This never happens lately. It was 4AM and I was driving south on Interstate 91 to the lower tip of Vermont and crossing the Mass border. Coffee in hand brewed at my house at 2AM and I was an hour away from meeting Chris for our annual Goose Island BCS Black Friday and suddenly, this wave of clarity came over me. I turned off the Shins album playing over the car\u2019s speakers and sipped my coffee and just sat in silence. It was this fence-straddling between meditation and contemplation and this continued for half an hour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Finally out loud I said, \u201cwhy the Hell don\u2019t I feel like this anymore? Why is this so rare?\u201d Seriously what happened to me in the last 10 years where moments like this never happen. I wanted to write this that same day but I waited 2 weeks because it\u2019s something that had to be processed and maybe happen again but it hasn\u2019t. It\u2019s that feeling you get when your eyes meet those of a stranger and yet instead of each of you looking away, you both keep staring because it doesn\u2019t feel awkward it feels like you\u2019ve known them all of your life or that feeling of applying for a job you know you\u2019ll get because you\u2019re perfect and then everything aligns and you get the job. I really don\u2019t know why these sort of things never happen to me anymore and I believe it\u2019s because I never give myself time in silence. Even in the middle of New Hampshire, this is actually really hard but in 2020 I\u2019m going to try and do more of it. My house is full of tech equipment the basement is a data center with a de-humidifer running and upstairs, I have fridge drone from the compressor and the heat will kick on and blow hot air throughout the house and a big truck barrels down the road or a Harley\u2019s V-Twin shakes my windows. I have to go out into the woods with my dirt bike, kill the engine, take off my helmet and get a little bit of silence before I\u2019m swarmed by mosquitos.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That kind of clarity is insanely rare these days and I\u2019d like to find a way to get it back because in that short-lived moment driving down the road I felt invincible like I could do anything, build anything the encumbrances and limitations of adulthood where responsibility and fiscal shackles cloud all of that pure thought you have as a kid. I don\u2019t say this was some life changing moment where I\u2019m going to take up yoga or join a freedom cult out in the woods but it was a feeling I haven\u2019t had in so long that I sort of crave getting it back. It\u2019s so fresh in my mind how that felt that like a drug, I\u2019d like to find that feeling again and hold on to it for longer. Maybe that\u2019s what meditation is? I\u2019ll let you know in time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For now, if you have this feeling naturally like I used to when I was in my teens and 20s, hold on to it. I remember as a kid on the bus having this feeling the entire ride to school and I’d have it on my daily drive to Jacksonville to work at Apple and I sometimes had it on my 20 minute walk to work in SoMA SF. I\u2019d sip my coffee, pop in my Shure SE530s (the same ones I\u2019m using right now still) and walk and reflect. It\u2019d be good to get that feeling back instead of feeling cloudy all of the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This never happens lately. 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