starting from nix

Share this post

the first draft self

nicoles.substack.com

the first draft self

life with fewer guardrails on

Nix 🕊
Mar 17, 2022
18
8
Share this post

the first draft self

nicoles.substack.com
Peder Severin Krøyer. Summer evening on the southern beach of Skagen. Anna Archer and Marie Krøyer
Anna Archer and Marie Krøyer by Peder Severin Krøyer

hi friends, another short post this week. sidenotes: 1. I love love the new substack app and highly recommend reading stuff on there. 2. It’s been a rocky personal week but as always have found writing to be extremely comforting - a little corner of sun. hope you are holding up well.

Read startingfromnix in the Substack app
Available for iOS and Android

The other day I walked from the Presidio to Hayes, my headphones glued to my head, feeling sunburnt, feeling like my heart was fully in my throat. I told someone the other day that I’ve been living my life with fewer guardrails on. As a result of this, there’s been a few precarious, jolting moments recently where I’ve looked at my life and been like oh my god everything is moving so quickly. It’s net good, I hope.

Recently I’ve come up with a theory of life-living. I’m calling it ‘first draft mentality’. I want this to be a central theme of my life, and seek out other people who also have this same mindset. Having a first draft mentality is being unafraid to put something down on paper, even if it’s a skeleton of what a finished-product should be. Iterating from the past and changing it until you get somewhere exquisite. Being open to a little play and experimentation. Listening closely to the deepest part of your heart and what sound it makes when something profound emerges. Doing things because you believe they matter, even if there’s no proof yet that they do.

What I love about this metaphor is that the first draft of anything doesn’t have a moral valence – the draft isn’t right or wrong. It’s just the first step. Get rid of the fear that doing something (and messing up) makes it permanent, and instead see it as part of the process. We’re constantly reinventing ourselves, so why not have a bit fun with it? Throw some stuff on paper, make some art, grow some plants, talk to that person, take yourself somewhere you’ve always wanted to go, do the thing, make some mistakes. Making a first, shitty little draft of something will always show you more than endlessly thinking and living in your head ever will.

I love this Rachel Cusk interview quote shared via Ava: “Some people have a lot farther to go from where they begin to get where they want to be—a long way up the mountain, and that is how it has been for me. I don’t feel I am getting older; I feel I am getting closer.” Our lives are moving drafts in which we reinvent ourselves over and over: every version getting closer – becoming more clear, luminous, and whole.

-N.


Example of first drafts through Edward Hoppers’ sketches

Top left: Edward Hopper, Study for Nighthawks (verso), 1941 or 1942, fabricated chalk on paper, 8 1/2 x 10 15/16 in. Top right: Edward Hopper, Study for Nighthawks, 1941 or 1942, fabricated chalk on paper, 8 7/16 x 10 15/16 in. Bottom left: Edward Hopper, Study for Nighthawks (recto), 1941 or 1942, fabricated chalk on paper, 8 1/2 x 11 in. Bottom right: Edward Hopper, Study for Nighthawks, 1941 or 1942, fabricated chalk on paper, 8 1/2 x 11 1/16 in. ALL PHOTOS COURTESY WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, NEW YORK; JOSEPHINE N. HOPPER BEQUEST 70.192. ŠHEIRS OF JOSEPHINE N. HOPPER, LICENSED BY THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART. DIGITAL IMAGE, Š WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, NY.
Edward Hopper, Study for Nighthawks, 1941 or 1942, fabricated chalk and charcoal on paper, 11 1/8 x 15 in. COURTESY WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, NEW YORK, PURCHASE AND GIFT OF JOSEPHINE N. HOPPER BY EXCHANGE  2011.65.
Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942, oil on canvas, 33 1/8 x 60 in. COURTESY THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO, FRIENDS OF AMERICAN ART COLLECTION 1942.51. Š HEIRS OF JOSEPHINE N. HOPPER, LICENSED BY THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART. PHOTOGRAPHY Š THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO.

Special excerpts/quotes from what I’m reading this week

Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli

I’m obsessed with physics-as-metaphor and this book is simply gorgeous. I also loved seven brief lessons in physics by the same author – an idea that caught my eye is Entanglement as a metaphor for human interdependence.

This is New York by E.B White (thanks G)

“A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines. The island of Manhattan is without any doubt the greatest human concentrate on earth, the poem whose magic is comprehensible to millions of permanent residents but whose full meaning will always remain elusive.”

A Gentleman in Moscow (thanks S)

“Alexander Rostov was neither scientist nor sage; but at the age of sixty-four he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions.”

Poem of the week

Image
by Mark Leidner via @themoneyiowe

Sf photos of the Week

Special connective moments (hi, B!)
Sf public library outing organized by Mishti and Max :)
Presidio
8
Share this post

the first draft self

nicoles.substack.com
Previous
Next
8 Comments
Ricca 🌻
Mar 18, 2022Liked by Nix 🕊

Thank you for writing this Nicole, loved every sentence. 🙏

"Doing things because you believe they matter, even if there’s no proof yet that they do." sounds to me a lot like trusting the process more than the outcome, like taking one self less seriously (and yet more thoughtfully).

It reminds me of The Fool from the Major Arcana tarot pack. With nothing more than a little knapsack, he sets off for a never-ending journey made of, let's say, many "shitty little drafts".

Expand full comment
Reply
2 replies by Nix 🕊 and others
Sharon
Writes Piece of Mind
Jan 15Liked by Nix 🕊

New subbie here, I love your format!

Expand full comment
Reply
6 more comments…
TopNewCommunity

No posts

Ready for more?

Š 2023 Nicole S
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing