Joyful Questions to Help You Dig Deep in Reflection
Via Moon Lists: “An exercise in recognizing the themes that are hidden in plain sight”
Part I: Living an examined life
In my last reflection we talked about how most things in the world don’t matter; and how having an attitude of joyful indifference to most things calms your mind. But how can you decide what matters?
Self-reflection can get you there. It helps you focus. A focused mind is a clear mind is a calm mind. Writing helps you self-reflect.
I mentioned discovering Moon Lists this weekend, a delightful little website with a set of unexpected questions you can use for your reflections. The site is a lot more esoteric and mystical than I like, with references to things like the lunar cycle, but I found the questions quite useful.
Moon Lists are a method of journaling that use short-form questions and lists to invite you to think with specificity about the present and recent past. The questions are a template for exchanging stories, for questioning ways of being, and reshaping life in new ways.
Part II: The Moon List Questions and My Answers
I want to try something I’ve never tried by sharing a journal entry with you. I invite you to reflect with me. Below are the five questions I picked from their list, and how I answered them this Saturday. To do it yourself, find the set of free questions here.
1. Mystery
What happened that doesn’t have an explanation?
One night in boarding school, between 13 and 17 years ago, my friends and I were listening to the radio at night. A football game, most likely. It was pitch black. We had to hide because we were not allowed to have radios at boarding school. Contraband. So we were in a locked room, behind a fort made of bed sheets and “mabati” suitcases.
Suddenly, a light filled the room we were in. It was eery because it felt like the light didn’t fill the room all at once. Like the light was from an invisible source floating down smoothly; slowly filling the room. We went silent. We moved the sheet and through the window we saw a light source gliding downwards. All this did not last a full minute — then zap! It was pitch black again.
After a minute or so collecting ourselves, we sprinted outside to see what the light source could be. You would have thought it might have been a “mnoko” teacher with a flashlight. But that light’s movement was strange. It had filled the room like a gradient, floating downwards. Not all at once. Light does not work like that. We did not find anyone or anything outside. Was this a collective dream? To this day, we do not know what that light is, or why it glided down with such eerie smoothness. Unlike normal light, which kills darkness immediately.
We may never know.
2. Nostalgia
What was felt more deeply because it took you back to your past?
As a child, I associated frangipanis with wealth. We lived in a dorm room in Buru Buru where my parents were in college. All our wealthier friends had frangipanis in their backyards. We were friends with the children of my parents’ professors and they too had a frangipani tree in their yard. And a Nissan Sunny. The delicate white flowers with yellow hearts, the dark green foliage, the twisty bark. Whenever I see a frangipani tree, I remember walking down the pathway that connected our dorms to the leafier street our professor friends lived in. They remind me of the childhood mix of small hopes and pangs of desire.
Today, on a walk with my girl, we saw a frangipani tree and she exclaimed just how much she loves them. I told her this story. An hour later, rummaging through my backpack, I found a shoeshine sponge I’d saved from a trip to the Kampala Serena. Brand name? Frangi! Serendipity.
3. Detail
James Salter wrote: “Life is weather, life is meals.” Describe a meaningful moment involving each in the last month.
Life is weather. It was raining in Ngare Sero. Light rain, and the farmhouse’s chimney was smoking. I went for a walk in the morning and took pictures of all the little details: succulents in a clay pot, the swing by the lake, moss-covered walls, and a video of birdsong from a winding path among the trees. On my way back, a horse named Pombe was being scolded for being stubborn while its friends chewed grass. Bees knocked down a palm tree frond looking for nectar. This startled the horses. I returned to the room for warmth.
Life is meals. The red-lit dinner at Ngare Sero. The lunch with a view of starlings and boating weekenders. Breakfast with a German historian interviewing me, writing about Tanzania. My girl exclaimed at the breadth of our discussion. Lunch at Woodberry, which she was very insistent and very proud of paying for. Lunch at Woodberry when her stomach was aching. The pork I made with Zanzibari spices — sacrilege, almost. Sweet, sweet sacrilege. Burnt honey beef and potatoes this morning. We have been meaning to make Swedish meatballs and mash for a while. We will get to it, some day. I’ve had quite memorable meals recently.
4. Adjust
What are you amid that is almost (but not quite) right? A draft, a relationship, an injury…what needs refinement and attention?
The OnaStories Expert Network. We are near the end of our first network delivery — writing for a major bank client. I have learnt so much about how I need to structure the network going forward. More training for the talent at the beginning. More orientation into the Ona way. And clearer terms. The PM role managing both client and team expectations is going to be vital. He makes me very happy with how responsive and adaptive he is. We have a keeper!
Fikiri. I reread the vision today. We are on track, but could be even more on track with a few tweaks. Next Saturday, we will have our seventh potluck for ideas. The repository for ideas — both in terms of writing and the podcast have been a lot harder to implement. The exponential growth style (where each pioneer Fikirian hosts their own Fikiri potlucks) looks like it will take time to launch.
5. Utility
When did you feel useful?
Most mornings, I do a mind dump on my WhatsApp status. Clearing out the thoughts I had the previous day, and distilling them into actionable lessons for my dedicated crowd. I have built this into a little community. Ardent, engaged. I try offer them as raw and real and valuable information about what I am learning as possible. They respond with delight and appreciation. I have received a few hundred notes of people’s appreciation for my thoughts. The utility is clear. I need to grow Tenda now — to help people arrive at these insights themselves. To open people up to themselves. To give people a hand to hold. Workbooks, workshops. Playbooks, playshops. Tenda — work on yourself. Tenda — take action! I know just the person to do it with. ;-)
I hope you are inspired to try these questions out yourself. Create time to pause and reflect. To dig deep and find the themes hidden beneath the surface.
You can read the reflection that led to me sharing my journal with you here.
