Ebbs and Flows
In any creative project there are these ebbs and flows of energy, times when it feels like you're being pushed by a wave and propelled forward.
Hey friends,
In any creative project there are these ebbs and flows of energy, times when it feels like you're being pushed by a wave and propelled forward, and then times when it feels like the tide is receding and you can't move forward no matter what you do. Over the years I've learned to trust those cycles. When the wave is pushing me, I ride it. When the energy is down, I try to relax. Not so easy sometimes - feels like there's so much to do, so many amazing interesting things to create, and so many people to share them with. The world just feels so full of possibility.
I'm in Vietnam right now, in this seaside city called Vung Tau that somehow reminds me of the south of France. There's this super beautiful long winding coast for motorbike rides along the water, blue and white and red fishing boats bobbing in the waves. Sharp sun and hot crisp air. There's something about the people here that feels so peaceful to me - every café or store or restaurant or motorbike shop you pass, there's a group of people just sitting, talking, playing cards, smoking cigarettes, laughing. Little red chairs and low yellow tables, coffee slowly drip dripping through their tin hats. Smell of shrimp drying outside down the street, motorbikes driving by with whole families. Kids sandwiched and held and at peace between mom and dad. Sun setting. Wind picking up. Kids and dogs and old people and women and men just existing, looking around.
Most of the businesses here are people's houses - they live upstairs or in the back, so in some ways they're always at work, but it doesn't feel like work like I think about work. No one seems busy or stressed or running around on some intense schedule. They just seem like they're living their lives during the day at their business, and when people come in, they give them what they need, and when they leave, they go back to talking.
I know this is a romantic vision of their lives, there's a lot I don't see, but there's just something so nice about being outside here. There's so many people around, just living their lives in public. Something so peaceful about it. I’m sure you’re reading this and somehow wishing for that peace too, right? We all do. We hold up as a model this ideal that we should be living more peaceful lives, but then everything we do is in contrast to that. Me for example, I love to sit and exist and watch and write letters and draw, and just be at these street side cafes...for a few hours. Then it’s back to work. Schedule scheduled in 45 minute blocks from sunrise to afternoon, when I force myself to stop. Then inevitably back at it at night. Debugging, answering emails, learning Portuguese, playing the guitar, drawing, watching coding tutorials, meditating, reading. Work calls until midnight some nights. To say I’m obsessive is not an understatement. I want to work. I love to work. I love to create and push and expand. I love to learn and grow. So where I idealize the peace I see here, in some ways I actually don’t understand it. I see people sitting just hanging out and I think, “don’t you want to be reading something or learning something or starting something?”. This obsessive self improvement gene, that gets me so far, but also can be a curse. On balance, I enjoy my way. What a privilege to even have that option, to have the time and freedom and opportunity to keep creating. I want to grab it and run with it and not waste it. Free time doesn’t feel free to me, I want to use every moment. Maybe that's okay. It takes all kinds, as they say. Maybe balance isn't about being peaceful all the time, but about trusting the ebbs and flows, and finding your own peace in the change. I have come over the years to trust the ebbs. Use the energy to create when I have it, and swim in the ocean and take long motorbike rides along the coast when I don’t.
More soon,
Iso