Notes From The Cocoon
The more attentive amongst you may have noticed that I haven’t published anything for a while. This isn’t a coincidence.
This March, I went through something of a life change, effectively retiring from my previous job (“Chief Innovation Officer”, whatever that meant, at disguise), moving to a small seaside town near Barcelona, and intermittently renting a flat in Soho.
My new job, which is full-time, is Figuring Out What The Hell To Do Next.
The weird thing is, when I was working full-time writing code to make shows, I was very, very clear about what I wanted to do next. Every miserable line of C++ code I scraped into existence made a little tune on a tiny buzzsaw violin, as I waited for the compiler : coding should be more fun than this.
Eventually I realised that what I had to do next was to create a new programming language. One that was more fun.
Once this mission was born, it gradually grew, turning over and over in my mind, like a ball of cells dividing to form an embryo. Every coding challenge I came up against, I’d be thinking : How would I like to do this ? How could this be easier ? and the insights generated would shape the new language.
Eventually, I got to the point where designing the new language had become infinitely more interesting than the ho-hum business of swimming through C++ treacle. Especially since I was now surrounded by people who were much, much better than me at swimming through that treacle, and even seemed to enjoy it.
Around that that point (which was probably in about 2016) I entered the doldrums.
So the idea is that everyone’s career goes through this cycle — in “Phase 1”, you’re going for it, you’re working all the hours and then some, all synapses firing, it’s truly your passion and your mission, you’re doing your best work and living your best life, doing something that really means something to you.
Then, in “Phase 2”, the buzz goes out of it — you’re still working, but it’s not fulfilling any more — hence the name the doldrums. If you’re unlucky, you get stuck there.
But if you’re lucky, you get to move to “Phase 3”, where you remake yourself from a caterpillar into a butterfly.
Then, in “Phase 4”, armed with your new iridescent wings, you go out and find some other butterflies to play with; with any luck, you end up in the happy fun part of the cycle again.
And so it goes.
Of course, reality is messier than a tidy diagram, so most people are actually in more than one quadrant at a time, but the basic idea seems pretty reasonable.
For me, “Phase 1" meant (repeatedly) climbing the mountain of the next crazy ginormous show, magicking up an insane tightrope to cross a crevasse at 28,000 meters, living on deadline adrenaline, dodgy catering, and Red Bull. But eventually a point came where there weren’t actually that many more show-mountains left to climb; or at least, I’d climbed enough that the novelty had gone out of it.
And so I entered “Phase 2”. Is This All I Am ? Is There Nothing More ? And the obvious answer was : Yes, there is more. Go build that damn programming language already.
So that was the point where I resolved to pull my fingers out of the disguise sausage machine— it took five years and a pandemic, a ton of counselling, and a massive effort, to learn to let go and trust others to take the helm. I freely admit I didn’t get it right first time, if at all. But it was also the only way forward.
And in March 2021, thanks to an incredible group of people and mentors at disguise, I finally got to move into “Phase 3”.
Except I didn’t realise it was Phase 3. In fact, I hadn’t even seen this diagram. Having waited so long, I was a bullet out of a gun — ready to go straight into 16-hours-a-day of intensive coding on the new language, and starting a new company to manage it, and acquiring the skills I needed to do it (and a coach to point me in the right direction). In other words, rather like our good friend Wile E. Coyote, straight into Phase 1.
But then I received a little Reality Check, in the form of a long-put-off medical test that informed me that I was on the borderline of a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis. Lose weight and shape up, or else get used to monitoring your blood sugar and sticking yourself with needles every hour.
Because that’s what you do in Phases 1 and 2, isn’t it ? You focus on your work to the extent that all other priorities go out the window — your health, your relationships, your family, your friends, your cultural life, travel, learning, growing, everything.
Learning about this diagram has been life-changing — because I now recognise that I’m in the cocoon, I can actually focus on cocooning, and give myself some proper time to grow some better wings, before I throw myself off the next cliff. This phase won’t last forever, but I’ve realised that I can’t rush it. I need to go through it properly and whole-heartedly, before I’m ready to take the next step.
So I’m still working on the new language, but in a more relaxed way, picking at it when the muse sings. Instead, I’m taking the time to actually look after myself (which means changing my lifestyle to include regular gym training, better diet, reduced alcohol, proper hydration, and proper sleep), spend quality time with the people I love, read a ton of books (made of dead trees), pick up writing again (including on Medium), and most importantly, learn to play Walk This Way at full speed …
So that’s what I’m doing : I hope you’ll stay with me for the next bit of the journey. I’ll try to make it interesting.
[Thanks to Iarla Kilbane-Dawe for sage words of advice, John Galvin for the diagram, and everyone at disguise for being awesome].
