things i've learned

18 days ago

perhaps the reason why i find “the high-agency mindset” so suspect is because almost all of the true growth in my life has come from a recognition of the limits of my agency and a willingness to relinquish control. i feel like i’m coming to understand the notion of wu wei.

that’s another thing: coming to accept “incompleteness.” i will never reach a state of a complete understanding the nuances of life, or overcoming my inner demons. that’s ok. the most meaningful thing is the becoming, anyway.

the most apt metaphor i’ve personally found for life is dance. to dance well, you need to be open to seeing, hearing, and noticing: the music, yourself, and what the people around you feel. to do that, you need to be present—unburdened by anxiety to see what is already in front of you.

anxiety, too, follows a similar pattern. fight it, and it grows stronger. it finds a reason to continue fighting. but accept it, embrace it, and it subsides. you overcome anxiety not by willing it, but by releasing it.

if you can arrive at this understanding, then you can also start to see how much of our behavior—and indeed, our reality—is driven by how we feel. what we believe. what we tell ourselves, often far over and above what “is”, even for something that we assume is as biologically-rooted as pain. taking this seriously should make you start to question if these discrete categories actually make sense.