Paying Attention to Life's Notice Board

Reading a book of prose written by someone who normally writes poetry is a dangerous thing. Such a book should come with a warning label: WARNING: This Book Will Be Unlike Most Other Books You Have Read.

When I started reading Bono’s autobiography, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, I found myself at the base of such a mountain. The first few pages were so rich with metaphor, read so slowly, that I turned to the back of the book just to see exactly how many pages I was committing myself to.

557 pages. With an appendix. Could I read an entire (long) book at this pace? Could my mind settle into the pace of Bono’s creativity?

Then I thought, this is the problem with social media and today’s reader (me): we’ve been conditioned for snapshots, for quick reads, for sound bites. We have no tolerance for something that requires more of our brain.

So I kept going. By page five or six, I was hooked.

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“Drummer seeks musicians to form band.”

One of my favorite stories in the book comes early on, when Bono sees the above scrawled on their school’s notice board, posted by Larry Mullen. Bono shows up with a gaggle of other guys trying out for this band. Eventually, Larry, Adam Clayton, David Evans (the Edge), and Bono remain.

“Drummer seeks musicians to form band.”

I think I love that story so much because they had no idea that they’d play together for the next four decades, sell 170 million records, win 22 Grammy Awards. How could they have known?

What I love about it is the power of saying yes. Not that everything we do gives such stunning, tangible results. But this story makes me think about my own life, the notices that pop up from time to time, and my willingness (or not) to say yes, to try something new, to show up in an unfamiliar space.

“Drummer seeks musicians to form band.”

What notices have popped up in your life recently that you know you should say yes to?

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Something that’s been on my Life Notice Board for a long time now is not an opportunity to say yes to something but an invitation to walk away. From social media. For years now, I’ve weighed the pros and cons, I’ve watched with interest as my friend Tsh left Instagram and my friend Seth took an extended break. Recently I read a post by Nish Weiseth about the topic—she’s leaving it all behind for at least a year.

I feel like now might be a good time to take a nice, long, extended break. For how long? I’m not sure. Six months. A year. Forever? Probably not, but who knows. As of tomorrow, Thursday the 18th, I’ll be deactivating my Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts (keeping LinkedIn for now because it’s a good generator of work for me and it’s mostly boring as heck so there’s no addictive pull anyway).

You can still find me writing here on Substack on a weekly-ish basis (be sure to subscribe, free or paid, below) or over at our podcast, The Stories Between Us.

Also, I share a lot of my daughter’s artwork on my Instagram account, so if you’d still like to see what she’s working on, you can follow her at lucy.leigh.art. I’m sure she’d love your support.

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Finally, I need your help! I’ve got a credit in Audible right now and need some recommendations. What’s the best audio book you’ve listened to recently?