Our Young Teachers

I've had the pleasure of spending time with lots of newborns in the last year. Between Asha's and my family, four boys came into the world in a short three-month period. Two of the boys — Anderson and Kai — have young older sisters in Lexi and Maya respectively. All together, they're a heartwarming handful.

I'm not entirely comfortable around the littlest ones just yet. I'm still learning how to hold them naturally. I don't have the finely-honed intuitions to know what they need; veterans often come to my rescue cooing and swooping in with deft hands. I will get there, though probably too late to be of any help to the exhausted parents.

One thing, however, I'm learning quickly. The young — both the littlest ones and the toddlers — are great teachers of presence. A fantastic moment in Tim Ferriss's podcast with Josh Waitzkin, which I've linked to before, describes the real-life classroom better than I can:

Parenting has been the most fantastic learning experience I've ever gone through. So from when [Jack] was born, I tried very hard to not go into it with a lot of preconceived ideas and to be attuned to him, to listen to him. From when he was just days, weeks old, he was teaching me. You know, you talk about teaching presence. Our eyes would be connected and if I would think about something else, his eyes would pull me back. If there was any distraction that set in, he would pull me back. And as he got a little older, he would just take your face and pull it back in the sweetest way. So the depth of connection, you know, being deeply attuned to a young spirit that hasn't become blocked, that is in that state of unobstructed self-expression, that is just this unbelievably game learner, unblocked learner. . .

When not in the throes of inevitable growing pains, the young are a paradigm of wonder and awe. Rather than see them as students that we must shepherd through life, we can flip the script and open ourselves to their role as teachers. When I've become the student of the young in my life, I've been rewarded with the incredible gift of presence. No gift is greater. There is always — and only — now. We spend our lives clawing back to it, but it is all the young know until we teach them otherwise. Though they don't even know of their generosity, I'm grateful for the moments of learning they've shared with me in the past year.

Knowledge Work

I'm always trying to think about how to improve the signal to noise ratio for myself and for others. That's the important work of the 21st century, where everything is at our fingertips. My efforts in creating a commonplace book are a good example of a that. In some important ways, I think that I've found value in the process. For example, a recent commonplace links post created a nice web of ideas around the topic of questions and framing our interactions with others.

At the same time, I'm restless about the endeavor. Something about it isn't quite enough: I'm still just loosely collecting things, occasionally finding the links between them. I'm not fully appreciating things for their context and relationship with other things; I turn my attention to them and then move on. One potential remedy is an idea that I've been toying with: going a little deeper and beginning the creation of a zettlekasten, something like a personal knowledge wiki.

Why even bother? At my very core, I’m a learner. I love getting lost down rabbit holes. I care about building a diverse foundation of ideas. I want to know something about everything and everything about something (the latter is still undecided). But I’ve been turning over an idea lately. Knowledge — true knowledge — takes work. It takes process. We can’t just expect to handle the unending stream of information, consume it all, end up with wisdom. Wisdom requires applied knowledge and knowledge requires force applied to information. Something like a zettlekasten would be an opportunity to work with information and then network the resulting knowledge in a way that offers up new insights.

What would it look like? I'm not entirely sure. I have a collection of text files, notes from about 20 books I read in the last year or so, and an enormous Pinboard archive. One approach could be to be more forward focused and establish a process for dealing with incoming ideas while slowly working through the backlog, separating wheat from chaff, and connecting the ideas that rise to the top. I'm intrigued by the potential of using nvALT, a tremendous little plain text editor. More important than the tools, though, is the intention here to really dive into knowledge work.

I'm trying to figure out how to carefully and sustainably build upon my current understanding in ways that help me do what I do better and live a more meaningful life. At the same time, I want to run into the thicket of all the interesting ideas swirling around me and try to make sense of it all. Knowledge work in this sense is a lifelong balancing project of action and reflection and one that I hope keeps me sharp, curious, and excited.

Always We Begin Again

Much of living is just connecting ideas, knitting a patchwork of thoughts into something coherent so that we can navigate the day-to-day. Recently, I’ve been thinking about the fruitful tension between agnostic acceptance and active hope.

The idea of agnostic acceptance is best explored through an old fable. Go ahead and read it. It’ll just take a minute; I’ll wait.

Powerful stuff, right? The farmer carved out a space for tranquility: he decides what the world’s comings and goings mean and he decided that he doesn’t know what they mean just yet; he’ll reserve his opinion for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. In doing so, he created a bulwark against the changing tides.

The tranquility on offer in the throes of agnostic acceptance is a powerful tool to wield in a culture that constantly signals us to want more and to want better. From that space that we create by saying "I don't know yet what this means" we can view the promises of happiness if we just get the thing we are chasing with some skepticism.

At the same time, I want to be relentlessly open to the changing tide — and I want to be part of that change. It’s in my DNA to inquire into the nature of things and ask how we might do better. It’s a constant impulse, at times a noble and naive one, that has driven me to where I am today. I cannot simply say “We shall see” for I fear that in doing so I might lose the edge that pushes me to take part.

Some semblance of a resolution might lie in a benedictine phrase that I have kept close for many years: Always we begin again. Those words host the ideas of hopeful gratitude and fierce openness. Today, we begin again. Always, we begin again. There is an infinite possibility in now if you have opened yourself to it.

So I can work my way to the tranquility of the farmer, with his careful agnostic acceptance yet still unfurl my awareness in the present to what can be and take what action I can. We shall see yet always we begin again.

The Post Game Debrief

Writing is often really just a way to get something to stop bugging me. It doesn't always work: even after writing a post, whatever led me to write can still linger and demand attention. Recently, I wrote about the importance of a growth mindset and that idea stuck around my mind and recalled some memories.

When I was younger, I played a lot of competitive soccer. My sister and brother did, too. We played different roles on the field during a match, but the scene afterwards looked the same for all of us: we would get into the passenger side of the car and immediately debrief the game we had just played. I know my mom took me to a lot of games, but in my mind's eye the scenes play out mostly with my dad in the driver's seat.

The self-critique was often just a move of self-preservation. We had learned that it was a lot easier to work through our mistakes ourselves than to suffer through a brutally honest analysis from our dad. He was never angry about results; he was exclusively obsessed with process. He only cared about whether we had tried and gave it our all. These debriefs, with their focus on the potential to improve, made us all growth-oriented as players. At the same time, they provided a space for recognition of effort and progress.

By the end of my soccer career, it wasn't uncommon for my dad to reply to my self-criticism with an "Ok", signaling that I had properly deconstructed the game. Sometimes he would interject and tell me that no, I gave it my all on a particular play and that I shouldn't beat myself up over it. Whether those conversations involved praise or criticism, the post game debrief became part of my ritual as a player.

Some of my proudest moments came not on the field but in the passenger side of the car. I wasn't the best player out there, but I fought some good battles during my time. Afterwards, I would hop in the car and not say a word because I knew I had nailed it and given it my all. In those moments, my dad's matching silence meant more than words ever could. The post game debrief had taught us all about effort, about growth, and about recognition of a job well done.

Happy Father's Day, Dad.

Rediscovering Grit and Growth

When I arrived at law school, I didn't quite know what to expect. There are no lawyers in my family; anything I thought I knew about the experiences ahead were things that I had read online and digested with a healthy dose of salt.

I quickly found out that I was drowning. This wasn't like undergrad where I studied the humanities. If you love reading and are willing to put the time into writing (that is, revising) then you do okay. I love reading and writing; as a result, I did okay.

Law school is different. It plays to some of my strengths as a reader and writer, but I often felt like I was being told to use a muscle that I had just learned I had. So much of the curriculum and the pedagogy that delivered it felt unintuitive and foreign.

Part of the feeling of drowning undoubtedly had to do with the quality of my peers. Graduate school is a filter and I've found myself among some interesting and sharp folks in law school. At times, I felt like an imposter, drowning in the shallow end. More than once I was the definitive dumb kid in the room, a surreal experience for someone who prides himself on being in the know.

I've completed two years of law school now. I've found that there is a surprising pleasure in drowning, but the reward of that pleasure requires a renewed focus on grit and growth.

By grit, I don't mean white-knuckling it. I mean persistence and resilience. Grit is the willingness to use deep work to push the mind to new and exciting places. Law is an epic story that rewards careful and interwoven thinking fueled by grit.

But grit has to be paired with a growth-mindset. The mindset is a commitment to the idea you are always in the radical process of becoming intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Imposter syndrome at its root has to do with a fixed-mindset: your perceived inadequacy in a particular moment is who you think you are. Embrace a growth-mindset and there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Mistakes are just milestones.

We have to -- we get to -- make choices about who we want to be every day. Grit and growth. That's what I'm about these days. How about you?

A Personal Government

What if your life was totally controlled by the government?

No, I'm not envisioning some dystopian future or referencing a distorted view of the present. Nor am I speaking about the pervasive and important influence that our local, state, and national governments have on our daily lives. I'm proposing a personal government, one formed by a three-way division of yourself.

First, you would need a constitution that sets up the fundamental structure for how you live your life. Maybe you want some things baked in: always take the stairs; find a way to tell the truth; navigate with a particular ethical precept in mind. Maybe you dream up an ideal day. Importantly, your constitution might install a division of powers between three branches: the legislative, the judicial, and the executive.

Your legislature would decide on the rules outside of the broad directives of the constitution. Every once in a while, you could brainstorm a legislative agenda: issues whose resolution would make your life better. You could, for example, do some research on diet and decide that you want to eat vegetarian or Paleo. Or you might set up some rules for the way you work so that you are always at the top of your game. Additionally, your "legislature" might determine what sort of goals you should pursue in the short and long term. These rules and decisions would come about only after careful consideration of the pros and cons. They would be treated roughly as final choices, subject, of course, to careful revision.

Your executive would carry out the laws "passed" by your legislative branch. This part of you involves the day-to-day planning and execution. You'd consult the rules and then engage in active living.

Your judiciary would assess whether your executive was faithfully executive the laws and whether the other two "branches" were adhering to the constitution you set up. Perhaps these checks come about through a regular process of journaling; any discrepancies demand a change of course. Alternatively, you might use the judiciary as a mental space for post-mortems, dissecting what went wrong and why you strayed from your principles.

The next time you have to make a decision, consult your personal government. What would make it through the rigmarole of your three inner branches? A personal government such as the one described above would only let the best ideas win and the best you express itself.

Out of Curiosity

"Out of curiosity..."

To begin a line of questioning this way implies that we a springing out of a place: curiosity.

What could that space – curiosity – mean?

I think it means that we are engaging in a purer, more ennobling form of questioning. Questions that come out of curiosity are the types of questions we ask when we don't have an agenda. They are the questions we ask when we are thirsty for knowledge, embarking on a journey from one space (curiosity) to another (learning).

Our questions can have other positive orientations besides curiosity, like love, or helpfulness.

How, then, can we encourage the better springs of inquiry?

Much of it has to do with pausing. Before we ask a question, we can examine its origin. Is it coming out of curiosity or spite? Kindness or sabotage? We can choose from what mental space our questions flow from.

In doing so, we also dictate the form and beauty of the answer. Those nourished by questions asked out of curiosity will more likely choose the generous response. Downstream, a beautiful response might lead to more beautiful questions.

The next time you ask a question, ask it from the best place you know inside yourself.

Trees Sitting Zazen

Over spring break, I spent a week on Green Gulch Farm, a zen center in the Marin Headlands north of San Francisco.

I stayed there as a guest student and followed the schedule of the center. The routine of the day encouraged me to deepen my practice of mindfulness in a way that I had been unable to do so before. I've searched for the words to describe the state that being at Green Gulch put me in and the closest I have is the idea of an extended deep breath. You know how before a trying moment, you steel yourself with a generous breath and create a small clearing in your mind for the chaos to come? Or, taking a step further, how a quiet, effortless morning invigorates you for the challenges of the upcoming day? One step more and you have what it was like for me at Green Gulch: a week-long deep breath.

Within the quiet of that deep breath, I was surprised at how little there was for my mind to chase. I had just finished up a quarter at law school, meaning I was in-between one of the four seasons of responsibility as a law student (three quarters and a summer job every year). I was empty. I mean this in a completely positive sense: I was able to receive every moment with care and joy. I rested gratefully in this refreshing emptiness knowing that I was to return to a life of action soon.

In the middle of the week, the schedule is interrupted by a completely free day. I used the time to walk to Muir Woods and back. I say this with no exaggeration: Muir Woods is one of my favorite places on earth. A walk through these woods brings out the best of nature's colors: vibrant greens and rich browns. Trees mean so much to me. They represent powerful metaphors of wisdom, effortlessness, growth, and community.

As I inhaled the rich air -- offerings of these great redwoods -- I couldn't shake a phrase: trees sitting zazen. Zazen is the word used to describe Zen meditation, the foundation of Zen Buddhist practice. The redwoods in Muir Woods were sitting zazen as I gently greeted them that day, nobly pondering the quiet. They had sitting zazen been for a long time and they would continue sitting in silence until they returned to the ground from their great heights. There's a particular part of Muir Woods that I cherish called Cathedral Grove, a designated refuge of quiet from disruptive human noise so that certain species can thrive. In the Grove, I sensed the redwoods deep in the practice of sitting zazen.

This idea of trees sitting zazen reminds me of a passage from The Crossroads of Should and Must:

Have you ever been to northern California and stood at the base of a redwood tree? If you have, you know first hand its majesty, its size, the trunk that you and even two or three friends cannot wrap your arms around. These trees reach unfathomable heights, strong and beautiful, lifting skyward. But what you cannot see when you stand at the foot of this tree is what is happening underneath. While a redwood tree can grow 360 feet tall, the roots are only, on average, about ten feet deep. This is because they spread their roots outward, searching for other redwood trees. Their roots intertwine under the ground, and they hold each other up. A redwood tree cannot stand on it’s own, and neither can we.

Meditation is often a solitary endeavor. Though I've meditated around other people before, the week at Green Gulch was the first time I had spent a lot of time practicing regularly with others. It is a community of individual seekers, a seeming paradox: together, apart; apart, together. Like the redwoods, we can only reach our greatest heights when our roots are interwoven.

I want to reach into that feeling of trees sitting zazen, that deep peace in our collective becoming. From that quiet space, I can do the work of life with wisdom and compassion.

Spiritual Ancestors

Who are my spiritual ancestors?

I've been thinking about this question a lot recently. My self-identification as an atheist says very little about my spirituality. As I have said before, my lack of belief says something about me, but atheism isn't a philosophy of life.

The devout have a rich tapestry of thinkers and teachers to pull from. This deep and direct spiritual ancestry offers a history of thought and an evolving debate of meaning to explore. From this spiritual lineage, believers can learn to avoid the mistakes of the past and build a brighter future. That the faithful have figures to look doesn't mean that they are closed to the thoughts of others, it just means that their traditions have done some of the work of sorting out what it means to live.

As a nonbeliever, however, I used to feel adrift at sea. I can find fellow travelers throughout history, though their lack of belief was often obscured. Even when it is in the open, the spiritual side of it might not be. I felt that I didn't have anyone to point to and really say, "She is part of my tribe; she speaks for me."

I am no longer adrift. I realized that while we cannot choose our actual ancestors, we have the absolute freedom to choose our spiritual ones. The whole landscape of thinkers, doers, and dreamers are available to me.

Who have I chosen?

Whoever speaks to me. Whoever has something to say about the great questions of life. Seneca, the Buddha, and yes, even Jesus. J.K. Rowling and Pablo Neruda. Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. There are no barriers to join my fellowship. Those with something to offer are always welcome.

I am not adrift at sea. I am in the crow's nest, using every tool available. My spiritual ancestors each have something to say about navigation and I take their counsel seriously. I don't know where I am sailing to, though it has already been a beautiful journey so far and will surely continue to amaze and surprise me in the many moments ahead.

Enough

I don't want more. I want enough.

Enough is the wealth of experience over things.

Enough is the stuff in your pack that doesn't weigh you down but gives you freedom, both physical and mental.

Enough is the set of commitments that stretch you just far enough to be uncomfortable but not so far to break you down.

Enough is downtime, margin, and space.

Enough is understanding what you do and do not know.

Enough is that careful meal where you savor every bite, sip the wine slowly, and let the evening deepen like someone settling into the groove of a hammock.

Enough is the moment of reading before bed where the words become hazy and forgetable and you tumble softly into sleep.

Enough is the amount of rest so that in the morning you smoothly greet the day, stepping carefully from dreaming to wakefulness.

Enough is the facial dance of a newborn finding his place in the world.

Enough is the breath, an ever-present tool of awareness.

Enough is the gentle insight that I am sufficient.

Enough is enough.