The Deep Life
June 22, 2020•292 words
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I recently started listening to Cal Newport's new podcast, Deep Questions. It's a relaxed, free form "conversation" between Cal and his readers. Well, it's only Cal talking, but he's answering questions submitted by other people through his mailing list, so technically it is a conversation.
While there is a lot of wisdom shared on that podcast - seriously, go listen to it - there is one prevailing theme which can be applied to almost every question submitted: The Deep Life.
I won't explain to you what it exactly means for Cal. If you want to discover his views, listen to the podcast. But I'm going to write a bit about how I view the deep life.
For me, living a good life means living a deep life. And the depth comes in the form of asking questions, deliberating, focusing. Consciously choosing to change. It means getting the most of life. Not in a financial way. Not counted by the number of "crazy" experiences. Signified by the number of people you made live better through your self-improvement. Effective independence leads to powerful interdependence.
It's the art of stopping for a reasonable amount of time, and asking; where am I going? Is it the right direction? How does it correlate with the version of me I want to be in 10 years? How is it influencing others? Stopping for too long will result in meaningless worrying and overthinking. Stopping for a too brief amount of time will not result in satisfactory answers. After the questioning, we go forward. Relentlessly. We pursue the vision we have determined as good, both for us and other people, as if our lives depended on it. They do.
That's how real change occurs. Deep change, some may say.