How Serendipity Works

SXSW is a serendipity accelerator.

Serendipity works in direct proportion to the clarity of your goals/plans/intentions, the force of the actions you've been taking recently, and the heat of your passion. If you aren't clear, aren't taking action, and aren't passionate about your goals, then serendipity doesn't work. In fact, neither does creation. This was the single most important lesson I came to SXSW to remember and get clear about. SXSW itself is a place to accelerate this whole process, though it works just as well in our regular lives.

You can be clear, take action, and be passionate about more than one thing at a time, but it gets diluted. We can keep multiple passions in our lives at one time, but is best to keep most of them in the background until it's their turn to take the stage. Don't discard, but don't dilute either.

If we dilute too much, the muse leaves us, quite literally. The sentient being that is our idea senses the lack of focus, action, and passion being directed its way; realizes its chance of being made manifest decreases each day; and eventually leaves us for a better host, someone who will bring it to life in the physical realm better, faster, and with more love.

Love--for and from other people and ideas--is what the muse, the idea, is after, and the muse attains love through being made manifest in the physical world.

I will turn this essay into a blog post. This string of ideas struck me in the middle of the night specifically so it could be made manifest. If I honor that urge, that sudden inspiration, I become a more attractive host for the muse and sentient ideas in the future.

The important question is, what do I chose now? What am I passionate about? What do I feel strong emotion about? What do I choose to take action on now? Choose carefully, as the whole universe conspires to turn our answers into reality.

Po Bronson once told Tim Ferriss, "When you get writers block, write about what makes you angry." This is because anger is a powerful emotion that indicates strong love. The same question, what makes you angry, can be used to understand what project to work on, what business to start, what questions to ask, which people to meet, and so on. The real questions behind that question are what do you love, and what are you willing to do about that?

What do you love? What are you willing to do about that? If those questions don't resonate--perhaps because love has so many different meanings--then ask yourself instead what makes you feel love, what do you feel love for? Further, does the acknowledgement of that love, that awareness, mean you must take action? Can you sit back and watch the circumstances be as they are without you doing anything to change them or direct the course of history in some way? If so, great! Enjoy the show. If not, then get busy.

What do I love or feel most strongly about now? What am I willing to do about that?

Right now, I feel strongly that I have a plethora of ideas I need to get out there, in writing and face to face. I feel a need to create, be heard, and help others. Help them how? With their projects and ventures, sure, but mostly as a vehicle to help them understand themselves better, to reach enlightenment, to love and evolve. My own work (i.e. what I came into this body to experience and remember) has felt lately as though it's nearing completion, that I'm well along my way on the neverending path of mastery, but the deeper truth is no one's work is complete until everyone's is. I have a strong desire to midwife that new world into reality. I will live to see that world made manifest. Humans will survive, earth will thrive, and together this experiment will evolve to the next level. That sounds like an amazing place to be, and I'm going to live in that place. I'm creating it now. Who is with me?