Last year, or was it the year before (try not to Google “cognitive decline”), I used a bunch of Annie Duke’s advice in her book Quit to make decisions in my life. Should I stay in my marriage? Was there someone else better out there for me? Should I keep People I’ve Loved running? Should we move?
It’s weird to open a book that teaches you the value of Quitting, yet my takeaway was that I needed to stay with what I was working on. I was taught that to quit was to fail. To fail was to be worthless. To be worthless was, well, let’s not go there. The reframe that Annie does in the book is based on 40 years of decision-making science. One that really sticks with me is that when you quit, you are also deciding to stick with or have more time for other things. It is impossible to do all these things. I tell myself this often, and yet, even today, I still think I can do everything. I just have to try and work hard. Those American roots go deeper than logic.
Something happened at the start of 2024. I don’t believe in the binary of optimists and pessimists. I think that they are both in use, and we have been conditioned and learned to use them for experiences that help us make the best choices we think we can. My mother-in-law, who I love, thinks she is an optimist and I am a pessimist. And I am not saying that that is entirely true, but I think that we have different things that we think positively about. We have lived different lives, and have learned to cope with the shit that life throughs you with a range of motion and possibility that has different breaking points.
New Beginnings.
At the start of a new year, I am always hopeful. These past few years have really uprooted life as I understand it. And 2024 was going to be good. It had to be good because things have been hard and everyone knows that it can’t be hard forever, right? Also, there is something both irrational and rational about thinking that the swing high of a pendulum on the negative side would only produce a reaction into something good. We need only change the metaphor we are working with to something like a snowball going down a hill, and our expectations change.
I am shutting down the studio. I know I said I wouldn’t before. I hope this doesn’t make you think that I am untrustworthy, I hope it permits you to change things in your own lives. To go back on your word, and trust that the people who are going to be in your life in the future will understand. Maybe it will do both?
For all the people who we wholesale with, rest assured we are NOT closing down People I’ve Loved. Just shapeshifting to adapt to time. And for me to be able to leave the Bay.
Last week we decided to move. I know I have talked about it many times, but a few more things happened and our house is no longer safe. My parents are aging, we are entering into the stage in life (that came WAY TOO SOON) where we are slowly transferring the roles of carers and receivers of care. Does anyone feel ready for how fast this happens? I still call my mom to have her come help me when I am stuck. It is a scary thought to have to be the one on the other side, the person called in. Being called to save your unraveling safety net.
The studio is also feeling unsafe. Oakland is having a moment… maybe you have seen it in the news. The historically progressive city, focused on restorative justice, passed laws that limited punitive action on juveniles over the past decade. Up until very recently, if you commented, “They need to be arrested,” or “We need more law enforcement,” in Oakland, you would be socially shunned, and labeled as someone who had an old understanding of what social justice was. However, in the past few months, I have heard people saying it. That they are okay with the increased surveillance and extra highway control people that Gavin Newsom has sent. That statement would have meant social suicide only a year before… They make sure to follow up with the statement, “We have to make sure that the same marginalized communities don’t get affected.” But there is no plan. No soft landing scaffolding is being constructed by statements. I am one of these people, in secret. And I don’t like it.
The Universe.
I have been noticing lately, maybe more than just as of late, that I have subconsciously reached back out to the term “universe” for comfort. Last night, I was wondering: what does that even mean? What comfort can be gleaned from a term that I don’t fully even understand - that would be impossible, to understand such a complex thing definitely beyond my ability to speculate.
I have always defined myself as an atheist. I think that I fall under what most people would understand by the term agnostic. I align with Atheists because I believe that there probably is not a god in the way that humans have created legends and structures for society. But at the same time, I don’t have a better option. And I kinda feel like regardless of what that option is, we can at the very best only speculate. And those speculations are only human, being informed by human relations and needs. I want there to be something more.
Here is my current understanding – which will change with time – of the way the universe works:
I have begun to think in terms of rivers. Rivers that are affected by us, but also the laws of psychics (which rely on human understanding, but whatever), planetary alignment, and so so so so so much more. The universe, this complex web of energy of objects, understanding, pulling us into places we want and don’t want to go.
“The mass of the observable universe is often quoted as 1053 kg. In this context, mass refers to ordinary matter and includes the interstellar medium (ISM) and the intergalactic medium (IGM). However, it excludes dark matter and dark energy.”
Like a river.
Like a river. Currently, I have been trying to swim upstream. Thinking that if I just swim hard enough, it will be ok, eventually. But I can’t keep up. 2024 has been hard for small businesses. All 4 of our marketing platforms are way down. This is not to say that you should go out and buy more stuff from small businesses - it is just to say that when we (I am included) buy things at major retailers, because it is convenient and easy and less expensive, small businesses just cannot compete. We want to, but the system has made it hard to manufacture anything in the United States. Also, life is expensive for everyone.
Besides the safety issue, and the marketing deadness, our costs of operation are up 34% this year. Again, life is really expensive right now. When I say the universe is trying to tell me something that I don’t want to hear, it is these things. My lifeboat is traveling down a different path, despite my best efforts to steer the ship.
There is a certain audacity in thinking that one could shape anything in this expansive understanding of forces pushing and pulling our atoms in oppositional forces. I want to believe in choice and control and that I have a say in how to live, and do it well. But right now, I am taking comfort that I don’t. I can just look at the signs, follow the water, and try my best to do right by the people I love.
I am so grateful for your support through these years. I am not sure totally of the shape of People I’ve Loved in the future, but I am trying to go with the flow.
Love Always, Carissa
PS: This is how AI defined “a spiritual definition of the universe”:
“The universe is the intricate tapestry of existence, weaving together the boundless realms of energy, matter, and consciousness in a divine symphony of interconnectedness.” I think this is kinda cool. I don’t know how you feel about AI but I am hopeful about it, sometimes. And if now is one of those moments, the idea that it was able to synthesize all of our human words and thoughts on the topic and come up with this - that is just kinda cool. Like now we are all in this weird loop with AI, just trying to understand existence. I want to think about AI as just another player on our team. But who knows?
PPS: When I became a mom to Margaret, everything changed. I had never loved anyone as fiercely and madly as I love her. To honor all the parents out there, we're offering a discount at the People I've Loved shop JUST for Substack readers! Take 25% off anything you want through April. Thanks so much for supporting our small business.
USE CODE: FORMOM25
https://www.cafeausoul.com/oracles/iching
Throwing the I Ching is always good in times of change x
flow downstream. Just flow. But please don't disappear! I love your work and your newsletters. Your thoughts and impressions of the world are eye-opening for me. Sending you lots of love and ease...