So, it has been nearly 3 weeks since I celebrated my 3^rd decade of existence! I remember turning 20 and 30 seemed so far away, you still had the milestone of 21 to look forward too, the 25 mark and everything around and in-between to mull over, not to mention the internal existential crisis that is being a barely paint dried teenager trying to find an identity, a purpose, a partner, a job, a sense of fulfilment and all the other things that 20 year old wrestles with!

Rather than go through all the cliched things, I thought I’d explore some thoughts and ideas, I’d rather this be a fluid yet unstructured discourse, just to ease myself back into this long form writing game. It is so easy to orally riff and riff and riff! It’s a tad less-easier to condense your thoughts into tweets, but long form, that my friends, is the real litmus test. I can almost guarantee, the motor-mouth you hang out with, the person who quotes love letters to themselves, the talker who never listens, you know what kind of person I am referring too, would most certainly struggle with writing.

I struggle with it! The rules that are broken in conversation and ranting, or should I say, the lack of structure, the lack of discipline; these salient features become that with which your writing invariably becomes saddled by. So, I am going to try to keep this relatively short and somewhat concise but do forgive me if we do take a wrong turn and end going round the crescent backwards!

I will begin by saying that this decade that I embark on, is where truly: LIFE IS GOING TO START!

I espoused upon this briefly in my most recent of Instagram posts – it was around some point in my mid-late 20’s, probably around 27 or so, when I remember having the conversation with the barber (Kem lol), and I just recall saying something to the effect of – “your 20’s I suppose is where you find yourself, and then your 30’s is where you live knowing now who you are…”, he agreed, I don’t know if that was just to placate me or if it  was from a shared space, but I think creative types, given the nature of this personality type, we are always to look create, or to find, and then once we have found the eureka moment, we take the baton and run with it until the next rebuild is required. But my theory at its essence is that, the lost 20 year old, still seeking an identity, still seeking a purpose, still seeking a tribe, still seeking themselves, has the benefit of their 20’s to trial and error, to make mistakes, to take a somewhat apophatic approach to your life – in this context, sussing out all the things, the people, the crowds, the activities you don’t wish to do in order to gain a clear destination to that with which you will commit to. It wasn’t however til I got older, say around 28/29, that the things I began consciously exposing myself to actually shed light on the missing link of this phenomena – we don’t find, we create.

This topic will get a post of its own, such is its gravitas, however, in short, for the benefit of this episode; we often confuse ourselves by trying to find all of the above (self, purpose, tribe etc); however, by suggesting that these are things that need to be found, we are essentially outsourcing that which we create, to something external, to something outside of our own jurisdiction, a lottery if you will. If however, we look it those constructs as something we create, then the idea that “we don’t seek the knowledge (replace knowledge with whatever philosophical entity you prefer), the knowledge we are looking for is often seeking us” (or however the adage goes), makes a lot more sense. If there is a series of infinite abundance and infinite possibility out there, then surely, this lends itself to creation, a moulding of clay if you will, as apposed to a treasure hunt for an already moulded piece of clay.

Whether you like it or not, the clay you mould is the life that you live; fortunately, if you are not happy with which is being moulded, you can somewhat seize your sovereignty back by placing yourself in the conscious role of the moulder. Don’t get me wrong, this I believe does a long time to cultivate, and will likely be a never ending process, but that’s ok, life itself is a never ending process until you die, and even, then nobody actually knows!

Don’t worry, I’m not going to you bamboozle you any more with ceramic references; let’s get relative! As I wrote in the post, to me, the idea of ‘finding’ or ‘searching’ as a model of existentialism lends itself to uncertainty, unfulfillment and dissatisfaction in life; after all, we are looking here, there and everywhere for something that was right here – right inside you! I believe the quicker a person can make this transition, the quicker they can begin the fortification and development of the person they consciously choose to live their live as, rather then making a random create-a-wrestler and then wondering why their attire has come out as a model clad in clown shoes, polka dot speedos with a Christmas sweater and spiked gloves with a Kane mask on! You would be better served having a model of the character you wish to create and then go and find that with serves the vision of your creation.

Coming back to the 20’s and 30’s thing then; if we use our 20’s to create the vision of the person we want to live our lives as alone, already we have a construct for a ‘purpose’, because just living to be the person of your ideal vision, your ‘best self’ is alone a purpose! To be the best version of yourself, or your most preferred version of yourself, whatever you believe that entails, is a more than virtuous pursuit to live your life by. What emanates from that is the tribe you seek, you create the tribe because it only makes sense that you are better pre-positioned to find more like minded people as yourself when you know what you are looking for! Why do fans of anything generally attract or find other people who share the same affinity? Same rationale applies to human endeavour! Furthermore, why are you going to go your of your way to find others who not only don’t serve you, but actually bring detriment to your mission?

I know this logic alone falls under scrutiny that is subject to the individual, however, just because a person doesn’t want to take responsibility for the vetting of their life, doesn’t make the statement any less true! With all of this in mind, I think about what my 30’s entails as far as this is concerned.

At this point, I believe the ‘frame’ is in place, frame I described as being a non-negotiable base which under no scrutiny should be breached. That isn’t to say that your ‘frame’ isn’t going to evolve and mutate and adapt to the moving pieces of your life, but at this point, as a person, there should be a few things by now which you have established as being non-negotiable; that could be: no drinking during the week, you don’t see friends until your critical tasks are completed, you will not be around crowd ‘x’, ‘y’, ‘z’, you must get a requisite number of hours sleep in a day… whatever it may be! That alone fosters a sense of value within yourself, because as temptations come and try to seduce you, you have proven to yourself time and time again that you are resolute!

I feel that this is good place to conclude and sign off, especially given how long it is taking me to get over the finish line… I’ll never forget the excerpt from The War of Art by Steven Pressfield – “The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point, Resistance knows we’re about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it’s got. The professional must be alert for this counterattack. Be wary at the end. Don’t open that bag of wind.” I feel by meandering and waiting for a few extra lines to write, the bag of wind becomes more and more tempting to open…

The main thing was to get something back out there again, it has been damn long enough! I’ve got a new white board that is ready to become immortalised in the coming days; do you know hard it has been to procure one from a local shop since lockdown began? I am going to make a concerted effort to bring more content in more forms, not just boards, or blogs, but if you follow me on Instagram, you have seen the rediscovery of rhyming that I have been documenting over the last 3 months or so, and I’m also going to look make more of the Argami9x website platform, so stay tuned!

I hope you enjoyed my return to writing,

Goodnight, and God bless you all;

Steven

#RONIN #RoninStateOfMind #OSU #Aragami