week:
Ridley Scott came out with two films in 2021. While House of Gucci received more attention at the box office, The Last Duel came and went without much notice or praise.
The movie tells the story of Sir Jean de Carrouges’s duel to the death with his squire Jacques Le Gris after Carrouges accuses Le Gris of raping his wife, Marguerite.
The Last Duel gets broken up into three chapters. The first tells Carrouges’s version of events, the second tells Le Gris’s, and the third tells Marguerite’s.
Oscar-nominated writer Nicole Holofcener and Oscar-winning writers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon penned the script for this medieval tale.
Adam Driver, Matt Damon, and Ben Affleck all put in brilliant performances, and Jodie Comer stole the show in the final chapter as Marguerite.
While this film didn’t make much of an impression upon its release, it was one of the best films of the year, in my opinion. It told a simple story in a clever way.
If you’re interested in a lengthy period piece, put the film on your to-watch list.
Brainfood of the Week:
This is How to Overcome Your Fear of Failure | The Art of Improvement
The Art of Improvement is a YouTube channel that makes videos on self-care and self-improvement techniques. I’ve previously featured the channel’s videos in Sunday Supplement #30 and #34.
In this video, the topic is how to overcome failure. The video starts with a story about Picasso sketching on a napkin. A woman sees him about to throw it away and says she’ll pay for it.
When Picasso says the napkin will cost her $20,000, the woman protests how can he charge that much for something that took him two minutes to draw. Picasso responded that it took him 60 years to make.
The lesson of the story is that mastery takes time. The video then explains how we need to be able to make mistakes without giving up to move forward with a practice.
Failure ultimately becomes something people can fear. The comfort of the known becomes a safety net that we adapt to avoid trying new things that could prompt failure.
The video later explains the Stoic philosophy around the sphere of choice. Broken down, it falls into the categories of things we can control (internal) and things we can’t control (external).
We must learn to focus exclusively on the internals and let go of all things we cannot control.
There are more tidbits in the video that I do not cover here. It’s only seven minutes and worth the watch to pick them up.
Closing Spiritual Passage:
“For the righteous fall seven times and rise again.”
– Proverbs 24:16
This bible passage makes me think about how we respond to our mistakes. I think it’s easy to view the quote as a simple reminder never to give up, but it can say much more.
I’m drawn to the word rise when I read this verse. When I searched the meaning of the word rise, I found the definition of moving from a lower position to a higher one.
For me, I think that means more than getting up when you fall. It means to rise above where you were before you fell.
I think that we can learn much from our mistakes. Even if all we can do is move on, not worry about the past, and look to the road ahead, we have made progress and have risen.
How we handle our falls shapes our perception of our lives. I’m working on seeing the opportunities to rise when I encounter my trip-ups.
Find the opportunity to rise from a perceived fall, and have a blessed week ahead!
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