Sunday Letter • January 26th, 2025
Assignments, lessons, and unlocks from a recently closed chapter, a favorite song, and what’s to come in February
Welcome to this week’s
I’ve just returned from a week-long work trip to Miami, where I spent the week meeting with and reviewing the work of many talented young artists at area arts high schools. It was my second time visiting both for work and at all, and although these opportunities to meet with and counsel student artists is deeply meaningful to me and one of my favorite parts of the work that I do, this week in Miami is always an intense one that leaves me with little time for myself.
I always try to bring my journal on my trips, even if I don’t actually use it. But I went into it with the idea that I’d rise early, and in the quiet of the humid Miami morning spent in the place we stayed near Little Havana, I would seize the opportunity to sit with myself and put pen to paper.
The reality is that I realized I had forgotten to pack my journal when I was in line to board my flight to Miami, it was very cold and damp for the majority of my stay (causing me to catch a rare cold), and, that much of this week’s Letter was conceived and written before my trip and this past week even began.
Fair warning, this one is a long one.
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I’ve been processing and reflecting on a lot lately; the assignments and lessons from my experiences and interactions with people over the end of 2024 still unveiling and unlocking themselves at the start of this year.
The Note I shared at the top of this Letter is my truth. It was something that I always knew about myself, but that surfaced with great clarity after moving to close the chapter of a situation I’d been navigating since the early fall. The theme of being perceived as “good” or “bad” came up a lot throughout the course of it.
My guide,
, has been a huge part of my life since college and is like a spiritual auntie figure to me. Jo uses the term “assignment” to refer to what one must learn or take away from an experience. She calls it an assignment rather than a “lesson” because while an experience might involve and affect more than one person, each individual’s takeaway is unique and is reflective of that particular person’s journey. In any scenario, your assignment is yours, and yours alone. That sentiment feels very true for the situation that I had been in: while it was a shared experience, the takeaways for each individual involved are very different. And on-going.Some people spend a lot of their lives seeking outward and external validation with a need to please others, and attempt to control how others perceive them. From my perspective, these individuals hardly operate from a place of true authenticity because so much of what they say and do is curated to appeal to others and uphold an image of themselves in the eye of the third party. As someone who has observed the behaviors of several people like this throughout my life, I recognize that these behaviors often stem from deep-seated insecurity and discomfort with themselves. This is a reality that I have the fortune of never having resonated with.
I co-taught a second grade class during the 2022 to 2023 school year. Before the start of the school year, Jo illuminated for me during a conversation we had that second grade (in the US, the year that 7-year-old students turn 8) is a pivotal time in child development, as children start to grow into more conscious beings around this age. I certainly saw this transformation in my students that school year. Sometimes I think about how things we’ve learned, even at a young age like 7 and a half, stay with us or unlock for us further down the line as we grow older. I wonder what moments from my time spent with my students will stick with them as they grow up, and I think about what has stuck with me from when I was their age.
When I think back to my experience in elementary school, I strongly recall how my own second grade teacher, Mrs. Sahadi, hated the words “good” and “bad.” Mrs. Sahadi often discouraged us from using the words in our language and writing, given the sentiment that these words were overly simple. “What is a ‘good’ girl? What is a ‘bad’ boy? What does that really mean?”, she would say.
Fast forward 19 years later, and this memory has just resurfaced in a real way, as I grappled with what “good” and “bad” really mean in the context of the situation I’d been navigating.
And well, “good” and “bad” are somewhat subjective. Now, I’m sure some things that you feel are objectively good or bad may have just popped into your mind—and I hear you, but hear me.
In the context of humanity, “good” and “bad” are not as black and white as we’d so often like to think. It’s how concepts like yin and yang, from Chinese Tao philosophy, have come to be—to remind us that there is no absolute “good” or “bad.” What there is, is a complex humanity.
This reminds me of a time when I tried to teach the concept of yin and yang to two of my second graders who frequently got into trouble. I remember they had said something to me that made it sound like they were looking to accept and solidify their roles as the “bad kids.” I didn’t want to reinforce that idea, however my mini-lesson about nuance didn’t seem to land with them. Guess that “second grade enlightenment” hadn’t hit them yet—maybe they’ll remember the conversation they had with Teacher Kendyl when they turn 26.
Anyway, I digress. What I want to call attention to isn’t merely that there isn’t absolute good or bad, but that our human nature is too often problematized. The shame that an individual feels for doing something wrong in the eyes of others, the attempt or need to either publicly admonish or privately correct oneself, are all too common. Rather than reflecting on their actions and desires and choosing to live a more authentic life that is in line with their needs, people will push down, shove away, and deny their truths out of fear of exclusion, social persecution, and disappointment from others. It can be hard to break out of a restrictive mold to embrace one’s true, human, self and desires.
posted a great piece on his publication, , back in November that articulates this well. Here’s a part that resonated with me:…we can get stuck because of an unconscious loyalty to the stories and limiting beliefs of our families, friends, culture and community. We don’t want to outgrow them or mature beyond their capacity for health and intimacy out of an unconscious dedication to maintaining a dysfunctional human system. Our role in that system is to keep it going… to stay the same so the system operates the same.
Becoming all we are, having boundaries, stepping towards our dreams, and saying “yes” to our potential puts us (un)consciously at social risk. We risk being criticized and exiled, and our membership to the group cancelled. These are the real costs of being real. There’s no two ways about it… To minimize the power that belonging has for shaping behaviour is to bypass all the ways in which people have sold out their principles and values to not “disrupt” those around them.
But freedom is actually derived from being free to be all of you. It’s to align your life with YOUR values. It’s to look at the tensions and frictions of your life and get really real: Are you actually living in integrity with your values, your desires, and the intuitive direction your soul is calling you towards?
Read more:
It’s my understanding that people who place their worth and value largely in the hands of external sources—whether that be other people, society, idols, and/or faith/religion—are making an attempt to ground and steer themselves. Ideas of “good” and “bad” from these external influences feel written in stone and become a guiding moral compass. It gives people a sense of security when they cannot ground themselves in their own truth and convictions. Furthermore, the line becomes blurred as to what their own values truly are, versus what values are being defined for them by that external source. When the individual strays from the path of absolute, by-the-book righteousness, they can use the moral compass that was defined for them as a means to make sense of their “wrongness” and even as a shield to absolve them of their wrong-doings and preserve their sense of that righteousness.
So, what has my assignment given me in this case? Among the many things that it’s taught, shown, illuminated, and unlocked for me, one of those things that I will share with you all is this: I don’t care for superficial morality.
When I die, I care not whether people thought I was a “good person.” What matters most to me is that I will have always acted from a place of authenticity, integrity, and true conviction. I want myself and others around me to know that I acted on my truth with grace, intention, and care, and never out of fear. That is what I would want to stick with the people who knew me in life. What you see is exactly what you get from me.
I cannot say what the other party makes of their assignment, if it has touched them in a meaningful way at all. All I know is that I’ve taken a lot away from my assignment. While I can reflect and share what I have come away with, my resolutions are still ultimately my own. I cannot force the outcome or make meaning for the other party. Only that individual can do that for themselves. Their journey is their own, as mine is mine.
And what I know of my journey is this:
Authenticity has always been my grounding foundation in life. It’s a truth that I am starting 2025 with, and it’s a truth that I will continue to live by. If there is anyone you should seek to please with your life, it’s yourself. And, you should probably also double-check that what you think might please you hasn’t been wholly or majorly defined by some third party, no matter who that third party may be to you.
Move forward with integrity, and you simply cannot lose in life.
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I leave you with these Notes from the Substack community that resonate with me deeply right now.
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“Come With Me” by Ronny Jordan featuring Fay Simpson
Genre: Jazz • Style: Smooth/Contemporary Jazz, Acid Jazz
Ronny Jordan is one of my dad and I’s favorite smooth jazz musicians. I bought the album that this groovy track is from, The Quiet Revolution (1993), on tape at Rasputin’s in Berkeley on my big trip to Cali in November. I learned it was a cover of a track by Tania Maria, whom I had never heard of before hearing Ronny’s version. Both versions are a vibe.
I’ve been listening to this album on repeat since the year started.
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Did you catch my recent posts?
I shared my recipe for beef liver pâté as well as some of the benefits of incorporating liver into your diet and lifestyle:
and shared the first edition of Throughlines, my series on music lineage in the Soul music genres. I shared the story about how and when I first heard Michael Jackson’s “I Can’t Help It” and share two tracks that took inspiration from it:
You can always check out and revisit any of my previous posts by heading to my archive on the web.
Coming up:
I share a recipe for easy homemade kimchi so that you can stop buying it in the store!
I’ll let you guys be nosy on me and show you what's in my bag
More Round UPs and editions of Throughlines to keep you cultured ;)
Thank you for reading and reflecting with me. I hope you find meaning and value in what I’ve shared this week. I look forward to connecting again in the new month.
Kendyl
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Such a wonderful read, I’m absolutely in awe of you everytime.