So what would love tell you if it were being honest?
How can sharing your creative work maybe boomerang back into your life in the most unexpected ways?
And Why do we sometimes hide behind putting on a show to keep from being seen and judged, not realizing the disconnection and the suffering is causing?
What if we focused more on being present than on being wealthy?
How might that change how our lives unfold?
Why do we always equate being paid to do something with it being meaningful?
And what happens when we value stifling propriety over full expression?
And how can we surrender more to moments of true artistry and joy?
These are some of the questions I have been exploring over the last few months in my Awake at the Wheel newsletter.
It's where I write a few times a month in a much more personal, long-form way with the, As I've been doing for the last really year and a half or so.
Every few months, I curate a handful of my most popular written word pieces and share them as spoken word roundups here on the podcast.
And today I am doing my fourth awake at the wheel roundup with all new spoken word essays, all of which led to some pretty passionate conversations in the comments in the original newsletter.
My hope is that they'll maybe do the same here.
If you're moved by what you hear, you'd love to spend more time with them.
You can read these essays, linger on them, share them with friends, let them inspire conversations.
Just head on over to A Week at the Wheel.
You'll find a link in the show notes.
So excited to share these offerings with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.
Good Life Project is sponsored by Gab.
We'll see you next time.
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The Good Life Project is sponsored by Weill Cosmetics.
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So first up, I actually want to share the essay that started out this entire thing.
Early last year, my friend Elizabeth Gilbert asked me to share a letter from love with her letter from love community.
And of course I obliged.
I mean, Liz is awesome.
You don't say no to love embodied.
Plus, I'd been sitting with this feeling.
Maybe you felt it, this notion that I'd fallen behind in my own life.
I wasn't where I thought I'd be at this age.
And maybe that would be a good topic I thought to offer at Love's Feet.
And with that, back in April of last year, my letter from Love met Liz's community.
And now, over a year down the road, I thought I would revisit that letter and see if Love's words to me back then still resonated.
And it turns out they do.
So I realized that I'd never actually directly shared my letter with you here in this community.
My letter from love was really to myself which, by the way, for some reason is still incredibly uncomfortable for me to have shared in written form.
And it makes me even more uncomfortable thinking about doing this in spoken word form, but all the more reason to share it here.
And really it's also a love letter to anyone feeling like they're just perpetually falling behind in their own lives.
Following Liz's guidance, I started with the same question.
Dear love, what would you have me know today?
And then addressed myself with a meaningful term of endearment.
So here is my letter from love to myself.
Maybe some piece of it will resonate with you too.
Dear love, what would you have me know today?
Johnner, so I know this keeps coming up for you.
You keep feeling like you've fallen behind in your own life.
You're not where you were, quote, supposed to be now.
But what does that even mean?
Seriously, falling behind on what?
The delusional teenage vision of how your life would unfold based on a data set of adolescent duh?
The one that had you flush with gobs of money and status and toys and retiring at the ancient age of 45.
Or was it the expectations handed down by colleagues during that weird stint in the law chasing partnership, before your body took you down and gave you the ultimate course correction?
Or maybe it was that quote winning life, where every book, every company, everything you touch turned to gold and you just finally made it.
I know your path hasn't been what you expected and, God willing, with enough protein and plants and pixie dust, it's far from over.
But Bojcik, look where it's landed you today, in this moment when you're supposedly behind on the dream of what should have been.
How can the feeling of your daughter's arm woven through your elbow as you walk side by side, knowing how deeply connected you are and what an incredible woman she's become, be anything but right for this moment of your life?
How can the warmth of your wife's head on your chest as you stroke her hair in bed for the 10000th time in 30 plus years be anything but right for this moment of your life?
How can a body that's taken its hits but is still game to support nearly any dream you envision and let you hike for hours and weeks in the Rockies, be anything but right for this moment?
How can being held by friends who'd get on a plane from the other side of the world if you needed them be anything but right for this moment?
How can the body of work that's poured through you and the difference it's made be anything but right for this moment?
Sure, it's not the path you thought you'd take, nor the things you started out measuring.
Others have more money, status, and stuff, and always will, but don't you see?
The dream of the life you've fallen behind on was measured by things you didn't yet know, barely mattered, and devoid of things that matter beyond measure.
You are and have always been exactly where you need to be.
Here, now, seen, held, capable, well, and loved.
Your only job is to let yourself be present to what is, to keep showing up and to stop fretting about a could have been that was never meant to be.
Seriously, chill.
Life is good if you just let it be.
So that was my letter.
And it really helped me to reread this more than a year after writing it.
And as uncomfortable as it is to speak it out loud and share it with you, I think it's helpful.
Maybe you've been grappling with a similar feeling.
And if so, I hope it helps you be a bit kinder to yourself and gentler with the state of your being.
So that was the first piece that I'm sharing.
And on to the second one from my Awake at the Wheel newsletter.
And this one is entitled The Creative Boomerang, A True Story About Art, Serendipity, and Impact.
Here we go.
Did not see this coming.
Years back, I'm in Oakland, California with my family visiting an old friend.
Late in the afternoon, we wander over to a local outdoor craft market by the water.
Stall by stall, we work our way through.
More accurately.
I sit on a bench in the shade, schvitzing and complaining while my wife and daughter explore.
In 20 minutes in, I get a text.
Come now, we found a really cool one.
So I navigate my way around to find them in the middle of a stall, alive with just high contrast photo montages.
And the photographer Steve, spends his time moseying around San Francisco and pretty much anywhere else taking pictures of graffiti and old signs.
And then he isolates the letters and prints them out large format on photo paper to form words and phrases made up of patchwork letters.
If it sounds a little ransomy, it is, but it works.
It's just super cool and playful.
We get to chatting, and he tells us how he's always had a love of photography.
This is his passion, though he's fairly new at quote going pro.
We talk about our shared interests in street art and photography and graffiti.
Just a lovely conversation in human.
He brings his kids into it.
A number of pieces on display are actually done by them.
And we're captivated by his story and the creativity of his work and the just joy radiating from him.
So we commissioned him to make a number of pieces with different phrases to send to people that we love.
And a few months go by and the pieces arrive to us and get shipped to various people, all landing with gratitude and all.
End of story, right?
Except it's not.
A few days later, an email arrives addressed to Stephanie and me.
Turns out he had recently left a long, successful career as a senior tech executive.
And the last company he worked for got acquired.
He stayed on for another year or so, but it wasn't feeling right.
So he eventually decided to leave.
And he vowed not to go back into the industry.
But months in without direction.
He was kind of spinning a little bit with no sense or momentum towards what was next.
And he wanted to do something that honored his passion, creativity and desire to spend more time with friends and family.
So he bought a bunch of business books, read two, then stopped when he got to the third and just started taking action.
That book.
The third one was Career Renegade, which I wrote and then published with Crown Pen and Random House back in 2009, which feels like a million years ago now.
And as he shared in his email.
When I initially read this book, it was as if the author was speaking to me directly.
There were so many parallels in the author's life and the stories of others in the book.
Career Renegade, which is now wildly dated, by the way was largely about finding unconventional paths to mission-driven entrepreneurship.
And through our really months of conversation, he'd never made the connection until then.
Navigating some challenges, he grabbed lunch with a mentor and shared his situation.
The guy pulls out Career Renegade, slid it across the table and told him to read it.
And then he tells him he already has.
And then it clicks looking at the cover.
He saw my name and realized for the first time the person he'd been speaking with and making art for is the same one who wrote the book that helped inspire him to start that very endeavor.
And he wrapped sharing how in his words, And the things I have passionate about.
Most importantly, me and my family and my path in life.
So I was shook in the best of ways.
As a maker, as a writer, as an artist, as an author, you never know how the work you create will land when you're in the thick of creation.
You try to write, sculpt, paint, or make whatever is real for you.
You share ideas stories insights images feelings, light resources and just hope to land with others.
But you really never know.
You keep doing it largely because it's the thing you can't not do.
Maker's got to make.
Constantly resisting the temptation to tap the mic and ask, is this thing on?
And then every once in a while, if you're lucky and you stay in it long enough, the universe gives you the sign.
The dent you dream your work of making boomerangs back to you, letting you know, keep going.
This matters.
You matter.
And so you do.
And that brings us to our next spoken word piece from my A Week at the Wheel newsletter.
This one is entitled, Less Show, More Soul.
2002.
Mexican Riviera.
I am sweating, almost violently.
Barefoot in the middle of a tiled thatched-roof palapa, feet from rolling surf.
I'm there with a yoga wunderkind, an equally acclaimed kirtan singer and a hundred sweaty humans training to become yoga teachers.
We practice, we teach, we move, we twist, we grind, we stretch, we shake until we can no longer move.
My head is pounding.
Fruit is abundant, but all I want is caffeine and a fan.
On the last day, something's different.
Our leader begins to call postures.
Minutes in, his number two takes over the call.
Up, down, down dog, fingers wide, palms kiss the mat.
He tags number three, who takes us through the next sun salutation.
I see the pattern and start to know what's coming.
Three others on his team take the teaching baton.
As we flow, a hundred sweaty bodies pose by pose, through the soupy morning air.
Nearly two hours remain.
Who will lead next?
I stand in namaskar mountain pose, erect at the mat's edge, hand in prayer, waiting and breathing.
My eyes find our teachers.
I surprise myself.
I actually want to go first, in part because I'm shaking and I want to get it over with, but also because I think I'm better than I am.
He smiles and nods.
I step off my mat and begin to stalk the room.
Inhale, I bellow as my inner introvert goes just full carny.
And the next few minutes are surreal, a blur of breath and flow.
I'd never led a group this size through anything quite like this.
It's showtime.
I'm overwhelmed, but surprisingly peace-ish.
I own my own studio back home.
Damned if I'm not already good, better than most, or so I have deluded myself into believing.
I finish the sequence with attitude and step back to my mat.
The teacher is waiting.
He sees through me.
Leaning in to save my ego, he whispers.
Less show, more soul.
And then calls the next sacrifice.
Now, I'm pissed.
They were moving and grooving and laughing.
Who in the yoga demigod fuck does he think he is?
It would take years to understand what happened, to learn that, at least for me in that moment, show had become a soul's shield.
So much bravado, posturing. all to distract from the simple fact.
I had no idea who I was or what I was doing.
And the last thing I wanted for others to know, to see me in the full catastrophe of my profound imperfection.
So I stepped into a persona.
I put on a show.
Well, at least, if they didn't like it, it would have been the character I was playing that rejected, and not me.
And there's a place for that, of course.
It's fine if you want to hide behind a character or invite people into a fantasy.
If they know what you're delivering...
And what they're responding to isn't you.
It's a role you're playing.
It's the bargain you've all agreed to.
I mean, Hollywood is built upon this social contract.
But often that's not the case.
And it wasn't for me.
The character they thought was me really was just an arm's length placeholder.
A living, breathing shield keeping their open hearts from my armored soul.
It's not that it was fake, but rather filtered.
Okay, so maybe part of it actually was fake.
I repeated this pattern so many times over so many years.
It became my default.
Hiding in plain view became a way of being.
Depending on the circumstance, honestly, it still is.
Eventually, all that hiding, living behind a shield, though, it takes its toll.
You find yourself surrounded, not by friends, lovers, and community, but by an audience.
And you learn with sobering repetition.
An audience stays as long as you perform.
A friend or love stays as long as you unfold.
And a community stays as long as you serve.
So I'm still working on unwinding this, likely will be for years.
Always asking when I find myself guarded, hiding, or showing up in some veiled way, to what end?
Trying to distinguish between healthy, necessary boundaries and fear of being seen outed or rejected.
Sometimes I'm good with the answer, other times I'm not, but at least I've gotten more into the habit of asking the question what need is the show serving?
What work, if any, is it keeping me from?
Who or what am I trying to protect myself from?
And what if I let more of myself actually be seen?
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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Good Life Project is sponsored by Airbnb.
So remember when I told you about our producer, Lindsay's big adventure?
She packed up her family for five months in Oaxaca, Mexico.
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And that brings us to our next spoken word piece here.
And this one is entitled The Compound Interest on Being There.
So success version one, compounding money.
Popular lore says you go to school, graduate at 22 and then spend the next oh 25 to 30 years with your head down working your ass off.
You're young, you've got lots of time and energy and little to lose.
And I'll see you next time. to support the all in build early, then kick back approach.
By the time you're in your 50s, the fruits of your labor in the form of status and money will have compounded so much.
You'll finally be able to breathe, to have real, lasting choices for the rest of your life, to provide for your family.
This is the lore.
And for a relatively small coterie of humans, it actually works.
But more often, people start down this road, but experience a very different end to their stories.
So two major ways that this approach can go sideways.
Way number one, it's often based on the wisdom of the few who survive it.
So what this approach doesn't account for is the fact that most people who follow this path don't actually end up with a life-changing stack of money in the bank.
They accumulate responsibility and ratchet up their cost structure to match their earnings, and sure they bank some of it, but generally they don't put nearly as much of it away or invest it as you would expect or as they're quote supposed to.
They sacrifice so much of the day-to-day joys of being present in their lives and the lives of those they love for so long, but they don't end up with the security they'd hoped for and expected.
So once they land in their 50s, they find they need to keep working as hard as they ever did and continue to live a life that is far more removed from their partners and kids and friends and activities they love and health than they wished for or thought would have.
The only thing they've actually compounded is stress and complexity, worsening health, deepening loneliness and the depth and quality of the relationships they have with the very people they said they did it all for and meant it.
And the second way that this often goes off the rails.
This approach is what are called delusional cost assessments.
We are so good at seeing what we want to see and ignoring what we'd rather not own.
Let's say you follow this approach and do in fact knock it out of the park.
You make a lot, save and invest early and often do incredibly well with it, compounding interest and capital gains leading to financial wealth.
By the time you're in your 50s, you are financially free.
Yes, this is pretty damn awesome, not going to lie.
Doesn't mean you stop working, but you no longer have to.
You now have a level of choice, optionality that simply didn't exist before, which is amazing.
I'm not taking anything away from that.
It's what we all want on some level.
The question is, at what cost?
Sometimes, these are the much rarer examples.
Financial bounty is built on the back of an equally fierce commitment to family friends love, mental and physical health.
They grow together lockstep.
It can happen.
But the more common story is radically different.
When you're that all in on the money and status side of things early on, there is still a very real risk that the toll it takes is not just that you never hit your money, but also that when you arrive at that level of glorious abundance you've given your life to.
You have no one left to share it with that you genuinely care about.
Or that genuinely cares about you.
And your mental and physical health are holding on by a thread.
Yet you tell yourself the story that still those things are either repairable or replaceable.
And maybe in fact they are.
But what if they're not?
There is a huge element of survivor bias in the whole concept.
The few who say yes to this approach and do, end up knocking wealth access, status and opportunity out of the park and somehow stay deeply connected and, well along the way, profess this approach to the moon because it worked so well for them.
They survived.
So as a general principle, this whole approach must have universal legs.
I'm not saying heads down, work like crazy, banker Benjamins and Watson Compout cannot work.
For some, it can, and it does.
I'm just saying get really clear on the quote soft costs, which are often the very things that make life worth living.
And ask what did happen if you still worked hard, saved and invested, benefited from that compound interest, but also did it in a way that created more space for presence and life along the way, even if that meant you'd hit your number a decade or two late?
It's about making a conscious choice and understanding what's truly at risk.
So let me paint you a different picture here.
We'll call it success version two, right?
And I'll call this compounding presence.
What if, instead of focus on working insanely hard, amassing as much money as possible as quickly as you can, saving and investing and rocking that compound interest on money, you focused more on the compound interest that comes from being fiercely there in the lives of those you care most about?
And at a time they care most about you being there.
I'm not saying abandon hard work or savings or investing and growing, but what if you reoriented to a level that let you be present and engaged in your non-work life along the way?
What is the compound interest on you being emotionally present and deeply engaged during the early years of a relationship with a partner?
What is the compounded effect of being there in those early years?
When should you choose to bring kids into the world?
They need you most, when everything is spinny, and even if they push you away, they want to know you're there for them.
What is the compound interest on being involved?
Saying I love you, then showing you mean it, making them feel safe, seen and accepted.
Showing up when life gets hard, being there for the celebrations and the sacrifices, for the painful moments and stumbles and fumbles, and losses and debacles redemptions, recoveries and triumphs.
Being the embodiment of ever-present love and trust and acceptance and guidance when they need it most before they head into the world.
And the very practical window to forge this depth of connection begins to close.
What is the compound interest on having such a close bond with those you love friends family, chosen family, community that they trust you, share with you and invite you in?
A sounding board when asked and a safe place to land when needed.
What is the compound interest on being there early and often, even if it means leaving money on the table and having to make some of that up down the road?
What is the exponential impact on your life, on their lives and everyone you all interact with, not just in the moment, but for the rest of your and their days?
No one talks about this.
No one offers this contrast to the classic narrative that says put your head down, surrender your life to the work for the first two or three decades, compound your financial wealth and circle back and assume your life will be there for you.
Relationships will survive.
Your kids will know, love and trust you and you them.
And I don't know why we don't talk about this.
Again, I am not saying don't work hard, make money save, invest and benefit from the early compounding effect over time.
Nor am I proclaiming that I've done this right in my own life.
At times, I've been all over the place and hindsight might have made different calls.
I'm simply saying own the truth of the money-centric paradigm and the potential costs and also acknowledge there's something other than money that can both compound or be destroyed over time.
Presence, trust, and love.
When you focus solely on the money side, you often unwittingly gut the relational side which, according to oh a metric ton of research, is singularly determinative of a life worth living.
And once you've lost or broken those bonds, it's a far harder thing to fix or live with than it is to find ways to put more money in the bank.
Is there really any greater wealth in life than knowing there are people who see you, know you, love you and have genuinely got you and you've got them?
Curious, what's your take?
And that brings us to our next essay.
And this one is called, Are You Pushing People Away Without Realizing It?
Here we go.
There's this phenomenon.
You ask someone a question, the answer sharing a fun interesting, cool experience or insight, and your brain tingles.
You have experienced that same thing.
You want to chime in and just offer your version of their experience.
It's human nature.
Shared experiences, especially ones that involve surprise and vulnerability can deepen connection.
We want others to feel seen and heard and celebrated.
And we also want the same.
Mutual sharing around either collective or complementary experience, it gets us there.
You tell your story, I jump in right after to tell my version of a similar experience.
We fall in friend love, yay.
Except not so much.
This very impulse to deepen a connection by offering common experience can actually have the effect of pushing people away if not done in a conscious, curious and generous way.
And we've got no idea this silent estrangement is happening, often until it's too late.
I've learned this the hard way and been blessed to have many reps.
Spent Nearly 14 years now co-creating over a thousand long-form conversations with incredible people, often high-profile strangers during my tenure hosting the Good Life Project podcast.
Many became fast confessors, conversational dance partners, or lasting connections.
In truth, I'm still very much learning and finding myself regularly violating my own guidelines on quote how to do it right?
Now here's how the simple impulse hurls us off the connection rails.
Here's how it works.
You share your story.
I listen-ish.
Check.
But as soon as I realized I've got my version or my take the whole time I'm starting to pay less attention, not intentionally, but my noggin is going.
I can't believe this.
I've seen, heard, experienced, or felt the same thing.
I can't wait for you to stop talking so I can tell you my story or insight.
And then we can revel together in both.
Awesome sauce.
And the minute you're done speaking, I jump in.
I think it's a bonding moment and maybe done right, it is.
But equally, if not more often, there's a shift in conversational dynamic that transforms it from bonding moment to feeling disconnected at best and diminished at worst.
Here's what the other person may actually be feeling.
So this is the thought in their head.
Wow, I just shared a super cool, fun, interesting story and idea.
And there's actually so much more to tell.
The details, the more nuanced story, how it affected me, which is what matters 10 times more than the facts, the undertone, aftermath.
How it changed me or my lens in the situation, person or world.
Sure, it was fun sharing the basic situation, but it'd be so much richer and cooler.
And deep in this moment and the connection with you, had I been given the chance to offer more of the context and impact.
And had you responded with something that let me know you appreciated me, that you loved how I shared it and were curious enough about me and what happened, that you actually want to know more, that you were paying attention, not just to find a story to share, that let you take the mic and center yourself in the conversation, but to let me feel that magical sense of being known.
This unspoken dynamic is sometimes seeded with a certain amount of passive aggression or malintent.
You have a version of their story, insider offering that you believe is even wilder, cooler, better.
And you're trying to kind of take over the conversation, grab the mic or one up them.
Even worse, it's about putting them in their place.
Or if you're feeling threatened, lower status or insecure, which translation is probably most of my 30s and 40s.
It's an attempt to level up your perceived worth in their eyes.
It happens all the time, even if not a conscious thing.
But more often, it's actually about something else.
Social oblivion meets neural impulse.
So you mean no ill will.
It's just a human compulsion to reciprocate.
Same way you smile at a stranger when they smile at you on the street.
We're just wired to be this way.
And you're oblivious to the potential harm you're doing to the emotional connective tissue of the conversation.
They might not even get why they're feeling more pushed away than connected, until it becomes a pattern.
The reps let them more easily see and better understand what's happening.
And confession, I have done this to people countless times, trying my best to stop.
In interviews and quote on the record conversations, but even more in conversations in my personal life.
I don't generally over talk.
That's more of an overt sign of disrespect.
No honestly, it's taken more than that to break the habit.
Interviewing so many people for so many years has largely trained me out of it, because I've learned how much harder it actually makes the editing process for my team.
But I do still have the strong impulse to jump in with my version or take.
But there's a better way.
Here's a simple approach that'll allow you to let your conversation partner feel just utterly seen and celebrated, while giving you the chance to experience the same.
I call it the prompt ask, ask, ask, share approach.
The strategy is technically simple, yet psychologically hard.
The hard part being just regulating your immediate urge to take the mic and share your version.
So here's how it works.
We start with a prompt.
And you say something like, hey, so what's new with you?
What's going on?
What happened?
You get the point.
Often you don't even need this prompt.
Your conversation partner just starts into a story or insight or share.
The ball is now rolling.
And then you allow.
Right?
So the allow part is you give them space that they need to say everything that comes to mind, nodding along, reflecting back an element of what they shared, to let them know you're paying attention.
Now the second part, ask.
Say something like, wow, that's so interesting or amazing or surprising or insightful or insane.
Tell me more.
Three magic words there.
Tell me more.
And then again, You allow.
Give them space that they need to say everything that comes to mind, nodding along, reflecting back an element of what you shared.
Again, let them know you're paying attention.
Then we get to the second ask.
Once again, you say something like, Wow, tell me more.
And then what?
Or what else?
So again, we're asking follow-ups to allow them the space to go deeper.
And then we allow them that space.
And we listen.
And then once more, we ask, oh, and how did that make you feel?
How does that land with you?
Whoa, what else?
We want to get past the fact to the feeling.
And then again, we allow, give them space to say everything that comes to mind.
The specific language here isn't the point.
Change it to whatever is appropriate to the moment and the conversation.
The bigger idea is this.
Ask at least three considered and relevant follow-up questions that tease out both the facts and the feelings and let them share before.
Honoring your legit and potentially connective tissue building impulse to share your side or version.
Now, now we get to that final point, which is share.
I had a similar insight or idea or realization, and then give them a chance to ask you about it and share your relevant ideas or stories in a way that is complimentary and not competitive.
So at this point, they have felt so much more acknowledged and valued and seen heard embraced, respected.
When you finally share your offering, the chance of them giving you the same grace goes up dramatically, and the likelihood of the conversation becoming a far richer, deepening experience is just exponentially higher.
By the way, this also works incredibly well when you're in a conversation where you That can transform a polarizing interaction into one where disagreement remains, but higher levels of understanding and dignity enter the conversation and, in turn, the relationship.
That said, let's be clear.
This approach is not about handing them the mic and letting them put you on blast for the whole conversation.
If they say all they want to say, then neither give the mic back to you or, as soon as you share a bit over talk, or take it back.
That'll get old really fast too.
It's about laying a foundation, creating a conversational dynamic where each person has the chance to feel seen and heard and elevated by the way the experience unfolds and, in turn, how they get to unfold and connect.
So give it a try, even with short, sweet interactions like your favorite barista or checkout person, your bestie or partner, new acquaintance or work relationship.
And note what happens.
And then share with others how that experience has unfolded.
And again, if you want to be able to review that whole sequence in more detail, just head on over to Awake at the Wheel.
Again, the link is in the comments and you'll see it laid out in a sort of a step-by-step fashion.
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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And that brings us to our second to last piece.
So these two final essays actually came out of my very recent experience spending the better part of a month in Japan and processing just so much of the experience in real time.
Still very much processing it, but a lot bubbled up when I was there.
So here's the first one of those.
And it's entitled, Icky Guy, Not What You Think.
Writing from a very hot Tokyo, thinking about heading out, weather abscess, just don't.
95 degrees, similar humidity.
Just came off a week walking part of the Nakasendo Trail with my daughter.
It's a former Edo period, which is 1603 to 1868, path connecting Kyoto to Tokyo that winds through mountains and post towns in the Kiso Valley in Nagano Prefecture, which is kind of known as Japan's Alps, often deep in ancient woods, meandering along dirt trails, rough stone paths and the occasional short stint along highways and byways preserved to this day kind of more of a pilgrimage route.
The full trail runs about 534 kilometers or 332 miles, passing through 69 station towns.
And we dropped into a handful of legs in the middle of the trail, traversing two mountain passes and feeling at moments like we'd taken a step back in time.
And in this heat, we didn't so much hike as we did walk slowly deliberately schvitzing mercilessly, ambling from one massive craggle Japanese horse chestnut tree to the next.
Rocks covered in moss lent a prehistoric feel to the journey, as we found our way over the Torrey Pass.
And as we wound in and out of small towns, we stayed in ryokans or tiny residence homes along the way.
Dropping into a completely different culture.
Learning to show up and relate on their terms was at once humbling and yet joyful and beautiful.
Serenaded by one luminous homeowner over the most delicious hand-cooked, endless course dinner, conversing more by gesture than word and being told in no uncertain terms we need to join in the singing, even though we had no idea what we were singing.
I just really loved the slower, simpler elegance that draped everyday life on the trail, which was, a week later, obliterated upon emerging into Shinjuku Station in Tokyo.
I thought New York City's Penn Station at rush hour was about the height of madness.
In comparison to Shinjuku Station, at more or less any time of day, it's near pastoral.
The contrast is jarring, but also a bit intoxicating.
Tokyo is, in a word, electric.
Another word, mesmerizing.
So much kinetic energy splattering in all directions all at once.
A full calamity of old and new coexisting in some weird harmony that's kind of hard to place, let alone describe.
And along the way...
I kept finding myself bouncing between these notions of old and new, eastern and western.
How they sometimes dance seamlessly, other times clash fiercely.
And interestingly, the word icky guy keeps sneaking into my head.
It's a concept that's woven through my exploration of work life, meaning and joy many times over the years.
Supposedly, it traces back to the Heian period, which is 794 to 1185 CE, so really ancient.
And my understanding is that it combines the root words iki and gai.
The former often translated as spirit or life, but in a more nuanced way, seems more about a certain joie de vivre or style or aesthetic sensibility that embraces elegance aliveness, vitality and life.
And that second part gai, from what I can gather, can shift meanings depending on the kanji or written character used to express it.
In the context of the word ikigai, it's more about worth or value, a sense of purpose.
Together the word translates roughly to reason for being tending towards a more integrated, grounded and expansive take.
It's the thing or things people, experiences or devotions that give you a reason to get out of bed in the morning, that provide a sense of purpose and meaning.
This could range from picking up a grandkid after school and taking care of them in the afternoons, to making art, to writing, tending a garden, participating in community activity or simply being in a relationship that matters, or literally millions of other things.
Simple things, big things, soulful things, or monetary, private, or public.
And here's where the concept goes off the rails, when it meets the Western world.
We love taking ideas that are deeply rooted in the essence and often generational, old ideals and teachings of human flourishing and turn them into modern and useful commercial strategies.
And yes, I am as guilty as the next person here.
There's a meme that's been floating around the interwebs for years, often expressed as a Venn diagram.
And it depicts Ikigai as the overlap between four circles.
And those are what you love to do, what you're good at, what the world needs and what you can get paid for.
This not only feels reductionist, it seems just plain wrong to me.
Why do we do this?
So a couple of questions.
One, why is it only about things we love to do?
Plenty of people do things they don't love, maybe things that are brutally hard, but that also provide an abiding sense of purpose and meaning.
I mean, does every person love taking care of another being who is sick or struggling?
Often, no.
It can be incredibly tough on both parties, and yet it can also serve as a powerful source of meaning and purpose.
Another question, why does everything have to become about what makes us money?
Isn't it enough that it brings us, or maybe someone we love joy, or lets them breathe a little more easily or feel seen, safe and held?
Safe bet mom's not in the parenting game for the salary.
Can we just do it?
Because it's a pathway to our own fuller expression.
Another question, why does it have to include some external sense of validation or worth?
Can it also be about the simple internal feeling, knowing who we are, how we're showing up, what we're expressing?
The very fact of our existence endows us with value, with worth.
Can an artist who loses time painting even just in the evenings on weekends, feel that the very act of expression and exploration of craft has value?
Another question.
Why must it only apply to things we're innately gifted at or have become highly skilled at?
I'm pretty terrible at playing guitar.
And yet, when I get a chance to do it with friends, I feel this deep sense of connectedness, of really being exactly where I need to be.
Like this moment matters deeply.
Why must we limit ourselves to maniacally exalting the pursuit of mastery over the simple pleasure of doing a thing for no other reason than the feeling it gives us, even when we're absolute novices and will likely never be anything but?
And why must the whole world need it?
So they're saying that fostering an abandoned animal isn't enough.
You've got to build a global network of animal fosters for it to count and kick ass at it and get paid for it.
Seriously?
I mean, seriously?
Is it a lovely thing when we find ourselves centering activities and relationships that check all four boxes from that Venn diagram.
Sure.
It's fantastic.
At various points in my life, I have been able to do just that and even call it my living.
But the simple act of coming home to a deeper sense of self, a truer knowing that who you are and what makes you come alive, and then finding ways channels, moments pass, to let that essence become an increasing part of your life, that's also enough.
Your reason for being doesn't have to earn your living or even a single dime for it to be valid, or your many reasons for being by day.
Nor must you be masterful at it or have millions of people line up to demand it of you.
Then he prays upon you for it. nor, by the way, need it be singular.
You might have any number of things that bring your life meaning, that lead to a sense of purpose or mattering.
They all count, even if you can't point to a single driving source of all things purpose.
Being in Japan, especially walking slowly sweltering, noticing through ancient woods and tiny towns, Seeing the care people give to even the smallest garden patches and plates of food or interactions, reminds me how simple it really is.
Spend as much time as you can lost in activities that fill you up, while surrounding yourself with people you cannot get enough of know.
The very fact of your birth has endowed you with value, with worth.
Offer it along with your heart, your essence, your humor and wisdom to others freely.
And maybe leave the Venn diagram to someone else.
Curious, what's your take?
Always interested in hearing your thoughts.
And that, my friends, brings us to the final spoken word piece, which is my second reflection on my time in Tokyo.
This was actually written about two weeks after that last one.
After spending a lot more time in Tokyo, going much deeper into immersion in experiences, talking to so many people.
And coming out with like a lot more knowledge and a slightly different perspective.
This one is called, and this was actually written just after my final night in Tokyo before coming back to the States.
This one is entitled Motionless, How Different Cultures Feel or Not.
Final night in Tokyo, flying out in the morning.
Spent the better part of a month in Japan, hiking and stifling heat and humidity in the mountains around Nagano and the Kiso Valley, handing off to the frenetic electric spin of Tokyo, one of the biggest fastest, most gloriously disorienting cities on the North End.
Hiroshima, Kyoto, Ujinara, back to Tokyo, tonight is the last kiss.
I'm sitting four rows from the stage in a tiny yet iconic jazz club on the east side of Shinjuku Pit Inn.
Birthed in 1965, it quickly became the place for the greatest musicians, first in Japan and then the world, to play.
Word has it, in those early days, the smoke was so thick you could barely make out the stage.
The fact that Pitt and I were both born a month apart in the same year is not lost on me.
60 years.
I mean, my God, what this place has seen.
The people who played here, been made here, and in turn, made the place what it is.
Careers collaborations, milestones and magic brought to life countless jams as players took the stage and became sonic supercolliders, alchemists of sound soul, time and space.
You can feel it all in the walls of a place like this and it makes me wonder what about my 60 years?
Who are the players who wander through the front and back door, the hallways and green rooms, the main stage and sticky floors?
And what of my contributions?
Thank you very much.
Tonight.
It's a small crowd, appropriate to the size of the place, which is in the basement, dimly lit.
Maybe 30, 40 seats top, something like that.
There's no bad spot.
Everyone is feet from the stage, the sound, the action.
There is, of course, a killer sound system, but at this scale, it feels like largely overkill.
On cue, the lights dim.
Again, I'm wondering how often they dim on the stage of my own life.
Whether the spots come back on, who walks on stage when they do, with whom, and why.
Yasumasa Kumagai meanders over to the piano sporting a black t-shirt that says Japanese can groove and a black backwards baseball cap with the words Jazzy Bear emblazoned on the front in gold.
Hiroshi Ikegiri steps to the base.
More considerate, kind of lower key in a loose jacket.
Shogo Hamada takes a seat before the drums.
This wry smile and button-down shirt looks kind of like an accountant, but what he's about to do to the drums will obliterate that vibe in seconds.
And finally...
The quartet founder and leader, Atsushi Ikeda, takes the stage alto sax in hand, observably older than the others, starts just quietly snapping out a beat.
Hamada picks it up and we are off.
Nakeda, as the story is told, inherited the kind of spirit of the band formed by the late great jazz pianist Fumio Karashima, who lost his life to cancer in 2017.
And he sought to gather a new generation of younger musicians to create something a bit more well punk.
I mean, my words, not his.
And safe argument, they have succeeded.
Tossing the baton from sax to keys to drum to bass and back, the vibe in the room builds.
It's electric.
And as often happens with great music that just envelops you.
I began losing control over my body and I turned to see my wife's face sitting next to me and our daughter to the left of her eyes, closed head bombing to the beat.
My foot is tapping left hand playing air keys along with Yasumasa as he solos, despite the fact that I cannot and have never played piano.
And my head bobbles through all manners of swish and sway, with the classic wannabe real musician stink face continuously contorting, just from ear to ear.
And before you reply, Pixar, it never happened.
Mercifully, photos and videos are not allowed in this club.
Halfway through the first set, I kind of break out of the groove to take in the room.
And that's when it hits me.
Everybody else is just sitting there, completely, utterly still, stone-faced.
Non-reactive.
Like they were listening to Ben Stein play the teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off joining anyone?
Anyone?
Nonplussed.
I'm confused.
What in the actual can you feel the beat?
Fuck, i mean.
Sitting feet away, you can feel the literal plug, boom and pulse of the bass, the crash of cymbals over the brush of the snare and The push of the kick, the lush melancholy of felt-bound hammers hitting tightly drawn piano springs and ricocheting off the open top and into the crowd.
And Ikeda's alto sax just cutting and dancing, teasing its way through all of it.
In what world does one living breathing sensing, being just sit motionless through something like this?
And again, my mind goes back to the smoky basement club of my own life.
How often have I created the space to surrender to the vibe, losing time and finding life?
How often have I allowed myself the freedom to be affected moved, changed by what's unfolding in the room?
Knowing my own sublimation isn't just paying homage but helping to co-create that glorious state of collective effervescence.
How often have I held back out of a fabricated self of self consciousness and mandated propriety, unwittingly annihilating the possibility of genuine elevation and connection?
So back to the show.
I realize what I'm seeing is actually a reflection of a far more complex culture than I'd realize, populates the chutes and alleys the peaks and valleys of this stunning country.
It's a study in contradiction.
And why not?
I mean, aren't we all?
A population that lives each day flirting with the rhythm of fire, constantly under the threat of volcanic eruption, earthquake and tsunami, having endured what's arguably one of the most destructive and dehumanizing events in the history of modern war the dropping of two nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the stunning resilience that emerges out of a perpetual cycle of both human-made and natural devastation and rebuilding, all mixed with thousands of years of dynastic power, a mashup of theologies and governance that's evolved into democracy, while still embracing a certain reverence for a past that continues to center propriety and stasis over possibility self-expression, creativity and innovation.
There's an intentional indirectness in the name of nuance, politeness and preserving the status quo, an artifice of peacefulness that keeps me wondering what's underneath it all.
Beneath the gloss of order and tranquility, is there a not-so-latent pain brewing and growing?
In conversation with friends and locals and expat.
Lifers speak to a slow burn.
Some might label suffering.
Not all the time and not for all, and there's much to be thankful for, including a social and medical safety net, but the discontent is there for many, just under the surface.
None more obvious than the vaunted salaryman who track into single employer careers in their late teens and build lives often of stifled desperation, drinking and a level of overwork that's led to the growing phenomenon of karoshi or death from overwork, and a younger generation that is actively bucking the norms and rejecting.
Generations of stifling, demanding more and different.
The contrast is profound and in many ways disruptive and disconcerting and, depending who you ask, either wildly disrespectful or incredibly exciting.
All unfolding in the larger context of a stunning linear.
All unfolding in the larger context of a stunning lineage of visual art, theater and literature, philosophical and contemplative traditions.
Ancient temples co-mingle with townhouses and skyscrapers, rice fields and high-speed rail.
The crush of overtourism and rampant Western, brand-loving consumerism the likes of which I've never before experienced.
A visit to the largest temples and attractions in Tokyo finds you shoulder to shoulder with throngs, thousands upon thousands of humans in search not of wisdom and understanding, not of the sacred, but rather of the perfect selfie for Insta.
Meanwhile, minutes away, in a tiny building on a side street, a third generation shibori dye master reveals the breathtaking meticulous craft that takes teams of artisans two years to tie over 150000 knots into silk and then hand dye utterly majestic kimonos, tethering ancient custom to modern life and a deep appreciation for ritual and craft.
And 20 minutes south of Kyoto, on a lesser traveled street in Uji, a small retail shop fence five generations working side by side grinding tea leaves into matcha, while an elder invites you to sit and enjoy a bowl.
It's all just insanely head-spinning, beautiful, madcap, elegant, cataclysmic, sacred, brutal.
Which brings us back to the stoicism at the club, the utter non-response.
It begins to make sense.
Maybe it's not so much that my friends in the audience don't yearn for and enjoy the very same vibration I'm experiencing.
It's that they've come to move through life within the context of a set of cultural norms that encourage them to experience and appreciate it very differently than me, to internalize rather than physicalize the experience.
And yet still, I wonder, if that is what's going on, at what cost?
Music doesn't take over your body because you will it to.
It does so because it can't not.
I cannot conceive of a non-manufactured response that keeps rigid and still the form, and While the sea of cells that make up my essence are barraged with a vibratory soundscape that compels immersion, reaction and movement.
I'm not at the club simply to witness and appreciate mastery.
I'm there to feel something, to let it move me.
If I keep this from happening, not just when it comes to jazz, but really to more or less everything, what is the cost of that?
What does it take from an experience that is designed at its heart to awaken something in me that craves a life beyond containment?
Then again, maybe this is just all my band, my map of what makes music and life worth experiencing.
Maybe my arrogance is showing through here.
Maybe this is my lack of understanding, an ego-driven superimposition of my own cultural response to art, to music, to gathering, in the name of welcoming something that holds the power to not only transform the moment but also the beings within the moment.
Maybe there's a certain sadness I'm assuming into existence.
When I see a group of humans who've said yes to an experience, then allow it to be governed as much by what presents as repression as it does savoring and a more full-bodied participation.
And again I'm back in the basement club of my own life, reflecting on how, in even a broader culture that creates space for, even celebrates personal expression creativity innovation directness boldness, revelatory joy and the ability to wear it all in your sleeve, even then, I still stifle.
Remains smaller, more constrained than I know myself to be.
I don't allow myself to take the stage to surrender to the jazz of it all, constraining myself instead to well-worn grooves, proven notes, phrases and songs, and reliable safe players and songbooks.
Even when enjoying the show from the audience, I wonder how often do I afford myself the freedom to not just be affected but to fully embody the transference, to let it show, to offer myself to the collective in a way that lets more of the real me out and helps to co-create more of that collective magic, first just for me, and then maybe over time at scale, to a world that needs magic like never before?
Everything I remember is a mirror.
Maybe, just maybe, what I'm really reacting to as I glance around at the stone-faced audience, the basement of a small hazy oasis in a foreign land embraced by soul and sound, is that same part of me that has taken up space stone-faced, in the countless days, nights and opportunities to jam, to create transcendent moments and offerings, to beckon and then welcome more jazz into the club of my own life.
Or maybe I'm just woefully devoid of dark chocolate and fresh veggies.
Don't know.
What's your take here?
And, as I shared in my last missive and really with the last two here, I also just want to own the fact that I am deeply aware of my own gaps in knowledge and experience when it comes to new and different places and cultures.
Still very much a newbie and a sponge, always excited to learn from those further down the path or with lived experience.
This is why we travel.
Not just to see the sights, but to take and experience culture, history, people, and conversation.
To drink in the shared essence that binds us. to learn how to be more human along the way.
And as I end all of these with a whole lot of love and gratitude, Jonathan.
And that brings this fourth compilation of spoken word pieces, versions of essays from my Awake at the Wheel newsletter, to a close.
I hope you've enjoyed it.
And again, if you want to take your time and meander through these more slowly and read the words on a page, you can find a link in the show notes below.
I'll see you next time.
This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields.
Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young.
Christopher Carter crafted our theme music.
And, of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too.
If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you're still listening here.
Do me a personal favor, a seven second favor, share it with just one person.
I mean, if you want to share it with more, that's awesome too, but just one person even.
Then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered, to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter, because that's how we all come alive together.
Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project.
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