Hey friends,

It was More To That’s 4-year anniversary on Monday. When I started this endeavor back in 2018, I had no idea what I was doing, and I still don’t know what I’m doing today either.

But perhaps that’s what makes it so worthwhile.

Other than the compass of my curiosity, there’s no grand plan I’m following. There’s no incentive - be it riches or recognition - that’s guiding my creative decisions. So even if I don’t know what I’m doing, what I do know is that this project is fully aligned with my sense of agency. And this powerful sense of agency is what I hope to kindle within you as well.

As More To That edges onward in time, I’ve doubled down on my commitment to create great work. The main thing I’m working on is a long post (clocking in at 6,000+ words) on money and creativity. It’s the piece I’d give to my daughter if she ever wanted to venture into a creative career. I’m excited about how it’s turning out, and it’ll be ready soon.

But for today, I have a short piece on reframing productivity.

In the domain of knowledge work, there’s a growing emphasis on the storing of information and its mechanized organization. While this can do wonders for knowledge recall, there’s a subtle erosion in presence that occurs as this culture takes hold.

Let’s take a moment to press pause and delve into this topic through the lens of philosophy:

​The Problem With Note-Taking​

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An Essay I’ve Been Enjoying

​Beyond Insecurity: The Right Kind of Ambition by Zat Rana — Zat is one of my favorite writers, and someone I’m privileged to call a friend. He doesn’t write regularly anymore, but if you’ve never read his work, you’re in for a treat.

In this essay, he discusses the difference between ambition as a form of insecurity, and ambition as a conduit to self-actualization. I’ve read this piece multiple times as a way to remind myself of when I may have traversed down the wrong path.

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An Illustrated Insight

Each story you write is like building a Trophy of the Mind. It’s something you can refer back to well after you’ve written it, knowing that you’ve thought deeply about a problem you’ll likely face again.

As I wrote at the end of the above piece:

“The power of writing is not about the praise you receive from others. It’s about the realization that a kinder and wiser version of yourself is accessible whenever you need that person the most.”

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A Thought I’ve Been Pondering

We often view work as the thing that allows play. We work hard to cultivate the resources needed to afford freedom of mind. If anything, this is the default setting we operate on.

The other day, I was playing with my daughter, and we were both having the greatest gigglefest ever. It may have just been 15 minutes, but I wouldn’t know because the very concept of a minute was nonsensical. It was just me, her, and an array of stuffed animals that were co-existing outside the bounds of time.

I thought about this, and it made me wonder if we actually have everything in reverse. What if play is what life is really all about, and work is just a big illusion that we’ve fallen under? At what point did we start tying self-worth to the work we produce, instead of tying it to the joy we share with the people we love?

We try to bridge the gap by telling people to do work that feels like play, but that advice still puts work first. Play for its own sake has been suppressed, and I want to do a better job surfacing it once again.

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A Brief Parting Question

How do you lead a productive life without falling into the anxiety that can accompany it? How do you keep your work life in order without tying it so much to the hands of time?

I wrote about this in my piece on the time trap of productivity, but would love to hear how you internalize this conundrum.

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As always, hit reply to share any thoughts, to respond to the parting question, or to simply say hello. I love hearing from you.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to share this email with anyone who might enjoy it. Have a great rest of your week!

-Lawrence