Following our intuition
Why we need to own our own path
This week, a clip of a T-Pain livestream found its way into my YouTube recommendations.
Someone in chat asks Mr. Pain what advice he has for aspiring artists, and without even taking a breath, he responds with:
Stop asking artists for advice.
T-Pain talks about the other artists he looked up to, and the responses they had to his music. If he would have listened to their critiques, their recommendations, their "advice," he wouldn't be where he is today.
The key point here is to own our path and personal intuition.
There's two aspects, almost a double meaning, to this use of the word "own":
It's personal
It's a possession
No one else has what you have, yet we're so quick to ask for advice from others that have gotten to a place we think we want to be.
There is no perfect model out there for the life you want to lead because you’re a unique and unrepeatable person, and the stamp you leave on this world will be your own.
Luke Burgis is one of the leaders in the modernization of "mimetic desire," a theory that all desires come from the things we see other people doing, buying, using, etc. This was spearheaded originally by René Girard, but I've heard roots of this go back to ancient yogis, who said that all desires originate from our indriyas, or sense organs.
So what's the thread here?
Externalization.
When it comes to choosing what to work on, what to value, what to buy, what decision to make, we rely on others to make it for us. If we don't directly ask the people we look up to for help or advice, we have countless blog posts and videos to reference. Even without searching online, we get values from those we see on social media downloaded right into our subconscious.
And what can we do about it?
Perhaps the most anti-mimetic attitude of all is an openness to wonder and a desire to let reality surprise you.
Be more true to the little voice on the inside.
We want to let things bubble up from inside of us, rather than be controlled by what we see on the outside.
It's in forging our own path that we're able to get to the success that we so desperately want when we see others achieving it. Like we talked about with discipline in Passion is fire, if we try to just emulate the emergent properties that we see on the outside, we're going to miserably fail.
Following our own intuition takes strength. It takes courage.
Will you show up for yourself today?
Asking for advice upfront can be procrastination in disguise.
"I don't know where to start - what's your advice." -- it's a hollow ask.
You need to start imperfectly, encounter roadblocks, and then seek information on how others overcame that roadblock.
Through iteration you'll create something that is yours.
Well written man :)