Image: Cocoon by Mallory Morrison

It was 3am in Oahu and the air was thick with humidity. The chirping birds that sang across the salty sky had taken their leave, replaced by the croaking tree frogs who run the night shift in the tropics. I’d slipped silently from our hotel room to find a place in the vacant, outdoor lobby of our hotel to take a scheduled phone call with a client. Nothing about this call was urgent, or even semi-critical, but it was a client who needed to know that no matter where I was, or what I was doing, he was still a priority. 

And so I took the call. I paced back and forth for over an hour while he prattled on about his favorite English Premier League team and the machinations of internal politics at his company, knowing full well I’m standing in a lobby, in the middle of the night, halfway around the world, on vacation with my family.

This call took place roughly 5 years ago, but in truth, for nearly two decades, most (maybe even all) of my vacations were dotted with moments like this one. As an entrepreneur, you don’t even realize you’re doing it. You don’t realize you’re stealing from yourself and those you love. You do it because you’ve been conditioned to think that this is what’s done to get ahead. To show everyone, your team, your clients, your investors, how much you care. How much you’ll sacrifice for the cause. 

This is internalized capitalism and it’s gross.

Back in April, I started writing Understanding Understanding after a year and half long detox from working like this. In the beginning my plan was to write an essay every two weeks. And up until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t missed a beat. Sometimes it was easy to stay on track and get my thoughts organized and off to those of you who have been following along. Other times, life got busy and I worried I might miss my self-imposed deadline. I stayed up later than usual researching a specific point or making sure everything was proofread that extra time for an errant comma or an erroneous semicolon. But I kept the schedule. That is, of course, until a few weeks ago.

We (Caroline and I), along with two dear friends, were headed off for a week-long vacation together and I had truly wanted to get the piece I’ve been writing about reproductive rights out before I left. It’s been a tough one for both personal and societal reasons. I’ve found it hard to find the right words and to be as raw about all the feelings I’ve had in the wake of Roe’s repeal. In spite of my best efforts, it remains unfinished.

When I realized that essay wouldn’t go out as scheduled, I felt an old, masochistic, self-critical me resurface. What would people think? Would they say I’m undisciplined? Would it seem like this thing I set out to do didn’t matter enough? Those old voices from a part of me I thought I’d slayed long ago fought their way to the surface like a weed winnowing itself through sidewalk cement into the light of day. My eschewed tendencies toward hustle porn were something I thought I’d outgrown and left behind. But here I was, sitting at JFK, kicking myself for missing the deadline.

Then I remembered something I heard many years ago and have tucked into the folds of my brain for just this sort of occasion. If you’re worried about what others are thinking about you, they aren’t. This deadline was self imposed and somewhat arbitrarily chosen by me. I decided I was being ridiculous. I ordered a margarita at the airport bar, closed my laptop, and went on vacation. I had the best time.

Somewhere around day 3, Caroline turned to me and said, “You know, I don’t think we’ve ever been on a trip where you didn’t take a single call or answer emails for a few hours. This is really good for you.”

She was right. It was good for me. And it was good for us. I hadn’t really done anything like it in the last couple decades. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed plenty of downtime and unplugged for long weekends or when going off the grid for a spiritual retreat. But a casual vacation? Without calls or emails? This was too luxurious. How could I just relax for 7 straight days and disconnect from work? 

Turns out, it’s not that tough.

And it felt good! Not just for the cortisol adjustment that comes with swimming in the sea and enjoying time with the people you love, but also because it brings into focus the appreciable nature of these fleeting moments in our lives. How many more vacations like this will I have before my bones turn to dust? Will I lament not answering enough emails from vacation in my final minutes on this earth? The answer to this is self-evident. 

What I think I grew closer to in this recent time away was not just the freedom that we afford ourselves when we practice self-forgiveness, but also the clarity to notice and embrace the rare, simple pleasures that may otherwise be overlooked when distracted by things we “must do” or “have to finish”. 

The writer Nicholson Baker speaks of this quality in the opening of his essay Rarity: 

“Has anyone yet said publicly how nice it is to write on rubber with a ballpoint pen? The slow, fat, ink-rich line, rolled over a surface at once dense and yielding, makes for a multidimensional experience no single sheet of paper can offer. Right now dozens of Americans are making repetitive scrolly designs on the soft white door-seals of their refrigerators, or they are directing their pens around the layered side-steppes and toe-bulbs of their sneakers (heads bent, as elders give them advice), or they are marking shiny initials on one of those gigantic, dumb, benevolent erasers (which always bound in unforeseen directions when dropped, and seem so selfless, so apolitical, so completely uninterested in doing anything besides erasing large mistakes for which they were not responsible), and then using the eraser to print these same initials several times, backward, on the knee or forearm, in fading progression. These are rare pleasures.”

These rare pleasures are exposed to us when time slows down. When the everyday arrives in our awareness with our complete attention at the ready. As someone who’s had a mindfulness practice for nearly 15 years, I’m humbled to only now see how much that practice was merely buoying me from the chaos of entrepreneurship. Keeping me from sinking into an internalized capitalism abyss. Maybe you feel this way too?

These past few months (years?) have been hard. Macrocosmically we’re dealing with the ongoing pandemic, the American political system dumpster fire, an astounding ambivalence to our worldwide climate crisis, the domestic emergence of “ultra MAGA”, goddamn monkeypox, the list goes on. 

Microcosmically, it’s also been a doozy. I won’t get into details here because that’s what I pay a therapist for, but suffice it to say, it’s complex. And I know it has been that way for lots of us. I’ve seen and heard from loads of friends and family over these past few months. It seems like the little gears and springs that hold our individual machinery in place have been going haywire. 

But all is not lost.

At times the world seems to be teetering on the precipice of wholesale upheaval but amidst the tumult, there are always appreciable things. And there is always space to hit pause if we give ourselves permission to do so. It may not always be a week-long vacation. It can be a deviceless meal with a loved one. A slower walk on a quieter street. Hell even a good deep breath is worth its weight in gold some days. Take one now. For real. A big slow inhale through your nose. Fill those lungs. Now hold it for a few seconds. Now exhale even slower out your nose. Soften your shoulders as your breath leaves your body. Nice right?

We live in a world that is simultaneously trying to kill us and eternally feeding us with new joys. It comes down to choice. We can’t control everything, but we can control how everything affects us. Unsurprisingly, there are people who study this stuff. “Life satisfaction” and its impact on the quality of our days. 

Dr. Nancy Fagley, a professor at Rutgers University, has been doing some interesting research on this subject. She shares in a published study she authored: 

Some people savor good times with friends, are grateful for the sacrifices others make for them, and appreciate positive aspects of their environment. Yet others fail to notice these things, taking positive outcomes, experiences, or circumstances for granted. These latter individuals may focus on negative events, conflictual interactions, and discouraging outcomes, and they might simply react with entitlement to positive events and experiences. As these observations suggest, there are individual differences in appreciation, and research has demonstrated these differences are related to important outcomes such as life satisfaction (LS) and positive affect (e.g., Adler and Fagley, 2005, Tucker, 2007).

What she’s telling us is so important. It doesn’t matter how many good things are happening to you if you’re not taking the time to slow down and appreciate them. It’s only there, in those appreciable moments, those places where Nicolson Baker finds “rarity”, that we can truly benefit from all the good that surrounds us.

A soon to be released book called Rest is Resistance, has made its way onto my watch list. In it, the author Tricia Hersey asks, “What would it be like to live in a well-rested world? Far too many of us have claimed productivity as the cornerstone of success. Brainwashed by capitalism, we subject our bodies and minds to work at an unrealistic, damaging, and machine-level pace –– feeding into the same engine that enslaved millions into brutal labor for its own relentless benefit… Rest, in its simplest form, becomes an act of resistance and a reclaiming of power because it asserts our most basic humanity. We are enough. The systems cannot have us.”

We. Are. Enough.

So if this letter found you in a place like the one I was in a few weeks ago, lamenting the ever-growing to-do list and self-imposed expectations we’ve allowed to seep into our psyche, know you are not alone. And you can slow it down anytime you need to. A world of simpler pleasures and newfound wonders await you. You need only take the time to notice them.  

Take good care,

MV

Events, news, workshops, retreats…

Things I’m doing and things others are doing that you might find interesting.

TAKE A RESET
September 25th - October 1st in Telluride

Join me for a week-long retreat of hiking, clean food, and mindfulness work at the impeccably designed Reset Telluride. I’ll be leading a series of workshops and programming designed to help you connect with yourself, and others more meaningfully. Reservations are now open.

FIND ME IN THE DUST
August 25 - September 7th, Black Rock Desert (and Reno)

This year will be my 13th Burning Man and my 8th as the organizer and co-creator of La Calaca Village. Come find me in the dust at 3:15 and Enigma this year where our little desert coven will continue our tradition of creating a wellness sanctuary for citizens of Black Rock City.

OFFICE HOURS
See you in September

I’m taking my own medicine and will be giving myself a break this August. Office hours will be back to our twice a month schedule in September.

Talent, jobs, investments, collabs, and more…

If you or someone you know is interested in making a move or if you’d like to share a need in this section on a future letter, drop me a line. It takes a village.

It seems like August has done what August does and there are no immediate recruitment searches, investment opportunities, or launches to share this time around. Enjoy the downshift and look for updates again in September. As always, if you’d like to include anything in this section, don’t hesitate to be in touch.

Dogs, AI, Pasta ASMR, TikTok Trends, Lexical Ambiguity…

Things I’ve picked up while meandering around the internet.

My dogs mean the world to me. This past week Darryl turned 10 and I just wanted to share a photo of the goodest boy and his momma who loves him. 

Someone’s been using AI-generated art to create a fictitious turn of the century explorer called A.I. Midleton and the imagery is a fantastical place I want to visit. 

Watching this 17th century painting get restored is hypnotic, but not quite as hypnotic as watching pasta get made.  

While a lot of people are escaping the real world by jumping into the metaverse, a handful of TikTok users are parodying the awkward movement of many RPGs like Grand Theft Auto–bringing a taste of the virtual world to the real world. 

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence in English, often presented as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated linguistic constructs through lexical ambiguity.

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