Becoming Jayden Westen

when a character in a book reminds you who you want to be

Conversations about learning, becoming, and building a coherent life.

Hello,

I’ve taken a short break from my reading projects and switched to lighter reading, a sort of palate cleanser. Cozy mysteries are not my usual jam, but one author I like in the genre is Emylia Hall, and her Shell House Detectives series is one I enjoy.

Hall’s plots aren’t formulaic, unlike some of the other cozies I’ve read. I’ve not been able to guess the culprit (much as I tried) or what’s really going on. The stories are set in Cornwall, and I love reading about the Cornish coastline. And she’s got a most interesting sleuthing duo in the series: Ally Bright, a Caucasian artist and a widow in her 60s, and Jayden Westen, a mixed-race ex-cop, barely in his 30s, and a new dad.

Image by A.C.

While it was the female lead, Ally, who initially caught my attention, I have to say that it’s Jayden who’s really grown on me. His positive spirit, despite whatever’s happening, is what stays with me after each book.

“Cracked [ribs], worst case. I’m all good. I just can’t walk too fast. Or get up too quickly. Or laugh. Honestly, other than that, it’s all great.” — from The Death at the Vineyard

Over the course of 5 books, I’ve noticed that Jayden’s default setting can best be described as upbeat. But this has also got me thinking whether this is innate personality or actually a practice… a choice on Jayden’s part to view his circumstances a certain way.

He does not look away or pretend that nothing is amiss. He notes the cracked ribs. He admits to the pain. But he frames his situation in a way — perhaps a little absurdly — that isn’t so much “positive” as it is somehow preserving his agency. It feels like a choice, doesn’t it?

• • •

Decades ago, one of my best friends and I swore over wine that we would never become curmudgeons. That we would always be the glass-half-full ones, even when we’re old and gray and have lost all our teeth. And through the years, we have steadfastly stuck to this promise — at least when we are chatting with each other. We may be talking about a problem or a hardship we were experiencing, but we would always land on the silver lining, the thing that would allow us to move forward with a lighter heart. And I feel so grateful to have a friend who reminds me of this ideal, this kind of person I want to be.

• • •

An upbeat default setting isn’t something I could claim. Nor was it something I aimed for in the past. I think I was far too controlling, and therefore, more prone to being exceedingly frustrated, making it difficult to muster a setting anywhere close to what might be considered upbeat.

But in the last ten years or so, there has definitely been a softening. At first subconscious and later intentional, to be less controlling. To be more at peace and less whipped about by external happenings. Part of this change, I think, came naturally when I left the corporate world. But I credit much of it to the study of Stoicism, something I’ve fallen into quite accidentally.

One thing that appeals to me about the practice of Stoicism is the discipline and choice it asks of its practitioners. Epictetus would say, “You don’t control what happens, but you do have a say in how you interpret it.”

And that interpretation, fortunately, is trainable. In the Shell House Detectives books, I get that sense that Jayden has trained himself — perhaps subconsciously — to see things in a certain way. It doesn’t come across as cheerfulness for its own sake, but as an insistence on a certain kind of framing.

• • •

But maintaining an upbeat default setting takes hard work, especially for someone who’s not naturally so.

There are days when wallowing is easier, the downbeat offering much less resistance. I find myself in the company of someone who’s in full-on complaining mode, and the pull to jump in and pile on is so strong. I have to remind myself this isn’t who I want to be — and that’s if I even remember to remind myself!

Sometimes, I catch myself midway, and sometimes, it’s only on reflection that I realize what had happened.

But that is what training is like, isn’t it? When you’re working on getting yourself out of one kind of wiring and into another, of course, you wouldn’t nail it all the time, I tell myself.

• • •

If an upbeat disposition is trainable, I suppose the opposite is true as well. Complaining, always seeing what’s wrong first, can also be a practice — albeit perhaps unintentional. I can see how some people rehearse grievance the way others rehearse gratitude or humor. And they end up strengthening certain interpretive muscles through repetition.

It reminds me of William James and his caution: what we repeatedly attend to becomes the texture of our lives.

• • •

As I get older, the conversation with my best friend and the promise we made to each other all those years ago rings even truer. More than ever, I see that being curmudgeonly doesn’t happen all at once, but through tiny repeated acts of interpretation. And before long, if we haven’t been paying attention, it’s become who we are.

This is the thing I most want to guard myself from, perhaps even the work of a lifetime — the everyday practicing of how I’d want to show up and meet reality.

✴️ Questions for you:

• Do you think an upbeat disposition is mostly personality… or practice?

• Have you ever met someone whose way of moving through life made you want to adjust your own?

🏷 Becoming

💬 last word

Here’s one of my favorite songs. There’s also a relaxed, unforced optimism in Jack Johnson’s music that feels just perfect to close out this week’s letter…

Who's to say
What's impossible? Well, they forgot
This world keeps spinning, and with each new day
I can feel a change in everything
And as the surface breaks, reflections fade
But in some ways, they remain the same
And as my mind begins to spread its wings
There's no stopping curiosity
I want to turn the whole thing upside down…

All my best,
Lou Blaser

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Lou Blaser writes about learning, becoming, and building a coherent life. She also curates and maintains The Filtered, a digital library for reading, learning, and thinking better.