2024 11 02

Staying aflot to catch some lunch. St Germain, Wisconsin. July, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

The other day, I asked a friend if she wanted to get involved in one of my endless list of side projects. She politely declined by saying she was “underwater”. This caused me to realize I’ve been fully submerged myself for three years now, like a fish swimming around towards whatever task it deems most important or most interesting any given day or moment. I’m starting to wonder how sustainable this approach to life is!

That said, the last three years of my life have been perhaps the best (recency bias may play a factor, sure, but this is an honest assessment!) as I’ve gotten married, explored a ton of new things, built out my studio which I’m incredible proud of, made endless new contacts, focused more on my creative outlets (was just out working on a personal project yesterday), ditched a bunch of less-healthy distractions (stock market, politics and geopolitics, largely), and a bunch more I’m probably not thinking of. On top of all this, however, the last few years have also easily been the most stressful of my adult life from a financial perspective. I often wonder if these two divergent trends are related (I think they are, to an extent) and how my happiness might be affected if I was rolling in cash (happiness is over-rated but money is even more so, imo!).

Anyway.

These are some thoughts I should further explore in writing in the months ahead. Today, I attempt to swim to the surface to catch a view of things.

-Clayton