Mere Persistence
Strength, fortitude, gutsiness, grit, dynamism, determination, purposefulness, brilliance, courage; these are all wonderful traits to have, whether you’re hoping to accomplish a personal goal or produce something of value.
Also vital, though, and often under-appreciated, is the importance of just showing up and continuing to do something over and over again for an extended period of time.
Mere presence and participation are seldom celebrated or sexy. Staunchness doesn’t tend to earn accolades, and persistence doesn’t typically win us any medals.
But doing something with consistency and intent is worthy of respect, whatever the outcome and however seemingly humdrum the process.
Dedication of this kind typically requires many of those aforementioned, oft-celebrated attributes, even if they present in a quieter, humbler way.
It also generally results in a more sustainable type of productivity that persists through lifestyle and environmental changes, and continues to feel worthwhile even when no one else is paying attention to what we’re doing; it doesn’t require fanfare as fuel.
Conscious attention to what we’re doing is important even with these repetitive tasks and habits, as such intention allows us to slowly iterate into more skillful, capable versions of ourselves—based on the metrics we choose to use to measure such things.
But one needn’t perform in a swashbuckling, dramatic, or public fashion to benefit from persistence: sometimes the things we do for ourselves, without comment or spotlight or even any great skill, are the most valuable.
Revolutionary ideas, paradigm-shifting projects, and dramatic lurches in one direction or another tend to catch our attention because we’re primed to notice dramatic movements and heroic-seeming efforts.
Basic maintenance, simple routines, and calm, modest improvement over time doesn’t always grip us in the same way. But that doesn’t diminish its role as a cornerstone of societal and individual well-being and strength.
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If you found some value in this essay, and if you’re in the financial position to do so, consider buying me a coffee.
I’m still working my way through the box of old Colin-stuff my parents have kept over the years—this photo has some serious, early 90s-kid, “you can make me wear this sweater and sit in front of this camera, but you can’t keep me from being weird” energy to it.
Projects
This week on Brain Lenses I published an essay about Shoshin, and a podcast episode about Agent Detection.
Last week’s episode of Let’s Know Things was about the Belarusian protests and chat apps.
I’ve finally redesigned, rebuilt, and relaunched my main project page. Visit colin.io to check it out, and let me know if you notice typos, broken links, etc.
The new design is far more streamlined and simple than the previous one, and was built from the ground up—which was a fun process I haven’t gone through in a while.
I’m also in the process of reassessing the sales channels I’m using for my books and such, so if you have any thoughts on/experience with alternatives to storefronts like Amazon and platforms like Gumroad, please let me know.
Community
One of my favorite aspects of what I do for a living is that I get to hear from folks who live around the world and who come from very different backgrounds, have different collections of experiences and perspectives, and who are nonetheless willing to email a stranger from the internet and share something about their lives.
In this section I share (with the sender’s permission) some of these messages.
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Hi Colin,
On the subject of sharing stories of the changes that covid-19 has wrought I have this:
One of the chief changes for me was that I was obliged to work from home, which I wanted to do anyway. As a result I have an extra hour-and-a-half every day that is now not spent in a car fighting awful traffic. One result of that was a BIG jump in productivity, both at work and in my musical life.
I've been leery of sharing that with my people on social media and the like because obviously many people are not having that experience. I don't have children to school, I CAN work from home and so on, so I haven't wanted to say "Hey look at me! I wrote 75 songs while everyone was starving!" but I'm really proud of the work so far.
Andy, Jacksonville, Florida, USA
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Hi Colin,
It's been a riveting Saturday night here with cleaning and washing to catch up on. It's now 9.30 pm and I have done enough housework for one day!
I'm excited about heading into the city tomorrow with a group of work colleagues to a place called Cork & Chroma. Basically you paint and drink wine for a few hours - should be fun! Things are slowly starting to get moving again during this pandemic, but we have just had a cluster of 6 new cases of covid so there have been some new restrictions put in place today where I live.
A couple of weeks ago we were down to just a couple of cases in the state (Queensland Australia), but then some people do the wrong thing and the numbers have gone up again. However, I'm still thankful that our country has fared relatively well overall - Victoria is not is a good way (currently on strict lockdowns again) but the numbers are dropping so hopefully they can ease back next month when the lockdown is due to downgrade.
So a few weeks ago I was worried that I was having a mid-life crisis! I had incredible restlessness - something I have never experienced before. I decided I need to take action and set something to plan and look forward to.
Something I have wanted to do in my lifetime is walk the Camino pilgrimage across Spain - I had friends who did this a few years back and their blog really inspired me. It's a long walk - about 800 km and takes about 5 weeks. I had thought I would do this later in life as I can't really spend that long away from my kids at the moment. I always put things off because I think big and struggle to scale back, but I decided that I could walk part of the way for a shorter period. So that's my plan - covid willing - in September 2021, to travel to Spain and walk the last 280km of the trail which should take about 10 days. I have started learning Spanish from an App and hope to be able to take classes somewhere next year too.
I have really been enjoying listening to the new album from Birds of Tokyo (helps me stay on task with the cleaning!!) and they have a song I love called Unbreakable. I sang this to my daughter the other night - she struggles with confidence and self-doubt, but I think the chorus could be inspiring for anyone going through tough times. It goes...
No one can make you change who you are
No one can take one beat from your heart
When you're standing tall
You're unbreakable
No one can make you bend, you won't fold
No one can take your shine, you're all gold
When you're standing tall
You're unbreakable
Bec, Queensland, Australia
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Hey Colin, I don't normally respond when email newsletters encourage readers to write in - but figured I'd break that habit today, not too sure why I've had the change of heart, but here we are.
I'm sitting here in Johannesburg, South Africa and we are at the tail end of the pandemic peak (I hope) - restrictions have only just started to open up after 150+ days of lockdown that have been very challenging mentally. The mood on the ground is quite pessimistic because of the significant economic hit that has rocked the country. We didn't really have the financial strength to weather the lockdown and I think we are going to feel the pain for the next few years. Nonetheless, I remain optimistic - almost to a fault.
I'm an aspiring writer and creator and have been doing so on the side as a hobby for a number of years now but I'm getting that itch to take it more seriously and try to make it my career - because I think I'd find it very fulfilling. It's terrifying, to be honest, because I can't quite see how I'm going to monetise it, but I've seen enough examples of creatives making it work in the world of today's internet - so I really want to give it a go. You're one of those people who I draw inspiration from, you've managed to craft a "weird" life for yourself where you can chase your curiosities - so thank you for that. I hope to follow (somewhat) in your footsteps.
Anyways, I just felt compelled to share that with you. Hopefully I can manifest it in the years to come. Stay well and keep up the great work.
Regards
Barry, Johannesburg, South Africa
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If you’d like to share something about your life at the moment—for potential inclusion in a future newsletter, or just to chat privately with a stranger from the internet—you can reach me at colin@exilelifestyle.com.
Through the retrospective lens of adulthood, I now realize this was probably a polite dig.
Interesting & Useful
Some neat things:
Lord of the Manor(simple-but-complex browser-based game)
Real-Time Lightning Strike Map(mesmerizing)
CamJam(look through random security cameras in London)
Ask Nature(growing collection of nature-inspired solutions/ideas)
Old IKEA Catalog Archive(I love this)
An Archive of a Different Type(interesting look into how the Internet Archive functions through a story of an unexpected donation)
For more interesting things of this kind, pop on over to Curiosity Gadget.
Outro
It’s been a stressful but productive week.
It looks like I’m going to need a little surgery, which wasn’t pleasant (or cheap) news. Lots of plan-changes and psychological preparations happening on this side of the screen as a result, but all things considered I’m in a fortunate position (and I should probably note that this isn’t a life-threatening sort of thing and I’m okay: just anticipatory and looking forward to having all this behind me) :)
That said, it’s been fun getting back into frontend development, and I’m looking forward to digging back into the apps I started building, but which I had to set aside these past several weeks.
In other news, pandemic issues are still rife throughout the US, including here in mid-Missouri (though not to an extreme degree, relative to some other places).
I sincerely hope we develop a pre-vaccine, community response plan for this and future outbreaks when we make it to the other side of all this infrastructural muddlement—but right now it still feels fairly chaotic and confused at the ground-level, and I’m increasingly doubtful we’ll manage to implement such a plan for this particular pandemic.
So be careful out there, take appropriate precautions, and treat other people with all the kindness and understanding you can muster: a lot of folks are dealing with scary, serious stuff right now and won’t be at their best most of the time.
What’ve you been up to lately? Making any big plans? Small plans? Not plans, exactly, but maybe habits or rituals or half-whispered intentions? How’s life in your hometown, and how’s your family doing? Your friends?
Send me an email and tell me what’s been up.
I respond to every message I get, and whether you’re keen to share something that might (with your permission) be published in a future newsletter, or just want to vent/chat/say hi to a stranger from the internet, I’m around and will be happy to hear from you.
You can reach me at: colin@exilelifestyle.com
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You can also say howdy via Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or letter-carrying autogyro.
If you’re finding some value in what I’m doing here, consider supporting my work by becoming a patron of my writing or my news analysis podcast, buying one of my books, or subscribing to Brain Lenses. You can also buy me a coffee if you’re keen to.