Dwell, pt. I

Gareth and I began riffing on what the five most important concepts for humankind in the next century, and we would love to know what you think.  Listen below, and press the red 'reply' button on Anchor to add to the conversation!




You can catch the full initial dialogue below...

The Art of Fear

13 minute read

MICRO-FEAR

After an indoor soccer game, our team decides to go to a new beer hall in town.  Rumor has it that ping-pong tables abound.  Sweet as.

I walk in, survey the scene, and recognize an old colleague.  I clench up.  I have been avoiding all things associated with former work place.  What to say?  I haven’t showed up to pay social dues.  The thoughts go--will they be angry?  Will they actually care?  What do they think of me?

I’m afraid that they won’t like me, that they won’t accept or appreciate me because I haven’t showed face.  In short--I don’t appear to have earned their appreciation and respect, based on my internal calculations (nevermind that all math seems like encrypted gibberish to me).  

It’s a micro fear that possesses me for the rest of the night--when I go to the bathroom, I feel awkward and avoid looking over and making eye contact, assuming that the person is watching me the whole time.  I’m not my normal self--I’m a bit cold and stand-offish.  Thoughts accelerate--“He’s being cold, he doesn’t want to engage with me, he doesn’t like me, they all don’t like me, they probably think I’m selfish for not showing up.”  This goes on.  And on.  

Then, when we’re about to leave, he comes up to me, and banters a bit, being friendly.  

Huh?

So: a micro-fear turned into negative self-talk, developed into a projection onto him (“he doesn’t like me”) which resulted in me being cold based on the assumptions that I was making of him.  

Not.  Reality.  

This all sounds rather dramatic, but this kind of subtle fear happens all the time--micro fears are embodied in anxiety, or small temper tantrums by your internal three year old (or six year old if you’re unreasonably wise).  And they’re oftentimes so ingrained that we don’t know they’re happening, especially during social interactions, where they manifest subtly while our focus points outward, and we’re not so aware of what goes on inside us.  

Some people handle them well, others...not so much--a la yours truly.  

It crops up everywhere--looking into your partner's eyes when breaching a difficult topic for both of you, feeling awkward while checking out because the cashier is attractive and you don’t know how to act, meeting someone new and clenching up inside because you’re terrified they might not accept not just what you’re wearing, but who you are deep down--“oh god, what are they thinking whataretheythinkingwhataretheythinking.”  

Everyday, you’re faced with a series of micro-fears.  

That moment with the colleague stuck with me though.  Because I realized that I don’t want to live like that--I’m tired of living out of fear.  

I’m starting to recognize how much control I’ve allowed micro-fears have over my life.  And how much energy I’ve put into worrying and wondering and assuming, rather than creating and giving and simply being.  When I’m constantly feeding these micro fears with attention, life becomes exhausting.  A drama.  A grasping affair, constantly holding onto expectations and preferences and habits and me.  

MICRO FEARS vs. MICRO DESIRES (dun dun dunnnnnnn)

I was speaking with a new acquaintance the other day, who writes for a living.  Not copywriting, or blogs, or cookbooks.  No--capital N Novels.  Talk about facing daily fear.  If you write Capital N Novels, not only do you have no steady paycheck, but you have no one standing over your shoulder, telling you to write.

He said that every morning, before anything else, he puts on coffee, hunkers down, and hits the keys.  No emails, no diving into an internet rabbit holes, no phone.  Zilch.

No doubt there’s the desire to engage all of those things, and to avoid the work.  

But even that desire is another form of fear--I, for one, indulge most often when I’m trying to evade or escape something.  If you stare at satiation long enough, it melt into fear (and probably macro fear, at that); desire is really just the tip of the iceberg.

LA RÉSISTANCE

What about the “oh, I’ll just do it later today”?  Well, in the insightful words of Author friend, “no, you won’t do it later that day--you won’t, because you suck.”

And we all know this to be true.  Because we all--on some level or another--“suck.”  

Macro fears are obvious.  They jump you, smack you in the face and grab your whole body and shake it like a puppet.  They’re like a big spider that wraps you up and puts you in a stretcher and carries you out into the middle of a desert and leave you there with a bag of a potato chips and a two liter Mountain Dew.  Macro fears are mean.  They’re in ‘control.’

But they’re obvious.  You can see them and they feel all-consuming and wield Old Testament thunder.

For example, when I simply think about having to make a long-term commitment--either to my girlfriend, or to someone that I will be somewhere in six months, or to working a job for the next two years (agh I can’t even type that without getting the jeebies)--I freeze.  Cold turkey.  The world keeps spinning, but I’m dragging my feet, and trying to hold reality back from flowing onward.

Micro-fears take are more subtle--it’s 7:28am, and my list of micro fears is already at 12 (I’m keeping count for now).  And it’s all variations and spin-offs of the fear of being rejected (#3 calling friend to ask him if he wants to join a men’s group that I just joined, #8 admitting to acquaintance that I haven’t found a place to stay for the conference this weekend and facing the shame of asking if I can crash with him, #12 what if people don’t agree with this definition of Art when I post this?).  The meter is running, clearly.  

They take on different voices and are shape-shifting, conniving back-stabbers.  Enter: “Oh, I’ll just do it later today.”  They are the kid of the debate team in high school who could wreck the other side, switch teams halfway through, and then destroy his own original team (Michael Jordan used to do to his teammates during practice; consolation: you’ve got a bunch of little Michael Jordan’s running around inside you! (?!)).  

I suddenly become a top-notch escape artist hollywood stunt-double scheming masterminding child-genius when it comes to making excuses.  My brain starts making quantum leaps and plugging in algorithms and speaking Mandarin fluently and selling the pants off of me.  And I’m buying.  Oh, I am buying.  And the more I buy, the more I “suck.”  The more I give into desires or fears that then control my life (oh, sure, I’ll take another cookie, thank you very much).

If you do break through that initial fear or desire?  “I feel invincible for the rest of the day,” quips Author friend.  Sounds easy enough, nay?  

RESPECT YO’SELF/CHARACTER

We all want to freeze, run, and fight when we are confronted with different things.  Each person has their irrational fears and desires.

If you’re self-confident and are crushing it in your career, maybe you’re terrified of intimacy, and really being vulnerable with another human (I like to hold this over Wall-Street’s head when I’m looking at my balance sheets).  Comparison isn’t the point, but it helps to note that you’re not alone.  Every single one of us, on this planet, faces these little blockages every single day.  We’re limited creatures.  Fact.  I don’t believe you if you say that you had a fear free day.  That doesn’t exist--not if you’re being really honest with yourself.  Maybe you crushed it and overcame your fears and went Superman on everything.  But the fear was still there.  We all have a hindbrain (well, lizardbrain, really, but that’s slightly less appealing to envision).  You’re just… well, Superman.

When that macro fear of commitment rolls around, I experience the overwhelming feeling that reality has just closed in on me, and that I am no longer free.  That I’m completely helpless at the hands of something else.

In reality, that’s simply not the case.  I can always choose to react differently.  But strengthening that volition takes time; that’s a muscle that we’re not taught how to flex so often--it’s a muscle that we’ve allowed consumerism and rampant creature comforts to atrophy to the point where facing discomfort breeds self-pity.  And nothing invokes escapism more than self-pity.  Which is something our grandparents did quite differently, as Joan Didion reminds us-- “They had instilled in them, young, a certain discipline, the sense that one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side, by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible, comforts.”  

What?!?!  No instant gratification?  I didn’t sign up for this!!

But it gets better, because it hints at a little thing called ‘character,’ that doesn’t tango with the above instant-gratification jones.  Character--it’s a bit different than reading Calvin and Hobbes while growing up, and cackling at what Calvin’s Dad said.  Or, Didion, again-- “In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues. The measure of its slipping prestige is that one tends to think of it only in connection with homely children and with United States senators who have been defeated, preferably in the primary, for re-election. Nonetheless, character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.”

Boom.

That’s the muscle that we need to use more than ever.  

What I believe Didion is pointing toward when she says “the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life” is that we fully own the consequences and results of our actions--also, then, the consequences of our inactions.  That freezing, and not pushing through fear is a rather serious decision to make.  It might not seem like a decision because of the overwhelming feeling, but if you’ve taken responsibility for your life--truly--then everything is on some level or other, a decision.  (And let’s leave responsibility vs. fate for another sunny day, shall we?)

That’s scary.

There’s also nothing more empowering.  

Suddenly, it’s not the world's fault for putting so many micro (and macro) fears into our lives--it’s our fault for not standing up to them; suddenly, life isn’t happening to you, but you’re happening to life.  

How would the world look if we acted from a place of self-respect?  What if we froze, ran, and fought--internally--less?  

Well, I believe we’d would make more, and better, art.  

MAKING ART

I read Seth Godin’s daily blog posts ritually, and would consider him one of my mentors (he even responded to one of my emails, I swear!).  

I love this quote from Seth--“Art is a human act, a generous contribution, something that might not work, and it is intended to change the recipient for the better, often causing a connection to happen.

Five elements that are difficult to find and worth seeking out. Human, generous, risky, change and connection.

You can be perfect or you can make art.

You can keep track of what you get in return, or you can make art.

You can enjoy the status quo, or you can make art.”

I like this because it frees us from the canvas as credibility model--I don’t need a paintbrush to make art; or--without a paintbrush, I can do work that connects people, is risky, and is human.  

That means that Author friend is no less artist than you are.  That the girl who paints every day is no less artist than you are.

But change works best bottom up.  So before your Art is a company or an organization, it needs to starts in your gut, and in your heart (and aren’t they the same thing in this case?).

So confronting your micro-fears every day, being bold, challenging the norms and rules of your internal status quo, and sharing what’s behind all of the self-defense mechanisms and limiting belief systems--that is Art.

You could be rejected for breaking your internal rules.  

But that could also lead to a deeper connection with others.  And if you don’t hold back and hold yourself down, it will most certainly impact everyone around you (why do you think we’re all obsessed with authenticity these days?).  

If each interaction changes someone around you, it changes the world.  

The world is my Art.  

The world is your Art.  Again--scary, or empowering.  

You have to be brave enough to break your own rules.  To push off despite the weather warnings.  

BEING HUMAN

What I love so much about being a human being (nice phrase to think about) is that we simply haven’t figured out this whole Life thing.  I love that so, so much.  We’re awful at so many things--we’re terrible at dealing with our feelings and communicating, we’re inconsistent and messy, we’re easily overwhelmed, we’re greedy and selfish and defensive and reactive and we’re subjective as all get out.  We complain and want to control everything.  We’re mistake-prone and fallible.  

We err.  It’s innate.

Which is so, so okay.  Because there’s also this beautiful part of us that wants to contribute to life.  That’s concerned with more than just surviving.  That wants to grow and evolve and give to others--that wants to create and share and connect.  That wants to flourish.  That part is innate, too.

It just depends on which one we nurture, and how much we decide to wield our power as human beings.  

Are the compass points for our lives marked with fear?  

What if it fails?  What will people think?  Will they not like me?  What if I do it and it sucks?

You know what sucks?  The part of you and me that’s holding us back.  How we hold ourselves back.  Because that’s what’s keeping the world from being a better place.  

Because it’s the only thing keeping you from making your Art, however you decide to do that.  However you decide to show up.  

It’s on you.  It’s on us.

I heard a beautiful analogy the other day.  A woman who had previously been a pastor was speaking about the leader of her spiritual tradition, a living saint.  She mentioned a theologian who stated that when you see the redwood forests out in California, you think, “wow--now that is a tree.”  In the same sense, the theologian noted that when the disciples saw Jesus, they said, “wow--now that is a human being.”  

We all have an itty bit of that in us.  It all just comes down to whether or not we decide to overcome ourselves to let it out.

We’re never going to be perfect.  The fear will always be there.  

The fear will never change.  

Will you?

---

So how is your art?

What’s one of your internal rules, and how can you break it?  Share in the comments below, and then go do it (!yikes!), and report back for feedback and support.  I’ll go first...

Life Talking to You

I have this phobia of introducing myself to people who I think are higher up on the social food chain than I am.  Of reaching out.  I’m scared I’m not professional enough, that I don’t know what I’m talking about.  That I’m a small fish and don’t deserve to fraternize with big fish.

Simply reaching out puts me a paralyzed state of catatonic self-denial, and oh-so-subtle subconscious self-loathing.  Yet none of this registers loudly in the self-talk department of the noodle.  There are no words to this internal email debacle, I just try and avoid and ignore it, while I’m squirming in the seat of myself.

I’m trying to get into the habit of writing those emails--the most uncomfortable ones--first thing when I check my emails at 11am.  Those are the ones that I’m prone to leaving until Friday afternoon, when for some reason, there’s less pressure because I think the person won’t really read them over the weekend and completely forget about my email and I’ll just fall off the face of the planet and into side-universe where nobody knows what I am and what I do and I’ll never have to face anything difficult ever again.  Riiiiighhhhhhttt.

Squirming in the seat of yourself is an ugly way to live.  (And trust me, I’m saying that to myself as much as I am to you.)

There’s a deeper, wiser part in all of us that knows what we want, that lights up and gets excited when we engage with something that makes us alive.  

As my brother says--“that’s Life talking to you.”  

On Responsibility

Responsibility is weight.  Carrying the brunt of your needs, as well as the needs of others, on your shoulders.  Atlas style (and when being god is slightly less of a party than expected).  

So goes conventional wisdom.  And I’ve continued to hold that belief most likely out of resentment for having to ‘grow up’ and not live ‘carefree.’

And yet, let’s look at this again--

Responsible.  Able to respond.

Responsibility.  Ability to respond.  

I’m starting to see that being responsible can be as effortless as breath.  You receive input from the world, and you react fluidly in response (being proactive isn’t a part of my hardware yet, so we’ll skip that for now #carefree4lyfe).

Think about it--what enables you to respond, despite the level of adversity of the circumstance?   

A strong belief system.  A resolute way of seeing and being in the world that doesn’t have to flip flop about which is better, what is right, what do other people want, what do I really want (aka hello my life).  Just do it.  (Royalties from Nike pending.)  You know what course of action to take.  

The irony is that when you really believe in something, then there’s a certain amount of faith involved.  At some point, you just live it.  You stop questioning it.  You choose to stop agonizing over decisions, to stop carrying the world on your shoulders and moaning about it, and have something guide your decision making process--the internal compass to your north star.  Breath comes in, goes out.  It’s natural.  

In order to become fully responsible, you have to trust in something, you have to surrender your wanting to control everything in life to a certain belief system.  

The question is--do you accept the worldview that you grew up with, and the belief systems that you developed unconsciously; or you get under the hood and tinker a bit; or you tear the whole damn engine out and get to building a custom motor that runs on vegetable oil or quantum something.  You choose.  

Easy said.  The confusing part about being a millennial is having option overload.  Whereas the guiding principles of religion might have made responsibility a tad easier, most people these days are piecing together a variety of belief systems that either suit their level of comfort in life (piece of cake), or that really aligns with their life’s purpose (less piece of cake, more piece of bitter greens).  

I’m terribly indecisive because there’s too much of the former.  Too much pleaser, too much fear about hurting other people’s feelings (which, by the way, always leads to exactly what I’m trying to avoid--hurt feelings, which is like biting into a double shame hamburger with rocks hiding in it).  White noise affects the decision making process.  

It’s like being ADD when you’re parallel parking a trailer in NYC rush hour (man, really all over the car metaphors).  The blood is in the water and everyone wants a piece of you and by trying to make them happy by waving at them and assuring them you’re almost finished, you get distracted from actually doing what will help everyone involved most: move.  

Focus and being decisive are going to be become the most important skills that we can cultivate in the future.  

Religion made that easy.  Because clarity equals power.  We don’t really do religion like we used to though.    

So, what’s your religion?

Inspiration

Inspiration.

In.

Spirit.

Connection.

When you engage or experience something that aligns with what you're here to do.  Or, as my bro likes to say--"that's Life talking to you."  And you can only listen with feelings.  

I get it when I'm blizzarding ideas with someone about how to make this place better.  When there's a joke that keeps building and building and taking sharp turns until we end up somewhere geographically unrelated to where we started--when the maps have been burned in the process.  When I write about something, and it comes from somewhere else--when that little glimmer of something greater than the sum of my parts shows up in what I've just created.  

There's no right or wrong (as ever), and the question is: what aligns you with what's greater than you, in you? 

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"If you were the best in the world at what you do--

what would you be doing right now?"

How would you be doing it?

It's only scary if you don't do it.  

Affirmation: the Last Frontier

We used to have to survive.  That was our responsibility.

Now, the food is there.  The roof is there.  Now, our responsibility is to grow and evolve.  To thrive.  Emotionally.   

What does this mean?  I keep telling myself that it means the last frontier is within.  

It means that every time you overcome a micro fear--the reptilian hind-brain in you that doesn’t understand emotions and logic--you evolve a little bit.  So reach out to the person you admire for their work, even though it’s scary to put yourself out there.

It means that instead of trying to fix other people when they are struggling with something, to simply listen.  To let go of needing to be right.  

And to go create something beautiful.  Every day.  

If you do, we’ll make better food.  Better roofs.  Better lives, a better world--a better you.  A better us.  

"What Do People Thank You For?"

It’s an off-beat question, one you don’t ask the cashier at the register, or even your loved ones over dinner.  And it’s aimed at assessing your innate gifts.  What makes you you.  The theme song and number of lights and weird prizes of your internal pinball machine (isn’t that what life feels like sometimes?).  And I’ve been really struggling with it.  

Not because people don’t thank me, though.  Mostly because I’ve spent the majority of my life not listening.  I block it out.  Next!

And this goes way back--I remember being rather good at baseball when I was a young.  I was the “home run king” of my coaches pitch league--I hit something like 23 in-the-park home runs; to boot, I was a team player, and encouraged others with spirit.  Yet when the parents of my teammates (or my own parents) would praise my leadership abilities, or for hitting another home run, I would cringe and veer away.  I didn’t want to hear it.  It made me writhe on the inside.  Eventually, my baseball skills withered to match my self-esteem--nada.  

The question boils down to a self-love thing.  Which might be the greatest affliction of our time, given how often we subconsciously compare ourselves to others on social media.  

I’ve had to make a conscious effort to accept praise, and to acknowledge the way someone sees me.  It’s hard, because the hard-wiring I’ve developed says, “Oh no, that’s not me!  Uh-uh!  Get that ish outta here!”  

News flash, kiddo: it IS you!  

Recently, a friend commented that I have a wonderful presence.  I caught myself before blocking it out, and simply replied, “Thanks man, that’s really incredible of you to say.”  

When I sat down with a pen and paper to answer this question, what do you think was the first thing that came to my mind?

Presence.  Makes sense, right?  

After all, we all know what an honor it is to be seen, to feel loved.  There’s nothing more human.  How often though, it’s simply us that gets in the way.  

If you don’t believe in yourself, or have a hard time naming your uniqueness, listen closely to what others are saying.  Just listen.  Maybe you’ll hear a part of yourself talking.  

The Human Mirror

I remember walking slow.  The vegetables and paint bright, even glowing, and the market whirling--children chasing each other, a man grabbing and pushing another, two women with their wares, laughing.  One heart beat per step.  All around the cruelty and pure affection of the heart and mind--people arguing, embracing, spitting, ignoring, ushering you in for tea.  Time and space throngs and clots and courses onward.  I get a straight razor shave.  My skin burns.  The rickshaw driver and I never speak.  Just look briefly in one another’s eyes, before I ask to take his photograph.  He nods, sure.  The human mirror is flawed, ambiguous--a phone number scrawled in the bottom corner, cracks from a stray cricket ball running like veins; the fog of another's breath.  It’s impossible to distinguish who I am and what I am not when looking into this man's eyes.  Is that his longing?  My sadness?  What are we carrying?  Over time, questions multiply until everything loses coherence--maybe you aren’t sure whether you miss your friends or whether you miss the idea of missing them; you’re not sure if you’re callous toward beggars, or just consistent with your ideals.  The illusion of control washes away in a landslide of uncertainties and the jabber of a foreign language.  All that remains is the steady flux of things unanswered.   Knowing gives you black and white.  Not knowing gives you a brush and a bunch of different colors.  I take a picture of the rickshaw driver.  Smile as best I can.  I remember my heart is beating, and my feet turn and begin to move.  The gangly teenager next to the rickshaw wears no shirt and his Playboy boxers show.  Bollywood music blares from his phone.  A cow rummages through trash next to him.  Pigeons squabble atop the white temple across the road.