Adventurer

Blog: Wander On , Oh Wanderer

A few blogs back I talked about how I’ve come to this realization that “some of us are here to wander.” If I’m being honest, lately it has been a bit of my north star, my affirmation that the straight & narrow path isn’t for all of us & that those of us who drift hither & yon are doing just as much, if not more for society, than those who trek onwards through the conventional.

I know I’ve mentioned this sentiment outside of this blog space a couple of times, especially to those who are close to me, so much so that Evan got me a print made that says “some of us are here to wander” for my birthday. Clearly it’s been a bit of an all consuming idea for me. But what do I mean by that? What is the inner goo that makes up this mantra for me? What has driven me to have such an affinity for its assertion? I’m so glad I asked for you.

I have an undying hunger within me. It’s almost entirely insatiable. I want to know the far corners of the world, the depths of the ocean, the ways in which the people’s of the world live, the most intricate, taste bud stimulating combinations ever put to plate, bowl, or cup. I want to experience & then to share my findings with the world. Simply put, that is what I crave, daily. Novelty, discovery, adventure, experience, life in all of its many forms both human & not. But the thing that I think brings me the most interesting joy & satisfaction is the desire to be proven wrong.

We as human beings are cholkablock with opinions; what sports team is the best, what the best country is, what the best weather is, who makes the best food, what the best bands are, who deserves rights & who doesn’t…apparently…, some more boisterous & in your face than others. Some more deeply ingrained than others. A lot of the times, I have found, that humans also really don't like having their opinion of something changed. They don’t like to have new information put into their noggins that challenges the ideas they have hammered as hard as they can down into their core. Why? Well, to put it simply, change is scary.

From an evolutionary stand point, change is scary because it breaks the routine. We may have an ingrained set of beliefs that has led us to exist, to survive, & when something shifts that challenges the ‘this is the way things are done & have to be done so we can survive’ we get a lot of push back from the mind & the body. That’s why making or breaking habits is so very difficult for us, because it kicks us out of the coast through survival & forces something new upon us. That is why it is so hard to get through to people politically, religiously, personally, because telling someone that what they believe is incorrect with the new information to support that distinction is equivalent to telling someone that the rain comes because of precipitation, not because of whatever folk story or mythology has told them creates the rain.

Now I want to be abundantly clear that I am not here to discredit anyone’s spirituality or belief system, I consider myself a deeply spiritual person & I do believe sometimes the rain comes because there has been power put behind it, be it intention, prayer, whatever. That still doesn’t change the scientific reasoning behind why the clouds formed in the first place or why the water fell.

From an evolutionary stand point there is a part of me that is broken because I want that. I want the new information that blows my mind wide open & creates something new in the place of that which was out dated. I want to be mesmerized by the universe & its complexities. I want to be in awe of something simply because it showed me something different & new. I want to be made to feel as small as a drop of water in the ocean or as important as the human that dropped the strawberry that fed the ant colony for the summer. Because as human beings, that’s what we are; altogether entirely insignificant & a miracle. So I want to be shown that, made to feel that, thrust onto the universal stage & reduced to the atomic level to be an unsee member of something bigger & much more complex.

This, I think, is the key to my wanderers spirit. It’s the desire to see just how wrong the limited scope of existence I was taught is, but also to see the underlying threads of connectivity that bind us energetically, molecularly, socially, universally. It is glimpsing the divine through the lens of discovery. It is the art of noticing, but also the art of taking it all in. Big picture to small.

For some of you, this blog rings true all the way down through the marrow & tissue right to the soul. You see the world, the cosmos, everything through the eyes of a wanderer & you crave it in your bones. To you I say wander on, oh wanderer! For some of you, this idea is very foreign to you. Your lens is very direct & focused on that which is in front of you, on the steps you take, & the minutes of the days as they slip by. I would challenge you to embrace a bit of this. To dip your toes into the unknown & see what the ripples attract. You might be surprised at how much it intrigues you. You might find the next thing you know you are submerged in the great mystery, chomping at the bit to peek behind the curtain & see what lives there pulling the ropes. Life lives on the other side of fear, embrace the chaos of the storm & see where you end up & how much life it leads you through.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: #Goals! Wait, Scratch That, #VisionBoards!

I’ve never been much for goal setting, though I’ve never been entirely sure why. Whether it has something to do with the fleeting fancies of ADHD or the feeling that somehow, if I don’t complete everything on it, I’m some sort of a failure, I’ve never been able to stick out my goals & make actual steps towards their achievement. That’s not to say I never meet my goals, but for some reason there’s a sterile pressure around the idea & practice of goal setting; it feels oddly corporate or cheesy, like something you do in a quarterly review with a higher up who really doesn’t care whether or not your aspirations are met. I guess a part of me still attributes goal setting to the academic setting, a worksheet to hand in for trivial credit that never actually amounts to much.

If you’ve read my previous blogs that were written around the transition between the old & new year, you’ll see that I also am not an advocate for the new year’s resolution, nor for that matter is science. Simply stated, they don’t work, they fizzle out. To some degree I’d say I feel the same about goal setting. In all honesty, I’m sure, if you’re like me, that you saw the title of this blog about “goal setting” & probably didn’t even click the link. I guess we’ll never know though seeing as the simple window shopping didn't come in to investigate.

This past year both myself & my lovely friend, Kate Cosentino, came across the same TikTok around the same week. It was a woman talking about how she, like me, hated the traditional form of goal setting & why said past goal setting attempts didn't work for her. Her approach, instead, was that of a guest who had previously appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show. If their segment they talked about vision boards & what to do with them/how to place & arrange them in a way that allows you to use them towards the aims you were after. Their method was quarterly, requiring a new vision board every three months, & asked you, not only, to visualize your board on the front, but also to write your visions & goals out on the back. In this way it was similar to the “Mind Movies” that Dr Joe Dispenza uses in his seminars to teach shifting perspective & mental energy in alignment with the things you desire. As aforementioned, the vision board you’ve created is meant to be revisited on a quarterly basis, the only difference from your first board being that you are meant to review & revise.

Let’s say you put on your vision board that you want to rekindle a relationship with your parents. If at the end of Q1 you’ve made attempts & gotten no where near where you want to be you write on the back of your Q2 vision board the same goal emphasizing the things that worked & writing & evaluating a new path forward. I suppose it’s also worth mentioning that you’re meant to write how you plan to go about your visions on the back of the Q1 board.

Another major component of the vision boarding is that you’re meant to do so with a group & share your vision board with said group when you are finished. The day Kate & I came across out vision board TikTok we both planned an evening with Kimi Most & Evan to create together & share. This outward expression of your desires helps to get the word out, it helps to solidify the things you want in the words you say. After all, how can it be known what you want if you won’t ask? In this way it gets you accustomed to speaking on your wants, your shortcomings, & your plans with those who will love & nurture you along the way. It also allows people the chance to help you if something comes up on your board that they feel they have insight on.

So how did my vision boarding go? How did it turn out. Well, much like I mentioned above with goal setting, we all fell off the wagon. We did the one evening of work & then never followed up with the next three quarterly reports. That’s not to say it was a failure though as yet another aspect of this vision board journey is that you place your board somewhere you see it daily & somewhere people who enter your home will see it & can ask you about it. Again, the goal is to talk about the things you want, to keep them at the forefront of your mind so that they become the magnetic north that guides your internal compass. Mine & Evan’s have been in the kitchen, right next to the place where we consume majority of our meals. Both boards are highly visible & both have been talked about openly amongst each other, friend, & the like. I’d say of the twenty-five things I have on my board, around seven of them came true in one form or another. That’s not bad for not following the program to the letter you’re supposed to.

So why do I draw attention to all of this? Why do I talk vision boards, goals, & the steps it takes to actualize them? Well, because I’d like to, if I may, use the last half of this blog as a digital vision board, so to speak. I’m sure in the type format it will come out looking more like a goals list but I promise you, on the other end of this I will be making a vision board to represent all of the things listed below & probably more. I’m doing this here as a form of accountability. We’re meant to share & talk about our dreams & that’s what I’m doing here. I’d also like, if you may, for you to remind me to revisit this quarterly, checking off & adjusting as we go along!

I wish you all the happiest of new years, filled to the brim with love & joy!

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Charlie’s 2023 Digital Vision Board

-Sign A Publishing Deal (Smack, Universal, Warner Chapel)

-Get At Least Five Outside Cuts

-Tour As An Opener For A Larger Act

-Sign With A Talent Agency (WME, CAA, ACA)

-Get Paid To Travel

-Get Paid To Promote The Products I Already Use

-Cross Two More Continents Off The Total Seven (Still Need South America, Australia, Africa, & Antarctica)

-Release A Minimum Of One Song Per Quarter

-Get Verified Across All Social Platforms

-Grow Creatively

-Help More People

-Get Social Numbers Up (Instagram 20K BYE, TIKTOK 10K BYE, ETC)

-Get 1K Spotify Followers

-Get On Editorial Playlists For Spotify & Apple Music

-Visit Japan

-See The Northern Lights (Preferably In Iceland)

-Become A Master Diver

-Have At Least One Song Trend

-Write More Honest Lyrics

-Cut Medicine Written By Harry Styles

-Do More Features

-Add At Least Five More Michelin Stars To My Belt

-Find Daily Moments Of Gratitude

-Get Back Into Eating In A Healthier Manner

-Hit The Gym At Least Four Times A Week

-Walk My Dogs More

-Spend More Time With The People Who Bring Me Joy & Less With Those Who Don’t

-Find A Consistent Form Of Financial Freedom That’s Not Soul Sucking

-Embrace The Unknown