(Today’s intro essay is TMI in a lot of ways. Feel free to skip straight to the links. Don’t say I didn’t warn you )

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I started writing morning pages everyday from the Artist's Way program by Julia Cameron. (I am not following the entire program) A boss at a previous workplace said he completed half of the program and loved it but got stalled and wished he had completed it. Two people mentioned Morning Pages in two podcast interviews recently. Is it a sign? Is it?

You have to write THREE full pages with free-from writing every morning. This needs to be done after you wake up or as close to waking up as possible. The caveat is, you don't get to go back and review what you have written nor are you allowed to share it with other people. This is stream-of-consciousness writing where flow, grammar, and structure are irrelevant. It is supposed to shake up your mental tectonic plates and help you process what's in your mind. I went all in. What grime/gold will I discover in the crevices of my mind? We will find out. (I will give you what I excavated in a nutshell without telling you too much, because that's the first rule of the Morning Pages Club) 

I’ve had a lot of free time this year. I wrote a thesis and pretended to be busy, but mostly had a lot of time. Why not put my life in a petri dish and stare it under a microscope with a weird obsession? Morning Pages was an extra level of magnification. I realised most of what I’ve ever aspired to in my life was arbitrary and I didn’t want any of it. This makes things interesting. The rest of my year will involve seeking clients while simultaneously wondering if I actually want them. Why do you want to work with us, Sachi? I don’t know, do I? Ummm...okay then? 

Have you ever stopped in your tracks, in the middle of the day, frozen in front of your laptop, and wondered what the fuck you were doing? 

Some context. Flashback to when I was 15. I was big on post it notes with my goals written in bold writing. Back in school, your 10th grade score was EVERYTHING. Your future rested on this score. It seems stupid in retrospect but let's ignore that for a minute. I had my goal sheets on a flannel board within my cone of vision at all times. I did the whole 'make a list of what you want and visualise the living shit out of that goal' thing (and studied a lot too) and got pretty great results. This led me to start my year with a list of things I wanted to achieve in the year. I would (often harshly) review that list at the end of the year. This went on for at least a decade. My mind is an insatiable taskmaster. 

Back to 2020. Recently, I was looking at an older list of things I wanted which I wrote earlier in 2020. It struck me that I truly didn't want a lot of what was on that list. (A side effect of the introspecting-microscope-setup) Why do I want the things that I want? Why do I crave those particular accomplishments? Like I mentioned in my previous newsletter, it has always bothered me that I figured things out late. I'm 26 years old and nowhere close to figuring out 'my thing'. I am now too old to be a wunderkind at anything. Mapping out the rest of my 20's loosely tells me I won't make it in any under 30 list any time soon. While I'm perfectly capable of achieving something spectacular in my life, it looks a little unlikely that it will happen very soon in my twenties. ((which is okay) but is it really?))

Several items on that list had to do with compensating that 'lateness'. Why did I want that particular number of followers on Instagram and not another number? Why do I want a certain number of newsletter readers? It isn't for the actual number of people. My sister and her husband have a million followers and simply managing their following and responding to everyone seems exhausting. I don't want that. I want to make my work, have a tight knit community and for the most part be left alone. What I really want is the feeling that I'm legit in some way, that my artwork and writing deserve to exist. Which in this day and age is equated with being 'liked' widely. I can choose to set different standards. I can continue to draw and write while investigating why I feel the need for mass validation to put out an essay or a drawing. (More microscope time. Yay?) I can also improve my craft without the pressure of that arbitrary number. 
(I'd written additional paragraphs breaking down that list but the essay got obscenely long. I talked about career goals, getting my work featured, travel and other milestones.)

Majority of the items on that list are things I honestly don't want or are close to what I want but misdirected. That 10th grade score was something I didn't care about either. I wanted to show my parents and teachers that I was capable. I wanted people to stop mocking me for daydreaming and being interested in a million things at once. I don't have a competitive bone in my body. Getting the highest score was never about beating other people.

The lists I have made so far have alluded to two things - 1. seeking permission for my choices and for my personality to be the way it is.

2. To be cool enough to be appreciated and normal enough to be left alone. 

It's safe to say I am reviewing my entire list. I might scrap it altogether. I wonder how much energy I put into goals because that was what I was supposed to want. Looking at why I want things has helped me understand myself better. Lists are great. They keep you on track and help you achieve goals. However, there is always room for more conscious lists.

I don't know where I will go from here. 
Perhaps a way to find ourselves is in the process of making, deleting and remaking of our personal lists. Maybe having every possible plan derailed in one year isn't the worst thing. (Do we have any choice other than embracing it?) Here's hoping for more insight from this extraordinary situation that Covid has locked us in.

 

Oh and that’s not it. You will bring up a long forgotten crush from school, that fight you had with a friend last year, that sleazy thing you thought of the other day, how you brutally killed your ex-boss in your mind and other tidbits that are best left in a book that you won’t revisit and will probably burn. If anything these Morning Pages have confused me more than anything. I have new questions in my mind. Will this make me a more interesting artist? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m doing a pretty poor job of selling Morning Pages.
Try it. Wrap yourself up in a blanket of existential questions like a burrito. You may come to enjoy it.

Anyhow...
Here is this month's collection. Enjoy -

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READ
A Village Dies: Your Invitation to a Memorable Funeral by Ivan Arthur - A slightly slow but charming book about the East Indian, Goan and Mangalorean Christian community in the urban villages of Amboli and Kevni, now enveloped and indistinguishable from the rest of the city.

Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte - David Whyte is a wise wise man. I use wise twice deliberately. Whyte explores aspects of life through words like Alone, Friendship, Shyness, Withdrawal, Work etc poetically. He appears to be the man who graces life with the attention and presence it deserves. This book will undoubtedly make you pause and enjoy your life a little more.

Currently reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. I have never completed any of Isaacson's books. I tried to read his biography of Leonardo da Vinci in a local train and almost lost it when a woman rather comically glared at it and punched it to move. It's safe to say I never dared to take a thick book in a train. Isaacson was consequently shelved indefinitely.

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WATCH
Raghava KK on The Creative Indians (Netflix) - Raghava is not only an image making wizard, and a deeply conceptual artist but also a clever entrepreneur.

The Social Dilemma (Netflix) - Nothing you'll see in this documentary is something you don't know already but it could be scary enough to make you want to use social media less if not delete it altogether. Ex-employees of tech giants, including the engineer who designed the infinite scroll, come together to warn people of behavioral changes happening because of social media. Hello, I built a monster, and I chose to wait till it began to eat people alive, but I'm still a good person, trust me. The behavioural changes are as interesting and scary as the data mining. I take frequent Instagram breaks every year because I see myself getting lost scrolling. I spend a little over an hour on Instagram daily, more on some days. I decided to use Instagram on alternate days to see if it has any real impact. Yesterday was one of the days without Instagram. The day suddenly felt spacious. I got a lot of reading done. Watched anime (my guilty pleasure) in pockets of time that I would otherwise spend on Instagram. (Not sure if watching anime is that much better than Instagram, but I'd choose anime any day) Watch it and let me know your thoughts on how social media changed your behaviour. 

How craving attention makes you less creative | Joseph Gordon-Levitt - TED - "This to me is the beauty of the internet. If we could just stop competing for attention, then the internet becomes a great place to find collaborators."
I love the way JG-L expresses himself in this talk. He is vulnerable and honest. He talks about comparison, competition, paying attention vs getting attention and how that affects creativity. This is something relevant to all of us.
(Note - I found this after I started writing the intro essay. Once you make up your mind, the algorithm conspires to bring you related content)

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LISTEN
Payal Kadakia founder of ClassPass on How I Built This - How Payal Kadakia brought together her Indian American identity, her love for dance and business to a build a multi million dollar business.
++ Sal Khan founder of Khan Academy on How I Built This 

Confronting Race, Religion and Her Heart on Modern Love - Lilian Oben's essay read by Zawe Ashton about being seen without being asked to change.

angel Kyodo Williams - The World is our Field of Practice on On Being - I first listened to this in 2018 inSingapore when I was sitting on a raised platform in my room, late at night, watching cars drive by on the street below. This was a solo trip. I was fresh out of college, just through with an internship and full of questions. I loved this interview then. I was drawn to different parts when I listened to it this time. angel Kyodo Williams is an esteemed Zen priest and the second Black woman recognized as a teacher in the Japanese Zen lineage.

Deep Dive: How to be a Professional with Seth Godin - I like Seth Godin, he inspires me to do fun things. If not doing fun things then considering doing fun things. (Considering counts, okay? It is a small advancement from pure inertia)
I enjoyed this interview. You can also check out Seth's blog here.

Bisa Butler on Design Matters - What it means to be an African artist in America and making art accessible to the people who need it the most.

How Silicon Valley Can Get You Unstuck on Hidden Brain 

What if Your Company Had No Rules? (Freakonomics Radio) - How Reed Hastings co-founded Netflix and his journey.

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ART
Bisa Butler's art.
Fine art featuring the Simpsons.

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RECIPES
(Coz everyone who responded to the survey last month said yes)
Here's the recipe for Japanese soufflé pancakes that I tried and LOVED. I also tried baking a Japanese soufflé cheesecake, which turned out quite well. The debate online is whether one should beat their eggs to soft peaks or stiff peaks. I went for soft to medium peaks this time.

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CONFERENCES
Typewknd is a free conference about design and typography from 24-27th September, their talks are on Youtube. Check them out.

This year's Adobe MAX Conference has the most extraordinary speakers you could EVER ask for and it is FREE. 2020 isn't that cruel. Ai Wei Wei, Wes Anderson, David Tennant, Tyler the Creator, Taika Waititi, Nick Offerman, Zach Braff and Annie Leibovitz are speaking among many other outstanding professionals in their field. Do not miss this. Pass it on.

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That's about it. I hope you found something that caught your interest in this month's volume. Thank you for reading and being a part of this newlsetter-essay-experiment-thing. Here is a link to the Volumes archive on TinyLetter so you can revisit old recommendations at your own leisure. I appreciate you more than you know. Have a great month.

Warmly,
Sachi

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Progress?










  

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If you enjoy these essays, would you mind passing them along to a friend who may as well? 🥺