Future
Any Path Will Do
I went on my first silent retreat this year.
I spent 3 days in silence, meditating in the forest at Great Vow Zen Monastery in Clatskanie, Oregon. At the end of the three days, we were given some time to ask the monks any questions we were still pondering following our period of silence. One particular question has stayed with me. A man raised his hand and said, "I came here because I am at a crossroads with my next chapter in life. I thought coming here would make the path I should take obvious, but it doesn't feel any clearer than before I came."
The oldest monk sat with the question for a moment and then let out a small laugh under their breath. She looked up at him and said, "There is an old zen phrase which goes… When there is nowhere to go, any path will do... I can't tell you what to do, nor would I want to. I don't even know what the choices are. Sometimes, the false notion of it being a binary or absolute choice can be debilitating. After all, there is nowhere to go, any path will do."
That response leveled me. It both crushed and liberated me from my future. It was so helpful to remember that there are infinite paths one could take, and there is really nowhere we must go. This is all we have. Right now. We must make choices, but we can't let those choices constrain our spirit. More importantly, we can't let those choices keep us from engaging fully with the present.
It is so easy to get stuck in your story, the narratives we tell ourselves (and others). This letter being a prime example. As a writer (and human), storytelling is my default setting. Storytelling might be THE most quintessentially human thing there is. Stories are what have allowed our species to organize at scale. I don't have to know you, I just have to know you believe in the same story as me to trust you. Stories are the greatest social technology we have. They are also potent personal protocols.
The question I have been grappling with lately is when the story is advantageous vs when it blocks our view of other paths. Our stories help us focus; in that focus, we obscure other possibilities from view. The tools used for rationality are the same ones used for rationalization. It’s hard to know which is which. This is the storyteller's dilemma.
Mollie and I have plans (aka future stories); this is an upcoming year of focus after all, but we are open to the journey. To be honest, we've made it beyond anything we'd imagined as kids. All bets are off. For the sake of the story, I will tell you what appears to be next for Mollie and me.
Mollie is finishing her Master's Degree in Arts and Cultural Enterprise at Central Saint Martins at the end of 2024, which means more time in London, where she is focusing on integrating her athletic background & creative professional carreer into a final live project. A year of movement ahead - more running, more flying, and more dancing.
I am currently scheduled to do creative strategy for some exciting forthcoming soccer projects with a healthy serving of city development work as well. As always, I will be recovering from minor foot and ankle injuries (getting old) following as many pick up games, trails, and waves as my body will allow.
Clearly, we are excited about what next year appears to have in store, but we refuse to lose the fortune of our present.
In the spirit of remaining open to the journey, there will be numerous things that happen next year, like last, which we could have never predicted. This used to be anxiety inducing, but we've existed off the map for long enough to embrace this cosmic journey. As they say, "When the waves are here, don't ask questions, just surf."
Surfing, we are.
I spent 3 days in silence, meditating in the forest at Great Vow Zen Monastery in Clatskanie, Oregon. At the end of the three days, we were given some time to ask the monks any questions we were still pondering following our period of silence. One particular question has stayed with me. A man raised his hand and said, "I came here because I am at a crossroads with my next chapter in life. I thought coming here would make the path I should take obvious, but it doesn't feel any clearer than before I came."
The oldest monk sat with the question for a moment and then let out a small laugh under their breath. She looked up at him and said, "There is an old zen phrase which goes… When there is nowhere to go, any path will do... I can't tell you what to do, nor would I want to. I don't even know what the choices are. Sometimes, the false notion of it being a binary or absolute choice can be debilitating. After all, there is nowhere to go, any path will do."
That response leveled me. It both crushed and liberated me from my future. It was so helpful to remember that there are infinite paths one could take, and there is really nowhere we must go. This is all we have. Right now. We must make choices, but we can't let those choices constrain our spirit. More importantly, we can't let those choices keep us from engaging fully with the present.
It is so easy to get stuck in your story, the narratives we tell ourselves (and others). This letter being a prime example. As a writer (and human), storytelling is my default setting. Storytelling might be THE most quintessentially human thing there is. Stories are what have allowed our species to organize at scale. I don't have to know you, I just have to know you believe in the same story as me to trust you. Stories are the greatest social technology we have. They are also potent personal protocols.
The question I have been grappling with lately is when the story is advantageous vs when it blocks our view of other paths. Our stories help us focus; in that focus, we obscure other possibilities from view. The tools used for rationality are the same ones used for rationalization. It’s hard to know which is which. This is the storyteller's dilemma.
Mollie and I have plans (aka future stories); this is an upcoming year of focus after all, but we are open to the journey. To be honest, we've made it beyond anything we'd imagined as kids. All bets are off. For the sake of the story, I will tell you what appears to be next for Mollie and me.
Mollie is finishing her Master's Degree in Arts and Cultural Enterprise at Central Saint Martins at the end of 2024, which means more time in London, where she is focusing on integrating her athletic background & creative professional carreer into a final live project. A year of movement ahead - more running, more flying, and more dancing.
I am currently scheduled to do creative strategy for some exciting forthcoming soccer projects with a healthy serving of city development work as well. As always, I will be recovering from minor foot and ankle injuries (getting old) following as many pick up games, trails, and waves as my body will allow.
Clearly, we are excited about what next year appears to have in store, but we refuse to lose the fortune of our present.
In the spirit of remaining open to the journey, there will be numerous things that happen next year, like last, which we could have never predicted. This used to be anxiety inducing, but we've existed off the map for long enough to embrace this cosmic journey. As they say, "When the waves are here, don't ask questions, just surf."
Surfing, we are.