when the fun things are also hard
yeah, I'm going to make this harder than it has to be
The week is starting to warm up. Light fills the silent space between days. I sit at my desk for what feels like a solid 13 hours. I buy 10 books for my kindle. I go on a long meandering walk through fort mason, fisherman’s wharf. I drink 3 decaf coffees a day because I love the taste but get jittery and anxious from the caffeine. We play tennis in the park. I go to SF film festival with A and afterward we split warm bowls of vinegary rice noodles with tripe and liver. It reminds us of home. I write this post from 7-10:30am. I write to see where the excess of my desire will go, says T. Fleischmann.
There’s a certain amount of difficulty in life that feels good, then it starts to get uncomfortable, then it starts to get painful. But where’s the point where you stop growing? How do you know when to keep going?
I chew on this idea as I step off the creaky bus in Fidi, hair neatly tucked, beige lapel ironed flat, turquoise and gold earrings. Last year I ran myself to the ground — work and writing and people. The trifecta made me dizzy. I couldn’t figure out why work felt so impossible, or why there was such a large gap between my writing and the standard to which I held myself to. Improving on these vectors was difficult but I was so insistent on doing it all.
The truth is, I tell my friend this weekend, I like difficulty. I like doing something and feeling cracked opened by it. I like momentum, the way I can shoulder it. I like the tingly feeling my brain gets when it’s pushed to its edge. Fun things are often hard. When I look at things that take considerable effort, I admire human willingness. A glimpse into something immeasurable but profoundly real. We labor towards it — finding the edge of our own potential.
What I wish I didn’t do is rationalize difficulty.
I sometimes fall into believing the fallacy that because it is difficult it must be worth it. Classic error of causation. I see a lot of other people trapped in this similar thought pattern too. Perhaps difficulty absolves us of actually making a choice of what matters to us.
These days I’m coming around to the idea that the elusive notion of ‘fit’ is very real. You could probably be really competent at whatever it is you want to do but if it’s not the right fit, you’re always struggling against the tide. Why put yourself through a marathon if you don’t even like running? Same applies to people, jobs, hobbies. Ultimately, difficulty should be the route toward something that feels right, not merely suffering to suffer.
So: difficulty is not a proxy for meaning.
But at the same time, anything meaningful lands somewhere on the scale between ease and effort. If you’re forcing yourself to change or feel constantly twisted and contorted in a relationship it’s probably not the right fit, but at the same time all relationships require effort and adaptation to be strengthened.
It’s our discernment that determines what we work for. Sometimes it scares me that we have so much agency over our choices, all the time.
The crux is that the most meaningful things in our lives are both fun and tough:
Everything is hard in some way. It’s hard to be in the wrong relationship. It’s hard to be in the right one. It’s hard to be broke and miserable, it’s hard to achieve your dreams. It’s hard to be stuck in the middle, not really feeling anything at all. Everything is hard, but you choose your hard.
Brianna West
I once knew someone who created fractal art through coding algorithms, and he once told me that a motivating factor for the rigor behind his art was seeking elegance from complexity. The path to the answer was hard but the answer itself was palpable. Simple. And radiant. That line stuck with me for many years. Difficulty becomes bearable when you know what it is for.
We move through the world looking for which problems to latch on to, which people to seek out through the crowd. What to tumble towards, what makes our hearts crow with joy, what feels real.
When something is strenuous or demanding. I ask myself: what is this for? What part of myself am I trying to satisfy with this? Is it ego, or is it meaning? The latter is what is worth striving for.
When I think about writing all I know is that it is undoubtedly fun. It’s playful. It’s light. But it is also very hard. It feels so real to me. I’m learning how I think, how to think. In reading and writing, in trying to understand what you mean to me, I catch a glimpse of what is on the other side of complexity and difficulty: beauty.
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You might like my other essays on mindset: keeping promises to myself and lukewarm feelings
Quote of the Week
What we make testifies who we are. People can sense care and can sense carelessness. This relates to respect for each other and carelessness is personally offensive.
Jony Ive
What I’m reading
I enjoyed:
Time and energy by Will Larson, & his other piece on management hard to work with
I still find myself longing for more time, and dreaming fondly of my life as it existed three or four years ago. It simply had so much space in it. Time that made it easy to fill so many different buckets in my life. Now I fill each bucket knowing that it means that another two will stay dry.
The concept of pre-nostalgia
I like technology and I want it to solve our many problems. Yet as I walk at night in my city, I realize I like this world, too. Its problems don’t cancel out its beauty, which manifests even in the tragic, heart-wrenching moments, even when we fail, even when we are being poor little humans who are depressed or angry or in pain. I want the depression and the anger and the suffering to stop. I want us to not die. But not dying will necessarily involve the end of a world and that feels appropriate to mourn, somehow.
Check Your Pulse by Sari Azout. I look forward to these, and she usually links thought provoking writing about mindset, tech, startups
Unsupervised by Anna Fusco is a recent find and a delight. I’ve been poring through Anna’s essays this week, especially enjoying this linked one, and also Consent is not linear.
You inspire me to write. I wish I could be as eloquent as you :)
The first paragraph of your writing reminds me of this paragraph that I read at a library. Ivan Ivanych came out of the cabin, plunged into the water with a splash and swam in the rain, thrusting his arms out wide; he raised waves on which white lilies swayed. He swam out to the middle of the river and dived and a minute later came up in another spot and swam on and kept diving, trying to touch bottom. “By God!” he kept repeating delightedly, “by God!” He swam to the mill, spoke to the peasants there, and turned back and in the middle of the river lay floating, exposing his face to the rain. Burkin and Alyohin were already dressed and ready to leave, but he kept on swimming and diving. “By God!” he kept exclaiming, “Lord, have mercy on me.” “You’ve had enough!” Burkin shouted to him. —Anton Chekhov,
Saunders, George. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (p. ix). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.