So the topic today is transitions. There’s the one right in front of us, of course: Summer to Fall, not-school to school, warm air to cool, cooler, cold air... bright, long days to dark, short days, and the middle of the year... to the end of the year.
It all has an impact on how we feel.
Aside from those mostly environmental factors in our lives, there’s a host of both macro and micro ways in which our days move from one act to the next, from one state of being to the next, from a particular way our days are constructed that gives way to something different. Sometimes intentionally...
I was actually thinking about these things this time, last year.
At my age, it’s easy to believe I got life handled because gosh I know so much. But the truth is, I know what I know. I learned lessons from what I experienced to date… and for sure were I in grade school again, jr. high, high school again, college… I’d be waaaaaay ahead of the game. For sure I’ve got better comebacks than I once had. Or maybe 20-30-40-years later I finally hit on the things I should have said.
I’ve got better study habits. I’m better at prioritizing. And while I don’t have the brain capacity I once had, I know how to make information stick.
I could go on. But that would be a resume. Not a map through what lies ahead.
As we embark on the next 25, how do we engage this part of our lives as if we know what we’re doing? As if we’ve done this before.
It’s wishful thinking in the extreme, but the world in which we live manifests a chaos and instability that calls for something more than…
Actually, I don’t know what it calls for. I just know that in a constantly changing environment, you gotta roll with it. There is no such thing as “settled down”. We will need, in this next 25, to make a series of short-term decisions about the shape of our lives together. We’ll need to do that because it’s unlikely that the basis upon which we make any decision is stable enough to sustain those decisions more than a few years.
Photo by Filios Sazeides on Unsplash
I won’t lie. That last sentence still seems right.
It’s unlikely that the basis upon which we make any decision is stable enough to sustain those decisions more than a few years.
At the time I wrote those words the first time, our days were constructed in a way they are not now. For example, Kimmer’s transitioning out of the job she had at the time... and transitioning into a pair of jobs, one in Ballard, one in Bellingham.
Yesterday, in fact, she trained up in Bellingham for a few hours... then came back down to Lynnwood mid-afternoon for an appointment at her private clinic.
It’s a transition that’ll play out over this month, culminating in some very busy weeks. And months.
For me, at this time last year, there were three editors at one of my Seattle gigs where now there are two. Which opens more opportunity, has opened more opportunity. More gigs down there.
So even on that basis alone, this September’s stunningly different from the last. The heart of which has to do with the decisions we made about Kimmer’s work life.
Photo by Fabien Bazanegue on Unsplash
As I continued to read, something else resonated...
Pro Tip: The brightest, loudest elements of our environments aren’t necessarily the most relevant in the long term.
My guess is that, while my focus is drawn by shiny and fast and loud… the threads running from our past through our here and now into our future… those threads are probably not visible from the direction my eyes get turned. Our present is always in motion, is my point. There’s always stuff going on to which we’re not paying attention.
So these days, I’m looking into the dark, the silence. I’m looking where the light’s not pointed. Where the sound’s not coming from. Where the news... isn’t. I’m looking at and I’m looking for things that don’t draw attention to themselves in any given moment. Basically I’m looking for Time’s equivalent of boulders amidst whitewater rapids.
They are threads running through time and place, my time and my place, and, if you look at them a certain way, they constitute pixels that will eventually form a new picture, one unrecognizable from the picture that constitutes our present.
Of course it’s fun to think of myself as a master of my past. But the next 25 will require some different kind of skill set. I’m not even talking about jobs or careers. But of how we will be in this future. How we will interact. How we’ll consider ourselves. How easy or difficult it’ll be to just be. To exist, co-exist. To become more.
Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash
That also still seems legit. At least the heart of it that calls for a relentless sort of focus. Because a year after I wrote those words, the signal to noise ratio is bunching together: more noise, less signal.
Cacophony... is the word I’m looking for.
According to Miriam-Webster:
1: harsh or jarring sound: dissonance
2: an incongruous or chaotic mixture: a striking combination
—a cacophony of color
—a cacophony of smells
In the meantime, technology’s changing. Automation. AI. Machine learning.
The nature of our jobs is changing. A good thing... right up to the moment those jobs can be zeroed out by what tech can do.
The nature of our republic has changed. Gone are the days of any sense of stability. From now on, our laws, our objectives and the strategies we employ to achieve and sustain those objectives, will swerve all over the road. Every 2, 4, 8 years. Maybe less.
Social media is capable of so much in real time.
A foundation... is not something we’re counting on. That’s just what is.
Photo by Julie Thornton on Unsplash
It’s a useful thing that we’re improvisers. Helpful that we’re used to looking for puzzle pieces that might fit together differently. Really, really swell that we know how to make it all up on the fly and run with it. Useful that we’re not super wedded to settled down.
If we have to, we can hit the road in any number of directions... for any number of reasons. Scottsdale, Arizona, for example, is one of many options we’ve taken a liking to.
For now, it’s a year later. No surprises. Nothing that ran us off the rails. Not one thing beyond our abilities to handle.
And I’m very okay with that.
I’ll let you know how this all worked out by the time we get there.
