OK, the first day of my write 500 words about anything thing.

This is fun because there’s literally no minimum standard bar to hit. There’s no need to edit as I type. The goal isn’t to write excellent work. I don’t even know whether/how I’ll publish these yet.

And by eliminating the ‘pick a topic’ part, I’m really removing the last semblance of the part where I think I have a personal responsibility for what I produce.

Let me dig into what I mean by that some more.

I’m increasingly of the belief (or at least model for understanding the world¹) that creativity doesn’t originate from an individual human. I am not the source of the words I am writing right now.

Who is? Well, historically we’ve had different words to try to describe that. “God” is one of those. “Universe” is another. “Intuition”. For a long time we used the word “genius”—it’s only more recently that we became more ego-focused and genius become a descriptor of an individual instead of an external source/muse (“genie”!)

I am a hole in a flute that the Christ’s breath moves through. Listen to this music.

—Hafiz

Now I walk into a room like God sent me. Because he did.

—Various/unknown

These quotes are talking about something similar. In all these cases you’re essentially absolving yourself of the responsibility of creating perfect work (or, really, of anything at all), by acknowledging that you’re not the one it comes from in the first place. You’re just a vehicle the idea can use to manifest in the physical world.

For me, this is the best solution I’ve found for overcoming fear of judgment in my work—which has been a huge blocker for me for some time.

There’s a potential pitfall to this approach—isn’t personal responsibility important? If you’re not responsible for anything, surely there’s no reason to try at all? Just create bad work, or no work at all, or harmful work, since it’s not your problem?

For me this argument thankfully falls apart like this: it’s true that without personal responsibility we’ll fall back to some default mode of operating. But I don’t believe that that default mode (for me, at least) is to do bad work or no work or harmful work. I think it’s to do work that improves ourselves and the world. Sure we could talk all day about what direction it improves it in—“better” is totally subjective—but I think the best answer we can give to this is to say that “better” means “in the direction that your deepest internal compass believes is good and right” and there’s no other goal that it makes sense to optimise toward.

So what I’m saying is… my strategy is this:

• Let the universe unfold through me
• As long as it feels authentic on a deep level, write it, create it, do it, regardless of potential outcome
• Without that layer of ego, the egoic needs dissolve, and I’m free to act in support of the universe
• “Harmful” is subjective and nuanced but by default I will already intuitively be trying my best to avoid harmful, and always subconsciously be fine-tuning that sense of what is or isn’t right or harmful

Lol. My mind wants to know whether what I’ve written here is “any good”. It’s thinking about all the ways that this is not any good. It’s a cute question… and I’m very certain there’s no need for me to answer it.

That’s more than 500 words.

It’s probably been a couple of years since I first started thinking about these ideas about creativity coming from outside the self. And my core belief has definitely shifted. I really don’t feel like I’m writing this. I’m just letting my fingers move on the keyboard wherever they are compelled to move. It’s so freeing.

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Haha.

I love this.

I can also think of other things I want to write about, now that I’ve started. Do I just keep going?

Intuition says yes.

Ooft. I could be going for a while.

That’s OK.

Haha and now already intuition says I can stop whenever I want.

So interesting how habitually I start to layer in all these thoughts about how what I’m writing might be perceived. Doesn’t matter. Just keep swimming.

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I want to touch on Sahil’s tweet about writing a letter to yourself to open 10 years later.

https://twitter.com/SahilBloom/status/1741809270146929140

What would mine include?

I feel very uncomfortable writing this. Even more at sharing it. But with the model that it’s not really me… LFGGG

I wish I’d done something like this 10 years ago, to open now. What would that have said?

I’ve definitely come a long way in this time. So much personal growth.

10 years ago… 1 Jan 2014… ooft. I didn’t know myself at all. Or at least I didn’t let myself know myself.

I wouldn’t have been able to label this at the time, but so many insecurities. And avoidant attachment (masking anxious attachment). No awareness of emotions, particularly negative ones. A lot of ego. Wanted the world to be a certain way. I needed people (especially women) to like me for me to feel worthy. And I often felt like they didn’t. And so I acted out in unkind ways. So my letter 10 years ago probably would’ve———oh, I was about to say it would’ve just said that I was already awesome and that my goal should be to not change and just keep being as awesome and perfect as I already am———which kinda is what I implicitly wrote 10 years ago by virtue of how 10 years ago I would’ve said the exercise was pointless and not done it.

Glad I cleared that up. I don’t feel bad about not getting my act together and writing something 10 years ago, any more, because my not writing anything 10 years ago was that exact letter per my state 10 years ago.

(If I had been a little drunk and emotional like Sahil said he was when he was insecure but still wrote his letter, maybe I would’ve written a letter. Maybe I would’ve destroyed it afterwards. Who knows. All’s good.)

In short: my lack of letter 10 years ago says everything it needs to say :)

OK, now, what sort of things would I say to future me, 42 year old Shai, 1 Jan 2034?

• I hope you’ve continued on the path of realising how little you know, how humanly flawed you are, and what a gift it is to be always growing (while also appreciating everything you already have and are).
• I hope you have a wife (whether legally or just functionally) and kids. And that you’re good to/with them—which I know you will be. And that they love you back deeply, which they will as long as you open up your authentic self to them. At 30 you had the exact same experience as the one Sahil described—“Something in my brain wiring flipped at 30. I suddenly couldn’t imagine not being a dad.”… except you can imagine not being a dad and it scares you, kids are now one of the most core things you’d like to see in your future.
• To get there, I hope you’ve continued the path to a feeling of independent worth. High self-esteem. Authenticity. Without it, material stuff will continue to obstruct your path to finding that partner.
• I hope you’re able to clear those obstacles to being open with family, too. You don’t tell them enough how much you love them. You don’t share everything within. You’ve made so much progress on sharing feelings, but there’s still beautiful progress to be made.
• I hope you keep becoming better at creating and sharing and leading. And I hope you get better at not stressing about how your creating and sharing and leading (and anything else) will be perceived by others.
• I hope you improve your work ethic… or your expectations around your work ethic. There’s still mismatch between how you think you should be/act/think, and how you are/act/think, and that’s the cause of all the discomfort. That’s totally solvable.
• I hope you’ve levelled up financially. Not because you need the money (you’re so grateful for where you’ve already reached), but for the joy of levelling up (and helping others)
• I hope you’ve continued to fine-tune the balance between doing what’s right for you and doing what’s right for others. (But also the fact that you worry about this says a lot positively about your character. Don’t stress it too much)
• I hope you’ve kept the “Gemini energy”. It’s a beautiful trait and it’s going to be the root cause of all the immense good you’ll do changing the world for the better in the coming years
• I hope you’ve lessened the blockers that are stopping you from playing out what you know is your calling
• Your best guess right now as to what that calling is: it involves helping other people straighten out the stuff that’s polluting their own minds and, by extension, the whole world. That mind work underpins every global problem—it’s the fundamental place where this work has to happen

1. Are these different things? Something to noodle on later ↩