Hello! It’s February 10, and I feel like the year is beginning a second time for me.
I’ve spent some time in Morocco at a Moroccan / Polish wedding, which was a wild trip. In just seven days I saw what felt like the whole city of Rabat-Sale come together for a night long wedding party in a riad, I saw the busy streets and markets of Marrakesh, I practiced my French and impressed myself, I went on a bus ride through the steep roads of the Atlas mountains, I rode a camel across the coarse dunes of the Sahara desert. I drank mint tea with lots of sugar, smoked hashish, ate Tajines, laughed a lot, danced to Moroccan tunes and made a bunch of new friends.
It was my first time in Africa, and despite Morocco’s proximity to Europe, I experienced a whole different world. My daily contemplations faded, as they do on a good holiday. Returning to Berlin last week felt like a whole new beginning.
So what is relevant?
It feels like it’s time to GET INVOLVED. That’s what’s coming up for me.
In my current hero’s journey, I’ve long been in the phase of the Return, which is the last phase, in which The Hero (it is I) returns with The Elixir, aka the distilled essence of what he learned on his journey.
Somehow this return doesn’t come easy to me. I’ve been on a five year sabbatical, and I enjoyed the comfort of not thinking about work, aka not being involved in matters of the outer world.
It is an ongoing process, in which I seem to alchemize the pressure of needing an income to sustain my life(style) with a genuine wish to do meaningful work.
This wish is counteracted by a fear. The fear of contact with the world. When my sabbatical began I was someone else. I was glad to drop the necessity of contact with the world to minimal levels. Having a money buffer helped me with that. “Work” and a “job” is usually a big compromise between parts of you that are genuinely excited to move the needle (any needle) in the world, and parts that don’t want anything to do with all that, or anyone, really.
It was very healing to have my barriers up, to have significant agency over who I’m speaking to or spending time with, for the first time in my life, really. It was also a great filter through which I upped the average of how much I liked people in my life significantly, because I learned to say no to opportunities and people.
Now it seems like my nervous system is still protecting that Simon from five years ago, but I’m actually a lot sturdier — like, WAY sturdier. I’ve got great friends, a great romantic relationship, I’ve got super dope 20s to look back on. Five years of career, five years of sabbatical, by age 32, who can say that about themselves??
And I’m slowly starting to believe in myself — in myself as someone who can do something commercially valuable again. Change is constant, but slow. Slowly, also due to the inevitability of needing an income, I’m approaching the necessary levels of courage to GET INVOLVED in the world. I had some instances of getting involved this week, and they showed me that I’m on the right path. 1) I threw a friend’s party at my house that I knew wouldn’t go over without some drama. And that’s exactly what happened, and it was no biggie. 2) I took part in a discussion or dare I say fight on the internet. I said my OPINION (wow). And it was very interesting and no biggie.
Maybe these examples sound like they shouldn’t be a biggie in the first place, but drama, discussion, fighting, defending positions — that’s exactly the stuff I didn’t want anything to do with for a while.
As my friend Jesse says, friction feels good. Friction is good. I went away from the world to experience frictionlessness. And I did, and it was novel and nice. Well kind of. I experienced life without being involved in the frictions of the world, like work. But then frictions in other domains appeared immediately. The frictions of my inner world. And that was good, I wanted to look at them and tend to them, and I did. I feel way less friction inside of my body and soul now. I also used to feel lots of friction inside of my apartment, which is now a well oiled machine, which does a great job of housing me and hosting others. I used to feel friction in my heart, but I’ve found love.
The pendulum swings. And the friction of the outer world has reappeared. And just like after every good heroes journey, I’m on another level. I think that’s what scares me most. Proofing that I can indeed have a career on the level I want to have it one, earning the money I want to earn, having explicitly not worked in the world during the last five years.
It seems pretty brazen and ambitious. I’ve forced myself to be brazen and ambitious. And courageous. I know I’m doing the right thing, and I’m well set up for it. But there is a doubting part in me, still. I hope to prove it wrong. I can’t wait to believe in my ability to work again, not just from the bottom of my heart, but also through real life evidence.
There is no way to do this, other than GETTING INVOLVED. The fear of which will only subside once I do it. The power of fear is that it shows you the way.
I’ll do my thing, and talk to you soon.
Many Blessings
S
PS: Because some people asked me what the plan is: I dream of a life as a sort of independent consultant, so I can work with people who do cool stuff in the world and I can help them set and keep the inner matters of their life, their creativity, their teams and their companies in order (or more like, in a good balance of order and chaos). So my current goal is to find clients, who enjoy working with me and vice versa, and who are willing and able to pay me well. Which seems pretty possible. I’m just working up the courage to call some people. I think I’m pretty close now.
If you read this and you or someone you can think of might be interested in working with me, here is a page about my work, and here is what people say about working with me. Contact me through my website or email me: simon at nowmedia dot org.