carry yourself lightly

on course correction

Alphonse Osbert - Antique Evening, 1908 Oil on canvas

An informal, unedited piece. What are some things you’re thinking about? Let me know in the comments below :)

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A few things have been slotting into place.

I made two big decisions on Tuesday within the span of an hour which will materially change the way my life looks next year. When things change they often change abruptly. Sometimes life feels like a precarious stack of dominos. Once you make a big decision, all of reality falls sequentially to accommodate it.

Some of my writing from 3 years ago still feels oddly relevant now:

I used to have a really hard time with transition states. When I left Asia for college in America, some grand golden door had opened and in its wake, all the other chapters of my childhood swung shut. I was deeply scared of the unknown — not even of places, but of myself. I didn't know what part of my identity would remain sturdy and alive, and what other parts would loosen and detach and wither. Over time I realized you can never predict what stays and what goes.

My friend sent me a picture of the words “be more involved with life and less attached to it” the other day. To be less attached is to recognize how, in so many specific, various ways, the world is both kind and cruel; it gives and gives, and so in the spirit of equilibrium: it also takes away.

I'm just keeping my mind open to the ways I'm a different person in every different place. I am loyal to change. I carry myself lightly through the world. If this is a product of sweet delusion, so be it.

I find myself course correcting my life trajectory every few years. As in: realizing something that I wanted so badly wasn’t for me. And then painstakingly switching my route. Most times we know instinctively when something isn’t working but acting on it takes a far longer time.

The practice that has stayed consistent: writing. It’s outlived heartbreaks and neighborhoods and thanksgivings. I deciphered so much of the chaos in my brain. I found myself constantly indirectly writing about love, how to love other people and let them love you back. Or about the love of ideas. How a beautiful idea can shake you down to your core. Sometimes when you carve out an idea to its very center, you find yourself sitting there.

Writing has taught me to carry myself more lightly. I notice what patterns recur, I notice that I write things down and think I’ll believe them forever and I rarely do. Living lightly means: we have a long long life but it’s also really short and it’s okay to change our minds to live in the fullest, most vibrant way. I see that now we’re playing our own individual games. You set the levels, the rules, you uphold your own standards and that is how you make yourself proud.

There’s this quote by James Baldwin that goes something like ‘it’s not even about happiness, it’s about keeping yourself in a clear relationship to the force that feeds you’. I think that’s important in work, in relationships, to keep yourself close to what fuels the aliveness, what feels purposeful, and maybe even more simply: what you find interesting.

Aldous Huxley, Island:

It's dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you're feeling deeply…

There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.

That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling,
on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered.

What does carrying yourself lightly mean to you?

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PS: Thank you for reading - if you feel inclined; please like, share and subscribe. Your support helps me curate more posts and reach more readers :)

PPS: You might like these other essays on the difficulty and beauty of change: the art of pivoting and transitions big and small

Books

• Working by Robert Caro — candid recollections about the practice of interviewing and reporting on the mechanisms of power in America

• Burn Rate by Andy Dunn — an important convo on founders mental health, written in a fictional, highly readable style

• Market Wizards by Jack Schwager — an out-of-place book in this reading stack, but fascinating behavioral insight into trading/mindsets required to trade well

• Felicity by Mary Oliver (currently reading) — always beautiful, always purifying

• Re-reading Vivian Gornick’s Notes on re-reading (meta, I know)

Substacks

Patti Smith’s moving piece on Sam Shepard. I also adore her books M train and Just Kids. Fabulous, heart-wrenching, detail oriented:

My Buddy

Anne Helen’s post on modern friendship:

The Friendship Dip

I really enjoy Molly’s substack, she has impeccable taste and her writing is a great balance between matter-of-factness and lyricality:

mastery

Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.

David Foster Wallace, This is Water