Stuck in the Groove - Stable Diffusion 2.0

Lately I've been feeling idle. Listless. The year has flown by and the time is soon coming when my fiancée and I will take the plunge and move to Canada. I feel as if I'm not getting out enough. I don't have much going on other than working three days a week and seeing friends. I suppose this is the perfect time of year to not have a lot going on. I can catch up with the people I've been meaning to spend time with before moving. Still, I feel as if I am missing a project, hobbies and an orienting goal. I'm stuck in this place of not wanting to start something because my environment is about to be completely rearrange. I'm paralysed by feeling like anything I do should be finishing off organising things for the move: selling possessions, clothes, furniture and making sure everything's in order.

I have aspirations to start learning the drums and dive into the world of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but, I feel that any movement on these interests will be wasted effort. My recent creative outlet is this series of weekly posts and essays. I've been learning to treasure writing time. I can feel the momentum building; each week is a little easier to start and keep going.

I don't like living in this between space. This post is an effort to understand, 'what do I need from my life?'. First and foremost, I need a project or goal to orient myself around. I need interests to deep dive. I need to elevate myself to surpass the activation potential of consistent work towards something worthwhile. I'm a big believer that my attitude and approach to anything is my attitude and approach to everything. If a few areas of my life are out of balance then that quickly topples the whole system to a state of anhedonia.

A few months ago I came to a stop on my previous project LetterDesk. It has the features that it needs to serve my—and users—purposes. I'm still getting value from it, but I'm struggling to come up with the motivation to keep iterating on the platform. Not having LD to think about as a focus has definitely left a void in my creative output. However, I'm realising that I have started filling the gaps, and one of the big ways I'm doing so is writing this blog consistently. I need to mentally frame writing for Boundless Garden as a real project. I think I've always treated writing as secondary. Something that communicates and builds awareness but isn't a project in itself. It's time to change that. I'm excited to grow and hone my voice.

Another priority that I have identified is the need to do hard physical things that promote states of flow. Skiing, skating, trampoline skills. Spending time in peak focus has tremendous crossover to how I feel and focus day to day. I spent 6 days skiing earlier in the year. It's been so long since I did anything physical for more than a couple consecutive days. I remember in the weeks after feeling centred, at peace. I felt like I could take on the world. Contrasting to now; I'm sick of being cooped up in my apartment. It invites low agency behaviour. The more of a home-body I become, the less I want to break that cycle. I feel fewer degrees of freedom in my emotional states. I love spontaneity and my attitudes currently make doing things out of the blue seem hard and uninviting.

A certain paralysis has seeped into attitudes toward learning. I often feel that I only have so much time in my life and that it's really important that I pick the right things to invest time into learning. This is a fallacy. Our lives are finite, but I used to be much more open to learning about anything that draws my curiosity. Who cares if it might impact some other learning especially when the result of this attitude is deciding to learn nothing at all because I can't convince myself that anything is important enough.

That smartest, most driven people around me seem to dive into learning anything and everything. The greatest thinkers tend to have extremely broad skill sets and knowledge. Often what creates a great thinker is seeing the similarities and patterns show up again and again across disciplines. I need to learn to approach new things with a lower perceived degree of importance and believe that just being curious about something then satisfying that curiosity is enough. I don't have to learn things because they are important. Important to who!?

Some good things

I'm going to end this essay / rant / introspection session with some acknowledgement of the good things happening in my life.

1. Some of my very best friends in the world are all flying to where I live over the Christmas period. I'm so excited to catch up and watch the cross pollination as some of them meet each other for the first time.
2. Moving to a new country is a huge privilege and while it's a bit scary and putting pressure on my life in unexpected ways, I'm excited. I recognise that on a world scale many people aren't lucky enough to be able to explore and move from where they are.
3. I recently got a new tattoo that I'm obsessed with. It's my first one! I'm excited to progress my tattoo journey over the next 5-10 years.
4. A friend sent me a beautiful letter today that came at the right time. It gave me a lot of emotional fuel as well as providing some jump off points to write this post. Would you like to write letters to your friends in a calm and aesthetic space? Consider checking out LetterDesk.

If you made it this far I'm thankful and surprised. Writing is an amazing outlet for thinking and self discovery. It has certainly been scary firing these things out to a broader audience. If you're interested to see how I grow and explore many of these themes in the future consider subscribing.

With love,

Zan