Can I grow without clarity?

I struggle to acknowledge my progress without big-picture clarity. I get a ton done, but it’s a blur. I grope for clarity, hoping it might empower me to continue.

What are you working on? When will you change your mind? What can you learn, what can you challenge?

~ Seth Godin, from What are you thinking about?

Godin’s questions always drive me to self-examination. I’ve been challenging myself to shift my focus to longer timeframes. What I do on any given day won’t derail my life. My challenge is not getting anxious and overwhelmed by “all the things” I could choose when I zoom out.

A person who is lucidly aware of the miracles that surround him, who has learned to bear up under the loneliness, has made quite a bit of progress on the road to wisdom.

~ M. C. Escher

It’s clear that small wins are important. I have countless instances recorded in my journals where I can see a small win enabled a long sequence of steps forward. Often, the smallest win is to make a choice. A simple decision provides the clarity needed to through all the larger chaos of life.

Maybe it’s the nature of the binary times that we’re in that makes it very, very difficult to applaud one thing without condemning another. I think we’re afraid to take a victory lap, and maybe we should be. Maybe that’s just a bit premature or arrogant.

~ Nick Gillespie, from Mike Rowe on Patriotism, Paul Harvey, and American Progress

I say we can do it. The key is to know and understand the broader context that we’re—just for a little while—ignoring. We can acknowledge that we’re zooming to a narrow context and celebrate. Just as in other times we can choose to zoom out and be critical.

All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I started collecting quotes I had no idea how much it would change who I am, and no idea of the various ways I put the quotes to use. On most days, I don’t work on the collection at all, and occasionally I spend 10 minutes folding in one new quote. Thirty years in I still have no idea what I’m ultimately creating, and I’m convinced it will lead me to growth I don’t yet know I need.

But if progress is real and important—how do we judge this? How do we justify that improvements to material living standards are good? That technological and industrial progress represents true progress for humanity?

~ Jason Crawford, from Progress, humanism, agency

In a few dozen words, this article goes from zero to gloves-off, let’s take about the nature of what is good. It’s pointless to discuss anything—the climate, energy sources, guns, health, rights… choose your favorite third-rail topic—if we don’t understand each other’s values. What does human autonomy mean? What rights and responsibilities does consciousness confer? What is truth? When we don’t agree on that stuff, it’s no wonder we don’t make progress.

Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices means never retiring, because the brain has to be engaged in finding new solutions in the moment, not just remembering old formulas. Hard choices makes us wiser, smarter, stronger, and wealthier, and easy choices reverse our progress, focusing our energies on comfort or entertainment. In every difficult moment ask yourself, “What is a hard choice, and what is an easy choice?” and you will know instantly what is right.

~ Jerzy Gregorek

Gregorek’s insight is powerful—it’s not wrong—but it teases an easy path to clarity. In fact, I’ve made countless hard choices that didn’t deliver that. Choosing the right next thing always involves ambiguity. Choosing all the hard options is just as wrong as choosing all the easy ones.

In early January, I started regular co-working sessions with a friend, Sumana Harihareswara. She read that post from 2013 about wanting to write more, and emailed me to see if I wanted to form an accountability team to work on our writing together. She’s making progress on her book, and I’m writing more here: we’ve been able to get a lot more done together than trying to work solo and power through.

~ Jacob Kaplan-Moss, from Coworking With a Friend to Write More – Jacob Kaplan-Moss

I used to think that urgency and speed would bring the clarity I’ve always craved. I tried that, and I’m no longer convinced clarity will be found in the end. Instead, I’ll slow down, pay closer attention to my energy and simply try to enjoy swimming in the tension between all the competing perspectives at each moment.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

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