The Way Back

A threshold, a door, and one small step.

I want to tell you about a moment.

Two years ago in April my drive home from work was sixty-five minutes of nothing. Not thinking. Not listening. Not tired. Just absent. Empty. When I pulled into the driveway I realized I couldn’t recall a single thought since I left the office. I also realized this had already happened a few times that week.

I’m not alone in this.

I talk to a lot of people who look, by every outside measure, like they’re doing fine. Good job. Good family. Good life. Yet somewhere underneath it all, a quiet realization was gaining traction: I used to feel more alive than this.

The potential reasons are plenty. Too much work. Too little sleep. A season of grief. A decade of performing. A self you agreed to be a long time ago that doesn’t quite fit anymore. A culture that rewards output and punishes wonder. Take your pick - there are hundreds of honest answers to why.

This series will not be about the why or how.

I’m not interested in diagnosing dimness. Most people don’t need another person to point out what’s wrong. They probably already know. What might be missing though is the way back.

David Whyte has a line I keep returning to:

“Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.”

That’s the move. Not a grand reinvention. Not a five-year plan. A threshold. A door. A small step toward what’s actually yours.

So here’s what this series will do, every Tuesday for the next eight weeks.

No diagnosis. No manifestos about the modern condition. No thought leadership on disengagement. Simply one move per week. One door to open. One thing I’ve done, or watched someone I respect do, that opened a little more light.

Attention. The body. Rest. Who you’re near. Making something small. Sharing it before it’s ready. And the quiet version of alive you can sustain.

If you’ve been dimmed - for a few weeks, a year, a decade - I won’t ask you to explain it. But I will share how I’ve been finding my way back. Take what’s useful and leave the rest.

Start close in, Whyte says. That’s where we’ll start.

See you Tuesday. Much love.

—

This is week one of Come Alive, an eight-week summer series for creative people ready to come back to life.