An Introduction to My Brain
People sometimes call me intense. I wonder why.
Published February 11, 2025
I sat down to write and got muddled all about whirling dervishes and cowboy boots and "moments of grace" and all the rest—and very much believe I wrote the best essay of my life, but it is far too personal to ever live on the Internet rather than in in-real-life conversation—because I went into this ridiculous, sleep deprivation-induced flow state of writing after finishing Mountain Sounds again and then not being able to quiet my brain (but not turning it in yet because your mind goes [BLANK] over what matters most but never when you need it to) and this is what my brain is doing right now in response to all of this—
Terrifying, isn't it? And not nearly as wild as I could get. I resisted the urge to go deeper. But I also think I have to go wide to then distill. That's how my creativity (and my life) works—a constant sequence of expansion and intentionality. Hopefully, it gets me to a decent place, and I'd love to think that's why I can write in my specific voice.
Anyway, each book I've read lately catalyzes a dive into about twenty others. I'm layering metaphors and making connections like you wouldn't believe. That's not even getting into past or future, or different forms of media, or any other possible layers.
I swear that's not mania but rather this sense of resonance and clarity or (not to be corny) genuine grace.
This is why writing short is good for you. My art professor in college used to say the only way to be creative was to limit yourself and "put yourself in a box," and I have a newfound appreciation for the paradoxical freedom that creates.
I think a lot about the ultimate goal of writing as being distillation. And really, as I've gone down this rabbit hole over the last few years about neuroaesthetics or the purpose of art and beauty and awe, I'm thinking about gestural drawing and what evokes.
How language sparks an infinite, incomplete, biased web of memories, assumptions, predictions, etc,. so you really have no control over whether someone fully understands you or whether you've expressed yourself in the way you'd hoped. Sometimes, it makes writing or connecting feel enormously difficult and circular. There's probably a reason I called myself Sisyphus throughout my entire book revision?
But because of that contrast and rarity, it might feel even more beautiful and meaningful and expansive when something finally breaks through.
So then it runs into trust and choice and belief, which finally makes things simple again. I've been thinking about reading as a form of listening, the gorgeous intention of listening, and more. How indirect processing (creativity, art, awe, etc,.) is actually the best way to connect without contradiction, or getting stuck in the paradox.
We knew already that we could feel seen by someone on the level of a shared favorite song (there's a book about this), or our shared appreciation of a beautiful view (there's a book about this), or a conversation about a book itself (there's a book about this.) But I only recently had this all majorly and meaningfully click for me—cohesively.
I've articulated all this in a roundabout way (or hoped to) by writing around it, but didn't have the words for it. But I found this incredible framework in the book Becoming Wise by Krista Tippett that finally seemed to get exactly what I want, what I get stuck in on the way, and how to ultimately get there. I felt so understood by it, which is such a stunning, chill-inducing feeling. It's not her phrase, but her framing of it and contextualizing was so important.
And actually, her project On Being pointed out that this is a philosophy underlying Mary Oliver's works (unintentionally or not), which might be why her poetry is some of my favorite. People have different names for it, of course. I don't know why it shook me and steadied me so much, but I don't even care. It worked.
Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity
“For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have. — Oliver Wendell Berry.”
It's gratitude without ignorance or stability without flatness. Textured living, if that makes sense. My personal idea of what real fulfillment looks like. The first 2/3 of this equation make a paradox that you can't really confront directly, so you have to lean into the indirect methods to finally get to the other side. Which looks like:
- gentle intensity
- textured simplicity
- earned beauty
- elegant restraint
Finally resolving that paradox? And that might also get to the definition of a "moment of grace"?
I've thought a lot about the concept of "earned beauty" i.e. contrast while hiking and this feels like another way of saying it. It's not so much simplicity without courage but the courage to let things be simple because you expanded yourself enough first. The paradox of our fundamental need for control—that letting go of just enough kicks you back into your autonomy, but without ache or limitation.
Our problem tends to be when we get stuck in the middle and don't see that there's simplicity on the other side. The kind we really want. You can spin, or you can retreat, or you can move ahead into simplicity. I tend to be right at the edge of this middle part, bogged down in the complexity of things, when what I really want is to be simple again—but distilled.
The beauty of this concept is that it reintroduces the possibility of choice and freedom. On the first side of simplicity, you can't muddle things up too much because you'll get stuck in the contradiction/paradox of the middle; full, total self-control is the only resolution—so it's actually not much of a choice.
But on the other side of simplicity, you have the option to go back and forth as you choose i.e. it makes your world bigger. You can feel free to let things be simple with the satisfaction of having chosen it for yourself (an idea also expressed within paradox of choice laid out by Barry Schwartz and Oliver Burkeman.) It's all...the same structure.
If this all sounds like a lot: it is, and I'm sorry. Not everyone gets stuck in the labyrinth of meaning-making, etc,. But as a novelist, I totally do, with ripple effects into my personal life. So I had to share.
My favorite metaphor underlying this is probably that of dancing—my personal fascination. And the metaphors themselves are the exact activities too that help you get there: ballet, being in nature, reading, etc,. because they connect us enough indirectly to let the direct path to the other side finally break through. A metaphor for connection without sacrificing individuality too?
I think about ballet as striking the necessary balance between strength and gentleness, rhythm and individuality, art and sport, vulnerability and expression, discipline and ecstasy, etc,. etc,. I loved ballet growing up for other reasons; right now, I'm on the right side of simplicity for it, which makes me feel just so much more connected and appreciative.
As Awe points out, one of the activities that makes us awestruck (this feeling) is collective movement, which includes both dance and other forms of sport. If you kept going on the dance thread specifically, you can veer into the spiritual element á la whirling dervishes or the more social element of dancing with others or even dive into the...sensual comparisons described by philosophers examining other...balances.
The brain structure underlying this "right side of simplicity" is (in the most basic possible terms) the chosen shift from the dopaminergic system to the endocannabinoid system, but I won't get all into the neuroscience. I will spare you for now. Basically MORE (WANTING) | LESS (HAVING) | MORE (HAVING).
I have plenty of studies to reference at some point proving that kindness, gratitude, generosity, and actual, unconditional love are actually hardwired into our systems to be roughly the point. As Tippett points out, it's very special to see science literally proving our most optimistic reads of ourselves and catching up with those truths/adages we "already know."
Even that fits with the SIMPLE | COMPLEX | SIMPLE triplicate. I get to relish those simple truths, but with the added weight and appreciation of knowing I really did the work to understand and believe them.
The hard part of writing is that it forces me personally to go through that SIMPLE | COMPLEX | SIMPLE structure, which never ceases to be terrible and exhausting and send me in spirals during the middle, but it also also proves to me that there's a distilled (more meaningful) simplicity on the other side.
So it's my personal cure for closing the gaps as both the embodiment of the concept and the method of solving it myself. (That's partly why metaphor as a concept is so striking to us as people, but I'll get into the neuroscience of storytelling another time.)
That's not to say everything is perfect right now or that I'm a completely new person because of encountering a quote I adore that "gets me." I'm still pushing through tough challenges, or wishing some things were different.
Simplicity (redefined) doesn't promise that everything you care about will go your way, just that you can handle what feels stuck or unfinished. Questions will weigh me down in the future, limit me, etc,. and new paradoxes will pop up.
But I'm also very satisfied with where I am and who I am and, again, I'm feeling resonant overall. Maybe this line of thinking has always been easy for you (or doesn't feel accurate), but I've often gotten stuck in the middle—so I finally landed in a spot that resolved or clicked the contradictions I felt but couldn't name. I do think the feeling underlying this relationship between dissonance and resolution is universal or eventual for everyone, regardless of whether I've articulated it or structured it in the most accurate way for your understanding of things. Maybe that gets too meta. C'est la vie!
I just have the words for a specific pattern or worldview of mine right now, so I feel both expanded and distilled in the most gratifying way. Awestruck by the right book at the right time, and a bit more capable of going after what matters most to me without getting caught in the labyrinth in the process. It makes me feel very graceful, whatever that means to you. And grateful, which is a given.
