The thing I remember is about two personality types: one that gains identity through acquisition (more things, more features), on that gains identity through refinement and distillation. There's a paragraph about it in there I want to find. Read it decades ago.
"It occurred to me that I spent much of my 20s trying to construct an identity for myself, a way to describe myself and situate myself in the world. And now in my 30s, I find myself wanting to shed that identity, to detach from the labels, to merely be and observe." Where are we at in our 40s? I think detaching labels and observing is what I'm entering. I might have been a late bloomer because I think my 30s were fueled by building a lot of identity focused on corporate ladder climbing. At least it was the epicenter. Is it shedding identity or centering on something else?
I started reading Rick Rubin's new book and there's a small section on how building true presence and awareness allows us to be much more creative and open to refine our art. Sounds so obvious but I find being aware in this world to be humanity's biggest challenge. We just don't stop.
OK, new take: I really like Maya Shankar’s thinking about identity. [https://hubermanlab.com/dr-maya-shankar-how-to-shape-your-identity-and-goals/] She learned to drop her identity as a “violinist” and instead express her identity as what led her to love playing the violin in the first place: curiosity and learning, getting better at things, emotional connections with others. (They also talk about how mediocre marketers go to marketing conferences and great marketers go to art museums ... pretty interesting conversation all around.)
I thought I was going to get away with a 6-year-old opinion without giving an update. I like James Clear’s writing about identity in Atomic Habits: I want to think about my identity as my aspiration for how I want to show up in life. I want to be the kind of person who stops and talks to his neighbors for at least a few minutes and not the guy who rushes past lost in his AirPods. But the only way I live up to that identity is if I actually do it. I want my identity to be built on actions, not labels. It’s fine if others attach the usual labels to me: white, straight, male, urban, cyclist, bookish, whatever. I know they are putting me in a box, and that’s fine, we all do it. But for my own sense of identity, I want to think about how I show up. I don’t want to think of myself as a “cyclist,” but fuck yeah I’ll say yes if you text me with a proposed adventure for tomorrow morning.” I don’t desire the label of being a “writer,” but damn straight I want to dedicate two hours every day to writing (essays, postcards, emails, whatever).
When it comes to the self and creativity, I want to read Rubin’s book. My current thinking is that I want to live my life outside of my self as much as possible. I don’t want to process my experiences through my filters, biases, judgments, and ideologies. I want to be like a three-year-old kid, like the cute kid with the frog story on the M83 album, experiencing each moment as if it were my very first time. Basically, how I feel when I’m on magic mushrooms. But then I want to fully embrace my self when I’m writing/creating for one or two hours each day. That’s when I want to embrace my intuitions and opinions and cultivate a voice and worldview that is (or feels) entirely unique to me.
good call on "immortality". I've been meaning to read that again.
I’m about 20% in. It’s just as good as I remembered it and, so far, not as “problematic” as I had feared
The thing I remember is about two personality types: one that gains identity through acquisition (more things, more features), on that gains identity through refinement and distillation. There's a paragraph about it in there I want to find. Read it decades ago.
"It occurred to me that I spent much of my 20s trying to construct an identity for myself, a way to describe myself and situate myself in the world. And now in my 30s, I find myself wanting to shed that identity, to detach from the labels, to merely be and observe." Where are we at in our 40s? I think detaching labels and observing is what I'm entering. I might have been a late bloomer because I think my 30s were fueled by building a lot of identity focused on corporate ladder climbing. At least it was the epicenter. Is it shedding identity or centering on something else?
I started reading Rick Rubin's new book and there's a small section on how building true presence and awareness allows us to be much more creative and open to refine our art. Sounds so obvious but I find being aware in this world to be humanity's biggest challenge. We just don't stop.
OK, new take: I really like Maya Shankar’s thinking about identity. [https://hubermanlab.com/dr-maya-shankar-how-to-shape-your-identity-and-goals/] She learned to drop her identity as a “violinist” and instead express her identity as what led her to love playing the violin in the first place: curiosity and learning, getting better at things, emotional connections with others. (They also talk about how mediocre marketers go to marketing conferences and great marketers go to art museums ... pretty interesting conversation all around.)
I thought I was going to get away with a 6-year-old opinion without giving an update. I like James Clear’s writing about identity in Atomic Habits: I want to think about my identity as my aspiration for how I want to show up in life. I want to be the kind of person who stops and talks to his neighbors for at least a few minutes and not the guy who rushes past lost in his AirPods. But the only way I live up to that identity is if I actually do it. I want my identity to be built on actions, not labels. It’s fine if others attach the usual labels to me: white, straight, male, urban, cyclist, bookish, whatever. I know they are putting me in a box, and that’s fine, we all do it. But for my own sense of identity, I want to think about how I show up. I don’t want to think of myself as a “cyclist,” but fuck yeah I’ll say yes if you text me with a proposed adventure for tomorrow morning.” I don’t desire the label of being a “writer,” but damn straight I want to dedicate two hours every day to writing (essays, postcards, emails, whatever).
When it comes to the self and creativity, I want to read Rubin’s book. My current thinking is that I want to live my life outside of my self as much as possible. I don’t want to process my experiences through my filters, biases, judgments, and ideologies. I want to be like a three-year-old kid, like the cute kid with the frog story on the M83 album, experiencing each moment as if it were my very first time. Basically, how I feel when I’m on magic mushrooms. But then I want to fully embrace my self when I’m writing/creating for one or two hours each day. That’s when I want to embrace my intuitions and opinions and cultivate a voice and worldview that is (or feels) entirely unique to me.
What do you think?