in the wind weekly #2

Mar 2

My warmest greetings, friends!

I hope this letter finds you well. To begin with, if there’s only one thing you take from these words let it be a gentle reminder to spare a moment and slow down and breathe, deeply. Do you have what you need? I am in this moment taking inventory of how I feel and a few things I will do once I press send to take care of myself- I encourage you to do the same, before or after reading.

This week has been long and busy as I continue to build the foundation of my desired lifestyle. It is Saturday afternoon and I have just gotten up from a nap. With unexpected twists and turns over the past few days, I find myself only now taking a moment to write. This happens to be a great moment of reflection for me on personal limitations in time, energy, and willpower in a busy week- ironically relevant to the book I read.

I fell just a few pages short of finishing “Deep Work” as I continued my Cal Newport kick. While Digital Minimalism was a specific outline as to how to get in control of one’s technology use and bring a sense of intentionality to the area, Deep Work takes it a step further in expanding Cal’s philosophy at large.

This morning, I found myself engaged in a brief conversation that was prompted by the question, “Where do you want to live?” or something like this. And in good speed in line with my character, I couldn’t just give a straight answer. Rather, I took the more philosophical route and commented that it’s not where I live that feels important, but instead, if I have access and the joy of actively pursuing the things that matter to me above all that makes “where” I live meaningfully. (Side note- If you don’t know it yet, you’ll soon understand that I almost always take the philosophical route).

It seems that dear Cal might agree with me in this, as he writes that "a deep life is a good life, any way you look at it.” Intentionality is one of the defining mechanisms of his writing, both in technology use and in structuring a lifestyle for success. And though Cal’s position about Deep Work is marketed as a concept that will increase efficiency, productivity, and amount of output in work, I would argue that in addition to the traditional success it can enable, it is also a blueprint for building a lifestyle that one never wants to retire from.

And so how might we find what matters to us most deeply? Is it a choice or is it built into who we are as individuals, both our genetic predisposition and our learned belief systems through the environments that we grew up in?

Here, I turn toward Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges in saying "Let your mind become a lens, thanks to the converging rays of attention; let your soul be all intent on whatever it is that is established in your mind as a dominant, wholly absorbing idea."

Not the first and never the last time, I would say that the only way to understand consciously what the dominant idea patterns are is through forms of meditation, whether that be sitting on your floor, writing the Morning Pages, or using Cal’s concept of “productive meditation.” Now, I don’t love using the word productive here, but I understand it as an accessible term and agree with the concept that forms of activity, such as running or engaging the body, “free up the mind” to process all of the data that we engage in in a day.

It is in these activities that I find myself returning to the same thoughts and desires of what I want my life to look like. So when my friend asked me where I wanted to live, I replied with the essence of the following (but not as thoroughly because it was early and I was still a bit tired).

I want to live anywhere that I could have the following things every day:

Movement, Music, Meaningful Connection, Space to Create, Furthering Education, and the ability & freedom to meet my basic needs (see Maslov’s Hierarchy - yes it is amusing that there’s a CNN article on this).

It is easy to write down this basic philosophy that if I do each of these things every day, I will not only be content and satisfied with the way I am Choosing to pass time but also well on my way to creating the sustainable future that I will live into. But to put it into practice effectively? Now that is where the work happens - that’s the kinda spice I like.

And it must be noted how fundamentally important financial competency is in this pursuit. Cal calls on David Brooks to define that "[great creative minds] think like artists but work like accountants.” I deeply believe this to be true and it has become one of those “dominant, wholly absorbing ideas” that I am allowing to guide me through this phase of my life.

You see, the concept of retirement never made much sense to me and still doesn’t. Here’s how society gave me it’s elevator pitch:

“Right ok, here goes” Society exclaimed, finally having caught me in the elevator, palms sweating, "So, you’ll work your whole life in a job that feels like a hamster wheel, so that one day you can finally do the things that you wanted to do, and when you turn 65 and are living essentially in a different body with different capabilities and most likely your idea of what is a “good time” has changed quite considerably since you entered the workforce, you’ll have the freedom to pursue whatever you want.”

Now, my silly 19-year-old self didn’t like elevators to begin with, let alone with such strange encounters. I found myself on this particular elevator while I worked the only (pseudo) desk job I have ever worked to date that wasn’t related to an entrepreneurial venture. I remember the day clearly. At the time,

I was living in Pennsylvania, in a small college town with a nice apartment and one roommate who partied a little too much. I was settling deep into meditation and running a mile every morning religiously, with hardly a semblance of community. So when I kept ruminating on “Is this all there is?” well, to put it simply, I was freaked out and thoroughly lacking the support systems to work through it rationally.

I’ll be the first to own that I was not in the best place that summer, so this, along with the fear that I would wake up at 65 and realize I had been on autopilot my whole life was enough of a shock to the system to start digging.

I reference Voltaire when I say I wondered nearly daily what would it look like to cultivate a garden of lifestyle, where the vast majority of time every single day is spent doing things that bring oneself joy and satisfaction.

It was around this time that I dropped out of college, beginning a chain reaction of living in over six different states, and multiple cities, moving within those cities multiple times in the course of four or five years. I lived in apartments and townhouses, on the dock in the bay of Sausalito, out of my car, with anywhere from one to five roommates at a time and the occasional dog or three. I worked in the service industry flipping burgers and pouring drinks, in Outdoor Education and Wilderness Therapy, built a freelance business, and went on a through-hike and traveled a bit. I did get my bachelor's while I was at it, but it was the education of pure living and experiencing different cultures that influenced me so deeply.

It was in the Fall of 2022 that it all came to a screeching halt. Ah, my first taste of the true limitation of the human body. I’ll spare details for now, but one day I’m sure I will dive deeper. I say all of this because, after so much moving and so much trial and error in lifestyle, I found that it didn’t matter where I was, because no matter where I was still participating in the same activities that define my current lifestyle.

I do not regret a moment in those travels, and I have come to believe that a life well lived is one in which we listen deeply to what we are drawn to and allow ourselves to pursue these things with every fiber in our body. That, to me, is purpose.

So, to get off my soapbox and jump onto my larger soap box, the concept that "you have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it" is one that I find particularly challenging as I work to build my systems in business and general lifestyle. How can we possibly get everything built that we want to? I tend to have a growing respect for time and consistency these days knowing that we have to respect our human limitations and finite energy levels (while also maybe trying to create systems that “hack” our ability to create and produce).

I watched a YouTube video, the best university we have access to, at some point a few years ago about a guy who was explaining his systems. He would choose a few activities (2-4) that he was dedicated to engaging in each day for a few months. At the end of the day, he would sit down and put a “+” or “-” next to the activity and “score” himself in a day. If he had 4 activities, and he completed 3 of the 4, it would be marked as a “win” for holding a positive ratio.

I have no idea who it was, though I’d love to give him credit, because in gamifying our habits, we are inclined to naturally create systems that lend themselves toward this growth, as long as, as Cal states, "the motivating idea [is] that your ability to concentrate is only as strong as your commitment to train it". I use this system of scoring my day and find it an interesting way to see the data of each day building toward where I want to go. It’s similar to the feeling/desire to keep a streak on Snapchat, but we can use the principle to leverage habits for our growth.

I guess there is room to pause and wonder, “Doesn’t this take the fun out of everything?” As someone who fought deeply against any structure for YEARS as a true rebel without a cause, I can pause now and say (within reason and while holding spontaneity as a value) that embracing structure is what allows for deep, true, aligned fun to be cultivated.

The Point of it all is this: Cal believes that Deep Work, intentional focus, and building systems that allow for a certain kind of productivity, is a blueprint for finding success in our current society of distraction and consumption. And, I would add to this by saying it’s not just in work that intentional deep-ness matters, but in our relationships, our health, and our well-being. Presence and consciousness are the driving factors of a life well lived. Being able to go deep impacts Everything.

Give me a call if you are looking for ways to build systems and structures that can help get you where you want to be. I’m no certified expert, but I sure take building intentional and sustainable lives seriously. And that’s where it starts to get exciting.

*An acknowledgment goes to understanding that there are factors, financial, environmental, etc. that can make this type of building challenging and difficult. But maintain the belief that is is still possible*

I hope the Sunday scaries are manageable this weekend, and that you can build time into your week to reflect on what your “dominant, wholly absorbing ideas” are. Breathe deeply, my friend.

And thanks for wandering down this rabbit hole with me.

w/ metta,

Sage

Song Recs:

Wolf in Rabbit Clothes by St. Paul & the Broken Bones: https://open.spotify.com/track/6w4pc2SN4Y5pO2oQ6laSa8?si=291c6079e1374e99

Agitations tropicales by L’Impératrice: https://open.spotify.com/track/2La21GqU4fKTQLcfLxTeoz

Gudance by Greg Spero, Keyon Harrold, Terreon Gully, Dario Chiazzolino, Jermaine Paul: https://open.spotify.com/track/44becfHabdXijsvGVahC5j?si=4fc529a813b34d01

Give Me Another Day, Jalen Ngonda: https://open.spotify.com/track/2icsXKdc0cAtcx7TLLH5wi?si=40292d8de75344f5

sage in the wind