I was prompted to think about Cocomelon by a recent interview on the Ezra Klein show with the writer Jia Tolentino. It's a fascinating topic. It's very common these days to see toddlers with their screens glued to an iPad. Having met some of these toddlers myself, I think there's a good chance they're watching Cocomelon. Cocomelon, and shows like it, are part of a new wave of media that specifically targets toddlers. It's ridiculously popular -- increasingly so. But what should we make of its popularity?

On one level, Cocomelon is like any other new product, meeting a consumer need. Parents want to keep their children's attention occupied, and the Cocomelon + iPad combo achieves this nicely. On the other hand, it speaks volumes to the way screen time and attentional capture have affected our lives. What happens when an entire generation devotes its formative years to the toddler equivalent of TikTok? Are we destined to entrench ourselves further? Or is this yet another change we will learn to adapt to? It's likely that the current version of Cocomelon is but a stepping stone on our journey towards the future of children's media. But only by understanding what we have currently can we figure out where to go next.

This morning, I started and finished the memoir A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story by Donald Miller.

Growing up, we often hear the advice to "live a story worth telling." Miller decides to take this advice literally. His pursuit of a better story pulls him into an extreme hike, a cross-country bike ride, and a search for his long-lost father.

Miller is good at making ordinary moments feel profound. One doesn't have to kill the Dark Lord or gather all the infinity stones to live a story worth telling.

The idea of living a story worth telling is also one of the 27 ways to live outlined in Derek Sivers's book How to Live (he calls it "making memories"). It's cool to see these viewpoints fully articulated.

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