Gratitude: Health, Growth, Connection, and Creation
Hello subscribers! time to dust off the ol' Substack with a (slightly belated) Thanksgiving post.
Gratitude leads to happiness. I know this, and yet forget it 99% of the time, so I’m grateful that we have this once-a-year nudge to ponder it. I spent Thanksgiving in Sedona with some friends, hiking, relaxing and reflecting in the red rocks. Below are some of the things I’m grateful for this year.
Health
This year my work, and family, have brought me face to face with the realities of Long Covid, ME/CFS, and other chronic illnesses. I’ve spoken with PhD students, educators, marathon runners, fiancées and breadwinners whose lives were suddenly torn away. Having a shower or cooking lunch became a monumental task; talking to me was often their primary activity for the day, requiring hours of rest to prepare and recover. Some get better over time, but many don’t, in which case their only hope is to wait (a very long time) for research to provide a cure.
After each of these conversations I had to take a minute to collect myself. It could have been me. I have the luxury to dream big and not have to worry about money, energy, or my body or brain working well enough to get me through the day. I hope this continues to be the case, and that I can use my privileged position to help those who can’t. And I mourn for the amount of tragic suffering and illness that still exists in this world, in spite of all of our innovation and progress we’ve seen so far.
I’ve also been struggling with various knee injuries since before Covid, but they seem to have resolved after months of diligent physiotherapy and discovering “Knees over toes guy” on Youtube. I ran 34 miles this week, my biggest since February 2020, with a 19 mile hike in the Grand Canyon to boot. Getting older means investing more time keeping everything working properly, but now that I’ve learned that lesson I dearly hope I can stay injury-free.
Growth
I’ve grown a lot over the past year. I’ve become (slightly) better at recognizing when discussions are getting heated, identifying the emotion, and de-escalating. I’ve learned that I can have a bias towards building robust yet complex products when simplicity is needed. I’ve learned to let go of projects or ideas I previously held dear. I’ve more consistently remembered principles from meditation. Stay in the body and focus on the breath. Let go and experience the present, and remember that it’s always available as a direct path to happiness.
I used to be more obsessive about personal growth, seeking out every challenge I could bear to shape myself into a better version of myself. I’m a little more relaxed about it now, but still deeply enjoy the feeling of being better than yesterday. I’m grateful for the opportunities that presented themselves, the teachers and friends who helped me through, and to have attempted to learn as much as I could from each.
Connection
Community has been a major theme for me this year. Burning Man, Eucalyptus (my community house), and visiting other intentional communities have illustrated how connection can be designed into our lives. I like to think of other conscious beings as essences of light that control fleshy robots, and our highest form of relating is when we go beyond the material and dive into the nature of other conscious experiences. This happens when we let our guards down and reveal who we are. Within the container of Burning Man it can happen quickly, and in the real world it can happen with the right combination of intention, trust, and familiarity. I’m grateful for the new friends I’ve made and the old friendships I’ve strengthened. Most of all, I’m grateful for Lisa, and the deep, wonderful connection we’ve forged over the last year. She has been my light, my rock, and my best friend through it all.
Creation
I’m satisfied and grateful to have built so much this year. With Eureka, I’ve been able to conduct a small orchestra (our team of 8) to build a lot of really exciting prototypes, features, and products. It’s a special kind of joy to go from insight to design to building to shipping. It has been so much fun refining my own skills in each category, too, improving my design skills in Figma, getting back to coding, and figuring out what makes a Tweet thread go viral.
On the personal side, I’ve been journaling a lot. That tends to happen when I’m feeling more extreme ups and downs. It has helped me structure my thoughts, figure out what I want, and to stay aligned with how I want to be living. I’d like to share my writing publicly more often - watch this space! Plus, I recently played my first chamber music (cello, violin, and me on piano). It was a more challenging piece than anticipated and I can’t say I wowed anyone, but it is still so wonderful playing music with others. Playing the piano is a dormant love that I look forward to leaning into more in the future.
Thanks for reading. If you’d like to share something you’re grateful for this year, I’d love to hear from you!