accepting incompleteness and unknowing in a reinvention
the reinvention project week twenty-four
In April of 2024, I began a year-long reinvention project in which I am blogging my progress each day, then summarizing with a newsletter article each week. This is week twenty-four.
Having lived through multiple reinventions, I know how long they can take. And I know how they follow winding paths that can take you into dead ends. In the middle of a reinvention, you might feel like you’re never going to be anything but a ghost.
When I went back to school in my forties to get a PhD in statistics, I didn’t know where it would lead. I thought I might become a professor or a researcher. I presented academic papers at a conference. I worked at a research institute at the University of Denver. I spoke with a researcher at a nearby rehab hospital who was doing work in the area of my dissertation to see if he might have a job for me (he didn’t).
And then I found work as a data scientist in the corporate world. That was a good fit for me. I worked for twelve years at various small companies, leading machine learning development teams. I productively used my software engineering skills from my previous career. It was fun and rewarding. It was mentally engaging.
I can’t say how my current reinvention might evolve; what will the ending point look like, where I know who I am again? Where I become solid again instead of like a mist with no shape or form? I didn’t know during that earlier reinvention how it would finish. And I don’t know now how this one will.
daily enjoyment leading to what?
I’m taking photography classes at a nearby community college. I’m working on developing my skills and my personal point-of-view as an abstract artist. I’m researching how to photograph paintings for accurate reproduction, so I can sell prints of my paintings and possibly so I can help other artists do the same. I’m investing in photography equipment and learning how to use it. I am writing every day on my reinvention project blog.
I am literally enjoying my life. I am en-joying it. I am putting joy into it every day with learning and creating.
Part of me is not satisfied with the daily joy. Part of me wants to know: where is this going?
I can see a possible outcome through the haze: I sell some paintings (originals and prints). I develop expertise in both photographing paintings and in promoting and selling them. I help other artists turn their original art into digital versions. I have an Instagram account, a YouTube channel, and a blog where I share resources and ideas about selling paintings as prints.
But that might be like the possible outcome I saw while working on my PhD, that I might be a professor or academic(-ish) researcher. That isn’t where that reinvention took me. The outcome was unexpected.
In this reinvention too, I don’t know where I’m going. Can I celebrate the unknowing instead of wishing it away?
why is it going so slowly
I keep asking myself: must it go so slowly? Must I feel uncertain and formless for so long?
Maybe that’s a feature of reinvention, not a bug?1
When I briefly flirted with starting a YouTube channel, I came across a few videos about the slow living movement. Perhaps that could help with the seemingly glacial reinvention progress I’m making.
With slow living, you live more consciously and with an aim towards meaningfulness, prioritizing what you most value in life. You drop the hustle and the grasping for more (conventional) success, more money, and more stuff. You live mindfully, appreciate what you have and appreciate the world around you, and free up time in your schedule for relaxing, self care, connecting with friends and family, and just being.
I am wondering how the idea of “incompletion” could be a part of slow living.
What I most want to accept and even celebrate right now is incompleteness: the incompleteness of my reinvention, the incompleteness of my understanding of how to photograph a painting to reproduce it accurately, the incompleteness of everything that should and could be done on my house, the incompleteness of my financial management plan, the incompleteness of the photography gear I own.
To my knowledge, the slow living movement doesn’t say anything about incompletion. But I can see how allowing and accepting incompleteness could be a key part of living more consciously and meaningfully, of living in the moment rather than aiming at some destination in the future. So much of my angst derives from wanting to arrive at the finish or even just knowing what the finish will look like. I want to finish my reinvention. I want to finish my financial plan. I want to finish all the fix-up tasks I think should be done on my house. I want to have everything settled.
But there is no place in life where everything is settled, is there? Except our own deaths, and that’s not something to wish for or hurry up.
This week, I’m going to celebrate unknowing and incompletion.
new painting series
I want to do a series of mostly white/off-white paintings. I’ve loved doing the ski series paintings but I’m ready for something new. This week, I’m going to do the first one. Next week I’ll be back with it, if I feel like it’s worth sharing.
week twenty-four posts
Sunday planning — Day 162: Week twenty-four planning
Monday money — Day 163: Slow money
Tuesday book club — Day 164: Experiential acceptance
Wednesday advice — Day 165: Dealing with regrets
Thursday thinker — Day 166: The function of rumination
Friday flash — Day 167: Thin stories
Saturday practice — Day 168: The miracle question
Anne Zelenka is a painter, a mother, a writer, and a former data scientist. She lives in Highlands Ranch, Colorado with her mother, daughter, four cats, and three dogs.
“A feature, not a bug” is a phrase used in software development where some apparent problem (or “bug”) is actually a good thing for the intended users.