Linda's October 2025 Newsletter
On Schelling points, settling in, and speaking up
Every time I start to think that maybe I’ve done enough public sharing of my life, someone tells me they love reading my newsletter. So here is my sign to keep going, and your sign to start your own, so that the people in your life might know where you’re at.
October was intensity again. Dreaming and crushing. Getting to my limits, and past them. Bending and not breaking.
October was:
Settling (maybe). I’m accepting that I might live in the house I’m renting for a while - a year, maybe more. I’m getting creative about solving some of the problems I have with it in renter-friendly ways. Most of this process focuses on sensory sensitivity: I want the floor to feel warm, I want a lot of light, I want a desk I can use while sitting cross-legged on the floor, and a way to host friends in my little house, and a kitchen where I actually want to cook. I seem to really enjoy the process of loving a place into being my space, and it’s been a while since I stayed somewhere long enough. I wanna buy a sauna. If you know me, that’s an obsession of mine, and it might just happen this time.
Packing chaos. I spent several days packing to spend a month in a place I’d never been, with widely varying weather and little clue of what I might be doing. Not fun, even for the seasoned traveller I think I am. This took over my whole house and involved many outfit changes and a couple co-counselling sessions. A dear friend suggested I may frame it as a ritual, that helped. 3 weeks in my main lesson is: more hiking shoes, less cute dresses.
Landing at Edge. Edge City Patagonia is, in my current understanding, a Schelling point for nomads interested in technology, crypto, consciousness, longevity. A pop-up city where people gather from around the world to experiment with new ways of being, creating, coordinating, collaborating, living. It all happened randomly - I shared with someone that I wanted to see stars in Chile, they mentioned Edge City, I applied for funding, got it, and found myself in Patagonia.
The wave. I lived through a pretty wild one, all the way from “wow, maybe I’ve finally found my people, the exact combination of techy and feely I’ve been looking for” to “oh no, I’m burning out so hard - in just two weeks I’m already at the point where I’m so anxious I don’t sleep, I start crying and can’t stop and I want to hide in my room forever.”
Then came several days of processing everything. Fear of disappointing the people who believed in me. Grief at not being able to hold much stress anymore. Anger at investing all these resources to get to Patagonia only to find myself a wreck. Guilt about not predicting it might go like this. Annoyance that I can’t just “absorb the pain” anymore - my body is loud and clear and won’t let me look away from what isn’t working.
But also: many chances to let people support me, lots of different kinds of support coming in, appreciation for softening and allowing and being honest about how I’m really feeling, being brave about asking for what I actually need. And seeing the world adjust itself to me once I surrender to actually saying “I can’t do this” and then not doing it. As simple as that. Somehow it took me 29 years to be able to do it cleanly, before burning everything and ghosting and disappearing and breaking.
Some media
An old song that’s often on my mind these days - “dire le cose che sono vere anche se sono dei luoghi comuni” which translates to: “speaking truths even when they sound like clichés”.
A Pattern Language, a book I’ve been reading before bed, while coming to terms with wanting to build a house much more than I want to build a company.
I started writing these a year ago. I’m happy I did. Many Good Things and some Chaos came from it. That feels fine. The commitment to always being honest about what I’m feeling is probably what’s brought me the most growth in the last few years, and sharing here is part of my practice.
May all beings live in alignment with life. May all beings be happy.
Hey. Nice substack. Nice doing acro yoga with you yesterday!