#60: The blurring of (my) real life personas
On avoiding nihilism, the portfolio of life and more
Friends,
This is my 60th entry. I have been writing here since 2020. 59 posts later, it still honestly feels like day one. I’m still exploring and actively making strategical changes to this platform, working title. For context, I started this because of the following reasons:
Documentation/opinion - I wanted to write about the covid-era world and keep track of things from where I stand. (From the archives, my quarantine series: 04 -quarantine diaries (march 29, 2020), 05-Designers & the new world & #06: What are you going to do about it?)
Writing in public - I have a plethora of personal, then-offline writing about the intersection of business, design and technology, tactical and big-picture. Had nowhere to put them, nor had ways of testing out their relevance. Substack seemed like a great place for this, 3 years later I had no regrets trusting my work (and voice/reputation) with this company.
Education - Working as a design mentor then, I thought having a public newsletter can be a way to scale all the work I’ve done (and am doing) in this department. (As of writing, a huge percentage of my readers are designers / people interested in design. It is a pleasure to continuously write and hopefully bring value to you all.)
This has been wildly beneficial to my growth as a person pursuing a careers in writing and design (technology). Because of building working title, I was able to:
Meet likeminded people, mostly offline and open discussions about the topics we care about deeply
Share my insights and personal anecdotes to an audience that supports and learns from them
Increase my reach and develop & keep pushing my confidence in ways I never thought possible
Gain an immeasurable sense of pride on the work that I do and because of that, become a lot more intrinsically motivated to create
Build a haven for my creative and intellectual pursuits, a sandbox for my ideas, raw and untested (i.e #48: The Highs and Lows of Creating and Living, designing bios series: part 1 / part 2, & the new ofws)
Writing takes time and energy. Shipping writing work and building a platform around it, even more-so. I’m sure that is quite obvious. It’s particularly challenging when you also have other things in your life that requires attention and resources. When things are important enough, you make time for it. Someday, it will all pay off. I’ve seen this happen in my life many times.
This platform—my small audience—is important. The iteration never stops, I’ll strive to bring as much value to you with every post I sen to your inbox.
8 pieces of advice for my young son, on creativity and living your life to the best of your potential:
In whatever it is that you choose to do with your time, go all in on it. Own it. Take pride in it and never half-ass it.
Creativity is a skill. It is easily one of the most useful ones you can ever develop. Use it well, and learn to leverage it when opportunities present themselves.
Spend as much time creating, and as little time consuming. If you have to consume, consider the investment of your time. With your unlimited choices of entertainment, choose things that:
Make you happy
Make you think
Make you see the world (or a part of it) differently
Make you feel things
Find joy in the ordinary; Seek thrill and energy from the extraordinary. There’s room for both in your life. (Don’t let other people tell you otherwise.)
Curate endlessly—people, content, activities, food, art and anything else that will rent a space in your brain. Be open and flexible but also charge heavily by setting the right standards that will work for you.
Treat personal and professional pursuits as experiments, think like a scientist, execute like an artist.
Everything you do will be a part of your portfolio in life. If you don’t like what it looks like, remove things and introduce new ones. Until it feels good to you. Until it feels like you have given your best in each one of it.
Avoid nihilism, at all costs. It’s a real productivity and creativity killer.
I am obsessed with creating and finding assets as much as I am with avoiding the opposite—liabilities. Admittedly, just by recognizing which things (and directions) to stray away from has changed my life in a lot of ways. I don’t always know what I want, I’m not always sure, even, of what is best for me.
I do know and, consistently am aware, of what I don’t want. This is a guiding principle that has constantly worked for me and steered my life’s direction in so many ways.
If I can teach my son one thing, this is probably one of the most important ones.
Designers are accustomed to see everything that is wrong with the world—from products to companies to people. We seek the sources of pain so we can be a part of the solution, rather than the cause. We are not afraid of what we don’t know, no matter how intimidating. We see things from the multifaceted perspective of humans, or at least we try to. We create systems, patterns and frameworks to make sense of a lot of the messes we are in the middle of.
Nothing like being responsible for another living and breathing human to make this even more clearer for me. Of course, this comes with questions such as the following:
How can I design my life in the best way that I can for the people that I love the most?
In what areas can we make significant improvements for our collective future as a family and as individuals living on earth?
What can I do less of but gain more time, money and energy, as a practice and application of creativity?
If I would look at the portfolio of my life, how does it make me feel? What can I eliminate so that I can make room for things that actually bring a lot more value (emotionally)?
What can I do today that will keep on working for me regardless if I stop? (Inspired by James Clear from this episode by Tim Ferriss)
The lines are blurring: my designer persona as well as my parent one. It is not frictionless, nor is it free of conflicts. I have way too many questions in my head than I have the answers for any of them. Luckily for me, I thrive on questions.
And I will keep on asking questions, to myself and to my audience, for they are a source of secrets. It seems like the more secrets about life and living I unlock, the better I work. The better I work (on myself, my pursuits and all the other things that occupy my life), the more alive I truly feel. My malleable brain is taking this as a challenge, not too different from a design challenge.
For I am convinced, in general, thinking about thinking just leads to a superior quality of life, one that is proudly designed—approached with intentionality and supreme care and respect for the resources (and privileges) one is given. Stoked just to hear myself say this out loud, I hope you are too.
This little piece of writing on the internet is for you, Noah. You inspire me beyond words could say.
Thank you for reading,
Nikki
Mix of the best things I’ve ever read this month:
What They Don't Tell You About Having Kids And A Career by
AI and the burden of knowledge by
- ’s Notes on Substack
How to create a masterpiece by
A podcast episode so good, I had to listen to it twice on the same day:
Thank you again. If you have a quick second, Would love your thoughts, feedback on my platform
Nikki i love love love this!!! You write about design and creativity in such a way that i can feel it. If that makes sense ❤️
Thank you for the shoutout Nikki, love that we have found each other's writings x