🗺️ 40 | money as circle & tax comics

dear voyager friends,
everything you see below, I drew on the 9 hour plane ride between Istanbul and Beijing. I arrived in my hometown this morning, cried while hugging my grandmother, had dinner with my relatives, and already ate a long list of foods and exotic fruits you’ve all probably never heard of before. (many of them, I had never heard of before). everything in China has changed so much, and yet, feels comfortingly familiar.
this week I’m sharing an abbreviated version of my typical guidenotes — in that it’s mostly visual, and focused just on money feelings (and insights, and thoughts). despite having a LOT more to say about the matter, I challenged myself to draw and send this to you, because pretty soon I’ll be overwhelmed and my head will be full of china feelings.
overcoming my fear of taxes: a comic
I spent all of last weekend doing taxes - giving the task far more meticulous, attention to detail than really necessary, because I realized that I was doing more than taxes. I was grappling with and overcoming my fear of taxes. I was walking so deeply into the process of doing taxes that the very process of doing taxes became mine.
this reminds me: my way of handling any problem is to walk so deeply (and calmly) into the problem that you come out the other side with no problem.

overcoming my fear of taxes: a comic — kening zhu
a comic of money & tax feelings



money as a circle, process, & practice
I only started outlining my thoughts on money as a circular practice and process — I have so much more I want to expand upon this (maybe next week), but for now, I’ll propose 3 things:
if money is a circle, how would it change your relationship to it?
if money is a circular process, where does it “begin?”
if money was a creative practice, how would you treat it differently?

money as a circle, process, & practice — kening zhu
exploring the circular practice of money

🌸 goodbye with a snapshot of my mind:
today I’m thinking a lot about: the beauty of my hometown. the feeling of intergenerational families. death. how maybe, a part of my pervasive existential aloneness comes from growing up so far away, isolated in small town north carolina. I’m wondering what my life would’ve been like if I had never left this city as a child. usually I’m convinced I was lucky and privileged to have left. today, there’s a tiny sliver in me that’s not so sure.
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thank you for reading.
🪼 kening
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🗺️ this is guide.notes 40, a weekly letter on creative alchemy & growing digital worlds.
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