the formula is the evolving process

the formula is the continual process & practice

I started playing piano again after 14 years of not touching the instrument. for the first few weeks, my fingers felt weak. I fumbled around the keys like a blind man. I looked online for sheet music of the major and minor scales in the different key signatures. and I struggled to learn them again, one by one.

I started by playing C major, then I added one sharp at a time. I had made it up to a key signature with five sharps, but I was very tired. like climbing a mountain. the whole thing felt like belabored memorization.

then, while on Google, I read a (rather obvious) rule that blew my mind. it was this: you can make any scale by a formula that dictates the distances between notes. a major scale is whole – whole – half – whole – whole – whole – half note.

so, using this formula, I started playing major scales chromatically. from C to C# to D to E-flat, and up the entire octave. suddenly, weeks of memorization disappeared into a day of repeating a simple process. it felt effortless.

then, a week later, I asked myself:

can I solve backwards for the formula?

so I played the only minor scale I had memorized from a Chopin nocturne — C# minor. and I compared C# major to C# minor. and, solving backwards, I found the progression of whole note-half notes — to build any minor scale.

after weeks of belabored suffering, I learned all the minor scales with no sheet music. in a single day. nothing could have felt so satisfying.

it made me wonder —

what other things in life are like this?

perhaps, nothing is as well ordered and sensible as a western instrument and the mathematics inherent in music. but. harmony is something you can hear with the ear. and is there not intelligent design and order in even nature itself — in biology and chemistry and physics, in all the mechanisms that which we understand, and don’t understand? is science not simply the process of identifying order in the apparent chaos of the universe?

is there internal order — a formula, if you will — for understanding the complex system of the self? by “formula,” I don’t mean something as discrete and simple as whole-whole-half note. for complex systems, you need complex formulas. the input and output are nebulous. the system itself is fluid, always changing.

what is the formula for happiness? for love? for forgiveness? for bliss?

maybe one day, it looks something like this:

a breezy morning by the lake + a flakey croissant + an immersive book = bliss

but the next day, the same elements won’t yield the same results. it changes.

a rainy day + gentle piano music + journaling + deep breathing = peace.

it would be boring, anyway, if the same input always yielded the same output. isn’t this mystery more fun? more exciting? allowing the journey inward to always feel fresh, new, novel?

the formula is the continual process & practice

I am convinced that beneath it all, there is a base structure, “formulas,” if you will — to allow for this continual rediscovery, to allow for spontaneity, spaciousness, and flow.

and that’s simply building daily practices, like weaving nets to catch the moments, the feelings, the impulses, the moods. that’s the reliable self-care routines, practices of digital solitude, of contemplation and journaling, and processes of inspiration and creation. and when I do lean into those practices, it gives me the structure I need to be able to completely surrender, and let go.

those practices are my formulas. and each one is different on any given day, because unlike a piano, we are always fluid, in motion, changing.