The Passionfroot Podcast

13: The Surprising Power of Doing LESS

• Passionfroot

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 1:10:45

Send us Fan Mail

Purpose isn’t found by adding more. Sometimes it emerges when we strip back, pay attention and choose intentionally.

In a world that tells us to know more, do more and have more, many of us are quietly exhausted, and still unsure of our purpose. In this episode of the Passionfroot podcast, Adjoa, Darcie and Max have an honest conversation about minimalism, hustle culture and the surprising power of doing less. From intellectual hoarding and digital overwhelm to creativity and faith, this episode explores how stripping back, mentally, digitally and spiritually, can create space for a more grounded, purpose-filled life. 

This episode isn’t about aesthetic minimalism or rigid rules, but about intentional living, letting go and trusting that purpose often emerges when we slow down enough to listen.

We hope you enjoy and look forward to engaging with you in the comments and in our discord.

~ Adjoa 💌

Continue the conversation by joining our Discord server: https://discord.gg/gdTMBzkNjY
We’d love to hear from you!


Links/Resources mentioned in episode:

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/615570.The_Artist_s_Way

With Open Eyes (by Kozen - Max’s band): https://youtu.be/trx4OPC-7s0?si=LsX8Tks7ZU4M7Ak2

Living Big in a Tiny House YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@livingbig



⬇️ Find us in these places too!  ⬇️

Instagram: http://instagram.com/passionfroot.co

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@passionfroot.co

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passionfroot.collective


⬇️ If you want to connect with the team ⬇️

Darcie🎨
Instagram and TikTok - _thatoneartist_
YouTube and Facebook - thatoneartist
www.darciedenton.com
https://linktr.ee/_thatoneartist_

Max🎸
Instagram and TikTok - maxwellkozen
YouTube - Maxwell Kozen
Streaming platforms - Maxwell Kozen
https://beacons.ai/maxwellkozen

Adjoa🦋
Instagram - adjoaainghana
Adjoa's company IG - ydiglobal
www.ydiglobal.com




Music:
Track and Field - Arc de Soleil

#thepassionfrootpodcast #clutter

SPEAKER_00

Clutter is forced on us. Like it's just advertise, advertise, advertise, sell, sell, sell.

SPEAKER_04

I'm screenshotting, I'm taking photos all the time. It's so overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00

Stuff ties us down, and I feel like a lot of spiritual traditions around the world kind of have this cautionary thing about stuff ties you down and don't get too attached to it. Like I can't even think about what it would mean to sell everything I have. And yet, I can't not take the idea seriously.

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to Passion Fruit, where we navigate life, purpose, and faith outside of the box. I'm Adjua.

SPEAKER_00

I'm Max.

SPEAKER_02

I'm Evan. I'm Mel, and I'm Darcy. Let's dive in.

Introductions & setting the scene

SPEAKER_03

Welcome back to the Passion Fruit podcast. It's Adua, and I'm going to be taking us through today's topic. But before we get into it, I'd love our other honorary special, well, not honorary, guests of honor, as Max termed it, to introduce themselves.

SPEAKER_04

Alright, I'll go first. Um just so we won't have any awkward silence. Because I felt like that's what was about to happen. Like, no, you go, you know, you go. Anyways, I'm Darcy. Um I guess relevant information is that I am a visual artist. If you haven't been here before, yeah, I'm a visual artist, generally all around creative person. Um I lead passion fruit as my job. So this is like my essentially my full-time job. Um and yeah, I think I'll keep it short.

SPEAKER_00

And I'll go second first. I am Max. I am also part of this team regularly. If you've been here for a while, and if you've not been here for a while, I am part of this team regularly, which I'm telling you now for the first time. Professional, unserious person, sometimes writer, often musician, sometimes serious person, and owner of exactly this face, and that is what I'll say today.

SPEAKER_04

So I like that. Sometimes writer, often musician, often artist, sometimes I guess sometimes writer kind of applies to me too. But anyways, that's something I'm gonna keep in my back.

SPEAKER_00

We're all sometimes writers.

SPEAKER_03

I love that too. As you can sense, we're very multifaceted, dynamic. There's a lot of key parts of us. So introducing yourself is always like, well, yeah, what do I focus on? What do I say?

SPEAKER_04

And Adua, what would you focus on if you were introducing yourself?

SPEAKER_03

Okay, yes. It's this is my season, I think, of saying I am an international relations and law graduate. I love my academics, I love my nerd life, love reading research, and translating that into videos. And I also am really passionate about young people. So I work a lot in my local community. I've done some global representation work as well. Uh yeah, so change the world vibes, I guess. Yes.

SPEAKER_04

That's a great, that was a great self-introduction.

unknown

Yes.

What is minimalism, really?

SPEAKER_03

And I think this is actually a very interesting place to kind of frame what we're gonna be talking about because I think that something as a generation that we can be very preoccupied with is like, what is my purpose? What do I want to do in my life? How can I make the most of the time I have on earth? And it's interesting because minimalism I think is an interesting idea to kind of explore how we find purpose in life. How do we actually know what it is that is of value to us? So I thought to begin, I would just kind of share a definition of minimalism that I found on Pinterest, just to kind of frame what we're talking about, and then we'll go from there. So, minimalism is a lifestyle philosophy centered on simplicity, intentional living, and the deliberate reduction of material possessions. It emphasizes the pursuit of experiences and meaningful connections over the accumulation of excess belongings, promoting a focus on what truly adds value to one's life. In essence, minimalism encourages individuals to declutter their physical and mental space, fostering a sense of clarity, purpose, and fulfillment. So this sounds absolutely great. I don't know about you guys. But it's I liked that. It's a great definition. And I think what I want to kind of start off with is asking you guys,

Why minimalism is having a moment

SPEAKER_03

like, why do you think we are so why do you think minimalism maybe has become this popular idea of like how why do we need the fear, why do we need to declutter our our lives? Why do we need to kind of look at downsizing our physical spaces? Like, why do you think this has become a popular idea in recent times?

SPEAKER_04

We have so much damn stuff. That's to put it simply.

SPEAKER_00

Clutter is forced on us. Like it's just advertise, advertise, advertise, sell, sell, sell. We live in a the point of our lives is built around buying. Like it's just constant and non-stop, which is the same thing as constant. Um but you know what I mean? Like yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

It's can it's kind of complicated because I uh like I support people being able to pursue their passion in the form of business, right? And often that means selling something. Um I guess the whole thing is that it's really the big corporations' problems and maybe not like the small business over here selling arts and crafts. I don't know. But I mean, to a certain extent, yeah, like everybody is wanting to sell something. Not everybody, but most people who are creative and producing something, you know, they're producing something. So now you have an object and now you have clutter because of that. So it is kind of just at its very basic core, um kind of a complex topic because creativity often does lead to more things, but obviously there's more like there's better ways of going about that than what we're doing currently.

SPEAKER_03

So I love this. This is already getting really deep, and I think I'm realizing just how many angles we could discuss this.

How “stuff” shows up in our lives

SPEAKER_03

I think it would also be good then to talk about the very practical ways that stuff shows up in each of our lives. Accumulation. I'd love to hear from you, Max and Darcy. What do you feel like? How how does collecting things or or having stuff show up in your life like on a very practical level?

SPEAKER_00

When it comes to physical stuff, I'm not I'm an interesting one because on the one hand, I do have a lot of stuff, some of it's kind of just like hidden away in storage, so that maybe that makes it feel like my life is less cluttered than it actually is. Um, just put it somewhere else. So, but here's the thing. Here's the thing. Okay, if we want to go really deep in really meta, that uh that is also part of the framework of how we build a society that's so easily able to justify excessive consumption, is that when we're done with the consumption side of it, we just throw it somewhere else, which um just happens to be the global south andor the ocean. So, you know, that's you know, that is that's the ecological version of put it in storage, except for it's the worst storage ever. Um but in terms of coming back to the lighthearted question I was just asked, um I got a lot of music equipment, I got a lot of like guitar pedals and stuff. I don't know. Like maybe not as much as some people, but I do have a lot of music stuff, some of which I'm not currently using because I just I don't have access to it easily from here. Um yeah, that's a thing I do. Um knowledge hoarding, I think, is an easy sell for any um anyone who knows me and anyone who's part of this conversation on this podcast and this team right now knows that very well about me. Um, and I think that might even be some of the impetus behind some of the questions we will have in this episode. So you're the inspiration. I do a lot of that. Something at borderline, something like the inspiration. I don't know. But yeah, I you know, consuming a lot of podcasts and media and books and articles and you know, I I hate to think of reading as a bad thing, but yeah, I'm just like always like, oh, I need more of this knowledge that maybe nobody wants to hear. I don't know. Here we are.

SPEAKER_04

What am I hoarding? Um yeah, I like Max. It kind of, you know, depends on what you're talking about because there's material things and there's like I guess mental things, and then there's digital things. So materially, I too have a lot of books. I have a feeling that Max, you have read most of the books that you own. Would that be a correct feeling?

SPEAKER_00

Uh I've maybe not in their entirety. Some of them are very like I have a lot of things that are very textbook-ish. So it's like I've read from them in sections, but like reading straight through is not kind of like the point per se.

SPEAKER_04

Well, yes, I think comparatively, I have a lot of books that I want to read. So collecting, I've collected a lot of books, um, a lot of clothes. Like I love thrifting, and we have a really cheap thrift store nearby. Um, granted, I would like to say that whenever I do get rid of clothes, I give them to that thrift store. So I'm not just taking from them, I'm also giving back to them. But yes, lots of clothes. Um obviously lots of art supplies. I mean, not even just your conventional, you know, pens and pencils and markers and paint and stuff. Like I have like LaCroix packaging because I like how it looks. And I've actually started turning those into little books, so that's actually serving a purpose, but I have way more than I will probably be able to use. Um, and other little like bits and pieces of just random things that I'm like, oh, I see some potential in this for an art project someday when I have the time. So lots of things like that. Uh, we were just talking before we started recording about also my husband, who is also a collector, and he has like the thing he's been collecting recently is VHS tapes. So we have a ton of those in the house. Have a lot of my old art. Like I could go on and on about material things. Um digitally, I think that's probably the place where I would actually want to declutter the most because I'm left and right. I'm saving Instagram posts, I'm screenshotting, I'm taking photos all the time. It's so overwhelming. Um, one of my like goals this year, I mean, I guess it's kind of a goal every year, but I've made it a physical goal with something that I can check off and I get a reward at the end. It's a goal to like clear my photo roll, like delete a certain amount of photos. Um, and then of course, there's things spilling over into like all the cloud things I have, like Google Drive or even just iCloud, um, emails, so many email boxes with so many emails in each one of them, so many texts. I'm infamous for having like that that red circle telling me how many messages I have right now. It says 782. Um, so I have a lot of digital clutter clutter. I have like I'm I know I'm just going on and on, but even like the group chats I'm in, I so many of them are just unopened because I get overwhelmed by all the other things I have, and I just can't be bothered most of the time to open up a meme, even though I enjoy that the person thought of me to send it to me. Like, yeah, so much digital clutter. And honestly, everything I just mentioned, I feel like it's still just kind of a peek at the few the things I feel like I collect and yeah, that clutter up my life. What about you, Adula? What do you collect?

SPEAKER_03

What do you hold on to? This is very interesting. And I think it says a lot about us, each of us, depending on what it is that we have this connection to. For me, I love a blank notebook these days. I will hoard notebooks. I will have every once in a while this inspiration, especially going into a bookstore or a stationary store, and I'll be like, you know what? I need to completely transform my life. I need to completely reinvent myself. This is very on-brand for me, by the way, as my friends here would know. I think what you said, Max and Darcy, about books. We all are readers here, we all love learning. And I am also in that camp. I actually have still a lot of my textbooks from law school, like a literal whole pile of them. And I think it's interesting because that leads me. I could go on and on as well about the digital clutter I have because I think, like you were sort of explaining, Darcy, it gets to a point where it's overwhelming. Like hoarding is actually a medical condition. And I'm sure maybe you've seen those shows where somebody goes in and helps somebody to declutter their house. And I don't think any of us are on that level. But I think what's interesting about that definition of hoarding is in the sense of like when it starts interfering with the functioning of your daily life, like your collection of things. So I'm not saying like I'm a medical, like textbook definition hoarder, but I think the digital clutter, it always feels like there's something unfinished. There's always a message that's unread. There's an article that I'll I haven't been back to. And just that very idea makes it like I'm always operating in this level of anxiety about all these things.

Why we hold onto things we don’t use

SPEAKER_03

So I think it's just also interesting the motivation for collecting things, which I wanted to ask you both about. Why do you think we we want to save things for later or we collect things maybe that we won't necessarily read, or things that we aspire to do, but we never really get around to doing it? Like, why do you think we what motivates us to collect things, do you think?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I I don't know if that's the kind of thing that you could give like a singular standardized answer to, you know what I mean? Like especially with you mentioning that like for some people it's like a clinical thing, for others it's like related to trauma, and for some people it's just like a fascination. You know what I mean? So like I I feel like it's so multifaceted. Um like I I I would personally struggle to put like a singular um cause as like what is it about stuff that we like, and I guess it's har it's also hard to pin that down too because I feel like the reasons for hoarding physical stuff are also quite different from like the knowledge hoarding and the more like abstract side of like just more more more type of thing. Like the more knowledge doesn't feel to me like it's the same thing as the more stuff, but maybe I'm wrong about that. I I guess we'll explore that during this, but intuitively to me, it feels like it's a different thing. But I don't know. I I'm curious what you guys think about that.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I I definitely do think like each thing that you collect has its own motivations behind it. Like, why do I collect so many clothes? I mean, I my husband is a thrifter, his family is a thrifters, like I go out and hang out with them and we go thrifting. And like there's really a really cheap thrift store close by. So I guess it's it's the newness. So that could apply to a that could be a broad category. That's not the only reason I collect new things. Novelty. Yeah, novelty. Um and that could also be tied to like creativity and being inspired by different things and wanting to own that thing, that piece of inspiration.

SPEAKER_00

That's interesting because I was just thinking about novelty, like the the impulse to want something that's new. And con like I I totally understand that as a reason to like accumulate stuff, and it's interesting because I was thinking that one of my reasons that I accumulate stuff is actually sentimentality as in clinging on to stuff that's old. So, for example, I literally I was like, I feel like I got better examples of things that I hoard. And then I looked down at my desk and I've got this little Pikachu, um, and it it it used to be inside of a bouncy ball, and I've had this, like I I'm pretty sure I just like eventually broke the bouncy ball and like Rick Fuck is like just give me the Pikachu, like I don't want the bouncy ball. But I've had this since I was like nine years old, something like that. Like I've had this since I was like a little child, and somehow it's still with I'm surprised that I haven't lost track of it, but like, yeah, just hanging on to stuff for sentimentality's sake. Um I definitely know that I've had to actively work on not just keeping stuff because I can't let

What if I regret letting something go?

SPEAKER_00

go of it.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Um but then also, yeah, I I think there's some value in in letting go of stuff, but then also you can regret it. It is possible. Like I had, guys, I had a big collection of American girl magazines. So they're they're not the doll magazines because they have the catalog magazines that people really like those, but these were actually like magazines made for like preteen girls, like crafts and articles and quizzes and things like that. My parents got me subscriptions for like birth birthdays and Christmases for two or three years. So I had a big collection. And my family moved semi-often when I was growing up, and so each move I was always just face to face with all the things that I had communicated, uh, communicated, collected in my few years of life as a kid, and like always wanted to kind of you know pare things down a little bit and just get a little bit more organized. And so during one of those moves, for some reason, I decided to get rid of the majority of those. I don't even know what I did with it. I don't, I could have sold it. I don't know if I did. I don't think I did. Um, I sure I sure hope I didn't throw them away. Um, but I was I regretted that so much. But um I actually I had been thinking about this for the past couple years, like, man, I really missed those magazines. I wish I hadn't thrown them away. I found a big lot on eBay for sale for a really good price, and I actually gifted myself the magazines again last year. So I have them again, but it's still not the same because there's that sentimental aspect that's a little bit gone because they're not my magazines that I owned before.

SPEAKER_00

But they're not these specific ones that you have in here.

SPEAKER_04

Exactly, yeah. But yeah, I definitely also collect a lot of things, keep a lot of things for similar sentimental reasons. I tried to solve that a little bit because I would c keep a lot of papers, whether it was like old school papers or cards, um like anything you could think of. And I started scrapbooking, so I would I would just cut them down a bit, maybe keep cut out like parts of a paper that I cared about and paste that into my scrapbook and throw away or recycle the rest. So kind of helped a little bit, but I still have so many things more than more than could fit into a scrapbook that I just it's hard to get rid of, and maybe I shouldn't even get rid of a lot of those sentimental things. Wow.

SPEAKER_03

I I I feel like I've actually it it's actually quite I I'm feeling very moved because I think the way that we're what we're speaking about now is like really going into how the things I think you're right, Darcy and Max about like it's different. There is a difference, I think, with the physical things that we accumulate and the digital things. I think it's a lot easier to detach from the digital things, quite honestly, than the physical things. Maybe photos, that's an exception, like the photos on our phone because they they capture people and places, experiences. But I I I think that, you know, even mentioning moving, Darcy, I'm sure like when you're moving, do you know that feeling when you're like opening a box that you haven't f looked at for so long and you find something that transports you back to a time, a place, a feeling. And it's actually you get lost uh in almost it's like, oh, I I've been here for like an hour, maybe like looking through an album or looking through

Value, meaning & family legacy

SPEAKER_03

this. And it's interesting because one of my old bosses, he did this thing where he started having He created a podcast just for his personal keeping with his father to kind of document stories and things about his upbringing, uh, which probably would leave once once his father is gone. And I I've even thought about this like how much if I don't document the past, if I don't hold on to experiences, how am I going to remember and keep it alive? So I think this is actually deeper than I even realized uh immediately, too.

SPEAKER_04

Like 21 to 10.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I I think it really speaks to the question of value, right? And value judgments in terms of saying, like, here's something that seems at this moment in time like it's worth getting or holding on to, but with time, you then have to start actually re-evaluating that question over and over again. Like, have I been holding on to it too long? Is this worth holding on to? What is what is the value of holding on? What's the value of letting this go? I mean, Darcy, you experienced that with the magazines, right? It's like you thought for some reason at a moment in time, like there'd be value in just letting this go. And then retrospectively, you're like, dang, I wish I hadn't. Like with the books, one of the things that we did a lot when I was in undergrad was that we would buy books, and then because the next semester we would need more books, we would like sell off the ones we had just used for previous classes to incoming classes or people who were about to take that same course and just be like, I'm just gonna flip this money and put it into my next round of textbooks. And in hindsight, there's a bunch of books I wish I hadn't sold that I'm still actively trying to like save up for a moment where I'm like, Oh, I can go get that now. You know what I mean? Um, and so like I made the wrong value judgment about like when it was time to let something go, only for like for me to be like later on realizing, like, ah, dang it, I should have held on to that. I feel too like agile with the example you gave of like hanging on to the wisdom or the memories or the stories of a parent or like in my case, my grandma. Um, within the last few years of my life, I've really, really started like I'll have a conversation with her and then go and immediately write down everything I can remember about the conversation, or even sometimes quietly just like turn on voice notes, even though I'm sure she'd be like horrified. But I'm just like, I'm just I'm not even gonna show that to anyone. I'm just gonna take it and take notes from it afterwards. I actually, in my head, I low-key think like I need to interview like my my dad and my aunt and my uncle and like everyone in the orbit of my grandma and use that as a way to like write the story of her and her family. Cause I feel like there's a lot of history there that is like important and needs to be preserved. But like that's one of the things is like you don't think of that as a kid, you don't think of like, oh, like the family wisdom, like that's worth holding on to. Like, maybe you understand that in the abstract, but there's something so different about being faced with the loss of it, and then being like, Oh, I mmm, I should be spending more time on dang it. I wish every time I had gone to grandma's house, it was just me interviewing her about her life. You know what I mean? So that's uh yeah, value. How do you assign it, right?

SPEAKER_03

Darcy, was there anything you wanted to add?

SPEAKER_00

I know I could I didn't leave that very open-ended.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I was not sure if Darcy was if you weren't thinking of anything, I was gonna target the next point at you. Okay, yeah, go for it.

SPEAKER_04

I was just mulling over while that was an interesting way of target.

SPEAKER_03

I'm going to target the next point.

SPEAKER_04

You feel very confronted right now.

SPEAKER_03

And Max, I think what you were saying, I don't know if we'll come back to it in the conversation. I think we will, because I do think it there is a point about value and actually personalizing value, which I think a lot of consumerism has done. Like we're we're wanting to consume things that maybe are not necessarily like personal to us, they don't bring us closer

Does freedom really result from downsizing?

SPEAKER_03

to ourselves. But let me go with this point. Okay, so I floated before that I really got into tiny house living. And what drew me to this, which was around the pandemic time, which I think we know has really reshaped our consciousness about so many different things. And what really attracted me, I found myself watching on YouTube. If you're interested, it's called uh Living Big in a Tiny House. And I think that the name encapsulates this idea of living big, like you can actually achieve freedom, you can achieve a sense of success in something that is tiny. And I felt like every time I'd watch an episode, I was escaping from my clutter, my life, my all the things that I thought were important. And I was just in someone else's story where they had sold so many of their possessions, they're downsized, they've moved to some remote property or a property right by the beach side, and all their money is not being put into a big mortgage, and they're able to travel or they're able to focus on their creative hobbies, gardening, all that sort of stuff. And I was like, wow, is this the freedom that I actually desire? Not the freedom that comes with climbing a corporate ladder and and gaining all this, all these accolades from people around me. So I want to ask you, Darcy, like what does freedom look like to you in this season of your life? Like what do you think success is for you? And what's is there a connection to you like owning stuff or owning less of stuff?

SPEAKER_04

Um, so you asked what is freedom, and then you asked what is success. So I think I'm gonna stick with the what is freedom, just clarifying it. I wasn't sure if you meant to ask the second one, but like, because it definitely I think I think they are inner connected for sure, but I think kind of different things. But freedom, I think, is in t especially in terms of this conversation, like not feeling weighed down by a to-do list or the things that I have and the things that I have add to my to-do list. So um, I mean, I've learned to work within like my current system where my to-do list is unending. It's funny because I remember like back in grade school when like early grade school, like kindergarten, first grade, when I really wanted homework. I really wanted some some homework to take home with me. And like then I'd get something and I'd like check it off for the day and it was done. And then somewhere later in grade school or maybe high school, you know, you start getting lots of you get you have lots of homework and you have projects too that are due in the future. And then you also have personal projects. Like in high school for me, that was I had started my Instagram and my YouTube at that time, so I I had that, and like the art stuff that I was making for those things, and all of a sudden, somewhere along the way in high school, I realized that my to-do list just never was ended. Like I'd always have something to add to it, I could never get to the bottom of it. Um, so I think maybe that is just a reality of adult life, and it's something like you just have to learn to adjust to. Um, but I guess freedom in that sense would not having this constant sense of anxiety over the unfinished things that are waiting for you to finish them. Um, and then yes, I feel I feel tied down often by the things I own, the physical things. Um like I might get a new recommendation for a book that I want to read, but I have all these other books that I should read first, and so you don't feel completely free to like start on that new book, or you do, and then you feel guilty for all the books that you're not reading. Um so I think the way I would describe freedom is not being tied down by this stuff, but I also don't think that's super realistic for me in this modern day and age. Um, but maybe it's just learning a little bit more of a balance between those things and slowing down a little bit more so that I'm not continuing that cycle of just accumulating, accumulating, accumulating, and I'm able to focus in a little bit more. Long-winded answer, but I think you had did you have a second part to that question? I can't remember.

SPEAKER_03

I you answered that very, very well. You encapsulated everything and you picked out nuggets for the next the next thing I have in mind, but Max, I want to ask you as well Freedom, what that looks like to you.

SPEAKER_00

Well, so I mean that is interesting, and I I even kind of started thinking about that as Darcy was kind of talking there, just because like I just went through a huge move, and so downsizing actually was a big part of that. And you know, I think I can definitely relate to what Darcy's saying when in terms of like the accumulating tasks, accumulating things to do and things to keep up with and things to whatever, right? Um, and it's interesting because like I still have that going on, even though when it comes to physical stuff, I objectively did reduce a hilariously large amount, right? And so, yeah, it it's like there I'm I am noticing that there is this kind of difference that like downsizing the stuff doesn't necessarily mean that you downsize the to-do list. Like it's you can reduce, you can minimize in one area without minimalizing in another area. And so if that whole not being tied down dynamic is you know what's at play here, um yeah, it it has to be a multifaceted approach if you're gonna actually get not tied down. Um, because like on on like when it comes to work, when it comes to career, I'm still very much tied to like goals and like bills and the the necessities, so-called, of like, I'm not saying I don't there's not necessities, but you know, like that itself is a value judgment that just exists on a societal level, right? Ooh. Um, I did it again. I'm just knocking my microphone around. Like, this is the first time I've stood it on something. Maybe I've got too much stuff underneath it. I'm hoarding um sub-microphone stance. Um but yeah, like uh it I'm I'm now thinking too fast for myself to keep up with. But uh it's one of those things where so here's something actually I thought of about when it comes to the idea of being tied down and not having freedom. I don't know how relevant this is, but just hear me out. A certain ruler asked him, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal. Okay, blah da da da da. He replied, I have I didn't mean to bles like that. I'm sorry, but I I can't take it back now. Okay. I he we've been repeating this for two thousand years. Um he replied, I have kept all these since my youth. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, then come follow me. But when he heard this, he became sad for he was very rich.

SPEAKER_04

I think relevant.

SPEAKER_00

Do you think relevant? Because like, man, sell all like okay, you've you've kept all the commandments, like you've done all the technically right things, you are a good moral person. Okay, now part with your stuff. Give up your stuff and live completely detached from it and be completely free roaming. We operate on a weird schedule here. We're in Damascus tomorrow, we're we're in Syria all next week, and then we're gonna be in Jordan next week, and then we're back to Galile. Like, we're free roaming here, and it's gonna be weird, and we're sleeping in weird places. And I do I own a house? No, but that's we're following the wind. How do you actually live like that? I know it sounds very hippie, but I also think that that's maybe kind of what some of the hippies are actually also getting at, too, is that like stuff ties us down. And I feel like a lot of spiritual traditions around the world kind of have this cautionary thing about stuff ties you down and don't get too attached to it. I mean, Buddhism, the whole thing is non-attachment, right? So, what what do we do with all of that? Because our culture and our economic system and our idea of career and accomplishment and status and everything is all tied to stuff and accomplishment and achievement so inextricably that like I can't even think about what it would mean to sell everything I have, you know what I mean, and and then just like freewheel. How would I even live? How would I even live? It doesn't I can't compute it and make sense, and yet I can't not take the idea seriously, and you have a whole history of monastic communities, monks and nuns, and people who renounce literally as much as it is possible to renounce

Freedom through community & sharing

SPEAKER_00

um to live these lives of simplicity. Do you know what actually I think is really interesting about that now that I bring it up as I have this conversation with myself? Um sorry guys, I I I promise I'll open this up, but like what's interesting about the people who go into a convent or who go into like a monastery, they give up all the stuff, and the only way for them to really live is to then center that life around a community that's also committed to that same renunciation.

SPEAKER_04

I was literally just about to make that observation too. That I think like I think maybe this isn't like a perfect equation, but I think owning less kind of has a little bit to do with leaning into community more. I mean, you have that example, and then even on like just a very small example, I think of like neighbors borrowing ingredients for each other to make cake because they don't have flour or eggs, and they're like, hey, go next door and see if she has eggs. Like as we own more stuff, we need each other less, and as we own less, we need each other more, maybe.

SPEAKER_00

Even like I I think it's a perfect example. Like you you used to hear more about the like, oh, go borrow some sugar from the neighbor type of thing, like unheard of today. When it comes to the books thing, ever since like I don't I barely have any of my books, and I have a lot of books, right? But they're all in storage somewhere very far away. But that has made me lean on the library system. True. If I want a new book, I borrow it from a shared communal resource that everyone else has access to, and I can go put it back in decent time for someone else to have a chance to read it, and someone else have a chance to check out that book. And so again, it comes back to okay, individual ownership or like shared communal ownership. Like it really is that seems to be what it comes down to is that like the the only well, maybe not the only way, but like the most seemingly logical way to downsize from like hoarding so much stuff is sharing the stuff.

SPEAKER_04

Um which is drastically different from what we do today. How so what do we do with that?

How space and clutter interact with creative flow

SPEAKER_04

Knowing that.

SPEAKER_03

I would love to just hear I'm gonna kind of intersect two things here, but I know both of you have been reading or have read The Artist's Way, and it's a book that I haven't read it, but I'm interested in it because I think I want to talk about as well as artists, both of you are artists creatives, and I can relate to that myself. And I would be interested to hear just how if you look at creativity as a spiritual practice, like is this something that comes up in the artist's way? And like how how important as an artist for what you create, whether it's your music, whether it's your artwork, is kind of disconnecting, kind of going back to basics to enable you to create something and and create something that is coming from you. Because I get that you have to have inspiration, but then where do you allow the space for yourself to bring something into life that is unique, that is I don't know if that if I'm making sense, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Um, I talk about this all the time. Uh so those of you who listen to us all the time are gonna be like, oh, we've heard this is so old and boring. Start talking about something new. But I go on walks all the time, and um that's where I get most of my inspiration. Like that's when well, especially when it comes to writing. I got into writing poetry last year, and really just about every poem was inspired when I was on a walk um with nothing else happening, like no music or podcasts or audiobooks or anything like that. Um, I used to go on walks with one of those things, um, put my headphones in and listen to something. But over time, because I started using walks for like a reset moment in my day, where I, you know, sometimes would feel kind of overstimulated as I'm either working or again consuming like various forms of entertainment throughout my day just to get me through the day, I would feel like, oh, I I really just need to go on a walk and not do anything and just like have some silence. Um, and that's when a lot of the inspiration would come. So that's I think the most obvious example for me where making space directly correlates to my art and making space for like inspiration and creativity to come in. Speaking of the artist way in particular, she talks a lot about the source where whether you call that God or the universe or something else, like the creative uh voice, the creative flow is coming in through that source, and you have to be able to tap into that source. And yeah, often that looks like having some silence in your day, um treating yourself or as she likes to call it, your inner artist well and making time for them throughout your day. So that's my example for that question.

SPEAKER_00

It's it's it's interesting with both music and writing because at some point I mean to to to speak of the most uncluttered thing you can possibly have, a blank page or an empty recording project. You just you've you've loaded up a session in logic or whatever you use, and there's nothing there blank slate, and then you've got to make stuff. And so that's the most uncluttered environment possible is right in front of you, the blank page, so to speak. And then inside yourself is very much not a blank page, the sum total of all your experiences, all your influences, everything that you've ever carried with you. Um and somehow you've got to decide which of those influences you want to filter through, which of those influences you want to kind of allow to shine out and say, like, what kind of thing am I trying to make right now? And you have to ask yourself questions. I have to ask myself questions of like, am I trying to really go for an established style, like I want to do like a death metal riff, or am I just going for like, let me just make some sounds and see what sounds good and then try to build something around it? What's the what's the point at which you just have one idea that can then evolve and expand? Like one musical theme, one melody, one riff sometimes contains the whole song. And you can sometimes you can do this maximalist thing. I mean, I play progressive rock, which is known for meandering and having too much going on in one song. And I've had to, as a songwriter, ask myself, like, how often is the whole song just contained in the main riff or the main hook or the main melody, and everything is just kind of an expansion on that singular idea. Um, so I think there is, in a sense, like an aesthetic principle based around simplicity or at least around coherence that I I think is is probably valuable to consider there. Um yeah, and I don't know how to articulate that as like an absolute like here, here, go do this. But like it's worth, I think, for most creatives, looking at the idea of like what it means to create something out of nothing. Oh, there's a spiritual concept. Create something out creatio ex nihilo, God creating out of nothing. Um, or the idea of us existing as sub-creators, we don't actually create out of nothing, we create out of the synthesis of again our experiences, our influences, all of that stuff. And you know, it's very much like a you know, hey God, I can make anything you can make. Oh yeah, here, go sculpt something. No, get your own dirt, right? Like we know, we create with the stuff that we've already been provided with by the creator, so to speak. And it's the it's that weird kind of balancing act of being in between, like, yeah, I'm I'm making something out of this minimal nothing, but my nothing, so to speak, is actually the sum total of everything. So is like, is that maximal or minimal? I don't know. It might just be all that is, um, which is that probably is less spiritual than it sounds. But um I also think it it also calls to my mind the way that there's this interesting thing that happens if I'm thinking about influences. Um, I was thinking earlier to today, just a couple hours ago, I was at the grocery store, I was listening to Tinache, and there's a bunch of vocal things she was doing that I was like, oh, that's cool. Oh, I don't know if it would come across the same way if I did that, because what she's doing is stereotypically very feminine, but vocally, it's still cool. Maybe if I work on the technique, and I was like, you already know this from guitar, Max. Work on the technique itself, learn what the other person did. When you try to do it yourself, it's still going to sound like you because you're already you. And unless you're doing the most like bone-headed form of mimicry, it's going to transmutate into it's going to transform into your take on that thing, right? When I think about the Hebrew poets, especially in the Old Testament, there's this interesting thing that happens where a theme that gets introduced early on in Exodus or something like that will get picked up again and they'll just rattle off the Lord, the Lord, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, like that that string of things that gets attached to the name of the Lord, and it the prophets just throw it in there. Um, it just pops in there. One of my my uh Old Testament professor in undergrad said it's kind of like a sample in hip-hop, in the sense that like it might show up again, or it's that same stupid drum breakbeat thing that shows up in everything, that same jazz drumming sample that became the the basis of so much drum and bass and breakbeat and hip-hop and stuff, but it like it keeps getting sampled in everything, and it we're kind of like that. Like those influences, those things that we pick up along the way, they they shine through us, they they materialize through us in these interesting ways, and sometimes we're remixing them, and sometimes we're just one-to-one reproducing them. But I don't know, there's something strangely transformative about the idea that you can have again this minimal blank sheet of nothing that's also kind of a representation of everything you've ever gone through, um, just naturally flowing. I don't know, the the longer I go on this, the more I feel like I'm not making sense. But I I yeah, I just feel like there's this really numinous and hard to define thing when it comes to saying, like, how much is really being created out of nothing, and how much are you creating out of existing influences and what's hoarding, what's synthesis? Do you does defining those things even matter when it comes to the creative act, or is creativity kind of the one thing that transcends taking and consume? Well, there you go, Darcy. This is a Darcy thing. Create more than you consume. Yeah, creativity as the antithesis of consumption, right? You you we take and take and take, and then finally, in the in the act of creativity, in the act of creation, we give back and we participate in the life of the divine as a mirror of the creator. Wow, look at that.

SPEAKER_04

I feel like I need a round of applause for that. Um yes, I I think I guess the problem lies when you are just constantly taking things in and you just aren't putting anything out, right? And like you alluded to you know, the create more than you consume video, the thing I kind of was harping on a lot last year. Um where of course we're cons we're creatures that live on consumption. Um we're consuming consuming various different types of things and thoughts like all the time, constantly. Um but it's just that in our modern age that has been raised up to like this fever pitch, like this insanely fast intake, input um cycle. And no, we're never even if even if it wasn't that fast, we would never be able to create out of all those things. But now it's just like paralyzing because there's just so much in there, it's hard to figure out or even want to figure out like what to choose to do something creative with. But yeah, yeah, and you got me thinking like on my walks to I guess the reason why I get a lot of inspiration on those is because I have a lot in my mind already, and nothing else is coming in but besides just very gentle, slow things like the sound of a bird, the sound of me walking on the pavement, like the feeling of the breeze or whatever. Just very, you know, it's a great time for me to start pulling those things up out of my head, and it just happens very naturally. Whereas I might not have that chance when I'm working. Of course, I'm focused on work, I'm not focused on pulling things out and and making something out of it. So yeah, good

When you stop accumulating and start living

SPEAKER_04

observations there, Max.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. First thing that came to mind was I think for me in particular, reflecting sometimes the accumulation of whether it's physical things, whether it's titles and accomplishments, it's almost like piling that on because you feel like what you are without that is not enough. And there can sometimes be this feeling of inadequacy, like I am not learned enough just the way I am. My experiences are not embellished enough to be of something of value that I can share with others. And I think maybe that's an experience that other people might have that can stop them from actually pursuing and creating out of their source because they're trying to embellish, they're trying to accumulate more things. And I think for me, sort of a type of minimalism that I experienced in my life was when I was going through underemployment or unemployment. And I recently created a video about this that resonated with a lot of people. And I think it's because achievements and titles and being able to be respected by other people, that feeling makes you chase after that. So it's really difficult to be almost without an identity, but in but what you actually realize is that there's so much beyond that. But society makes you you feel like you need to do more to be accepted and to and to be successful. Uh, the other thing I was thinking about was there's so much you won't let go, so gripped by the emptiness. You won't show it. Don't do this to me. But I know you've sunk it into distress. All that you refuse to face leaves you guarded and austere, hiding an arcane disgrace and living enslaved to fear. Don't you want to feel a little more alive and live with open eyes? Because if you can believe you'll find you're just in time to leave it all behind. Just dancing to the music in my head right now. Seriously, that is one of my favorite songs like ever. And it's written by Max. Well, yes, Max Cozen, which we know is the band that Max is lead vocalist in guitarist. And I really resonate with that song because what you were saying before about the simplicity, I love that the lyrics really shine, and it's a very melody that I can just replay in my head. They are words that I can like repeat back to myself. And I feel like minimalism or coming back to the essence of what we know just through our experiences, what we're feeling, and placing value on that. It helps us to live with like open eyes. It helps us to actually experience the world as something that in all its beauty and all its complexity. And I feel like to be to have open eyes, in some ways, you need to have like some simplicity or some practices in your day. Like you were mentioning, Darcy, whether it's like sitting with silence, whether it's uh going for walks and doing things that enable you to just observe the world around you and kind of be inspired, kind of be in awe of your own existence and how you're just this one person out of billions of people on this stretch of road looking at a tree. I think experiences can be an antidote to like overconsumption. And like you were saying, like community, not creating so many walls around you with everything that you've accumulated that nothing no longer impresses you, nothing no longer inspires you.

SPEAKER_04

Um I liked that. Experience as

Gift economy & creating differently

SPEAKER_04

antidote to overconsumption. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_00

Back when I did uh like a video essay about how stressful it was making that last EP that my band did, and I was talking about um Makoto Fujimura and the art exists in two economies thing, where there's the regular money economy and the gift economy, and this is one of those instances where I'm gonna kind of mash that together with the idea of like experiences as the antidote to like overconsumption. I engaged in the creative act and wrote that song with open eyes, and that was a gift. Like, yes, you can download it on iTunes right now today, and you can you know stream it on Spotify so I can make 0.00000000063 cents um money economy, but that it was also a gift, like I'm giving that song to the world so that people can make it what they will, and Ajua just showed how her own experience with that song has made it into something else that I could never have envisioned through my life experience, and then she just gave it back to me, and I just experienced my own creation as if someone else had made it, which is just so crazy. But yeah, that's communal, that is community-centric, that is like interpersonal, and that is an experience I couldn't I could not buy that with money. I could not buy that experience with money. I had to have a relationship with this person and understand you and have the chance to introduce you to what I do only for you to reflect it back at me. That's so cool, that's so whoa. Um and it's kind of a reflection of a spiritual reality too. Oh, and and it's the experiences thing, experiences as an antidote to consumption, and it's a spiritual thing. NT, right, has this interesting idea about humanity's place in the garden, and humanity's place in God's created order is like an angled mirror, is is the um the image that he uses, reflecting God to the created world as like caretakers and order makers, like ruling over creation, but also reflecting the beauty of creation back to the creator in the form of praise, worship, creativity. Hey dad, look, wow, I found this shiny rock, isn't it so pretty? Look, I made a a mural out of it or something. You know what I'm saying? Like, but like the the idea of like there's something joy-inducing in the creator when you can reflect their own creation back to them in a new light, um, which is what I feel like I just experienced from Ajua, because she took something I created and reflected it back to me. And I'm just like, oh whoa, that's what God put humanity to do here.

SPEAKER_03

Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_00

I love an Ajua wow moment.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

I feel like that's an Ajua classic. It's just like a good deep wow.

SPEAKER_03

Because there's there's really nothing I can add to that.

Adjoa’s journey: rediscovering self without stuff

SPEAKER_03

There, there's really nothing I can add to that.

SPEAKER_04

I actually kind of want to ask you more questions because you had a lot of good stuff in your your notes for this. And I think that's because you are actively experiencing a lot of this, like wanting to live more minimally in your life right now. And you've done a great job at like directing the conversation and leading us, but I'd like to direct some of that back to you. Um no, it's just a matter of zoning in on what question I want to ask, though. Like, I guess just in general, like, how have you been experiencing this recently? How you said you've had this interest in adopting a more minimalistic way of living. Have you been applying it? And has that been, you know, how has that been going for you?

SPEAKER_03

I I think physical decluttering is something that I just find so beneficial for my state of mind. And when my physical space is is cluttered and things are disorganized, that then carries into everything else. I think though, what I found is that I've I I think there was something we were talking about before. You're not always ready to let go of things all at once. So I find that it's something I'm regularly doing. Maybe every other weekend I'll be focusing on a different part of my room because my room is really like what I like to think of as my space in a house that I live with other people. And by decluttering things, I think now I'm at a point where I just kind of have the sentimental things. Like I honestly don't have that much stuff. And I think that it's it's been good because now I can kind of look through that. I have this box that I I put all my sort of little mementos from travels from maybe my grandma and and little things like that. And I I rarely like open it. It's not something I open frequently, and in some ways that kind of makes it special when you do, but I do feel like I don't want things to be hidden away as much as I used to do, like just have things hidden away. I want to like bring everything, I guess, out into the light to kind of refer to what you were saying, Max. Yeah. Exactly. I want to see everything and I want to appreciate everything. And I think it reflects me as well. I've been through a big journey over the past, I would say, two years in terms of having a complete switch in careers, questioning my entire value and identity in society. Like there was a point where we have like the Sydney CBD where I was working in like a high-rise boutique law firm. And at that time, that was like the height of success for me. And looking back, it's like, wow, I was really, you know, the main character in my own story, you know, like dressing up to go to work, getting off at the train station, being like, wow, you know. Um, but there was a time where I couldn't even go back to the city because just seeing that environment, seeing other people like really locked in, going to their workplaces, like it was honestly like it brought me so much sadness, like that I wasn't part of that, that I had somehow like become meaningless to society. And I think that's where I'm at now is kind of embracing who I am without all these layers that I've put on myself, all these expectations. And so for me, I think minimalism does have that strong connection to like the spiritual, to my belief right now in the source, even though it's it's a different relationship I definitely have with like my spirituality, but I do feel like it's necessary for me, even if I try to run away from it. I feel like I need some accountability to something. It's like, hey, actually, you collecting all these things and you putting all these titles on yourself is not actually going to save you from eventual death and from from like negative things in life. So yeah, that that got really deep and and intense, but that's also who I am, deep and intense. Um, and so another thing just that comes to mind is there's a YouTuber who I love. Like I love YouTube, as you guys know. I I I really love it. And it's also a kind of a form of escapism. But there's this one channel that I watch, and she actually lives in Australia. She's from Australia, um, but she loves traveling. So she's kind of like a nomad. And she really loves scrapbooking. But what she'll do is print out the photos that she's taken on her camera and her phone, and she'll like organize them in her scrapbook and kind of write her journal entries next to the photos, and she'll then have this like physical collection of these experiences in different places. And I kind of feel like that's the kind of minimalism as well that I kind of want to tap more into is like organizing the experiences I've had so they're not just in these, like you were saying Darcy in my camera role, and I never go back to them. I never because sometimes I just want to be able to open something and be like, wow, like I went here, I felt that, I met this person, I realized this new thing. And I just feel like when I keep going, going, going, and I never stop and pause and kind of give my own experiences a place to exist. Um then it just kind of passes me by. And it's it's yeah. And so that's kind of where where I'm at

Final reflections to sit with

SPEAKER_03

um with it all. I think honestly, today I came into this not expecting to go into this level of depth and to kind of make all these connections that we have between minimalism and our values, our our sentimentality towards the things that that we own, the fact that community and having experiences and placing value in the creative act of doing things rather than just taking things in has really made me see minimalism as something that I personally feel is gonna help me to continue to explore all of these things. And I think something else that I wasn't expecting to come out of this was the fact of the spiritual act of decreasing the noise in our life and and kind of focusing on the simplicity of things that matter. And I think that when we realize we have this infinite source, it it kind of does lead to a lot of contentment with what we have. And I would love to hear from you, Darcy and Max. Are there any like parting thoughts that you have after this conversation that have made you maybe think differently about the life that that you want to live, or maybe you have some immediate actions or routines that that you might be leaning more into after this?

SPEAKER_04

Um I've I said this a little bit earlier in the episode, but like when we talk about things like this that feel like such systematic issues, like habits that everybody does that's really hard to break, I'm often left thinking, okay, I'm glad we've all vented, but what do we do about it? So I have been actively like searching some like action points and literally taking notes on them. Um you guys know I'm a notes, I'm a notes girly. Um, and I have my notebook next to me. So the things that I feel like I can actually take away and do um from this episode, besides just like continuously trying to declutter things in my life, like my camera roll in my closet, um, are well I think the honestly the biggest thing was the experience point. Um really focusing on experiencing the things you own rather than just collecting and collecting and collecting. Um and that kind of ties into with just value and really trying to appreciate the value of an object. And not just see it as just another disposable consumable good. I think focusing on that and maybe even making the scope just a little bit smaller. I don't know if you could do that very intentionally with every single thing you interact with throughout the day, but you know, starting small and just focusing on a few things. Um I mean, for example, like uh I think I I said I love thrifting, I love getting cheap clothes, I think it's great, gonna continue doing that for a long time. But also I've been getting a little bit more interest in like investing in maybe some really nice jeans or like some really nice pieces of clothing that will last me a really long time. Um and maybe by doing that I can start to kind of pare down some things, focusing my wardrobe around like those few things, and then having a few other maybe cycle of thrifted clothes that come in and out. I don't know. Um and I'm trying to think if there's other Yeah, I I think also books are a good example of this because you just naturally have to spend a long time with a book as opposed to other like really short, easily consumable content. Um, but I think books just you spend a long time with them, that's like you value them, um, you experience them, and I don't know that I think that just really says something. It says something about maybe the way we're supposed to act in um interact with other things in our lives. And then lastly, my last takeaway is uh creativity being what comes after that input out like making sure that you're still making space and time in your life to do something with all the things that you input on the daily. So those are my takeaways.

SPEAKER_00

Um yeah, I think the experiences thing is gonna stick with me for a bit in terms of like prioritizing that over stuff. Um that already resonates with me, but I've just I've got a new appreciation for appreciation for it. Agile, I'm actually I am now the thing that's really in my head is like the the minimalism of the authentic self and the like the shedding of mediating layers of pretense and titles and you know trying to find my value in like what what external thing do I think I offer versus like actually showing up. I I a big part of my journey right now is like building a social circle and and like finding friends and and building friendships. And like I'm further along than I have been yet in this new location, which feels nice, but I'm also like that experience is making me reflect also on the like where where do I identify the value of just my plain, simple, undiluted, unpretentious self, and like how how can I present that not just present that as valuable, but like experience it as valuable and then live that well that that has been today's episode.

SPEAKER_03

We really hope that you have also been reflecting throughout this episode. You felt like you're a part of this conversation, and maybe you've even been like talking to yourself like I do in the mirror, chiming in, where something has sounded relatable. So please, we would love to hear from you. Uh, leave a comment, maybe share this. Uh, well, maybe don't share this, as Max said. Um don't clog someone's inbox, but like, no, share this.

SPEAKER_04

Share this and then and then call them or meet up with them and have a meaningful conversation about it when you see them next.

SPEAKER_00

Share it specifically to Adwa's inbox and be like, yeah, have you heard of no, don't do that.

SPEAKER_04

Well, uh I wouldn't have an Instagram or TikTok, so comment on our YouTube, on our comment section, and go to one of Ajua's YouTube videos and comment in her comment section. Or join our Discord because I think Ajua is on there or about to be on there. Continue the conversation there. Yes.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, that would actually be excellent. And we could all like talk about these fun ways that we are finding meaning in our lives. I think it's great. All right. Well, that is all from us. Take care until the next episode. Let's keep growing together. Thank you for tuning in for today's episode. We look forward to you joining us for the next one. Until then, let's keep growing together.