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“Magic is organising chaos. And while oceans of mystery remain, we have deduced that this requires two things. Balance and control. Without them, chaos will kill you.”

Pretty much everything goes full circle.

The other week some students asked me if I believe in magic. What followed was a conversation about what magic is, how we find it in the world and then a detour into quantum physics and life after death. I'll probably remember that one for a long time.

“Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

I've found the more I age, the less I actually care about; literally no fucks given about most things. But the things I do care about are the things that get my time and energy. Exactly as it should be.

Too many variables make things complicated. Complications are tiring.

“To be neutral does not mean to be indifferent or insensitive. You don't have to kill your feelings. It's enough to kill hatred within yourself.”

Humans are really good at complicating things that are quite simple.

Most people think they have a mindset problem when in reality it's a capacity problem.

Nobody wants to hurt or feel sad, but many great things have come from a place of pain. I see it as the universe's way of restoring the balance.

I really dislike wellness culture. Please take your matcha smoothie and your ice bath and politely fuck off.

Doing less makes space for greater frequency in fewer things.

You will get things wrong and make choices that don't heed results. It's part of the process - and the faster you get it wrong, the sooner you'll get it right.

We've become conditioned to believe that if something doesn't happen immediately, it's not going to work at all. Short term thinking and instant gratification are the enemy of many great plans.

You can be proactive or reactive. You'll have a natural disposition toward one, but it's still trainable.

Being useful beats being vulnerable.

“Every myth, every fable must have some roots. Something lies among those roots.”

In my experience winners often don't know how to lose. When it happens they either lose the plot or fade into obscurity. Losers on the other hand, learn how to persist and deal with disappointment, so when they finally figure out how to win, they become an entirely different animal.

It's always useful to ask if you're making something yours, when it isn't actually yours. Carrying things that don't belong to you is one of the easiest ways to spend capacity.

Curiosity is more useful than motivation.

All notes

What a Dangerous Woman Actually Is

by Celeste Currie

This was inspired by the creation of the Fighting curriculum for The Dangerous Woman Society.

I’ve spent the last few weeks refining it; figuring out what I want to teach, why and if it has a place inside the curriculum.

Of the 4 pillars, this has been the most difficult to create simply because the scope is massive and there needs to be a mix of utility and fun. A barrel kick is no way near as effective as a jab, but it’s still fun to learn.

The process of putting this together got me thinking deeper about what a Dangerous Woman is. To many, it sounds like it could be a bad thing.

Meditation Is Rarely The Right Step.

It’s not rest. It’s actually load.

by Celeste Currie

I once ran a 365 day streak and tracked the brain data, so I’m not anti-meditation, but I do think the sequencing is wrong and most people end up using the right tool, at the wrong time.

Meditation has become wellness coded, which is why I don’t talk about it much anymore. It gets filed under recovery; somewhere between bath salts and an early night.

But that’s categorically wrong - and it’s the reason most people fail at it, then conclude that ‘it doesn’t work for me.’ Or worse - that the failure is theirs and it’s more evidence to prove they are in some way broken.

It's arse backwards.

by Celeste Currie

Productivity methods that work for 3 weeks.

Morning routines that crumble after a poor night’s sleep.

Frameworks, trackers, courses, coaches, programs and everything in between, all eating metaphorical dirt in your graveyard of discarded systems.

All of them came with evidence; proof that they work for other people. But in your hands they degrade, dying a death and taking another piece of your capacity (and possibly your soul) with them.

The natural conclusion is it’s your fault - you did something wrong or weren’t disciplined enough; didn’t do it consistently or for long enough.

I Work Like a Monk. It's Not Always Practical.

by Celeste Currie

I have a habit of going into the work and not coming out for weeks. No output shown. No visible motion. Just building in the quiet, at depth.

Total absorption - the world reduced to the one thing in front of me.

I used to file this under discipline; something I’d manufactured and could be proud of.

But it isn’t - it’s wiring. If i’m left to my own defaults, I run monastic. I’m reclusive by nature and I enjoy building in silence over performing in public - it’s how I produce my best work.

There Are Two Kinds of Discipline

by Celeste Currie

Most people are right about discipline. For them, discipline is the ability to push through: to keep going when they don't feel like it, when they're unwell, when their capacity is low. Most people are under-disciplined in exactly this way. They stop when it gets hard. They need to build the thing that carries them through difficulty anyway. For them, pushing through is the correct instruction, and they should follow it.

There's nothing wrong with the standard definition. It's just not written for you.