great work, practice and identity

letters from the now #1

hello friends,

and happy new year! I hope you’re doing well.

In the last couple of years, my life has been cinematic. Magical and wondrous things happen to me regularly. The baseline quality of my life has increased dramatically. Chance encounters have led to love, friendship and adventure. I’ve been a silent enjoyer of this process.

I’ve not documented much of this in a way that’s accessible to others. I know my stories, but I haven’t captured them. I took pictures, but I haven’t posted them. I used to have a reason for that. The same reason for why I’m not taking a picture of a breathtaking sunset, when I can look at it and enjoy it in real time. Just be there and enjoy. The time is now, after all?

This reasoning seems wack to me now. When I go back through my photo albums, I’m almost always happy to see a picture of the sunset or of people and things I love. And when I go back through my public channels, I’m always happy that I’ve written or spoken about something. The recorded piece is much more useful than the being in the present moment. Being present is well cultivated in me, capturing (well!), not so much.

And there is another thing: I’m sometimes hesitant to write. I feel so flimsy and too vulnerable. Words are so powerful. I feel so unsure about what I’m doing often times, I don’t know who I am. I’m just flowing in the river. It’s easier when I speak, but either way, I often feel like I have to have a topic pre-loaded instead of sitting down at the blank page, or hit record, just to see what comes out.

This makes it hard to be diligent. I forget how good it does me to write and to capture. Much like the difficulty around sticking to the gym, or other movement practices, no matter what, I fall off the wagon, and only remember that I need to do it when it’s high time, when I’m in the red.

bus window perspective on january sun breaking thru fat cloud wall

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a wish for practice

For the first time in years, I can somewhat estimate what this year (of the lord, 2025) will bring, because there are certain forcing functions at play in my life. And I thought, what if I make a commitment to write as it happens?

To speak from the river flow?

To write through the change?

To create artifacts from the now?

I’ve been longing for this, I’ll tell you honestly. In 2024 I completed 42 workouts. Those include gyms and swims. In 2023 that total was 17. That’s a completely different ballpark and I’m proud of both numbers, but especially of the higher one. In turn, my body composition is stable. I’m not massive or ripped, but I’m solid, and I’m not fat — and I’ve been living (read: eating and drinking) well so that’s not out of the question! But I’m not and I feel good and that’s good.

Now, how good would it be if I got to similar numbers when it came to writing, recording and publishing? One of the big things I wish for is to be more topical and less self referential. To be in the now with my writings, to cut right to the chase. The lack of routine gives me the urge to establish context, to reintroduce myself, partly because I’ve forgotten who I am, since I last put something to the page, or sent a newsletter.

But this identity game has been a scourge on my life. I’m not enjoying it, and it doesn’t seem to work. But I’m forced to it, like I’m forced to tidy up my desk, or sometimes my whole apartment, before I can do any meaningful work. It is there and I can’t overcome it with my own will.

Instead I have to appease, and the method of appeasement that seems to work is steadiness. My productivity changed when I learned to tidy up my flat in half a day. My gym behavior changed when I teamed up with a friend as a gym buddy, but also when I created notes in my phone that served as trackers and reminders of “who I was when I was here last time”.

desk needs clearin’

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how does identity work?

Apparently identity is subject to entropy? Just like muscles or the state of a living space. Identity, too, needs a regular activity, which produces order, and which, in interplay with entropy, scaffolds a system of homeostasis. A practice.

I guess that’s why people have jobs? They give money, but they also give steady identity. Sometimes too much, maybe. I remember leaving my job at Twitch because I was overidentified with the company. I remember I was yearning for finding who I was outside of that work environment.

Over the years I found myself in various smaller identities, which could flourish more, once my demanding job was out of the picture. It seems like something or someone gives us identity, but the amount of identity is proportional to how much it wants from us? In turn, wanting something from someone gives them identity? Thinking out loud here…

Because what have been my core identities away from work over the years?

• Inhabitant of an apartment

• Friend to many people

• Brother to two younger brothers

• Son to my parents

• Participant in online community

• Occasional content creator

• Partner to a woman (relationship stopped)

• Partner to a woman (relationship ongoing)

• Inhabitant of a body (?)

• Music lover

• Gamer

To analyse this list:

I’m strongly identified with my apartment, because we wanted a lot from each other, and we’ve given a lot to each other. People notice this, they see me differently when they see me in my flat, or people who have lived in my flat without me see it differently when I’m in it vs. when I’m away.

My friendships became more interesting when we wanted more from each other (e.g. more belonging, more creativity). It also polarizes them — when someone wants something and it doesn’t sit well with the other, it’s not guaranteed that a friendship will remain.

I have one brother who I lived with recently and we are strongly identified, and would drop a lot of other stuff to help each other. We needed a lot from each other and worked hard to give it. I have another brother who keeps more to himself and I’m not strongly identified with him. It seems like we don’t want much from each other or at least it is not expressed in a way so we could make something out of it.

My identity as the son of my parents is complicated. I’m strongly identified with the rift of their separation that they left me. I thus feel much more strongly as the grandson of my (maternal) grandparents. So I have to see my parents as individuals, and we usually get stopped pretty hard when we want too much from each other. It goes deeper than that, but let’s call my identifcation level “medium”.

I’m pretty strongly identified with my online community (tpot). It was a game changer in my life to find “the others” and I feel soothed that they exist, and I made great friends from there. At the same time the identification is not so clear, because the community is not clearly bounded. I would say much sooner that “I’m a metalhead” rather than “I’m part of tpot”. I feel much more like I’m someone who is similar to this *broadly gestures* group of people. On the other hand, when I’ve hosted TREEWEEK, which was an evented targeted at the wider tpot community, I felt strongly identified with that. Probably because it generated an bounded subcommunity, if at least for a moment.

I’m a content creator but not a content creator. The amount of content I create is not zero, but I’m doing it occasionally. BUT this is actually very much the point of this article: If I did it more, if I wanted more from it, it would start wanting more from me, and my content and I would become identified. I create little enough content to not be identified with it. I think I shall come back to this further below. *

I was a partner to a woman, and our relationship ended (pretty badly). Of course, while it was ongoing I was strongly identified with that. Extremely strongly, I would say. As we all experience, I abandoned parts of myself to be together with her, until these parts started a revolution, and showed me that this isn’t going to work out. The death of this relationship, and the image of it, is something I’m identified with. A gravestone, at which I often pray, for this particular past to not repeat itself. Sometimes parts of this relationship haunt me, which speaks for a relatively strong identification.

I am now a partner to a woman, and our relationship is great. I am once again, highly and intensely identified with her and our relationship. But I strongly intend to not lose myself in it, but to stand tall as an individual in togetherness, because I think that is a recipe for longevity, a great relationship, and fantastic parenthood. Love is to guard each others solitude, as Rilke said. This relationship is a great and intense source of identity and it always amazes me how much love does for me in that regard. It leads me to believe that I am a Lover, because I’m most driven by my love for people and things. It’s easy for me to love, it’s like I’m a love-Obelix. Fell into the love potion as a little boy.

As an inhabitant of a body, I have a strong identity, which includes my looks, the care I have for myself, and also life giving activities such as sleeping, sports and cooking. When it comes to grooming and clothing, my identity is pretty strong. I worked hard on liking my looks when I was about 20. My face/body and I wanted a lot from each other in that way. When it comes to sleeping and sports, my identity could be a bit stronger, as in I’m sometimes at odds with what my body actually needs and wants from me, and I’m maybe not honest and consistent with what I want from him. When it comes to food … I’ve fed myself and enough other people well in my lifetime so that I feel pretty well identified with the label “cook”, I think I’m a good cook and I’m currently thinking about making more of a hobby out of it, instead of it just being a life supporting base function.

Music is interesting. I swim in the water that is music. I don’t spend a day not listening to music. I’ve noticed how little I actually talk about music, and connect with people over music, because it is just so everpresent. I’ve also recently found out that I was slightly suppressed in my childhood when it came to music, and the adults around me didn’t have the same expansive taste as I had, so I’m shy talking about it. But music is firmly in my realm of love, the music I listen to mirrors the movements of my hearts.

Gaming has been my safe haven, so I’m very much a gamer. I always return to (video) games and there are few things that scratch my itch as well as a good gameplay loop. I used to talk about games a lot to the people around me, and I still do, and I’ll always be looking forward to a good game. I’m very strongly identified with games, and I often think that the way I aim to conceive of my life is very game oriented.

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the now

Let’s come back to the now, back to what’s possibly the letter I would have written without needing to clear my mental desk. But I’m sure it will all make sense, because I’m right at the edge of a fresh game: Doing Great Work.

That’s right. I’ve spent the last year close to broke, with a big focus on money. Feeling like money will bring me back to work, feeling grateful for that, but still being intensely focused on money and “ways to make money”.

In (the year of our gracious lord) 2025 I’ve decided that focus on money is old news, and I myself have said years ago that it’s a false god, but even the best of our knowledge doesn’t keep us from sinning, especially when it feels like your personal, real life, existential ASS is on the LINE.

Instead, I’m grateful that the need for money brought forward the need to work. And since my sabbatical project has a lot to do with changing my relationship to work, and my identification with work, I’m feeling well set up to return to work. The need to work shall be love for work. The need for money shall be love for money. And together they shall be scaffolding for love itself.

And I’m hereby declaring that my focus for 2025 is: To Love, while Doing Great Work.

Let me briefly describe how I anticipate my year to go:

• January: going to Spain for a brief holiday and Yincubator

• May-July: my girlfriend moves in with me

• September: TREEWEEK TWO

This timeline creates some pretty clear cut needs: I need a regular income by EOM February and onward, so that my living situation is stable, so that my girlfriend can move in with me, so that we can fulfill our wish of living together and everything that follows.

This is what it’s all for. That’s the love part. It’s hard for me to imagine doing this just for my own survival at this point. I’m so glad I’m in service of love.

The income I’m talking about can come from many places. Last year I thought: It has to be my own venture, something I’m doing by myself, or ideally with friends. Employment was not really on the table, but I softened on that.

Now the focus in me is not on the form of this, but simply on the source. The best source I found is this: I want to Do Great Work. How or where I do it? I don’t know yet, but I’m open to many options, including employment.

This is my best shot at a new gameplay loop emerging: I’m “someone who” Does Great Work. Or just, I Do Great Work. Or, I’m here to Do Great Work. I Love Doing Great Work. I wish to Do Great Work.

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great work

So what is this Great Work?

I think what exactly it is has yet to emerge. And it also has to do with whom I partner up to do this work. That’s why I’m more interested in employment: I think there are parts in me that want to meet authority. They want to be shaped, led, and mastered, both in the sense of “meeting a master” and in the sense of “achieving mastery”. I can only do that with someone who I can meet and accept as a master.

Meeting a master has been difficult for me when on my own. I mostly meet friends as peers. I think without work (and specifically money and the market) at play, I’m not particularly interested in proving myself. But when it comes to this idea of Great Work, my youthful hunger for trying, proving myself and being rewarded, is coming back online.

Funnily enough, now I’m thinking that it is this friendly peering, this horizontality, this mutuality and love — I want to see if I can find that in the vertical space of a career and a company. And I think therein lies my sense of what Great Work is.

To do serious things playfully.

To make light work of hard tasks.

To bring non-doing to busy-ness.

To be slow, so things get done faster.

To focus on feelings, and let facts emerge.

To bring love and work together.

To serve the flow.

Most concretely, what I’m imagining is being an in-house wizard/plumber, who focuses on difficult conversations, and clears the communicative pipes, so truth can flow freely between people and teams. So that transformations happens with ease and speed. So that people come, go and change as they need. So that everyone can do Great Work.

I have a successful track record for this kind of work in my private life. I’ve done some work as a coach/advisor to companies, so far well received, but that’s exactly where I now feel the need to prove myself in a performance oriented environment.

At this time I’m carrying the idea of offering my work to VCs, because it seems practical that they are stewards to many companies. I would love to visit many companies and help them with my work. Investors know that to judge the potential of a startup by the founding team, and I believe I can help teams to raise their potential immensely.

This is the most difficult thing I’m currently capable of doing, while enjoying it immensely. I want a chance to do this Great Work from the world, and it would be amazing if the world wanted this Great Work from me. If that were the case, I can see myself strongly identifying with this.

As a note: In the past, I was talking about Life’s Work instead of Great Work. I wrote:

Your Life’s Work is the work your life asks of you. It is the noble following of your innermost impulse, combined with all the unique advantages and disadvantages you may have. It is taking your best abilities and applying them to what is in front of you.

I think that was a good direction. But it had a problem: It was too heavy on me. I always thought it had to be perfect, but I forgot the “to what is in front of you” part. My new approach to Doing Great Work definitorily contains a degree of agnosticism when it comes to what exactly my job is. For now, I’d also be willing to do a job where my primary job description is not exactly the above, but I could weave my Great Work into the activities of my job. I feel like I didn’t know myself enough in my previous employment, but now, 10 years later, I feel my skills have matured and I could apply myself much differently to any job.

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practice & identity

Let me close with some thoughts on practice and identity.

I said in the part about content creation that I would come back to this:*

“I create little enough content to not be identified with it.”

And in the part about fitness I said:

“My gym behavior changed when I teamed up with a friend as a gym buddy, but also when I created notes in my phone that served as trackers and reminders of “who I was when I was here last time”.

One could translate the adage “fake it till you make it” to “practice till you become”, or, “practice shapes identity”. When you do 100 things of something, you will be a something-er. 100 posts, you’re a poaster, 100 videos, you’re a YouTuber, or maybe even a film maker. 100 songs or beats and you’re a songwriter or beatmaker.

I can’t exactly frontload identity. But I can frontload a behavior, a practice. Great Work takes practice. And for a while I “practice”, and then maybe at some point I “have a practice”, and maybe I can “share a practice” and then I can call myself a “practitioner”.

When I don’t practice, this process reverts. I forget what I do well. I forget who I am and who I can be. I get distracted, other identities become stronger. I visit the place of work less. Doing Great Work becomes optional. I’m not doing it, therefore I don’t need to do it.

As part of my Great Work this year, in the creative realm of my life, I wish to write and to document whatever may happen in my life. I want to harness this skill that I associate with a documentarian or a chronicler. I want to examine my life and that of people that interests me. There is a core in me that wishes for that, and who believes that this is an essential part of my Great Work, which I want to do, and I’m called to do.

I wish to establish and further this practice, so I don’t need to start anew every time, so I remember who I am in this, so that the practice may rightfully sit in the throne that is reserved for it in me, from which it will benefit my health and my being greatly.

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declarations

I hereby declare that I will publish a written or recorded piece every week. By Sunday, before the new week begins, something shall be released.

I also declare that during the working hours of the weekdays, I will focus on contacting people and companies about the Great Work I want to do, until I have sufficiently engaging work.

2025 shall be the a year of Love, of Great Work, and of focused practice.

My home: a practice of Love

My publication: a practice of Documentation and Examination

My job: a practice of Great Work

May these wishes be granted.

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Thank you very much for reading, and please forgive the lengthiness. I hope an evolving practice will allow me to be more concise, with less table clearing necessary.

Much love and many blessings

S