thank you for the space

today i asked myself why i go to de profundis, the book club.

i could say it's the books. but the answer goes deeper. i go for the people. the people there are more real.

i spend most of the day in front of a screen, building things, fast. at the club nobody knows what i'm working on. nobody asks me for anything. there is a book, there are people, there is time. a few weeks ago, writing my monthly review, i described it like this:

a place where i am looked at as a person, not as a project.

and in another chat, without thinking much, i typed that it was "kinda a place to relax".

but a space like that does something else. when you are among real people, you see yourself reflected in how you land on others.

the mirror

being there made me notice something uncomfortable. i had principles guiding how i behave, and i had never looked at them directly. i wrote it like this in my notes:

i understood that my system was not well developed, not even well defined. it was just ideas i was following without noticing.

there were two. the first is freedom: where i can, i want to be able to do whatever i want. the second is time: because of ai, i feel like i have to speed everything up.

those two principles have served me. they take away the fear of judgment. they make me the one who is ready to go while others are still preparing. a lot of what i've built exists because of them.

but people don't receive my principles. they receive my behavior. and from the outside, freedom can look like carelessness, and hurry can feel like pressure. in my notes:

i guess this makes people feel anxious and not taken seriously. these are feelings nobody wants, and i was giving them without even noticing.

i don't say this as guilt. i say it because without a space like the club i would not have seen it.

what i took from it was simpler than i expected: "the principles are good, but i need better calibration with people."

the other space

there is a line often attributed to viktor frankl, though nobody has found it in his books: between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space is our power to choose.

the club gave me a space outside. that line is about one inside.

my problem is that this space barely exists. i react at the speed of my principles. so i'm learning to open it.

i'm learning to pause before answering. to know what i expect from a conversation before i walk into it, and to notice what the other person expects. to tell the whole story, not only the half that feels obvious to me. to notice which behaviors i copy from others without realizing it.

and when we want different things, i'm learning to look for the smallest honest thing we can both want. sometimes it's understanding each other. sometimes the only agreement is where the conversation ends, and that is fine too. we don't all have to be friends or like each other.

none of this is new, it's probably in plenty of books. what's new for me is trying it with real people.

thank you

i didn't learn any of this reading alone. i learned it sitting with you, in a place where i could slow down without anyone asking me to.

de profundis just turned one year old. thank you for the space: the one outside, where i am looked at as a person, and the one i'm learning to find inside, before i answer.

next time we meet i'll try to arrive a little slower, and ask myself what i want to create there with you.