Might be what you need today
a message from your friend
“You are never too young to wonder “Why am I still doing this?” You need to have an excellent answer.” - Kevin Kelly
This line hit me like a brick. I haven’t written in this newsletter in a while, because the recent ChatGPT explosion got me into an existential crisis. Why bother writing anything at all when AI will soon, if not already, do better than us?
Why am I still writing?
It reminded me of what my teacher, Charles Davies, once said:
"When you don't know what you should do, get clear on who you should be. And who you are"
I know why I haven’t been writing here. I came to London last year with a very clear intention: to be changed. To release the past, let go of whoever I think I should be or have been, such as a writer, a dance teacher, etc.… so as to be free to embrace more, to become more.
As such, being a writer no longer motivates me to write this. But something else - another identity - still does, even more so.
It is being a friend.
This became clear to me in a conversation yesterday with my dear friend Michelle. What does a friend do? For me, a friend stays in touch, a friend cares, a friend uses everything, including words, to soothe, to uplift, to jolt his friends into greater joy, into freedom, into love. And because friendship is always both ways, a friend also opens himself to share his heart, his mind, his whole body.
I am writing to you because I want to stay in touch with you, my brilliant, bold and beautiful friends and partners. You and I both know know in our bones that there is more to you, to us, to life, and who will keep leaning towards that more beautiful, generous, loving, fun, weird and damn real future, together.
To you, the builders, experimenters, seekers, fighters, players, teachers, lovers, messengers of change, know this:
I care for us, and I give a damn about us living, being, doing well together in this world.
My name, Khuyến, means "encourage" in Vietnamese. That's who I am and what I do: to bring "cour", or "heart", into relationships, into conversations with you, friends, and with our larger world. For such a deeply physical, embodied and *energetic* declaration, I don’t know if ChatGPT can replace us.
How about you? What are you not clear about doing or not doing?
Who are you not clear about being and not being?
Write me back. I’d love to hear from you. Meanwhile, please share this message with those who may find it helpful.
Life Update: my PhD journey
What I just shared with you is, in essence, my PhD research. It is about identity, about change, about who we are and who we choose to be. About being and becoming.
I partner with founders, entrepreneurs, leaders who are embodying and creating a new way of being, doing, living together in this world. I look at what they themselves go through - their evolution of identity - to bring about such change. And I look at those close to them, because we don’t just change in isolation, like a heroic monk going off into a solo retreat in the mountain. We are always in it together, even if the journey seems to be our own to make.
Ultimately, there is no "them". It's really us. Research is really we-search and also me-search. I hope this inquiry brings us many fruits.
I will be heading back to Vietnam for 9 months from early Sept for my fieldwork, so in Aug I’ll be hosting some closing gatherings in London. Let me know if you are around :-) Meanwhile, do stay in touch here via this newsletter.
To quote the late John Wick:
pss: for the 30+ of you who just joined the Enzyme, welcome, welcome, welcome. Please send me a note, I’d love to hear how you heard of me. Let’s continue our conversation :-)
Hello Khuyen,
You are meant to write. Keep writing. Personally, I am not afraid of chatGPT, it's a great innovation to aid human beings with knowledge and they are really witty. Be ensured that there will be people who read what you write just because it's written by YOU. And we write also for our own joy and revelations, don't we?
I don't know whether there is a coincidence. I am recently given a project that allows me the privilege to meet and talk to entrepreneurs and social change-makers to develop a book to celebrate those authentic stories. This came to me through a good friend, who introduced me to the project. This won't be a Master or PhD thesis at all. I have listened to a few guests and they expanded my world-mind. There is so much to know and then it seems like there is a bigger flow of change happening underground or actually obviously that I am/we are attracted to be part of it.
I hope you do well with your thesis and you find inspirations to write regularly again.
This article you must have written in a calm state of mind as it puts me at ease. Nice photo, too.
Have a great day,
Patient celery