If you have a recurring project that publishes at the same time & day every week, you know what I mean when I talk about the scrambling moments before something goes live. There’s always a rush of final edits at the request of a featured guest, checking to see if links work, and obviously, blatant typos that you miss from staring at the same thing all week.
Genuine question: How do you know that you're on the right bus? From my experience (and by experience I mean the last 3 years) I've believed that I was on the right bus probably about 4 times. And everytime I get off the bus (sometimes forcefully because shit literally just refused to work out) I'm always thoroughly confused. With where I am now, I feel a gut instinct that I'm on the right bus, but I can't help but worry that something else is gonna happen and I'm gonna find myself back at the platform. So how do you remain sure? (This question is open to anyone btw! I'm curious to here about other experiences :))
Hi, Ennie. This is a great question— one I don’t have the answer to, but one of many. This metaphor of “staying on the bus” seems contextually catered to encouraging creators to remain. To be unflinching at the first sign that their first few stops of work resemble that of others who have taken and stopped at that same bus route at some point previous. “Stay on the bus,” in its original context, could be considered a call to not be dismayed that your hands are still yet learning to differentiate, shape, and mold a clay; to stay at the potter’s wheel and continue to shape, even when you are at or passing through the genesis of where another potter has already shaped/done.
Regarding your question— “How do you know you’re on the right bus?” Metaphors can often only adjust its tie and suit so far into being perfectly mirrored representatives for our realities. Though helpful for communicating and understanding our realities, it doesn’t always capture the full context we experience. But, for continuity’s sake, I would suggest to consider where and how are you headed.
Oftentimes, in real life and in real cities, you do have to get off and onto new bus lines to get to your intended destination. There is a difference between getting on and off of a bus because you are unsure where you are headed is right, and getting off because there is another bus (a different transit) that can only take you to where you are headed next.
When I consider the ways I have traveled through my own life, I would not have been able to predict or fully know what was the right bus line of transportation. What I have known true— whether in unshakable conviction or in weak sensing— is my purpose and calling. Not that thing which makes me simply happy or helps to avoid suffering and obstacles or that which I can define as clearly and rigidly as Merriam Webster, but that which testifies of the significance and importance as to why I am still breathing. Whether it be as simple as my heart being touched by a bird flying and swooping like a leaf through the air or as complex as a relationship with someone important to me— if the bus is still taking me down the road that calls my life purposed (not perfect, not free of suffering, and not even preferred, but purposed), then I am on the right bus because I am headed in the right direction. And so are you, Ennie.
It will not be the ONLY direction (for the absence of choice is not what denotes our purpose and calling as valid, right, or sure)— you will have many opportunities to change direction or call a cab home, as our original Minkkinen metaphor images. But, the direction that calls you alive by your name, truly and without shallow manner, is the one made for you.
And whatever bus you’re on that leads you there is the one you’re to be on.
Loving this back and forth y'all. Keep eyes out for Tuesday briefings within the next following weeks. It feels like a perfect transition to address these types of questions.
Thanks for contributing everyone. Alice and I are already talking about how to address these types of questions in Tuesday briefings within the next following weeks. Love the chatter happening here in the comments section. 💙
So far every patch of Common Discourse I’ve read I’ve read multiple times but this weeks is the one I think think I’ve read the most or come back to the most. I have barely started putting more energy and time into my creative career this past year and it has been tough figuring out where and what I should go but this weeks read has been a great reminder for me. I’ve heard many iterations of playing the long game or it’s a marathon not a sprint but this idea of it being a bus with stops has given me drive to keep on going. I also like the use of the vehicle being a bus and not something to small and tight like a cab because with it being a bus could imply that there are other people on that bus ride with you which makes it feel less lonely. Some people may get off and head back but then there could be people who go all the or almost all the way with you.
Really enjoyed this week's write, Alex - such an encouraging + challenging perspective to stay on the bus. Thanks, as always.
Thanks for reading Iau! It means a lot.
Genuine question: How do you know that you're on the right bus? From my experience (and by experience I mean the last 3 years) I've believed that I was on the right bus probably about 4 times. And everytime I get off the bus (sometimes forcefully because shit literally just refused to work out) I'm always thoroughly confused. With where I am now, I feel a gut instinct that I'm on the right bus, but I can't help but worry that something else is gonna happen and I'm gonna find myself back at the platform. So how do you remain sure? (This question is open to anyone btw! I'm curious to here about other experiences :))
Hi, Ennie. This is a great question— one I don’t have the answer to, but one of many. This metaphor of “staying on the bus” seems contextually catered to encouraging creators to remain. To be unflinching at the first sign that their first few stops of work resemble that of others who have taken and stopped at that same bus route at some point previous. “Stay on the bus,” in its original context, could be considered a call to not be dismayed that your hands are still yet learning to differentiate, shape, and mold a clay; to stay at the potter’s wheel and continue to shape, even when you are at or passing through the genesis of where another potter has already shaped/done.
Regarding your question— “How do you know you’re on the right bus?” Metaphors can often only adjust its tie and suit so far into being perfectly mirrored representatives for our realities. Though helpful for communicating and understanding our realities, it doesn’t always capture the full context we experience. But, for continuity’s sake, I would suggest to consider where and how are you headed.
Oftentimes, in real life and in real cities, you do have to get off and onto new bus lines to get to your intended destination. There is a difference between getting on and off of a bus because you are unsure where you are headed is right, and getting off because there is another bus (a different transit) that can only take you to where you are headed next.
When I consider the ways I have traveled through my own life, I would not have been able to predict or fully know what was the right bus line of transportation. What I have known true— whether in unshakable conviction or in weak sensing— is my purpose and calling. Not that thing which makes me simply happy or helps to avoid suffering and obstacles or that which I can define as clearly and rigidly as Merriam Webster, but that which testifies of the significance and importance as to why I am still breathing. Whether it be as simple as my heart being touched by a bird flying and swooping like a leaf through the air or as complex as a relationship with someone important to me— if the bus is still taking me down the road that calls my life purposed (not perfect, not free of suffering, and not even preferred, but purposed), then I am on the right bus because I am headed in the right direction. And so are you, Ennie.
It will not be the ONLY direction (for the absence of choice is not what denotes our purpose and calling as valid, right, or sure)— you will have many opportunities to change direction or call a cab home, as our original Minkkinen metaphor images. But, the direction that calls you alive by your name, truly and without shallow manner, is the one made for you.
And whatever bus you’re on that leads you there is the one you’re to be on.
Loving this back and forth y'all. Keep eyes out for Tuesday briefings within the next following weeks. It feels like a perfect transition to address these types of questions.
this really hit home
Thanks for contributing everyone. Alice and I are already talking about how to address these types of questions in Tuesday briefings within the next following weeks. Love the chatter happening here in the comments section. 💙
So far every patch of Common Discourse I’ve read I’ve read multiple times but this weeks is the one I think think I’ve read the most or come back to the most. I have barely started putting more energy and time into my creative career this past year and it has been tough figuring out where and what I should go but this weeks read has been a great reminder for me. I’ve heard many iterations of playing the long game or it’s a marathon not a sprint but this idea of it being a bus with stops has given me drive to keep on going. I also like the use of the vehicle being a bus and not something to small and tight like a cab because with it being a bus could imply that there are other people on that bus ride with you which makes it feel less lonely. Some people may get off and head back but then there could be people who go all the or almost all the way with you.