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2017: A year in retrospect

Hello, dear reader! I’d like to warn you ahead of time, if it’s not apparent, that this is a beast of a writing. Remember how I told you I was thinking about writing again? It’s almost as if all of the ideas and writings I would’ve written amalgamated themselves into the hulking mass below. That being said, this piece feels like some of the most vulnerable and deepest truths I’ve encountered over the past year, and therefore in my life. If you decide to take the leap and read, I hope you find something meaningful in them or, at the very least, they give you pause to think. That being said, onward!

Last year was one of the more remarkable of my short time on this planet. It was a year of transition. Into adulthood. Into self. A year of shedding childlike attachments and embracing true self. Throughout the year I let go of entire systems of beliefs I had been operating on for the entirety of my life, watching mental structures collapse like skyscrapers falling from the sky.

There is little that is more painful than finding oneself living according to a set of principles one finds false. It’s a pain that resonates subconsciously at the very core of a person’s being, capable of staying hidden for years until called out into the light. Perhaps even more painful is finding that these principles conflict with an entirely different set of values inside oneself. At the core, this is indicative of a lack of knowing who or what one is at a fundamental level.

This is exactly the situation that many people on the precipice of adulthood find themselves in, operating on fully-formed belief systems and perhaps none of them constructed by themselves. These beliefs were embedded and influenced by friends, family, and cultures they grew up with and, while the individual certainly has an influence over these beliefs, rarely are they constructed by a person from the ground up.

I see many young people around me wrestling with this beast (sometimes whether or not they realize it). A lack of clear direction, driven by a lack of clarity around what they want, caused by the fact that they’d never been given the opportunity, hardly the mentorship, to go deep and determine what that thing they want actually is. The end result of this is often nihilism. When one can’t determine what they want the easy way to search is with the intellect, and logic dictates a continual zooming out until one sees that, at a universal level, none of this matters. At all. It’s quite the pit to find oneself in, and if you’ve never experienced this reality (note that I didn’t say “follow this chain of logic” but “experienced this reality”,a logical understanding of it and the experience of it are not even close to the same thing) you should be grateful.

There is one piece of hope when staring this meaninglessness in the face, and that is that we are still here. Nearly everyone I know who has encountered this truth has opted to remain and has a desire to- they find something meaningful in their own existence despite it’s cosmic insignificance. And from there, a person can build.

This deconstruction and construction is the hard work that is coming into oneself. There is no shortcut or silver bullet. It is the process of waking up day in and day out and picking up where you left off yesterday, continuing to pull on current threads while asking more questions at the end of the discoveries. While initially it feels hopeless, one eventually can find solace in their work, this is the first time in your life your are constructing something entirely real inside of yourself, a beautiful discovery of your truth.

It is from the place of this deconstruction and reconstruction that I write this. Not a completed reconstruction — I see now that the construction will be my life’s work. It’s all of our lives work, whether or not we realize it. Maria Popova once said:

“Life is the continual process of arrival into who we are.”

I can’t help but agree with her assessment.

So here I sit. What’s changed? There’s much I could write, but here is a fairly disorganized dump of those things I find to be profoundly different in myself—

I end this year with a profound respect and understanding of all that which I do not and cannot know.Having moved to New York City, I see there are a near infinite number of experiences to be had in this city alone, hardly the infinite spectrum of experiences, both internal and external, that one can have across the globe and potentially across the cosmos, soon.

This has led me to a deep hunger for new and diverse experiences and perspectives. I see so many who are lost and don’t know what they want and beat themselves up over it. What arrogance! There are billions upon billions of experiences to be had- what makes you think you ought to be so fortunate as to have discovered those experiences you would like to build a life around in the first portion of your life?! So when you feel stuck, go and expose yourself to something radically new. Pickup a book you think you’ll hate, go try something that doesn’t sound like it’s for you. I now find the regular ingestion and experience of diverse and high-quality ideas and experiences as imperative for growth and a beautiful life. There is nothing so exhilarating as encountering something entirely new that shakes up the very foundations of what you believe to be true and, if you’ve gone through the deconstruction and reconstruction previously described, your new mental structures are more than flexible enough to adapt and integrate.

I have an entirely different conception of love- not necessarily something to give or receive, but possibly something to be. Something to be cultivated and manifested at the core of ones very being. One loves by being love. Much like the white knight or archangel, one can radiate love in a blinding and joyous aura. Perhaps this is Love in actuality. I haven’t fully constructed my thoughts on this, though I do believe that striving to be Love is an effective solution to most worldly ailments. 

Though, allow for me to tread on my own toes and say that I don’t know that love as a constant is possible, or even desirable. I think more importantly than being love, one should strive to be precisely what one is. To be fluid.

Be like water. So much pain comes from our fleeing whatever we are. Our darkest truths torture us, but only because we attempt to rip them out from the core of our being instead of accepting them. This darkness, the moments we cannot manifest love, are precisely what makes love such a beautiful and joyous occasion. It makes the love itself possible. Be fluid. Be honestly you and explore that thing which you are. That doesn’t mean not to want to or go about changing what you are, but to first accept, embrace, and understand. Only then can you truly do the work of patiently and meaningfully changing yourself, just as water patiently chips away at the boulder in its way, never beating itself up for going too slow, but operating from an understanding that, over time, it will overcome.

Yet I have so much more to be working on. I want to expose myself to radically new ideas and experiences. These things are scary. I’m working to regularly expose myself to the things that I fear, opening up the doors to grander and more profound experiences.

I’m still developing an understanding of how to be fluidly you in a moment while also planning for the long-term, how to balance honesty and compassion, and how to appreciate my suffering as a source of meaning in my life.

The single beautiful thing is I’ve now done the work to understand those things which I want to cultivate and manifest as both internal and external experiences (for now, at least). These things act as a guiding light, as balances operating in my subconscious, keeping me balanced. When confronted with any decision I can ask myself — is this a new experience that will expose me to new ideas and understanding about life? Will this contribute to meaningful work or help develop a meaningful relationship? Is this play? Does this go against the internal experience I want to cultivate? One can also morph this into a more powerful question, namely: How can I make this moment one which goes deeper, which manifests the internal experience I seek to cultivate or has elements of those external experiences which I seek? Our experience of a moment is far more malleable than we know, we are capable of transforming the most dark and mundane into that which is beautiful and profound.

And from this I have found my life’s work. Despite my lack of belief in a grand “cosmic” meaning and significance to things, I find meaning in spreading beauty, light, and that which is good, and specifically starting with my most immediate impact— the here and now. To be human is suffering and it is joy, and we are all capable of being vehicles of beauty and light for one another. The world needs more people on the path, more people spreading good, more heroes. And while sometimes the hero marches into war fighting for the greater cause, often times heroism comes as simplicity. All it takes to be a hero is to be light, a lantern in the darkness, to spread warmth and understanding and to lift people up rather than putting them down. That is the most important work a person can do.

I hope that this letter has left you better off than it found you. I hope it has given you hope, made you feel, or at the very least given you something to chew on. For those of you who have felt darkness and currently carry it, I hope it has at least given you belief that there is light at the end of the tunnel. For those of you who haven’t, I hope you stay light, but remember this if the time comes when you need it.

Much love,
Justin

But do you know anything about it?

There’s a temptation in our culture to always have something to say. We feel compelled to always have an opinion, regardless of how much knowledge we actually have on the topic.

How often is it blatantly apparent when someone is trying to showcase how Smart they are and how much they Know? Does anyone gain anything in these situations? All too often it’s a mask to hide what we don’t know, and turns off the possible of learning anything at all.

Years ago, I remember watching a video of Stephen Colbert interviewing Daniel Craig. In the interview, Stephen points out that Daniel “…doesn’t like talking about things he doesn’t know anything about.”

More often than not, the smartest person in the room is the one listening, silently admitting that they don’t know, but would very much like to learn something about it.

A poetic rant to the self

Combat numbness. Choose to live. To play over sitting on the sidelines.

Stretch yourself. Force yourself to let go. Harden yourself against fortune.

Demolish your ego. Do things you never thought you would. Be unafraid to be a new person day-to-day. Escape the confines of whoyouwere and whoyoushouldbe to become whoyouare.

Mastery of self requires you to expose yourself. It requires vulnerability. It requires you to have a diversity of experiences and see who manifests as a result.

Self knowledge comes from unknowledge. From self-exploration, self-discovery, and self-creation. The lines between these are blurred. Practice being comfortable with ambiguity, being comfortable with discomfort.

Abandon ideas of who you are to learn whoyouare.

The Mythical Silver Bullet

The silver bullet. The ultimate misguided notion of living. The pinnacle of lazy-thinking.

If I just get that new job/move to the right place/read the right book/lose the weight/get into the right relationship, then things will be better.

Life never works this way. While these things help, there is no silver bullet. Life is a messy process of figuring things out. We try things, experience the results of our trying, learn from those results, and grow.

All too often the idea of the silver bullet is actually extremely detrimental. It provides the ultimate form of hope and, as a necessary result, always fails to deliver.

Seek out where you’re looking for silver bullets in your life. When you find them, figure out the work you need to do (messy, day-in and day-out work), and get after it.

Giving and Getting

Feedback loops constantly amaze me. When you go up or down, it tends to compound into a spiral, either for better or worse.

Action, purpose, and achievement force you to become more efficient and effective, creating room for more action, purpose, and achievement. Focus breeds focus. Effort breeds energy. Good habits breed better habits. Happiness breeds happiness. These all breed flow, the ultimate state of human creativity, achievement, and possibility.

This is how the Elon Musks of the world happen. Elon is the result of positive feedback loops compounded over decades. There’s no normative judgement being made there— I’m not saying he’s “better” per say, merely that what you practice often breeds more of that thing. This is why it’s so important to be aware of negativity and the bad habits that bring you down. Dedicate every ounce of energy to stamping them out. To flipping the switch.

Because while it may seem like a colossal effort to flip the switch, the energy will flow more freely from there. It takes the most energy to meet the critical mass, and it only gets easier.

It only gets easier.

You get what you give.

Playing the game

I’ve been conceptualizing life as a game lately, more so than ever before.

In games there are rules, some of them absolute, others arbitrary and made up. There are relationships, both to the environment of the game and the other players. Perhaps most importantly, the most rewarding part of the game is not the end, but in the playing.

The end signifies the game being over, a moving on with uncertainty afterwards. To focus on the end or a specific benchmark in totality would be foolish. The important part is what’s happening right now.

In life, it’s easy to be too idealistic about the game & board you’re playing on. If circumstances don’t line up with you ideal conception of reality you can opt-out. Refuse to play. Sit on the sidelines with the hope that the “right” game will come around.

The fact is, there is no perfect game, and it’s foolish to look for it. The thrill of the game is learning the rules & constraints, getting to know the players you’re playing with, and finding out how to unlock the fun within.

This metaphor is meandering, but the point to be made (mostly to myself) is this: be wary of being overly idealistic of the circumstances you’re in. Life is a game best played with zeal. There’s little to be gained from sitting on the sidelines.

With love,
Justin

Forcing Functions

Forcing Function (n): any task, activity, or event that forces you to take action and produce a result.

I recently moved to New York City, gaining access to the infinite options the city provides. You can do everything in New York, but it comes with a price: it takes more time, money, and energy to do anything.

Why would anyone opt into a situation where doing anything is more difficult?

Because it forces you to figure yourself out.

While time, money, and energy are normal constraints, walls that you have to be wary not to bump into, in New York City they compound, becoming a room where the walls are closing in on you. You have no choice but to figure out how you want to use those extremely limited resources, and soon. It moves you from “like” to “love”, and demands you trim the fat of what you don’t want in your life, even if minor.

While we can hate forcing function for rushing us, pushing us too hard, and forcing us to decide, we can also love them for presenting us with the opportunity to learn more about ourselves and focusing us in on what is essential.

Silence

I once had a friend give a talk on silence where he said nothing for the first 4 minutes and 33 seconds (an allusion to the famous John Cage piece).

The audience’s reaction, as he tells it, was priceless. Initially, confusion- everyone assumed something was wrong, despite the presenter saying nothing and seeming very content with the current state of affairs. Over time this evolved into murmurs of confusion and nervous laughter.

This is obviously an extreme case, but we’re fundamentally bad at silence.  Silence with others. Silence with ourselves. When was the last time you took 10 minutes to be silent in both action and thought?

A synonymous question- when was the last time you took 10 minutes to indulge yourself in purposelessness? You might be thinking “Sounds boring”, to which I have 2 rebuttals:

  1. If you’re as busy as you think you are, when was the last time you let yourself be bored? Sounds like a nice reprieve.
  2. Don’t mistake “tranquil”, “pensive”, or “calm” with “bored”.

Take 10 minutes. Put the phone, tablet, and computer away and embrace silence.

But what’s driving the stress?

I journaled this to myself last week and felt it would be a valuable share. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve written.

Amazing what you stand to learn about yourself when you replace the word “stress” with “fear”. It’s the result of a simple root cause analysis— what’s driving your stress?

It’s always fear.

Fear of running out of money and being left on the curb, fear of being alone forever, fear of being unhappy forever, fear of being uncomfortable forever.

Fear is engrained into us. You’ll be hard pressed to remove fear entirely, but we can control our reaction to fear (stress). Make peace with the fear. See it. Use it to heighten your senses and mental capabilities. But don’t destroy yourself by activating stress, worry, and anxiety. React with a cool calm collection. See the fear, shake its hand, welcome it as your comrade in arms.

Intentions vs Rules

How often do we set out with the intention to change something in our lives and fail miserably?

We set an intention to clean up our eating, drink less, face our fears, be more productive, and then, in the face of temptation, fall back into our old ways. One way to model intention is viewing it as a means to change while being compassionate with ourselves. We intend to change, but it’s okay if we fail.

The problem with that model? It makes change a a function of willpower. We’ve left ourselves an out. We’ve begun by telling ourselves that it’s okay if we slip.

What if we moved from willpower to discipline? From intention to rules? Think about it this- for all of you non-smokers out there, how often do you find yourself smoking after a long day? How often do you find yourself drinking and driving? If you’ve ever quit any unhealthy food (say soda), how often do you find yourself drinking soda?

The answer (if it’s a rule): You don’t. You don’tallow it.

It’s a line you don’t cross. You don’t even allow for the option.

This is not some grand life hack- it’s a simple decision about mindset. When you want to change, do you set out with intention, or with decision and discipline? When you decide to commit to rules, there’s no need to worry about compassion for yourself. You won’t let yourself slip, and that is the ultimate gift you can give.