becoming

the honing of one's craft; the making of oneself

My dad was a potter. I spent a lot of my childhood at his studio as he threw, glazed, and fired to Coltrane. The pots he made, as they sat on a drying shelf, were simple, functional, elegant — there are only so many ways for a bowl to be a bowl.

He fired some of these pots in a kiln far in the countryside, and during the summer, I’d come with. The kiln was wood-fed, fiery, and required constant fuel; its flames rising toward the cobweb arc of the milky way set against the impossible blue of night.

We’d set a tent in the lawn next to it and wake up covered in morning dew, the kiln still breathing fire. The sun would come up over the moss-covered boulders and wheat fields and pine forests of northern Wisconsin, and as we hiked, we’d find shards of pots that had been abandoned or destroyed, having not met the approval of their makers. The shards looked like fossils — jagged, sharp — and it was hard to imagine that, together, they’d once made up the perfect form of a bowl.

sunset from the met.

craft

The perfection—soundness— of a thing is invisible to everyone but its creator until it’s destroyed. The way of craft is to refine in ever more subtle ways toward the complete silence of inevitability. A mirror is perfect in that it shows you exactly what you expect to see. The form of a bowl is so simple as to be natural, obvious. Good design, in general, calls no attention to itself. Where there is divine simplicity there was never ease.

To hone a craft is to become obsessive about the details, to develop an intuition, to learn about how it all works together. There is a sense of unity to it — every piece, every action, every decision makes not only the whole but the transcendent layer of excellence which surrounds it.

With the practice of craft comes trust, in yourself and in the process. Trust is formed through repetition, exposure, challenge and trial and risk. Belief through evidence. It can never be taken for granted, and must always and constantly be earned and earned again. And it is trust which enables focus.

dad’s studio

starting from scratch

When an object of simplicity—the object of another’s craft—shatters into pieces, you didn’t realize what you were missing. You were blind to what was in front of you the whole time—you never took more than a passing glance. And now you’re forced to confront it. Perhaps you’ll make something of it.

You begin with confidence — haven’t you known the form your entire life? Our first instinct is to return it to the way it was. It can’t be that difficult. You’ve held it, seen it, but have you ever really examined it? Have you ever had a reason to?

It gets worse before it gets better, and it always takes longer than you think. A friend, another young founder, once told me that the startup that ultimately succeeds is, statistically, the fourth one you try. That the average successful founder is in their forties. You only get so many swings.

As you piece it together, you learn the difference between ease and simplicity. You learn that things never go back to the way they were, that the way of the world is chaotic, and that it will not be making an exception for you. The shards of pottery cannot become again what they once were. The mirror will never reflect as truly as it did before. But maybe, you realize, that’s not the point.

It is only after we realize we can’t go back that we begin to look forward — we started by seeing what was, and gradually, we begin to see what might be. A process of trial and error; a continuous feedback loop that begins to inform the object of our conviction. With iteration, it becomes as inescapable as a compulsion. It is the primordial human instinct to see a glimmer of possibility and become obsessed with realizing it.

wisconsin, from a long time ago.

what we make

Only rarely do we come away with what we thought we would. The world had different plans — it always does. Our agency is largely concerned with questions of how more than why. In the process of creation, of enacting our will unto the world, we gain evidence about who we are and what we’re capable of. In this process of becoming, we earn the right to trust ourselves. It cannot happen by mistake.

If we started with pottery shards, then perhaps we come away with a kintsugi bowl, cracks filled with veins of gold. If a mirror, then a mirrorball, refracting light in beautiful patterns. Both reimagined more beautifully and no less truly than their original form.

Growth cannot happen without destruction; evolution without failure; trust without risk. And only once you have broken apart and healed again will you gain the capacity to develop total, dogged conviction; to actualize; to become; to love.

rules for living, from a year spent becoming:

It is our nature to hone our craft, and those I respect the most use their time, their will, and their energy to work toward mastery. Hard pivots force examination about what it is we’re working toward — the things we make will, in return, make us. Underlying all of it is that craft of being oneself — perhaps the hardest to master.

I talked recently to a friend of mine, Jeff, about the process of building from scratch — he was talking about startups, but the sentiment applies just as well to life as a whole. You begin, he said, on the shoulder of giants.

You learn first the general principles for being alive, and then for being a person, and then, one by one, for all the other things that might identify you. As you go further, you stand on less and less context until you reach an area as yet unexplored. And here, on unfirm ground and on your own feet, you find that you’re alone.

As you go, you find yourself again and again at the steep part of a new learning curve. It feels tedious; pointless. But all the while, you learn how to learn, and critically, what it is to be yourself. It is all of this which enables true, unbounded agency.

Late last year, I compiled a list of values that I found in myself, and I’ve since been using it to gut-check ambiguous decisions:

it’s not an adventure until something goes wrong.

Yvon Chouinard’s quote was ingrained as a family value that was formative to me. Things are what you make of them. Make lemons into lemonade. Do what you can with what you have.

I’ve learned the most not by studying or observing but by doing—and failing. By going into the world, putting yourself in uncomfortable situations, staying flexible, and figuring it out. A lot will happen to you, and it’s on you to figure out what to make of it.

True adventure, I’ve come to learn, must come with risk. It only matters if you’ve got something to lose. Otherwise, it’s only a vacation.

do everything from a place of love.

I regard a person’s intentions as truer and more telling than their goals. It’s less about what you’ll do and more about why you’ll do it, though hopefully the two align.

It is my earnest belief that love is strength, and it’s nakedly obvious when people don’t have enough of it. A secure foundation enables the abundance and flourishing that I hope characterizes my life—its power is immense.

stay true to your name (kai 开)

My name, Kai, is a Chinese word that roughly translates to open. It’s both a verb and a noun (to open and to be open), and it also means bloom, come undone, drive, start up or run (a business), hold (a meeting).

It’s a family name (I share it with my grandfather), and I think it’s a good fit for me. I’ve always valued curiosity and openness at the intersection of action. Curiosity is my primary motivator, and meaningful action — purposeful motion — its conduit.

run your own race

You are singular in the pursuit of yourself; in the honing of your own craft. This, I think, has to be an inherently independent practice. It’s especially easy now to get swept into mimetic desire, to lose yourself in other people, and not recognize yourself on the other end.

(I wrote more about this last year).

creation is an act of becoming

Start from scratch. Be a beginner — take a learner’s mind to everything you do. Leave things better than you found them, yourself included.

Productivity is ridiculously affirming — attend to your outputs. Go on a run, or make art, or write, or build a startup. If you don’t know about something, go find out. Put yourself in play; into the world. If you’re confused about something or feeling bad, go make something.

moving balance

The world is more fluid than you’d like to admit — treat it that way. Stay in motion, but be clear on your direction. Move with conviction. Commit. Otherwise you won’t get anywhere.

And, as my friend Sherry once told me, it’s not the same as going with the flow. That’s too passive; complacent; inert. No — instead, think of it like surfing. You’re enacting your will upon the world just as the world is enacting its will upon you. You’d get nowhere without conviction.

h/t to cameron little, noah alfman, anna g., jeff tang, sherry ning (pluripotent), and andrew rea for ideas + inspiration! this year has been characterized by building, and I’ve had both less time to write and less to write about (unless you want to hear about my vertical saas thesis). much love to you all!