A warm welcome to those of you who are new to this newsletter. If you are wondering why you haven't been receiving much from me, it's because I've been on an extended journey of undoing this summer — taking a pause from releasing and offering.
And as I occupy this unusual state of fallowness, I've been sitting with the many layers of myself that are deeply attached to doing, to knowing, and — especially — to knowing what I'm doing.
So before I retreat into quietude for a little bit longer, I thought I'd share a few reflections on what is arising.
On Doing
I have spent a goodly portion of my adult life thinking about how to get "better" at doing. In other words, investigating how I/you/we can optimize our output and be more productive. Only to realize that constantly optimizing our ability to do more stuff might actually be a rather toxic objective.
So then I spent quite a few years, podcasts, newsletters, and courses examining how to unwind from our collective obsession with doing and productivity.
Now, I seem to be receiving what one of my teachers calls "a deeper cut" of (un)doing as I am being invited to ask (again):
To understand how ensconced we are in doing, we have only to look at our language. In western culture (and the dominant language, English), the question you are most likely to be asked when you encounter a new person is: What do you do?
That this is the first question we ask of our fellow humans seems to presume that what you "do" is one of the most pertinent and/or important things to know about a person.
Underneath that question, the energy that is being communicated is one of needing to justify your existence through doing.
By extension: If it's not clear what you do or what you are doing, your existence — culturally speaking — might be deemed less important or less relevant.
And I have been feeling more deeply into that: The degree to which my "relevance" feels connected to my output — to what I am doing, creating, or envisioning.
To not be doing feels like being out of step with the culture.
But what does it mean to be "relevant" in a culture that is not necessarily aligned with your values?
What would it mean to inhabit our own rhythms of creation outside of the linear, lockstep progression of a culture oriented towards doing, productivity, and extraction?
Could I/you/we be more relevant by being out of step?
On Knowing
I often address the world around me (e.g. Spirit, the muse, ancestors, etc) with the question: "What would you have me know?" A few months ago, I asked a teacher this question and she replied: I would have you know nothing so that you can learn some new things.
Our existing knowledge — what we "know" — forms the train tracks in our minds, the well-known grooves that guide our thoughts. What we are open to knowing is, generally speaking, a direct extension of what we already know.
It follows then that if something is very far outside of what we already know, it can be hard for us to be open to knowing it. We don't even understand how we could know it — because the way we process everything is shaped so deeply by our existing ideas, language, physical form, etc.
What would it be like to have appendages that could function without any input from one's brain? That could make decisions independently and even continue to function if cut off from our bodies? It's very hard to imagine, but this is how octopus knowing works.
What would it be like to have 20 senses instead of the standard five senses that your average human has? It's hard to imagine, but this is how plant knowing works. According to Professor Stefano Mancuso, plants can, among other things, "perceive and calculate gravity, electromagnetic fields and moisture, and analyze the concentration gradient of numerous chemical substances."
What would it be like to store memories not just in your brain, but also in your heart? It's hard to imagine, but this is perhaps how our own human knowing works — and we're just not aware of it. In this beautiful essay, Bo Forbes writes about how researchers and journalists have been documenting, since the 1960s, the heart's ability to carry the memories, emotions, experiences, and even food preferences of the organ donor into its new body after a transplant.
What else do we not yet know about ourselves? Or about the knowing of the plants and animals that we share this incredible planet with?
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Lately, my thoughts have been returning to the Zen koan: Not knowing is most intimate. Which, to me, implies that it is only when we are in states of deep un-knowing that we truly meet ourselves, that we can truly be intimate with all the parts of ourselves — and each other.
Most of us have probably experienced the difference between interacting with a friend in a controlled, familiar environment as compared with interacting with that same person in the less certain, less known environment of, say, going on a road trip together. It's only when you are on that journey — when you are navigating through the unexpected and the unknown together — that you truly become intimate.
What we think we "know" about ourselves, or about others, isn't always true.
I would have you know nothing so that you can learn some new things.
What new things can I open up to learning by letting go of what I already know? What does it mean to truly be in a state of not knowing? And if I fully surrender to it, could it be a kind of relief? A kind of rest? A kind of innocence?
What new vistas might open up if I/you/we hopped off our existing trains of knowledge and left those tracks behind? If we didn't let what has happened dictate what could happen?
On knowing what I'm doing
The dominant culture places a high value on those who know what they are doing. Just think about how much we revere expertise — those who carry the imprimatur of excellence and deep knowledge within a specific category. Think about all those "how to" articles, where others with supposedly more experience tell us how to go about doing this or that task — lest we enter into uncharted territory on our own and make mistakes. Think about our ever-growing collective obsession with offering advice to one another. With feeling that we need to offer what we know — to perform the role of person who knows what they are doing — for our friends, family, and colleagues.
For most of my life, since I was a teen, I have been regularly in the process of: dreaming up a new project, putting that project together, or launching said project. I love having a big vision and moving towards it.
In other words: I love knowing what I'm doing. And I feel a bit naked and exposed without that knowing.
Not knowing is most intimate.
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Recently, this quote from the musician and composer Brian Eno in Eric Tamm's biography has been floating back into my mind:
"The difficulty in feeling that you ought to be doing something is that you tend to undervalue the times when you're apparently doing nothing, and these are very important times. It's the equivalent of dream time, in your daily life, times when things get sorted out and reshuffled. If you're constantly awake work-wise you don't allow that to happen. One of the reasons I have to take distinct breaks when I work is to allow the momentum of a particular direction to run down, so that another can establish itself." *
I love this notion of the importance of allowing the momentum of a direction to run down before a new direction or idea can establish itself.
In my late thirties, after I left my job at a startup — which I had been at for six years and had been very formative for me — it took some time for the momentum of the ideas and energy that I had been working with in that job to run down. For me to be able to understand what I was interested in now, as separate from what I had been interested in as part of my past role.
Now, I wonder: Could what I am experiencing be the momentum of an era — not just an idea or a job — running down?
One wants to glide seamlessly (and quickly!) from one project to the next, one idea to the next, one incarnation to the next, one era to the next, but these transitions unfold on their own time. And perhaps a bit more messily than we would like.
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How long does it take for the momentum to run down?
But I am going to continue to inhabit this space of not-knowing and not-doing for a little awhile longer.
I will not be creating, releasing, or offering anything — be it a newsletter, a podcast, or a course — for the next 2-3 months.
It is my hope to return with some juicy new offerings in early 2025, but who knows what will happen?
Not me!
Much love, Jocelyn
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* Shout out to Scott McDowell for bringing that Brian Eno quote to my attention many years ago.
Where's Pablo?
Link About It
In praise of not knowing. From Andrea Gibson: "As soon as I entered my teens I began to pride myself on knowing. I thought that to be lovable I had to be right. I believed that having the answer meant having it all. But know-it-alls don't make great learners. To be in a state of not knowing is to be open and receptive, and to be otherwise is very often to be shut down."
What future is wanting to emerge through you? I loved this conversation with Otto Scharmer, who teaches about leading in times of disruption: "Usually, when experts talk about the future, 2030, 2050, we have experts talking about what happens in a different time, often in a different place by different people… When I use the word future, I mean something personal that happens here and now. Because it has to do with a sense of possibility that I am aware of that is connected to my own forward journey. And that is looking at me, because it depends on me to manifest. So it doesn't get more personal. The future is a possibility that is not me, but that is *looking at me,* because it depends on me to manifest, to come into the real world." adrienne maree brown on radical imagination and moving towards life. A beautiful dialogue with Krista Tippett: "So much of the work for me, of radical imagination, is: what does it look like to imagine beyond the constructs? What does it look like to imagine a future where we all get to be there, not causing harm to each other, and experiencing abundance?"
Hi, I'm Jocelyn, the human behind this newsletter. I host the Hurry Slowly podcast, teach online courses, and practice energy work. You can learn more about me at jkg.co. If you have a question, you can always feel free to hit reply. 🤓
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