the art of pivoting

is getting frustrated with your own illusions

artist unknown

A few imperfect ways of tracking time: my hair is longer, darker. Certain complex tasks begin to automate themselves. Collections grow. Novels, pendants, perfumes, recipes. Repetition is a source of comfort. Golden gate park, Ocean beach, the trees blurring, the wind carrying sunlight, salt, wildgrass. My body gasping for air.

I’ve changed a lot over the past 2-3 years. My friendship groups warped completely. I started dressing different, acting different. I flung myself into the abyss of a new place and started again.

The inflection point: I woke up and decided I didn’t like the narrative and I realized oh wait it’s my own voice that’s doing the narrating. I’d better fix that.

What it came down to was a simple recognition that this is my life. It is precious. Limited. I should reflect carefully on what I want. On what game I want to play. I once told you that I’m so good at learning rules. I could animate myself into the perfect player in a particular world. But I know I need to take a breath. Question if I am playing the right game.

The art of pivoting is knowing even the smallest degree of intentional change is effective. A plane one degree off-course flies to a completely different country. A change in attitude, location, influence, can lead to remarkable downstream shifts in outcome.

I used to think pivots were bad because it meant I gave up on something. A failure of vision, of faith. When the startup didn’t raise. When that relationship ended. These days I think pivoting signals adaptation. Having the courage to give up sunk cost. You don’t have to keep barreling down the same patterns you always did. An indicator of maturity is knowing that the path forks and you can choose a different route. Or that even one degree of change can be meaningful.

Here’s the thing. Perhaps there is a world where you got everything right. Where your purpose was instinctive. You never had to question your beliefs. You never felt heartbroken by a thing or a place or a person. You knew the route and traced it precisely. But that world is flat, arid, lifeless. Nothing can grow there. True vitality exists in change. In making mistakes and trying again. In the grace of forgiveness. In picking up your whole life in your hands and moving it somewhere else. In getting frustrated with your own illusions. In rebuilding the cathedral. In renegotiating what you have faith in. What a gift it is that life comes with the flexibility of water: flowing through different channels and becoming different shapes.

Walking through Cole Valley, each of the windows are lit up warm and golden. I can see bookcases and pianos, I can smell hyacinths and evening mist. Admittedly I still feel lost often — but I have a better sense of what I need to hold on to and what I need to let go of.

Agency lies in the capability to change your proximities and your intimacies. In rewiring perception and belief. That Henry Miller line always rings true: one's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.

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Life inputs

📚 Things I’m reading

• Annie Dillard’s Advice for Young Writers

• New York Times interview with Ocean Vuong

  • “The more I write, the more I realize that writing is predominantly a curatorial work and it’s about listening rather than making.”

  • “I start every day with two empty hands. Writing something, even writing something well, teaches you really nothing about how to write the next thing. You’re always starting over.”

Quote of the Week

You can’t go by nothing but your own convictions, because if you don’t live the way you believe, sooner or later you will believe the way you live

James Baldwin

French Song of the Week (an old fave!)