Reflections on 2021
Seasons, seasons, seasons, seasons, seasons, seasons, seasons, seasons, seasons.
You laugh when you cry. You become another person. You think you could die then you wake up and then you make coffee. There's no explanation of life that can make sense of it.
You eat. You sleep. You have one beautiful thought a day. You write it down and have the feeling you remember why you are alive. The sun catches a surface outside your window, making you glow luminous on a video call screen. The brilliance of your own skin startles you and you are suddenly aware of the smallness of things, your face a box within a box within another box. You long to be outdoors.
Season of eating the last of the stone fruit. Season of starting the muscadine grapes. Season of texting your friends gm and I love you. Season of asking what's truly worth working on. Season of sending risky messages. Season of abiding with the answers.
Season of endings and beginnings.
It's been so long since we talked. Whole lifetimes have passed across our hands, leaving new creases for children to marvel at when we touch their cheek. Have you changed? In 2018 I told you that everything must change: that in some kind of way, I was done writing. I've published a few essays since then, but emotionally, it's been true. No new writing on my own blog in 18 months, and without the weekly structure provided by my beloved collaborators Sam and Laura, I don't know if I would be publishing anything. Venkatesh, my web-logging father figure, advocates for a crash early, crash often (CECO) approach to life crises, and I've followed that model with some success. Not with this one. Instead of a dramatic showdown with myself followed by a cathartic release, the type of elegant crash I could easily produce when I had the support of a psychologist, this has been a protracted ordeal characterized by reluctance, frustration, and a botched book deal. A repeated feeling through all of this is sitting down to write and simply "not knowing where to begin." It's funny, in a cruel way. Now that I don't want to impress you anymore, I can't come up with anything worth talking about. Even the real vulnerability I shared in my 2017 and 2018 year-end missives was a kind of performance for you, and in later newsletters I self-consciously copied their style, which felt cheapened by my own mimicry.
These days whenever I feel suddenly, unavoidably compelled to write, the words come out so differently. I used to hate poetry. Now seeing some unlikely phrases drop out of my head and sit next to each other feels so satisfying in a way I almost can't believe. I look over these amateurish compositions and I'm surprised how glad I am to have them. Ten or fifteen short lines just open me up to some feeling that is totally and only mine, and by writing it down I've recognized the specialness of that feeling. The only time it feels appropriate to share one with others is when it is clearly meant for someone, or about them, or acknowledges a feeling or a truth they will be sure to understand. In a few cases, I have given poems as gifts, and that act also has been much more rewarding than I anticipated.
Thinking back to other times I changed in big ways, maybe I shouldn't be surprised by the pleasure I take in this. It's normal that when you kill a fear you discover something new that you are able to enjoy. Discarding my fears of social rejection led me to an enjoyment of outgoingness, performance, and vulnerability. Abandoning certain ideas of "success" led me to find moments in the genuine present much more frequently. I guess no longer needing to write for the fame opened a space for me simply write for myself.
We change and change changes us and in the shattered pieces we find shimmering likenesses belonging to ourselves. We come together and everything looks different but familiar. When I sit to meditate in the middle of the empty space feelings come to me from times and places and memories I haven't known in years to fill me up. I've come to understand that the past is not a danger to me. It is the source of cycles that bear fruit and begin again. It's the season of carving open the ripe persimmons.
This year cycles ended and new ones began. This year I followed the principles of action. This year I made fateful promises that I will bet my life on, to friends I will bet my life on. This year I was tested and next year I will be tested anew. This year we both changed. This year my magic worked and I did not let it come as a surprised.
This year one of my dreams became real life. But was it even my same dream? When it arrived, different yet recognizable, it bore the sure signs of others' night travels. While we made this announcement demure, the messages of support told me that many of you remember what we wrote together in our dream journals. Some of you have been on this journey with me for a long time and you know what this means. I want you to hear that the intention is the same as it has always been. I've made this place for us. Our type of thinking, being, dreaming and receiving matters. I have always trusted this. It's up to us to show everyone else why to trust it too.
This organization is dedicated to the spirit of Learning Gardens, to the soil we sprouted from and to all the flower computers. This organization is dedicated to my parents: to Venkat and Sarah, to Ribbonfarm, to K-HOLE, to Are.na, to Trust, to LOT2046, to Madbury Club, to Teal Process & Company, to [redacted]. This work will be an homage to you, and I hope you will like it. This organization is dedicated to us, for taking this insane shot. This organization is dedicated to our children, may you learn from our failures as from our successes, and undergo this test. All organizations should have an end of life. One day you too must take up the mandate of heaven.
I'll leave you with this reflection. Understanding the future is not changing the future is not acting with integrity. As Bryan says, it's 2022 and good intentions don't mean shit. This year more than any time in the past, I asked myself: what do I know to be most deeply true? How to bring that knowledge to bear, to put my principles to work, and to make them matter? What is truly worth working on? What is our impact framework? In sincerely asking these questions to myself and with others, I felt less crazy, more real, more clear about what's worth spending my time on. And I was often surprised by the answers, which could be so personal and so universal. With our eyes shut waving our hands around in the search for efficacy, I found that what I can grasp onto again and again is simple. A theory of change matters, but what matters more is bringing a "giving disposition" to everything. I haven't figured it out, but I'm finding I have all the time in the world to try. With my naivety intact I offer to you to let these questions become important to you too. That I've found people who care about asking them has made the biggest difference in my life. This is the season of becoming good. It's the season of considering the cosmos. The season of writing by candlelight. The season vulnerability becomes courage. Season of posting poems on main. Season of living up to promises. Season of eating a slices of orange and finding out why you are alive.
..
back in those days
when my heart was open to the network flowing
and you could feel everything
there were thrushes I drew my hand through
and cut it on the leaves running
I let it all happen
leave the window open
and a bug might fly in
or the sun will catch off some surface
and stun you into humble quiet
we needed less after that age
we put our hands on each others shoulders now
and bow our heads in recognition
from red seeds come red fruit
sleep with the window open
your escaped dreams
might entertain
a change of mind
..
Scriabin Op. 30, Sonata 4
door_no46 by Jacques
Until next time.
You laugh when you cry. You become another person. You think you could die then you wake up and then you make coffee. There's no explanation of life that can make sense of it.
You eat. You sleep. You have one beautiful thought a day. You write it down and have the feeling you remember why you are alive. The sun catches a surface outside your window, making you glow luminous on a video call screen. The brilliance of your own skin startles you and you are suddenly aware of the smallness of things, your face a box within a box within another box. You long to be outdoors.
Season of eating the last of the stone fruit. Season of starting the muscadine grapes. Season of texting your friends gm and I love you. Season of asking what's truly worth working on. Season of sending risky messages. Season of abiding with the answers.
Season of endings and beginnings.
It's been so long since we talked. Whole lifetimes have passed across our hands, leaving new creases for children to marvel at when we touch their cheek. Have you changed? In 2018 I told you that everything must change: that in some kind of way, I was done writing. I've published a few essays since then, but emotionally, it's been true. No new writing on my own blog in 18 months, and without the weekly structure provided by my beloved collaborators Sam and Laura, I don't know if I would be publishing anything. Venkatesh, my web-logging father figure, advocates for a crash early, crash often (CECO) approach to life crises, and I've followed that model with some success. Not with this one. Instead of a dramatic showdown with myself followed by a cathartic release, the type of elegant crash I could easily produce when I had the support of a psychologist, this has been a protracted ordeal characterized by reluctance, frustration, and a botched book deal. A repeated feeling through all of this is sitting down to write and simply "not knowing where to begin." It's funny, in a cruel way. Now that I don't want to impress you anymore, I can't come up with anything worth talking about. Even the real vulnerability I shared in my 2017 and 2018 year-end missives was a kind of performance for you, and in later newsletters I self-consciously copied their style, which felt cheapened by my own mimicry.
These days whenever I feel suddenly, unavoidably compelled to write, the words come out so differently. I used to hate poetry. Now seeing some unlikely phrases drop out of my head and sit next to each other feels so satisfying in a way I almost can't believe. I look over these amateurish compositions and I'm surprised how glad I am to have them. Ten or fifteen short lines just open me up to some feeling that is totally and only mine, and by writing it down I've recognized the specialness of that feeling. The only time it feels appropriate to share one with others is when it is clearly meant for someone, or about them, or acknowledges a feeling or a truth they will be sure to understand. In a few cases, I have given poems as gifts, and that act also has been much more rewarding than I anticipated.
Thinking back to other times I changed in big ways, maybe I shouldn't be surprised by the pleasure I take in this. It's normal that when you kill a fear you discover something new that you are able to enjoy. Discarding my fears of social rejection led me to an enjoyment of outgoingness, performance, and vulnerability. Abandoning certain ideas of "success" led me to find moments in the genuine present much more frequently. I guess no longer needing to write for the fame opened a space for me simply write for myself.
We change and change changes us and in the shattered pieces we find shimmering likenesses belonging to ourselves. We come together and everything looks different but familiar. When I sit to meditate in the middle of the empty space feelings come to me from times and places and memories I haven't known in years to fill me up. I've come to understand that the past is not a danger to me. It is the source of cycles that bear fruit and begin again. It's the season of carving open the ripe persimmons.
This year cycles ended and new ones began. This year I followed the principles of action. This year I made fateful promises that I will bet my life on, to friends I will bet my life on. This year I was tested and next year I will be tested anew. This year we both changed. This year my magic worked and I did not let it come as a surprised.
This year one of my dreams became real life. But was it even my same dream? When it arrived, different yet recognizable, it bore the sure signs of others' night travels. While we made this announcement demure, the messages of support told me that many of you remember what we wrote together in our dream journals. Some of you have been on this journey with me for a long time and you know what this means. I want you to hear that the intention is the same as it has always been. I've made this place for us. Our type of thinking, being, dreaming and receiving matters. I have always trusted this. It's up to us to show everyone else why to trust it too.
This organization is dedicated to the spirit of Learning Gardens, to the soil we sprouted from and to all the flower computers. This organization is dedicated to my parents: to Venkat and Sarah, to Ribbonfarm, to K-HOLE, to Are.na, to Trust, to LOT2046, to Madbury Club, to Teal Process & Company, to [redacted]. This work will be an homage to you, and I hope you will like it. This organization is dedicated to us, for taking this insane shot. This organization is dedicated to our children, may you learn from our failures as from our successes, and undergo this test. All organizations should have an end of life. One day you too must take up the mandate of heaven.
I'll leave you with this reflection. Understanding the future is not changing the future is not acting with integrity. As Bryan says, it's 2022 and good intentions don't mean shit. This year more than any time in the past, I asked myself: what do I know to be most deeply true? How to bring that knowledge to bear, to put my principles to work, and to make them matter? What is truly worth working on? What is our impact framework? In sincerely asking these questions to myself and with others, I felt less crazy, more real, more clear about what's worth spending my time on. And I was often surprised by the answers, which could be so personal and so universal. With our eyes shut waving our hands around in the search for efficacy, I found that what I can grasp onto again and again is simple. A theory of change matters, but what matters more is bringing a "giving disposition" to everything. I haven't figured it out, but I'm finding I have all the time in the world to try. With my naivety intact I offer to you to let these questions become important to you too. That I've found people who care about asking them has made the biggest difference in my life. This is the season of becoming good. It's the season of considering the cosmos. The season of writing by candlelight. The season vulnerability becomes courage. Season of posting poems on main. Season of living up to promises. Season of eating a slices of orange and finding out why you are alive.
..
back in those days
when my heart was open to the network flowing
and you could feel everything
there were thrushes I drew my hand through
and cut it on the leaves running
I let it all happen
leave the window open
and a bug might fly in
or the sun will catch off some surface
and stun you into humble quiet
we needed less after that age
we put our hands on each others shoulders now
and bow our heads in recognition
from red seeds come red fruit
sleep with the window open
your escaped dreams
might entertain
a change of mind
..
Scriabin Op. 30, Sonata 4
door_no46 by Jacques
Until next time.
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