Dear Chiara,

Thank you for your letter

I’m pleasantly amused and delighted to see this public letter writing idea spreading. We’re building an organic web of thoughtful connections, and I’m here to celebrate that.

This feels like the old web, like the Blogger/Livejournal days ;)

I checked out David Senra, I picked “The Clarity of Commitment” from the links you shared because the title appealed to me.

I’m 100% with you on the message he is sharing, and on the need to repeat it. And I really crave that sense of clarity personally.

The clarity is not always there to be honest though. I get in my own head far too often. Procrastinating and all other classic symptoms of perfectionism. But I try not to dwell on it anymore. I try to thank that part of me now. It’s linked to my desire to deeply understand. It’s linked to the part of me that gets inspired by things that move me, and gets motivated to create my own “best” version of that.

When I had this letter writing idea, I wanted to make an app. There would be a little letter writing desk, and you could decorate your envelopes, and it would be a really cozy vibe, and letters would take maybe a day or two to be ‘delivered’ to your recipient. I even made some concept art with ChatGPT.

But I took a moment to think about what originally motivated this. It was just that I wanted to reach out to my sister and write her a letter.

I’m glad to have had that moment of clarity.

To think I would make an entire app before writing what was on my mind that day. More likely I would start the app, give up half way through, and then also forget about writing my sister a letter.

When I think about what led to me actually writing that first letter, it all started with the question: “What do I want?”

What do I actually want to do. To create. To experience?

That’s such a powerful creative question. Often I know what I want. And it actually drives me crazy when people don’t have that. It drives me even crazier when I have to justify an idea or project beyond simply: “I want to do this”.

When people design something by comittee, or when they are steering their product or craft through some kind of data gathering exercise. I get completely disengaged.

All that to say, I really resonate with what you shared. I appreciate getting a bit of fuel for that fire in me that wants to make great things. It helps me to re-focus on what I value.

How do you consume your podcasts though? What does that look like in your day to day? There’s so many hours of content out there, I’m not really able to listen to it and do something else (besides walking / exercising). Do you listen to podcasts all the way through in one sitting? Do you allow yourself to stop half way through or skip around? Do you have any recommendations for how to capture bits that you want to follow up on later?

Anyways, I will end with this koan / story that I absolutely love, re-written in my own way and not sure of the original source: