A beautiful piece of writing, Frederik. 'Falling out life' is a lovely phrase for an unlovely experience. I know exactly what you mean. Looking forward the future of your writing, whatever it looks like!
It is great to sometimes take a step back and analyze the road travelled. Everyone wants to feel more important. But sometimes what we are already doing is very important to the people that matter. In the end that is what is important, not what we are doing, but how we are feeling doing it. If we have a sense of accomplishment, and are happy. Everything else is noise. Thanks as always for sharing such a great content, and to make us think about many aspects of life.
Hi there! Thank you for writing this, it totally resonates. A few thoughts from me, if I may.
1. There will never be something that feels important "enough" because that word, "enough", implies a reference point, ergo subjectivity. And subjectively, nothing can be important enough. I've struggled with this question for myself a lot, trying to find something meaningful enough that I can be convinced to do it. As much as I tried I couldn't find anything because I knew that anything I chose I had put it in my mind in the first place. So, there's never going to be something that we know, for sure, is important enough to be convinced to put our lives to it. We can easily pick the tackling of existential risks as one of the most important things we should do but still, that can have infinite flavours, which one is really our battle? This is where meaning comes in.
2. Meaning is found in the space between ourselves and others (I don't remember where I read that). A man, alone, in the middle of nowhere, can't come up with their life's purpose because meaning can only be found in relation to others. Meaning is in relation to something. We have to be out there for meaning to be found.
3. The void that you’re feeling then could be a loss of meaning. I know what that’s like. For me this happened as I realised that my previous reality goggles (the principles, values and narratives by which I constructed my reality) did not hold anymore. As I started questioning my beliefs, my goals, my life’s plan, my choices, I felt empty. Who am I? Who am I if I’m not that by which I’ve defined myself for the past few years? Why do I want what I want?
4. You are the constant of every answer you are looking for. Our job is not to find the answers but to be present and open for the answers to appear to us. In this moment where you’ve fallen out of your life, return to you. Take care of your body. Eat well. Bake bread. Exercise. Get back to the core. Find meaning in taking care of yourself. That’s your primary relationship. What do you want to do right now? Wander aimlessly. Waste time. Only by restoring your primary relationship you can again open up to the world, open to relating and discovering meaning in the space between yourself and others.
I’d love to discuss more about this. If you want to talk, find me on Twitter @dtzortzis42
Thanks for sharing your truely personally emotional feelings. It surprisingly touched what I am thinking myself and the job I am doing lately. A sense of purpose/ meanings & a new way of communication & collaboration, I think we need to spend time to think thoroughly about them. Hope you are doing well & fine.
“I had sat across someone who deeply believed in their own ability to play a crucial role in the re-engineering of our world. Yet when I looked at myself in the mirror, I could not detect that same sense of agency.”
I experienced exactly the same feeling these last few weeks in discussions about AI. That your writing deeply touched someone who speaks a different language living in a totally different country should give you some evidence that what you do *is* important enough.
Growth has stagnated a bit for everybody, so it's easy to conclude that the work is making less of an impact. Not true, in my view. We're just in an industry downturn.
Keep up the good work. I know it's making an impact, probably more than you realise.
This is a wonderful mental journey. If you write something genuine, you may make people think for themselves, that's a wonderful impact, but you'll never know for sure if you're making an impact and on whom.
It can be hard to share personal things with others, but I really admire your courage and openness!
A beautiful piece of writing, Frederik. 'Falling out life' is a lovely phrase for an unlovely experience. I know exactly what you mean. Looking forward the future of your writing, whatever it looks like!
Thank you for this. Courageous to let open your heart to the world.
It is great to sometimes take a step back and analyze the road travelled. Everyone wants to feel more important. But sometimes what we are already doing is very important to the people that matter. In the end that is what is important, not what we are doing, but how we are feeling doing it. If we have a sense of accomplishment, and are happy. Everything else is noise. Thanks as always for sharing such a great content, and to make us think about many aspects of life.
Fantastic piece.
Hi there! Thank you for writing this, it totally resonates. A few thoughts from me, if I may.
1. There will never be something that feels important "enough" because that word, "enough", implies a reference point, ergo subjectivity. And subjectively, nothing can be important enough. I've struggled with this question for myself a lot, trying to find something meaningful enough that I can be convinced to do it. As much as I tried I couldn't find anything because I knew that anything I chose I had put it in my mind in the first place. So, there's never going to be something that we know, for sure, is important enough to be convinced to put our lives to it. We can easily pick the tackling of existential risks as one of the most important things we should do but still, that can have infinite flavours, which one is really our battle? This is where meaning comes in.
2. Meaning is found in the space between ourselves and others (I don't remember where I read that). A man, alone, in the middle of nowhere, can't come up with their life's purpose because meaning can only be found in relation to others. Meaning is in relation to something. We have to be out there for meaning to be found.
3. The void that you’re feeling then could be a loss of meaning. I know what that’s like. For me this happened as I realised that my previous reality goggles (the principles, values and narratives by which I constructed my reality) did not hold anymore. As I started questioning my beliefs, my goals, my life’s plan, my choices, I felt empty. Who am I? Who am I if I’m not that by which I’ve defined myself for the past few years? Why do I want what I want?
4. You are the constant of every answer you are looking for. Our job is not to find the answers but to be present and open for the answers to appear to us. In this moment where you’ve fallen out of your life, return to you. Take care of your body. Eat well. Bake bread. Exercise. Get back to the core. Find meaning in taking care of yourself. That’s your primary relationship. What do you want to do right now? Wander aimlessly. Waste time. Only by restoring your primary relationship you can again open up to the world, open to relating and discovering meaning in the space between yourself and others.
I’d love to discuss more about this. If you want to talk, find me on Twitter @dtzortzis42
Thanks for sharing your truely personally emotional feelings. It surprisingly touched what I am thinking myself and the job I am doing lately. A sense of purpose/ meanings & a new way of communication & collaboration, I think we need to spend time to think thoroughly about them. Hope you are doing well & fine.
“I had sat across someone who deeply believed in their own ability to play a crucial role in the re-engineering of our world. Yet when I looked at myself in the mirror, I could not detect that same sense of agency.”
I experienced exactly the same feeling these last few weeks in discussions about AI. That your writing deeply touched someone who speaks a different language living in a totally different country should give you some evidence that what you do *is* important enough.
Growth has stagnated a bit for everybody, so it's easy to conclude that the work is making less of an impact. Not true, in my view. We're just in an industry downturn.
Keep up the good work. I know it's making an impact, probably more than you realise.
A story of redemption. Keep up the good work. ❤️
This is a wonderful mental journey. If you write something genuine, you may make people think for themselves, that's a wonderful impact, but you'll never know for sure if you're making an impact and on whom.
Thank you for the very raw and authentic article.
hey, you can still move to Bali and write. Seriously, travel heals the soul
Thank you for speaking and sharing from the heart. This is the sort of honest reflection that we must do to understand the path we wish to walk.
I resonated a lot with what you posted here. It's a fantastic blog that you run. Thanks for such well written piece.
Trivia: We started our substacks 3 days apart. I started mine on July 20, 2020.