1 + 1 no longer gives 2
For most of my life, I've assumed that if I worked hard enough, thought clearly enough and made good decisions, things would eventually add up.
You do A to get B.
You take a course to learn a skill.
You work to make money.
You create a project to achieve a goal.
Simple.
Lately, I've started noticing that some of the most important things in my life haven't worked like that at all.
They started with an impulse.
A curiosity.
A feeling.
Something small that kept returning.
Not loudly.
Just persistently.
The problem is that impulses rarely come with instructions.
Or business plans.
Or explanations.
Or even make sense.
When I started painting colours in a very colourless home, I couldn’t explain why.
When I bought more paint samples than I needed, I definitely couldn't explain why.
When I started collecting colours more systematically, I couldn't explain why.
When I started naming them, I couldn't explain why.
When I made the first objects, I had no idea where they would lead.
I still don’t.
And when I created The Occasional Letter, I thought it would be a place to occasionally share objects, colours and highlights from the log.
Which it might still be.
Sometimes.
But recently I've realised that all of these things seem to be showing me the same thing.
The thing that appears first is rarely the thing itself.
The object isn't the object.
The colour isn't the colour.
The letter isn't the letter.
They're all traces of something else.
A hint.
A direction.
Something trying to become visible.
I've noticed that every time I try to understand an impulse before following it, I get stuck.
I start translating.
Turning it into a project.
A strategy.
A goal.
A plan.
And somehow the energy disappears.
Movement feels sticky.
Some of the things that have mattered most to me arrived differently.
They arrived as a feeling that made very little sense.
The only thing I could do was take the next step.
Not because I knew where it was leading.
Because I didn't.
I still don't.
That's the strange part.
People often talk about intuition as if it's certainty.
My experience has been almost the opposite.
It's usually the least certain thing in the room.
The only thing it seems to know is where the next step is.
Not the destination.
Just the next step.
What’s interesting is that most of us were taught the opposite.
First understand.
Then plan.
Then act.
But my experience keeps pointing to a different order.
First feel.
Then act.
Then understand.
Maybe that's why I've become less interested in outcomes and more interested in paying attention.
To impulses.
To ideas.
To patterns.
To things that keep returning.
To the places where 1 + 1 no longer gives 2.
Before, the equation was:
work = income
income = possibility
possibility = security
But now it feels more like:
work = energy
energy = relations
relations = resources
resources = possibilities
It’s not less concrete.
It’s just not linear.
Or predictable.
But all of it is connected.
The line between cause and effect has become less straight.
Looking back, I can see that many of the things I care most about began this way.
Not with a plan.
With a pull.
So for now, I'm following it.
One step at a time.
As I go,
Puk
P.S.
The log is still running here.
POP X STUDIO now has its own small space on Instagram.
Objects, colours and notes from the work live here.
