Throughout my twenties, I’ve been lucky enough to struggle with the notion of “finding my life purpose”. While I feel this is a worthy goal, the critical question that tends to pop up revolves around method. How does one go about doing this, given the good fortune to pursue it? For the longest time this was an aspirational exercise; a problem of reverse engineering, work ethic, talent and resources. I would look at the influences around me: the role models, the values, the themes, the media and marketing… parents, etc. Since I’m a good daydreamer, I would set my heart upon something that looked just right and then embark upon that path: olympic athlete, tech founder, musician, etc. Inevitably, it wouldn’t feel right. Despite my persistence I’d be fitting a square peg in a round hole. I’d feel compelled to make a turn, but wouldn’t allow myself. _Persistence. Persistence._ The motto would repeat in my head. I ran this method more than three times over the better part of a decade. I was still lost. I looked to disparate domains for concepts that might be applied toward building a new method — and found a powerful idea in the world of sculpture. > “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” — Michelangelo The process of unearthing. Almost concurrently I picked up a book called _The War of Art_ by Steven Pressfield and found this quote: > “Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.” Every day that we live and challenge ourselves, we uncover clues. Clues about our aptitudes, our abilities, our interests, our knowledge, our lifestyle needs, our tribes, our spiritual possession… It’s often when I’m the most uncomfortable that the signal is amplified and the process of unearthing becomes easier. Harder and easier. Extreme balance of opposites. Rather than add abilities and layers to turn myself into my dreams, I’m now subtracting layers to reveal the unique face within the stone. It’s hard to emotionally release myself from the glittery image of daydreams in favor of a vague, young sketch I might not like. It’s a dimly lit journey, fraught with twists and turns. There is no clear path. There is no archetype to model after. The journey of working through the stone reveals its art over time. Only in hindsight does it make sense and the archetype become clear. But by then, it once again becomes an aspirational exercise and the journey begins anew. %% - Scraps:: - When searching for purpose, we humans have a habit of approaching this question from a place of scarcity. We believe we haven't read enough virtuous books[*](((DVNDFhQzO))), or had enough life experiences, or met the right teacher to answer the question... So we pile on the inputs. Perhaps we decide to read volumes of philosophy, or have a film festival in our living room, or research the lives of notable people, or even endlessly scroll through our Instagram feeds... - The answer, however, lies in the art of subtraction. Instead of adding more noise into our lives, we should quiet the inputs. This input deprivation allows us to peel back the layers of our own nature and slowly become acquainted with our true essence and sense of purpose. - Relevant Notes:: - [[Reducing complexity in a complex system empowers better predictions]] - [[Desire is destiny; pursue better loves]] - To be truly great, we need to eliminate all desires except a core couple. - [[Minimize your number of desires and design a highly productive system to support them]] - [[Radical acceptance; love your fate, even the suffering]] %%