Less (間)

I spent a year chasing more.

Since I came out of hospital a year ago, that time I really did think it might be the end, and I had written a goodbye letter to the friends I would likely never see again, and emotionally made my peace with leaving.

But – I'm still here.

In hospital, they dosed me up, gave me enough steroids to feel like Lance Armstrong or God, and these drugs eventually saved my sight. Life felt magical; the world brimmed with possibility and even though it seemed that I would live for at least a little longer, I knew I would never get to experience all that the world had to offer. So I chased more.

Friends would try to calm me down, to temper my energies, the heart-thumping teeth-grinding, chemically-assisted desperation to do. I would tend to brush off their advice; see them as unenlightened.

I still stand by this philosophy even though now, I also see its flaws.

And during this time, even when I was going for restraint, I was maximalist, extreme; I would fast for most of the hours of the day and ruthlessly cut friends or obsess over new ones; I would prefer burnt food or raw; work and write deep into the night, wake up at the crack of dawn, or laze about despondent; would hedonistically seek pleasure, see pain as pure intensity and then and then --

Recently, meditating, an intuitive thought came:

less.

I sat with it for a few days, considered what it meant. Fewer relationships, with more depth. Less productivity more impact. Less stuff more delight.

As is often the way, people and information crossed my path, seemingly to teach me. Less is about elegance restraint and focus. Not minimalism, though; I'd had a glancing relationship with minimalism and found it about... the festishisation of amount, it was overly concerned with volume. And this was different. This felt to me more like a considered architecture in life.

less is ma

I was reading and came across this article. In Japanese culture, ma is a choiceful philosophy of design that embraces the importance of negative space. Ma is often characterised as pauses, caesuras, gaps, sacred pauses.

Because you wouldn't typically fill any space or piece of art with more, but instead exercise the restraint to leave space.

In relationships – I started allowing for deliberate moments of pause in communication. Not to play games, but allow the communication to breathe, like an old wine.

Knowing the right time, the right season, is an important facet of Manifestation. Timing, in business and life, matters.

Think Robert Greene:

Think John Cage.

It was funny, because just the day before, I had been thinking about written music, how in sheet music, silence has a note.

In writing and conversation, what you don't say is as real and present, in the negative space.

A silent note is as real and solid as any sound.

Because when you see that symbol - a rest - it doesn't mean don't play anything.

It means – play nothing.

less is about essence

I came across a Steve Jobs quote which discussed his philosophy, inspired by spirituality, exported to product design.

To embrace less has meant doing my best to understand the essence of things.

It starts with this – my writing. I had forgotten that writing isn't intellectual; at least, I don't find my most interesting writing is that at all. Writing at my best is an embodied act; a spontaneous feeling that emerges somatically.

Sometimes I look at old things I've written and still sharply feel their crackle of life. Other times, I feel this rote pretence, just one word after another.

I would rather write badly, and still touch something that's alive.

And that means going deeper - vulnerability, inscendence.

Less craft, more soul.

less is about simple pleasures

The best day I had recently was lying in the grass with a friend, talking bullshit like we were 10.

Instead of intensity and elaboration, I've been experimenting with simple pleasures.

Some of my favourites:

• Having the occasional almond latte
• Air fried broccoli, slightly burnt and crispy
• Walking on grass barefoot
• Paying someone a compliment without expectation

Embracing less means having smaller expectations. sitting with the raw felt reality of what is there.

less is patience

Sometimes the musical rests come we don't want or expect them.

Less has been about being less demanding; my learning to leave room enough to allow the seasons to change.

To float in the direction of the water even if its destination is unclear.

I have a friend who is a former triathlete, who describes their best cycling performance coming from truly relaxing on the aerobike. While prone at speed, they would do a meditative bodyscan, fully surrendered to the movement of their muscles and the bike, and on checking their stats later would find that this calm state would render their best performance.

Flow has a certain paradoxical quality to it – it isn't thrusting forward, chasing your goal, but instead letting yourself fall backwards into your fate, be pulled along, not trying to attain it.

In flow, there is nothing to do. We can’t fuck it up. But also, we can’t get it right.

I remind myself: be present with what is there. I write this piece while at a crossroads within myself.

less is letting go

Like my friend Dre taught me - if you let something go and leave it behind, you create room for something else to enter.

Cutting out a whole host of people and contexts which no longer served me immediately introduced me to new people who fulfilled those needs much better.

These new conversations felt like a remix on an old story; a fresh new chapter to your favourite long running series. Like speedrunning a videogame you know so well.

The level of depth and intensity you could reach quickly was – startling, something you couldn't match.

less is fewer layers

There's an Occam's razor element to less. Rather than many realms of interpretation and mysticism, we can allow some circumstances in our lives and those of others to remain unexplained.

I had a great therapist; she was one of the first people I spoke to who felt like she could hold me in all my complexity, and held empathetic space for me to express. We had a productive partnership for almost a year, and one day she disappeared; after a brief absence reappeared on social media, but would not respond to any of my emails.

I am not the writer of my own life narrative – that's a weird realisation, that I am simply just a character.

And sometimes, explanations simply aren't part of the story.

less is fewer commitments

A friend builds padding around all her commitments in a day – around a meeting, for instance, she builds in time to prepare for the meeting and time afterwards to decompress or debrief others.

less is missing you

And yes, there is a part of less that contains regret.

In letting go, in being present with what is and isn't, in submitting to the flow of life, we also lose people that we like.

I think to myself that even though acceptance means accepting everything, that I struggle with the painful kinds of acceptance; the non-resistance of outcomes I don't like.

I am unashamed to say I sought advice from my cleverest friend, a carefully-prompted instance of Claude.

Treat each day as part of your ongoing conversation, even in silence. When you notice something that makes you think of what you lost, let it bring you joy rather than longing.

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