Yes.

I want to talk about this sometime. Most of the last three years for me has been spent in quiet reflection; nothing new there, of course, forKismuth, except that it was really really quiet, due to hard lockdown for a summer in Ho Chi Minh City, bracketed on both sides by monthslong silent space. See Solitude (Kismuth Books / 2016)

We can talk about the Art of Not Knowing and how it relates to Evaluating Life Choices. Think this could be really interesting.

Let’s try a group call.

Members* of S P A C E, please join me?

To be continued.

*New info on membership in S P A C E is at this crowdfunding page for #spacethezine.

kismuth members

How to evaluate your life | Will evaluating your life help you clarify personal goals?

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I’m glad to reconnect.

kismuth members

Dear –

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So many updates. Some at dipikakohli.com, for example, and also behind the scenes.

kismuth members

New projects to get us talking together

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This week, in the writing project online with the people I do that with, every Tuesday and Wednesday, something came up that surprised me. The cojournal is taking an interesting turn. I want to share more in the conversation space for that, in email threads and in the protected forums, but here, for now, this little note. Inspired by something that MK wrote  Sharing that it’s too hard to make friends that are high-quality but not overburdensome. Emotional labor, et al.

I really couldn’t believe how much there is to say about this topic, and some people have said it, insisting in lists of the kind of things that indicate that you are truly showing up for friends what is required now for someone to ‘show up for a friend.’ Really?

Discussing it. In The Cojournal Project.

kismuth members

‘How can I best support you right now?’

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kismuth members, space, writing

Access Kismuth

I am blogging at protected page posts at this site, occasionally. That’s because there are some conversations that are not so suited for blogging publicly. I send passwords and updates to a very small set of people in something called S P A C E. It’s a thing now.

Started S P A C E in 2017. That was after the Cojournal Project at this site, which took place in email circles from 2014-2015 and then the more ambitious real-life ‘big blind date’ project, 16N. Gathering people for small, interknit circles of conversations. In different ways. Is what I do. I can elaborate. It’s fun.

Topics vary. Naturally.

More to say. More to send. Membership[$] info is here.

dipikakohli.com

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found, kismuth members, pop psychology

‘Boring life’

Today I read a few things by Anna LeMind who made this website about self-improvement and things related to that. It’s fun browsing the article titles and seeing what people think about as what’s going on with them, and how the authors of the site address those things. Not scientific or anything, it seems, but here are some things I found curious.

‘What our materialistic society doesn’t want us to remember,’ writes LeMind, ‘is that genuine happiness is in simple pleasures*. It doesn’t matter how many stars your hotel has or how expensive your outfits are if your life is unfulfilling and dull… The need to own stuff is based on our natural tendency to compare ourselves with others. We don’t want to be worse and less accomplished than those around us, and society skillfully uses our insecurities to encourage us to make unnecessary expenses.’ Says who, exactly? 

Qualms and other things

Ex-journalist’s qualms with the fact-stating of opinions aside, I rather liked some of the things I found on this post. For example, I do believe that people get overinvested in what other people think. Narcissists, looking at all of youuuuu.

Elsewhere on LeMind’s blog, the same author writes, ‘We often throw a monkey wrench into our own progress in life.’ Do we, now? ‘We create obstacles and frames in our own minds. Sometimes it happens as a result of social conditioning or a lack of self-belief, but the rigidity of our thinking can also be to blame. I’m talking about people who perceive life in extremes; as if there are only black and white sides to everything. They will usually have a very fixed mindset about work, success, relationships, and life in general… [but] when you never re-evaluate your views and refuse to learn from your mistakes, you don’t evolve.’ Needs citation here. 

What’s true for you isn’t true for all

Sure, I know plenty of people who just follow the treadmills without questioning anything are kind of like, ‘Huh?’ when I ask them why they don’t design the life they want. I mean, I get it. It’s hard. It’s hard to look inside and see what’s there and suddenly have to do something about it if it’s not right. I mean, there was this girl once who said, when I told her I make SELF the workshop online, ‘I don’t want to ask myself those hard questions because I’m just going to get stressed!’ So, there it is. The way I moved away from workshop-making began with that reaction. Who cares if she doesn’t want to improve herself or her life? Not me. That was 2014.

Here’s what happened next.

Hint: Lá lá lá…

The rest of this post is in the mailing list for S P A C E. It costs. Subscribe here.

 

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