Cities might whisper things, as Paul Graham writes. If you’re visiting them.
Living is different. The place won’t whisper, it will tell you how it is.
Dissonance and alignment emerge as natural processes from the encounter between self and environment.
With dissonance: take the friction and grow by defiance where you’re strong. With alignment: seek the flow and grow by support where you need more.
Spaces and streams
I’ve been to enough places that home, in singular form, is no longer a geographical concept. Moving places brought disruptions: to routine, relationships, and the mind. Some spaces pushed me forward. Others hindered potential.
My idea of relentless grind was catastrophic. Pushed by hustling in São Paulo and in São Carlos - “fritando” (= frying) was the usual term to describe what we did - sleep was a waste and the only goal was “excellence”. Any other thing, including health, was secondary.
I thank Milan, time, and friends. They’ve opened my eyes to live life better. While São Paulo brings you to the unstoppable hustle with little space for mistakes, Milan brings you to places you can experience freely and pleasantly leave work a little on the side.
But no place is perfect. On the other hand it brings excessive attention to facade, standards of any kind - from food to work -, and the excess in seeking a “sweet life”. Be inattentive and soon what you care about is far from growth.
My journey didn’t stop there and probably isn’t stopping anytime soon. After Milan, Oslo brought introspection, quietude, homogeneity. If Milan brought standards through yelling, Oslo brought it by affirming. All in a similar, collective and peaceful sameness.
The catch of managing yourself and the environment: it’s hard to position yourself well if you’ve been in the same space for long. And, while keeping the right people around and making adjustments to your system works, the best way to figure things out is to get some distance to see the big picture.
Dissonance and alignment: the trampoline
In each of these experiences and interactions I was impacted by the environment. At times growth happened through successfully defying the environment and others through flowing with it towards the right direction.
One thing that helps me think of the individual and the environment is the engineering concept of deflection - think of a trampoline.
A trampoline has a face that is very thin and very flexible when load is applied. And it has another part - where we usually don’t step -, which would be way harder to bend if we jumped on it as it is way thicker.
In some areas of our mind, we’re thick. Bending us is just not happening. And we might even triumph in the fact that we have so much conviction that we won’t bend but rather have an edge over the environment.
In others, we’re thin, underdeveloped, and if something or someone puts a load in that area we might adjust to it or at least struggle to maintain our position.
To the real world. For me, dealing with finances is second nature by now, after 10+ years of focus on it. The impact of a place that cares a lot about status and spends more barely tickles.
But building a business is still something new to me. Creating new things and bringing them to the world at scale is a goal and a hardship. Being in an environment that does not propel me in that direction is tricky.
One thing where the trampoline analogy fails is the time variable in this equation. The same environment might affect you differently in different phases - whether because it changed or because you did. And that is because the “trampoline changes form with life”.
The more external forces try and don’t make it, the more conviction is created. This is the value of resisting. On the other hand, some things will affect us and are not our focus to work on or a weak point. That is actually taking energy from other places that matter most.
Now, when to choose which approach is ultimately up to you to find out. You will feel it.
What you then need is awareness and courage to act on it. Because you must know, not choosing is a (terrible) form of deciding.
Set up the game in your favour
The encounter of the individual with the environment is identity (de)forming, in a way that it results in permanent change.
When you pass by a city you might feel a vibe as a suggestion - in Milan you shall be cool, in Barcelona you shall be fun, in São Carlos (where I went to uni) you shall be “intelligent”. As you spend more time in that place, this suggestion becomes an imperative. Not because it intensifies, but because it persists.
Therefore, the broader environment you are set in by others or by yourself will influence your identity, your core. And if who you must be is not aligned with the identity reinforced by your environment, the persistence of the misalignment might break you.
Understanding how your interaction with the habitat works is fundamental. Not to cherry pick the best city that contains it all, but to choose your battles and know in which you’ll have leverage and in which you’ll have resistance.
Are you able to overcome that resistance on your own?
Is the leverage or lifestyle wisdom from that environment the thing that puts you most forward?
Or switch perspective: being here, am I contributing to others with the best version of myself?
The issue “with you” might be just unresolved misalignment.
Once you know that, you can grow by flow or by friction.