This post is a reflection upon relistening to the Tim Ferriss show episode with Jon Batiste — The Quest for Originality, How to Get Unstuck, His Favorite Mantras, and Strategies for Living a Creative Life (#775).
The first time I listened, I felt several key moments were worth revisiting, so this is an effort to capture those moments. Key quotes are quotations are directly from the podcast transcript
The Mundane
The first is regarding “the connective tissue” of our lives.
Essentially, the little things. Reminiscent of the movie Click with Adam Sandler where he skips through small parts of life he found annoying at the time only to regret it later.
“That’s absolutely incredible because all of those things you would think of are mundane and that you are trying to get away from doing”
Speaking of older people in blue zones continuing to do the activities of daily life and how they can maintain energy in their old age.
“As soon as you sit on the couch and start watching TV, it’s over”
“How do you find the muse in the mundane without having to go to some sacred place?”
This quote took some digesting. Finding the muse in the mundane.
Mistakes
“Mistakes are amazing. Mistakes are brilliant. It’s a gift to go about your day and for something, either a mistake or something that you didn’t plan, an interruption, some seeming calamity happening that allows for you to not only respond, but to create.”
Several different sources recently have pointed me towards embracing randomness as a route to adventure, creativity, and truth. Sometimes it takes an unexpected twist to pull you from your scripts and unlock something previously undiscovered.
What is Yearning to be Expressed?
“You have to understand what is it that’s yearning to be expressed within you? Even if you’re dreadfully afraid of it, you can have something within that seems so far away from the reality of your current state that it couldn’t possibly be for you in your mind. And every fiber of your being is telling you, “This isn’t what I should be pursuing. This isn’t who I am.” That’s the one right there. That one right there. it sticks with you and you start to say, “Oh, it’s not going away.””
I felt that this quote resonated with me except for the part about self-doubt. I have had inclinations towards certain decisions in my life that I have tried to avoid, but I never felt every fiber of my being pulling me in a different direction.
It was actually the fact that there were parts of me feeling different ways that made me revisit decisions. In my case, if I felt on some level I should be doing Y, I would have some of those inclinations while I was doing X.
Suspense and Inspiration
“suspense is created when there are stakes and when you don’t know what’s going to happen on the other side.”
“So you then have to put everything on the line that you believe in that motivates you, that powers you, you have to put it on the line in order to move toward whatever your desired outcome is in a limited amount of time, and sometimes without enough intel or intellectual processing of the information to even know which direction you want to take it in. You just have the moment.”
“love to create these pockets of suspense, these pockets of pressurized creativity or pressurized experience that leads me to discovery, that it pushes me forward.”
“So when I don’t have inspiration or I have a block, I do nothing. I live. And it’s absolutely because of the deeper inspiration that I’m blessed to feel. I feel it’s been cultivated. I’m connected to it, and I know it’s real, and it doesn’t have to greet me every day. I know it’s there.”
“It just requires you to be focused and be ready when it’s there.”
On Mantras
“I believe in the power of mantras.”
“Be still and know that I am God.” It is this idea that I’ll give you a practice, so, “Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am. Be still, and know that I. Be still and know that. Be still, and know. Be still. Be.”
“Another one is, “Thy will be done.” Which is one of surrender. Now, we believe there’s a divine power. There’s, however you name it, whatever your relationship to it is. We’ve, for the most part, had an experience that’s something beyond explanation. The universe is carrying us in some way, “Thy will be done,” is trusting that there’s a divine logic to it all. When there’s nothing that you can do, “Thy will be done. Thy will be done. Thy will be done.”
“Because the belief of this divine logic allows for you to understand that there’s a path and you are accounted for in that path. You are accounted for. There’s so much that is allowed for you to be the culmination of so many things has led to you, and there will never be another you. You’re the only one. That specificity alone is something that comes to me when I’m in that, “Thy will be done.”
Blessings
It’s shifted into…the orientation of blessing.”
“And that’s not to say that the difficulties are any easier. It doesn’t change the nature of hard things. They’re hard, but there’s something about life. There’s a truth. There’s something about going through the fire that is so required and something about suffering that is so essential.
This idea that we are meant to run from pain or run from difficult things and find the most leisurely and completely frictionless existence possible is such a lie. It’s not just a lie because it’s not possible, but if it were possible, that would kill you the most.”
Tim - “you can’t know which it is over time, and it depends a lot on your perspective. So you might as well choose a blessing, that is the more enabling perspective.”
The necessity of experience
“You have to go there to know there. You’ll only know what it can be for you when you’re in the fire. Everybody can talk about what they would do when they are there.”
Advice to a younger self
“so youngster, take your time to find the prize. There’s no rush. Pace yourself. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, is what they say. But until you experience it, that’s the only way
a series of unfortunate things at an unfortunate time, can be exacerbated in your mind and in your psyche, especially if you stew in it.”
“So I think, and I will tell this to the youngster, that happening to you is the gift of your arrival because it allows for you to figure out upon entry how to process all of the discomfort that’s to come in different forms and different ways. So pace yourself. Take your time. It’s your time. It doesn’t all have to happen right now.”
On Giving
“Can you live in a posture of giving? Can you create a generous temple within?”
The most important things
“Instead of the pursuit of more knowledge, more understanding, more broad vision and connectivity. How do I go as deep as I can within a handful of things that are for me and leave the rest”
Tim’s three most important things to remember:
“Everything’s going to be okay.”
“It’s all about relationships.” (do I like the version of myself that I am when I’m with this person?)
“Death isn’t the end, so don’t be afraid of it.”
Jam session
“And the blues is an allegory for the human condition in sound. It’s a musical allegory that exists within the context of a cultural movement. So that’s something that has not happened and has existed before it had a name. So for you to find things like that in the world that are foundational to our existence and then to figure out, how do I name them and identify them so then they can be shared?”
I will be revisiting this post from time to time to remind myself of the key takeaways.