Summer sandbox

zooming out, looking at the full canvas

I’ve been traveling lately, including a week in Japan in full tourist mode. It wasn’t what you’d call relaxing (my feet would like to file a complaint about the blisters), but it was a kind of reset. The kind that comes when we step out of our usual surroundings and let our minds loosen their grip a little.

Before the trips, I made a decision: no work. No thinking “I should be writing”, or trying to fit everything in. I just wanted to be present, you know?

That’s not natural for me. I’ve spent most of my adult life following a productivity rhythm that really wasn’t healthy. But we can teach old dogs new tricks 😛 and I am learning.

And every time I take a proper break — like a real one, not just “working from somewhere scenic” — I notice something: it's not just the rest that restores me. Usually, it’s perspective. Space. The chance to zoom out and look at the full canvas instead of the two inches in front of my nose. Space for new ideas to drop in. Space to see what’s shifting.

And somewhere between the third and fourth Shinto shrine, I felt it. Something is shifting.

It’s still foggy and I don’t yet have all the words to describe it — even to myself. But I can feel the pull. And the good thing is that all the gray hairs have taught me to be comfortable with ambiguity. So I’m just going to go along with it for now and see where it leads me.

This summer, I’ve decided I’m staying in the sandbox. Letting the ideas lead. Following the thread. Not going to force-define anything. There’s something new coming. But for now, I’m just going to enjoy the early hum of it.

✴️ How are you planning to spend your summer?

💭 not Socrates, but close enough

“We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all.” — Andrew Clark, The Breakfast Club

➢ I’m thinking it’s time to stop hiding it.

💬 last word

In the Meiji Jingu Shinto Shrine, there’s this camphor tree in front of the main shrine where personal prayers and wishes, written on votive tablets, are offered during Mikesai, their daily morning ceremony.

I went around this massive tree reading hundreds of wishes and aspirations of people from all parts of the world. And you know what? Doesn’t matter where we come from or what language we speak. We all are longing for the same thing.

Everything is fine,
Lou Blaser
(Vice Deputy of Whatever This Is)