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Hello my fellow deep space cosmonauts, Our planet is entering the place in its orbit where starlight increasingly graces its northern half — a place we in the north call “spring.” We’re often among the first to feel it here in Phoenix, and this year is no exception. The sonoran desert is in full bloom. It is absolutely glorious to be outside, basking in the warmth and life blossoming on our patch of space rock. I must confess, however: I’ve been rushing about like a madman this month, too caught up in ceaseless busyness to bask in the glory of spring. This is a problem I’m really feeling now, and thought to explore its philosophic and causal roots with you in this letter tonight. I spent this March just doing, doing, doing. My business partner and I got excited about starting a sauna important company and squeezed an eleven-day business trip to Asia — late February to early March — into an already full schedule. I have since been paying the price, placing a mountain of a workload atop a mountain of a workload in a small time window. Perhaps the climax of it all, on a fourteen hour flight from Tokyo to Denver — well over a full day into traveling home — I downed four cups of coffee as the rest of the plane slept, perhaps putting ten hours into the web design with full-knowledge of the big week ahead of me when I landed. There is something about doing in our culture, that has long been in me, that is off-balance and lopsided. Working through that flight, I was on this odd high. I felt like a warrior running into battle, likely to meet his end, but going out with honor. I staggered around in a sleep deprived daze the rest of the week, getting things done, but hardly there. What I’m sure of tonight is this: I am pushing busyness too hard and far. I believe in action. It is grand to do things. We are humans and have hands and feet and minds that love to engage in interests, but I finally understand: ceaseless doing ceases to contribute to one’s life. We (and just about everything else in our universe) function paradoxically, like a yin-yang symbol — black and white, up and down, on and off, day and night, ebbing and flowing. The move is to move with the currents of duality. It is impossible to have half of the whole. To cling to the yin just means more yang later — or, as in my case lately, the two bleed together as I sleepwalk through beautiful days. I’m tired of fighting the paradox. I want to flow with it. To swing without hesitation like a pendulum, rather than go, go, go until I sputter out like a dying battery. At this point, I truly grasp that this is a more effective way of doing, opposed to the culturally heroic form of slogging out ceaseless hours. When we ebb and flow, we are aware, supple, and innovative. When doing is an attempted constant, we’re stressed, inflexible, and single-minded — unable to see outside the expected, even when the most obvious audibles stare us in the face. But the deepest and truest reason to ebb and flow has nothing to do with productivity, and everything to do with sensing the miraculousness of it all. When we get busy we loose sight of the miracle upon which all the “important things” we’re trying to build are built. And really, what could be more important while living on a little blue, green ball covered in life swinging about a star in the endless void of space than recognizing and relishing in the utter beauty, rarity, and magnificence of existence? I’m done plodding around with my head down for so long while walking among such wonder. And I invite you to join me. With love and stoke, Ethan P.S. One of my favorite people on planet Earth, The Yesman, is throwing a festival this summer in Washington State in homage to the Yes. He’s looking for unique talent, true backers, and those stoked to make art out of life by co-creating a life-changing experience for 150-200 people this August. Interested? Dig it below.
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