Slow down, you crazy child

What if I did less?

Over the years, I’ve become really good at layering more and more on, taking on just enough projects and gigs and trips and goals to ensure that I’d never have a moment where there was nothing on the agenda. Never too much space to stop and think. Think about why I was doing so much. The idea that being busy is good, that doing more is better than doing less, has been one of my foundational assumptions.

As a teenager, I could blend into almost any group of friends, but I rarely felt seen by them. Then I discovered the world of startups and business podcasts, and their underlying suggestion that maybe all us misfits could fix our loneliness by becoming so impressive and successful that no one could ignore us. So that’s what I tried to do.

But something was always missing. I constantly felt like I could and should be doing just a liiiiittle bit more, like the hyper-productive, knowledge- and money-hungry men who I wanted to be like. And so I did more, and my capacity increased, and the margin for squeezing in a bit more returned. There were times I didn’t do my best, which grated on me – I believe in craftsmanship and quality deeply, yet I sacrificed those ideals at the altar of productivity to march faster through my ever-growing list of Things To Do. I sometimes missed deadlines, or didn’t check my work thoroughly, or bent the truth to fit the image of myself that I wanted to believe in.

Somehow, slowing down never occurred to me.

slow down, you crazy child
you're so ambitious for a juvenile
but then if you're so smart
tell me why are you still so afraid?

where's the fire, what's the hurry about?
you'd better cool it off before you burn it out
you've got so much to do
and only so many hours in a day, hey

As far as I could tell, my accomplishments and drive were the main things people noticed about me. If I stopped pushing, would they still see me? That wasn’t a risk I was willing to take. So I kept going. And when sometimes I couldn’t, I told myself I was weak, that I just wasn’t trying hard enough. Sometimes those holes took months to climb out of. My disdain for myself made it hard to do anything at all.

but you know that when the truth is told
that you can get what you want or you can just get old

Last summer, I was traveling and decided to take a long hike. I didn’t feel like carrying the weight of my laptop, so I left it in a locker, and spent a week away from it for the first time since I got one at 14. I simply could not “get anything done,” because I had nothing to do but walk, read, and think.

Over the course of the week, my mind became shockingly clear. Brand new songs were popping into my head left and right, the world around me became more vivid, I wrote in my journal more than I had in months. I felt like part of the landscape, instead of a visitor passing through it. I walked and saw and was.

(As I write this there’s a part of me muttering, “this guy went for a fucking hike and thinks he’s enlightened.” That’s one way of looking at this, but it isn’t the way I see it, so I’m going to give that part a nod and keep going.)

slow down, you're doin' fine
you can't be everything you wanna be before your time

I was forced to face some of my assumptions about life and work head-on. Maybe filling every waking moment with tasks to be done, skills to be learned, boxes to check isn’t how I do my best work? Maybe there are experiences that are worthwhile even if they aren’t impressive to anyone else? Maybe there’s a deeper level of connection to be had with nature than I ever realized?

I’d planted the seeds of some of these perspective shifts over the previous few years, via the usual suspects: love, pain, drugs. But that one week laid my assumptions bare. Slowing down felt like the next step of my journey.

So, of course, I sped up instead. I got home and immediately dove into big new projects[[1]], trying to convince myself that what I experienced was a fluke, that pure headlong effort was the One True Way to find the life I knew I wanted. Slowing down would mean I had to reconfigure my entire life and attitude and way of being.

too bad, but it's the life you lead 
you're so ahead of yourself, that you forgot what you need
though you can see when you're wrong
you know you can't always see when you're right

Several sleepless, harried, often-sick months later, my body forced me to rediscover what I’d already learned – it was time to take a step back. But since I’d designed my entire life around doing as much as I could, there was no clear way to do that. I started working less, but that just upped the pressure to make the community warehouse space I started a few years ago financially sustainable. I started pulling from my savings, but that could only last so long. I didn’t feel like I could take risks in my work or my life[[2]], because I had less income and no fewer responsibilities. Something had to give.

After a few months of uncertainty, I realized the only path forward was to let go of the thing that has brought me so much happiness these past few years: the warehouse. This space has been the most exciting, energizing, and unexpectedly wonderful thing I’ve ever been a part of, and has brought people together in ways that I never expected. I’ve had so many moments here when a particularly incredible musician was playing, or three people were making really cool things at the same time, or all my friends from across the country were here laughing and dancing at 5am, where I had to stop and ask myself, is this really happening? It feels too good to be true. And despite all that, it is time to move on.

At the end of October, I’ll be closing the warehouse, leaving NYC, and a little later, leaving the US indefinitely. I’m going to work as little as possible, carry as few things as I can, and wander around whatever wilderness calls to me until I feel the need to do something else. It’s the least plan I’ve ever had.

I’ve moved around a lot in my life – the three years I’ll have spent in New York when I leave will be by far the longest I’ve stayed anywhere since high school – but every other move felt different. Then, I wandered thinking each new place would make me happy, looking for somewhere that would cure my loneliness. I wandered because nowhere ever felt like home. This time, I’m wandering to reconnect with my environment, to move my body, to be with myself instead of by myself. I’m not looking for anything in particular, and I have no idea what I’ll find.

slow down, you crazy child
and take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while
it's all right, you can afford to lose a day or two, ooh
when will you realize Vienna waits for you?

[[1]]: Like, physically big – I bought a 2000lb non-functional metalworking machine

[[2]]:  See the order that I automatically put those two in?

(Lyrics from Vienna by Billy Joel...but you probably already knew that!)