🐢Paddling and Turtling 🐢

🔥Welcome to volume #00055!🔥

I’m Christian Champ. This is ☯️The Middle Way Newsletter ☯️. It is a place where I write, explore, share, and invite you along for the journey.

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We returned this week from ten days in Nosara, Costa Rica. It included a lot of surfing, family time, and playing on the beach. This was the first family trip we’ve taken since last December and it was a nice break from Chicago.

Nosara is one of those magical places where everyone decides to show up as their best selves and the good energy flows. We are trying to keep riding that energy as we settle into our “normal” routines.

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🐢Paddling and Turtling🐢

My arms burned.

My shoulders ached.

My second day of vacation in Nosara, Costa Rica, included unanticipated challenges.

Twenty straight minutes of paddling into a war zone, and I failed to break the plane. I needed to cross the elusive threshold if I wanted to get in a position to surf any waves.

I waited for a lull in the waves to dash out of the kill zone. The ocean had other thoughts, every second sending waves filled with terror my way. The breaks never came. 

Day two in the water started with a bang and a bang and a bang. Unfortunately, the bangs came from me getting smashed by waves. Day one included big waves but no issues paddling out.

There was a nice rhythm to my movements. It went paddle, paddle, and turtle. Then I needed to flip the board as quickly as possible to paddle, paddle, and turtle again. However nice these movements seemed, they weren’t nice enough.

The never-ending waves kept knocking me backward, and my “progress” became null and void. When the medium waves hit, I progressed only to get crushed like an aluminum can when the banger waves rolled through. They erased all my gains, pushing me back towards the beginning of the maze.

Three times I began to enter the promised land, seeing the daylight of the ocean. Only to become Charlie Brown attempting to kick the football as it got pulled away.

My final attempt threw me into the washing machine as a side wave struck. Then a giant wave broke on me with the ferocity of a linebacker smashing me at full speed. It dazed, confused, and threw me backward.

Once again, Lucy pulled the football away right before I kicked it.

Sometimes we surf the waves, and sometimes the waves surf us. The double wave destroyed any hope that remained. The battle ended in a resounding defeat.

Laying on the beach exhausted and demoralized, I tried to appreciate the attempt and effort. Knowing that getting in the water, giving it my all, and seeing what happened should be a victory.

We run the experiment and see the results. We don’t always hit the bullseye, but we notice what we can improve for the next attempt.

How do we appreciate the try and the opportunity to show up, even when it feels like nothing happened?

We need to remember that we got a chance to practice our paddling and our turtling. We control what we can control. It’s the process, not the outcome.

Thank you to the ocean for a lesson well taught.

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📓Articles to Read📓 

World-Building by Alex Danco

Alex starts agreeing with the idea that “everyone is selling” but believes that today we need to do more than just sell. The more is that we are all WORLD BUILDING.

I want to propose an updated version for today: “Everyone’s job is world-building, even if they don’t realize it.” It is more or less the same idea, but tailored even more for a world of abundant narrative and complex choices. The more complex or valuable is whatever you’re trying to sell, the more important it is for you to build a world around that idea, where other people can walk in, explore, and hang out – without you having to be there with them the whole time. You need to build a world so rich and captivating that others will want to spend time in it, even if you’re not there. 

We need to tell compelling stories that help build our worlds.

Hopefully this illuminates the principal challenge you’re going to face while world-building. On the one hand, your world needs to be based on the real-life present, if you want it to ultimately change the real-life present. But on the other hand, the more compelling you can make your world, the farther you can stray from reality, and into “fantasy” (except you’re trying to make that fantasy actually come true.) Your success here will depend entirely on how successfully you can tell stories, and how successfully other people can repeat those stories, both to themselves and others. 

That’s why true storytelling originality is less rewarding than you might think here – you need to build your world out of familiar settings and tropes and conflicts. Your North Star here has to be: are other people retelling this story successfully? 

Nature on Subtraction as a Strategy vs. Addition

Adams and colleagues’ work points to a way of avoiding these pitfalls in the future — policymakers and organizational leaders could explicitly solicit and value proposals that reduce rather than add. For instance, the university president could specify that recommendations to remove committees or policies are both expected and appreciated. In addition, both individuals and institutions could take self-control measures to guard against the default tendency to add. Consumers could minimize their storage space to restrain their purchases, and organizations could specify sunset clauses that trigger the automatic shutdown of initiatives that fail to meet specific goals.

Craig Mod on a Walk as a Spreadsheet

Craig maps out all his big walks in a spreadsheet to prepare for the walk. You have to love the convergence of technology and the simplest form of travel, the feet. The spreadsheet acts as his “second brain” and lets him do the walk.

You may think this is nuts — the spreadsheeting of a walk, but for me, it’s absolutely critical. To have the walk spreadsheeted enables the full potential of a walk — enables a means to fully use the walk as a tool, a platform, an “OS.” To be able to go bleary-eyed into walk mode. To shoot photos and interview and take notes and record binaural audio and make little video “windows” out onto the world. The spreadsheet enables me to do this because it means I don’t have to think about logistics, don’t have to think about the banalities of day-to-day living. I can be in the walk, in each weird moment along pachinko road or between the rice paddies or along the ridgelines.

It also means the structure is set, gives each day a certain velocity that I find empowering. It’s a defining of a walk for what I assume is a best version of myself. Meaning, by setting these rules now, my chances of slacking later are greatly diminished. It’s like not buying junk food at the super market — if it’s not in your house, it’s hard to eat. If a walk is rigorously defined, it’s hard not to be a rigorous walker.

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🎙️ Ideas from Podcasts/Videos 📺 

Nature video on Subtracting vs. Adding

Like balance bikes and the power of removing the pedals making a better bike. To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day,” Lao Tzu. 

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💣Words of Wisdom💣

DMX

See, to live is to suffer but to survive
Well, that's to find meaning in the suffering

Trickster Makes This World - Lewis Hyde

When Pablo Picasso says that “art is a lie that tells the truth,” we are closer to the old trickster spirit.

Upstream - Mary Oliver

And that I did not give to anyone the responsibility for my life. It is mine. And can do what I want to with it. Give it back, someday, without bitterness, to the wild and weedy dunes.

Breath - James Nestor

“If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one tip, it would be simply to learn how to breathe better,” wrote Andrew Weil, the famed doctor.

How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life - Russ Roberts

The idea that other people care about themselves is generally a good thing to remember if you want them to do something for you in return.

The Second Mountain - David Brooks

“A life of ease is not the pathway to growth and happiness. On the contrary, a life of ease is how you get stuck and confused in life.”

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🙏Thanks for reading🙏

What waves do you need to try to paddle and turtle through? What efforts do you need to appreciate no matter the outcome?

Any thoughts or comments, please share!

Namaste,

Christian