Nearly a Year of Life Notes...
Laconic, Sonder and Kelly Slater On Feeling Life.
Hey guys,
June!
And so nearly a year since a mellow reflective ‘slow espresso’ morning, during those winding-down weeks after quitting work in June 2023…when I still remember waking with a smile on my face as the early summer morning light pulled into my light blue-grey bedroom down on Webster Street, and the 5.30am bird chirps would not mean tearing into a rush and a race against the clock for a work day, and a pile of Zoom calls or getting to SFO for another trip…
…and in which I decided I had to return to writing and ‘write my way into what next’.
Hearty thanks to even the smallest of encouraging comments this last year.
The writing has often felt ugly behind the scenes along the way, too long and under-edited, and more travelogue than anything else. Yet the quiet personal victory is that one year on Life Notes is finally feeling like ‘just part of the week’, rather than an unsettled self-appointed challenge or chore…
Settling into a gentle canter now, publishing weekly on a Saturday, the point remains the same: writing my way into what next, and being some kind of 'beacon of interestingness' for friends and interesting folks along the way.
I’m just scratching the surface with the first, and can’t get enough of the second. And, I promise continuing to work on being briefer (for you and me both!).
Living is a kaleidoscope of things for us to be curious about, of facts and stories and things said better than we might say ourselves.
And the world is just too fascinating and rich and interesting to not have the smallest project of taking a little time to stop and write about it, and to share it…
Where were we?
This week, a ‘words’ episode: on the origins of the words Laconic and Sonder…and with the recent professional retirement of surfing’s Greatest of All Time (by far) Kelly Slater, I just had to share hero Kelly commenting on the central importance of feeling our way in life, in and out of the water…
Laconic
Do you ever use a word, and then just as it was strolling out of your mouth, you had this thought that you couldn’t quite define it, if asked?
Walking down the dirt track road last week to the ocean in Costa Rica, my friend Ed noticed my mention of someone’s speaking style as laconic.
“That’s such an interesting word”, he said, “Yeah, love that word”, I said, while knowing too where this conversation was headed, because I could not precisely define its meaning.
I’ll mostly use it to refer to a dry style of wit. You know, that Winston Churchill style of humour…?
So I had to look it up for us, and the origins of laconic, as we walked. It is indeed a beautiful word and I enjoyed a quick over-and-back with ChatGPT (love how you can get in a curious conversation with this technology, “tell me about…” and “tell me more about…”).
And it was fascinating to read that Laconic has its origins in the parsimonious people of Laconia in Ancient Greece.
The capital of Laconia was Sparta, well known for the rugged military culture of the Spartans. In such a culture, and with the high stakes of endless training and battle, the Spartans had a terse, short manner of speech.
The concise style was considered a virtue, in line with the Spartans disciplined and austere way of life.
Generally, this style of speech lacked humour of course. But when there was some humour, from the lighter more creative Spartans, it was a terse humour.
As Wikipedia writes:
A laconic phrase may be used for efficiency (as during military training and operations), for emphasis, for philosophical reasons (especially among thinkers who believe in minimalism, such as Stoics), or to deflate a pompous speaker.
And thus Laconic, coming from the Latin word "laconicus" and the Greek word "Lakōnikos," both referring to the people of Laconia.
Read more:
Laconic phrase (Wikipedia)
Sonder
Then too, there's when you definitely don't know what a word means.
Back in the days of short trousers at school in England, and regarding words you didn’t know, I remember Mum telling me to look them up straight away. And then to try and use it three times that day. And with a hat tip to Mum, that twitch remains.
So I heard the word 'Sonder', this week…
Sonder?
Have you ever heard this word?
Well, there’s a good reason you maybe haven’t…
Looking it up, I discovered that 'sonder' is a recently invented word. And one of many words invented as a part of a decade-long project by designer and author John Koenig to create new English language words for poignant emotions.
Hanging feelings like the looming tension of a thunderstorm, or the sense that you are unique, or the feeling in a spark of eye contact.
Koenig called the project "The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows". And, Sonder is
"the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own".
Isn’t this a stunning and critical concept? To be able to step out of the endless chatter in our own minds, and look at someone else and pull ourselves into their fingers and toes and mind, and to see and hear and feel how they are experiencing the world?
Effectively, sonder is describing the feeling of a moment of realizing deep and visceral empathy. Deserves a word, non?
We're in a fascinating age of creativity, huh?
Go language evolving, and how and which words we use. Wield the power wisely…
Learn more:
Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows (YouTube)
On Feeling, In and Out of The Ocean
Kelly Slater, long regarded as the World's greatest surfer, finally called time from the World Tour AT THE AGE OF 52.
I don’t think I’ve used capitals to ‘shout’ in Life Notes before.
But this man is truly a hero to me, and to many friends in the US, and quite rightly so for how he has stayed at the highest level of performance and competition in what is effectively a gymnastic sport.
Slater should sit in the annals of the greatest athletes ever across all sports, for his longevity of athleticism: 11 world championships between 1992 (at the age of 20) and 2011 (at my home break Ocean Beach in San Francisco).
And, like Roger Federer in tennis, Kelly Slater was highly regarded among his competitors as a moral leader and ambassador for the sport. Slater too made a deliberate decision mid-career to adapt his training and competing to strive to have a long career.
The definition of an athlete is someone who can show aptitude in physical ability across different disciplines.
And not everyone knows that Kelly Slater is also a great golfer, with a low single digit handicap. So it was fun to stumble on Slater being interviewed by The Golfer's Journal.
I loved the segment on living by feel...which resonated because more than ever in life I've been thinking about the importance of living by instinct.
"Surfing has a lot of feel, and you just have to trust that sometimes against your better instincts in your mind or your better choices. Sometimes you have to just trust that feel. I'll do that a lot when I paddle for waves, I'll think does this feel like the right wave, does it feel like there's a better wave behind?...
...And if I trust that feeling I always feel like I'm happier."
The interview continues with Kelly talking about how analytical and perfectionist he is, and yet underneath it all living by feel and instinct is a guiding philosophy in and out of the water.
In all the discussions I’m having week by week on ‘what next…?’, I’m most enjoying simply feeling what I want to do, and not do. While the faculty of calculating has crept into taking some roles in the past, it feels like the last year has dissolved that trait into the past, with the new upper hand being deep instinct.
Source:
Well said…
"The point of life is to become who you are having discovered what that is"
- Pindar, Ancient Greek lyrical poet
I love being introduced to and made aware of people like Kelly. There's an energy and spirit that gets communicated just hearing about people like this. It's rare to hear someone in the business realm talk about navigating from this kind of feeling. You hear about mostly from artists and athletes, but this same orienting energy I find applies everywhere.