The Brief - Nothing Has Happened Yet

It’s 3.30am and I’m standing in the kitchen over the sink, drinking water trying not to wake a very pregnant and grumpy wife sleeping difficulty in the room closeby.

I’d had a lot on my mind and a lot of caffeine in my body throughout the week, and in stressful periods like this I’d often find myself awake at 3.30am contemplating the meaning of all of this. In a few weeks there will be a new person in this house who doesn’t know what a sink is, or a spoon or 3.30am. And I keep noticing that my mind isn’t scared of the actual thing coming. The holding, the crying, the strange animal tenderness of it all. I think I’m ready for that part, or as ready as anyone gets.

What I keep bracing for is the version of it my mind has already built. The one where I’m running on no sleep for six months straight or where I’m a fog-brained zombie snapping at people I love, where the exhaustion compounds and compounds until there’s nothing left of me. That version doesn’t exist yet. It might never exist in the shape I’m imagining. But I’ve already lived through it a dozen times this week, lying awake rehearsing a future that hasn’t happened.

Something to practice

There’s this weird kinda suffering that comes from living a day before it arrives.

I’ve noticed this with sleep, because has it’s long been my nemesis. A few rough nights and I’m a problem to be around. But right now, my mind isn’t actually reacting to last night. It’s reacting to an imagined version of the next six months, one where I’m running on no sleep and somehow expected to support a wife, a newborn, and a business, all at the same time. None of that has happened yet. But the tension shows up in my body as if it has, as if I’m already failing at something that hasn’t started.

Which reminds me of one of my favorite, and funniest, Buddhist teachings: papañca. It roughly translates to mental proliferation, or as I like to think of it, day-dreaming about shit that hasn’t happened. The mind takes one small, real thing, like a tired night and builds an entire future out of it that has nothing to do with what’s actually in front of you. The original moment is gone under everything you’ve added to it.

This happens to me constantly on silent retreat. I’ll be watching some guy pile his tray with a a heroic amount of rice and lentils at lunch and within about four seconds I’ve built a whole case that he’s a sociopath. Zero evidence. Nothing has actually happened. Just a funny mind reaching for a story.

You probably have your own version of this. Maybe it’s not sleep. It could be the the email that hasn’t come back yet and you’ve already written the story where you lost the client. Or the fight with your partner that hasn’t actually happened, the one you’re rehearsing in the shower, building a whole case for.

The antidote isn’t to stop the mind from doing this. I don’t think that’s possible, trust me on this one. It’s just to notice when it’s happening and to see the story as a story rather than a fact. The guy with the rice is not a sociopath. He’s just hungry. And most of my 30, 90, six-months-from-now catastrophe isn’t actual information. It’s just something that hasn’t happened yet, and inshallah might not.

Something to learn

This week, I’ve been thinking about dana. The Pali word usually gets translated as generosity, but that doesn’t quite nail it. Dana isn’t really about the object being given. It’s about what happens in the giver when the grip loosens.

While building gentle—noise I’ve been leaning on a lot of friends, new and old, for help. I’m doing a lot of things for the first time, and I’ve been in awe of how much time some of them have given me, answering my dumb questions, walking me through things they could charge alot of money for.

In Sri Lanka, dana is often one of the first practices people are taught. It comes before ethics, and event before meditation. The idea is that you can’t really steady the mind while it’s still clenched around clinging and identity. Generosity, in this way, isn’t about some kind of moral virtue or performance. It’s more about letting this go without keeping score.

I’ve been trying to pass along the generosity I’ve been shown, mentoring people where I can, taking a meeting when there’s nothing in it for me. None of this feels spiritual in the moment.

But I think that’s the whole point. In a society that continues to divide and scare us into becmong productivity machines - doing things out of a genuine desire feels counter-cultural.

What I’m starting to compute, is that if giving still feels like a loss, it’s not authentic. It means I haven’t actually let go, I’ve just overridden the clinging with willpower or some version what I think I should be doing. The interesting practice this week is to notice the flinch right before the act, that subtle “but what about me, what about my time, my money …” and seeing it clear enough that eventually you can decide to let it go.

By the way, I don’t think I’m that good at this yet. I’m notice the clenching more than I’m noticing the release. But every day we try a little more.

And also - thank you friends, for giving me so much. You know who you are.

Something to enjoy: All of it.

It struck me this week that I would not have dreamt of a life like this ten, fifteen years ago. But here we are. And in the scary, busy, overwhelming moments (moments exactly like this one) I can lose track of that entirely.

We don’t often talk about the benefits of grit in wellness circles. For all of the shitting things I learned in the world of start-ups, grit was perhaps the one defining gift.

It’s what fortifies us, what shines brightly in our darkest days and also what we forget what had all along.

So this week, allow me to offer you this small pep talk: You’ve survived every one of your darkest days so far. Whatever this next stretch asks of you, you’ve already shown you have what it takes to keep meeting it. Nothing is permanent.

Take it all in as part of this weird, cosmic dance. And try to smile a bit while you’re at it.

That’s all.