It’s been three weeks since I left my job. At first there was only respite and a deep sense of joy. I felt like Rocky standing on the top steps of the Philly art museum. (okay, I still do) The thing that had plagued me for years disappeared overnight.

I chose a different reality.

But last week, my mind started to contort. I had taken away its favorite chew toy - the rumination, anxiety, stress. It wanted so badly to fill the void.

What showed up in that absence was an urgency to form more opinions. My mind assured me that’s where I needed to focus my attention. I felt the culture bearing down too. The ranks were closing in. I needed to succumb, secure my sense of belonging, be a dutiful consumer.

I recently watched the original Cinderella (1950) movie. It’s been in the back of my mind ever since I heard Gabi Abrão riff on it last summer¹. She said that the film is really about the power of having a dream beyond circumstance, that the prince is more of a side plot.

Curiosity piqued. I was shocked by how much I enjoyed it and how relevant it felt.

evil stepsisters

I didn't remember the explicit brutality of her stepsisters.

controlling
manipulative
contemptuous

What struck me was their parallel to opinions.

Opinions are insatiable in their demands. It’s not enough to simply have one. They need to be strong, well supported. Gather more evidence. You must be ready.

Similarly, Cinderella’s tasks are never done - always more laundry, more dishes. Her chores are piled on with malice.

Opinions are takers. They want my time and focus. Pay attention to this. Look here, they insist.

The stepsisters are relentlessly greedy. They can’t bear to see Cinderella in a beautiful gown, so they rip it to shreds.

Opinions are always feigning importance, as if having them is the responsible thing to do.

animal friends

Meanwhile, Cinderella is surrounded by a plethora of animals. They are everything her family is not.

playful
generous
present

The animals remind me of ideas.

In the midst of my mind’s contortions, ideas continue to show up each day without fail.

Ideas are givers. There is a constant stream if I’m paying attention.

here here here, they beckon.

Sometimes they arrive in a rush or a swoosh, but it sounds like a pitter patter, easy to miss.

They can be loyal - showing up for days or decades on end, but they never command or coerce.

who do you feed

Cinderella finds no respite from her stepsisters. The more she serves them, the more hatred they exhibit. When greeted with grace, they respond with loathing.

In contrast, the animals relish her presence. They swoon when she sings. They rally in times of need.

But the biggest difference?

Ideas do something opinions cannot : they transform.

Ideas are shapeshifters, moving from nothing to something, formless to form.

The more I feed them, the more their alchemical potential grows.

Cinderella exhibits this so clearly - her attention creates the unthinkable. A pumpkin becomes a carriage. Mice morph into horses.

This is not hyperbole. This is actually how life works.

Evidence is everywhere. I am living inside an idea, sitting on an idea, writing this newsletter on an idea, clothed in ideas.

time

Another unmissable part of the film is how time is portrayed. When Cinderella is subsumed by the demands of her family, she sits squarely in chronological time, a linear prison. In the opening scene, she curses the clock.

“oh that clock! old killjoy…even he orders me around!”

Opinions feel married to linear time too, relying on an urgency to respond to the now, or rather to yesterday.

In contrast, Cinderella experiences time differently when she’s dreaming, singing, dancing. With the prince, she enters the magical realm of flow state and loses track of time completely.

“I guess I forgot about everything, even the time…but it was so wonderful,” she recounts to her animal friends.

In this state, time becomes malleable.

the prince

This was the biggest revelation for me. Cinderella spends the night dancing with the prince, but she doesn’t even know it’s him. I had forgotten that part entirely. When the clock strikes midnight, she is blasted back to reality & assumes she’s lost her chance to meet him. But instead of lamenting, she’s filled with gratitude.

“Thank you. Thank you so much, for everything,” she says looking skyward.

She is not mired in regret, nor seething with entitlement. She followed her dream for a night, pierced the known narrative and experienced the fecundity of life.

This is what I want to hold close when my mind reaches for the familiar, the approved of.

I just have to pay attention.

“At the end of your life, looking back, whatever compelled your attention from moment to moment is simply what your life will have been.”

- Oliver Burkeman

who do you feed

hiding in plain sight