lonely work is swimming in the ocean alone
years ago, I quit my last job and decided that I never wanted to be employed again. I wanted to work for myself as an artist, doing creative things full time - no matter the costs. at the time, I wasn't sure what that meant, exactly, except that in pursuit of my vision, I was willing to be lonely and poor.
but not only that. it also meant feeling awkward around my friends with tech jobs and large, disposable incomes, and ashamed around my parents and brother, who thought that this was a terrible waste of my Ivy League degree. I come from a family of engineers, and grew up in a Chinese-American immigrant culture where a child's life was marked by a series of expectations; a long marathon with achievement hoops that you jump through and papers you collect, in pursuit of the feeling of good enough.
working alone as an artist; attempting to stitch together a life out of nothing - was a different kind of hard. I'd wake up lost, dazed, and overwhelmed -- with existential dread: a mountain of plans and possibilities, but no guarantee of success - in the form of validation, recognition, or income. everything that I did could all end up being a waste of time: all my efforts could result in nothing. at least, this is what my mother feared, and would remind me of in every conversation. that year, every phone call with her would end in tears, and I'd feel like a failure before I'd even begun.
my younger brother, in one of his wiser moments, tried to explain her side of the story -- watching me do what must have seemed, to them, like throwing away my future:
"everyone is swimming in lanes in a swimming pool," he said. "and you're swimming in the ocean alone. we don't know what to tell you, or how to help you, so we're trying to convince you to get out. we are scared for you."
looking back, I see how hard it was to be my family, watching me embark on a vague exercise with such single-minded obstinance. perhaps I seemed like a rebellious teenager, or a madwoman seized by a zealous purpose, heeding nothing, answering to no one; swimming to nowhere. I didn't know what I was doing, and yet, I was absolutely sure that the ocean was the right place for me. I was twenty-six years old, and I could not imagine spending another hour of my life in a swimming pool, waiting for the bell to ring so that I could go home.
and so, jumping into the ocean did not feel like "taking a big risk." it felt like the only option.
escaping a life of swimming pools
in swimming pools, you can take breaks in between laps. the water might be too shallow, too chlorinated, too cold, too deep, but you know that if you swim well, there will be ribbons, free snacks, and calorie-dense, post-swim hot meals waiting for you on the other side. even if you don't swim well, at least you'll still get paid.
your parents and friends are just on the bleachers, or maybe just outside, sitting on plushy chairs, cheering you on. they understand how this works. you'll arrive in the mornings, do your laps - then go home. there will be other swimmers in the locker room, other swimmers doing laps, next to you. you might all have hoodies with your last names printed on them. you'll have a team, a captain, structure and divisions, personal responsibilities, shared responsibilities. you'll have people to answer to, swimming above you and below you. you will never be alone. if you get restless or bored, you can always try to change pools. this doesn't guarantee more happiness or less problems; only a different set of them.
there is nothing wrong with choosing a life of swimming pools.
it just wasn't for me.
after all, freedom is always relative. in swimming pools, you are free from tsunami weather, sharks, and fear of hunger. you are free to just do your job, to let someone else worry about keeping the pool clean. you are free to take vacation days, to mark OOO: out of the office.
but in the ocean, the office is mostly in your head.
ocean waters are psychic waters
it's hard to say exactly what the ocean is like -- because it's relative for everyone who swims it. but, what I've learned is that more than anything, ocean waters are psychic waters.
when you work alone, you will always swim in your own moods, habits, and tendencies. you will be chased by your own sharks, and other creatures of the deep -- many of which are those voices in your head, keeping you paralyzed with varieties of fear. if you listen to them, those are the ones which will drown you.
swimming in the ocean is exhausting, because there is no end, and no clear direction. it does not end with the sun setting at night, nor with the moon rising. every horizon seems to look the same. no one hands you a map and a compass, points to an island, and says, go there. and even if they did; even if you gathered all your energy to swim hard towards it, battling winds, storms, and fatigue, you may still find that the island only keeps getting smaller. perhaps it was the wrong island, anyway.
the biggest risk in ocean swimming is that you could die. not your body, necessarily, but the parts of your ego that need external affirmation, validation, and praise -- in order to keep going. the ocean is a lonely place, and you are the only one who can truly see your own vision. you are the only one carrying it. and so, it is all too easy to feel delusional, stuck, and crazy. there is no one else to take you from point A to B.
it is up to you to decide: what is your point A, and point B. then, you must try to swim the distance. everyday.
lonely work is swimming in the ocean daily
you can read guides, tutorials, and books, join communities and courses, but in the end, the only way you get better at ocean swimming is to do the lonely work, everyday. you learn through your own experience; through the mundanity of the day-to-day. you learn by becoming more open, intimate, and accepting of your inner weather patterns, underwater formations, monsters, and psychic waters. you become be your own best guide.
the arc of my life, like yours, is that I was born into the system of swimming pools.
I trained hard to swim well in those lanes -- to collect my rewards every time I passed GO -- until the day I left, and told my then-boss that he'll be the last boss I ever have. five years later, I still don't have any accomplishments, awards, or a bank account to impress you or my family with. but I realized that those goals were never truly my destination islands. those islands were always mirages, programmed into me from childhood by the swimming pools association. even if I found them, I know that I still wouldn't feel the peace of arrival. it still wouldn't be enough.
instead, I spent these last years in the wide, dark, tumultuous ocean -- swimming. I made every choice to find the life my soul has always dreamed of for me. I traveled the world, lived in nine countries, and created art from all of them. I nurtured a sprawling body of work; built a digital world like a magical castle, and understood my own mission as an artist in this world.
I became a guide for others swimming in the ocean, doing their own forms of lonely work. and after all these years of struggling, choking, and sometimes drowning, I look up and I realize: I've evolved gills.
ocean swimming is so lonely, isolating, and hard. but it also gave me the most exhilarating feeling of freedom and possibility -- because one thing is certain. here, there are no ceilings.
there are no boundaries, on any axis or dimension -- except the ones that you create for yourself. instead, there is only the infinity of the horizon, in all directions.
and as you slowly acclimate to your psychic waters, you'll see. there are magical, magnificent things beneath. š