This is so inspiring. I like thinking of relationships as an investment, and it feels profoundly anti-capitalist to make the comparison to business investors and regular updates. I think we are a naturally generous species who delight in witnessing and participating in each other’s growth, and this is such a lovely way to encourage that process!
absolutely, I was initially reluctant to make the analogy to investors - but in many ways it felt apt, many people are 'invested' in our becoming and care about us! I love your note that we are a naturally generous species, this feels true to me
I have a few friends who take the time to write life updates over email during times of transition. It’s always a delight to read, whether it’s a celebratory update of an achievement or a confession of feeling uncertain. Just being included on the recipient list is something I’m grateful in itself, especially as we grow older and life gets busier. Feeling connected through all the noise.
I especially appreciated the more creative update forms you shared! Would love to see more examples of those.
"Just being included on the recipient list is something I’m grateful in itself, especially as we grow older and life gets busier" I love this sentiment, because it does really feel like a gift for both the sender and recipient at its best! I've updated to add a few more examples from my own life, would love to hear more from people
I love this! For like a year now your essays speak for me. They’re so relevant with the added bonus of being fleshed out and well-written to the point of not only saving me time in reaching that checkpoint of insight, but I can straight up just let your essay speak for me much better than I could.
Amazing
My reply on X was shorter due to character limit, but the gist was there:
We start out trying to find ourselves. We’re tempted to self-isolate to control variables and get at the pure uncontaminated essence of our *self*.
As we keep digging (katabasis/nigredo) we soon find out that not only does the abyss stare back, but that there is no rock-bottom.
Isolation leads to an untethering that can be hard to recover from; lidless individuals struggle to contend with their thoughts and objectivity.
We just have to wake up one day and decide that we’ve hit rock-bottom, that we’re no longer interested in what’s left down there, that we’re ready to make our way back up to the surface.
We will never feel ready because ready is a decision, not a feeling.
Turns out identity is made, not found, and that the shaping pressures and framing structures we’re embedded within are what keep us from proliferating outwards in all directions.
We take the shape of our container.
We are the gardener and the crop.
All we can do is be intentional about the growing conditions, the container, and wait for a much delayed feedback on how that impacts our growth, identity.
We benefit greatly from close ones telling us how they see us. Their co-authorship power can be a double-edged sword, so we must be intentional about what and whom we surround ourselves with.
But one thing is clear, doing away with the whole thing altogether is a maladaptive reaction. A defense mechanism (splitting probably (all or nothing thinking)).
I brought up the idea of weekly updates to our IRL squad’s groupchat a year or two ago, and as phds and self-work journeys continued increasing the distance (literal & metaphorical) between us, that channel has a remained a reliable self- and co-authorship vehicle for everyone one of us. Declarations about new identity being most explicit, updates about introspection breakthroughs, or even project/relationship postmortems.
Your post a couple of days ago was even more inspiring and came at the amazing time where I’m profusely journaling every day about how “only other humans can save me. Holy shit!”
I love the formalized approach, the template. The vulnerability sincerity and authenticity required aside, the difficulty remains in the act of self-authorship itself, which requires continuity.
Continuity requires immersion. One way or another, social embeddedness, some form of social immersion is required.
interesting read! i am terrible at asking for help,but on the rare ocassions i did some were glad to help and some weren't but unfortunately our mind is wired to remember the negative things more so it becomes a vicious cycle but i am trying to ask and accept help as i get older...
yes, certainly not everyone has the capacity or can help us when we ask, but the act of asking definitely seems to make it more likely...I think it really is hard to ask and accept help, I am still very much learning this myself
Love this!! So many nuggets of wisdom I'd love to adopt in my life.
This is more of a yearly ritual but our friends group expanded our yearly "friendsgiving" with a PowerPoint life update party. Last year we included a prompt to share "who is part of your life this year and has influenced you that we may not know - give us the tea on what they do in your life." And I learned a lot about other's lives when hearing about who they connect beyond who we know and how.
really appreciate this post! very actionable esp at this time in my life where i think i haven't been leveraging my connections enough (esp as someone who's used to being quite hyperindependent) - like what you said, a lot of people might actually wanna help if they just know how :) thanks for this!
>...In this sense, you can almost have any mentor in the world before they even know you exist. [...] Even if you never send the question, something in you sharpens when you try to formulate it.
This old short post by Derek Sivers about his (self-)mentorship trick https://sive.rs/ment and rubber duck debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging expand on this, in a way. Describing your situation in the 3rd person is another trick in that realm - it allows you to bypass your ego.
A friend of mine told me I have to “put myself out there”. Maybe this kind of related to making myself “being seen” and “allowing others to know where I’m at” because or else I wouldn’t be found. But as this entry and admits, I think the media plays an important role in how comfortable you feel doing this, because if it becomes a burden or it feels like it’s shredding you, it’s not right for you.
“a full life has many kinds of witnesses”
- this sentence resonates with what I recently have in mind. I have come to realise that being able to share things in your life, even the smallest episode/thoughts, is such a pleasure and a beautiful happiness one can explore. And to have a person you want them to witness your very bits of your life is so wonderful as much as having many witnesses of parts of your life..
I come from a family of letter writers, my grandmother sent updates every week. My dad and my sister wrote me in college.
I’ve fallen in love over correspondence more times than I’d like to admit. And so I carry a template in my heart for what a good letter it looks like.
Which you’ve put so beautifully.
“What I am working on , what I’ve learned, where I could use a lantern. “
And yet I’ve never written my mentors, and maybe I’m scared to ask for help so publicly. I’m already disabled. And so I ask for help in my daily life a lot. I guess there’s a part of me that thinks I have to still pretend I know what I’m doing. Which is silly, of course.
We’re all just driving down the road in heavy fog. I’m going to think on this. Thank you.
I love this post. The white space of keeping in touch between real conversation and flooding our social media updates is very real. I love the ways you've suggested on filling that gap and am excited to try it out myself. Thank you!
Maja - discovered your writing recently and I already love your reflective writing. This is something that makes you pause, reflect and act. Thank you so much!
This is your sign to do a daily standup with your friends
tried and tested method
This is so inspiring. I like thinking of relationships as an investment, and it feels profoundly anti-capitalist to make the comparison to business investors and regular updates. I think we are a naturally generous species who delight in witnessing and participating in each other’s growth, and this is such a lovely way to encourage that process!
absolutely, I was initially reluctant to make the analogy to investors - but in many ways it felt apt, many people are 'invested' in our becoming and care about us! I love your note that we are a naturally generous species, this feels true to me
Asking is hard partly because it requires admitting you're still mid-story.
This was a lovely read. Miss, you are quickly becoming my favourite writers on this platform, thank you for your essays.
this is so kind! thank you for reading my work, means a lot.
What a lovely essay and good reminder.
I have a few friends who take the time to write life updates over email during times of transition. It’s always a delight to read, whether it’s a celebratory update of an achievement or a confession of feeling uncertain. Just being included on the recipient list is something I’m grateful in itself, especially as we grow older and life gets busier. Feeling connected through all the noise.
I especially appreciated the more creative update forms you shared! Would love to see more examples of those.
"Just being included on the recipient list is something I’m grateful in itself, especially as we grow older and life gets busier" I love this sentiment, because it does really feel like a gift for both the sender and recipient at its best! I've updated to add a few more examples from my own life, would love to hear more from people
I love this! For like a year now your essays speak for me. They’re so relevant with the added bonus of being fleshed out and well-written to the point of not only saving me time in reaching that checkpoint of insight, but I can straight up just let your essay speak for me much better than I could.
Amazing
My reply on X was shorter due to character limit, but the gist was there:
We start out trying to find ourselves. We’re tempted to self-isolate to control variables and get at the pure uncontaminated essence of our *self*.
As we keep digging (katabasis/nigredo) we soon find out that not only does the abyss stare back, but that there is no rock-bottom.
Isolation leads to an untethering that can be hard to recover from; lidless individuals struggle to contend with their thoughts and objectivity.
We just have to wake up one day and decide that we’ve hit rock-bottom, that we’re no longer interested in what’s left down there, that we’re ready to make our way back up to the surface.
We will never feel ready because ready is a decision, not a feeling.
Turns out identity is made, not found, and that the shaping pressures and framing structures we’re embedded within are what keep us from proliferating outwards in all directions.
We take the shape of our container.
We are the gardener and the crop.
All we can do is be intentional about the growing conditions, the container, and wait for a much delayed feedback on how that impacts our growth, identity.
We benefit greatly from close ones telling us how they see us. Their co-authorship power can be a double-edged sword, so we must be intentional about what and whom we surround ourselves with.
But one thing is clear, doing away with the whole thing altogether is a maladaptive reaction. A defense mechanism (splitting probably (all or nothing thinking)).
I brought up the idea of weekly updates to our IRL squad’s groupchat a year or two ago, and as phds and self-work journeys continued increasing the distance (literal & metaphorical) between us, that channel has a remained a reliable self- and co-authorship vehicle for everyone one of us. Declarations about new identity being most explicit, updates about introspection breakthroughs, or even project/relationship postmortems.
Your post a couple of days ago was even more inspiring and came at the amazing time where I’m profusely journaling every day about how “only other humans can save me. Holy shit!”
I love the formalized approach, the template. The vulnerability sincerity and authenticity required aside, the difficulty remains in the act of self-authorship itself, which requires continuity.
Continuity requires immersion. One way or another, social embeddedness, some form of social immersion is required.
Beautiful essay. I love some of these ideas. Especially the zine - that’s very cool! Thank you for your wonderfully articulated reflections 🤍
thank you so much for reading, yes I was especially charmed by the zine idea too <3
interesting read! i am terrible at asking for help,but on the rare ocassions i did some were glad to help and some weren't but unfortunately our mind is wired to remember the negative things more so it becomes a vicious cycle but i am trying to ask and accept help as i get older...
yes, certainly not everyone has the capacity or can help us when we ask, but the act of asking definitely seems to make it more likely...I think it really is hard to ask and accept help, I am still very much learning this myself
this is genuinely fantastic, im so glad you wrote this
ive been thinking about this a ton recently, and will definitely try to keep my social graph a little tighter knit and more up to date
how wonderful! love the phrasing of keeping social graph tighter knit. thank you for reading
Love this!! So many nuggets of wisdom I'd love to adopt in my life.
This is more of a yearly ritual but our friends group expanded our yearly "friendsgiving" with a PowerPoint life update party. Last year we included a prompt to share "who is part of your life this year and has influenced you that we may not know - give us the tea on what they do in your life." And I learned a lot about other's lives when hearing about who they connect beyond who we know and how.
Thank you for this great post!
really appreciate this post! very actionable esp at this time in my life where i think i haven't been leveraging my connections enough (esp as someone who's used to being quite hyperindependent) - like what you said, a lot of people might actually wanna help if they just know how :) thanks for this!
>...In this sense, you can almost have any mentor in the world before they even know you exist. [...] Even if you never send the question, something in you sharpens when you try to formulate it.
This old short post by Derek Sivers about his (self-)mentorship trick https://sive.rs/ment and rubber duck debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging expand on this, in a way. Describing your situation in the 3rd person is another trick in that realm - it allows you to bypass your ego.
A friend of mine told me I have to “put myself out there”. Maybe this kind of related to making myself “being seen” and “allowing others to know where I’m at” because or else I wouldn’t be found. But as this entry and admits, I think the media plays an important role in how comfortable you feel doing this, because if it becomes a burden or it feels like it’s shredding you, it’s not right for you.
“a full life has many kinds of witnesses”
- this sentence resonates with what I recently have in mind. I have come to realise that being able to share things in your life, even the smallest episode/thoughts, is such a pleasure and a beautiful happiness one can explore. And to have a person you want them to witness your very bits of your life is so wonderful as much as having many witnesses of parts of your life..
I come from a family of letter writers, my grandmother sent updates every week. My dad and my sister wrote me in college.
I’ve fallen in love over correspondence more times than I’d like to admit. And so I carry a template in my heart for what a good letter it looks like.
Which you’ve put so beautifully.
“What I am working on , what I’ve learned, where I could use a lantern. “
And yet I’ve never written my mentors, and maybe I’m scared to ask for help so publicly. I’m already disabled. And so I ask for help in my daily life a lot. I guess there’s a part of me that thinks I have to still pretend I know what I’m doing. Which is silly, of course.
We’re all just driving down the road in heavy fog. I’m going to think on this. Thank you.
I love this post. The white space of keeping in touch between real conversation and flooding our social media updates is very real. I love the ways you've suggested on filling that gap and am excited to try it out myself. Thank you!
Maja - discovered your writing recently and I already love your reflective writing. This is something that makes you pause, reflect and act. Thank you so much!