Lead by curiosity

Pondering about impractical and ineffective

Hello, my dearest reader,

hope you are doing fine and I hope that it is possible for you to leave some space for curiosity amidst all the troubles and to-do lists of every day.

For me it represents a slow life in a way. Quick efficient life is full of loud achievements, done deeds and unstoppable growth. Curiosity doesn’t work in these terms, at least for me. I become curious for no reason other then just being curious. I think that curiosity actually helps me to deal with failure, fears and rejection. And with existential dread too. I love to be impractical sometimes, to do something weird. It usually softly reminds me that this is why I live.

In April I committed to a small writing dispatch themed around birds, self-reflection and observation - of both birds and oneself. I don’t really have to or need to do it. I decided to do it out of pure curiosity. Of course, I can craft some legend around it. That I did it to learn something new. Or that I wanted to improve my writing. Well, yes, partially it was on my mind. But mostly it was about having fun. And writing more.

I wrote this little piece about magpie encounter

Today I heard how gentle magpie talk might be. Magpies are marvelous, don’t even try to tell me otherwise. I used to see them at the summer cabin (we call it dacha) not far from Moscow when I was a kid. They came to investigate our compost on daily basis and to discuss what was found. They strolled at our backyard after digging exercises. For me these birds felt annoyingly smug. I also was afraid that they will steal something from me, as I knew of their love for shiny stuff. I am not sure though if it is true or a myth. Compared to our small lot magpies seemed quite big. Or maybe our magpies were just bigger then Mediterranean ones. I live in Spain now and we have a lot of them here. But here the space is endlessly bigger then a summer cabin garden. Magpies look small and elegant here. Maybe they are different type, again, I don’t really know. They tend to fly in flocks - five or six of them at the same time. With there gloriously long tails. Their sounds were very similar to Moscow ones though. Yesterday I had lunch at the balcony. And I heard some birdish noises, very gentle and varied sound. I looked around in search of this sound, hoping to spot a new bird and marvel about it. And there she was, a magpie, perched at our root. And doing those cooing sounds. She was so close to me, I could observe here long tail and see how her breast moved. Of course, I wanted to record it, but the sea noise would be much louder on the recording. So I just sat quietly and looked at her. Until she flew away.

I am so very glad to share with you a vlog that I just published. It is about our travel back to Turunç for 2 weeks of vacation. I did it for myself, for our friends in Turunç and our friends who lived in Turunç, but who had to leave it as we did. And I did it for you, my dear reader, I hope you will wind joy in watching it and listening to me talk about importance of the whole trip.

We could have easily omit going back, why do it? As I see it now, there was this need for a closure. The need to get a bit of agency of our choices. I did not want to leave Turunç behind as a mirage of a place.

Of course, there is this very logical reason that we have our belongings there, as we were not able to pack everything when we left half a year ago. Let’s be completely honest, this is mostly just a decoy. I think we spent more money on transfer and rent, then these belongings may cost us.

Lucas went to the first school trip with a sleepover. His class was brought to a farm where they spend 1 night and 2 days exploring the nature. Obviously, he was a bit anxious to go, his Spanish and Catalan are far from fluent and it would be his first night without us or his grandparents. In the end he was delighted, he and his friend told me what were the funniest parts. I wish I had such trips when I was in school. It is possible to study natural science in the class, right? But it is much more fun to do so in the real environment in the field.

“To look at the sea is to become what one is” – Etel Adnan

And I also think that I would love to start learning Catalan before bringing my Spanish to any decent level. Maybe it is not optimal again, but I don’t struggle with learning languages. Of course, it would be slower then to just learn one language, but more curious for sure. I find great fun in the process, I am curious how people express themselves in different ways.

What are the things you do out of curiosity or old-fashioned fun? It feel that it is hard to do it sometimes. That’s why I decided to ponder about it in this letter in hopes of having a conversation about unnecessary things, things for our souls, things to not showcase on the social media but rather enjoy and just be in the process.

See you in the next one,

V.

My online schedule if you want to join my creative journey:

Pigeon Nest art club - Thursdays, 1pm to 3pm CET.

Weekly Writing Wednesday Pond - Wednesdays, 9am to 10 am CET.

(DM me for a discord invite link)

What caught my curiosity lately?

• Adam Duff is a person who manages to find right words for my brain and for my heart. Here is his take on YouTube, authentic self and self-value.

• The Culture Map by Erin Meyer

This book is about different pattern that we people have depending on a culture that brought us up. It is obvious that every society has its own history and pillars on which communication and business are built on. This book was recommended to me by a friend who is Russian, who moved to Berlin almost 10 years ago and who works in multi-cultural teams. As I need to do more work related or simply formal communication now in Spain, I definitely had to deepen and broaden my knowledge how different cultures communicate. I am half-way through and I already am ready to recommend it!

• Jerusalem by Alan Moore

I am only 20% in, I read this huge behemoth of dense creative writing slowly with a group of dedicated readers. We recently had a meeting where we discusses another chapter. Such an interesting read. I doubt we will be done by the end of the year, but who knows. It mesmerizes me that this book has a whole site with seemingly endless collection of notes and references to EACH chapter. Each paragraph even.