Building and Rebuilding

A big part of life is who we partner with. I have gone through difficult break-ups and a number of years of losing myself in the process of building or rebuilding a picture of the life I wanted. In 2011/2012 I used yoga and my art studio as tools to find myself again. 

One of the investment lessons I had learnt is that you should never be a forced buyer or a forced seller. When you want anything too much, and when it becomes your absolute focus, you can lose focus on everything else. If you are in a corner, and you have to make a decision, that may be the most important time for you to make the opposite decision. When you feel like that is the only thing that matters, at the cost of everything else, then it may be time to walk away. 

I had to really dig deep and come to terms with myself, and so I went to the mountains. I went to Austria, and it was just a magical time. As a South African boy, one of the things that blew my mind was REAL snowflakes. Crystals of fragile beauty. Snow with those mathematical patterns that cast spells as they stop time in their gentle floating till they softly butterfly kiss and lie with the ground. I had seen blobs before. The wet and soggy sort that grinds London to a halt like summer sweats or any other extremes. In Austria, there were magical mornings with clear skies and silent walks. The Yoga Teacher Training I did was over the year end, and a bunch of Swamis came from all over the world to join the small group I was in for the period between Christmas and New Year.

Chew On

Cooking is a great example of “sources of joy” where some very simple processes are things people “can’t do”. Have you made mashed potatoes? Fried an egg? Made a pancake? 

Until you have done something, it can be intimidating. We all find very different things intimidating, because every living human is incompetent in some way. 

There are amazing meals that are not difficult to make. Even World Class chefs will do the same. If the ingredients are plentiful, then the price will be low. Price is not value. A high price simply indicates scarcity. 

Often we are monotongue in the same way as we are monolingual. We eat a constrained diet because we haven’t built up our food vocabulary. 

Soups are really easy. Stock and one vegetable will even do it, and let you build up your vocabulary with gentle pairings and exploration. 

I have a funny relationship with fruit for some reason. Something about the texture, but pop it in a (smooth) jam or a smoothy and I am good to go. 

You can gently unwind embedded behaviours with time and coaxing. Learning is about deep soaking. At school, we write the test and forget. Real learning is embodied through repetition. Where it becomes part of your taste buds and habits. 

Narrative Therapy is the idea of understanding your cornerstone events, drivers, and scripts that you repeat. Then being your own detached editor. Tweaking the words and stories the voices in your head chew on.

Multiple Canvases

Life is random, ambiguous, and complex. Sometimes things can be interpreted in multiple different ways. That’s okay. 

We interpret the world through our own controlled hallucinations. We take in information. We process it. We create a picture of what is happening. 

We ignore a whole bunch of stuff that we don’t think is relevant, don’t understand, or just don’t have the capacity to absorb. If something happens in an order that we recognize, then we expect the thing that normally follows. Sometimes even if that event doesn’t happen, we will still experience it because our created reality fills the gaps. When we don’t pay attention because we have “seen it all before”. 

This is helpful. The power of biodiversity is we can try different things. Respond in different ways. Fail creatively. 

The “Curse of Knowledge” is that once you understand something, it is hard to imagine not understanding it. If you can read music, you can’t look at a page of music and not imagine the sounds. 

If you can understand Hebrew, Arabic, or Russian... you will unavoidably experience looking at a page where I see squiggles differently to me. Once you understand a language, you no longer hear just a string of sound. It is no longer just noise with no emotional connection. 

Our collective ability to experience differently creates multiple canvases for understanding.

Self-Sacrifice and Self-Reliance

The irony of growing up in Apartheid where a privileged minority received various advantages, is that that is not part of the deep soaked self-identity. 

Reach further back and the scars are of tough-love and self-reliance. “No one owes you anything” and “Life is hard. Make a plan”. That perspective is a positive-optimistic-negative view of the world. A Ja-Nee view that got baked into the stories of Racheltjie De Beer and Wolraad Woltemade. 

My great-great-(forget how many)-grandfather was Jacobus De Beer, who was a signatory at the peace of Vereeniging (the treaty that ended the second Anglo-Boer War). I had ancestors on both sides. The story of Racheltjie is of her saving the life of her brother by sacrificing her own. She removed her clothes to cover him in a snowstorm. 

There are repeated stories of self-sacrifice, but also self-reliance. A willingness to give to others, but not rely on or expect from others. A cultural sense of loneliness. A sense of fleeing others. 

I don’t have a full handle on how I ended up here. My Maiden name is Black. A surname given to expelled sheep thieves in the Scottish borderlands. All sorts of dodgy people, explorers, refugees, and randoms found their way away and down south. Unpacking stories is complicated.

Bloemfontein Concentration Camp

Intricate Knots

We constantly unpack as we move, rebuilding our spoken and unspoken contracts of how we agree to work with each other. Negotiating complex relationships that we grasp at an understanding of. Meeting and not meeting each other’s expectations. 

Our decisions and approaches have both intended and unintended consequences, and sometimes we explode. We need new agreements. 

There are multiple ways of looking at the two World Wars. The simple one is the defeat of Fascism. Another way is first the controlling Empires punching themselves in the face till they couldn’t sustain/justify Empires, then a couple of decades later Colonial Powers punching themselves in the face till they couldn’t sustain/justify Colonies. Ideas of Nationalism and Self-Determination, that also sowed seeds of xenophobia, protectionism and Apartheid. 

Another part of my story is a Romeo & Juliet marriage across the aisle of angry Boers fighting in one of the Anglo-Somebody wars. Descendants of people fleeing the European wars of religion, famines, or heading on civilising missions because of delusions of grandeur. 

South Africa becoming a single country on a Canadian model that was the response of British diplomatic architects reacting to the American war of independence. 

Layer upon complicated layer of people building up and unpicking the knotted mass of strings of who they are and want to be. Deciding on a path with limited information, and controlling a slice of limited resources to make that happen.

From a Point

You can rage against the machine, or you can start from a point of deep understanding of where you, and others, are. 

The way we communicate and the choices we make stem from deep soaked agreements. The vehicles we use (companies and countries) are just stories. A way we work together. Money is also just a story. A tool we use to cooperate. 

In order to interact with others, you need to learn about how we communicate. Embedding yourself in the language to let you make choices in ways that are consistent with your values. From a place of understanding. 

Once you have a point of focus, you can select where to deepen your skills and knowledge. You can have a selected portfolio of jobs for your money, and concentrate your attention on understanding those. You don’t have to have a view on everything. 

If the area you are looking at gradually increases your ability to not have a view on things you don’t want to pay attention to. 

Stilling waves of anxiety comes from decreasing the ability of waves to impact you, and simply wash over. Less unconstructive raging, and more focused, connected, and conscious engagement.

Focus

Little Finger

It is important to practice the ability to detach. Not all the time. We also have to relax into and accept the way we are, but then build capacity for periods of reflection. Where you can look back and see, “This is a game. I am an avatar. What did I do?”. It can be quite useful, for example, in work situations where you might have a boss that has treated you really badly. I can remember watching Game of Thrones during one of my periods of work that was really frustrating. I remember walking on my commute with one of those ear-worms of something that is bothering me. One of those ones where it just seems like there is no way out. But if you are able to step back and see yourself as a character in the story, you can see that it is not you. It is a situation that the character in the story is in. This provides a sliver of separation. That can offer a tiny gap of calm. Perhaps even some humour. This bit of the story will pass. Pages turn. Chapters end. Characters evolve. 

Observing your Scripts

Broad Framing (see “Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman) is the practice of thinking of decisions in the context of other decisions. Rather than the specific (uncontrollable) outcome of any one fork in the road, what you are really trying to refine is the underlying process of decision-making. How do you make your choices? In terms of Narrative Therapy, you are reflecting on how your scripts work. What are your cornerstone events? What are your drivers? What are the ways that you think that often sit underneath your conscious thinking? In this particular situation, given your history, and the way that you think and feel about things, how are you likely to respond? That is what you really want to do the work on. Constantly owning, and being conscious of your underlying scripts. The stuff we are normally not even aware of. And it is really complicated. We are not necessarily going to be able to understand everything. We can get better at observing ourselves and our repeated behaviours.  

Framing your Decisions

I believe we all experience the world as a controlled hallucination. We take in information based on what we already know. Gradually building trust based on an elaborate story we build up to explain the responses we experience to the decisions we make. You can’t live without a story. Your story acts as the framework for what you want to do, and how you want to make decisions. You need to internalise and embody the disciplines you want to use to frame your decisions. The way a lot of people discipline themselves with money decisions is running out of money. When there is no money there, you can’t spend it. Which means most of us live hand-to-mouth. You cannot build space for autonomy and consent within your decision making that way. You will get stuck in a monthly cycle, or a weekly cycle, or whenever the money comes in. You get income dependence, where you get a job, and get paid, and that determines your standard of living. And there is no space. No extra. If you want something, you save specifically for it, buy it, and go back to zero. Never actually freeing yourself from the constraint of having nothing in the bank. That becomes your framework. 

"The Frame" Frida Kahlo

 

Part of your Story

You have to choose a path. We are exposed to a number of lotteries that determine our starting point. That is something we have no choice but to accept. It is a strength. It doesn't feel like it because it feels like there should be a level of fairness. We should all have the same options. I like the idea of alternate histories. We keep having to make choices. That is part of autonomy. The reality is that every choice you make, opens a new set of options, and closes down a different set of options. 

Whenever things go badly, one of the philosophies I have tried to develop to do something awesome that would not have been possible if that thing had not gone wrong. To change the story around that event. The idea of “Fortunate Misfortune”  (See 10 Moral Paradoxes by Saul Smilansky). It is not that you start looking on the horrible moment with affection, but you stop wishing it away. It becomes a part of a positive arch in your story.  

Which Path?

We don’t choose our mother tongue or the country we are born in. Similarly, our relationship with money is path dependent. Money is not a thing. It is a communication tool. A catalyst for things that matter. That is why the conversation about wealth creation, or any creation (even things that don’t make money often need money), starts with understanding someone's relationship with money. A good financial adviser’s key job is understanding you and how you think. You can only take control over your next step on the path if you know where the starting point is. Know where you are. Know what you pay attention to. Know the container you are in. The barriers to entry to what you want to do. The barriers to exit from what you are doing. Your capacity for things not going exactly as you expect. Money is like words and numbers. It can either help you tell your story, or control your story. 

Did you choose your path?

Bread Winning

It is easy to get caught in the trap of “defending a narrative”. The story we tell ourselves about ourselves. The real world is vastly more complicated than the TV series, movies, and even books we consume. The plot is not nearly as neat. When I stepped away from the corporate world in 2014, I liked the story of saying to myself I had retired at age 34 and had a big enough engine to be a home maker rather than a bread winner. I (still) believe not all good ideas are good business ideas. There are plenty of good ideas that get ruined by being forced through the monetisation filter. Not everything worth doing can pay for itself. In 2015, I resigned from my three professional qualifications. The amount of work that went into being able to say “I *am* an actuary” was simply the tool I had used to build my engine of capital. I reinstated that qualification in 2017, only two years of no-money later, to do engine repairs. I am now thinking of going through the process of brushing off the others. Turns out life is more conversational than story telling. We get to edit our interpretation, and must constantly adapt, adjust, and accommodate.

Donkey Begins

People will say “Don’t carry your history with you”, “let it go”, “live in the now”. I am not one of those people. I live in my history. I am always curious about why I think the way I do, and what built that up. I know there is path dependence. I know that because of various events, my life could have gone another way. As I get older and new things happen to me, it changes my memory. I like reflecting on memories repeatedly, and saying, “Okay, well now I see things differently.” You are having a conversation with your past self to understand how your values have evolved.

How we see, soaks deep

Fairy Tales

In order to find calm within the chaos, you need to be able to process it. Narrative Therapy aims to help identify values and associated skills and knowledge as people construct stories about themselves and their identities. If you are able to put some distance between “you” and “your story”, you can take a bigger role as the author rather than a character. A lot of anxiety comes from our relationship with money. The story of money. The story of how that connects us to events, people, goals, failures, and what we do every day in a very practical way. The story you tell yourself, about yourself, sets the boundaries of what you think is possible. What is desirable. Frames the choices you make. Frames the problems you focus on. Narrative Therapy emphasises that “The person is not the problem, the problem is the problem”. Stilling the waves of money anxiety starts by understanding our relationship to the stories we tell ourselves about money.

"Fairy Tales" Jessie Wilcox Smith

On Loop

I enjoy the series Westworld. It fits with my sense of how we live in “controlled hallucinations” at different levels of awareness. How much of our experience seems impacted by our founding stories, driving ambitions, and ingrained habits. Our loops. When my wife asks what I am doing today, I often respond that I am “On loop”. As a creature of habit, I really like the idea of micro-ambition. Building a daily practice I have confidence in. Where I feel like each day is a nibble forward. Not towards a specific goal. The world is too complex, ambiguous, and random for that. I don’t like the idea of the destination being more important than the journey. I prefer a process of story enrichment. Adding feedback to my loop. As quickly as possible. So today, builds on yesterday. Building endurance to create space for time. Building resilience to manage and thrive off the risks. Building creativity to gradually compound learning. Building my loop.

           

Möbius strip

Change the Sound

What you focus on isn’t all there is. Like most of us, I identify with the voice(s) in my head. That is “me”. The tricky narrator(s) with who I am in almost constant conversation with. If someone irritates me, it is often a projection of something that I am wrestling with. The same, I think, is true of when other people give us a hard time. It is an insight into what they voices in their head are saying. People who are harsh to others, are probably harsh to themselves. Those voice very often don’t reflect reality. They reflect various stories bouncing around. Various interpretations that are either useful, or kind, or not. It’s hard work trying to sort out what is what. Recently, I have been trying dancing instead. I have been doing 5Rhythms dance classes a couple of times a week. Running can do the same. Others swim. Anything to remind you that the voices aren’t you. You can mute them when they pretend they are.

Mute

Not the Problem

Narrative Therapy helps identify the story we tell ourselves to make sense of the world. There are a bunch of shared facts that form the foundations of our stories. When we bump into those facts, sometimes we are forced to change our views. But the juicy bits are personal and often bump proof. They can’t be shown to be wrong. I don’t interpret things the way you do. We interpret the meaning behind things in our own way. We layer intent. We have beliefs about the arch of the story. Where things are going. Why they are going there. Who is involved. Narrative Therapy helps practitioners articulate personal values, and identify their skills and knowledge so they can live by those values. With the motto of “the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem”, it develops the ability to become your life’s author. With the skill to edit things that aren’t helpful. A Bruce Lee like approach of “take what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own”.

Always Editing

Wear Sunscreen

Austin Kleon says all advice is autobiographical. Baz Luhrmann says it is a form of nostalgia. I worry that people see advice as risk transfer, “but I did what you told me to!”. It is what I don’t like about the dance of money and advice. You are selling a story. Your story. The listener probably needs an Editor rather than an Author. A Narrative Therapist. Narrative Therapy separates the person from their problem. It encourages people to use their own skills to make choices, and take action. To become the author of their lives rather than a passive character. They remain the author. They rewrite. The Therapist simply helps them identify their skills, knowledge, and values and apply that to the story they are trying to create. Advice is not risk transfer. No one knows your story like you do. I am super cautious of giving advice. I love sharing (and editing) my story. What’s yours?

Rubik's Trev

I lived in London for 8 years before moving to the Shire. Most of it was spent with a normal job, until I decided that was overrated. Normal jobs give a "no need to decide" structure to days. The normal 5 days a week, and two-day weekend, loop. A physical place to go. Perhaps, new problems each day, but within a known category. My blog gives my days that structure now. Most days, that is the thing I know I will do. In the beginning, I used to keep a little log of ideas for blog posts. Gradually, it just became something I did automatically. Within themes. I carry on exploring, but the paths are less surprising. Perhaps I explore a new country, city, or language on Wikipedia, or learn aloud a little more about Universal Basic Income. Or I follow up on a conversation I have had with someone.

The "loopy place" I physically go is more flexible. In London, you can have a degree of anonymity. There are so many people and places, that I could find a little hidey hole and not be noticed. Places open. Places close. To get some recognisability to my loop, I went to my "Artist's Lunch" on Wednesday. Colleagues become the very human part of our loop. The idea of separating work and play is bizarre when we spend so much time at work. Leaving the normal working world meant, in a big part, leaving a group of friends. The Artists from the Wimbledon Art Studio which I was a part of for four years, became my point of consistency. 

Now that I live in the Shire, I still venture back to that Artist's Lunch as often as I can. I like feeling part of something bigger. Even though each Artist is doing their own thing, it feels like you have a degree of 'shared mission'. Similar to separating work and play, separating Competing companies is also rather unnatural. Professional or Trade groups and associations remind people that we aren't defined by the company that we work for. They would do well to have Artist's Lunches.

A "Buhr" was a small fortification. A "ford" is a place that crosses a river. I live in a small medieval town called Burford. Slowly, this Donkey is becoming a local. The South African guy with long hair who is either walking, on his kindle, computer, phone, or playing with a Rubik's cube. As much a part of the furniture as Lady Diana and her mobility scooter. When you regularly cross the river, the river becomes a part of who you are, and you become part of the river.

We like to identify with the thoughts in our head. With our decisions. More and more, I believe our decisions are loopy. "Narrative Therapy" is a form of psychotherapy that helps people create stories about themselves that are helpful. It helps people by "Co-Authoring". You identify the characters, themes, and plots. The backstories, and events, that create the way we respond to the twists. Rather than autonomy over each fork in the road, it helps people step back and look at the road. It helps people identify their knowledge, skills, and values. Choose your road.

To ensure we are focusing on the things that really matter. That we know the things we are becoming part of.