The Time Is Now with nowSimon

hello friends,

a gloomy Sunday in Berlin makes ample writing time.

I have some interesting news from inside of my head. But let me kick you off with something funny: How to have high thoughts without getting high? Let me explain.

I used to smoke a lot of weed. Idk about you but what weed does to me is it gets my head going real fast. It produces million dollar ideas at a breathtaking speed in me noggin. The problem is, on the day after, they don’t have roots in reality and I can’t make much of them.

I don’t think these ideas are completely nonsensical or crazy, but they are of a visionary nature. They connect to something that is latent in my brain, meaning dormant, not quite actualized. They usually aren’t wrong — in a way they are hyper true even — but they point to the future, not to the now. They are fun to think, and they inform the path I’m on, but they’re impossible to execute in a plannable time frame.

Hahaha jeez, how many times have I sent voice notes to my collaborators being like “yo yo yo what about THIS though —” and gone on some semi-hinged rant about things that may or may not come to fruition months later .… at some point I started adding full disclosures (“just so you know, I may or not be rather blazed”) to avoid later frustrations. Oh well.

Anyway, I’m having a pretty sober time right now, I’m trying to get better sleep and I’m also pretty busy, so partaking in the devil’s lettuce is not really on the menu for me right now. There is a little grown up version of me (at least for the moment) knocking at my door.

But the most amazing thing is happening right now!!! I have been having HIGH IDEAS without getting high! At the extremely luxurious pace of roughly 1 per week. AND they are grounded in reality! That all means that I can actually act on them?! How good is that?

design

My high thought of the week was: DESIGN. It came and went quickly, but it was extremely clear what it was. It pointed at a matter I’ve been grappling with for a long time.

What is design? I asked my friend Vidhika Bansal and she said, it’s basically treating projects with intentions, purpose and awareness. To me that means, thinking ahead, working backwards, seeing what we want from The Thing, and how we want others to experience The Thing.

I called Vidhika because I had

side note: what if I wrote all of this in present tense for more NOW vibes?

I call Vidhika because this thought is in me. I think I’m a designer. I think I need to design stuff. I think it’s time to allow myself to shape things the way I think is right.

This series is called “letters from the now” because I want to write from 0 to 1, to put something on the page for the merit of itself, to get stuff out of my brain. The routine is: Publish something I’ve written into this editor once a week. It has to be written and published, not read, shared or enjoyed.

I would call that writing without design. Without editing, scrappy one way, it is what it is, f**k it, we’ll do it live. The creative part of me needs this. It has to be allowed to do unedited stuff. I need to know I won't die or be ostracized if I talk about questionable matters like smoking weed or vulnerably share what is inside of me. I used to be terrified of this because I’ve been punished for speaking the truth so many times. I suppose I’m still terrified, but with every unedited letter from the now less so.

To achieve this I consciously turn off the designer in me, who wants to make things look nice and tidy and perfect and purposeful. Just like I had to turn off the accountant in me who started yelling when I went on my indefinite sabbatical.

I tell these parts, not now. Your time will come soon, but right now the younger kid needs undisrupted play time. You’re wise, you know design, you know money, you can look ahead, but right now it is time to be in the now. Step back, let the kid play and make mistakes. He will soon ask you for help.

Here it is. The creative writer kid is happy, he knows that he gets my time of day every Sunday (or so), to write with unbridled forwardness. And now my system wonders, what if we wrote more, on another day, with more design intentions? What if we start a new column on Substack that’s called Ohler’s Holistic Lab, where we write down these lessons we’ve learned? That memoir we’ve had tingling under our nails? Write a series of posts that are designed for effectivity. Laid out for easy readability and even shareability? Posts that have, not only a chance, but an intention to make a difference, both for me and for others?

I’m feeling the need to tab out of here and set up that column right now, but let’s not be foolish, I’ll do it later. We’re here to talk about the upcoming urge to design, not to get distracted by, in fact, designing.

I used to think I’m not a good designer or planner. Probably because I just didn’t do it that much, because the designer part of me was very adult and aggressive. So I never got to design in my own time. The time I needed to start with something scrappy and then refine it.

My call with Vidhika vindicates that. I learn how many little things I already do that totally count as design. I realize that the attention for detail that I have is that of a designer. I’m figuring out that TREEWEEK was a whole big design full of intention. I feel relieved.

gifted drama

I put the designer on leave and locked up the accountant in the dungeon because they wouldn’t let me get anything done in the moment. I’d start writing something and the designer would say “how about we make a bigger series out of this??” and the accountant would say “how about we put a price tag on this??” and the kid doing the creative work would roll his eyes and immediately move on to something less productive, so the adults won’t harp on him. How oppressive. Creative output at zero.

The drama of the gifted child starts right there doesn’t it? With incompetent or immature adults around, the gifted child fills the adult gaps in the room. But those gaps don’t exist in his inner domain, he needs to squeeze them in, and these big characters take space in a child that is still developing; they occupy areas that are rightfully his to grow into.

Wow, you are so mature for your age, and you can do the things we expect you to so incredibly well, wise beyond your years, amazing.

Thanks Miss, I agonized all day biting my nails and then stayed up all night to do this little piece of math homework.

And how hard to know, how impossible to grasp that all I want to do is f**k around with Legos and ride my bike with friends. Oh well…

Incredible alpha in reclaiming and re-living your childhood and your adolescence as much as you can. Put resources towards letting your inner child reexpand. Take weird arbitrary duties out of the equation. Do what your body actually needs, like sleeping a lot for 2 months, or playing all the video games you have been putting off, or rearrange your apartment, or find real love, or make some new friends, form a crew, and take them on an adventure.

Find out what your inner child needs, before you belabor your outer children with weird arbitrary duties. Participate in generational healing. I’m incredibly bullish on this.

I give the same advice to friends who struggle to take some time off but clearly and dearly need it. If the designer, the accountant, and other authority figures are in the room, you can’t actually make decisions. Your suggestion to take time off or fk around a bit is antithetical to their existence, so they will always give you st for it. If you’re used to listening to them, you won’t even know what an internal conversation without them sounds like.

One time I talked to Brent and he said, don’t go broke, you’ll operate at about a standard deviation lower IQ.

Now I’m broke and if this is what a standard deviation lower IQ feels like (locked in, full of purpose, up at 8am, more time and energy than ever) then I don’t wanna be right.

I think it’s because now I’m reinstating these adult parts when they’re needed. The designer is not the writer, but he is needed to write in a certain way that I’m now particularly interested in. And the accountant is not who joyfully decides what we do with our life, but he is needed as earning money is the primary thing I need to do for prosperous continuity.

These characters have a place and they need to be in that place. They can’t just run around and make decisions everywhere. They’ll burn themselves out and deform the system. But when they’re in their place, they are valued advisors, they bring lots of energy, and it is a joy to work with them as we can consult them voluntarily, instead of them hovering and tyrannizing.

Give them an office, pay them well, draw upon them when needed, and otherwise teach them to not bother you, and have fun without them.

Know who is the master, and who is, in fact, the emissary.

Such is life!

It’s Tuesday by now and I shall bid you farewell!

Thanks for reading and see you soon : )

Many many blessings

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Hello friends,

please enjoy this podcast episode with Vivid Void.

Gabe aka. VividVoid is a well known Twitter poaster, famous among other things for his good night posts that usually read “Remember who you are. Good night. I love you. See you in the morning.”, and for a while also contained a phrase akin to “remember, you’re not inferior to anybody”, together with some very dank spiritual memes. He works as a coach and a guide, and is currently building a dharmic center in Boulder, CO.

His insights have netted him a considerable following, and he works full time as a coach for clients who seek him out on Twitter. We talk a bit about how this came to pass, and how he sees the “cult leader failure mode”, which to me means, having so much power and influence that you find yourself above reproach somehow.

I’ve been thinking about earning money as a coach and teacher, and I asked Gabe to help me a bit with this, and I think he offered up an amazing framework for money flow.

Together with Richard D. Bartlett, Gabe runs a course called Fight Wise, where they help attendees courageously navigate relationships. I’m a strong believer in fighting for and with love, and we map out some of this landscape together. They have a new cohort starting in April and I recommend you join if you feel a bit bottled up and you have some problems or disagreements you have trouble bringing up with the people they concern.

I had Richard on the podcast last year, and brother Daniel Kazandjian interviewed him just the other week, so there is much material about “productive disagreements” out there for you.

VividVoid is also prominently looking for love — he wrote a relationship manifesto for himself, and a guide to write your own — and we spend a very good chunk of our conversation talking about what love means to him and to me, which felt very productive. Love is becoming a very pervasive topic in my world, and it’s a value that’s hard to top.

On that note, I started recording some TikTok videos with my bro emergent, would love to see you over there!

VividVoid’s links:

VividVoid on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VividVoid_VividVoid on Substack: vividvoid.substack.comRelationship Manifesto: vividvoid.substack.com/p/a-relationship-manifestoFight Wise: https://www.thehum.org/courses-and-events/fight-wise%3A-find-your-backbone

My links:

Website: https://simonohler.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/simon_ohlerSubstack: https://nowsimon.substack.comYouTube: https://youtube.com/nowSimonTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nowsimon

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Hello friends,

please enjoy this podcast episode with xiq [read: chic].

Xiq founded the community archive, an open database and API that’s based on people uploading their tweet archives voluntarily. Xiq is also an event host, hosting XiqWeek! in 2023 and Portal in 2024.

Xiq and I met at Ananta’s birthday in Berlin in 2022, which was a big Proto-TPOT event for me. I met xiq IRL before ever seeing him on Twitter. I started yapping about something, and he had a very sharp and smart reply, and I thought, holy s**t, this guy is onto something! It was a key moment of feeling like I wasn’t alone in “being onto something” anymore. At XiqWeek! I came up with the meme that xiq is an academic thinkboi philosopher and I’m a simpleton farmer philosopher. A good mix.

Our conversation takes place on 15 August 2024, shortly after Portal, and the inception of the community archive. We talk about our backstory, and get into an interesting tension field between working “from the scene”, as in using and delivering tpot wisdom towards the free market, or “for the scene”, as in furthering the scene with events, resources and attention. At some point we notice the tension and I think we’re doing a pretty good job at navigating it skillfully.

Very fittingly, xiq is a big proponent of the “it’s all part of the same elephant” metaphor, and I feel like we are modeling a great live example of “hey we’re actually talking about the same thing”.

So what do you think? Building for the scene? Building from the scene? Can we agree on “building!!!”? Thanks for listening and catch you soon!

Xiq on Twitter: https://twitter.com/exgenesisXiq about Portal: https://substack.com/home/post/p-147528202Xiq’s manifesto v0.1: https://substack.com/home/post/p-143990054Community Archive: https://www.community-archive.org/

My links:

Website: https://simonohler.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/simon_ohlerSubstack: https://nowsimon.substack.comYouTube: https://youtube.com/nowSimon

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Hello friends,

please enjoy this podcast episode with Jelger Kroese.

Jelger is a cross-disciplinary academic, teacher, researcher and musician. A true multi-hyphenate. He is part of the leadership team of the “Collective Futures” minor at the University of Amsterdam.

Jelger and I met at Medley, an extended residency, which I dubbed a “kindergarten for ADHD wizards”. The meme took between my friends and I, and developed into something I would now simply call “magic school”: A space that’s solidly set up for its inhabitants to decided for themselves what they want to do. A space that might have fewer rules and regulations than one might expect. A space for self discovery, and discovering others, and the resulting relationships, which is always a palpably magical process.

Then, one day I found out that Jelger’s “Collective Futures” minor is actually a magic school — firmly established in the honorable university of Amsterdam.

I wanted to find out more about this, but I must have also been very inspired, because I ended up talking a lot myself. About love, magic, the implicit, the work of McGilchrist, and and and. Please enjoy this conversation with Jelger!

PS: This is the second episode of The Time Is Now that was recorded in person, at PORTAL in Porto : ) More about that here:

Jelger on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JelgerKroeseJelger’s Website: https://www.jelgerkroese.com/Collective Futures: https://www.collectivefutures.nl/

My links:

Website: https://simonohler.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/simon_ohlerSubstack: https://nowsimon.substack.comYouTube: https://youtube.com/nowSimon

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hello friends,

and happy new year! I hope you’re doing well.

In the last couple of years, my life has been cinematic. Magical and wondrous things happen to me regularly. The baseline quality of my life has increased dramatically. Chance encounters have led to love, friendship and adventure. I’ve been a silent enjoyer of this process.

I’ve not documented much of this in a way that’s accessible to others. I know my stories, but I haven’t captured them. I took pictures, but I haven’t posted them. I used to have a reason for that. The same reason for why I’m not taking a picture of a breathtaking sunset, when I can look at it and enjoy it in real time. Just be there and enjoy. The time is now, after all?

This reasoning seems wack to me now. When I go back through my photo albums, I’m almost always happy to see a picture of the sunset or of people and things I love. And when I go back through my public channels, I’m always happy that I’ve written or spoken about something. The recorded piece is much more useful than the being in the present moment. Being present is well cultivated in me, capturing (well!), not so much.

And there is another thing: I’m sometimes hesitant to write. I feel so flimsy and too vulnerable. Words are so powerful. I feel so unsure about what I’m doing often times, I don’t know who I am. I’m just flowing in the river. It’s easier when I speak, but either way, I often feel like I have to have a topic pre-loaded instead of sitting down at the blank page, or hit record, just to see what comes out.

This makes it hard to be diligent. I forget how good it does me to write and to capture. Much like the difficulty around sticking to the gym, or other movement practices, no matter what, I fall off the wagon, and only remember that I need to do it when it’s high time, when I’m in the red.

a wish for practice

For the first time in years, I can somewhat estimate what this year (of the lord, 2025) will bring, because there are certain forcing functions at play in my life. And I thought, what if I make a commitment to write as it happens?

To speak from the river flow?

To write through the change?

To create artifacts from the now?

I’ve been longing for this, I’ll tell you honestly. In 2024 I completed 42 workouts. Those include gyms and swims. In 2023 that total was 17. That’s a completely different ballpark and I’m proud of both numbers, but especially of the higher one. In turn, my body composition is stable. I’m not massive or ripped, but I’m solid, and I’m not fat — and I’ve been living (read: eating and drinking) well so that’s not out of the question! But I’m not and I feel good and that’s good.

Now, how good would it be if I got to similar numbers when it came to writing, recording and publishing? One of the big things I wish for is to be more topical and less self referential. To be in the now with my writings, to cut right to the chase. The lack of routine gives me the urge to establish context, to reintroduce myself, partly because I’ve forgotten who I am, since I last put something to the page, or sent a newsletter.

But this identity game has been a scourge on my life. I’m not enjoying it, and it doesn’t seem to work. But I’m forced to it, like I’m forced to tidy up my desk, or sometimes my whole apartment, before I can do any meaningful work. It is there and I can’t overcome it with my own will.

Instead I have to appease, and the method of appeasement that seems to work is steadiness. My productivity changed when I learned to tidy up my flat in half a day. My gym behavior changed when I teamed up with a friend as a gym buddy, but also when I created notes in my phone that served as trackers and reminders of “who I was when I was here last time”.

how does identity work?

Apparently identity is subject to entropy? Just like muscles or the state of a living space. Identity, too, needs a regular activity, which produces order, and which, in interplay with entropy, scaffolds a system of homeostasis. A practice.

I guess that’s why people have jobs? They give money, but they also give steady identity. Sometimes too much, maybe. I remember leaving my job at Twitch because I was overidentified with the company. I remember I was yearning for finding who I was outside of that work environment.

Over the years I found myself in various smaller identities, which could flourish more, once my demanding job was out of the picture. It seems like something or someone gives us identity, but the amount of identity is proportional to how much it wants from us? In turn, wanting something from someone gives them identity? Thinking out loud here…

Because what have been my core identities away from work over the years?

Inhabitant of an apartment
Friend to many people
Brother to two younger brothers
Son to my parents
Participant in online community
Occasional content creator
Partner to a woman (relationship stopped)
Partner to a woman (relationship ongoing)
Inhabitant of a body (?)
Music lover
Gamer

To analyse this list:

I’m strongly identified with my apartment, because we wanted a lot from each other, and we’ve given a lot to each other. People notice this, they see me differently when they see me in my flat, or people who have lived in my flat without me see it differently when I’m in it vs. when I’m away.

My friendships became more interesting when we wanted more from each other (e.g. more belonging, more creativity). It also polarizes them — when someone wants something and it doesn’t sit well with the other, it’s not guaranteed that a friendship will remain.

I have one brother who I lived with recently and we are strongly identified, and would drop a lot of other stuff to help each other. We needed a lot from each other and worked hard to give it. I have another brother who keeps more to himself and I’m not strongly identified with him. It seems like we don’t want much from each other or at least it is not expressed in a way so we could make something out of it.

My identity as the son of my parents is complicated. I’m strongly identified with the rift of their separation that they left me. I thus feel much more strongly as the grandson of my (maternal) grandparents. So I have to see my parents as individuals, and we usually get stopped pretty hard when we want too much from each other. It goes deeper than that, but let’s call my identifcation level “medium”.

I’m pretty strongly identified with my online community (tpot). It was a game changer in my life to find “the others” and I feel soothed that they exist, and I made great friends from there. At the same time the identification is not so clear, because the community is not clearly bounded. I would say much sooner that “I’m a metalhead” rather than “I’m part of tpot”. I feel much more like I’m someone who is similar to this broadly gestures group of people. On the other hand, when I’ve hosted TREEWEEK, which was an evented targeted at the wider tpot community, I felt strongly identified with that. Probably because it generated an bounded subcommunity, if at least for a moment.

I’m a content creator but not a content creator. The amount of content I create is not zero, but I’m doing it occasionally. BUT this is actually very much the point of this article: If I did it more, if I wanted more from it, it would start wanting more from me, and my content and I would become identified. I create little enough content to not be identified with it. I think I shall come back to this further below. *

I was a partner to a woman, and our relationship ended (pretty badly). Of course, while it was ongoing I was strongly identified with that. Extremely strongly, I would say. As we all experience, I abandoned parts of myself to be together with her, until these parts started a revolution, and showed me that this isn’t going to work out. The death of this relationship, and the image of it, is something I’m identified with. A gravestone, at which I often pray, for this particular past to not repeat itself. Sometimes parts of this relationship haunt me, which speaks for a relatively strong identification.

I am now a partner to a woman, and our relationship is great. I am once again, highly and intensely identified with her and our relationship. But I strongly intend to not lose myself in it, but to stand tall as an individual in togetherness, because I think that is a recipe for longevity, a great relationship, and fantastic parenthood. Love is to guard each others solitude, as Rilke said. This relationship is a great and intense source of identity and it always amazes me how much love does for me in that regard. It leads me to believe that I am a Lover, because I’m most driven by my love for people and things. It’s easy for me to love, it’s like I’m a love-Obelix. Fell into the love potion as a little boy.

As an inhabitant of a body, I have a strong identity, which includes my looks, the care I have for myself, and also life giving activities such as sleeping, sports and cooking. When it comes to grooming and clothing, my identity is pretty strong. I worked hard on liking my looks when I was about 20. My face/body and I wanted a lot from each other in that way. When it comes to sleeping and sports, my identity could be a bit stronger, as in I’m sometimes at odds with what my body actually needs and wants from me, and I’m maybe not honest and consistent with what I want from him. When it comes to food … I’ve fed myself and enough other people well in my lifetime so that I feel pretty well identified with the label “cook”, I think I’m a good cook and I’m currently thinking about making more of a hobby out of it, instead of it just being a life supporting base function.

Music is interesting. I swim in the water that is music. I don’t spend a day not listening to music. I’ve noticed how little I actually talk about music, and connect with people over music, because it is just so everpresent. I’ve also recently found out that I was slightly suppressed in my childhood when it came to music, and the adults around me didn’t have the same expansive taste as I had, so I’m shy talking about it. But music is firmly in my realm of love, the music I listen to mirrors the movements of my hearts.

Gaming has been my safe haven, so I’m very much a gamer. I always return to (video) games and there are few things that scratch my itch as well as a good gameplay loop. I used to talk about games a lot to the people around me, and I still do, and I’ll always be looking forward to a good game. I’m very strongly identified with games, and I often think that the way I aim to conceive of my life is very game oriented.

the now

Let’s come back to the now, back to what’s possibly the letter I would have written without needing to clear my mental desk. But I’m sure it will all make sense, because I’m right at the edge of a fresh game: Doing Great Work.

That’s right. I’ve spent the last year close to broke, with a big focus on money. Feeling like money will bring me back to work, feeling grateful for that, but still being intensely focused on money and “ways to make money”.

In (the year of our gracious lord) 2025 I’ve decided that focus on money is old news, and I myself have said years ago that it’s a false god, but even the best of our knowledge doesn’t keep us from sinning, especially when it feels like your personal, real life, existential ASS is on the LINE.

Instead, I’m grateful that the need for money brought forward the need to work. And since my sabbatical project has a lot to do with changing my relationship to work, and my identification with work, I’m feeling well set up to return to work. The need to work shall be love for work. The need for money shall be love for money. And together they shall be scaffolding for love itself.

And I’m hereby declaring that my focus for 2025 is: To Love, while Doing Great Work.

Let me briefly describe how I anticipate my year to go:

January: going to Spain for a brief holiday and Yincubator
May-July: my girlfriend moves in with me
September: TREEWEEK TWO

This timeline creates some pretty clear cut needs: I need a regular income by EOM February and onward, so that my living situation is stable, so that my girlfriend can move in with me, so that we can fulfill our wish of living together and everything that follows.

This is what it’s all for. That’s the love part. It’s hard for me to imagine doing this just for my own survival at this point. I’m so glad I’m in service of love.

The income I’m talking about can come from many places. Last year I thought: It has to be my own venture, something I’m doing by myself, or ideally with friends. Employment was not really on the table, but I softened on that.

Now the focus in me is not on the form of this, but simply on the source. The best source I found is this: I want to Do Great Work. How or where I do it? I don’t know yet, but I’m open to many options, including employment.

This is my best shot at a new gameplay loop emerging: I’m “someone who” Does Great Work. Or just, I Do Great Work. Or, I’m here to Do Great Work. I Love Doing Great Work. I wish to Do Great Work.

great work

So what is this Great Work?

I think what exactly it is has yet to emerge. And it also has to do with whom I partner up to do this work. That’s why I’m more interested in employment: I think there are parts in me that want to meet authority. They want to be shaped, led, and mastered, both in the sense of “meeting a master” and in the sense of “achieving mastery”. I can only do that with someone who I can meet and accept as a master.

Meeting a master has been difficult for me when on my own. I mostly meet friends as peers. I think without work (and specifically money and the market) at play, I’m not particularly interested in proving myself. But when it comes to this idea of Great Work, my youthful hunger for trying, proving myself and being rewarded, is coming back online.

Funnily enough, now I’m thinking that it is this friendly peering, this horizontality, this mutuality and love — I want to see if I can find that in the vertical space of a career and a company. And I think therein lies my sense of what Great Work is.

To do serious things playfully.

To make light work of hard tasks.

To bring non-doing to busy-ness.

To be slow, so things get done faster.

To focus on feelings, and let facts emerge.

To bring love and work together.

To serve the flow.

Most concretely, what I’m imagining is being an in-house wizard/plumber, who focuses on difficult conversations, and clears the communicative pipes, so truth can flow freely between people and teams. So that transformations happens with ease and speed. So that people come, go and change as they need. So that everyone can do Great Work.

I have a successful track record for this kind of work in my private life. I’ve done some work as a coach/advisor to companies, so far well received, but that’s exactly where I now feel the need to prove myself in a performance oriented environment.

At this time I’m carrying the idea of offering my work to VCs, because it seems practical that they are stewards to many companies. I would love to visit many companies and help them with my work. Investors know that to judge the potential of a startup by the founding team, and I believe I can help teams to raise their potential immensely.

This is the most difficult thing I’m currently capable of doing, while enjoying it immensely. I want a chance to do this Great Work from the world, and it would be amazing if the world wanted this Great Work from me. If that were the case, I can see myself strongly identifying with this.

As a note: In the past, I was talking about Life’s Work instead of Great Work. I wrote:

Your Life’s Work is the work your life asks of you. It is the noble following of your innermost impulse, combined with all the unique advantages and disadvantages you may have. It is taking your best abilities and applying them to what is in front of you.

I think that was a good direction. But it had a problem: It was too heavy on me. I always thought it had to be perfect, but I forgot the “to what is in front of you” part. My new approach to Doing Great Work definitorily contains a degree of agnosticism when it comes to what exactly my job is. For now, I’d also be willing to do a job where my primary job description is not exactly the above, but I could weave my Great Work into the activities of my job. I feel like I didn’t know myself enough in my previous employment, but now, 10 years later, I feel my skills have matured and I could apply myself much differently to any job.

practice & identity

Let me close with some thoughts on practice and identity.

I said in the part about content creation that I would come back to this:*

“I create little enough content to not be identified with it.”

And in the part about fitness I said:

“My gym behavior changed when I teamed up with a friend as a gym buddy, but also when I created notes in my phone that served as trackers and reminders of “who I was when I was here last time”.

One could translate the adage “fake it till you make it” to “practice till you become”, or, “practice shapes identity”. When you do 100 things of something, you will be a something-er. 100 posts, you’re a poaster, 100 videos, you’re a YouTuber, or maybe even a film maker. 100 songs or beats and you’re a songwriter or beatmaker.

I can’t exactly frontload identity. But I can frontload a behavior, a practice. Great Work takes practice. And for a while I “practice”, and then maybe at some point I “have a practice”, and maybe I can “share a practice” and then I can call myself a “practitioner”.

When I don’t practice, this process reverts. I forget what I do well. I forget who I am and who I can be. I get distracted, other identities become stronger. I visit the place of work less. Doing Great Work becomes optional. I’m not doing it, therefore I don’t need to do it.

As part of my Great Work this year, in the creative realm of my life, I wish to write and to document whatever may happen in my life. I want to harness this skill that I associate with a documentarian or a chronicler. I want to examine my life and that of people that interests me. There is a core in me that wishes for that, and who believes that this is an essential part of my Great Work, which I want to do, and I’m called to do.

I wish to establish and further this practice, so I don’t need to start anew every time, so I remember who I am in this, so that the practice may rightfully sit in the throne that is reserved for it in me, from which it will benefit my health and my being greatly.

declarations

I hereby declare that I will publish a written or recorded piece every week. By Sunday, before the new week begins, something shall be released.

I also declare that during the working hours of the weekdays, I will focus on contacting people and companies about the Great Work I want to do, until I have sufficiently engaging work.

2025 shall be the a year of Love, of Great Work, and of focused practice.

My home: a practice of Love

My publication: a practice of Documentation and Examination

My job: a practice of Great Work

May these wishes be granted.

Thank you very much for reading, and please forgive the lengthiness. I hope an evolving practice will allow me to be more concise, with less table clearing necessary.

Much love and many blessings

If you want to support my practice, please consider subscribing for free or for a small monthly fee. That could be a great way to create mutual wanting, which might generate some practice-supporting identity. Thank you! :)

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Hello friends,

please enjoy this podcast episode with river stone aka Disk Pilgrim.

I’ve met a few frisbee players in the past years, and there are some specifically strong disk tossers in the TPOT crowd, especially among the Americans (shoutouts to Brent and Mage). But I’ve never met a true frisbee philosopher, someone who is more mentally obsessed with frisbee than me, and who has thought about the meaning of frisbee more than I have, until I met brother River. Based on this we’re having an intense conversation on the origin and the meaning of the disk, and in the end an emotional yarn on the importance of home.

This is the first episode of The Time Is Now that was recorded in person, at PORTAL in Porto : ) More about that here:

River on Twitter: twitter.com/alcentian_oneRiver’s Substack: steppingstoness.substack.com

My links:

Website: https://simonohler.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/simon_ohlerSubstack: https://nowsimon.substack.comYouTube: https://youtube.com/nowSimon

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Hello friends,

please enjoy this podcast episode with Jesse Crossen.

Jesse is a philosopher and my friend. We first met at Medley in Berlin, and then through our mutual friend Maeby, and then at Jesscamp. Then we went to Microsolidarity Summercamp right after, performed a magic ritual together that cured my fear of my face (that I had been hiding behind a beard for 10 years) and that cured his fear of his hands (trying to help and instead doing damage). After the summer camps, we lived together, cooked together for the homies and spun a lot of philosophical yarn. At some point in that time Jesse met his partner Alexandra in my living room, not for the first time, but for the first time romantically. Alex and Jesse are now building a house together in North Carolina. My friendship with Jesse is a testament to how quickly lives can intertwine when you believe in magic, and just let it happen.

Jesse on Twitter: twitter.com/yoltartarJesse’s Substack: hinterlander.substack.comMicrosolidarity Summercamp 2024: https://opencollective.com/microsolidarity/events/microsolidarity-summer-camp-2024-eu-7457d633Our magic ritual: https://x.com/yoltartar/status/1682500408084779012Magic for muggles: https://x.com/yoltartar/status/1687818105198661633Jesse’s story about him and Alex:

The result of our ritual on my end:

You can listen to the audio of the podcast here:

My links:

Website: https://simonohler.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/simon_ohlerSubstack: https://nowsimon.substack.comYouTube: https://youtube.com/nowSimon

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Hello friends,

please enjoy this podcast episode with Jess.

Jess is the organizer of the wonderful internet-people-meetup-party “Jesscamp” and, as most of my guests are, she’s a powerful wizard : ) I wanted to talk to Jess about her history with Jesscamp and TPOT, and we find a wonderful story of growing up, various arrangements of living and loving, learning how to communicate what we want and need and why Jesscamp is primarily a party. At the time of recording I’m deep into organizing TREEWEEK so we talk about how TPOT camps work and how to organize them as well.

Jess on Twitter: https://twitter.com/frideswythJesscamp 3 info (in the past): https://www.tickettailor.com/events/liberalisltd/982574You can listen to the audio of the podcast here:

My links:

Website: https://simonohler.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/simon_ohlerSubstack: https://nowsimon.substack.comYouTube: https://youtube.com/nowSimon

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Hello friends,

please enjoy this podcast episode with Christine.

Christine asked me some questions about my sabbatical on Twitter. I invited her to ask me anything she wants, on my podcast. She asked me great questions and gave me an opportunity to tell my story on my own show, for which I'm very grateful. Christine is a big part of the community and has been building apps for it, like 3rd space, and the famed Twitter Dating App aka. Cuties.

Christine on Twitter: https://twitter.com/christineistTwitter Dating App aka Cuties: https://cuties.app/Christine's big list of lists: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zl33fxKigWN4Hd1AWOxopuvzQZfPpMUwGTLbB07dXzU/edit#heading=h.fk2kozqys9atYou can listen to the audio of the podcast here:

My links:

Website: https://simonohler.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/simon_ohlerSubstack: https://nowsimon.substack.comYouTube: https://youtube.com/nowSimon

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Hello friends,

please enjoy this podcast episode with Rich.

Rich is the founder of Microsolidarity, a community-building practice. I've been pondering getting my best friends together to form a gang, and I have many questions about it, so I thought it would be good to hear Richard's thoughts. We also went on a foray into disagreeing, anger, and finding ways back to each other, which is my favorite relationship-building practice.

Rich on Twitter: https://twitter.com/richdecibelsRich on the web: https://richdecibels.com

Also, I have a cute new website. Check it out: https://simonohler.com

My links:

Website https://simonohler.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/simon_ohlerSubstack: https://nowsimon.substack.comYouTube: https://youtube.com/nowSimon

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Hello friends,

please enjoy this podcast episode with Nibras.

Nibras and I got to know each other in a residency in Berlin. Nibras is an excellent interviewer and a conversation artist, and passing the mic is a bit of a sport for us. We also share an inevitable draw towards content creation, so it’s good to talk on tape together. The topic we end up converging on is “the lowering of the armor” and the way of supple surrender, instead of the harsh drive to overcome.

I first met Nibras on Twitter, and she has been regularly tweeting bangers, check em out. https://twitter.com/heynibras

You can listen to the audio of the podcast here.

My links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/simon_ohlerSubstack: https://nowsimon.substack.comYouTube: https://youtube.com/nowSimon

Timestamps

0:00 Head tilt hello2:56 Nibras’ Travels16:28 Nibras, other people and self regulation27:31 Simon on Community, TPOT and the magic of internet people36:10 Life is a movie42:28 All people are portals to other worlds, make up reasons to be with them53:21 People are flowering, Guards are lowering58:52 Nibras alters the nature of her cat with a tweet1:02:21 Passing the mic and navigating the impossibility of a conversation1:04:44 Softness, Boundaries, Navigation of the World1:33:24 Rick Rubin Roulette / Doing things from scratch / Love & Goodbye1:46:55 Behind the scenes

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Hello friends,

please enjoy this podcast episode with Tasshin Fogleman.

In this conversation we get to know each other — we’ve never spoken before in person. We talk about our lives’ work, Twitter and TPOT, our journeys through the internet, and of course I find out lots of other things about how Tasshin thinks and sees the world. Tasshin also shares an intensely difficult personal story of grief towards the end of our conversation, and I’m grateful for his trust and vulnerability. This is how I want podcasts to be.

Tasshin’s life is devoted to Love and his conviction is crystal clear. Follow and meet him on Twitter. https://twitter.com/tasshinfogleman

You can listen to the audio of the podcast here.

My links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/simon_ohlerSubstack: https://nowsimon.substack.comYouTube: https://youtube.com/nowSimon

Timestamps

0:00 Brotherly and friendly hellos2:59 About TPOT11:53 Tweets that stay with you and become part of you20:50 Tasshin’s & Simon’s Twitter Journeys36:18 Why and how did you become a monk? How did you go on the Artist's journey?45:25 Tasshin on his vow and Tasshin Inc53:20 Simon’s Devotion1:00:39 How to find your purpose / Glasses Metaphor1:06:20 Money1:16:23 Choose your own adventure1:19:46 Trees and all beings1:36:10 Tasshin pushing boundaries1:46:55 Tasshin’s dark voice1:53:04 Tasshin’s loss and grief2:09:21 Appreciations and goodbye

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Hello friends,

please enjoy this podcast episode with Anansi aka. s0uldirect0r aka. Matthew.

We talk about our lives, God, faith, agency and magic. If that sounds a bit far out there, I can assure you that we are doing our best to get it across in very pragmatic real-world stories and examples.

Anansi is living a very cool and courageous life and I suggest you keep up with his art and adventures on Twitter. https://twitter.com/s0ulDirect0r

You can listen to the audio of the podcast here.

My links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/simon_ohlerSubstack: https://nowsimon.substack.comYouTube: https://youtube.com/nowSimon

Timestamps

0:00 Intro1:57 Edgerunner10:27 Creative energy and aliveness15:25 God and faith21:38 Stepping into the current33:32 How did you grow up?45:34 Finding spirituality and encounters with darkness54:29 Anansis year of art1:04:29 Agency and magic1:09:05 Magic beyond agency1:30:28 How does God hold you?1:40:28 The pragmatic side of faith1:53:51 Shoutouts and goodbye

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Hi everybody!

On Friday, March 25, 2022, I’m holding an Interintellect salon on Visionaries. Click the link and join, if the spirit moves you!

It’s part two of a three-part series, titled “Living Well and Thinking Big”. The first part was on The Village, a metaphor for understanding life and work.

Part three will be on Size of Life, which to me means finding the correct degree of expansion in our life. You can join that salon here.

Visionaries is the topic of the hour. The salon is coming up this week, so I better make some material to have on hand!

Definitions

I want to start with definitions. I’ve googled “Visionary” once and what came up was a YouTube video that was titled “Is Elon Musk A Visionary?”. Aha! — here is a problem.

This question and its frame loads “Visionary” with exclusivity and nobility. Elon is a visionary (of course), Kanye is a visionary, and that’s probably about all the visionaries in the world right now.

That’s obviously (or at least if you can see clearly) not the case.

I’m a visionary. You might be a visionary. And your slightly awkward and shy neighbor might be a visionary, as well as thousands of people in the city you are in.

So what is a visionary?

I would say, a visionary is somebody, who sees something that isn’t there (yet).

The people we attribute visionary status to in popular culture, are people, who see/saw something and moved towards it with determination, and made it a reality. Realized visionaries, so to speak.

Okay, but what about the rest of us? Those who don’t have visions of electric cars in space, or of a gospel choir wearing 400 EUR crocs?

We might still have visions of what our lives might be like.

We might have intimations of something that might happen to us later in life.

And I’m sure there are other versions of this that I don’t know about yet.

My visions tend to be forward-facing, but I’m sure there are people with visions from the past, or visions from the now, far away.

I hope that many visionaries join us in the salon on Friday because I want to hear about other experiences.

To conclude definitions,

it seems to me that being a visionary is more of a condition, than something noble and exclusive. Something like having a very active third eye that you actually have to (painstakingly?) contend with and integrate.

Whatever your form of creative living is, you won’t get around some sacrifices.

Whatever your condition asks of you, you’ll have to make due and feed it somehow.

If you don’t it might take you under. If you do, it still might.

Look at Kanye’s and Elon’s lives. Glory and suffering. Riches and separations. Fame and misunderstanding. You want to live like that? Go ahead, but be careful what you wish for.

The problem with visions

is that they can be very confusing. I often feel very thrown off the present moment, when a vision penetrates my perception. It can last for an afternoon, or for days if I don’t actively bring myself back to the present moment.

That’s why practices for mind and body are important to me. Otherwise, my inner eye just slowly tilts upwards and I will start living in the clouds and in the future. And unfortunately, in that space, I can see a lot, but I can’t act. Because I am not there (yet).

Often times I start browsing the internet incessantly. The internet, Twitter, and external content are great tools to feed a vision. Sometimes I observe myself scrolling like a madman. I’ve learned to ask myself: “What are you looking for?” and just watch myself searching. Often enough, I find something that scratches my itch.

This perspective and self-understanding are already quite advanced. My behavior humors me now. But my tone hasn’t always been this kind when talking to myself. I’ve had years of not understanding this behavior. I’ve labeled it as procrastination. I was angry at myself for not getting the things done that I was “supposed to” get done.

And in a way it was true, I was often caught up in my visions and paralyzed in the present.

An elemental piece in learning to deal with my visions was to separate the vision from the now. I needed to understand that I couldn’t take a whole system that I saw in my head and implement it right here right now.

Paying the proper respect to a vision means being pragmatic and realistic about what is needed to actualize it. That might be time, attention, ability, other people. And on a recursive note, experience, the ability to judge pragmatically, how much time, attention, etc. is needed to make your vision real.

The consequence of this knowledge is finding an organic, natural starting point, that has a good chance to lead to your vision. Plant your own apple seed, that, so God will, has the chance of becoming a beautiful tree bearing much fruit, instead of trying to conjure up a whole tree from somewhere, ripping it out of its place and trying to fit it in your own yard, roots and all.

I’ve tried this aggressive migration with a couple of things, and it does not work.

A relationship with a certain woman looked great in my head, so I went through fire and flames to get her. But our interest in each other hadn’t formed organically and freely, and so this endeavor left a whole bunch of scorched earth.

I wanted to found a company and I had all the people I needed, as far as I could see. But our working relationships hadn’t formed organically and freely, so it was fabricated. The bonds broke soon and nothing came to fruition.

The counterbalance

to my (sometimes aggressive) visions is to recognize what they show as a desired state. Or even as a state that WILL happen. I just need to serve this vision, and live my present moment with open eyes.

My visions are helpful as guidelines and concepts, but the reality that I’m in right now, which asks me to set one foot in front of the other, asks for a more tender touch.

The vision is the tree, and the now is the seed.

By definition, whatever you have on you in the now, is the seed that leads to the future that fits you, to the tree that you need in your backyard.

Be an organic farmer:

let your vision-trees grow from your now-seeds freely and in their own time

That’s what I have for you today.

Love

Some notes before you go: today was a day, which plagued me with a need for stimulation. Sugar, alcohol, something to smoke, sex — would be the normal list that I frantically go up and down to quiet the craving. This feeling corresponds with my vision-having. I didn’t want to give in to any of the above-mentioned urges.

So I was wondering what I could do RIGHT NOW.

Well, I suppose I have an article to write. Well, I suppose I just wrote it. Took me an hour. Not too bad.

If you seek stimulation from the world, see if you can stimulate the world yourself with your work. Something like that?

Please let me ask you,

dear reader: Do you have visions? What type? How can we make our ordinary visions useful, instead of distracting? What kind of visions have you seen through to fruition?

On March 25th, 2022, I will host an Interintellect salon on this topic. Interintellect is a platform that is reinventing the French salon for the internet. If you would like to discuss the ins and outs of this topic with me and other visionaries, please join me here. Tickets are $15, and you will join a ~3 hour Zoom call, with other interesting people, discussing this very idea.

If you’ve enjoyed these thoughts, and you would like to see more, please subscribe, for free, and I’ll see you next time.

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Hello again.

Part 3 of the village is about The Well.

What is The Village? Read part 1 (the image) and part 2 (how to use it) to get up to speed.

When I first introduced this image to my friend and partner in spirit, Louis, who I spoke with in the audio of part 2, made me aware of a major blind spot.

The Bird and the Tree

Louis is a bird, and I am a tree. When we first met, all we did was laugh together. It was beautiful, how our words connected, when we had never spoken before.
A word leads to a sentence, leads to a paragraph, and then it is paragraphs upon paragraphs, each using the previous one as a ladder to reach unknown heights of truth, and depths of meaning. When we notice something untrue in what we say, we quickly correct it. And together we bathe in streams of what we perceive is true, and it is always a sheer joy.

“Where is your place to nourish yourself? The place where you save your progress and refill your lives?” asked Louis.

“That’s a good question”, I said. “I haven’t had much of a meditative practice or silence recently.”

“Maybe more than silence, it’s reconnecting to the juice! More of a regenerative practice.”

“The well? Filling the well?”

“Yes. Everything starts with the well. A good house, a good school — they are built around a well. The well is the place where you regenerate. It reaches deep into the earth, the soil, connects you to your roots, to your source. The place in you that is immutable, where you are free from ideas, where you only resonate with what is true. Listen to the water, drink from it, be inspired, be nourished. Get connected to the juice.”

I knew immediately that he was right. He has that tendency. But to see my model and therefore also my house missing such an important part — I didn’t want to accept it yet.

“Hm yes, well-! My bed is the place, where I read and from which I draw plenty of rest and inspiration!”

“Nope. That ain’t it. It can’t be your bed, it has its own function.”

“Ok, and here on my PC”, (we were on Discord), “I’ve got great sources of inspiration through Twitter and YouTube, and I speak to you and other friends and creative partners. I can tap into the spirit of the world and it feels very nourishing.”

“That energy is actually the opposite of what I’m talking about. But it’s beautiful and I know what you mean.”

Louis was very clear.

“So what is it? How should it be?”, asked I.

Quick intermission: You can speak with both Louis and I on The Village and The Well in an Interintellect salon on February 25th, 2022. That’s today, or tomorrow, or a long time ago, depending on when you read this. If you are on time, you can join here.

A sacred Place

Louis responded:

“Well, it has to be your place! I can’t tell you that. I can only tell you what I do. I have my desk. It is a sacred space. Only the right things are on it, including some sacred artifacts. I like it neat. When I sit here, I light a candle. I’m with a book I’m studying, poems I’m writing. From here, I go to the places where I see myself clearly.

It takes time to build this. It grows by itself. I’ve been “working” on this desk for 18 years.

The other day, my niece was at my place. She was playing around the house. I had something to do at my desk, and she wanted to sit with me. I told her, sit with me, but this is not a place to play and cause a mess. I’ll study now, so you have to study, too. She understood, and sat with me quietly and alertly, with the same reverence I had for my work and for my space.

That is the well, the place, where I can quietly be with myself. What place is that for you?”

While I’m typing this, I remember that when I was at Louis’ house two weeks ago, while I was settling in, I placed my disposable camera on his desk. When I walked by later, I found it on the stool next to the desk. I absent-mindedly put it back on the surface. And again, found it removed. Then I got it, and stowed it away. Knowing about his well, I could have known better from the start.

The true Conversation

I have something special for you now. The conversation I wrote out above, was mostly from memory. But it really took place. And I have a recording of it. AND I uploaded it to YouTube, raw and almost uncut. You can subscribe to YouTube and watch the video here:

My Well, and yours?

About my own well... we spoke a bit more about what it could be. My imagination led me to a very big, flexible, comfortable chair, where an old sharp man might sit and read a book, play a record, maybe smoke a pipe, or just be by himself, to enjoy life and ponder. Maybe I’m that man. Books and music bring me close to my essential nature, to the juice.

When I mentioned the chair, Louis’ eyes got big. “Aha! You mentioned that chair twice now. You’re onto something!”

In my mind, I was able to manifest this chair. I don’t have it yet. But in the place where it will be, there is already a place to sit. And it is the place where I already like to sit. So I already have The Well with me. Now, I want to learn to use it better, and more consciously. And when I have the possibility, I can upgrade it, so the well isn’t grimey and mossy, but clean with blooming flowers around it.

There is no tree without a bird. There is no village, without a well. There is no man, without the juice.

The water will be crisp and fresh and nourish the whole village and lighten their load. It will brighten up dark mornings, and at night wash away the dirt of the day. That is the well.

Thank you!

This concludes my 3-part series on The Village.

It was valuable for me to study this topic during the last two months, and a pleasure to write it out for you. I hope you enjoyed it.

Love

Tomorrow, I will share these thoughts with others, who are interested, in an Interintellect salon. Details below. Louis will be there, too!

If you’ve enjoyed these thoughts, and you would like to see more, please subscribe, for free, and leave a comment to tell me what you liked and what you want to see next.

On February 25th, 2022, I will host an Interintellect salon on this topic. Interintellect is a platform that is reinventing the French salon for the internet. If you would like to discuss the ins and outs of The Village with me and others, please join me here. Tickets are $10, and you will join a ~3 hour Zoom call, with other interesting people, discussing this very idea.

Join our community on these platforms:

Twitter · Instagram · Twitch · YouTube · Discord

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Welcome back!

Hello, my friend. It is a new week and I promised part two of my exploration of The Village (part 1). Edit: Read more on The Well here (part 3).

I am currently in the Netherlands with my friend and study partner Louis. A tradition seems to be emerging because this is the third year in a row that I am in this beautiful country of water, cheese, weed, and chocolate flakes on bread slices around this time.

What is “this time”? It’s the beginning of spring, of course! In the calendars we know, spring doesn’t start until mid-March, but around the 4th of February, the energy of spring begins to reveal itself. There is sun, birdsong, and some buds and early bloomers. Look around!

By the way, if you listen to the audio: I’m reading out the article in the first 19 minutes, afterward Louis and I talk a bit. Very insightful, audio only!

How to use The Village

Okay, back to The Village. I encourage you to read part one if you haven’t yet. It’s here. You might also want to subscribe to this newsletter because I believe part three is coming soon as well.

Assuming that you are in the know now, let us continue.

I want to offer you some background on the metaphor and the tangible realities, the image ought to describe. Because, as sad as I am to admit this, I do not own a farmhouse or a homestead (yet!).

Let me reintroduce the components, this time with some physical-world explanations attached to them. Here they are again, explanations commence right below.

· The Man · The Field · The House · The Shop · The Garden · The Well

The Man

That’s me, or you, as a Being. Call it what you will. The woman, the lady, the kid, the dude. I like being a man, so that’s what I call him. As you build your own image, you could also create multiple instances of your being. For example, I often use “The Kid” to talk about my inner child, which, in this system, lives in and is embodied by The Garden. Another thing I could do is to instantiate my feminine side as “The Woman” and assign some needs and activities to her. For now, I’m happy with The Man.

One of my initial notes to describe this part of the system was: “The Man is ok.” That means that many cycles that pertain to my being and my body are closed and working successfully. I know how to eat, sleep, manage my intake of drugs and distractions, and how to schedule my time to make something happen. Thus, I don’t get depressed very often… anymore! This hasn’t always been like this and I’m grateful that “The Man is ok”.

If your Being is “not ok”, that’s ok! Then that is your starting point. Maybe you might want to build a higher resolution image for different parts of your Being so that you can serve yourself well and close your cycles.*

The House

This is a dwelling space. In my case, my apartment in Berlin. The house is a container for the man, so he may eat, sleep and clean himself, and thus stay healthy and endure.

I’ve also declared the house as “ok”. This means that I have everything I need to do these three key activities. On a daily basis, I’m not missing anything when it comes to eating, sleeping, and cleaning. Again, hasn’t always been like this, but over time I sorted it out.

There are some more boxes that the house needs to tick, to be “ok”, like allowing having guests over etc., but again, this is not my focus here — I might write about the house in detail another time. If you feel that your house (or whatever you like to call your dwelling) is lacking, I would suggest zooming in on it, compartmentalizing it, and sorting it out, i.e. buying and building the interfaces you need.*

* As far as I can tell,*that’s what I’m really trying to say with this work! Whichever area of you is “not ok”, demarcate it, zoom in on it, compartmentalize it, understand yourself, e.g. through a metaphor like this, and help yourself this way to work on getting better. Easier said than done, but I promise I will write more on this. I’ll be a fellow wanderer on your journey.*

And on that note, a quick intermission: I lied a little bit. Everything that follows now has a lot to do with The House.

The Garden, The Field, The Shop and The Well, are all interfaces (at least in part) in my dwelling. The metaphor of The Village sorts them into outside areas, but alas, I still do not own a farmhouse and have to make do with what I have.

In the metaphorical world, the following components are on an even plane. But in the physical world, the house brackets them in, to an extent, creating a hierarchy: If the house is not ok, the rest falls flat as well. Ergo, the house remains a very important point of attention.

Ok! Onwards!

The Garden

This is the place for friends, joy, beauty, experiments, expression, and experience. What would you call such a place?

When I work on my personal projects — my documentary, my courses, my podcasts — often with my friends, I’m in the garden. In 2021, I’ve spent a lot of time in the garden. The work here is without pressure and urgency. A lot of it is conceptual and experimental. How would these flowers look here? Can we put a swing here? Let’s plant squash and see how it tastes.

The garden is a private area behind the house, and only the people who I show it to can see it. It is not for the public. I need the garden because I can be naked and flawed here. I like to be like that.

There is an experimental component to it, and some of my garden projects will be sold in the shop at some point**. But as long as they are in the garden, they are safe from eyes and judgment, other than my own and my creative partners’.

I labeled my garden as “almost ok”. There are some things missing. For example, making music is a gardening activity that I haven’t established yet. Some other arts and activities, like painting or certain sports that I’m interested in, are not activated in my life. They need interfaces so I can enter into them. That could be a partner for an activity or a certain part of my studio set up in a proper way. To make music I want to buy a bass guitar soon. And of course, I need time and intention.

But as goes the rule of the garden: No rush.

In the physical world, the garden exists in many ways in my computers. Discord, for example, is a place where I often meet my creative partners, so we can do our gardening. A lot of my work is recorded in Notion or in video files. Sometimes friends come to my house, and we do gardening, then we sit at the table or on the floor, or in the kitchen. And some of the gardening is outside, like playing frisbee in the park, or meeting friends at their place or in a bar, or visiting friends for a week. Oh, and I have a balcony, where I do some literal gardening in the summer, like planting tomatoes and potatoes and so on.

In my notes there is still a placeholder for “The Greenhouse”, which I considered a liminal space for work that is moving from garden to field or shop. I didn’t find a use for it, but maybe someone else does.

The Field

This is the place for work and labor, large scale, with the purpose of serving the people and the village, and ensuring the continuity of your own life and that of your family.

For me, The Field was the real discovery. From 2018 - 2021, the years after my corporate career, the quiet years, I’ve somewhat rejected work as something good that I liked. I was looking for a life where joyful activity makes me a bunch of money and my people and I live happily ever after. I would say that is still true, and the ultimate goal.

“Joyful activity > money > more joyful activity” is a very important cycle to build.
The life of an artist.

But if we study the life and work(!!) of artists, there is no great art without lots of labor, or practice. The cycle is probably more accurate like so:
“Labor > Joyful activity > money > more labor > more joyful activity > …”

And so this year, 2022, I am committed to returning to the field, where I will get my hands dirty and my neck red from the sun.

During the quiet years, every time I looked out of the window, I saw the field. It was always on my mind. One of my notes was: “The field is innate or inherited.” What does that mean? I feel like I am born with the field, it is an essential part of me. That means I like work, and I must work. The field is there, it won’t go away, and it’s calling me. Not tilling the field is betraying a part of myself.

It’s a large field, too. Maybe that’s why I’ve been shirking my responsibility. It stretches a couple of hundred meters in each direction. Maybe more. Often, I can’t see the end of it. Beginning the work is daunting, to say the least.

What I’ve found out is that I have pretty large bag of seeds (hehehe) as a tool for the field. My seeds (read: my ideas) are manyfold, and they’re all jumbled up in this big bag. I always thought, “I should put these in order so I can know what I will plant”.

I have decided differently now. My note says: “Go onto the field, reach into your seed bag, and sow it. Your seeds will be sorted in generations 2 and 3, but not in generation one.” The message is clear. One seed after the other — what will grow from them is a surprise. In the coming years, I can be more intentional with my work on the field. This year, I just have to change it from “barren” to “tended”. Zero to one?

So what is the work? What are the seeds? What does the field stand for in the physical world?

Well, I can tell you, I am on the field right now and you are here with me. Writing is my work and my labor. I have declared a place at my table in my studio in my apartment as my writing place. And this is what I’m doing now.

Why? Because writing is innate to me. I’ve always been reading, always been writing, and my body generates and seeks ideas (seeds); more ideas than I can turn into behavioral reality. So I can at least turn these ideas into literal reality, so that they may live on in others; I can build on them, and their cycles become complete.

An important note I’ve made recently: “Writing isn’t hard.” That’s true, it feels a lot like a game to me. Beginning to write is hard sometimes. Once I’m in the groove I’m almost having a hard time stopping.

I’ve weighed writing up against speaking, which also seems very innate and easy for me. Speaking belongs with it, I see it a bit more situated in the garden, though. Speaking for me is a lot more jokey, artsy, fun-ny. When I write I’m amused but primarily serious. Plus, written ideas have continuity and writing them out has an eerily powerful, reality-forming component to it. Words I’ve written are way more real than words I’ve thought.

So, that’s The Field. As you can see, it’s “not ok”. But we’ve got a handle on it. The Field will probably become its whole own world; it needs so many tools and techniques and perspectives and whatnot. For now, I’m just happy that I’m not afraid of it anymore.

One surprise seed at a time. : )

The Shop

This is the place where your goods reach other people. All the experiments in the garden, and all the hard work on the field — it would be a shame if what you make wouldn’t find your way to others. That’s why we have the shop.

The shop in itself is just a room or a house with a door on the street level, so that people can find it and enter it. It also has a counter and a till, to facilitate transactions. For now, that’s it.

This is kind of the state my shop is in. So far, when people have transacted with me, they’ve come straight to my house, i.e. called me on the phone, wrote me an email, or whatever. In that sense, I can only transact with people who know me. In the door of my shop is a “closed” sign and maybe one that says “under construction”.

At the time of writing you will see this, if you go to www.nowmedia.org : )

So, the real life form of the shop is a website, because the work that I intend to do is writing, speaking, teaching — all things that work fantastically well on the internet. Depending on what your work is, maybe you want an actual physical space! And why not?

Beyond your own website, on the internet there are platforms. Like Substack, YouTube, Twitch, Shopify, etc., which are larger shops that offer you to carry your products in their space, giving you a fair (?) share of what you sell via them. Practical for reaching an audience beyond your village, so to speak!

What I know is that, especially as an artist and a maker, you want to have an area that is primed for transaction. It’s easy for some of us, to do our work for love and passion and that is well and good. But, and I am firmly speaking to myself here, do yourself the favor and build out the shop. If you make nice things, give people the chance to pay for them.

Do you know where you would need to go to give me money, if you like my work? No? Me neither. I haven’t really set up my shop and my till. One for the to do list, when I’m trusting myself to regularly have something on offer. An empty shop is no fun, and people won’t visit it. Especially now that most platforms offer subscriptions and memberships, the incentive and necessity for constant production is super high.

First, we plant and enjoy our own produce. When there is enough, we take it to the shop.

That will make the shop “ok”. A steady flow of produce, and a good order inside so people can find what they are looking for.

I’m currently in the process of experimenting with the order and layout of, and the produce in the shop, behind the shield of the “closed” sign. That means, publishing content in various forms, and thinking up other offerings and services people might want, that relate to my field work of speaking, writing, and teaching. By the way, you can help me with that, just find the three star footnote below!***

That’s it for today

A fair chunk of writing! Took me a couple of sessions. I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you for reading! Sending you love from the Netherlands : )

Next week I will publish part three of The Village, in which I will focus on The Well, and draw up conclusions that I expect will finish this series. If you don’t want to miss it, please subscribe. Edit: It’s here!

Maybe you have noticed that I’ve got some links to drafts or unwritten topics sprinkled throughout this piece. Have you clicked any of them? About which of those topics would you like to read more? I’m always happy to be of service and write about what interests you. Let me know in the comments if you’ve got a prompt, ok? And of course, any other questions or notes are always very welcome. *Help me stock the shop, that is the help I need right now! No payments necessary yet, exchange of words, taste and love very necessary! Love you!

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The Village Part II is out! Click here and read on!

The Village Part III is here! Read more about The Well!

The Idea

Every time the world goes silent in December, and the year is about to come to an end, I sit down with my friend Sebastian to reflect. We like to recap what has happened in this fading year, and we like to outline what we wish to happen in the emerging one.

We have done this for 4 or 5 years in a row now. We started with goals, then preferred systems over goals, and this year, for some reason, have ended up in imagery.

The image I came up with, without preplanning, right there in the present moment, on our phone call, was that of a village:

The village as a symbol of a cyclical, sustainable, and peaceful existence, for my own life.

Like many of us, I’ve spent much time last year dreaming and romanticizing about living off the land, in tune with animals, nature, and the seasons. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s a true dream, but we will see. I know that my forefathers were prosperous German farmers in Transsilvania (Transsilvanian Saxons) and North-West Germany. And I know that, for me, Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley are the video games that have some of the best hours-to-joy conversion rates that I know.

From this dream, The Village emerged, as a model for creative work and life. I want to share this image with you. I’m curious what you think about it, and if you are cultivating a similar interface for your own life, or whether you would consider doing so. This idea came to me in a flash, so it’s a work in progress, and by no means finished, truthful, dogmatic, etcetera. Take from it what you will.

The Lore

The Village is made from these components:

The Man

The House

The Garden

The Field

The Shop

The Well

The man lives in the house. The house (and addendums) contains interfaces and tools for the man to do what he needs. Eating, sleeping, sanitation, as basic activities.

In the garden, the man does what he likes. He moves, he plays, he cultivates what is beautiful to him.

Every day, the man goes to the field, to do his work. The field is vast — a great space for large-scale cultivation. What will he plant? What grows here is not for him, at least not only for him. There will be too much, and he will want to offer the surplus to the people of the village in the shop.

They must want it, need it, and like it. What can he do best that the people also want, need, and like? That is his work, for that he tills the field and displays his wares in the shop.

And at the end of a long day, an eventful week, a productive season, and a transformative year, he sits by the well. Mostly alone, sometimes with a friend. From the well, he draws new strength and inspiration. On the water surface, he closely watches his mirror image and learns to understand himself better, and to serve the people better. The well reaches deep inside the earth to the essence of life that flows within. Sitting by the well is sitting by oneself, and must not be forgotten, in order to bring the cycles of the village to completion, which ensures steadiness and contentment, even when the seas of the world are stormy and treacherous.

Context & Questions

This is the basic lore behind what I envisioned as The Village.

While writing this I was wondering: “Why is it called “The Village”, if what you are describing only demarcates a farmhouse estate?”

I suppose “The Village” sounds nicer than “The Farm House”, for one. In terms of meaning, The Field and The Shop fundamentally interface with people beyond the demarcation line, and that is key. Think, “The meaning of life is friends” or “Happiness only real when shared”.

So, the farmhouse is here for my family and me, and the correct frame of reference to understand it is The Village.

Now, I will do some self-reflection and describe the condition of my Village. You are invited to continue reading. You are also invited to take a break here to take some time making up your own mind.

What is your life like?

Do you feel the village-vibe?

How would you modify this image / create your own image to describe the ins and outs of your own life?

Part II is out! Click here and read on!

Part III is here! Read more about The Well!

Thank you for reading! Next week I will publish part two of The Village, in which I will describe what the different parts of The Village mean for me. Some detailed self-reflection coming up! If you don’t want to miss it, please subscribe.

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