People will sometimes approach me with projects I don't really want to do. But if I do them, those people will smile and shake my hand and go, “We feel positive emotions, and it's because of you!” and that will feel good. So I often end up signing on to these projects, feeling resentful the whole time, cursing myself for choosing—freely!—to work hard on things I don't care about.
This is gutterballing: excelling, but in slightly the wrong direction. For most of its journey, after all, the gutterball is getting closer to the pins. It's only at the end that it barely, but dramatically, misses.
Gutterballing is a guaranteed way to stay stuck in the bog because people will love you for it. “You're doing the right thing!” they'll shout as you sink into the swamp. “We approve of this!”
- , “So You Want to De-Bog Yourself”
I’ve come to feel like I spent a lot of last year gutterballing.
I started writing about somatic meditation and imaginal practice a couple years ago, and the response was way better than expected. I found a lot of people who were hungry for something with more grounding and more possibility than the usual meditation instructions. They could sense something was missing, and I was touching on some of the missing pieces.
I had a goal: I wanted to write it all down, get it all out, and leave what I could as a trail marker for others. I wanted to put into writing ( and video and voice recording) what I found most essential about grounding into the body and opening back up to the possibilities of the imaginal — and then I wanted to move along.
It was like I’d found a neglected but beautiful path in the forest. It felt good to clear the path, stack some cairns, leave a trace so other people could find and explore the trail too.
All of that went great. I wrote some good tweets, penned some good essays, and I put together two courses on the most helpful material I knew of. Good times.
But then it got sticky.
See, I was done. The impulse had played itself out, I’d said and done what I’d needed to.
But I’d put myself in a position where
My income was now tied to those courses,
Course sales were very, very, very tightly correlated with how much I kept talking about somatic and imaginal practice, and
People kept contacting me, asking questions, asking for help, telling me my work had helped them, and asking me to fill in a gap here or there.
It made it hard to leave the topics behind: Every time I dipped back towards them, I got to pay rent and receive compliments; and every time I slipped away from those topics, rent got harder to pay and people seemed less interested.
But my inner voice was pretty clear: the somatic-imaginal had been groundwork. It was worth straightening out for myself, and it was worth offering my impressions to others, but it was still just groundwork. There was other stuff ahead that felt more important, I could feel it pulling me. It was fine that I’d tidied the path and stacked some trail markers, but now it was time to keep exploring further.
And yet. I couldn’t quite unstick myself enough to move onto what was ahead, not with all of myself — and I couldn’t get far with my energy divided.
Then I woke up half deaf and got an autoimmune disease.
It’s been a rough couple months since then, but one thing that’s come out of it is a stripped-down clarity. I’m unable to lie to myself about what matters and what doesn’t.
The best bullshit eradicator, apparently, is a few weeks pressed against death’s jagged bloom.
That clarity, lately, comes down to this: I want to move forward, even if that means more uncertainty.
The specifics of moving forward are still taking shape, but there are a few directions that feel clear:
Only talking about somatic and imaginal topics when they feel alive and connected to the areas of inquiry I’m following now. (Which are continuations of ‘The One Essential Quality’ and ‘In•Star.’)
Working more on community, and especially more on crewing. I’ve been working mostly on my own for too long, and creating things aimed mostly at other people working on their own.
Encouraging more subscriptions — both to encourage deeper participation, and to make up the cash shortfall from not advertising the courses as much.
Patreon, Substack, and these gift links are all great options, if you’ve gotten something from my work and want to give something back.
Exploring new practice areas — including doubling back to practices that didn’t land before, but might be worth trying again from where I am now.
Life as a kind of art, art as a way of life.
Those points all feel good right now, but more important than any specifics, is the clarity of continuing to follow what feels alive, and taking steps to not get caught in sticky corners again.
I want to keep my eyes on the trail ahead; I want to explore what’s possible after somatic resonance and imaginal literacy; I want to look back on the next few years and find no gutterballing anywhere to be seen; I want eros to be my gravity, drawing me naturally closer and closer to the center of what the world-soul wants from me.
If you like this article, my writing, or my work in general, consider supporting me on Patreon, or with a paid subscription at Inner Wilds, or by purchasing my courses.
I also do a bit of 1:1 coaxing work, if this article sounds good to you.
Feeling stuck to a direction that's no longer alive sucks. appreciate the concept of gutter balling. looking forward to seeing where you go next
Good! I like it. Following with renewed interest