Life updates:
- For the past year, I have been investigating treatment for sleep/airway issues that have been the cause of brutal chronic symptoms, some for over a decade. I am relieved to share that last month, I chose an orthodontist in Burlington, Vermont, to work with on a palate expansion procedure that should help, using a new technology called the Facegenics Midface Expander. It’s a 24-month process, so I’m buckling up psychologically, but am so excited to finally be approaching the “starting line” to make this better.
- Update on June’s 500 pull-up challenge: I knocked out 448 pull-ups in just 21 days, but an wrist injury flared up and I had to stop. Still, I went from a 6-repetition max set on the first day, to doing 11 repetitions in a single set a couple weeks later, and I loved the process. I may invite folks here to join me next time. Let me know if you’d like that.
A few nuggets from my world:
#1 What if the subconscious mind IS the body?
I’ve operated for most of my life with the heuristic that the subconscious is part of the mind, connoting something cerebral and even mystical in nature.
But recently I heard something new:
What if the subconscious is actually just the body, doing its best to communicate to us in the only languages it has?
Consider that our entire organism is a well of information and experiences. It’s well-known for example that traumatic experiences get stored in the tissues of our body.
But the body cannot “speak” to us in a language that we easily understand.
That fear in your hips… That grief in your lungs… How does the body tell us what to do with it?
In short: It’s hard.
Especially while the conscious mind is trying to help us get through the day.
Maybe our so-called subconscious “mind” is just the body trying to share its knowledge and needs in the only language it has: intuition, emotions, dreams, pain, and the like.
#2 I am lonely. Are you lonely?
I swap daily WhatsApp notes with a friend on the other side of the country, someone who has also suffered a lot in recent years.
We talk about crawling through our respective “shit pipes,” a reference to Andy Dufresne’s prison escape through a narrow, 500-yard long sewage pipe in the classic 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption.
That is: sometimes life finds us crawling through our own personal shit pipes, and we don’t know how long they are — just that our best option is to keep on crawling.
I would do almost anything to get out of a shit pipe. But absent that, having a cherished friend in there with me — to cheer each other on and validate the pain — is more precious than words can say.
Extending this notion more broadly, I feel an almost-daily, primordial drive to sit around a campfire with loved ones, alternately talking and singing and crying and sitting in silence, taking in the stars.
Something about that combination seems to be a balm for the human condition: steady connection with a small tribe to which we deeply belong, alongside the rooting perspective of staring out into the expanse of space — a place to be tenderly yet firmly held in the depths of pain and heights of exuberance that life sends through us.
Instead, we have a society that seems designed to make us feel frantic and fractured. Too many responsibilities sitting on our shoulders alone. Too many sources of distraction pulling us away from this moment. Access to too many dang people, so many that we struggle to properly value and cherish any single one.
I am not saying anything new.
Yet, some part of me feels that this loneliness thing is the most fundamental challenge I will face in this life; that it sits beneath all the health crises, all the brokenheartedness, all the grief and loss, and more.
Because while we may not be able to avoid life’s shit pipes, we shouldn’t have to crawl through them alone.
I’m curious to hear from you. What do your cravings and deep connection fantasies look like? Is there a way that this newsletter can help you feel less lonely?
[Next month, I may continue in this vein by writing about community-centric businesses — why they’re the future, and what I’ve learned about them after 9 years running Focusmate.]
That’s all for now—thanks for reading and have a great month.
Taylor
Current📍: Cambridge, MA, with no travel planned in July 😅
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