I'll repeat on you. Over and over
Writing, like everything, works a habit muscle. Do the reps and it flows easy. Break the chain and it surrounds in crust.
This is where I am little, a month or so since the last post in this series.
Round and round i’ve been going. Not writing.
I’ve debated with Claude.
I’ve eaten a LOT of chocolate.
I’ve sat with it. And not written.
This is a series which asks "what is the changing tide asking of you?"
It started here.
I pointed to seven practises I return to.
The last of these : repeating. That's what today is about. Me repeating on you. No, not like that. We're not sparrows, me sicking a little in your mouth.
Presence As Practise
I am curious about the world of elite performance psychology. What kind of mind keeps going when all other signals scream stop?
I'm interested too because much of what's written finds a canny overlap with Buddhist psychology. These connections are sometimes made explicit. Other times not. I'm interested in what each gives the other but neither sees alone. Like repeating.
This exploration is coalescing into a model which might help you. I call it AWAKE. I'll come to this in the next series of writing. For now, let's finish this.
A thread between these schools is what we might call presence as practise. Serving to win the final, the decisive game in the deciding set? This me, obvs (well, it was today). Or caught in a doom loop about the impossibility of why they said that and what it means (that's you, obvs). In both, presence as practise.
The elite sports dudes will have you focused on the immediate, the controllables. The wise monk, the weight of your body, sitting here on this chair.
Between these a beautiful spirit. Presence as practise. Can I notice the thought loop, the habits of mind whipping me off into a future storm or previous shame? In noticing there is freedom, agency. I am released back into the moment. Into me standing, rooted to this small patch of ground, moment in time. In that, there is everything.
This the repeating too.
Think Long, Act Short
Two weeks ago I went for a walk and talk with a founder, a friend and client, who’s AI business is about to secure funding. Walking and talking amidst forest two thousand years in the making and rocks 100m years in forming.
In this time frame, perspective. However big the problem, the obstacle, it's small in comparison.
Being amidst the woods does this. Which is why we walk and talk here. This not the stuff for Boardrooms. There is wisdom in the roots, the ground, the connections, if we’ll slow enough to feel it. Walking that morning, we could.
Birds sing.
Dogs run.
The wind blows.
Ancient bark, soft to touch.
Even older rock, cool and damp.
Talking AI and business and navigating difficult people.
Wishes, hopes, anxieties for the future.
The contrast is important. Think Long, Act Short.
It’s easy to chase off into the future. A scenario imagined or point lost. Or disappear into a life passed. A conversation didn’t go your way. And then there is the woods, the rocks, the right here, right now. Wind blowing whispers through the trees.
Between these poles sits everything.
Between these poles sits our relationship to technology.
Between these poles is presence as practise, and repeating this moment over and over.
Between these is insight, intution and creative contribution.
So what does the changing tide ask of me?
Wise old monk Shoukei Matsumoto wrote a beautiful Substack this week about the whole of life being under these two feet. Yours. Mine. In the soil.
Tend to this well, and you tend to all of life well. And as the mind wanders off into worry, or descends into despair, return.
Presence as practise. Tend to the soil beneath your feet.
And repeat. Over and over.
That’s what the changing tide asks of me.
Tend well, with beauty and care, to just this soil below my feet - to the complex web of relationships, the rich shoots of opportunity, and old life decaying. Tend well, to this..
And you?