Not enough meaning

I think a lot of the things I debate about working on get instantly murdered in my mind for not being meaningful or impactful enough.

I struggle with this, because meaning is a noble objective, but perhaps is difficult to prescribe especially when whatever you do may take a long time to reveal its true meaning or purpose.

We all have slices of purpose that we partake in.

Making music – the satisfaction of an intoxicated tune. Starting a side project solving a problem. Volunteering for a cause. We’re out poking the world and finding a response or internal narrative for it.

How do you reckon with the gravity of your slice when there will always be a larger slice out there? Some more meaning out there to reach or glean or fulfill?

Why not work on getting internet access for everyone? Why not solve the energy crisis? Your rent is getting awfully high – let’s focus our energy on getting more housing. And what about those unnamed people starving in unnamed lands?

Why aren’t you doing more, bigger, better – for the world?

Well sure ok. You’ll take on all of those problems. You’ll do it all. What’s stopping me? Well conceptually, your brain can image what that could look like, but in execution you’re much more limited.

Overstimulating yourself crests over a peak of optimal output into something unfocused and scattered. You tried too much. You stretched too far in too many directions.

So, you refocus. You trim what doesn’t give you energy. But you also starve yourself of the other possibilities of meaning.

If there’s anything to reckon with in adulthood, it’s limitations.

You also have your own limitations – maybe you don’t know enough or have the skills.

Ignorance can be an advantage when you enter an arena of people to jaded to change or see new ways, but not knowing how to do anything yourself is just a disadvantage.

I taught myself how to “code” in Bubble (a fancy editor for making web applications). Now I can build my own technology to solve some of the problems I think are worth solving.

It is shockingly complex how nuanced it is to build even a simple version of a solution to a problem.

You want to handle the states… what does the text say when there aren’t any options? Shouldn’t the copy suggest a singular item when there’s only one option, or is saying “1 items” fine? And what of user errors? What of software bugs? What of the database? You balance depth and data thoroughness with the patience of a user who can become bored and unmotivated in a fraction of a second. Gone. Nice of them to stop by, but shame on me for not keeping them around.

Maybe the problem wasn’t severe enough. Maybe there wasn’t enough… meaning… behind what it sought to achieve.

So I chase a couple of ideas that might strike meaning-gold.

Are they valuable – are they meaningful? They can be meaningful to me because they represent something I made and put out into the world. But the act of creation isn’t incentivized economically. It’s incentivized individually until enough other people come around and say oh hey that’s nice, it’s worth something, and I’d pay for it.

Now I ask does economy = meaningfulness?

The voice in my head says “go bigger. This idea isn’t helping enough people. “There’s no need here” because people aren’t lining up around the block for it.

I’m reminded of a quote…

“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.” — Howard Aiken

Ok so marketing an idea is as important as the idea.

Not being able to market something or failing to frame something is a big reason why something great just couldn’t survive out there in the world.

So why not start with the marketing? What are we marketing if we don’t know what’s meaningful – what resonates?

Well I can make content to get some people interested in what I’m doing.

Fleeting. Ephemeral. Influencer. Content.

It feels uninspiring to be an influencer. Why? Aggregator influencers don’t feel original. It’s perhaps because they feel temporary. Their creation is interpretation of other people’s works.

This is the act of design though – putting parts of other things together to create something new.

There’s an excitement brewing. There have been these sparks before – when I’ve felt a moment of authenticity. When I feel like I’ve done this and have proven that I too can Just Do It™.

The permission and truth that originality relies on your own method.

Beethoven wasn’t asking people how to write symphonies, he was writing symphonies.

So still – what symphony should I write?

With so many things I’d like to do, how do I isolate what I individually can strive to do? The scope expands. Or does it shrink?

The multivariable possibility of the many-venture Richard Brandson fearlessness of chasing it all. How do I get that?

Maybe I exercise my exploration with a free day of the week with four days for focus, and one for free exploration. That feels like a handicap. But it’s a start.

If I do that then I can’t do this. If I go over here, it’s 5 steps to go back to pivot to the next thing. Or are they actually adjacent? Are they one step to the left?

A spark simmers again. What if I just go. What if I do it anyway. It’s worth the 5 step pivot back. I tell myself that’s the price.

Look at everyone who has gone all-in.

They’re so impressive for having the focus and commitment to do what they want. See Lyrah, who left her job at Facebook to pursue music full time. She’s talented – and the listeners have voted with their ears and hours – 4k monthly listeners is a hobby, 400k is a career.

Her specificity is empowering. All of those entrepreneurs are empowering for having gone after something. Something specific.

How might you label yourself to tell the story of specificity? Did Da Vinci have to? He transcended that branding necessity and just… did it anyway.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect.

Wikipedia

Perhaps it’s too early to chase a high achievement – to go all into something specific.

Ah the deferred life plan. Choosing the deferred life plan in the interest of safety.

What did I want my life’s work to be? What are we deferring again? What did we want in the first place?

I’m reminded to choose identities and live as those identities.

But the identity of “entrepreneur” is… difficult to pin down. Painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect – those are specific – but they all come in the same package of Da Vinci.

We’re multi-faceted and dynamic. How boring if we weren’t? The most interesting people always have been complex.

Maybe entrepreneurship should be treated as an art. Much like how Peter Levels built a new company every month and famously became one of the most successful independent software entrepreneurs ever after he landed on NomadList.

Perhaps meaning through 9 to 5 is the wrong constraint – perhaps too tight of requirements. Don’t you want to be fulfilled by what you do though? Seek a job with purpose?

Meaning could maybe come from other sources. The things we choose to care and commit to may not need to overlap with how we make our livelihood.

But it’s troubling not to find the root of specificity. The throughline that’s enticing enough to feel like I can go and commit to.

Writing this newsletter in of itself though was an incremental commitment towards something. Each step forward further defines who we are and what we become.

So maybe while it’s difficult to land on a specific theme or pursuit, incrementing forward on the things I know I’m still interested in is a good way to better write the narrative for myself.

Meaning may begin to reveal itself through the process of pursuing those individual interests.

And the sum of interests may contribute to a level of meaning that is finally “enough.”

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