Peace be with you.

Yesterday, I talked for an hour with a young hacker/hustler type, who asked me about the career I’ve had. He was full of questions about what I’d done and where I’d been, and what I had achieved, and I knew he was trying to learn from me.

But the only piece of advice that I felt qualified to give him was this.

Look after yourself. Sleep more while you’re young. And try to live in peace.
Peace with the people around you, and peace with yourself.

Beyond that, what would I tell him? I’ve made money, I’ve lost money. I’ve played in bands, and toured. I’ve founded companies and shut them down. I’ve been on top and I’ve been back to the bottom. In one year, I went from running audio engineering sessions to applying for McDonalds. In one year, I went from living in a shared house with a bunch of artists to becoming the CMO of a software company. There’s no story there. There’s no narrative. There’s no lesson.

There’s nothing I could responsibly tell him that could shape his life, beyond…

Look after yourself. Sleep more. Live in peace.

I am in the valley. That’s something I find myself repeating over and over, as a kind of mantra. I have come down from the mountain, and I am in the valley. I don’t know exactly where I am, or what to do next. I have passions that are stirring again, and I have a fire that’s starting to burn, but I have yet to find my way out of the valley.

I want to look after myself. Sleep more. And live in peace.
Beyond that, it’s all unknown.

xox Joany 🍕