A few minutes ago I opened today’s Quest 2015 prompt from Jason Silva, read it, and quickly closed it again.
In what ways might you artfully curate your life in 2015 to occasion serendipity, creativity and awe?
Ontological designing says: We design our world and the world designs us back.
What are the linguistic and creative choices you can make in 2015 that will in turn act back upon you and transform you?
I don’t even know how to parse the sentences he used. Especially not at this moment. Not after journaling four new pages this morning that completely undo Monday’s post. Four pages that essentially boiled down to: what if I could just drop out? What if I could stop trying to design a livelihood and focus instead on living a life? What if I could unplug, strip down, and whittle every part of everything I own, and do, and am down to the essential?
I tried it once before when I first left my corporate tech job to move to Santa Fe and write. Back then (could it really have been only four years ago?) I was sick and exhausted and deeply unhappy and had to focus on building up instead of stripping down. Stronger now, might I finally be able to use that grit to polish myself down like a tumbled stone until every band of color, every thin thread of gold shined?
And isn’t that the point of curation vs collection? To mindfully, thoughtfully, poetically choose those few pieces that are most meaningful, most beautiful, most magical? To let one small piece of intricately designed fabric inspire the whole quilt. To let its colors, its luminosity be the door through which we invite the universe in to help us co-create our most joy-full, wonder-full, meaning-full life.
Because if I have learned anything since my first attempt to drop out–and perhaps this is only the continuation of that, not a new attempt at all–it’s that when we stop trying to control, to push through, to drive, when we stop trying to figure it all out on our own, when we open ourselves to letting things evolve, when we finally dare to name our dreams–our true dreams, not just the ones we are pretty sure we can manage to do without too much stress or trouble–the universe tends to meet us halfway. Or more than halfway.
Might 2015 be the year that I finally let it all go, give it all away, all but that one tiny seed at the core of me that must unmake itself to finally meet its destiny: a leaf, a stem, a blossom, a fruit, another seed.
So what linguistic and creative choices can I make in 2015 that will in turn act back upon me and transform me? To say no–to anything and everything that doesn’t feel deep, resonant, meaningful, and essential. And to say yes to what does: poetry, quilts, and finding/building the homestead I have dreamed of ever since I was a little girl. To drop out of the rat race of consumption and constant virtual connection, and replace it with creation and true connection. Without bludgeoning my dreams with boiling every decision I make down to the single question “but how are you going to pay for it?” Replacing it with “what might it cost if you don’t?”