Posts by Bruce Grierson
Be Someone Else
image: Jaroslav Devia for Unsplash * Oliver Burkeman, the former Guardian columnist, once devoted an entire day to mimicking the rituals of famous artists and scientists. He got up at 5:30, a la Hemingway; sat around naked in the morning, a la Ben Franklin; downed a cocktail at noon, a la V.S. Pritchett; gulped strong…
Read MoreSloth Christmas
michael jerrard photo / unsplash LA FORTUNA, Alajuela Province, Costa Rica A Sloth State of Mind Costa Rica has a motto: Pura Vida. Literally: “pure life.” It’s an invitation to stop worrying and just gear down and chill. Don’t stress over what you can’t control. Dispacito, as the animal-crossing signs dotted beside the country’s highways…
Read MoreSteal This Idea
photo: Ameen Fahmy for Unsplash * People sometimes tell me, Hey, I’m digging the whole One Big Day thing. Been thinking of giving it a go. Trouble is, I don’t know what to do. Here’s one option: Choose a theme for your Big Day according to the month you want to try it. The schedule…
Read MoreThe Walden Pond Chicken Project
The other day I stumbled upon an early pitch for this project. My agent, Sam, was going to try to sell OBD as a book. I’d forgotten that it had a different title then. I wasn’t calling it One Big Day. It was The Walden Pond Chicken Project. That title came from Henry David Thoreau’s…
Read MoreHow to measure out your life
brooke campbell / unsplash I’m often asked: Why Big Days and not, you know … something else. Big Hours. Or Big Months. Why this particular unit of time? Is there something especially significant, something magical, about the period of 24 hours? Are we Homo Diem creatures at our core? I have a few answers to…
Read MoreBig Democracy Day
Working the BC Election, en famille October 19, 2024, 5 am The eggs crack before dawn does. Omelettes all around. Because protein. Protein is the foundation of democracy. It’s election day in British Columbia. Every election – local, provincial or national – requires citizen participation, and lots of it. There’s a variety of jobs to…
Read MoreComox Valley Turf ‘n Surf
We were trudging up toward the summit of Mt. Becher, sweating like mules on the Erie Canal, the whole lush Comox Valley and the islands of the Salish Sea spread below us, when we ran into another hiker. She meant business: had the poles, had the layers of fancy apparel and the hey-Martha boots. We…
Read MoreThe King of the Fells
New York Times photo. In early July, hundreds of “fell runners” attended the funeral of Joss Naylor, running eight miles up the valley from his home in Cumbria, England in his honour. Naylor, their quiet king, had died at age 88. Fells are what the Britons call hills and small mountains. Hoofing up and down…
Read MoreLast Night in the diner at the end of the world
This week the NPR show This American Life rebroadcast a classic episode called “24 hours at the Golden Apple.” It’s set in a greasy spoon in Chicago, one of those always-open joints that becomes a neighbourhood’s centre of gravity. Working in shifts, the show’s producers and reporters went full-court press on the place, from 5am…
Read MoreWhat does a good day look like?
Atul Gawande has changed the way he thinks about his job, and that has made all the difference to his impact on the world. He has helped change the way we think about health care at the end of life. The physician and author used to believe that a doctor’s obligation was to fight like…
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