Reading your essay about the many of us who require constant diversion in order to prevent boredom reminded me of some pertinent words of T S Eliot in his poem Burnt Norton:
Marnie — thank you, genuinely. Comments like yours are the reason to keep writing at 5am. I've read it twice myself now just to sit with what you said about the maelstrom of ideas — that's exactly the effect I'm hoping the essay has.
Apologies for the slow reply — I've been buried in getting the bookstore side of the site open, so a few things have sat longer than I'd like.
I'd love to send you an early look at the site once it's live, if you're interested. And separately — I have twelve books now finished within the volume, and I'd like to offer you the whole set, free of charge, if you'd be willing to read through them and share your reactions, whether by email or even on a quick video call. Your read on the first essay told me a lot; I'd trust your eye on the rest.
One more thing, since it's been on my mind: are you fluent in any language besides English? I'm looking for readers who can take the English text first, then review it in their own mother tongue — not a full translation, more a check that the message still lands the way it's meant to within that culture, even if the phrasing has to shift. If that's something you'd enjoy, I'd love to have you involved.
“What’s next?” caught my attention, although perhaps for a different reason.
I’m not sure the problem is the question, but I do wonder if the problem is our appitite for an answer and the closure it provides.
When I was eighteen, I started a small business with a friend.
I didn’t have the money or the credit history to borrow what I needed, so my mother co-signed a $15,000 loan — a considerable amount of money in 1980.
It worked, by twenty-one I had bought my first semi, and at twenty-two moved into a backsplit semi. At the same time, I held down a full-time job at Canada Post while working afternoons, evenings and weekends at the store.
During that period I was truly living in potential. Thw world was reacting to my intentionsI. The potential was invigorating. I was creating. Fear was nin existant.
Offers and opportunities abounded. New friends, job offers and life itself was abundant.
By my eighth year I had accumulated the things I thought I was supposed to accumulate to be considered successful. Business. House. Marriage a the ultimate goal of the prospect of raising a family was within reach
Security.
Wasn’t that the dream we all bought into?
But something interesting happened once I had it.
Whenever I thought about trying something different, the response became: Why risk everything you’ve worked for?
And it made perfect sense.
Except somewhere along the way, I had begun to see uncertainty differently: what once represented possibility now represented a potential threat.
Looking back, I wonder whether security itself became the distraction.
Not because there is anything wrong with planning, saving or protecting what matters to us, butt none of it actually removed uncertainty.
Life remained perfectly capable of ignoring my plans.
Perhaps all I had really done was narrow the possibilities in an attempt to control what might happen next.
And that brings me back to your question.
What’s next?
I don’t know.
Increasingly, I find that to be the interesting part.
Uncertainty creates slack.
Slack allows possibility to arise from potential...mine
Safety, or the feeling of it narrows possibility and choice
Trust leaves room for possibility to reveal itself.
I don’t mean trust as certainty that things will work out the way I want them to, that would simply be another attempt to control the outcome.
I mean trust without the guarantee.
So perhaps I don’t want to still the question “What’s next?”
Perhaps I want to leave it unanswered.
There is a considerable difference between needing to know what comes next and being curious enough to find out.
Ahh, silence ... no distractions ... an opportunity to think, review, consider, innovate. Perhaps 15 mins of silence is inadequate?
Silence is beautiful once you learn to hear it
Reading your essay about the many of us who require constant diversion in order to prevent boredom reminded me of some pertinent words of T S Eliot in his poem Burnt Norton:
Here is a place of disaffection…
Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration….
Namaste, Marnie. Did you get a chance to read the message I sent you in our chat?
No I did not. Could you send it again?
Marnie — thank you, genuinely. Comments like yours are the reason to keep writing at 5am. I've read it twice myself now just to sit with what you said about the maelstrom of ideas — that's exactly the effect I'm hoping the essay has.
Apologies for the slow reply — I've been buried in getting the bookstore side of the site open, so a few things have sat longer than I'd like.
I'd love to send you an early look at the site once it's live, if you're interested. And separately — I have twelve books now finished within the volume, and I'd like to offer you the whole set, free of charge, if you'd be willing to read through them and share your reactions, whether by email or even on a quick video call. Your read on the first essay told me a lot; I'd trust your eye on the rest.
One more thing, since it's been on my mind: are you fluent in any language besides English? I'm looking for readers who can take the English text first, then review it in their own mother tongue — not a full translation, more a check that the message still lands the way it's meant to within that culture, even if the phrasing has to shift. If that's something you'd enjoy, I'd love to have you involved.
Warmly,
Glen
“What’s next?” caught my attention, although perhaps for a different reason.
I’m not sure the problem is the question, but I do wonder if the problem is our appitite for an answer and the closure it provides.
When I was eighteen, I started a small business with a friend.
I didn’t have the money or the credit history to borrow what I needed, so my mother co-signed a $15,000 loan — a considerable amount of money in 1980.
It worked, by twenty-one I had bought my first semi, and at twenty-two moved into a backsplit semi. At the same time, I held down a full-time job at Canada Post while working afternoons, evenings and weekends at the store.
During that period I was truly living in potential. Thw world was reacting to my intentionsI. The potential was invigorating. I was creating. Fear was nin existant.
Offers and opportunities abounded. New friends, job offers and life itself was abundant.
By my eighth year I had accumulated the things I thought I was supposed to accumulate to be considered successful. Business. House. Marriage a the ultimate goal of the prospect of raising a family was within reach
Security.
Wasn’t that the dream we all bought into?
But something interesting happened once I had it.
Whenever I thought about trying something different, the response became: Why risk everything you’ve worked for?
And it made perfect sense.
Except somewhere along the way, I had begun to see uncertainty differently: what once represented possibility now represented a potential threat.
Looking back, I wonder whether security itself became the distraction.
Not because there is anything wrong with planning, saving or protecting what matters to us, butt none of it actually removed uncertainty.
Life remained perfectly capable of ignoring my plans.
Perhaps all I had really done was narrow the possibilities in an attempt to control what might happen next.
And that brings me back to your question.
What’s next?
I don’t know.
Increasingly, I find that to be the interesting part.
Uncertainty creates slack.
Slack allows possibility to arise from potential...mine
Safety, or the feeling of it narrows possibility and choice
Trust leaves room for possibility to reveal itself.
I don’t mean trust as certainty that things will work out the way I want them to, that would simply be another attempt to control the outcome.
I mean trust without the guarantee.
So perhaps I don’t want to still the question “What’s next?”
Perhaps I want to leave it unanswered.
There is a considerable difference between needing to know what comes next and being curious enough to find out.
These days, I rather enjoy the latter.
I don’t know what’s next.
Let’s see.