Raam Dev

Hello, future.

Inhaling Peace, Exhaling Release

I have what feels like the entire earth to myself, this huge open expanse inviting me to come play, to run, to sprint, to feel the sand between my toes and the warm breeze on my skin. 

But I don't run. I stroll. I feel the lukewarm water lapping gently at my feet and watch as the quiet waves roll in softly and ripple across the infinite sandy expanse.

I close my eyes and inhale deeply, taking into my being the pure energy that surrounds me. It's intoxicating. I cannot breathe deeply enough. It's as if the air itself is so full that my lungs are unable to capture it. My body tingles with overwhelm.

I look up at the stars and exhale a sense of immense gratitude and contentment. If peace itself could be captured in a bottle, this must be what drinking it feels like.

With all the places in the world to visit -- with all the places that my freedom allows me to go -- I suddenly feel no desire to go anywhere, no sense of urgency to see a new place, or to relocate, or to even explore. 

What more do I need? Where else will I go? What more could I possibly ask for in a destination? 

What was it about this beach in Florida? Was there some energy here that my being was connecting with? Or was this experience perhaps more superficial, more related to the warm weather and the never-ending sunshine?

For the past few weeks I have gone for a walk on this beach near Cape Canaveral almost every single day and incredibly this experience has followed me each time. 

I arrive about thirty minutes before sunset and spend two hours or so walking and/or running until the sun goes down and the stars come out. 

Each night before leaving I stand in the ocean and look up at the stars, picking out planets and constellations and watching for satellites and shooting stars. 

With the ocean before me and the stars and planets above, I can feel my infinitesimal size.

Why am I here? What am I doing? What is my purpose for traveling? Why do I need to go anywhere?

I ponder these questions over and over while simultaneously feeling certain that I won't stop asking them, just as I feel certain that I won't stop traveling. (After all, none of us really do stop traveling. We're in constant motion, whether on this planet or through time itself.)

I'm reminded by these experiences that my travels are not a method of 'searching'; I'm not trying to fill a void or figure out what's missing. Everything I need, everything I ever will need, is already here; I'm already complete.

What travel does is help me strip away all the social conditioning, all the preconceived ideas and expectations that I create for myself. It helps me release all the bits and pieces of identity that I, and others, have plastered all over me in attempt to create a definition and a design that can easily be grasped onto. 

Embracing change as a constant requires embracing detachment and movement as constants as well. Letting go is part of moving forward, just as moving forward is inherent in letting go.

Travel helps me rediscover what's already here, what goes with me from place to place, from moment to moment unchanged. Just as the ocean washes away my footprints, so does each moment wash away the previous, leaving behind only what was already here.

Notes: How to engage in lifestyle design

Vic Phillips invited me to contribute to a post he was putting together called '20 Ways to Engage in DIY Health and Lifestyle Change – Advice from Digital Thinkers'. I'm including my contribution below, but please check out the full post for lots of other great advice.

If you desire lifestyle change, envision what your life would look like today if you were already living that change. Instead of working from the outside in — instead of thinking about how much your current lifestyle needs to change to get where you want to be — work from the inside out. What would the changed you do today? How would that person act, think, and behave?

Imagine your entire life instantly transformed, all your ambitions, goals, and dreams fully realized. What might you then consider important? How would that person look back at the you of today and what advice might you offer yourself? Now using that perspective, ask yourself what you can do today to step towards that lifestyle. You might discover that what previously felt like insurmountable challenges suddenly feels almost trivial.

Notes: "Any given person is dumber as a member of an audience than as a reader."

Paul Graham writes about why writing superior to the spoken word as a source of ideas. He makes several important points about how when we're in a group, we're heavily influenced by those around us. Reading, on the other hand, is a very personal, writer-to-reader experience. The medium of writing gives us both the opportunity to craft both the intended message and the interpreted meaning.

Audiences like to be flattered; they like jokes; they like to be swept off their feet by a vigorous stream of words. As you decrease the intelligence of the audience, being a good speaker is increasingly a matter of being a good bullshitter. That's true in writing too of course, but the descent is steeper with talks. Any given person is dumber as a member of an audience than as a reader. Just as a speaker ad libbing can only spend as long thinking about each sentence as it takes to say it, a person hearing a talk can only spend as long thinking about each sentence as it takes to hear it. Plus people in an audience are always affected by the reactions of those around them, and the reactions that spread from person to person in an audience are disproportionately the more brutish sort, just as low notes travel through walls better than high ones. Every audience is an incipient mob, and a good speaker uses that. Part of the reason I laughed so much at the talk by the good speaker at that conference was that everyone else did.

Notes: Traveling Writer

Thom Chambers writes about the difference between being a 'travel writer' and being a 'traveling writer'. What he describes is exactly what I've been learning over the past two years.

My living experiences add to the richness and quality of my work, whatever that work may be, because I become a richer person through the experiences I gain while traveling.

Instead of being a travel writer, then, how about being a ‘traveling writer’?

Build a freedom business that allows you to make a living with words from anywhere in the world, and you’re getting the life of the travel writer no matter what your words are. You can ride the Orient Express while writing an e-course about baking. Or criss-cross America while putting together your first online magazine.

Yes, you can still write about your travels as you go. Who knows, you may even hit the big time and be the next Year in Provence. But in the meantime you’ll be able to live the lifestyle of the travel writer, whatever you’re writing.

Harder than ever to be a travel writer. Easier than ever to be a traveling writer.

Notes: Thought is born of frustration

I recently reviewed my task management process and in doing so I read an ebook by Kourosh Dini called Creating Flow with OmniFocus (OmniFocus is the name of the task management program that I've been using for a few years now; if you use a Mac, I highly recommend it).

What I really liked about this ebook was how Kourosh interspersed scientific knowledge throughout it. Several parts even teetered on philosophical. In one section he talks about how our brains process stuff:

One psychoanalyst, Wilfred Bion, suggests that thought itself is born of frustration. Thought, in this definition, is essentially any movement or creation of mind be it emotion, intellect, movement, or otherwise.

Similarly, plans are born of frustration. They come about because we are not already at our goals. Were we there already, it would not even occur to us to create a goal. And, as we are not already there, there are more than likely unknown tasks and concepts that have yet to occur simply because we have not started the journey there.

While projects can get messy, it is the continual refining, redefining, and re-working of the tasks and projects that eventually create the end results.

As one goes through contexts, there are any number of times where one will come across a task that seems redundant, poorly prioritized, in the wrong context or otherwise. We are not, after all, automatons. If there is something nagging us from the back of our minds, there is definitely reason to re-think how the tasks are presented.

Notes: "The art of life becomes literally artless."

If you think of your art. What is the ultimate purpose? Once you have reached your goal, nothing really happens except if you were changed in the process. Your art is you not what you do. But for that you have to reach the zone at some point.

It's even difficult to put into words. Because how can I define that I'm the art when I write? The text seems to be the art but actually it is just me and a laptop in a special moment in a special place where everything is aligned so I can deliver this. That is what matters.

Now how could we extend this state of clarity? Is there a way to let go and be detached that life becomes the artless art? Can we live entirely in this mental state.

Two days ago I read this article about what people regret just before they die. This article mentions the "phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives". Probably because there is no goal anymore, no need to act and everything gets detached. The art of life becomes literally artless.

Written by Manuel Loigeret in When your art becomes artless

Travel Notes: An Abrupt Closing on Road Trip Notes

I've been procrastinating with finishing my travel notes from the road trip. Today I finally took some time to analyze why that was. 

The remainder of my notes do not contain more than casual observations or a simple "here's where I went, here's what I did next". 

Sure, there are a few interesting tidbits here and there -- exploring Auburn, Indiana, also known as the 'Home of the Classics', and touring the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum where several multi-million dollar classic cars were on display; being chased by a violent tornado storm that killed more than 40 people in the states I was traveling through and then hearing tornado sirens for the first time just outside Atlanta, GA and  experiencing a near miss with a tornado myself (it touched down just down the street from where I was). 

But beyond those highlights, there was just a lot of driving, meeting up with friends for lunch or dinner, torrential downpours, and then more driving. 

I had originally intended on writing travel notes that described my whole journey in detail, but as I worked on those I realized that the writing would contain so much fluff. There would be so little substance, so little meaning to what I was writing. As a result, I procrastinated. I delayed. I put it off until tomorrow.

By not finishing the travel notes from my road trip, I've felt mentally held back from sharing what I'm experiencing right now, here in Florida. 

My regular evening walks on Cocoa Beach have birthed many interested thoughts and feelings and I've wanted to share those here with you. That stuff does feel like it has substance, but I was pushing those notes off until tomorrow too, until I finished "catching up" with the road trip stuff. 

So this is my last travel note on the road trip. The trip taught me how much I dislike driving long distances and it reminded me why I've avoided owning a car for the past two years. It's nice to see places while traveling by land, but I find that travel by train, bus, bicycle, or even just my own two feet is far more appealing and educational.

I've also learned that making regular notes to capture the travel experiences in the moment is vital to capturing their essence. That's why I'm going to start publish shorter, more frequent travel notes from here on out.

Urgency vs. Importance

Urgency creates an attention poverty. It deprives us of the present moment and encourages us to make rash decisions, to act before thinking and to commit before considering. 

Urgency disregards priorities and blatantly ignores what's important. It demands nothing short of immediate, unmindful action.

Things that are urgent are fleeting. They lose their value and their sense of importance with every passing moment and they feel important because they're fleeting.

We buy something because it's on sale or jump into a conversation so that we're heard; we stay on top of what's trending or keep up with our favorite shows, authors, or magazines; we stay with our job because it's a great opportunity or we indulge in the luxuries of life because, hey, life is short.

We chase these things because they're fleeting, because the unstoppable and relentless marching of time ensures that they will be gone, possibly forever, if we don't act now. 

But what's important, what's truly important, remains important. It doesn't fade into the background when we ignore it. It doesn't disappear after a few days, weeks, or years. 

It doesn't matter if we're rich or poor, if we're ten years old or a hundred years old, if it's Monday or Friday or if it's the weekend with a full moon: the important things remain important.

The important things are here to stay. They remain with us, patiently waiting until we're ready to sit quietly, bring our mind home, and give them the attention they deserve.

Urgency will never wait; you'll never catch it. Chasing what's urgent is a fools game. But embracing what's important, that's something that has meaning. That's something that has real value.

The urgent stuff will always be running away from us, but the important stuff -- the stuff that gives our life meaning -- is waiting patiently with open arms.