Nothing Matters

A few days ago I felt inspired to write, there were too many things on my mind - birds, photography, travel, techie stuff, the Spanish version of all these, life, food. I’m not good at either of these, a writing topic in itself, but that didn’t matter. I didn’t care, all I cared about was the thought of letting stuff out of my head. I knew I didn’t care about an audience, or monetization or any of that crap everyone seems to be doing. I only needed a space to let the brain flow, I needed a big desk with enough space to put all my notes, and books, and rocks, scribbles, and whatever else my brain thought made sense to keep. I needed a place to put it all down, an organized mess that I could go back and reference at any time if I wanted to, but a mess that would take space outside my brain-mind. Yes, I can open a text editor or a notebook and start writing any time but keeping those writings private somehow felt like they would still weight me down. The thought of writing in a public space, even if no one read them, felt as if I was letting my thoughts fly out into internet ether. And that felt relieving.

[Substack felt like the perfect place to start - it portrayed quality, good product design, versatility and portability. It felt mature despite its age. It didn’t feel cheap (e.g. Medium). I was relieved I didn’t have to go down the rabbit hole of self-hosting some customized, blog-like frankenstein creation that I knew would eventually rob me of all inspiration.] I have since moved to my own blog-like frankeinstein because #ai.

I didn’t care much for a “Newsletter” name at first because I didn’t care about creating a newsletter. I am my own audience, after all. But then I realized older me would probably appreciate some effort - this was, after all, a newsletter to myself. “Rabbit hole” stuck out as a possible name, but it felt cheap, overused, and it made me think of dark passages that only go down from a neutral point of reference. That’s not how I feel about, nor how I want to remember, my minds’ paths. My brain-mind goes in all directions, but I like to believe that it mostly goes up, when I go “down the rabbit hole” it’s almost always because there’s some purpose, a challenge that needs overcoming. Sometimes I need to go down, left, right, but it’s all with the intention of looking up, reaching the top of whatever challenge is ahead. It’s much like hiking a mountain, my brain-mind doesn’t go down the rabbit hole, it goes up the mountain trail. I’m here to write about my minds trails…

Finally, I found myself in front of screen and keyboard, trying to choose my first topic to write about. The mind did what the mind does best, and down the rabbit hole up the mountain trail I went. A few failed lame attempts later and I was beyond exhausted, I lost all my inspiration and turned my attention to watch Napoli try and become league champions for the first time in forever.

A few hours later, while trying my hand at rye bread baking, the brain-mind did its thing and went hiking. Next thing I know, I’m thinking of ALL the projects weighing me down, all the unfinished things that need finishing, and the thought of even getting started is, exhausting. A few downturns later and I’m thinking of that weirdly beautiful movie my wife and I watched recently, Everything Everywhere All at Once. And suddenly, the breeze changes, the path turns, and I feel it’s about to go up.

The one central thought that movie left me with, was the juxtaposition of EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL, AT ONCE - none of which mean anything without the little things we call “nothing”. It’s a bunch of “nothings” that lead to it all, it matters and it doesn’t. All of those projects don’t matter, but they do to me for some reason, they’re somehow part of the path, they will somehow contribute to growth. Starting them, finishing them, begins with nothing. It doesn’t matter what my first letter to my older self is, it matters more that I start. Anything, even if it feels like nothing at all, is what matters. NOTHING MATTERS.