# 009 Dear `<redacted>`, You'll come to learn that work has *seasons*. We said this to feel ok about working differently over the year, long after we had the luxury of choice. But it took me too long to understand what it meant. *Your attention is subject to **inflows** and **outflows** that seek new equilibria from time-to-time.* `Input -> Cognition` vs `Cognition -> Output`. We used to call it "consuming" vs "creating" before automation became a moral imperative that removed the distinction. Always remember you will be engaged in both; a river that feeds and in turn gets fed, settled in some *equilibrium*. At balance not with yourself, but with the world around you. --- But know too that such balance will soon make you restless. You cannot *stay* in balance. You must always seek to *bring* balance. Restore it. Find a new rhythm or one finds you. Work has *seasons*. Like every ambitious human before you, you will still try to control the weather. And you will fail. It took us too long to notice our arrogance: *control* is the *wrong* approach. **Connect** instead. Learn to feel the grace of letting go. Of relaxing into the wave. Having a conversation with your eyes. Sitting with the conflicts of so many *beliefs*. For nothing more than to be a river that feeds and in turn gets fed, settled in a *new* equilibrium. Resistance will be brutal. They will say you have to be something. To *produce* something. That failing to do so is reflected in your worth. And worst of all: they will be right in all the ways that do *not* matter. But you will be at ease in all the ways that *do*. Work has seasons and now so will *you*. With love, `<redacted>`