Picture taken while hiking solo at Gran Paradiso in the Italian Alps
1 · Know How to Fall
In Judo, knowing how to fall safely is fundamental.
In Japanese, it is called “ukemi”, and through it, falling is turned into an art form - rolling, sliding or absorbing impact to protect fragile areas.
Most of us berate ourselves when we make mistakes, and even more so when those are expressive of old behaviours or repeated patterns.
Why can’t I just damn well change?
The problem is not that we fall; it is that we don’t know how to fall.
Judo masters know they will fall and factor this inevitability in as they face their opponent.
The key, therefore, is not just accepting that you will fall, but also preparing psychologically for what you'll do once you're back on the mat.
As Autumn sets in, it is easy to feel a longing for once was. With it comes a resistance to the passing of time, and with it, an unreadiness to move forward.
It is easy to resist the melancholy that accompanies this, and who doesn’t know that diminished feeling, piercing to the point of dread, as you look out the window and see the days shortening?
It can make us feel sedentary, and in this sedentariness, we find the same old us circling around the same old issues.
The danger is that these feelings can swallow us - the Judo master becomes chained to the mat.
Instead, factor in how you fall.
You will make mistakes.
You will feel stuck at times.
You may even berate yourself for always finding yourself in the same place.
I find that factoring in these feelings; of knowing in advance that they are part of the journey — helps me not to get stuck in them, but explore them without being swallowed.
I feel this; that is okay.
Deep breath.
Rise again.
As the Judoka Kyuzo Mifune said: "Mastering ukemi means more than learning how to fall; it means learning how to stand up in life."
2 · Slow Productivity
I recently read Slow Productivity by Cal Newport, my favourite author in the productivity space. In it, he outlines an approach to work based on:
Doing fewer things
Working at a natural pace
Obsessing over quality
It is not about extinguishing ambition but about finding a sustainable path towards these achievements. He highlights examples like Isaac Newton, who took 20 years to write Principia, contrasting this with modern knowledge workers, who must show constant activity on Slack yet often feel both exhausted and unproductive.
“Doing fewer things is the key to producing good work.”
To do good work, we need focused, distraction-free time, consistently repeated over a longer time period. It doesn’t matter if we only get an hour or two in per day; what matters is the quality of that time — and safeguarding it.
It’s an approach that has served me well while working on the album this year. Instead of setting a short term unrealistic goal, I gave myself the longer time window of a year. I didn’t know it, but I had already adopted slow productivity.
Gradually getting there!
And enjoying the process while I do so.
3 · “Find Your Zeal”
I was listening to my favourite audiobook “Pathways to Bliss” by Joseph Campbell. I clip-marked the following and typed it up:
“When I finished my lecture a young woman came up to me and said “Mr Campbell you just don’t understand the younger generation - we go directly from infancy to wisdom”. I said “that is great all you’ve missed is life!” So I say the way to find your myth is to find your zeal, to find your support, and to know what stage of life you’re in. The problems of youth are not the problems of age. Don’t try to live your life too soon — by listening too much to gurus. To try to skip the whole darn thing and become wise before you’ve experienced that which in relation to which there is some point to being wise. This thing wisdom has to come gradually.”
I thought about this passage while weighing up two opportunities which came up this week - first, to direct a music video in Dubai and, secondly, offers from cinemas in New York, Seattle and Massachusetts — to attend screenings of my documentary “A Conversation with America”.
I wrestled because I am trying to do less, and to do those things better. A historic pain point of mine is trying to do too much and diluting myself.
If my principal goal is to get the album finished and set up for next year, as well as try to improve, I need time in one place.
And yet, and yet…
You have to follow your zeal too.
And for that matter, life.
Like love, when it calls, you have to follow it.
And figure it out along the way.
For me, the onset of Autumn has been a reminder about the nature of time, of decay, and that our lives are, too, locked into a broader season.
Live it while you can.
As Campbell said, “Don’t get wise before you’ve experienced that which in relation to which there is some point to being wise”.
Experience is asking to sharpen me - and fate is bringing me full circle during the Colours of the Fall with my American project.
When life calls, go to it.
4 · Long-Termism in Projects
If you have a project or dream you’re struggling to get going, try:
1) Give yourself the time frame of a year
2) Set a go-date when you officially start
3) Commit to an hour a day on that project no matter what
4) Write yourself into your diary weekly
5) Block in 4 power weeks in the year to work 100% on it
5 · Autumn Melancholy vs Year’s Goals
In this unscripted YouTube video, I explore the predicament we face as the drive to move forward after summer clashes with the melancholy that comes as the light fades.
6 · The Fall - Albert Camus
"Autumn is the season of exile, of retreat. It strips the world and the soul bare, leaving only essentials behind."
As you go into Autumn — what is essential to you?
I’ve taken to having a logbook which I review each morning - it keeps the essential things close to mind and has helped me when I’m drifting from my main mission. In an amnesiac work, keep gravitating towards your North Star.
7 · Sound and Vision
I found this version of Bowie’s Sound & Vision - stripped back, raw, as if sung from the afterlife.
Makes me tear up every time.
Have a lovely weekend everyone, and see you next week
Jim