Keeping a road map

So you know where to go

I have a chronically scattered brain. I love to talk about it over and over again. Some might say compulsively, and they’re not wrong, but Jesus — just let me talk. Since I was a kid, my thoughts have gone a thousand miles per minute. For each thought, ten to fifteen pictures form in branches from the words, and from each picture, a million future possibilities for action unfold, some exciting, some terrifying, but mostly — they’re just overwhelming.

At some point, after struggling to pinpoint what I should do, where I should go, or what I should believe, a therapist told me to keep a list of ‘values’ to pin to my wall. But because of the obsessive-compulsive way my brain likes to lock onto concrete answers, I had to learn to use values as guides instead of fixed morals or rules. Morals aren’t useful unless you want to feel awful about yourself. These are vague un-rigid things that can (and should) change over time. I like to think of them as a roadmap. It’s not a cure-all, but rather, a small but very useful way to frame things.

So, every year I sit down at my messy desk and write out the map of values, beliefs, ideas, and things I care about to help guide me through life.

Here’s mine from this year:

I shared this on the internet, and to my surprise, a bunch of people told me it was helpful to them. I was glad that it made sense and wasn’t the incoherent rambling I thought it was.

So, in the spirit of confusion, allow me to ramble incoherently for a bit.

Okay.

Mash all the ideas from your map together. The result is something I like to call: The Inner-Goo™️. You know, it’s that warm, liquidy, mysteriousness that exists deep beneath your guts. I don’t know where it is. It’s most definitely not real. But, I suppose, in this case, it’s good to believe it is. Think of it as a ‘true’ you before all the other ‘shoulds’ and ‘should-nots’ got added by other people…or yourself.

You need to know what that stuff is made of. It’s not some kind of romantic thing; it’s just pragmatic. When you spend your energy trying to fit yourself into a box you don’t naturally fit into, It sucks the creative energy out of you and replaces it with a beige 90’s carpet that is comfortable, has focus-tested appeal, but has no soul. It stops you up. You feel ‘blocked’, you feel panicked… you eat an entire bag of Cheeto’s puffs and cry as you lick the cheese dust from your fingers, wondering how you got here.

Pleasing everyone is the shortcut to beige, by Carolyn Sewell

It’s built into our primate brains to find safety in the group (I think…but I’m not a scientist, I draw silly pictures of boobs and butts for a living). Life is confusing and painful, so we grip onto this group, an identity, a #bratsummer, if I may, to make the pain go away. So, instead of trusting that inner-gooey-ness, we slather ourselves in the Outer-Goo™️ of others; causing that 90’s carpet to grow back. It’s fine. That’s normal. Your new job is to notice when it happens and rewrite the map.

Sometimes, you’ll fail, sometimes, you’ll succeed, but more often than not, you’ll be in the uncomfortable middle state, where nothing makes sense, and the ‘right’ direction is unclear. You have to accept the discomfort of that space because that’s where creativity happens. It’s lonely in that place. Everyone around you seems so certain, so put together, so sure of themselves. It seems like it’d be easier to just go with the flow. But here’s the paradox: when you stand outside of the human collective, acknowledge the confusion and create something in the name of your own idiosyncratic beliefs— people relate to it more. We all exist in that uncomfortable middle place, and it only grows more lonely when we pretend that we don’t. So stop it, god damn it.

Hold that map high above your head and proudly follow it. People might disagree with you. That’s fine. It’s good to have different maps. In fact, that’s the whole point, the whole enchilada, if you will.

Remember: The identity you have now is not the identity you’ll have in a year or maybe even in an hour. The map is changeable. That self thing—that inner goo thing—is real, I think, but it’s not a permanent thing. It’s a gooey, malleable thing, and it’s not something we can fully understand. So not, ‘real’ real, — but it’s helpful to believe it is.

So when you get lost and the beige 90’s carpet grows back, re-open that mason jar lodged in your guts, let out that disgustingly beautiful inner-goo, and re-write the map. You’ll find your direction again.

✌🏽

Zach