Hello!
Let's just pretend I didn't disappear for more than nine months.
As a professional procrastinator, I have all the reasons and some to have been away. So bear with me.
I read somewhere that this COVID era is making people long for change. Either because they are sick of the status-quo (who is sick of being in lockdown?!). Or because they had (too much) time to think about their choices and situation.
So, exercising my empathy with the zeitgeist, I decided to make some changes of my own this year.
After eight years of renting, we finally decided to buy an apartment — unconsciously accepting that we aren't going anywhere anytime soon, at least until destiny thinks otherwise.
In the meantime, after 6.5 years, I decided to change jobs. I even started a draft article explaining why. Now it is too late. Just accept that I'm happy with the past and excited about the new future.
Fast forward a few months, and I took some days off and voilá! — I run out of excuses not to write. So let's see if this ever goes into the launch pad and out into the ether.
Todays' reflection comes out of slow summer days, long dog walks, and looking myself in the mirror.
PS: this week, someone I interviewed checked my profile and found the newsletter link. Then, at the interview, she asked me: why did you stop writing? I gave all the excuses and added I did write some drafts… here I am hitting "Publish" to an August draft!
Experiencing the possibility
We all know we are past consumerism, and we live in the experience economy. Now it's more about the experience than the ownership of material things. It's the explosion of entertainment, the (poorly named) sharing economy (Airbnb, Uber,…), and many other trends that signal that owning is no longer what we look for.
But then I started to note something odd that I'm still making my mind around it.
I think it all started some months ago when my colleague T. from Belarus asked how often I went to the beach. Of course, coming from a landlocked country, I understood his question. But after a pause, I confessed that I didn't go that often.
Funny enough, I've spent these summer months in a house 15 min walking distance from the beach. But although I pass by while walking the dog, I've only been there once in 4 weeks!
The house has a swimming pool — I took about two or three 5min dives a day.
One-third of our bookshelf is filled with books I didn't read and don't know when to read them. And I continue to buy books.
I like to live in the city, close to restaurants, cinemas, theaters, and cultural events. However, even before COVID, I must confess I rarely went to any cultural event regularly.
All these possibilities come with a premium. So the rational decision would be to choose all the cheaper options that are not close to the beach, don't have a swimming pool, are not in the center, and stop buying books.
Can you see?
It's no longer about the experience but the possibility. It's the post-consumerism-post-experience.
I'm choosing the option to experience, not the actual experience. I'm choosing the freedom of possibility.
Knowing that I can pick that book, go to the beach, or spend my day in the pool.
Maybe this is some anti-claustrophobia.
Claustrophobia is the fear of confined spaces — spaces that feel closed, with no escape. Maybe it is a comfortable room, but with a lower ceiling, no windows, and a closed-door is enough to make some people anxious and fearful.
The window, door, and space are the possibility — you don't need to get out. You need the sense of possibility, the option.
The freedom of possibility
If you look closer, our world is not just what we have or what we experience. We build options, possibilities, so we can have the freedom to choose. We experience the possibilities, and we identify ourselves with them.
PS1: Maybe your judging self is kicking in — you can't accept that it's ok to have the "thing", the possibility, and not use it. But if the purpose is to use it, isn't that a purely utilitarian perspective? Isn't that a more materialistic and limited view of the world? Am I judging your judgment?
PS2: The cynics might argue that this is a 1st world problem, and they are right. I'm lucky and grateful to have the possibility of being in the 1st world.
Thanks for reading,
Hugo
PS: if you want to respond to my sign of life, hit 🧡 bellow
I'm glad to see your return!
An interesting point of view is that we need opportunities in order not to feel claustrophobic.
What if it’s about a postponed life? To have books to read them one day. To live in the center, to go to the theater one day.
For some reason, for me, this post became a trigger for the thought: to live now, and not wait for that special moment (and enough energy, and enough time, end enough, etc) when there will be that right evening with the right fireplace to read this book.