02/15/2024

Transcendence: An Emergent Career Life

notes on uncertainty, freedom, and my life’s work

Over the past four years, my professional and personal life has been marked by significant change encompassing four moves, three countries, two jobs, and one graduate degree. 

Needless to say, I have been exploring and questioning what I’m supposed to do, sort of the age-old Purpose question. It is difficult to exist when you are constantly questioning if you are reaching your highest potential, “what’s next?”, if this is the “correct” path (although I know there is no singular “right” way to live – A24 films have shown us the seemingly unlimited amounts of permutations of every fork in the road that could unfold different lives (1)). I often find myself consistently and perpetually exploring – paralyzed by the breadth of my interests. I worry the choices I have made weren’t mine and were infected with proving myself for external validation. It makes me want to break everything that is gluing together my present reality, the way I am currently experiencing life and start from scratch. Tabula rasa (2). I often wonder, where my most natural child-like wonder and intuition would take me if it wasn’t interrupted by an external locus of self. If I was allowed to question what I want, rather than what I am supposed to want. 

Embracing uncertainty makes way for agency 

Well, I was fortunate enough to be laid off from my job recently, which has given me the unique opportunity to explore my tabula rasa. Of course, there is uncertainty, which for a lot of us shows up as the dread of not knowing, invoking feelings of fear and distress. But uncertainty can also be a generative force, an invitation for deeper exploration. It forces us to earn our certainties through effort and diligence, rather than easily accepting what is in front of us. I know that in order to seek real truth, navigating uncertainty is essential; it’s not an adversary to evade but a constant companion. 

“In the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.” (3) Certitude is paralyzing in either direction – the certainty of both optimists and pessimists who think there will be a definitive outcome, that everything will turn out well or not well, respectively, without any intervention. But the thing is, human beings have power. We have agency. We cannot control things outside of us, but we can choose to think differently (4). Uncertainty gives room for agency and the conviction that our actions hold significance. Harnessing uncertainty allows us to consider multiple sides of a question, to find not merely the first solution, but the best one. 

Uncertainty is a powerful lens that acknowledges the power of our own minds, and recognizes that its power comes from its own mutability.

Real freedom is in transcendence 

Now with all the spaciousness and freedom to act, an important question emerges: “What do I do with all this freedom?” Freedom unlocks new possibilities (yay!), yet it also stirs unease because we do not know which possibility to pursue or what the outcome of boundless possibilities will be. Too much optionality is overwhelming. Freedom only feels good as an interlude, when it’s between two periods of structure. My gap year between undergrad and grad school has been one of the lightest times of my life. With never-ending tomorrows and endless optionality, freedom becomes imprisonment.

One can run away from the structure of a job (quiet quitting, the great resignation etc), but end up in another self-imposed structure. Choosing to end a 9-5 for podcasting, freelancing, building your own company, solopreneurship might make life look more agentic on the surface, but in reality we are moving horizontally from one prison to another. Parting ways with my job didn’t free me, it only freed up my time, and now I am bound by the shackles of “possibilities”.

Sherry Ning (5) explores this very concept in her essay: what people truly desire is not freedom to do whatever they want, they want freedom from competition (6). 

What comes after the great resignation, when people are now master and slave in one and the solopreneur is isolated, self-combating, and exploits his own time and freedom voluntarily? Many realize they haven’t escaped competition and they haven’t transcended the rat race—they’ve only found a new maze to compete in. Being a newsletter guy who makes money online doesn’t make your life all the more meaningful just because you don’t have a manager; without escaping competition, the solopreneur and the office drone are two sides of the same old coin.

What we are trying to escape is not the job or the office. We are trying to escape comparison and competition. We seek liberation from the never-ending quest for validation through surpassing our peers. There is pride and ego attached to the feeling of “I want to be someone” or “I want to do something only I am capable of, where my contribution can have the highest possible impact.” While outwardly noble, the internal desire here is, more likely than not, seeking external validation. This might look like an award, a promotion, founding a new startup, starting a non-profit, or even internet clout. I have personally fallen prey to each of these. Achievement for the sake of achievement becomes hollow when we run out of goals and there are no more objectives to attain, and we must come to terms with the difficult reality that there is nothing left to aim for. 

The ultimate escape – transcendence is vertical (7), not horizontal. One cannot escape by moving away, one can only escape by moving above. In other words, we cannot transcend by going from one job to another, or in my case, from being a founder/operator to trying to become a prolific writer with a readership. The two roles are two sides of the same coin and lack true authenticity. 

Authenticity in curiosity and devotion

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

To move above, to transcend, one must possess strong, profound, unwavering desires, desires that go beyond the material and are rooted in one’s higher self. To hold those desires, values, beliefs close to one’s heart and mind, and to look through an established lens of core values at each decision. This means to make life less reactive and more intentional, which requires figuring out what matters to you. 

Greg Mckowen’s Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less explores this idea of the “essential” – to focus on the essential few over the trivial many – by design, not default. Aristotle’s 5th rule for a good life is also to focus on the transcendent and disregard the trivial. Determining what is essential requires intense self-belief, discipline, and reflection, coupled with genuine curiosity. One must be devoted and intentional because if you do not live the way you believe, you inevitably start believing the way you live (8,9). 

Human beings are psychologically not interested in the truth (10). We’re interested in eliminating uncertainty, a tendency that leads us to believe things that bear little relation to reality. Nietzsche called this desire to make the crooked straight the “will to truth.” It is now crucial for me to come from a place of intense intentionality about what is essential to me. I must be self-aware and check myself when I am regressing into default behaviour of achievement, and divert myself into the direction of authenticity. This will be my life’s work and it will be important to remind myself that the road will not be linear. (I write this as a message to my future self as I know I will be coming back to read this.) 

I believe what is essential to us is closely tied to our ‘why’, understanding that ‘why’, and to make decisions in alignment with our ‘why’. Being attuned naturally diffuses feelings of competition, comparison, and envy. 

I believe my ‘why’ is twofold. First, it is to follow my natural curiosity and see where intuitive learning takes me. To let myself go down rabbit holes, be unapologetically myself, and talk to as many interesting people as I possibly can with the intention of understanding their ‘why’. Second is my devotion to said curiosity. “Shokunin” is a Japanese term that refers to a craftsman or artisan who is dedicated to their craft with a deep sense of mastery, devotion, and humility. The concept of shokunin goes beyond mere technical skill; it embodies a mindset of continuous improvement, attention to detail, and a commitment to excellence in all aspects of one’s work. They are devoted to mastering their craft not merely as a means to an end, but as the ultimate reward itself. It is rare to find a watchmaker crafting just one watch per year (each valued at $150,000) or a blacksmith meticulously handcrafting a pair of scissors worth $35,000. I want to believe that they do not do this for the money as the primary goal (11), that this happens to be a positive byproduct of their devotion to their craft, while remaining sincere in their intentions. 

The aim here is to be completely devoted to my curiosity. 

Try to be nothing 

While I would love to have true tabula rasa, living is about social interaction and recognition – it is a way to communicate with others. Life cannot solely be an internal affair. We are inherently social creatures. Living is relational. It is hyper-individualistic and atomizing for us to pretend that the notion of a solitary self can exist. It is unrealistic to think that we come up with standards for success and achievement on our own. We have society’s hands all over us. Even our thoughts and measures for achievement are intrinsically contaminated. Therefore, we must try to give ourselves grace and room for self-compassion when trying to start from scratch, especially on a journey of curiosity and devotion. 

The aim here for me is to build my mental models from the ground up, to stop thinking from default mode. It is similar to the concept of Shoshin in Zen Buddhism which refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying, even at an advanced level, just as a beginner would. I think this is as close as I will get to a true blank slate. Steve Jobs and Marc Benioff are known to practice Shoshin in their work and general life. 

The hardest part here is to break down old beliefs and values. I read an essay recently by Lydia Davis where she tries to explain to her friend Bob her New Year’s resolution: to learn to see herself as nothing. 

At last, halfway through your life, you are smart enough to see that it all amounts to nothing, even success amounts to nothing. But how does a person learn to see herself as nothing when she has already had so much trouble learning to see herself as, something in the first place? It’s so confusing. You spend the first half of your life learning that you are something after all, now you have to spend the second half learning to see yourself as nothing. 

You have been a negative nothing, now you want to be a positive nothing. I have begun trying, in these first days of the New Year, but so far it’s pretty difficult. I’m pretty close to nothing all morning, but by late afternoon what is in me that is something starts throwing its weight around. This happens many days. By evening, I’m full of something and it’s often something nasty and pushy. So what I think at this point is that I’m aiming too high, that maybe nothing is too much, to begin with. Maybe for now I should just try, each day, to be a little less than I usually am.

Davis’ essay really resonated with me. We spend our whole lives trying to make something of ourselves, to see ourselves as ‘something’. I know that who I am today is because of my past experiences and these experiences will inevitably shape my worldview moving forward. I cannot and do not want to erase my immigrant experience. I cannot and do not want to erase being a woman of colour. What I want is to dismantle feelings of competition and comparison, to pursue my curiosity for the sake of it, rather than to become ‘something’. The pursuit of becoming something is inherently linked to achievement, which is often defined by outcomes. So for now – I will try, each day, to be a little less than I usually am (12) – let go of ego and embrace humility, striving to be less defined by external expectations and a little more guided by my intrinsic curiosity to pursue a path of authentic fulfillment. In other words, I will not pursue a certain goal, but follow my curiosity in the direction it takes me, and enjoy that journey as my life’s work. 

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन। 
You have the right to work only but never to its fruits.

मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥ २-४७ 
Let not the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction.

Chapter 2, verse 47 of the Bhagavad Gita

Marrying work and life 

I do not believe that work and life should be separate for creatives. It is astonishing how much of our adult life is spent with our coworkers (13), much of which is spent masking with performative professionalism. I refuse to be someone I am not in the one short lifetime that I have for the majority of my day. It is exhausting. 

Work is part of life, not outside of it. Work-life balance in popular culture refers to the equilibrium between the demands of one’s job or career and the commitments and activities in one’s personal life. The need for work-life balance hints that there has to be a trade-off and that work cannot be fulfilling. It is predicated on two assumptions: 1) Work and life are distinct entities, and 2) The “life” elements are equally, if not more, important than the work elements (14). A creative’s work is life. And as Ayn Rand (a staunch defender of capitalism) would say “All work is creative work if done by a thinking mind.” While I do not agree with Ayn’s politics, I do think that separation of work and life is not conducive to my sense of fulfillment or human flourishing (15). It is worth noting that capitalism rewards and celebrates workaholics, where people feel compelled to prioritize their careers over their wellbeing. I do not think that marrying work and life makes sense for people who want to keep their work and life separate, where they do not find purpose and meaning in their work, but the financial stability that work provides allows them to pursue their joy and passions outside of work. I know many such people like this, who tend to be “stability types” (16) in professions like consulting, investment banking, and general corporate roles. I speak more for people who want to marry a sense of purpose into their life, meaning their work must provide them meaning – and these “meaning types” tend to be creatives in my experience. 

For creatives like myself, the notion of marrying work and life is not a burden but a liberation. When we embrace our authentic selves and pursue work aligned with our passions, the concept of work-life balance becomes obsolete. What if our professional endeavors not only fulfill our personal needs but also contribute to our growth and well-being in a holistic manner? (17)

A real feeling of freedom occurs only in a fruitful relationship when your labor transforms into value that has produced happiness greater than the sum of its parts.  
Sherry Ning

Now, as I embark on this journey of emergence, I have the opportunity to craft a life where meaning permeates every aspect, where work becomes a conduit for self-expression and fulfillment – a true embodiment of a generative life. 

What does an emergent life look like? 

Emergence is when complex patterns and behaviours arise from interactions of simpler components within a system, often without explicit programming or control. This concept is central to the study of complex systems like ecosystems, economies, and social networks. 

Instead of following a predetermined career life, I want my work to emerge organically from a combination of skills, interests, and opportunities, allowing for flexibility and adaptation to changing circumstances. I feel that the most interesting people with the most unique and unpredictable paths have shown emergence. For example, Oprah started as a news anchor, got fired, transitioned into hosting her own talk show – the show became so popular that other ventures emerged like film production, book publishing, and philanthropy.

An emergent life for me would mean a continual creation and exploration of new ideas and possibilities. Similar to how generative AI generates novel content by learning from existing examples, a generative life with emergent properties would involve learning from past experiences and using that knowledge to generate new opportunities for growth, creativity, and fulfillment. An emergent-generative life implies that we are part of a larger system. Interactions of simple components within a system cause emergence. The components of my system are my community. We cannot reach our highest potential without community. Interaction with my community in the form of support and collaborations will produce impacts that exceed what each can achieve alone, emerging creativity leading to solutions that are greater than the sum of their parts. 

In an emergent-generative life, I would embrace uncertainty as a catalyst for agency, allowing me to navigate new opportunities and challenges with confidence and purpose. This willingness to embrace uncertainty would necessitate me to internalize a strong set of values and focus only on what is absolutely essential, forgetting the trivial. Essentialism would pave the way for a sense of real freedom found in transcendence – transcendence from the material, which for me looks like external validation, achievement, outcome based goals. Transcendence is a state characterized by the absence of competition and comparison because it requires devotion to one’s own intuition, curiosity, internal guide, and commitment to authenticity instead of an external locus. 

While this is a bit philosophical, I want to outline how this would translate to my day-to-day life. 

• Dread from uncertainty to embracing it as an act of agency → do things opposite of my default mode, which comes from a scarcity mindset. Practice living life by design to create a new default mode

• E.g. applying for meaningless jobs when I get scared that the right opportunity will not come → encourage myself to study my real curiosities and talk to people who help double down on my new default 

• Identifying anxiety from doing the trivial many and turning that into work on the essential few → setting clear boundaries and communicating them with loved ones, repeatedly coming back to core needs and values 

• E.g. feeling like everything is important, getting overwhelmed, and going into analysis paralysis → drop everything, breathe, and do the thing that is associated with top 3 essentials 

• Focusing on outcome based goals and achievement to devotion to curiosity and internal guidance → meditate on what my new measure of success looks like and what it means to be nothing. Detach from a sense of external locus 

• E.g. saying yes to things that will bring surface level joy or accomplishment or clout → saying no to most things by default, and yes to the essential few + actively making the choice to follow true curiosity which can look like talking to interesting people in the spaces I’m interested in, reading material I want to learn more about 

I feel in my bones that I am in a moment of pivot. I do not have clarity on what this next step looks like for me exactly, or even what my “essential few” are and it feels scary and uncertain but I know that if I do not bet on myself now, I will regret it on my deathbed. It would be a complete disservice to my family who have sacrificed everything for me to be able to reach my highest potential, who have always encouraged me to choose faith over fear. 

Here I am, choosing faith over fear. 

—

A special thanks to my lovely community for reading drafts of this insane essay and for listening to my existential yapping as I wrote this over the course of a month – Maaria Shah, my platonic soulmate; Christine Gibson, my guardian angel; and Naman Budhiraja, my partner in crime.  

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Footnotes 

1. This scene “In Another Life” captures what I mean by different lives. 

2. Tabula rasa is a Latin phrase coined by philosopher John Locke, meaning "blank slate" in English. Locke's concept of tabula rasa proposes that individuals are born without innate ideas or knowledge. Instead, he argues that the mind is like a blank slate at birth, and knowledge is acquired through sensory experiences and interactions with the environment. This notion suggests that human beings are shaped and molded by their experiences, education, and cultural influences, rather than predetermined by innate characteristics or predispositions. 

3. The spaciousness of uncertainty is a phrase from Rebecca Solnit’s book Hope in the Dark, which I came across in this NYT piece, and explored further in this essay. 

4. I write “we have agency and that we can choose to think differently” outside the context of trauma and oppression – amygdalas often drive subconscious reflexes. 

5. Much of this section and my current philosophy has been shaped by pieces like Sherry’s as I’ve been exploring what work means to me. I remember reading on her twitter that she quit her consulting job, moved home with her parents, and is now writing and thinking full time. Self-exploration is something I’ve always explored and following her has definitely impacted how I see the world today. Paul Millerd’s book The Pathless Path started this journey for me last summer. Following other creators like Matt Yao and Isabel, who have gone on their own pathless path journeys also inspired this direction of my life. 

6. I wonder how much of “freedom from competition” is based in the lack of community and the individualist vs. collectivist debate. Competition is a core pillar of capitalism, and capitalistic societies tend to be individualistic. How our systems are structured impact the way their components interact. I am one of the components. Gen Z is known to look for community (look at gen Z startups focused on creating online communities!) Things like living closer to friends is a hot topic in our generation as well. Gen Z is the loneliest generation that the world has seen. There is something to be said here about a shift from competition to community in our generation as a whole, with a lot of us finding traditional career paths to be unsatisfying and instead finding a sense of happiness and transcendence through community, moving above the material and career related success that usually results in ephemeral happiness. 

7. The idea of transcendence comes from vedic philosophy, and was adopted by the west later. Western philosophers often see a clear separation between the self and transcendence, influenced by thinkers like Kierkegaard. However, Bhaktisiddhanta's perspective, rooted in Hindu philosophy, suggests that transcendence has both a metaphysical (related to existence beyond the physical world) and a personal dimension. He believes that people can directly experience and understand transcendence through devotion. I vibe with the eastern philosophical definition more. 

8. I’ve written on intentionality and how to foster it, as well as, devotion in a few different essays as I’ve been on this journey as a serious active choice since last year around the same time – The devotion piece surrounding the mathematician Ramanujan is something I resonate with a ton and I believe embodies my definition of marrying life’s work as a calling very well. 

9. A beautiful essay by Nix on living the life you believe in concludes with the sentiment “if you don’t live the way you believe, you inevitably believe the way you live.”

10. There is something to say here about social constructivism, where truth is often seen as a subjective and socially constructed concept rather than an objective reality. In other words, truth is shaped by social and cultural factors, including language, beliefs, and power dynamics. Morgan Housel’s essay, Why You Believe The Things You Do sparked this thought on truth. 

11. It’s important to recognize the privilege of patronage. The global majority works in sweat lodges, fast fashion, mining, etc so this sentiment cannot be everyone’s reality. 

12. I still struggle a little with reconciling the ideas of “being nothing” and “being devoted to curiosity”. Perhaps the issue stems from the apparent tension between passivity and activity, emptiness and engagement, or surrender and agency. I know the two concepts do not have to be mutually exclusive as someone who struggles with black & white thinking. Perhaps a way to approach this is to see how they might complement each other. Embracing a sense of “being nothing” could create space for curiosity to flourish without constraints of ego or preconceived notions. Similarly, being devoted to curiosity could deepen one’s understanding of the interconnectedness of all things (systems thinking) and foster a sense of humility and awe in the face of the unknown. I guess, the answer might be just about embracing the complexity of the human experience, being as present as possible, and finding a balance between surrender and action, emptiness and engagement, and humility and curiosity – a journey of self-discovery and growth requires openness, introspection, and a willingness to explore the depths of our own consciousness. 

13. Data about time spent with coworkers vs family, partner, kids, etc is from the American Time Use Survey (2009-2019). Again, American society is very much driven by capitalism and individualism, the graph probably looks differently for the rest of the world. According to a report from the International Labour Organization, the average number of working hours per year was higher in the U.S. than in several developed countries in Europe, with U.S. workers putting in around 400 more hours per year than workers in Germany.

14. An article by a Future of Work expert Hamza Khan, The Argument Against Work-Life Balance validated my thoughts on my intuitive desire to marry life and work. 

15. I do worry that my desire to marry work and life is clouded by capitalism covered lenses and that I am (we are) so deeply entrenched in this way of life in the west that I (we) will never be able to see clearly.

16. I recently read a book called Quarter Life: The Search for Self in Early Adulthood by Satya Doyle Byock. Satya contends that midlife crises are occuring sooner, manifesting during what she terms the “Quarter Life” phase, spanning from sixteen to thirty-six years old. In her view, the crisis frequently arises when a quarterlifer is either too much of a “meaning type” or a “stability type.” People may find themselves situated anywhere along the continuum between these two types. 

17. Again worth noting one’s identity being deeply tied to their job or career and its relation to a lack of community. I also recognize that not everyone has the privilege of “quit your job! follow your dreams!” and find meaning and purpose in their work.