#29: Freedom from the known
& a reminder to never keep a good wish a secret
Overriding the Authority of Yesterday’s You
When we are young, we learn by emulating. It’s one of the things that makes us most human. We get to absorb the knowledge of all generations prior. This is a fantastic thing, so long as we also learn how to overhaul that which no longer resonates.
Software developers call this type of code “ghosts in the machine.” This refers to code that is not only useless but is actually harmful and slows down the current operating system by having to constantly work around outdated scripts.1
And it’s not always other people from whom we download this bugged software. Sometimes our own past thoughts, experiences, and internalized authority get in our way.
In the words of JD Krishnamurti,
When we look at ourselves with the dead authority of yesterday we will fail to understand the living movement and the beauty and quality of that movement. To be free of all authority, of your own and that of another, is to die to everything of yesterday, so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigor and passion. It is only in that state that one learns and observes. And for this a great deal of awareness is required, actual awareness of what is going on inside yourself, without correcting it or telling it what it should or should not be, because the moment you correct it, you have established another authority, a censor.2
In other words, we are ever-changing and though it is enticing to make hard-and-fast rules for how we operate, doing so leaves your present self behind.
Hard-and-fast rules can be easy to stick to because you just make a decision once and don’t have to think about it again. And, in some cases, this can be a great tool for enacting change.
But in the bigger picture of life and through the on-going process of coming to understand who you are, these staunch rules tend to be stifling. The Krishnamurti quote above reminded me to review the guidelines that I have created for myself and to ask which parts are still useful and which were born out of fear, deprivation, restriction, expectations, and uncertainty.3 Or, in other words, to identify and overhaul the ghosts in the machine of my own mind.
Luke picked me up from the airport when I landed in LA a few weeks ago. As we were catching up on life, he noticed that I’d been speaking in absolutes lately. A lot of “absolutely not” or “this is the rule that I am living by now.”
I think there are times in life in which many of us latch onto rules more stringently than others, particularly in moments of large transitions or in the face of uncertainty.
But Luke’s reminder was perfectly and gently timed to add to this realization.
Sometimes you have to loosen the grip of your own authority and do a review of your own belief system in order to ensure that it’s up to date with the lessons that you’ve learned and the person that you’ve become.
At the end of the day, what we really desire is to feel in control. We seek to arrive at some definitive psychological state in which homeostasis has been permanently reached. I think that will happen to all of us at a certain point; I also think that point will be when life itself ceases to exist.
So, in the meantime, I am reminded of the freedom that follows realizing that you get to take things one day at a time. You get to continuously learn, iterate, and re-up your mental and emotional codes to make the best choices for the present-you on a daily basis.
One day at a time.
What patterns are you emulating out of reflex? What authoritative voice rings through your ear but no longer resonates? What beliefs are you holding onto in hopes that they will keep you drawing within the lines when in reality, your dreams exist off the page?
The following are some quick tidbits from a great conversation that I had over dinner the other night with John, Ben, and Alex.
1. Your uniqueness resides in following your genuine areas of interest and in seeing what happens at the convergence of multiple vectors of inspiration.
A bear is not that interesting. A person riding a unicycle is not all that interesting. But a bear riding a unicycle? Attention has been peaked.
Be the bear, ride the unicycle, find people who inspire you, and remember that just because someone else reached your desired finish line by following a particular sequence of steps, does not mean that you are obliged to do the same.4
If you do nothing else today— and regardless of your taste in either of the following artists— please watch this video of Pharrell hearing Maggie Rogers for the first time when she was a student at NYU.5 He talks about the individuality of her sound and the fact that we all have the capacity to blend things together to create novelty if we are courageous enough. One of the more inspiring 10 mins I’ve seen in a while.
2. The dream is to be in a meaningful process of becoming, not to have a meaningful title.
The Nobel Prize effect is an observation about the diminishing productivity, inspiration, and creativity that Nobel laureates experience after receiving an award. This makes a lot of sense intuitively. We spend most of our lives striving for what we perceive to be the pinnacle of success. Those who reach those peaks often feel like they’ve fallen off a cliff and don’t know where to turn next. Remember this concept when you feel behind or like there’s too much of a gap between where you are and where you want to be. Focus instead on the weird and fun process that you are creating while heading in some direction, even if the finish line that you had in mind at the jump is not where you end up.
And don’t forget to leave space for the question of, what if it just keeps getting better?
As Alex and I joked, “If you could be offered your dream job tomorrow, you better not want it.” What we meant is that arriving at your desired finish line is never going to be as rewarding as all of the mysterious and circuitous adventures that you go on in the process of getting there. And there is always the possibility that where you end up is even better than the present version of you can currently fathom.
3. Someday is not a day in the week.
It’s easy to fall victim to the fallacy of readiness, thinking that there will come a moment when we will be ready to take the leap. Someday is not a day in the week, is the brilliant title of a book and Ted Talk by Sam Horn, which gets at the idea that we can keep putting things off until we have ‘enough’ time, money, clarity, courage or freedom. But the reality is that we already have all that we need to start cultivating the lives that we want. We just need to stop waiting to be ready or for the perfect moment to strike to go after it.
4. Never Keep a Good Wish a Secret
We’ve all been brainwashed into thinking that our wishes will only come true if we hold them close to our chest. That is some superstitious BS if I’ve ever heard some.
I hadn’t thought about it like this until John brought it to my attention last week.
Why do we tell kids to silently make a wish before blowing out birthday candles? How much more fun, productive, and empowering would it be to start sharing what it is that you are striving for with the people that you most know, love, and trust?6
Alan said something at dinner the other night that really stuck with me; he said that the greatest gift you can give someone is accountability.
When you tell the people in your life what it is that you are working towards, you give yourself and the other person a gift. The gift to them is a clear answer of how they can support you. And the gift to yourself is having someone to check in on how your goals are progressing, getting derailed, or transpiring into something new.
Don’t waste a good wish by keeping it a secret. Give yourself and the people that you love most the gift of accountability.
*Here’s the playlist we were listening to over dinner.
And the menu included (amongst other things):
this spring pea risotto verde by @justines.table
this grapefruit olive oil cake by
Finally, I’ll leave you with another long but worthwhile quotes by Krishnamurti on the vitality that you feel when you distance yourself from the voices of past authorities.
First of all, can you reject all authority? If you can it means that you are no longer afraid. Then what happens? When you reject something false which you have been carrying about with you for generations, when you throw off a burden of any kind, what takes place? You have more energy, haven’t you? You have more capacity, more drive, greater intensity and vitality. If you do not feel this, then you have not thrown off the burden, you have not discarded the dead weight of authority. But when you have thrown it off and have this energy in which there is no fear at all— no fear of making a mistake, no fear of doing right or wrong— then is not that energy itself the mutation? We need a tremendous amount of energy and we dissipate it through fear but when there is this energy which comes from throwing off every form of fear, that energy itself produces the radical inward revolution. You do not have to do a thing about it. So you are left with yourself, and that is the actual state for a man to be who is very serious about all this; and as you are no longer looking to anybody or anything for help, you are already free to discover. And when there is freedom, there is energy; and when there is freedom it can never do anything wrong. Freedom is entirely different from revolt. There is no such thing as doing right or wrong when there is freedom. You are free and from that centre, you act. And hence there is no fear, and a mind that has no fear is capable of great love. And when there is love it can do what it will.7
That’s all for today! Thanks for getting Caught Up in Char’s Web this week and I’ll be back soon with more.
**And an always thank you to my brilliant curator, Xandra, for tying this whole newsletter together with her recommendations of Nicole Eisenman this week.**
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JD Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known, page 20.
Freedom from the Known was the first book that Kat McGee recommended to me before we even started working together and I’ve read it many times since. It’s one of the most foundational books for how I think about the world.
Thank you, John, for this brilliant rec.
The trust component is key. There is something to be said for holding your cards close to your chest until you find the people with whom your desires will be magnified instead of shut down or second-guessed.
JD Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known, page 18.
Kudos, Charlotte, on your timely, intriguing, useful newsletter full of insights on how to turn equivocation into action. What a special treat it was reading your gracious recommendation of my book and TEDx talk, “Someday is Not a Day in the Week.” Appreciate you reminding us that perfection is just another word for procrastination and that acting on (vs. vacillating on) our dreams is the only way to make them come true. Here’s to setting in motion what we want, now not later. After all, now is the new later - Sam Horn
yes!! and I've added Maggie Rogers to my modern dance class playlist! xx