in the wind weekly #1
hi there.
welcome to the first of many letters in the wind. it's not what i expected it to be, but in some ways exactly what it was meant to be. but anywho, buckle your seatbelt cause this one sure jumps on the EAC and then takes a few hard right turns to i-missed-the-exit-cause-you-didn’t-tell-me-in-time, then meanders it's way in a semicircle, backwards and upsidedown, until it finally drops you off back right where you started.
major props if you stay with me ‘til the end...
thunderbird motel
~Benjamin's driveway, sitting in my beautiful beat up little tacoma~
i crank my window down and see the horses being corralled into the trailer of the neighbor's yard. it's a blue sky day with the light wisp of white clouds, a gentle breeze against my face, a faint chirping of birds who may or may not yet know that winter isn't over despite the sun's radiating glow that warms frozen winter bones.
i've locked myself out of instagram (more on that in a bit), so i figured it would be a good time to get this started. in the light of transparency, i have been avoidant of writing this. but alas, i've now 15 (and counting) of you to hold me accountable in this project. (thanks for being here).
i was kindly loaned two books by Cal Newport this past week, and managed to fit the pages of "Digital Minimalism" in pockets of space between a wonderfully busy schedule. as a self-identifying recovering minimalist, i tend to tread wearily when it comes to such trendy concepts. no stranger to the concept with a few "30 day social media detoxes" beneath my belt, two extended meditation retreats, and two separate 90 day periods of backcountry travel sans-technology, i wondered just how extreme this book would be.
~commons, post a wire in my truck frying smoke and all and fixing it~
well, anyhow, i found myself jotting notes on a loose piece of paper writing down comments about the philosophy that sir Cal Newport suggests in such an elegant way. my notes are as follows: P212 "DOING NOTHING IS OVERRATED" and “P221 it's all about mindset" and "Strategize your free time" and "SMART Habits" and “P219 critical use is a critical problem"and finally "5-8, 8-12, 1-7, 8-5." you might ask yourself, "now sage, you read a twohundredandfifty page book and your take aways couldn't even make a coherent sentence?"
but you must understand, it sparked a faint memory of a blurry first semester in college in Pennsylvania when, while playing ultimate frisbee and partying and somehow still making it to class, took a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote out the hours of the day for a week in a table format like the following:
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
5
6
7
etc. til 11pm
my brother and i had just gotten off the phone, "there's just not enough time in the day" he had said. and without a doubt i knew, deeply, that he was wrong (s/o to the ego). there had to be a way to optimize the day to not just get decent grades, but also enough time to party and socialize while maintaining multiple club commitments. and maybe i'd even still get 7 or 8 hours of sleep. *eye roll*
this is to say i am no stranger to optimization and schedule stacking, experienced in 20 minute power naps and a few breathing techniques. but one thing that cal is so kind to bring up is that it's not about productivity, necessarily, but also being strategic in the ways you spend what many would call "scroll time" or a good 'ol netflix binge.
is dear old Cal suggesting that with strategy there is a way to achieve this and not only optimize productivity but also efficiency, in both work AND leisure? and maybe, is the solution to the whole damn problem just to get off of the phone? probably not. but i found myself downloading an app anyway that he mentions aptly named "freedom." The app in essence allows you to lock yourself out of social media and "schedule" your scrolling time.
a thought experiment with social media that i will conduct for the next few (enter amount of time here), and as i rely on it for new gigs and to boost my work portfolio, i wondered if i could achieve the same output but only allow myself on the apps three times a day for one hour each. so if i don't respond to you, it's cause i'm ~optimizing~, whatever that means…. ("5-8, 9-12, 1-7, 8-5" by the way is the schedule, i'll give you a gold star if you can decode this one).
but, seriously, i think that there is seriously something to this as i try to balance building businesses and going to the gym. i'm in what i call a "get fit and make sales" era, which is quite dry but nevertheless an accurate description of how i spend upwards of 90% my time. and i think that these philosophical principles are inherently linked to our success in the business world. to me, the days are nearly endless, as i roll from bed to the gym to a coffee shop to the other shop to the other coffee shop and... well, you get it....
and as fkj's "greener" plays in my headphones i roll around the thought once more that "how we do small things is how we do everything", or something like this. now what does this mean when we choose to scroll endlessly through channels? and is it a choice? hell, i've ended down hour+ long tik-tok rabbit holes and ended up on bean-tok, which, for those who haven’t had the privilege, is literally an image or gif of a can of beans and a song about beans on repeat, no hashtags. like actual beans. usually baked ones.
cal deducts that "critical use is a critical problem" to social media companies, because if we can question how we use the platforms and the intent behind the platforms and The Algorithm, that most would logically deduct that they are not "good" for our silly little human brains&bodies.
~the sun begins to set and i am reminded that winter is still here, a moment to look over my left shoulder and see the light glistening off the water of the river that sits below the cafe, a favorite moment of mine as the temperature drops just low enough to send a chill, and myself, back into my body~
and yet, social media has become an integral part of life and business. now here is where i must stop us. what box are we standing in? what train are we on? are multi-million, billion dollar businesses finding success because they are consuming media? and so i wander, and wonder, and in a moment feel the level of strangeness of how connected we are to our devices and yet it might all be a lie, with white wires sticking out of my ears while i write these words, ~paper news, ritt momney~
and feel a sense of sadness, for how much we tend to live through our devices.
and that it might not even serve us, though undoubtedly we can profit and create and build something incredibly beautiful in a storm of click-bait, content that can move even just 3% in the direction that we desire. to fuel positive change. and what a joy it was to read cal write that it is not an easy task to participate in the conscious use of media whilst there are billions of dollars being used to get us a-scrolling again.
because at least that's better than doing nothing. this false dichotomy that scrolling on instagram is doing nothing. when in fact it is activating your central nervous system and endocrine systems. this is not new news.
breaking it down, back to my college days, i came to the conclusion that it is literally impossible to be doing nothing, even when we are seemingly doing “nothing”. in such a way that sitting in your room with your lights off in pure silence with no distractions is still something. maybe this is semantics, but in this philosophy, then, to travel down cal's path of strategizing your free time is nothing more than accepting the truth of the situation that is being alive and consious. if you don't choose what you are going to do with your time, then the powers at large, including and especially, social media companies, are going to influence the way that you and i pass time.
and for a good few years, i thought i needed to have figured out "what i want," when in fact i was asking the wrong question. because as cal argues, it is more important to do something and figure out the details later, a spice of adventure in the mundane. which is how i find myself in a very early stage of building businesses, or like earlier today, watching my truck smoke up while my friend ripped it around his property only to find myself joyously learning to redo the grounding wire. either taking knowledge that i have cultivated over a few years and putting it into practice or learning that working on an old truck might not need to be as intimidating as i have felt it is.
this year, for me, is completely dedicated to proof of concept. that with intentionality (which i would argue is cal's most integral argument in reclaiming our time), a thoughtful philosophy, and dedication to building systems and community, i can be sitting in the place i want to in 12 months. and it is my hope that these letters can provide insight into both life and structures in ways that encourage you to take the steps in the direction that you either are already going or have always dreamed of going.
so, while i fight the urge to get a flip phone for now, give me a call, let's grab a coffee, let's figure out what really matters in life and then chase after it with the childlike sense of awe that absolutely nothing can take away.
and until then, or next saturday morning, i implore you to pause, either now or throughout the week to stop and take a very unusually deep breath and as you breath out, remember that the surface of the earth at the equator moves at a speed of 460 meters per second that is in a universe with many other things moving simultaneously in strange directs and that quantum physics is WILD, and that, with all of the chaos of being human, you can choose to have just a moment, or a few, of calm, or chaos, whatever you’re wanting to give in to.
and as always, thank you for spending some time reading my words. in transparency, i have desire to not send this at all. it's too chaotic, it doesn't make sense, it's disorganized, there's probably so many errors in my logic. oh well, i hit send and share my thoughts anyways. mostly because i'm locked out of instagram for another few hours, and partly because i believe that with consistency and intentionality, this specific process will be a fundamental part in where i am trying to find my way to over the next year.
if you so care to, join me back in the currents of the wind next week around the same time. maybe then i'll have a little more coherence to my words. or not.
my deepest gratitude for allowing me the time and space in your life to share these thoughts that roll around in my head and down my arms like marbles on a course into this letter.
~sweet marie, the walters~
w/ metta,
sage
music recommendations:
My dear friend, under the artist name "sunhive" dropped a long-awaited album earlier this week, most righteously titled "HeX-a." What a joy it is to spread this beautiful slice of art: https://open.spotify.com/album/5bwFA5BfvIFXWkaK5ChlI2?si=8321dc6da738446e
“Necking” by Scone Cash Players: https://open.spotify.com/track/1Alpe5Rq01TqhjySRirCE2?si=37d023fd10e94a1d
“EJS” by Corto.alto: https://open.spotify.com/track/46s6kGFlvFjnafMlmMVqUB?si=7fd6d2bf5a034841
“Hüpf” by Alexander Flood: https://open.spotify.com/track/7MXIMD6dPLfZPwk44MMBc5?si=0d9219ace0d748d6
sage in the wind
