It’s been A MINUTE since I’ve written a newsletter.
That's mostly because I've been busy distracting myself with other things. But I now find myself with an abundance of free time to create with. I'm doing my best to take this pandemic and make an opportunity out of it. Rather than focusing on what has gone wrong personally (hours slashed) or collectively (where to start?), I'm focusing on what has gone right (time and space to reflect and create).
There's also gratitude in that we have remained largely untouched. We have felt the economic impact, as most have, and the virus itself grazed our family but we are largely and luckily, very healthy and have avoided any major run-ins.
There is A LOT being said about the virus at the moment (for good and obvious reasons). Any content created right now that doesn't at least acknowledge its influence would be out of touch with the moment. I don't want to push or pull too far to one side or the other. My goal isn’t to politicize it as there’s plenty of that being done already and I don’t have much to add to that conversation.
My thinking, though, is informed by the coronavirus but I'm focused on what I, and we, can create and do differently as a result. There will be writings on the challenges but for the moment, I’ve focused on one of my favorite topics:
Personal development.
More specifically, self-actualization, possibility and human potential.
Focusing on personal development and human potential is soothing to me during times of crisis, perhaps because it reminds me of how far we've come, how far we can go and what we are capable of when we narrowly focus our energy and attention.
That's what I'm choosing to focus on with a healthy and balanced dose of realism and optimism at both a personal and collective level.
To facilitate that for myself, I've begun revisiting things that light me up, that put me into a state of flow and from which joy and meaning come. For me, that means, primarily, writing and sharing ideas. Which takes on many forms but this one - a newsletter - for the moment.
I gave up writing a newsletter - I think - because I tried to make it too mechanistic and formulaic. It made my thinking stale and dulled creativity.
So, I've been doing my best to allow myself to be driven by curiosity and passion but with a renewed commitment to sharing that curiosity, inviting others into a process, my process, and going on a journey. Together.
I focused on the things that interested me this week, the things that made me think and have helped me find meaning, purpose, and clarity in this and have helped shape my thinking about what might be possible as we move through this.
Here are some of the things that have inspired me this week.
A rabbit hole I went down:
Chaos theory
Self-organization
From the chaos theory Wiki page:
Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.
I'm still trying to figure out what that means. Let me know if you figure it out.
You may be more familiar with The Butterfly Effect:
"The butterfly effect, an underlying principle of chaos, describes how a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state (meaning that there is sensitive dependence on initial conditions).[4] A metaphor for this behavior is that a butterfly flapping its wings in China can cause a hurricane in Texas."
This all seems extremely prescient given the importance our behavior has on the whole e.g. if one frat bro in Florida refuses to leave the beach, will the hospitals in New York be overwhelmed? But more seriously, the Butterfly Effect is a way to remind ourselves of the impact we can and do have (and also to #stayinside).
There's also something there about self-organization and patterns emerging from chaos that could be helpful...but I need to learn more here. I'll report back.
A song I'm relistening to:
On repeat, like a lot.
There's a moment about half-way through where Wax samples vocals from different sources. It says:
Life is going on as normally as ever
But suddenly something seems to have happened
Everybody seems to be staring in one direction
People seem to be frightened, even terrified
I want everybody to understand this
I don't understand
There're a lot of things we don't understand
We need answers from you
What did you expect to find?
What is going to be our future?
It's your responsibility to do something about it!
I have the key in my hand
All I have to find is the lock
Lyric Source
The song itself is beautiful but it's in keeping with this theme of personal responsibility I've been feeling lately. It's easy to blame the powers that be and it is far easier to point a finger at those we feel have "failed us" but I'd much rather a.) blame myself (read: take responsibility for my own actions and their consequences) and b.) take my future into my own hands (and ours into our own).
This Tweet from Neil DeGrasse Tyson:
Because it’s the most Neil DeGrasse Tyson thing I saw this week: informative AND humorous.
A quote that blew my mind:
From one of my favorite thinkers ever, Abraham Maslow:
Thus for such a person, any sunset may be as beautiful as the first one, any flower may be of breath-taking loveliness, even after he has seen a million flowers. The thousandth baby he sees is just as miraculous a product as the first one he saw. He remains as convinced of his luck in marriage thirty years after his marriage and is as surprised by his wife’s beauty when she is sixty as he was forty years before. For such people, even the casual workaday, moment-to·moment business of living can be thrilling, exciting, and ecstatic.
It is from an article called Self-Actualization: The End or A Delusion? This particular quote is from the section on the 15 pillars of self-actualization. It feels like a worthy ideal to strive for, and an important reminder during trying times to find things to be grateful for.
Link for the interested
And also this:
That's it for now. I'd like to say that I'll send another newsletter out at the same time next week…
but I won't promise that yet.
I'm still figuring things out.
As always, your feedback, thoughts, suggestions, and dialogue are generously welcome.
Until next time.
Be safe and be well,
KB