Author: admin
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Seneca knew you were going to die and waste your time anyway
My good pal Seneca once penned this…
(I’ve studied a lot of his work)
“Most human beings, Paulinas,* complain about the meanness of nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, and then because this spell of time that has been given to us rushes by so swiftly and rapidly that with very few exceptions life ceases for the rest of us just when we are getting ready for it…” *A friend of Seneca’s
Granted, Seneca wrote this letter to his buddy Paulinus about 2,000 years ago, and it might as well have been written yesterday about your sorry ass sitting there with all that creative fire burning in your chest, doing absolutely nothing about it…
Feels like a twist of the knife, right? Always getting ready. Always preparing. Waiting for the perfect moment. The perfect setup. A confidence level high enough, where you finally put your art out into the world.
Although right now. The timer is running out and we’re on our way to our final dirt nap.
You’ve got stories burning holes in your brain. Paintings that want to exist. Songs scratching at you. Ideas that make your heart beat while your hands sweat with excitement.
And what are you doing? You’re “getting ready”
You’re waiting until you’re better. Until you have more time. Until you have the right equipment. Until the stars align and your anxiety takes a vacation and your imposter syndrome decides to fuck off for a while.
Now I like Seneca. And he understood something that you don’t…
Life doesn’t give you a practice round. There’s no dress rehearsal. There’s no moment when you suddenly feel “ready enough” to put your work into the world.
You think Van Gogh felt ready when he painted Starry Night?
You think he thought, “Yes, now I’m finally good enough to create something beautiful”?
Hell no. He was broke, mentally unstable, and convinced he was a failure. But he painted anyway.
The alternative was dying with all that beauty trapped inside him, which was worse than any criticism or rejection.
That burning urge you feel? That desperate desire to create and share? Some call it artistic ambition, but we all know that it’s your soul trying to complete its assignment before the timer runs out.
Days spent “getting ready”, are days the day where your art doesn’t get to exist in the world. We don’t need permission, cause those are lost days people don’t get to experience what you have to offer.
You want to know what’s really mean about nature? It’s not that life is short. It’s that life is short and most people waste it preparing to live instead of actually living.
Art doesn’t have to be perfect. Hell, it doesn’t even need to change the world in its current state. It doesn’t have to make you famous or rich or validated by strangers on the internet.
It just has to exist.
The universe plays this really weird joke on us…
While you’re sitting there worried about whether your work is good enough, time is making the decision for you. While you’re waiting to feel ready, you’re getting closer to not having any time left to be ready for anything.
Start today. Not when you feel inspired. Not when you have more skills. Not when you’re less afraid.
Today.
Create something. Share something. Put one piece of your inner world into the outer world and see what happens.
The only thing worse than creating something imperfect is dying with it still trapped inside you.
Seneca knew this. He knew that most people spend their whole lives getting ready to live and then run out of time before they ever actually start.
Don’t be most people.
Your art is waiting. Your audience is waiting. Your future self is waiting.
And time? Time doesn’t give a shit about your preparation schedule.
Get to work. We’re a long time dead.
Stephen Walker.
P.S. I know this email might’ve felt like a bit of bullying but it’s the good kind. Get a bit of Seneca’s stoic messaging into your world…
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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom
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From Stephen, with love.
Your brain is a lying liar that lies…
So I’m not gonna pretend that I know everything but there are some common things floating about the interwebs right now and there’s a little heaviness about which is not good.
Life might feel like some hidden force is taking a steaming hot dump on your reality.
Hopefully you’re not sinking a bottle whiskey every night. Or maybe you’re stuck, scrolling social media until 3 am like it’s your job. Maybe you’re eating your feelings one take out meal at a time.
And then your brain keeps telling you this…
“This is just who I am. This is my life. I’m broken”
Your brain is a lying bastard.
Your habits aren’t carved in stone. They’re just stories you keep telling yourself. And stories can be rewritten.
But you can’t just think positive thoughts and expect magic. That Instagram influencer bullshit doesn’t work. You need to get dirty. You need to reprogram the narrative at a deeper level.
Let’s say you want to quit drinking as an example.
Your brain has spent years building this beautiful little fairy tale…
“Alcohol helps me relax. Alcohol makes me funnier. Alcohol makes everything better.”
Every time you pop the top and pour one into the glass. You’re reinforcing it.
So you flip the script.
“Alcohol is poison”
Not metaphorically. Literally. It’s a neurotoxin that slowly destroys your liver, fucks with your sleep, and turns your brain into mush.
When you look at that bottle now. There’s no relaxation. Only pretty little poison dressed up in a pretty little bottle.
You repeat this. Daily. Hourly if you have to.
Reframing isn’t a one and done deal. It’s a different kind of warfare. You’re literally fighting years of conditioning with new information. And your brain will resist like a stubborn toddler who doesn’t want to eat vegetables.
This is where it gets interesting.
You can use your awareness of the bad shit as fuel for the good shit.
Every time you feel that craving, that’s data. That’s your brain trying to run the old program. Instead of fighting the craving, you acknowledge it…
“There’s my brain trying to poison me again”
Then you reframe…
“I choose things that make me stronger”
This works for everything. Social media addiction? “This app is designed to steal my time and sell my attention to the highest bidder”
Junk food? “This processed garbage makes me feel like shit and look worse”
Toxic relationships? “This person drains my energy and adds nothing to my life”
It’s changing the fundamental story your brain tells you about these things.
And yes, it feels fake at first. Your brain will throw tantrums. It will try to convince you that the old ways were better. That you’re depriving yourself. That you’re being dramatic.
Let it whine.
Keep reframing. Keep repeating the new story. Keep feeding your brain better information.
Over time. The new narrative becomes automatic. You’ll look at that bottle of poison and feel nothing. You’ll see that toxic person’s name on your phone and feel relief that you don’t have to deal with their drama anymore.
Your brain will literally rewire itself around the new story.
But you have to be consistent. You have to be relentless. You have to treat this like the mental warfare it actually is.
Addiction is your brain running the wrong program. And reframing is how you debug it.
Start today. Pick one thing that’s fucking up your life. Write down the story your brain tells you about it. Then write down the truth. The real, ugly, uncomfortable truth.
And then repeat that truth until it becomes automatic.
Your brain is programmable. You just need to learn how to write better code and that’s something our robot overlord AI turd nuggets can’t do.
This might’ve been a little heavier than my regularly writer-ly shenanigans, but I’m sure someone out there might’ve needed this at this very moment.
Stephen Walker.
P.S. Feel free to come hit me up on Facebook Messenger and tell me I’m being full of shit.
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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom
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O Captain! My Captain!
The most magnetic thing on earth is liking your own energy.
Or what the kids say nowadays; “Vibe”
I’ll stick to energy though because it’s a lot deeper than that.
Swami Vivekananda had similar notions in his teachings.
That were along the lines of “If you don’t befriend your own inner state, it’s hard for others to feel at ease with you”
“All power is within you”
“Strength is life”
“You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself”
He had a lot of themes that are interchangeable with what all of these new age western teachers are crossing into. I believe the sentiment is there…
Although personally I’m a mixture of all things philosophical and spiritual. I’ve dove into the religious areas of things and well…
The level of indoctrination wasn’t really my thing.
So what does liking your own energy mean?
It’s physiological:
Your baseline arousal. Your sleep. Your breath. Your posture. Your nervous system tone.
It’s emotional:
Your current mood and the way you relate to it. Resisting vs allowing it.
Interpersonal presence:
The nonverbal signals you broadcast. Eye contact. Pace. Voice. Your overall congruence.
Spiritual/Values:
Feeling aligned with what you hold sacred. Your purpose. Your integrity. Your service you’re giving out to the world.
Those key points over there can send you on a rabbit hole of self discovery and if you decide to go down that route. You’d be surprised at the person you could become if you start being a little more present.
That’s the thing with this whole always on internet life we live.
We forget about the inner workings of who we are and what we stand for.
This is part of what makes us creative and loving humans.
We pick up on each other’s states. If we are calm we co-regulate others around us. The opposite happens if we are in self contempt. That just spreads tension.
Congruence reads as trust. When your words, body and intent match up. People relax. If you do the opposite. People pick up on it.
Boundaries and generosity come into the mix too. Liking your own energy often comes across as narcissism (Which is such fun word to see people throw around on social media without knowing much about it…)
If you like your energy. It frees attention from your self monitoring so you can be more present, curious, kind and playful.
How many times have you either seen a group of people or couples sat around a restaurant table staring into the sadness rectangle in their hands?
A lot right?
If you truly liked your own energy or your vibe. You wouldn’t be in that position. You’d be wanting to get to know others and explore.
We want to be connected with ourselves and the others that are around us.
That’s what the true meaning of this all is.
As John Keating aka Robin Williams said in Dead Poets Society:
“We are food for worms, lads”
We are all going to die.
So while we’re here on this earth. We might as well get to liking our own energy. Fall in love with ourselves and if we can. Help others to see the beauty in it all.
It’s the most magnetic thing we can do.
Stephen Walker.
P.S. I know this was a little heavier than the usual silly goose type emails. Go make a cup of tea. You deserved it.
P.P.S. If you haven’t seen Dead Poets Society. Shame on you.
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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom
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I’ve got a $20 lavalier mic and a dream…
My buddy called me last night. Said something that stuck.
“Just read your stuff out loud. Record it. Put it on YouTube.”
I laughed. Told him I sound like a dying walrus having an existential crisis. He said that’s the point.
This same buddy has nothing to do with the online space like I do. Marketing, copy and all of that crap. He doesn’t fully know what I do.
However to him. YouTube is his crack cocaine. He loves long form video essays on the wildest of topics.
He for some reason also loves reading my emails.
And then you look around and you notice that YouTube is drowning in AI garbage right now.
Faceless channels. Robot voices reading Wikipedia entries. Content farms pumping out soulless trash every six minutes.
It’s like watching the internet eat itself and shit out something worse.
Meanwhile, I’m sitting here with a twenty dollar mic I bought off of Amazon.
It’s the kind that clips to your shirt and makes you look like a budget news reporter from 1987…
Although that’s exactly what people want. (apparently)
Not perfection. Not some slick production with jump cuts and dubstep intros. Just a human being. Reading their own words. Stuttering occasionally. Clearing their throat. Being real.
The AI bros think they’ve won. They’ve got their tools churning out “content” faster than anyone can consume it. They’re turning creativity into a factory line. Art into algorithms. Stories into statistics.
And they’re wrong.
I know when it’s 3AM and I can’t sleep. The last thing I want is a robot to be reading me some bullshit bed time story. I want to hear another human being that is flawed, tired, maybe a little drunk that tells me something true.
Authenticity always wins. It might take time. It might look messy. But humans need humans. We crave that connection. You ever get punched in the gut? Words hit you like that you can’t help but think, “Shit, me too.”
Tech doesn’t give you that. It can’t. All these tools destroying what’s left of genuine human expression? They’re building their own grave.
So yeah. I’ve got a cheap mic and some words.
That’s enough.
Stephen Walker.
P.S. If you see random videos of a bearded looking hobo-dude pop up on youtube with a parrot on his shoulder. That’s probably me…
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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom
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A little bit of prose for the weekend.
We are not machines.
We have souls.
We need little bits of music and connections and sunsets with laughter. Those little pockets of joy…
…we need to prioritise that.
Your life depends on it.
Life is not meant to be a cycle of stress and survival or flight or fight.
Pause.
Look up.
Inhale.
Sunsets should remind you to live.
Life isn’t a to do list or a sequence of check boxes.
It’s a precious gift.
Take slower steps and hug longer.
Laugh louder and love deeper.
As the clock ticks away…
Your presence needs to be timeless.
We’ve been conditioned to believe that constant productivity equals worth.
We humans weren’t designed for endless output. We need moments that leave us in wonder and awe and connection and rest…
Not as a reward for hard work but as essential ingredients that make for a meaningful life.
Stephen Walker.
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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom
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Great Scott!
Okay not so great Scott Adams (Author of Dilbert) went a little off the deep end a little while ago.
I guess politics and other things just make people lose their minds and once they’re far gone, there’s no turning back.
Unless turning back is dragging them behind an old 7 Eleven and delivering 2x .45 ACP rounds to the skull…
Although as much as someone is an asshole. You can separate that from their art/knowledge.
So here’s 5 things he wrote/talked about and they do make sense. They will sound basic but often, it’s the basic that matters cause we like to chase fancy…
Goals suck. Use systems.
Goals are specific outcomes that often rely on luck and timing.
Where systems are repeatable processes that keep you improving and moving forward every day. Focus on daily habits, not distant trophies.
Strategically selfish.
Adams argues that taking care of your own health, energy and mental sate first, makes you more useful to others in the long run. We don’t need ego at there door. You want to go for sustainability.
Passion is overrated.
Passion often follows success. Not the other way around. Most successful people weren’t passionate about their field until they got good at it. Skill, not raw enthusiasm tends to win.
Maximise your energy. Not your schedule.
Managing time > managing your energy. When are you most productive? Take that time and that’s where you need to start your day. Make sure you sleep properly. Make sure your nutrition isn’t jumping off of the cliff. Don’t get me wrong. Eating 3 pop tarts and drinking a litre of coffee does sound good but it’s gonna ruin you in the long run. Don’t forget to exercise.
Failure is a necessary investment.
Every single failure carries knowledge and every attempt is a point of data.
He treats failure as normal, expected and beneficial. Provided you can extract a lesson and apply it forward…
IF YOU WANT TO READ HIS BOOK YOU CAN CLICK THIS OBNOXIOUSLY LONG LINK TO CHECK IT OUT
All of that said. Yeah he’s a bit of a dick and has said a lot of dumb shit but there’s a lot of wisdom in what he talks about.
It’s August now and I take it as my birthday month. So I’m still deciding if I’m going to hit you with one of those “X lessons I’ve learnt because I’m so old lol” posts/emails. I dunno.
I did manage to pickup some more books yesterday which I’m busy re-reading. So I’ll drop some info-nuggets here and there when I can.
Have a wicked weekend.
Go for a walk. Drink some water. Tell someone they’ve got a nice butt.
Stephen Walker.
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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom
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Stop feeding your brain garbage.
Let’s talk mindset. Not the Instagram kind. Not the “manifest your matcha latte” kind.
The real, ugly, under the fingernails kind. The kind your parents accidentally bent out of shape, out of love, sure, but still…
(Sorry, Mom. Sorry, Dad. It’s not your fault. Or maybe it is, but you probably meant well)
I’ll also preface that you don’t have to make this your whole personality.
If you try to keep at this practice 24/7 and cut EVERYTHING out. You will explode mentally.
So here’s a few lies you might’ve been told when you were a kiddo…
Hard work guarantees success.
If you’re struggling, try harder. (Or just be quieter about it)
You are what you repeatedly do. (But only if what you do is what everyone else wants you to do.)
Self deprecation is charming, and “tough love” is the best love. (Side quest: Your subconscious is an idiot. It doesn’t get sarcasm. It just eats what you feed it, no questions asked)
And sure, if you’ve got kids, you know the cycle.
You want them to be better, softer, safer.
You want to wrap them in bubble wrap and send them into the world with a pre printed apology note.
The most important thing though. The one nobody ever tells you…
…is how you TALK to yourself.
Remember…
Your brain is a sponge.
It soaks up everything, even the garbage. Especially the garbage, cause there’s more garbage than good in the verbal world.
If you call yourself a dumbass enough times, guess what? That voice sets up camp. Puts its boots on your coffee table. Wipes Cheeto dust on your soul.
The difference between a joke and a curse is repetition.
Your subconscious doesn’t know you’re kidding. It just gets the memo: You suck.
Daily affirmations? They sound like cringe, but they work. Because your brain doesn’t know the difference between fact and fiction until you make it learn.
The present tense is everything.
“I’m making $10,000 a month.” Not, “I will, maybe, if I’m good, if the algorithm is kind.” NOW. Speak like it’s happening. Because your mind listens. And then it starts looking for ways to make it true.
Reconditioning sucks.
It’s like trying to teach a stubborn, half feral raccoon how to use the toilet. Messy. Stubborn. Sometimes it bites.
But every time you catch yourself saying something self destructive, swap it out for the truth. Or at least, the truth you want to become true.
Soft language isn’t weak.
I don’t want you to turn into a marshmallow. But also there is no need to be an asshole to yourself. You wouldn’t call your kid a loser for dropping their ice cream. So why do you do it to you?
So here’s your challenge, because I’m not your guru and I don’t have a course to sell you…
Talk to yourself like you actually give a damn about your own future.
Use language that builds, not digs.
Speak in now. Not “someday.” Not “when I finally stop screwing up.”
Catch yourself in the act. Swap out the “I’m such an idiot” for “I’m figuring this out.”
The only thing standing between you and the life you want is the story you keep whispering to yourself when nobody’s listening.
Switch up the story. Make it present. Make it true.
You’ll be shocked at how fast the world changes when you stop feeding your subconscious the same old bullshit.
Mindset isn’t everything.
It’s the only thing you need to get right.
Now go say something nice about yourself. Out loud. (Your brain’s listening)
Stephen Walker.
P.S. If you catch yourself slipping. Don’t worry about it. It’s okay. We’re all reformed raccoons here. Just don’t set up camp in the dumpster.
P.P.S. Shad Helmstetter has a great book you can check out on self talk.
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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom
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Spontaneity or (com)bust
There comes a time when we get so wrapped up in the real world.
We get so glued to our day to day routines, we forget about that child like spontaneity we used to have.
You ever stay in one place for so long that you want to combust into flames, because you feel like the art you’re meant to get out into the world is just sitting there slowly burning out?
This is your reminder that you need to mix it up.
Do something you’ve not done for a while. Book a train journey to anywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Reconnect with a friend. Get away from your industry for a week and take up Mongolian throat singing. You know?
What I’m trying to say is that we need to shift away from this chronic online life we live.
(Yes I know the irony is not lost on me by writing that, however I am sitting in Scotland right now, sipping on a nice cup of tea while recharging my emotional and spiritual batteries…)
And in a few minutes I’m taking a trip down to the beach. (I promise I won’t get swept away by some freak undercurrent or whatever…)
If you’ve got a bit of time. Hit reply and tell me about things and stuff going on in your world. Tell me about your last spontaneous thing you’ve done…
Catch ya later.
Stephen Walker.
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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom
