15 things I'm thinking about
15 things I'm thinking about
lightly thinking, lightly living
July always feels full. July always feels like a longest, slowest month. But slowing down can be a gift. You donβt always have to be careening into novel, shiny things and experiences. Constant exhilaration is unsustainable. Sometimes you need to ground yourself in things familiar, go back to routines, seek stability. A return to quietness.
Here are some things Iβm thinking about this week. Some are old ideas, some are ruminations, some are unfinished thoughts. No real longform from me because Iβve been moving and traveling, among other things. Let me know if you love or hate this type of newsletter β more unstructured and stream of consciousness. Would love to know!
1. Love is an act of maintenance. It's easy to fall in love with things, people, places in the beginning when experiences are novel. But to maintain that love is a choice. This gorgeous line by Merwin: "Would I love it this way if it could last?"
2. Soul debt: you can sacrifice a lot of your life putting yourself in negative soul-balance to try to achieve other things (money, status, likeability), but it ends up really costing you genuine joy and alignment. Donβt sacrifice too much of your soul and intrinsic joy, for extrinsic validation.
I really liked this post by Val:
There is a bank account for my soul. My balance gets lowered by working long hours, feeling overly cynical, or not giving myself the space to dream and sit and think. I feel poor when I donβt replenish my account, and when my balance is negative for too long, I no longer feel aliveβ¦.Iβd let myself be a billionaire in soul debt if I could be a billionaire in real life. My soul always comes back to remind me that isnβt possible, because the only way I can feel happy and healthy and alive is to nourish my soul.
3. Discovering the unseen: being able to dream of a reality that doesnβt yet exist is a learned, practiced, honed skill. Being brave enough to enact your dream on the world makes it real.
Shared via @startuployalist
Michelangelo: Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
4. The Mind as a Ski Slope: just because a previous way of thinking was successful does not mean it will continue to help you be successful. Sometimes you need to start anew β with the open mindedness and flexibility and dreamlike state of a child.
From Michael Pollan quoting a dutch scientist:
Think of your mind as a hill covered in snow. And your thoughts are sleds going down that hill. After a while, after having many thoughts over the years, there will be these grooves carved into the snow. And they get deeper and deeper over time. And after a while, you can't make it down the hill without slipping into one of those grooves. Psychedelics flatten the snow and add lots of fresh powder. And then, you can take the sled anywhere you want to go.
I think we can take this metaphor outside of the realm of psychedelics β how can we create new pathways of thought when we are entrenched in old ways of thinking?
5. Donβt surround yourself with people βsmarterβ than you. Surround yourself with people who are free in ways you are not (Ribbonfarm via Patricia Mou) - your freedoms can expand over time if you see it modeled for you.
6. Pivoting is not wrong: Sometimes your solution doesn't belong to anyone's problem. Know when to anchor and dive deep, but also know when to let go.
7. Likeability is not the antidote to loneliness:
I have contorted myself to appease many people, and despite winning their affections I felt drained and lonelier than ever. Attaching my self worth to being liked made me feel lost when someone disliked me. I had to urgently ask myself: who am I when I am disliked? Who am I when I am not bending over backwards to fit the molds of peopleβs idealizations? Who am I when I stop fragmenting versions of myself for others? β Mimi Zhu
8. Everyone has a balance of pragmatism and romanticism. It is only our awareness and conscious editing of the amount we display that makes us who we are. My actions are practical, my thoughts aren't, but isn't that the fun of it?
9. Things can break your heart, but clear your vision (@thirdeyekingdom)
10. The Paradox of Specificity: narrowing your scope necessarily limits your options, but those options will be more compelling and fruitful. E.g., making the quirks of your personality very clear on a dating app will narrow your options, but your options will be higher quality
11. Dunbar's Number: we can really only have 150 relationships β of, on average, 5 intimate friends, 15 good friends, 50 friends, and 150 acquaintances (all-encompassing). From a convo with A this week: you only have so much water to give, and too many cups of water to fill. How do you decide which cups get how much/how many total cups can you fit into your life?
Reminds me of that quote Iβm paraphrasing: If Iβm holding onto too much I can neither give nor receive.
12. Being ready is a myth: it is the perception of self-readiness and acceptance that allows things to emerge in your life
13. Some connected ideas on simplicity/complexity
The central task of a natural science is to make the wonderful commonplace: to show that complexity, correctly viewed, is only a mask for simplicity; to find pattern hidden in apparent chaos. β Herbert A. Simon
14. If you want to write about passion, you have to risk sounding insane: anything really good is unmoored from expectation or moderation or standardization β thatβs what makes it exquisite. Via Ask Molly
15. I am writing a new piece and it is just lying in my drafts!!
What are you thinking about this week?
-N.
Quotes of the Week
Thatβs the ruling story of this planet, we live suspended between love and ego
β Richard Powers
What Iβm Reading
Finished Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (a short story collection about a Japanese cafe that allows you to go back in time), A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers (a literal maneater) this week β I really want to read Sedating Elaine by Dawn Winter and Ghost Lover by Lisa Taddeo (per Avaβs recs) next.
French song of the Week
Photo of the Week
