Growth is a process, not an act.
Cultivation, too, is defined not by what we accomplish in any given moment, but how we iterate over time.
Reminding myself of this, I find, helps me progress past the countless imperfections in everything I do and make: this attempt wasn’t ideal, but I know I’ll do better next time, and better still the time after that.
Including that “next time” in our assessment of what we’re doing today can be helpful, as it allows us to view a project, purpose, or aspiration, as a larger, aggregate object—a process of cultivation and growth—rather than a one-off exercise that is sealed off with laminated permanence when we reach the end-point of a singular leg of the more holistic journey.
This way of thinking can be applied to work, like writing a book or building a website, but it can also be applied to something we want to learn or an ambition to eat healthier or amplify our sense of gratitude.
These efforts are not cordoned off and removed from play after we complete a final edit or buy a gratitude journal.
There will always be another opportunity to produce a new edition or adjust our approach to thinking or doing things.
We can tweak and polish and carve-out and add-on and repaint and replant and relocate and reinvent to our ultimate satisfaction, but it’s a good bet that in many aspects of our lives and in most things we do, this supposed apex will only persist as a personal pinnacle if we allow it.
Few plateaus are natural: most are self-defined.
Every new horizon crested reveals new, unfamiliar, ever-higher horizons, and we each decide how and when and whether to approach and attempt them.
There’s no single, correct way to respond to this information, but I find it to be a helpful reminder that there are few mistakes that cannot be corrected with time and effort, and that I needn’t ever worry that I’ll dig so deep that I run out of intellectual and experiential gold: there’ll always be more treasure to discover for those who are inclined to harvest it.
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If you found some value in this essay, consider supporting my work by buying me a coffee.
Projects
I have a new project in the works that I’ll likely start publishing next week. It’s not fully set up yet—iteration!—but you can subscribe to receive it once it goes live, here: Yesterday’s Newsletter.
This week on Brain Lenses I published an essay about Scarcity and a podcast episode about Benford’s Law of Controversy.
This week’s episode of Let’s Know Things is about the End SARS Protests in Nigeria.
Interesting & Useful
Some neat things:
Close-Up Photography of the Year Award Winners(beautiful shots)
Museum of Obsolete Media(well worth clicking around the formats a bit)
Van Gogh Worldwide(explore his works based on their location, today)
Field Recordings(such a good idea: a podcast of ambient sounds)
Human Interference Task Force(wild but important concept)
Ten Thousand Years(a delightful 99pi podcast episode about the Human Interference Task Force concept)
For more interesting things of this kind, pop over to Curiosity Gadget.
Outro
I recently finished reading a really wonderful piece of near-future, speculative fiction: the book is called The Ministry for the Future, and though it’s predicated on some very harsh climate-related realities, it’s one of the most optimistic, “we can actually do this, look at all the options we have” takes I’ve seen. Especially worth checking out if you’re keen to learn more about how various carbon market, geoengineering, and technological/bureaucratic solutions might play out, if implemented.
I’m also about a week into attempting to correct a longstanding “forward head posture” issue I have—it’s primarily a problem when I’m seated at a computer for long periods of time, but it carries over into the rest of my life, too, I’ve discovered.
If you feel like you might have something similar, it’s also worth looking into “upper crossed syndrome,” as it seems to correlate with these sorts of posture-related head/neck issues.
Please don’t trust a stranger on the internet to give you health/medical advice—ask actual health professionals about this stuff before doing anything dramatic—but if you’re looking for an iterative, winter-pandemic-lockdown project, posture-correction is worthy of your consideration.
How’re you and yours coping during this period of both hope and concern?
Where have you been focusing you attention, what have you been working on, and are you looking forward to anything in particular, at the moment?
I read and respond to every email I receive, and I truly enjoy learning more about who’s on the other end of these missives—so drop me a line if you’re keen to share or just say hello.
You can reach me by responding to this email or at colin@exilelifestyle.com
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I’m also available via the typical socials: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or microscopic spacecraft.
If you’re finding some value in what I’m doing here, consider supporting my work by becoming a patron of my writing or Let’s Know Things, buying one of my books, or subscribing to Brain Lenses. You can also keep it simple and buy me a coffee.