hello friends,
a gloomy Sunday in Berlin makes ample writing time.
I have some interesting news from inside of my head. But let me kick you off with something funny: How to have high thoughts without getting high? Let me explain.
I used to smoke a lot of weed. Idk about you but what weed does to me is it gets my head going real fast. It produces million dollar ideas at a breathtaking speed in me noggin. The problem is, on the day after, they don’t have roots in reality and I can’t make much of them.
I don’t think these ideas are completely nonsensical or crazy, but they are of a visionary nature. They connect to something that is latent in my brain, meaning dormant, not quite actualized. They usually aren’t wrong — in a way they are hyper true even — but they point to the future, not to the now. They are fun to think, and they inform the path I’m on, but they’re impossible to execute in a plannable time frame.
Hahaha jeez, how many times have I sent voice notes to my collaborators being like “yo yo yo what about THIS though —” and gone on some semi-hinged rant about things that may or may not come to fruition months later .… at some point I started adding full disclosures (“just so you know, I may or not be rather blazed”) to avoid later frustrations. Oh well.
Anyway, I’m having a pretty sober time right now, I’m trying to get better sleep and I’m also pretty busy, so partaking in the devil’s lettuce is not really on the menu for me right now. There is a little grown up version of me (at least for the moment) knocking at my door.
But the most amazing thing is happening right now!!! I have been having HIGH IDEAS without getting high! At the extremely luxurious pace of roughly 1 per week. AND they are grounded in reality! That all means that I can actually act on them?! How good is that?
design
My high thought of the week was: DESIGN. It came and went quickly, but it was extremely clear what it was. It pointed at a matter I’ve been grappling with for a long time.
What is design? I asked my friend
and she said, it’s basically treating projects with intentions, purpose and awareness. To me that means, thinking ahead, working backwards, seeing what we want from The Thing, and how we want others to experience The Thing.I called Vidhika because I had
side note: what if I wrote all of this in present tense for more NOW vibes?
I call Vidhika because this thought is in me. I think I’m a designer. I think I need to design stuff. I think it’s time to allow myself to shape things the way I think is right.
This series is called “letters from the now” because I want to write from 0 to 1, to put something on the page for the merit of itself, to get stuff out of my brain. The routine is: Publish something I’ve written into this editor once a week. It has to be written and published, not read, shared or enjoyed.
I would call that writing without design. Without editing, scrappy one way, it is what it is, fuck it, we’ll do it live. The creative part of me needs this. It has to be allowed to do unedited stuff. I need to know I won't die or be ostracized if I talk about questionable matters like smoking weed or vulnerably share what is inside of me. I used to be terrified of this because I’ve been punished for speaking the truth so many times. I suppose I’m still terrified, but with every unedited letter from the now less so.
To achieve this I consciously turn off the designer in me, who wants to make things look nice and tidy and perfect and purposeful. Just like I had to turn off the accountant in me who started yelling when I went on my indefinite sabbatical.
I tell these parts, not now. Your time will come soon, but right now the younger kid needs undisrupted play time. You’re wise, you know design, you know money, you can look ahead, but right now it is time to be in the now. Step back, let the kid play and make mistakes. He will soon ask you for help.
Here it is. The creative writer kid is happy, he knows that he gets my time of day every Sunday (or so), to write with unbridled forwardness. And now my system wonders, what if we wrote more, on another day, with more design intentions? What if we start a new column on Substack that’s called Ohler’s Holistic Lab, where we write down these lessons we’ve learned? That memoir we’ve had tingling under our nails? Write a series of posts that are designed for effectivity. Laid out for easy readability and even shareability? Posts that have, not only a chance, but an intention to make a difference, both for me and for others?
I’m feeling the need to tab out of here and set up that column right now, but let’s not be foolish, I’ll do it later. We’re here to talk about the upcoming urge to design, not to get distracted by, in fact, designing.
I used to think I’m not a good designer or planner. Probably because I just didn’t do it that much, because the designer part of me was very adult and aggressive. So I never got to design in my own time. The time I needed to start with something scrappy and then refine it.
My call with Vidhika vindicates that. I learn how many little things I already do that totally count as design. I realize that the attention for detail that I have is that of a designer. I’m figuring out that TREEWEEK was a whole big design full of intention. I feel relieved.
gifted drama
I put the designer on leave and locked up the accountant in the dungeon because they wouldn’t let me get anything done in the moment. I’d start writing something and the designer would say “how about we make a bigger series out of this??” and the accountant would say “how about we put a price tag on this??” and the kid doing the creative work would roll his eyes and immediately move on to something less productive, so the adults won’t harp on him. How oppressive. Creative output at zero.
The drama of the gifted child starts right there doesn’t it? With incompetent or immature adults around, the gifted child fills the adult gaps in the room. But those gaps don’t exist in his inner domain, he needs to squeeze them in, and these big characters take space in a child that is still developing; they occupy areas that are rightfully his to grow into.
Wow, you are so mature for your age, and you can do the things we expect you to so incredibly well, wise beyond your years, amazing.
And how hard to know, how impossible to grasp that all I want to do is fuck around with Legos and ride my bike with friends. Oh well…
Incredible alpha in reclaiming and re-living your childhood and your adolescence as much as you can. Put resources towards letting your inner child reexpand. Take weird arbitrary duties out of the equation. Do what your body actually needs, like sleeping a lot for 2 months, or playing all the video games you have been putting off, or rearrange your apartment, or find real love, or make some new friends, form a crew, and take them on an adventure.
Find out what your inner child needs, before you belabor your outer children with weird arbitrary duties. Participate in generational healing. I’m incredibly bullish on this.
I give the same advice to friends who struggle to take some time off but clearly and dearly need it. If the designer, the accountant, and other authority figures are in the room, you can’t actually make decisions. Your suggestion to take time off or fuck around a bit is antithetical to their existence, so they will always give you shit for it. If you’re used to listening to them, you won’t even know what an internal conversation without them sounds like.
One time I talked to
and he said, don’t go broke, you’ll operate at about a standard deviation lower IQ.Now I’m broke and if this is what a standard deviation lower IQ feels like (locked in, full of purpose, up at 8am, more time and energy than ever) then I don’t wanna be right.
I think it’s because now I’m reinstating these adult parts when they’re needed. The designer is not the writer, but he is needed to write in a certain way that I’m now particularly interested in. And the accountant is not who joyfully decides what we do with our life, but he is needed as earning money is the primary thing I need to do for prosperous continuity.
These characters have a place and they need to be in that place. They can’t just run around and make decisions everywhere. They’ll burn themselves out and deform the system. But when they’re in their place, they are valued advisors, they bring lots of energy, and it is a joy to work with them as we can consult them voluntarily, instead of them hovering and tyrannizing.
Give them an office, pay them well, draw upon them when needed, and otherwise teach them to not bother you, and have fun without them.
Know who is the master, and who is, in fact, the emissary.
Such is life!
It’s Tuesday by now and I shall bid you farewell!
Thanks for reading and see you soon : )
Many many blessings
S
