06/27/2024

shut up and listen

a letter to myself

dear aishwarya,

if there’s ever tension between want and should: 

doing what you “want” yields ease and abundance. doing what you “should” yields friction and rigidity. “want” requires commitment to effortlessness and faith. that faith requires being ok with uncertainty. you have to accept that “want” will allow you to get everything you need to get done, and that you will reach homeostasis naturally. you ought to trust your body and go slow. remember: go slow to go fast. take your sweet time. you must internalize that less is more. this is real discipline. this is courage. this is the effortless effort of creativity. 

“should” on the other hand requires a higher activation energy to get anything done. “should” is unsustainable. it doesn’t evolve as your needs and priorities evolve. this is synthetic discipline and it will only get you to a predetermined outcome. this doesn’t leave space for magic. don’t you want magic? emergence? space is necessary. you need negative space to see the art and listen to what it is telling you.

“want” will naturally only have you do just enough in the day that you can completely recover from. “want” demands compassion and kindness and listening to your body. it requires surrender and trust in the unknown. it calls for rest and letting the subconscious have the space it needs to marinate and process and compute.

“want” is also perpetually calibrating your past and everything you have experienced. it takes your DNA into account if you let it. it knows when to work and when to rest. it knows that you haven’t had a break since 2020. not a true break when there is freedom between two periods of wanted structure. 

“want” has extraordinary, courageous amounts of self-belief. it cultivates habits that evolve with you naturally and it yields a composure that is much more robust than any self-induced super imposed self-control. “want” puts you at peace because your evolving needs are being fulfilled. 

“should” outputs a fake discipline that doesn't evolve with you. it doesn’t allow for tweaking and iteration and is based on other people’s mental models. do not do what other people say works for them. people are not giving advice to you. they are giving advice to younger versions of themselves because that is the only lived experience they have. they do not know you. true empathy and compassion are very rare. 

in your 50 days of writing practice, you had to write 50 essays in 50 days, a regimen you set for yourself. you were able to do it because you simply wanted to. this was a big feat in itself. it did not come from a place of i-should-do-this, or a fear of not producing enough. the more you did it, the easier it became and the greater the desire to do it got. you learned more about yourself, what works for you, and what doesn’t work for you. the process evolved with you, and you evolved with the process. this delicate symbiotic relationship can only be built with true “want” and desire. desire is not bad. desire is a signal for your needs, needs that turn into wants. because you wanted to write 50 essays, you naturally implemented structure in your day and made space for it. you did not have to think about it. your body naturally fell into a rhythm. 

we’re all a mixture of various circadian rhythms and daily physiological patterns. your body is on your side and it will end up creating time naturally once you allow it to and let it speak to you. 

all you have to do is, 

shut up and listen. 

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