#004: On the art of wondering, the truth behind unspoken expectations, and becoming an active agent of your life
Read time: 5m 36s
Hello from Japan! Being mostly illiterate in a new country, experiencing the nuances of Japanese design and not working for a week has opened up dozens of new avenues of inspiration. With no further ado, I’m excited to share this week’s newsletter with you.
🪟 A window into my brain
On the art of wondering
As I’ve trodden through the bewilderingly peaceful streets of Tokyo over the past week, gazing at the beautifully adorned bodies that stroll down the pavements, delighting in the setup of a ramen bar that encourages solo dining by its very architecture, or revelling in how multi-functional and exquisitely designed every item I stumble across is, I’ve noticed another, more nuanced feeling emerging within me.
I’m in awe that the biggest city in the world–rather than shrinking you to the size of a dust particle kicked to the side of the road–somehow makes you feel as if you can live dozens of memorable lives at once.
This realisation prompted me to reflect on how utterly maddening yet completely liberating it is that we can live just one life. The life that is uniquely ours. The life whose production no-one else is entitled to direct. The life that is entirely shaped by the idiosyncratic behaviours, quirks of the mind and foibles of the heart that are etched so deeply into our unique human operating systems. More maddening still, is the realisation that in order to truly live that one life, we must fully embrace that one life and everything that comes with it. From the one helpless but miraculous body you find your consciousness nestled in at birth, to the one sacred timeline you’ve been gifted by the universe, to the one random postcode that has shaped your path, to the one oh-so-specifically dysfunctional family you were born into.
Naturally, this means that we can never live the life of another. Every time we choose to take the left rather than the right fork, we are waving goodbye to a panoply of potential realities as we gingerly step onto the path that feels “right” in that pinhole of time. However much empathy we build for others, ours is the only perspective we will ever fully experience. However many times we choose to dye our hair and reinvent ourselves, or move halfway across the world simply to “find ourselves” exactly where we began, we are inextricably bound to our one self and our one life. This unbreakable vow with the universe is why the art of wondering forms such an important part of the human experience.
We wonder what motivates the train conductor who never fails to make the most bitter of London commuters chuckle with her unexpectedly jolly jokes; we wonder what it feels like to grow up as an invalid with no hope for recovery, surrounded by a beautiful family who refuses to give up on us; we wonder what it feels like to be the garbage man who is so effortlessly kind, regardless of how much the torrential rain must be drenching his soul; we wonder how the timid child who stuttered through our kindergarten class went on to become a paradigm-shifting artist who has forever altered how we perceive the nature of time.
The art of wondering is what enables us to peek into the inner worlds of another, without shouldering the burdens that weigh down their reality. The art of wondering is what helps us construct bridges that never let another human fall, without ever having looked them in the eye. The art of wondering is what brings our former lover to our doorstep just when we thought the thunderstorm would never cease. The art of wondering is what makes our one little life colossal beyond comprehension.
🖋️ Sentences I wish I’d written
We do not know what the future holds, but we know what holds the future.
Ralph Abernathy
Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.
Neil Strauss, The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships
Most of the time, when we are blocked in an area of our lives, it is because we feel safer that way.
Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way
🚀 From idea to reality
Since I began my writing challenge, I’ve noticed a marked difference in how I interact with the world and the people around me.
I used to move through the world believing that I was an active agent rather than a passive participant in my own life. But reality kicked me into the middle of the playground and cast me as a fool in front of my very own consciousness. I was complacently expecting inspiration to strike me like a clap of thunder that refuses to be ignored, as the blocked creative so often does (shoutout to Julia Cameron for giving me the language to describe this). I wasn’t sculpting every single interaction, circumstance and event with a pointed blade of intentionality.
I was waiting. I was watching. I was receiving.
An unexpected side effect of this passive way of experiencing the world was that my memory suffered. With minimal intentionality upon entering an interaction and minimal intentionality in reflecting upon said interaction, there were few reasons for new stories, evolved opinions or developed convictions to stick in my mind.
When I started writing daily, things began to change. I’ve started moving through life as if I am an artist and every interaction I have is a paintbrush with which to paint upon my canvas of self-understanding. The daily practice of seeking inspiration from something, anything, over the course of the day and then sitting down to write about it has embedded within me a habit of deep curiosity. Rather than waiting for inspiration to happen to me, I can now experience it on demand. This has made me significantly more aware of every aspect of my inner landscape, my body, my relationships, my dreams, my interactions and my environment.
I am no longer asleep at the wheel, 60 miles per hour, with my eyes wide shut. I am wide awake, eyes constantly scanning my environment for signs of life, danger, excitement, risk, beauty and novelty. What can I learn from the waltz of the dainty leaf that has just danced carelessly across my windscreen? How might I interpret the sudden swerve of the car in front of me–did a fellow driver nod off at the wheel, or did a bird spontaneously decide to flaunt its courage? How could I respond to that pedestrian who sprinted across the street when the traffic light was red and the night around us black as blindness?
If you care to become the main character of your life, I urge you to wake yourself up by dousing your every action with intentionality. I have done this through making writing (and reflection, as a prerequisite of that) a daily habit. For you that may look entirely different.
It matters less what the method is, and more that your intention is sound.
💭 A question for you
Who is one person who has irrevocably changed the course of your life? Have you ever told them?
Thanks for reading - let me know what you thought by hitting reply!
Nikita 💃🏽
Reading this with Michael Lee Aday playing in the background. I genuinely loved the sheer poeticism imbued throughout this piece.
Never before have I paused to wonder about wondering. The beauty and the power the very act holds in allowing us to be a momentary part of another's life.
Honestly thanks a lot Nikita! This really put a smile on my face :")