Borsalino Test #34: Annual reflections 2021
Annual reflections 2021
Soon after I published my first set of mid-year reflections it became obvious what I had to do. Submerge, and then stop the clock every six months to trap my experience in the amber of words, at regular intervals.
True, I could rely on the testimony of others. Read books and essays on how others navigated uncertainties and celebrated victories. But I believe in using my own set of magnifying glasses to examine a personal experience, its contours and tactile texture.
As I begin to write this recount, a central idea looms up over my head. In 2021 I finally reached a cruising altitude to my identity. When it came to writing this travelogue of my 2021, I reread my journal notes with a sinking feeling, overwhelmed with the kind of gratitude that lies at the intersection of profundity and banality. I confess the nakedness of this emotion makes it embarrassing to write about.
If this makes you feel vertical too, then good. Boring my reader has always been one of my worries. But while injecting some irony here and there would protect me from ridicule, it wouldn’t be faithful to my sentiment. What am I supposed to do with my insights on gratitude, anyway? Are deeply felt platitudes still platitudes?
What you won’t find here is a list of tacticalities. I used to be easily seduced by borrowed advice and pre-chewed wisdom. I also used to set goals for 2021. To speak the truth, I achieved very few of them. Now I intend to build systems. Architectures of beliefs and behaviors. Quitting worrying about the future and relinquishing control is an art. No sense of presence can be cultivated in front of a dangling carrot.
But the loss of control without safety leads to madness. Water can flow viscous in hand-dug riverbeds, or flood the crops if untamed. Ultimately, this is the reason why I engage in exercises like this. To dig riverbeds. My process and methods are all breathing beings though. They shed their skin so I can grow comfortable in mine. And remain present.
Purpose
Early in 2021 I dove headfirst into an oncology research project. The central idea of liquid biopsy is to detect feeble traces of tumors early on in biofluids, when cancer can be cured. I became close to the principal investigator of an initiative in this field after a quick email exchange, and we developed an incredibly symbiotic professional relationship.
I had the chance to be exposed to a major scientific breakthrough – the discovery of a novel type of liquid biopsy target. Ultra-short circulating tumor DNA is a completely overlooked target that provides the ability to detect cancer signals early on in the tumor lifecycle. Learning about the subject felt like tuning my radio to a new frequency. A new truth about the world was being revealed, and I was among the first ones to know.
Throughout my entire journey – and still to this day – I wrestled with impostor syndrome. It just wouldn’t compute to me that I could provide any meaningful contribution in this field. This feeling pressure-tested the boundaries of my self-confidence. The testing of my nerves culminated in an invitation at the National Cancer Institute symposium to deliver the closing speech of the event. I enjoyed watching myself from afar, ready and composed.
I haven’t felt composed or centered throughout the year though. This journey welcomed me to a new territory. I often felt insecure about the fabric of my cognitive musculature, my attention span and the true nature of my perseverance. I dealt with investors and experienced industry leaders who haven’t been transparent with their agenda, who left me feeling naive and disappointed. But I am not discouraged. This project is still a work in progress, absorbing my emotional and intellectual heat before radiating incandescent light.
I cherish the courage I showed when putting my all chips down here. It might have been a little reckless to jump without a sound financial plan for myself. But I had a strong conviction with imperfect information. A child-like curiosity and the hunch that if anything would go wrong, then – darn it – I would have learned a tremendous amount. I believe this is where the best decisions in life originate from. For someone accustomed to the science of decision-making, the art of making judgment calls is a genuine liberation.
Growth
I chuckled a bit when I re-read my mid-year commentary on my meditation practice. I used the app Headspace for more than three years, until recently, when I decided to delete it and try something new. I can’t say transcendental meditation has really worked for me. Perhaps the trickiest thing is not having an app on my phone, not operating with a clear structure. Yet this is exactly the way to cultivate presence. A paradox I couldn’t explain to myself at first, but needed to address. As I write this, I am still trying to give meditation a go.
I quietly left therapy during the past six months. To be clear, my desire to orient myself in the narrative of my psyche and emotions stands strong. I just haven’t found a fit for my needs. And I ultimately got tired of throwing cash and calendar space at the wrong people. However, psychedelics have proven to be a beyond excellent substitute. They even equipped with much more – a sort of a “pressure-cooker mysticism”. Every trip has been a cannonball to the stomach of my ego. In the future, I intend to write openly about it, though I am aware the psychedelic experience exists beyond the reach of language.
I read quite a lot this year. I decided not to publish a summary of all the books I have consumed, but in case you need inspiration, feel free to peek over my list here. Most of the stuff I read felt chewy or bland, but some books and authors definitely left a mark. I can’t help but stand in awe when reading the works of Matthew Crawford or Kevin Simler.
This is also the first year I wrote this much. At the moment I am writing this I published more than 30 pieces and more than 70,000 words. That’s the length of a short novel. I definitely still cringe when I reread some of my past work, but I took that into account when I decided to start writing this newsletter. The sad news is that it doesn’t get any easier with time. I actually caught myself becoming intellectually lazy and taking shortcuts in order to publish fast. But writing is slow in nature, and marinates in the juices of memories, dreams and traumas.
Subtracting myself from noise helped me regain focus. I spent a sizable chunk of this year – five full months – in complete isolation due to lockdown. On top of that, I have been living in a new country, with no established social connection. The solitude allowed me to spend a lot more time in parks, beaches and trails, with the company of books or just my own thoughts. This yielded a handful of mostly useless reflections and some occasional profundities I attempt to record in these letters.
Wellbeing
At some point this year I crossed the Rubicon between feeling I had to exercise often to stay in shape and wanting to exercise to stay mentally centered. Before, I would nudge my feet into my running shoes or drag my body into a gym, like a beast of burden. Something about the intensity of extreme physical effort exerted on CrossFit training resonates with me on a deeper level. It is absorbing, and requires control of many different levels, from sleep, to nutrition, to rest. In a way, it makes me feel I have control over the dials, switches and knobs in my cockpit.
For the first time ever I decided to eat and drink for nutrition instead of social capital or, worse, gluttony. I turned vegan for the whole second half of the year, and it has been easier than I anticipated. It took a few weeks of adjusting, but eventually it yielded a fair degree of nutritional self-control. Veganism also introduced me to a whole new way of cooking, and the pleasure of tasting homemade dishes and whole foods. I am now also relying on food delivery significantly less.
At the moment I am writing this it has been a little over a year I haven’t drunk alcohol. Something I thought unrealistic until very recently. Quitting drinking has easily been the highest leverage decision I have made, with incredible reverberations on my health, social conduct and sleep.
Consistent quality of sleep has been the toughest nut to crack for me this year. I felt like I tried virtually everything out there. I would go to bed extra early, take a tab (or two) of melatonin and remove technology from my immediate surrounding. I’d use a mask and noise-canceling earplugs. Now, there are two ways to regard such issue. The first is to keep accumulating sleep-inducing gimmicks. But it has proven worthy to imagine a mental state in which thoughts can’t keep me up at night. A state in which preoccupations and anxieties about the future dissolve in the presence of an overpowering presence. Now that is something worth exploring, and it is currently a work in progress.
Finally, I feel tremendously lucky to have never experienced Covid thus far, and to have received my vaccination shots this year. My family has been healthy throughout the whole year as well. What a blessing.
Finances
Money is where I could have done a better job. I took a huge financial risk quitting a job without a clear path to income in sight. Part of the reason why I moved to Portugal lies in the extremely low cost of living, combined to a fairly high quality of life. Ultimately, this has worked out fine and taught me a number of things.
The first one is to take more intelligent risks. I never truly doubted my ability to bring things back on track for myself financially. In some way I trust that I can realign to the course if push really comes to shove. And that’s what happened. Aside from some occasional preoccupation, I have never experienced extreme financial anxiety or put myself in danger. But in a way I had to try that first hand. It’s not something I could have learned from someone else’s experience.
So then I realized - I don’t need much. Though I have been far from frugal, I watched myself from impulsive purchases and unneeded embellishments. I barely shopped for new clothes this year. Perhaps a more sure-footed financial manager would have stuck to their budgetary guns, remaining inside the swimlanes of pre-allocated shares of monthly savings to different spending items. But when I tried to record all my expenses periodically, the method introduced too much friction, making it impossible to remain consistent to my practice.
Relationships
I developed and invested in a number of friendships, especially with women. Some of them gave me a lot and strengthened my confidence in connecting with incredible humans. Unfortunately, Portugal has been a land of transition for many. With all likelihood it won’t be my permanent home either. So I just cherish the intensity of some connections for the time I have been given.
A new form of human relationship entered my life and caught me off guard. I became an uncle, and confronted the proximity to a baby for the first time. I admit I have been feeling unprepared, not really knowing what to do, or what this baby needed from me. Then I realized not much was requested from me, and I just had to exercise love and curiosity for this new little being. That, it seems to me, is something powerful in its banality.
The birth of Arianna gave me the opportunity to spend more quality time with my family, and see everyone under a different light. I found myself admiring the emotional generosity of my mom, my sister and my brother-in-law towards this newborn. I confess the rawness of this image moved me to my core.
A lot of other people entered my life unannounced, and then slipped out of it almost immediately. Most of them left me close to nothing. We overlapped like eclipsing planets. And I am really okay with it. Whenever I got into a place of social friction I simply turned to them and admitted candidly my discomfort or genuine lack of interest. Clarity on omissions allowed me to avoid mistakes of commission.
Fun
Over the second half of my year I reduced a lot of noisy distractions that I previously thought were fun. Most of them felt like empty calories. Many TV shows, dates and house parties absorbed more energy than they generated, and provided no emotional or psychological nutrients. They actually left me depleted, and slightly disoriented.
I learned to cultivate interest in solitude, distance myself from noise and seek quietness in nature. This allowed me to seize the paradoxicality and weirdness of lockdown. Spending time alone intentionally, instead of begrudgingly. I have become acutely aware of how crazy this sounds. But the acknowledgement of self as an individual that needed attention like a friend is precisely what allowed me to invest more in this direction.