☕ saturday mornings - march 11, 2023

feather beds, doom & delicious solitude

Tommy Dixon

Mar 11, 2023

Happy Saturday!

I hope you’re having a lovely start to your weekend.

What I’ve been up to:

I returned home after spending last weekend in Halifax. It's been a week of writing, reading, and working.
I've set a personal goal to write 1,000 words a day. For these newsletters, that means more writing, rewriting, and cutting. Hopefully, it results in better work for you.

Here's a recap of the most interesting ideas I've explored this week.

Arrive. Relax. And enjoy.

✍️ quote i’m pondering:

Terence McKenna, American ethnobotanist, on courage and risk-taking:

"Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up.
This is the trick… This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed."

📚 book passage i loved:

Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now, and we will never be here again.

― The Iliad by Homer

💡 essay from me: delicious solitude

Solitude, 1866 - Gustave Courbet — Solitude (Courbet, 1866)

6 am. My alarm starts blaring. I swing my legs over the bed in a hurry to get vertical before the warmth of my blankets lures me back to sleep.

Clothes on. Running shoes on. Out the door.

I'm growing to love these cold, quiet mornings. Silent except for the rhythmic drumbeat of my rubber soles hitting the asphalt, and a few eager birds calling into the distance.

I don’t do too well with too much noise. It puts me in my head. Clouds my decisions. Muddles my thoughts.

In these early hours, bathed in the sun's rising light, I'm reminded of Brunello Cucinelli. The billionaire founder of an Italian fashion company who settled down in Solomeo, a hamlet between Rome and Florence.

Brunello cherishes isolation. Moments of solitude to think and reflect.

Towards the end of the night, the light of dawn spreads through the streets and brushes the houses of Solomeo.
I love walking in this light when nature and man are still asleep. In these hours, before the door of life opens up to the pressing matters of an industrialist business to the unpredictable series of meetings with people who want to either give or take something.
In these small hours, I enjoy thinking quietly.

We live in a very noisy world. Every day I have a million ads, notifications, emails. All telling me what I need to do, need to value, need to think. Competing for my attention. Seeing who can shout the loudest.

We've championed the idea that more is better. Reading two books is better than one. Listening to a podcast is better than silence. Scrolling Twitter is better than being idle.

So we cram consumption into every spare second of the day. Any rare moments of quiet are filled with reading or talking or listening or scrolling. All in worship of knowing more, learning more, being more.

We immerse ourselves in the world’s raging river of information. Whenever we wade in, it's immediately obvious how much we've missed. How much we haven't seen. How much we don't know. Trying to absorb everything is futile, but we soak up as much as we can until we're near sick. That water feels good.

Bateson: “There is always an optimal value, beyond which anything is toxic, no matter what: oxygen, sleep, psychotherapy, philosophy.”

Time spent alone in silence feels wasteful. Unproductive. Trivial. But, I believe it's some of the most valuable time we have.

Solitude is so delicious because it gives you clarity in a very noisy world. When I’m alone, I can hear myself think. I'm forced to reach beneath what I think I’m supposed to do and grasp for what I actually want.

Boyd Varty: In complete solitude, I stop objectifying myself. I don’t think of myself on some social hierarchy. I don’t define my value as a comparison with others. The birds and animals don’t judge me. It’s a kind of healing in which I become human again. In complete solitude, we are not a concept of ourselves. We are ourselves.

In quiet moments, your thoughts emerge. Silence works on you like water works on rocks, gradually eroding the influence and advice and ideas that have been caked onto you by the outside world. Eventually, when all that is not you is washed away, all that is left is you. Then, you get to discern your internal voice from all the voices heaped upon you. You get to listen to that little voice inside your head that wants to do things a certain way. You get to be you.

Julia Cameron: By limiting the inflow of other people's words and ideas, it is possible to focus more clearly on your own. Without reading, talk radio, or television, you are able to hear yourself think. What the self has to say is often very interesting.

Another word for hearing yourself think is intuition.

Intuition is your best friend in navigating our complicated world. Your intuitive responses can be more intelligent than your conscious ones. In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell explains how your "gut feeling" is actually your subconscious mind processing far more information than your conscious mind realizes.

Decisions can be infinitely complex. Trying to logically evaluate and reason through every option will burst the bounds of your brain. I've read many stories of people who traced the best decisions of their lives back to "trusting their gut". Simply because it felt right.

Intuition arises from connection with the self. Just as you can't see your reflection in choppy water, you can't feel your intuition in a busy mind. Like a plant needs water and sunlight, your intuition needs silence and solitude.

But with endless consumption of other people's ideas, our self quiets. We begin to rely on others to tell us what to do, what to value, how to live, what to pursue. Rather than our selves. We look for answers from the outside world. Rather than looking inward. We outsource our intuition. We doubt the wisdom of our soul.

Too much input creates too much noise. Too much noise suffocates your thoughts. When you can't hear your thoughts, you lose touch with your intuition. And without your intuition as a compass, you're lost.

Naval: Too many distractions lead to a heavy mind. Time spent undistracted and alone, in self-examination, journaling, meditation, resolves the unresolved and takes us from mentally fat to fit.

In the end, you’re the only one who knows what the right things are for you.

This is all to say, if you feel lost, or crave clarity, or have a big decision to make, and the constant inflow of noise isn't helping, try making some time for quiet. For solitude. For you.

It might be more productive to take long walks without headphones and give your subconscious the space and quiet it needs to process instead of constantly inundating it with more. Maybe you’ll experience the rush of realization and uncover moments of crystal clarity just by making the space for simple silence.

Amanda Fortini @amandafortini

I’ve come to realize that a lot of people are constantly listening to podcasts, music, etc. A painter friend just had a major breakthrough when she began to work in silence. Without existing in quiet, at least sometimes, I think it’s hard hear your intuition, ideas, inner voice.

I've set a goal for myself to disconnect from the world more often. Make room for my own thoughts. For me.

I'm trying to come to terms with my ignorance. Embrace there’s so much I don’t know, and won’t know, but that’s okay. I don't need to.

I'm trying to pay attention to when I feel clarity. Unblocked. Grounded. Centered. Make space for those moments. And cut away things that make me feel overwhelmed, lost, or confused.

Trusting that I know what feels right, and I know what feels wrong. Trusting my ability to figure it out. To make the right decisions. To build a life I love. Trusting that if I take one step forward, the next step will become clear.

So I can step off the superhighway of modern life and go quietly on my own path.

I used to listen to podcasts religiously on my runs. But now, I opt for quiet.

In those silent frosty mornings, when the cold air stings my cheeks, my breath clouds the air, and the steady pounding of my shoes reverberates through some sleepy suburban neighborhood, I find a peaceful stillness. Clarity. I feel at home in myself.

Those moments are some of the best of my day. And I wouldn't trade them for anyone's insight or opinion or advice.