On Conversations and Traits
Ninety-six Days Since Stopping Work, Observing Different Vibes
Hey guys,
Well, ninety-six days since stopping work :)
So, Project Blank Canvas is officially “Behind schedule” :) And, I’m enjoying the other voice in my head softly muttering back “oh well…”
As day 100 nears, there is some feeling of coming into a gritty new phase, in sync with the rhythm of the San Francisco streets picking up with the ‘back to school’ vibe that September brings, as sure as the tinge of cooler morning air. (Words that reminded me of one pandemicky day in 2021 writing Understand Nature, Daily).
A steady flow of summer visitors continues with Pete this coming weekend :). It’s simply wonderful to not be squeezing life-life in around work-life. And I continue to slow move through spring-cleaning a million things in digital and real life.
I write “gritty new phase” thinking to the feelings that will shift coming out of different conversations with different types of friends, in terms of perspective on the future.
I noticed the drain and exhaustion I felt coming off some calls, in which that person’s life-fears and other issues pour themselves a little onto your own. And the inspiration, or revelation of an idea, or a new thread of belief and a new directions in inspiration, in coming off others.
A comment I heard about the two most important traits in people who thrive in lives not mostly defined around a 9-5 employment structure…(I thought to avoid the zeitgesit words entrepreneur, Founder, self-employed etc. that all come laden with different identity pictures).
The two traits were (1) positivity and (2) willingness to withstand some discomfort. (I liked how these are more nuanced than the typical vague and debatable ‘risk-taker’ moniker (which is wrong too, when you get into a conversation with many entrepreneurs about this)).
‘Entrepreneur’, ‘Founder’ or not, I’ve noticed that I can predict how a phone call or conversation is going to feel when you think about a person’s pronation to these two traits. I know, we all have our bad days, but there’s a trend line in people.
And, while feeling a little ‘harsh’ in writing this, I suspect the dial of these traits in us marks a line in the sand in the spirit and spine of how we show up for others. Positivity can truly blow in the winds of different days, and different characters, but we have to proactively keep a close eye on trait two: willingness to withstand some discomfort.
So it was fun to stumble on the chirpings of statesman-philosopher Seneca the Younger, around AD 40, with his occasional stoic ritual…
"Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: "Is this the condition that I feared?" It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence. In days of peace the soldier performs maneuvers, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and wearies himself by gratuitous toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil. If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes."
Over the years, I’ve noticed how friendships will tend to be either ‘soul mates’ or ‘friends of distance run’. Both have their place, in totally different ways, but while you can’t get enough of time with soul mates, we need to put a lid on how much time we give to the other. With the cynicism of the years, I’ll mostly now think of this time as more in the camp of ‘charity’, knowing that it might make you shrink before you arrive.
On a related note, I enjoyed the riddle of thoughts stimulated by stumbling on You Might Disappoint People (And That’s OK), a very comprehensive essay on ‘people-pleasing’ from Isabel Hazan. (Isabel is a woman whose writing I first found across a few months ago through the tribe of writers emerging from the writing course I did during my sabbatical in 2021 - with a followership that’s exploding). It’s a long Saturday-morning-read, but worth it, from the first line:
“I’m pretty sure my life began when I became willing to disappoint people.”
Maybe we don’t close friendships down, but we do dial some back where they’re more often than not burgling your energy and spirit.
Life is, as they always say, too short…
P.S. Oh dear, I’d promised myself this newsletter, in its training wheels with you five subscribers, would not be adding to the internet’s self-helpery and wisdom writing (obviousness, I’ll label much of it…!). Answers on a postcard welcome. Or, perhaps in a lovely soulmate conversation…Do have a quick skim of my conversation with ChatGPT on this topic, below.
P.P.S. No matter how unremarkable I regard Life Notes to be, I’m clinging onto the habit to allow this to soon drive a professional evolution (again, this one started off as about four different drafts and topics, taking wayyy more time than I’d like and ending up in more messy stream of consciousness writing that I’m desperate to leave behind). So, thank you, mes amis, for different chirps back last week. They simply added to the instinct to ‘keep on’.
Had to share…
How Korean Culture Went Global People will often think that pop culture just emerges on its own, organically. This fascinating one-hour podcast reaches decades back, to the Korean war, to explore the arc of Korean street and pop culture climbing onto the global pop culture stage - from Hollywood across music into fashion and beauty, and plastic surgery.
I got chatting with ChatGPT about the explosion of self-helpery on the internet in the last ten years, and ended up in a conversation about Jesus.
A Wharton Research paper finds that “ChatGPT-4 can generate ideas much faster
and cheaper than students, and the ideas are on average of higher quality”. So, yes, it’s definitely time to start spending time on this during Rumschpringe. I suspect that AI will be too professional writing what the spreadsheet was to financial analysts (it created more financial analysts, contrary to what you might think).
Questioning…
The meat and potatoes of life really comes down to the questions we ask, and thinking about ‘why’ to the answers.
I gather questions when I see them, tagging a note in Evernote.
And so let’s start to wheel some of these out…
Who do you envy?
Bonus material: …and why? and what does that mean for who we are?