What Question Are You Living?
Hey beautiful people,
You probably have been seeing these daily Collective Journalling events at The Stoa and wondering what they are about. It is quite simple really: we privately journal together in silence, for 90 mins, on something that is alive for us.
This happens over Zoom, where we exchange songs and good vibes throughout the session. In the end, we share a journal passage in the chat. I am finding it a great way for me to stay consistent with my journaling practice, and the journals you read here are written during these sessions. They also have a certain sweetness, and synchronicities have often been experienced.
Today we decided to do an experiment for next week: we collectively journal on the same question. Here is a question that strikes me as wise to start with:
How do we become wise?
We’ll be collecting our journals into a document, perhaps publishing them somewhere, or at the very least sharing them here. If you’d like to attend this experiment, we are going to try one out on Monday. You can RSVP to the session via Patreon …
Collective Journaling: The Collective Question Edition w/ Peter Limberg. September 27th @ 8:00 AM ET. 90 mins. Patreon event.
Tomorrow’s events:
Collective Journaling w/ Peter Limberg and Co-Hosts. Daily @ 8:00 AM ET. Patreon event. 90 mins.
Stoic Breath w/ Steve Beattie. Every Sunday @ 10:00 AM ET. RSVP here. 60 mins.
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September 25th, 2021
What question are you living?
I was pretty sure I was the one that dropped this wisdom bomb of a question on you before, but after searching my journal archives, this wisdom bomb does not seem to have originated from me. I probably heard it from some self-help guru, but whatever, it’s good.
It is one of those kinds of questions my fingertips really enjoy typing: what question are you living? Yeah, what question are you living? And not just answering, like some know-it-all attempting to control reality to mitigate a general sense of anxiety. No. This is not about that; this is about living a fucking question.
Sure, the answering part is a part of the living, but there is so much more than the answering: the formulating, the doubting, the asking, and all the other surprising things that come alive when a question is present. A question can unlock doors you did not know existed and put you on journeys you did not know you could go on.
What questions am I living right now?
I was sensing into this the other day, and these two questions came alive…
How do I care for my body in a way that promotes it to have vitality, beauty, and longevity?
How do I secure a sustainable cash flow that supports myself, my wife, our future children, and a home, in a way that is integral with the daemon’s demands?
I put some care in writing these, as I was inspired by the Flow Game that will be happening at The Stoa soon; a game that takes care in crafting a question. Question crafting is an art that liberates imaginal possibilities.
I know my two questions might not be jazzy enough for Stoan standards or carry the gravitas needed to address the meta-crisis we often talk about here. Like c’mon, environmental collapse seems imminent and creepy elites seem to be doing a full-court press towards implementing a technocracy, and here is the steward being concerned with looking good naked and making money.
They are the questions that are alive for me though, and one needs to honor what is alive. I will focus on the first question today. I imagine many can relate to this question, as working out and dieting are the perennial issues in modernity nagging us, providing a nebulous sense of guilt. This makes total sense, as most of our livelihoods are sourced in a sedentary fashion, looking at a plastic screen with bad posture, and our eating habits are being manipulated by a trillion-dollar industry, making us endlessly salivate to supernormal stimuli.
It is forgivable if more than a few of us are not in the right relationship with how we move our bodies and what we put in them. This can be seen as a Stoic opportunity though, and perhaps a spiritual one. The foes of wise living are powerful, requiring a countervailing response from us that is virtuously holistic (or holy) in nature.
I am 36 now, turning 37 soon. When the thumos strikes, my body feels like it is 20 years old. I want to let it loose on the world when it feels like this. It throbs in a way that wants to create, fight, or fuck. I would totally love for my body to feel like this all of the time. It does not though, and it is probably because I am not in the right relationship with it these days.
My historical workout pattern usually looks like this: periods of 3 to 6 months of consistently working out, then something happens: a vacation, an injury, a stressful life event. I stop working out for a period until the nebulous guilt becomes too strong to ignore, then I start up again. Starting up again is always so difficult. It is met with so much resistance, and it takes a while for a workout rhythm to form.
I have been working out inconsistently since COVID struck; this has probably been one of the longest stretches where I have not had a good workout rhythm installed. I imagine this has to do with overstretching myself with The Stoa during its first year, but also it has to do with motivation. My previous motivation to work out was pretty superficial: I simply wanted to look good naked.
I still want to look good naked of course. Camille and I are trying to make a baby again; there were complications for a while, but there is a reason for us to have hope now. And yeah, I do desire to be a hot dad. This may be a superficial desire, but it is here. This motivation alone is not enough though.
I was talking with Camille about this, and I want to work out to be an example for my family. I also want to be here with Camille, who is younger than me, and whatever children we bring into the world, for as long as I can be. Now that motivates me. Just like asking the right question is an art, so is sensing the right motivation.
I used to do all sorts of workouts: starting strength, running, hot yoga, etc. I find working out first thing in the mornings has been the best thing to do. The self-help cliché of “own the morning, own the day” tends to be true for me. I am going to attempt to start doing simple exercises: about 15 minutes of HIIT (using the Seven app), followed by 20 minutes of kettlebells. I’ll treat myself to some New Zealand Whey afterward, and maybe a cold shower.
I am super excited (and a little nervous) about Beyond-Self Discipline (BSD) starting, because whenever I was in some form of an accountability group, I had a good workout rhythm going. A communal discipline can be a beautiful thing, if done in a wise way.
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