the moments I manifest
deciding to just do things, accruing the universe's energy, and living the life I yearned for
I never manage to publish pieces when I write them anymore. This has been sitting in my digital journal for almost four weeks, and I'm just now pushing myself to publish it. It's strange to read back through my own words after a time gap that feels long enough to not completely identify with the feeling in the words yet short enough that it feels like it should feel familiar. Anyways, enjoy this reflection from three-weeks-ago Spencer.
I ran 7.2 miles today. This still feels strange, impossible even, yet I've been consistently running over 6 miles every week for the past month now. On September 1st, I ran 8 miles after running 3ish miles sporadically every 1-3 weeks. I suppose I just decided to give it a try that day, to see how far I go—to surrender myself to the world and my own limits. Every so often, I get reminded of the fact that we can just do things despite what our minds tell us is within the realm of reality, that there's wiggle room to will things into being.
One thing I've decided to just do, in the midst of all the urgency surrounding my day-to-day, is starting a ritual around answering a single question to determine whether I'm living each day how I want: What moment do I want to remember from today? I pass if an answer comes to mind for the day.
This practice emerged from a moment in Portland outside of a former high school auditorium when N told me about their journaling practice of writing down events that they savored and wished they could have done more of. It helpfully reminded of previous related practices I'd started to tune (and as a result, train) my attention to moments, sayings, and ideas that I want to remember. I love living archives and honors the moments where I feel overwhelmed with gratitude for being alive. It takes the form of an iOS automation that runs every time I triple tap the back of my phone or say "I love living" to Siri that takes front and back photos and records the time and location into a note of the same name. I want to remember this is one of the first Are.na channels that I started cultivating when I first started to "get" Are.na. It's a space for anything that I want to remember, and importantly, not in the drill it over and over until I memorize it way but rather a I want to sit with, revisit, and be reminded of this for a long time.
from the movie gleaners and I by Agnes Varda, image curated by jenna S on Are.na and connected to my "I want to remember this" channel
a picture of the reflection of a glass cup on a table that looks like a smiley face. Connected to my "I want to remember this" channel via Gather
Cultivating these practices led me to actually pay more attention to these moments that I wanted to remember. My aperture of attention expanded. I noticed subtle changes in the world that I hadn't before—a pigeon's nest nestled among spikes in a BART station, the tune of a white-crowned sparrow rising from a tree, the same elderly guy who dressed like an SSENSE model and is always trading crypto from his phone. I became happier because I was letting my curiosity lead my attention. I felt like I was learning from the world.
Last month, on a brisk fall night in Manhattan, I was overtaken with a feeling of simultaneity. I pictured my current self juxtaposed beside myself from 2022 with all my dreams that I desperately desired, and I realized that the life I am living is everything I had yearned for back then. The communities I wanted to be a part of and the people I wanted to be collaborating with and the friends I wanted to love and cherish along with the work I wanted to be doing and the way I wanted to be describing myself—somehow, all of it was as good if not better than what I had dreamed of.
two moments from New York: left, a sunset walk/picnic with a conglomerate of 3 different groups, and right, midnight in the park post-scheme
In June of 2022, I tried an exercise to "become a magician." My resulting reflection was filled with intense yearning for drastic changes. I wished to be "playfully and endlessly exploring new creative endeavors that feel the most important to me." I longed to be securely authentic, quietly confident, catastrophically creative. I ached to be "surrounded with interesting, loving, and diverse people who inspire me to be better every day."
Reading back on that letter, I find an eerie resemblance with the original author's experience that ~90% of those things are true or on their way to becoming true. Surprisingly, my letter included much of the hardship that I encountered on the way to manifesting these dreams, too.
"I'll be living a life worth living. I'll be experiencing all the extremes of life, the happiness and the crushing sadness and grateful for every moment of it, grateful to be able to bear witness to the intensity and ultimate beauty of life firsthand" I wrote.
I foresaw the despair, rage, and pressure that came over these past two years, and still, I wished myself to be grateful for it.
Two years ago, I released all my longing into the world and willed it into being with all my might, and somehow, the universe has manifested many of my wishes. Words hold unexpected power. Poetry can be a means of inception.
a moment from my run today through the Panhandle
I believe that everything in the universe can hold and accrue energy and therefore, a kind of spirit. Words accrue power when you repeat them long enough, with enough conviction. Objects become friends the more memories you form with them. Moments, too, concentrate energy when you honor and cherish them.
Moments are different from stories. Stories follow a strict narrative structure. They are predicated on what will be interesting to other people. They are designed to entertain and please and provoke. Meanwhile, these moments are ephemeral,
The moments that I want to remember are caches of energy. I open them to the world's life with my attention and preserve them in my archives and bodily memory. They crisscross, intertwine, and tangle, growing together into a wellspring of my curiosity.
These moments make me feel most alive. They transform an ordinary minute into one that lives and breathes like any other person.
Is this interesting? Am I excited, challenged, affirmed?
Moments are not designed for anyone other than yourself. They are private between you and the universe—an opportunity to express to the world what matters most to you. They are fleeting, ephemeral, likely forgotten from your working memory within the day. But the feelings they leave in your body never go away. Instead, they lie dormant within you, waiting for the trigger to resurface. To remind you of the time you declared yourself to the world and give you the power to make your declarations true.
This dispatch was sent to 1127 inboxes. My writing is always free and open, but I am independently funded and appreciate any support you can offer. Consider sharing this with a friend and supporting me if you have the means.
Thank you to the 24 people who supported my independent work with a monthly sponsorship last month: Jasmine, Raymond, Jacky, Sunil, Jess, Tim, Sarah, Jon, soft networks, Nikhil, Alejandro, Andy, Caro, Riley, Charles, Greg, James, Crystal, Dan, Jonah, Rachel, Gleb, Yorke, and one anonymous donor.