lessons

small epiphanies

Walasse Ting, Sweet Milky Way, 1969

It’s the end of a long day, and I am sipping cold sake from a glass jar. I made a pot of Very Garlicky noodles since I am not expecting to talk to anyone tonight. Last week, I turned a—whole—year—older and felt very much at peace with where I am in life. No agonizing over what I haven’t yet accomplished, no sinking into depression for still being single-ish, no existential dread about getting older.

A year ago, I was in a totally different place. I was chasing a fantasy of a man I barely knew while recovering from a destabilizing breakup (see very first post). My main source of social interaction was going on dates with people from Hinge and Bumble. These days, I’m not active on dating apps because I’m getting so much nourishment from all kinds of loving relationships. As a matter of fact, I spent my birthday in the company of friends I met only a month ago, and we watched the sunset together.

So, to commemorate a year of quiet but profound growth, I thought I would share some of my biggest “aha’s” from the last twelve months. If you read this Substack religiously, you might recognize some of these epiphanies.

1. Friendship is the foundation of all relationships

I used to put romantic and platonic love in separate buckets. Sure, there are obvious differences, but in practice, they share more in common than meets the eye. I think of them as twin icebergs with very different tips above water but 90% the same below. They both require a rock-solid friendship. The same is true for family. The people who have the best relationships with their parents or siblings often describe them as similar to friendships. If you value friendships over family, you might have learned to get your emotional needs met through friends because you couldn’t get them met at home. We all have a cup that needs to be filled, and whether it’s filled with family, friends or romantic relationships doesn’t really matter because the foundational ingredients are the same: shared interests, mutual respect (little to no hierarchy), emotional attunement, time and effort.

2. Treat relationships as joint ventures

There is a view of love as conquest. You figure out what type of person would make you happy, go out, find them, make them “yours,” and if they no longer meet your needs, leave them, and move on. This sounds appallingly selfish, but it’s effectively what many people do. Increasingly, dating is treated as a self-serving enterprise, and unilateral breakups are seen as par for the course. But isn’t there a better way to treat people that’s not so much like buying a sweater and discarding it once the novelty has worn off? Shouldn’t we hold ourselves to a higher standard of care by interrogating what’s good for both people instead of acting out of pure self-interest?

3. Avoid ambiguity

I’m guilty of this. If you don’t know what someone wants from you, ask. If you know what you want, tell them. Particularly in dating, ambiguity leads to convenient assumptions. It’s important not just to ask what they’re looking for (their dating goals), but specifically, what they’re looking for with you. Often, the two are not the same.

4. Commitment is a decision in and of itself

If the goal is to find someone to settle down with, it’s not enough to fall in love. You have to want a life of commitment. People often fool themselves into thinking they just haven’t met “the one,” when in fact, they passed up on many amazing people because they don’t want commitment badly enough. There’s a difference between what they think they should want and what they actually want. That life in the suburbs with the white picket fence isn’t calling to them.

5. Embrace contradictions

Despite only having one brain, we’re surprisingly complicated creatures with multiple selves and conflicting desires. If someone says or does something seemingly contradictory, it can be frustrating, but it’s pointless to get mad and try to figure out “the truth” because often both things are true. They want to hang out with you and they’re afraid of getting close. They’re attracted to someone else and they don’t want to hurt you.

6. Upfront communication > solitary rumination

So much unnecessary anguish is caused by internalizing our desires while expecting other people to fulfill them. When something is bothering you, it’s rarely a good idea to keep it to yourself. Anxiety loves solitude and has a tendency to propagate on its own. As long as you can hold a calm conversation, it’s 100% better to express your thoughts, feelings, and unmet desires before they calcify into resentment.

7. We’re gardeners, not gods

Outside of using motor skills to, say, pick up a fork or asking Siri to tell you the weather, you can’t make things happen. Every good thing has its own season for ripening, and half the time, something unexpected happens. You can’t control who you fall in love with, but you can decide who you spend time with. You can’t make anyone love you or see the world the way you do, but you can create the conditions that will allow love to grow. You can’t rid yourself of negative feelings, but you can choose where you point your attention.

8. Creative energy =/ productive energy

The key to succeeding at anything, I grew up believing, was to focus single-mindedly on the attainment of the thing. This works in an academic setting: if you have a test coming up, you might spend a whole day studying and forgo social activities because they would distract you from the task of studying. Productive energy requires undivided time and attention, but creative energy demands the opposite: joyful distraction. You need time to focus and time to linger in the moment and be gloriously unproductive. Social connection is the lifeblood of any creative pursuit. Do not isolate yourself in the name of creating art.