the thing

creating with grace

One of the things I come back to is some variations of the concept of “everything could my next thing, except for the things I’m actually doing”. Compared to the last time I wrote about it, I proudly made huge steps forward. Some remnants do remain, similar to the thin lines of dust that remain undefeated when you sweep the floor and somehow it takes you fives times as much effort to remove those than the first ninety-nine percent, but it’s ok.

The variation I come back to today is called Obsession, also known as The Thing. You surely came across it infinite times, I sure did. Find The Thing, find The Thing you’re Obsessed about, the one you can’t live without, the one that keeps you awake at night.

My Obsession Deficit allows me to enjoy the depth and the beautiful variety of life, equipping me with a fantastic ability to definitely live without a thing or more while also sleeping like a baby. The downside of the condition is that, since I grew up with heroes accomplishing their life by obsessing over a thing or two, I have a what-if mechanism that whenever I am reminded of that, I tend to look for another thing I can potentially obsess about, even when I have plenty of things I deeply love.

It’s like as if a part of me didn’t allow myself to even give me the chance to develop the obsession, bouncing off patches of water like a racing boat instead of finding the patch and slowly submerging like a submarine.

But the thing is, racing boats are cool.

We take for granted that The Obsession, The Thing, is the global maximum of the natural state, as if humans evolved to obsess over a craft or trade, similarly to how we evolved to staying in tribe and telling stories around a fire. We give for granted that finding The Obsession, The Thing, is the chokepoint to fulfillment and meaningful happiness, but I find myself distancing more and more from the hyper-achiever, self-help definition of it.

Sophie studied unusual things, like History and Protection of Art, was a windsurfing national champion, won multiple hackathons, founded multiple companies, wrote a book, and travelled to sixty plus countries. The other day she told me she realized she is more of an artist than a tech founder, so she is now in China visiting manufacturers to make design-first wearables.

I love talking to her, not for the things she did, but for how she carries them.

I’ve always associated living and achieving like that with some sort of aggressive attitude toward life, imposed discipline, and alienating productivity. That sort of, “I am doing so much, because I am extreme, and I’m willing to put what others aren’t willing to put”. When I talk to Sophie, none of that is there. Her vibes are more like, “Well, I thought writing a book was cool, so I just sat down and wrote for a couple of months to see what would come up. In the meantime I was building a VC-backed startup, but you know, I found the time. Anyway, my co-founder decided to go back at sports, so I tried another venture. It was cool! But I didn’t really care for it, so I left. Now I am in China, and I love it!”.

There is no hint of musts, shoulds, have-tos, or judgement. There is no hint of if, why, and how she accomplishes more than any people I know. She just finds interesting things to do, does them, and when she doesn’t want to do them anymore, she stops.

And it all of that, she carries on with loving grace.

I am fascinated and in love with these kinds of people, and I am lucky to have many in my life. They are not obsessed in the traditional sense of the term, but they are in the Chris Williamson way:

People admire discipline, and envy motivation, but very few understand obsession. And because they don’t understand it, they waste it.

Here’s the part people miss: obsession isn’t a personality trait, it’s a state, which means it can’t be summoned on command.

You can’t decide to be obsessed.

It appears when curiosity, identity, reward and meaning accidentally align.

And when it appears, it doesn’t last forever.

That’s the tragedy - obsession is a non-renewable fuel source.

When it leaves, you don’t get it back on demand.

In future it will take you so much more effort to get even partially close to this level of output - so use your free fuel while it’s available.

Which is why the correct response to a positive obsession isn’t to suppress it, balance it or apologise for it, it’s to surrender to it.

If you’re currently obsessed with something positive, my advice to you is this: let it crawl inside you, wear your skin and stare out through your eyes.

If you can’t stop watching lifting videos and spend all your time thinking about diet and training, now isn’t the time to be balanced with the gym.

If your sleep is wrecked because you’re ruminating about a business idea that you can’t wait to launch then don’t seek calm, you’re allowed to go demon-mode with it.

Serial obsessives move from intense project to intense project, making huge progress while the tide is with them so that when the obsession inevitably fades, something important has already happened - the rails for their future behaviour have been laid.

By the time the obsession wanes, you’ve built the patterns, routines, skills and habits that allow you to keep going when the fuel is no longer free.

It’s so easier to ride through different waves of personal greatness (defined as alignment with your true self, which of course is constantly changing) with this definition of obsession, rather than in the traditional sense of “pick one thing, become obsessed with it, and just do that for the rest of your life”.

But the order is misguided, we’re not machines. We can’t pick something and decide to become obsessed with it. We try things that seem interesting, we notice what we keep on being pulled toward to, we do it, and we keep until it’s not aligned anymore. Whether the cycle lasts weeks or years, they are obsessions.

My things were or are boats, playing the guitar, photography, the travel industry, writing, astrophysics, startups, spirituality, coffee, psychedelics, communities, cooking and more. They all have in common that I got into them just out of flow, rather than by seeking an obsession to make it work.

Still, I sometimes feel like I have to find the thing, and I notice days in a row where I am constantly chasing something, detached from the present. I strive to do the opposite, this:

I wrote something of a poem this morning, shown at the end, and it talks about this tension between one part enjoying multiple things to pursue and one part needily chasing something, not out of love, but out of fear.

The poem takes place in a trial between a man, me, and a judge. The man overthinks, with a hint of victimism, blaming society for the challenges he encounters in following what he really wants to do. The judge sees through the bullshit and ultimately sentences him to just do things and live life.

“The Thing” is the thing you’re supposed to look for, and “the things” are instead the things you’re naturally pulled toward, but that he won’t let become “The Thing” out of fear of the unknown.

I go through the tension of liking many things (ie. music, art, startups, architecture), with the simultanenous satisfaction of them being just things I once was obsessed and I today love, and the false desire for one of them to become “what my life is about”.

Lot of inspiration was taken by The Trial, a song from The Wall, the Pink Floyd’s album. The protagonist, Pink, builds a wall as a dysfunctional self-defense mechanism to isolate himself from others and hide his real feelings. At the end, he must confront his true self, impersonated by a judge, who sentences him to tear down the wall and show others who he really is, which the only way to actually connect on a deeper level.

I see strong similarities in the journey of accepting one self: the only way to find personal alignment is to accept ourselves, and pursue our real deal.

Here is to you, The Thing.

(the man)

For all my life, I’ve been searching and seeking
to be obsessed, to be fixated, to find The Thing
to find the path, the road, The Thing
Crashing through reality, I am far from finding
any direct manifestation of That

Would my thing be a general abstraction,
of liking multiple things?
Would my thing be a higher abstraction,
of liking one upstream thing?
A conceptual source
from which all things and rivers
fall and flow
into the sea
of my life?

What’s This Thing anyway?

Why can’t I be ok
in being obsessed part time
with the music or art?
In enjoying stones and zero to one,
without the house or the firm?
In savouring the lines
without the authorship?
In teaching a few hours,
in cooking a few dishes,
in pulling puzzles apart,
without the science and labs?
In recording and shooting,
without the Oscars and the gallery?

To be clear, I am not,
for the sake of the trial,
against The Thing(s)
I stand here
naked
and I am not
against being dressed
by whoever The Thing is

But Your Honour,
I am not ok anymore
in projecting the destination,
without enjoying the road
In imagining the stage,
without focusing on the chord
In desperately trying
to find one more thing
that could be The Thing
Let me build
my things

(the judge)

The evidence before the court is
incontrovertible
there is no need for the jury to retire
In all my years of judging
all I’ve heard is people
deserving the full penalty of law

The way you gave your autonomy
up to society or to somebody’s Thing,
instead of building
the house of your own
And the way you made suffer
your exquisite soul, oh father
fills me with the urge to defecate

You’ve been caught
in following others’ Thing,
because it was too dangerous
to follow yours

They could have caught you
What if it was the thing
they didn’t expect of you?
What if it was the thing
that didn’t maximise the chance?
Should have listened to yourself
when the soul in you
was crying to be heard
Why did you keep looking away
instead of looking inward?

But, my friend,
you’ve come at last
I sentence you
to live the life you own
to be exposed
to what you really want
and to stop seeking
The Thing

(the man)

Today I decide
to be ok
in having the petals of the rose
in having the sparkles of the sun
in having to dance on the floor
in having the upstream source
and to be
a connoisseur of the unknown
a master of nothing at all
if not of
a master of what I want to be