Threads of interest
The value of pursuing interests without expectations and why this is necessary if you want to live an interesting life.
Think of the last time you said or felt that something was interesting.
There was a feeling there that didn’t exist before… like it jumped out of the bushes.
Unexpected, fascinating, revelatory.
Fleeting as it may be, it’s a conscious choice to estrange this feeling and wonder… when’s it ever gonna come back?
Truth is, it’s always right in front of us.
But only if we build an inviting environment for it to nest in that’s focused on following interests without expectations.
You start to exist in a gestalt of a feeling that’s gentle and interesting
For instance, this morning I drank coffee from a mug that I made from clay that I dug myself, read two pages from a Marvin Minksy book and contemplated why kids carry so many books in their bags and what they are even for(?), listened to an audiobook that explained Bach’s influences on Paul Simon, and looked at three cards on my desk for North Carolina craftspeople I met at the state fair only to feel the irony that there work far surpasses anything on Etsy… and they don’t even have websites.
None of these threads of interest involved expectation.
Neither when they first came into my life or when felt in the present moment.
And yet they keep unfolding new ideas, meaning and confidence.
I did not always exist in this space though.
Four years ago I used to sit at a computer for a tech job, rigidly meditated and “practiced yoga” (with a shaved head) every day at 5:30 PM, and floundered around in unresolved wounds.
Isolated and compartmentalized for how, where, when and why things will happen as I expected them to.
Very comfortable, but oh so boring.
Eventually, I intuited that it’s time for some new things in life that don’t involve expectations.
So in the same month, I signed up for a pottery class and then also to work with a somatic experiencing practitioner.
Very much out of the bushes the “aha” feelings arose… continuously, every day.
Benefiting each other, opening each other, and integrating each other.
Healing initiated deep emotional sensitivity throughout the pottery making process… and a resilience to just keep trying things; the biggest blockade of progress.
Creativity integrated all the knots which were being untangled during my healing process when I had no words, only feelings, for what I was experiencing.
Healing without creativity is a thousand creative artworks pleading to emerge… only to have them silenced through unskilled hands that can’t give em’ a voice.
Creativity without emotional sensitivity breeds tasteless works with no feeling, disconnection with boundless material origins, and blinds the maker to true creative confidence.
The more that I allowed the experiences to take me somewhere, the more they did.
Anytime I forced aspects of them, they quieted down and hid.
When I let them be, they did just that.
All powerful, all interesting.
Opportunities in between.
There are many other threads that could be elucidated herein, but I’d hate to place too much expectation on getting the point across. ;)
Moral of the story… wander around more and simply be mindful of all the areas in life which you have agreed to have expectations around. Then try something new without that dogged old friend of your’s piggybacking on your flow. Some cool threads will emerge from it. Guarantee it.
Until we ride again,
Addi 🤠
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