guide.notes no. 26 - work amnesia
THIS LETTER WAS SENT TO YOUR INBOX: NOV 2 2023
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dear starburst friends,
I played tour guide again last week, roaming Istanbul with a dear old friend I've known for 14 years. we adventured and feasted everyday -- eating so much food that we never wanted to eat again.
then, after she left, I woke up on Monday with a terrible grogginess, like I had forgotten...everything:
amnesia is an old friend
I used to experience it almost daily, accompanied by a terrible panic -- which I'd ameliorate with an obsessive-compulsive planning spree. I'd sit at my computer for a few hours, fixated on goals, and make entire databases of to-do lists I might never look at again, and feel, perhaps, 20% better.
when you're both the boss and the employee; some days, you wake up with a blankness, a fuzziness, a forgetfulness, an overwhelm, a disorientation, a resistance -- accompanied by small spirals of anxiety, guilt, self-doubt, and absolute terror. it's the fear of your greatest, infinite potential; and on the inverse side, your great failure.
being the captain of your own ship; holding yourself accountable, responsible, focused -- day in, day out -- is hard. you have no one to remind you of who you are, and what you're here to do, and so, you might feel like an astronaut, floating in outer space -- or a shipwreck survivor, drowning in the psychic sea of infinite possibilities...
afterall, this is the labor of lonely work.
the work is remembering
I still feel amnesia often. everytime I return to my desk following an indulgent weekend, or after traveling, or after hosting a friend, or during a terrible PMS week, and, while doing an intense work sprint -- I have the thought, what am I doing, next, again? to me, this amnesia is a sign of being so open, receptive, and deeply diving to work, and life -- that I'll feel the dizzying, sublime feeling of freefall; that is, a feeling of possibility.
this is all this to say:
I don't always wake up with conviction, or clarity of purpose, or an attuned sense of self. I'm deeply forgetful.
instead, I have to remind myself who I am -- and what I'm here to do -- again and again, everyday. I write notes to myself, all the time. everywhere.
a personal ID card for my spirit
so, this being the case, I thought it'd be useful to make myself an ID card, like the kind you wear on lanyards at summer camp, or hospitals, or in sci-fi time travel, memory-loss movies -- except actually telling things useful and orienting to my soul.
PURPOSE -- keep close in case of existential disorientation, or general head fogs. read more on this here.
PS. if you feel the impulse to make your own, and would like to share it with me, I'd love to see it <3
what's inspired me this week
reading: how do you use the internet mindfully? by the creative independent + are.na. I downloaded this years ago and only read it this past weekend. a beautiful compliation of essays and explorations on tech, philosophy, and possibility. a portrait of poetic dreams. it felt deeply nourishing to me, and I'll probably write about it further.
listening to: breaking the habit of being yourself, by joe dispenza in short, about the infinite possibilities of the quantum self -- written by an author and thinker I really respect. he makes the new agey energy manifestation stuff feel very real, and legitimate. like, I need to start doing it seriously, right now.
playing: 2048 I'm not sure why this game is so addicting, but this week, it was a guilty pleasure.
playing: florence I bought this game on the app store after just looking at the visuals, the story, and its reviews. I have a creative seed of one day designing a game -- and this game (which feels like a comic / love story) felt so simple, beautiful, and inspiring.
...
I'll leave it here, my friends. thank you for reading.
I'm wishing you a dreamy, starry week.
kening
this is guide.notes no. 26, a weekly letter on the work of using the internet to grow a creative practice, a digital universe, and a soulful business. sign up for letters, sent every Thursday, here.