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Voyage and Return

It is 5am, and I’m downstairs on the couch, sitting right up against the front window. I reach my fingertips out, and feel the remains of the night chill on the glass. It’s beginning to get light outside, but there isn’t any colour yet - just a vague pastel blue grey. There’s a tree by the street, every leaf still and monochrome like a pencil sketch. I know that each minute that passes now will lift those leaves into more vibrance, along with the sky, the streaky clouds, and the limestone wall along our garden bed. And sometime between now and then, the sun will have risen, and the day will become distinct.

January to me feels like this time between first light and sunrise. A no-mans-land of vagary and indistinct shapes, each new day bringing a little bit more colour and clarity to the year, but, who really knows when the sun will actually crest the horizon. After the mad hustle of December, January is a reprieve for some, a recovery for others, a reward for yet other others.

I don’t know if it’s because I have kids, or because I'd shot weddings for so long, or both, but January was never any of those things for me. It was just, messy. School holidays meant a kind of responsibility-overload, paired with the hourly deadlines of editing the outstanding weddings of the last 8 weeks, and then topped off with all the existential questions one asks of oneself each new year:

“where am I going?”
“what really matters in life?”
“did I live a life worthy of living last year?”

In those past years, the only way to survive was to compartmentalise. In this moment, I am fully present with the kids. In this next moment, I am fully present with my editing. The next moment, going for a walk, spending time with loved ones, laughing at a thing.. It went moment by present moment, each of them disconnected from the other.

It’s not like that anymore, thank goodness. For something unsustainable, I sustained it for too long. But, January is still messy.

This year, I’m finding it useful to assign a plot archetype to the month of January. For me, it’s a VOYAGE AND RETURN plot. A protagonist heads out into the big world, experiences some things, and returns changed somehow. There’s a transformation, or an elixir brought back, or whatever else. So I’m looking back over the month as if I have just returned from a great voyage, and I’m sifting through my pockets of experiences, searching for elixirs.

With the sun already warming up the sky, and the leaves across the street bright and dancing in a new breeze, I find that my pockets are full of elixirs. I have a hope here, that I feel so deep. It will support us the whole year I reckon. Rach and I have communities that we can work with and play with, who love us and believe in great things. I find so many vials of encouragement, gifts from distant lands reminding us that we are all connected, and all valuable.

January hasn’t been a mess. It has just been a journey, and we have returned with dusty clothes and happy kids, a renewed focus and a burning drive to create things in the world.

We’re tired, but we are together, and we are as excited about the year as those dancing leaves seem to be about the new day.

On joining a gym

A month ago, Rach and I joined a gym. I’ve never been any good at these things.

I tried a gym once when I was nineteen, and it was a disaster. I would put my headphones on and stride into the place like I saw the guys in the movies do, and just start loading up the weights. After three dumbbell curls my arms hurt too much to lift them, and a few leg presses later I was exhausted. I didn’t have a trainer or anything, and I didn’t know how to ask for help, so five minutes in, I’d be packing up to leave. And that was really my only experience with gyms.

That, and the time I was hit on in the gym pool by a much older man. Being alone and wearing very little, while a large hairy stranger describes how attractive he finds my body, was definitely a strong reason to never, ever return.

Anyway, 20-odd years later I'm trying again, and this time everything is better. Rach and I would go together, our own little team, every second morning at 7am. There were no monster heavyweights strutting about looking down on us, no spectacularly beautiful bodies demanding that we go harder and faster and better and one day we'll look like them. There were just everyday humans in pretty good shape high-fiving and encouraging us to do our best, but not so much that we throw up. It's been really great.

This morning, halfway through the session, I noticed something that's probably quite obvious to everyone else. I was hanging from a bar, trying to lift my knees up to my chest for the fortieth time, sweat running down my face like acid rain, and I realised that all of this, really... hurts.

Like, every moment of our 50-minute session involved some kind of pain, each muscle group getting their chance to endure a bit of hell as we moved around each station. Swinging from that bar, I looked around the room, and each face wore its own version of agony. There were grunts, gasps, panting, the occasional expletive. Everyone was feeling it. Actual pain, and the worst thing is, we had all chosen it for ourselves.

I got my knees up that last time, and dropped to the floor with a little "oof," and crawled over to the burpee station. Before I had a chance to think anymore, I was off on a new journey of pain.

I do know how exercise works. We exert some effort and the endorphins kick in and then we experience some kind of "high." Honestly, I haven't felt the high yet, which means I may not be pushing myself enough or something, but what I really, really appreciate is what happens to my mind during that hour:

When we start the workout, the rest of the world, with all of its pressure, anxiety, uncertainty, and busyness, fades away. Our attention is completely present, in this moment of our next breath, nothing beyond the routine before us. We're not forecasting or fearing the future. We're not retrieving or regretting the past. We're not processing intellectual arguments or emotional conundrums or responsibilities or anything else.

Within this 50-minute timeframe, we are at peace. There is pain, but there is also peace.

And for me, I also feel a sense of freedom. Which is strange, considering the amount of restrictions and limitations that the workout demands, but nonetheless, I feel free. By choosing the path, by clicking "attend session" on the app, I create an oasis for my mind, a reprieve from the overwhelm. For one hour, the entire world is held back. It can go wait for me over there, by the door, while I do my thing.

Stories are often crafted around a three-act structure, where Act 1 pushes a character into the conflict, Act 2 describes all the conflict and transformation, and Act 3 wraps it all up with a resolution and ultimate transformation (for better or worse).

The interesting thing about Act 1 is how difficult it is for the character to make that first decision, the one that forces them into the big story. It's a comfort-or-conflict choice, and the rest of the story hinges on the answer. But, once the decision has been made, the work begins and the character doesn't struggle with that choice anymore: life is too exciting now.

I feel like that with these workout, and I often feel like that with the rest of life. It's the hardest thing to click "do it!" on the app, and lock myself in to a session, but once I have, my mind relaxes, and I just go and do the work.

After the decision, there is peace.

Within the limitations, there is freedom.

Though there is pain, there is also pride, and transformation.

I'm absolutely not an exercise junkie yet, and I still dislike pain. But, I'm finding myself more and more looking forward to these sessions, and will even tap "yes" to them now with a tiny bit of joy.

Deus ex machina

This week Rach and I had lunch with our accountant, Hau (pronounced "how," just to save your brain for the remainder of this post.)

Hau is an incredibly generous, powerful and humble soul, who has taken care of me ever since we studied business and accounting together. In those classes, he was the A-grade student who would have his head down, scribbling furiously and soaking in all the information, while I was the art-brained student, clearly on the wrong career path, staring out the window and falling asleep on the desk.

I don't even know how we became friends, but decades later here we are - meeting over lunch to talk about family, love, tax and cryptocurrency.

On our way in, Rach and I were not doing well. We were shattered, heart-sore and bank-account-sore, to be honest. We are in the middle of a thing that demands all our time and all our savings, so each day is a battle to stay above the chaos. Our "thing" is epic - the destination is so exciting - but some days, the journey really hurts.

So we drove in silence. We took some deep breaths and sometimes reached for each other's hand. I couldn't get my words right, and there was a lump in my throat.

The restaurant was in the Crown complex, so we drove to the free parking area then started walking. In a few minutes we were surrounded by shiny lights, glass towers, theatres and bars. The casino was pumping. As we passed the entry, each gripping the other's hand a little too tight, I imagined just swinging in to the roulette table. "Five minutes," I'd tell Rach, and then I'd bet the car, or something, and win big, and walk out with a cool million in cash, and then finally be able to buy Hau lunch instead of the other way round.

Hau meets us with laughs and hugs, shaking his head at everything that's going on in his life. "Eat! Eat!" he tells us, "what are we just sitting here for?" And we head to the buffet. I'm still deciding which kind of rice should accompany my first scoop of curry and Hau swings past with a plate full of vegetables and greens and something that looks like salmon crossed with a dumpling crossed with a cucumber. "Come on Nathan! Fill your plate man!"

I'm still thinking about the casino. How great life would be if we just won a bazillion dollers. How much of the chaos could be removed.

—

In ancient Greek and Roman drama, there was a practice that playwrights often employed to resolve the chaotic plot lines in their stories. When everything got too messy, instead of working the characters through conflict, growth and change, the writers would simply have one of their many gods turn up to solve everything.

Literally, two minutes before the end of the play, an actor playing a god would appear, suspended by a crane over the stage, and they would fix everything.

In Latin, this was called “deus ex machina.”

God, from a machine.

We use the same phrase today in writing, to describe random acts or events that save everything, that come out of nowhere and just fix all the chaos and resolve all the conflict. It’s the weakest way to resolve a plot, and the audience feels it instinctively: all this conflict was built up, ready for some powerful story-moments, and then, poof! Any sense of meaning turns to disappointment, eye-rolling, frustration.

All that aside, I’d still be up for a super-improbable event to solve all my problems. Maybe a rich relative could leave me a mansion?

—

Hau is talking about crypto now. There was a big crash in the market recently, and many investors were left with nothing. Hau said that those who lost everything were the ones who put all their hopes in the one magical crypto stock that they hoped would take them to the moon. They stopped trying, growing, learning, he said, and instead they just waited.

I ask what stops him from becoming like them - content to just wait for the big rescue. He pauses to think, and then tells us that every morning when he wakes, he signs the cross, and gives thanks for his breath, his health, the sunlight on his face, the children in his household. He doesn’t demand or expect a magical rescuer. He just gets into the work, and remains thankful for any provision that comes his way.

I look over his shoulder to the flashing lights of the keno machines, and give a little sigh.

As we walk back across the parking lot, nothing has been solved. Hau didn’t fix us, we didn’t win a million dollars, and we’re already late for our next thing. But, Hau did give us a "next step," and we’re already talking excitedly about the work. We’re either foolish or courageous, but either way we’re not afraid to get back into the work, to keep going in the conflict.

I hope our audience never gets the chance to roll their eyes at us. I hope that we can keep going, keep engaging in the highs and lows. There is so much meaning to be found, moments to experience, good work to complete, and so many incredible humans to share life with.

We are capable of bringing our own order into the chaos, and if a "deus ex machina" moment happens, we’ll take it for sure, but it’s going to have to keep up, because we’ve got work to do.

One year

A year ago, Rach and I got married. In a beautiful mess of laughter and tears and kisses, we put rings on fingers, made vows and commitments, and danced through the night. It was a powerful day, a chapter shift, a line-in-the-sand for us. A rebirth.

Today we are in a little cabin on Prevelly beach, a few hours south of Perth. This campsite is special to us now - we tented here for our honeymoon, and are back for our anniversary. It's 5:30 in the morning, and Rach is still asleep. The walls of the cabin are kind of magical - they seem solid, but they let in every bit of the chill from outside, so I'm already awake. Rach of course is completely content in a 5-degree climate, but I can't feel my toes.

There is a pigeon somewhere outside, who has been releasing a slow and rhythmic chant solidly for the last hour, like a priestly mantra, covering the campsite in a resonant blessing: "whooot... whooot... whooot..." There are finches at the window, back for more breadcrumbs, and I can just hear the distant crash of the tide on rocks.

If I'm honest, it's not just my frozen toes that are keeping me awake. I'm thinking too much. And there is some fear, too. It's been a year since we married, five years all up since we even met. We stripped away all our security and careers and started a whole new life together, and it's been mind-bogglingly amazing. And impossibly hard. We started with love, a love that immediately sunk deep into our cores, and has held us together through all the things.

But in these early hours, I sometimes wonder if love is enough. This is a world of hustle and progress, where we have to make real-life grown-up decisions every day. We have to work and provide for our family, and do all the responsible life things. Am I being naive to make "love" my life's priority?

The pigeon continues to whoot, and I carefully roll myself out of bed. My toes are mutinous, avoiding the cold floorboards so that I am waddling on my heels and the sides of my feet. I penguin my way across to my shoes and pull them on, barely keeping my balance, then step out into the morning.

It's cold outside, but no colder than inside, thanks to our magical cabin walls. On this day a year ago it was not as cold, but I remember Rach and I watching the sky all day, watching the clouds gather closer and darker over our outdoor ceremony space. We would look up to the sky, and then look at each other, and then one of us would remind the other "hey, I love you," and we would agree that no, the clouds won't break our day, and that yes, we would totally do our first dance in the rain.

It did rain in the end, but later on when everyone was inside. And we did dance in the rain, just a bit, before running for cover.

The beach is only a couple of minutes walk from the cabin, not enough to actually warm up, so I find myself too soon stationary again, standing at the shoreline with arms wrapped around arms like an octopus in a straight jacket, my eyes on the horizon. I can't hear the pigeon's blessing anymore, just the ocean's soft applause, and the fizz of the tide soaking into the sand at my feet.

I stare into the horizon, a blinding white that splits the blues of ocean and sky, and send my questions across the waters:

"Have I made the right choices for my wife and kids?"
"Am I being responsible enough?"
"Am I putting too much faith in love?"
"Am I a good husband?"

In the bright silence, I wonder if there even are answers for such questions. I close my eyes and slow my breathing and try and listen anyway.

I hear the fizz of the tide. A seagull cawing overhead. The slap and crash of waves on rocks.

I hear Rach, a year ago today, reading her vows to me. She declares her security is in our love. She says she is so proud of the way we forge our lives together. She tells me I am her home, and it is a joy to build it together. She says we are a shiny mess of potential, and that we live our lives in uncertainty, and that is what allows such an exaltation of our spirits.

I hear the ocean's applause.

--

Rach finds me a little later on the front porch of our cabin. The sunlight is stronger now, but I am still wrapped in a blanket. Her toes seem completely content out here in the chill. She nuzzles her face into my neck, and then peers over to the notebook on my lap. I've copied out a page from Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet", and she smiles in recognition as she reads:

You have been told also that life is darkness...
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself,
and to one another, and to God.

Subplots

When I think of my life, I mostly see stories. The past, with its memories and experiences. The future, all hopes and dreams. And the present, where I try and direct my story so that I get things I want in life. Basically.

This isn’t a new revelation or anything, and we all do it. It’s fundamentally human to arrange our lives into stories, and it’s how we end up connecting with other humans: we share our experiences and we listen to others’ share theirs. I'll ask you about love, and you might start with something intellectual, but you’ll end up referencing a personal experience.

If I ask about shame, it would be the same thing. Or laughter, or God, or book reading, trees, swimming pools, fresh bread, sleep, Sonic the Hedgehog.. No matter what the subject is, you and I will both head to the library in our heads and find the book that connects to the topic, and we’ll share it.

I have friends who are amazing at accessing the right book at the right moment. For any subject or topic, they can just grab the relevant book off their mental shelf and share their story. They are some of the most entertaining humans I know.

I tend to meander through my library. I’m not quick to grab the obvious book, because for me there isn’t one. There are ten. You say “swimming pool” and I reach for the books about "gasping for air," “summer nights,” “whirlpools with neighbours,” "skinny dipping in Los Angeles" and "favourite kitchen designs."

And the older we get, the more stories gather in our mental bookshelves. Stories and opinions and insights and memories. We have galaxies in us.

But here's where it falls apart. As magical as our brains are at cataloguing all this data, it's still a bloody big bookshelf. And, if we're honest with ourselves, our cataloguing system is a complete mess. With every new experience, we toss another book onto the pile. It's easy to start looking at our lives as an eclectic mix of disconnected experiences.

For my story coaching clients, our greatest challenge is almost always this one: to craft meaningful plot lines out of all the random experiences and ideas of life. Without curating and arranging the stories, the whole thing becomes noise.

I have a dear friend who recently shared with me how much of her life feels like noise. She said she has been working on so many subplots in her life that she can't even find a central plot anymore. She had invested her life into the side-hustle of her children, for example, and suddenly realised she had lost her self in the process.

Kids are a big one, but it’s not only the “children” subplot that can take us over. We give so much time to our work, our hobbies, our partner, our responsibilities, our health, our studies, that it’s no surprise we lose our hold on a “central plot” for our lives. In fact, for many of us, we would struggle to even be able to define a Central Plot. We may have had aspirations at one time in our lives, but now we're just living in subplots, filling the gaps with smaller stories.

I'm not saying that living a life of subplots is bad. In storytelling, subplots exist to add dimension to our narrative, and to our identity. They keep our life stories interesting, they allow us to learn more about stuff and things. Subplots are awesome.

Except, when we lose control of them. Except when we forget they are SUB plots and start thinking they are our EVERYTHING plot.

What I mean is this: in a great story, every subplot will serve the overarching Central Plot. Ideally, a subplot would push us along the path of our Central Plot, with great pieces of conflict and challenges and choices to make. A really good subplot can even launch us into our Central Plot, and get our greatest life stories happening.

But, there must be a relationship between the plots to hold the story together. If the audience cannot find a unity between the subplots and the Central Plot, then it disengages, and the plots split into confusion. I've felt this way so often over the years. The confusion of disconnected plot lines.

I think we are called to BE someone. Not just DO a whole lot of disconnected subplots, but to BE someone. We are each valuable and powerful souls, journeying through this life growing into ourselves, daily becoming. Who we are, as individuals, matters to the world. Who we want to become, matters.

My own Central Plot is (of course) a work in progress, but I know that I am heading towards a greater capacity to love, and to receive love. To write, and create in a way that pulls humanity towards freedom and hope. To support, listen and empower others. To dive deep into story philosophy and then share the bits that matter when the time is right. To be a joyful wide-eyed soul in the world. All of that.

And there are subplots that push me along that path, that add meaning to my days. But there are also subplots that distract me, that split my story into confusion. Each time I discover one, I have to seek help, try to rewrite or remove it.

I know this is a strange post. You're probably trying to decide if it goes on the "self help" shelf or in the "confusing musings" corner. Wherever it lands in your library, I hope it can be helpful when the confusion arises, as a reminder that the things that matter to you, actually do matter.

How should a human being lead their life?

Aristotle poses this question in his writings in Ethics, and it’s one we all ask ourselves at some point in our lives:

“How should I lead my life?”
“Why am I here?”
“What is meaningful? Worthwhile?”
“What’s the goal, outside of survival?”

I doubt there will ever be absolute definitive answers to these kinds of questions, but I want to share a storytelling perspective that I just find useful to life-hack some meaning into my days:

For some context, when writers and speakers craft their stories, they have certain intentions. They might want to move the audience. To elicit an emotional reaction. Or tell a story that is considered meaningful, memorable. Or they have an idea to unpack, a vision to share, an inspiring something that could spark change in the audience.

They essentially craft stories to describe their own beliefs and values, in such a way that strangers will be moved towards those values in some way. They have this crafting toolkit that allows them to build meaning and influence into their scenes. They have the ability to generate an interesting and engaging story, that forces an audience to sit up and listen.

It's a bit manipulative really, but a good storyteller will deliver their content in such a way that others’ attentions are captured, their interest held, their hearts awakened, their imagination alive, their minds intrigued and challenged. And when the story is over, the values of the audience may be slightly more aligned to those of the teller.

That’s a really powerful skillset. And no, I don't think the ability to influence others makes life meaningful.

What interests me is WHY storytelling elicits this engagement at all. Do we, the audience, respond to good stories because they are told well, or are good stories told in response to our natural predilection to respond to those deeper elements contained within?

The storytellers of old may have developed their craft out of necessity to be paid, but the chemistry works for a reason, and I think it’s this: We all respond to STORY because we are built to engage in the deep elements within the story.

Conflict. Meaning. Love. Loss. Transformation. Everything we respond to in a story is a reflection of what resonates in our real lives. The story is simply the archetype of a truth that we all deeply and intuitively understand.

For example, let's say we have a protagonist in a story who gets removed from office through a nepotistic process. The storyteller is describing an injustice, a bullying, and we the audience immediately feel it. Not because we have been specifically overlooked in favour of the boss’s daughter for a "logistics role" at work, but because in our deep human core of universal understanding, we have felt the same. The surface experience is different, but the underlying philosophical base is the same. On the surface, there are a billion different stories, but below, we are the same.

When searching for meaning, this concept really makes my heart leap, and it's at the core of my story coaching work: how to get past the surface differences, and realise that we are the same. We’re all in this together. We are human.

We need to get over, get past, get beyond our assumption that whatever is happening on the surface is all that is happening. The surface is not the truth. The surface is just “life”. It’s the stuff that’s happening. But below it is where the storyteller works: In the realm of what we make those surface experiences mean. This is the space I want to consider a whole lot more often: what did I make that mean?

So this is where I find meaning for myself. This is why I’m still learning and researching how storytellers craft their stories. Because within that crafting is a deep insight into the human condition, and a whole toolkit for creating meaningful life experiences.

These days, my question is this:

“By implementing the ancient tools of story in my actual day-to-day living, can I generate new life experiences that I and others would find interesting and engaging? Could I create life scenes that capture attention, hold interest, awaken hearts, revive imaginations, intrigue and challenge minds?”

And my answer is yes. I absolutely can. It will be a life’s work, and it will be infused with hope and love and conflict and mindfulness. But also, a little more meaning.

On dreams and actions

Dreams are like ideas in the wind, as common as leaves in Autumn. They land in any open palm, and then they lift and fly off to the next hand.

Dreams are the payoff without the work. A man dreaming of his great future can spend an entire day in the vineyard without harvesting a single grape, while another bends to the work, with dreams only of presentness, and takes giant steps forward, purposeful within each moment, acutely aware of her surroundings, of time, of all the senses, and of the edifying joy of completing worthwhile jobs for a present goal.

In the past, I have judged those who didn't dream. I privately pitied them for their lack of ambition, or lack of hope, or whatever else I thought they lacked and I didn't.

I did this unconsciously, because I wasn't like them. I am a dreamer, after all. I burn hours of my day creating ideas out of nothing, and then sending them back to nothing. My mind is a firework of WTF and at the end of the day I have achieved nothing. The leaves fly to another hand.

Thankfully, I'm growing out of that mindset. My twelve-year-old son started a YouTube channel last week and has already posted three videos. I've had a channel for 15 years, and have posted once. Ever. No, I can't judge those who act more than they dream.

I still absolutely believe in hopes, dreams and ambition, but I'm developing a deep respect for the clean minimalism of a mind at work in the present. Of doing the work of today, before dreaming about all the tomorrows.

A slower determination

Rach and I are reading Margaret Wheatley’s “Perseverance” this morning.

At 5:30am, the sun has just crested the horizon, the sky is already an apricot wash, the temperature is already 12 degrees.

And she and I sit naked in a bed, cradling our coffee cups, reading words so wise, we can’t do more than a page a day.

Wheatley writes that in the Chinese language, the character for perseverance is often the same as the one used for patience. Which I find really validating, to be honest. Perseverance often carries with it the expectation of pushing through, being tenacious, fighting forward. But, the ancient Chinese scribes used the character for slowing down, resting and waiting, managing during a slower organic growing of oneself.

I think it’s one thing to have a deadline, work all night, “persevere" to complete a task - it’s cinematic, right? The audience applauds when the lawyer doesn’t sleep for a week and finds the loophole to win the case.

But, it’s a much more courageous thing to believe, and do, over a longer, slower period of time. We need more than adrenaline when the timeframe is months and years. When the work is a life’s work.

We need patience. Grace for ourselves. It’s a slower determination that lasts the distance of a lifetime. And that’s a whole different skill set.

Perseverance doesn’t yield. It sees us through to the end. It sees the difficulties and pushes through. But it’s not a fight. More, a deep resilience that gets us through the mundane, the everyday. It’s a daily acknowledgement:

"I am everything, and I am nothing, both at once.
And I will go softly forward ever forward into this life, with patience and determination.
I will grow as the tides and rivers grow, in ebbs and flows, but ever strengthening.
There is no hurry."

Writing is just doing the work

Writing is really just doing the work, isn’t it?
We build our skill set and unique perspective of the world and of people, and then, we just have to sit down, lock out the hours, and write.
And on the other side of all the work, we are writers.

On the road: Abbortsford Convent, Melbourne AU

(March 2018)

We landed at 5am this morning in Melbourne.
Rach is an amazing sleeper. She sat right next to me, eyes closed and face down, completely zenned out. Like a monk in prayer.

I’m not so successful at the sleeping thing.
I spent the flight staring at the back of my eyelids, and exploring every other sensation my body had running. I imagined being blind, and how all my other senses would grow stronger, like a superhero.

I could hear the low rumble of the engines, and a few muffled conversations two rows forward. I heard every snap and click of the bathroom doors. I heard so many coughs I lost count. I wondered if I could influence dreams, up there in the sky with all these sleeping souls. So I pushed thoughts of courageous generosity out into the ether, but, no one woke and gave me 20 dollers, so I guess it didn’t work.

One of the things I love about Rachel Callander is how she does this: The travelling, speaking, training, listening thing. She hustles so strong, but at the same time she’s not grasping at all, not chasing the spotlight, even when the spotlight chases her. The learning, the studying and thinking is hardcore, but the delivery is kind of effortless.

Not EASY effortless, but, more like, joyfully determined.
Like, she’s been told her future, been given that certainty, so now, no matter what the journey looks like, or how hard it gets, she’ll lean in to it with a cavalier open heartedness.

Psychologist Angela Duckworth would call this “grit”, I think.

—-

Abbortsford Convent is a peaceful ancient thing, straight out of a Harry Potter novel. I swear I saw some kids just finishing up a game of quidditch in the courtyard when we arrived. I laid some books on a table in the hall and enquired about coffee, and Rach stepped up to the stage.

This is the third year North Richmond Community Health has run their “Conversations About Care” symposium, and it has become something quite beautiful and powerful. It feels like a summit of elders, a gathering of altruism where the conversation isn’t about personal gain, money, justice or excuses, but instead, we hear ideas about transforming the customer experience, flattening the hierarchy of ego, building equal respect for both the patient and the professional.

Rach is alive here - Softly buzzing with questions, empathy, warmth and strength. She’s taking notes and sketching models into her Moleskine, and remembering every name she comes across.

I’m terrible with names, and have to write everything down:
Susan Alberti AC - A powerhouse of forward motion;
John McKenna - The Yoda of the Health System, reminding us of our limitless potential in life;
Dr Ajesh George, Prof. John Aitken, Dr Jonathan Silverman, Lucy Mayes, Dr Ioan Jones, Dr Katy Theodore, Dr Martin Hall.
Incredible humans, investing their lives into healthcare and relationships.

Rach whispers to me in passing, “These are our people, Nath!”

And I close my eyes, and again push my thoughts out into the ether; and I see a room full of people invested in humanity and cultural change.

Looks like I found that courageous generosity after all.

Giving our best to something that doesn't love us

It just hit midnight here, and I’m alone with the city. All the tall buildings, the great ventricles of the city, have pumped out their last suited human, and are in a cardiac rest until the morning. Their lights have been left on, to compete with the stars, I think.

But the stars still win. The Southern Cross constellation is right in front of me, close, like it’s strung up between the Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton buildings. Like we missed a decoration when we were clearing out Christmas.

Rach said the moon was close tonight too. She texted me three hours ago, and said it was exceptional, that it sat in profile, all proud of itself for shining beautiful.

I missed it completely.

I think this is the part of life that breaks us. Not the late nights. Not even the deadlines. It’s not the hard work.

What breaks us is the pouring of our best hours into a vision that is not our own. It’s giving our best to something that doesn’t love us.

I’ll happily work all night for those whom I love, and who love me. I’ll pull an all-nighter to unpack an exciting idea onto a page. I’ll hustle so hard for those things in life I consider meaningful.

But, to put in hours of my day into a generic job? That is like death. That’s like pumping tiny suited bodies into my cubicles and letting them use up my best resources, only to leave at the end of the day without a word of thanks.

I’m with you, city buildings. I get it.
Sometimes you just want to fill yourself with inspired meaningful work, hey?
To know that worthwhile progress has been made this day. Progress towards a better world.

I think we should do work that matters. We should put a bouncer at the door and be selective about who will work within our walls.

“Joyful optimism? Come on in. Your desk is over by the window.”
“Grit? Take the top floor.”
“Prideful comparison? Sorry dude, there no space here for you today.”
“Love? Right this way. Take the boardroom.”

If I were that building, then at the end of the day, when all my people have emptied out of me and I was at rest again, I would turn on every light I had. I’d be so energised, I’d give the stars a run for their shine. And the great exhausted buildings beside me would start asking whether, maybe, they could borrow my bouncer for a day or two.

Work that matters

I wrote this three years ago, but it feels right to post it here, now. It’s a slow process, doing the work you think matters, but it absolutely matters.

Jan 2018

It’s midnight, and I can’t sleep. I wish there was a great inspired reason, but to be honest, I probably had a bit too much caffeine too late in the day. So, instead of sleeping, I’m out here on the balcony of our 6th floor apartment, watching conversations on the street, and drinking whisky, and writing. A truck just drove by, loaded up with Christmas decorations. Like a giant tinsel-spider, folded up and put to rest for another year.

The world is getting back to work.

And so are we. Rach and I. We took some time out, drove 400 kilometres to the southernmost tip of Western Australia, and made our plans.

We said, “Life is not long. We have to do meaningful work”.
We said, “No matter what, we need to do work that matters.”
We took stock of what we have, and what we need to get our message out. We pooled all of our stuff, everything of value.
We climbed a mountain, and talked about Love.
Rach said the clouds felt closer up here.

Tonight Rach sold her piano.

Empty and dark shall I raise my lantern

“If this indeed be the hour in which I lift up my lantern, it is not my flame that shall burn therein. Empty and dark shall I raise my lantern, And the guardian of the night shall fill it with oil and he shall light it also.”

- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, 1923.