What I learned living alone in the countryside for a year.

Hello, guys. I am here to do something very different, something I've never done before. This has been a very transformative year of my life, and I want to capture the emotional resonance of that, the emotional journey that I've been on. If I just sit and tell you, okay, I learned this, that, and the other, I don't feel like I'm capturing the emotional resonance, you know? It's been a really hard year, okay? There's just no way around that. But also, also... incredibly beautiful. And I think that in our world, our very fast moving, increasingly high tech world, things are becoming so polished now. And I don't know, I thought I'd try to do something that feels really human and raw and that requires vulnerability. And so this, you know, this definitely makes me uncomfortable because I'm going to make mistakes for sure. So bear with me as I rewind the clock a little bit a year and a half ago. I left Paris. And I had lived there for, I think, four or four and a half years. It was an incredibly rich experience. I got so much out of it. But, I don't know, there was something inside of me that was calling for something different. I felt very drawn to the countryside. You know, it's a life mission of mine to live with my intuition, to let that guide me. And so, I don't know, it was screaming to me to make a change. And so I left the countryside and I chronicled that journey. Some of you may have already seen that. And I met some interesting characters along the way. And then I found this place. Really was just enchanted by the insane amount of charm that this place has. And I bought it. Which is a huge privilege. I moved here in October of last year. So a year ago. The day after my birthday. You know, that's when reality began to hit. I think I came out here with a fantasy. I had this idea about life out here, about life in the countryside. The reality was that I quickly found myself, as winter was arriving, in this big, echoey, dirty, dark house with all kinds of surprises. I've shared, I've also chronicled the surprises. And I felt so fucking overwhelmed. I don't know how else to put it. It was probably the most overwhelming experience of my life. So I was incredibly scared. And I spent a super challenging winter. I was just questioning everything I had done. Questioning my decisions. And the truth is that I wanted to run away. I was scared out of my wits. It didn't match my fantasy. And then with, like I said, all the surprises showing up. The cost of this was insane. So obviously my friends have been hearing a lot about this over the course of this year. And I was describing how this was a new kind of challenge for me because in the past I've done hard things, but I'm passionate about what I'm doing. Like building this channel, like that was something that I was so passionate about. So all the work and the pain and the suffering, it's like so worth it. And this turned into kind of something different. I kind of realized like, oh, I'm not actually that passionate about DIY work. I'm not a handy guy. And I don't know if I love what I'm doing out here. So on top of it being a very difficult experience, it was doubly or five times or 10 times as hard because I am not working with passion. And he told me something interesting. He said, This is a specific friend of mine. He said, oh, wow. Somebody who has to do something difficult that they don't want to do? That sounds like the plot of a lot of good stories. And I was like, wow. Good point. And maybe it's particularly, specifically in that kind of situation that interesting shit happens. It's like we have to have our backs against the wall to really look for Something new deep inside. Maybe that's when real transformation happens. I don't know. That's what I think. And that's what I'm beginning to really believe after this year. Either you close your eyes. You turn away. You shout it down. Either you close it off. You back away. You turn it off. I feel like I've painted the picture of me kind of steaming into this new situation, into a project that is in order of magnitude bigger than anything I've ever done. This is bigger than any one person I realized I had to ask for help. And I want to talk a little bit more about that in a second. But first, I want to talk about the sponsor of this video, which is Headspace. And I don't think there's a more perfect match for this video. then Headspace, whose whole mission is about sharing the power of meditation, which has been one of the most incredibly valuable and important tools for me this year, as I have had to look inwards to stay grounded and to not spiral in my thoughts. It's learning to observe yourself, learning to observe your thoughts, to slow down, to create distance, to be a witness. Because if you just follow and believe everything that happens in your mind, you can go crazy. And meditation is about creating that space. Headspace does it so beautifully with their app. They have an expanding library. You can use it to help you fall asleep at night. You can use it to help you manage your anxiety. I mean, there's a million different applications. If you're interested in checking out Headspace, you can use the link in the description or scan the QR code. on the screen right now to get a 60-day free trial thank you headspace for sponsoring this video so as i was saying this entire experience has been really kind of incredible i mean it's obviously very beautiful out here it's there is a kind of magic to it uh there's space there's quiet i don't know if you can hear it right now the church bells are ringing as i speak do you hear that that's amazing but like There's been this very challenging reality of having to work with contractors and the insane costs of fixing up a very old house like this and confronting myself being out here alone a lot. Like I said, there's been something very valuable about having to ask for help on two levels. I've had to ask for help from the people in my life and so many showed up. It's actually... Stunning. If you watched the last two videos on this channel, you've seen a lot of people have kind of flowed through this house as I was working on the yard and then the studio behind. People can be so generous. It's incredible. And I was moved by that, you know. There are a lot of incredible people in my life. I feel so blessed. And then in dark moments, I think, but also light, I've had to just sort of ask, for help from life, from God, from somewhere, from the universe. Just help me navigate this experience as best as I can. I am doing so many things I don't know how to do. I'm doing so many things that are outside of my comfort zone, outside of my wheelhouse. Help, you know? I feel like I've asked for help on many, many occasions. I guess I'm describing prayer. I have discovered on a whole new level the power of prayer. I'm not a religious person. I'm not Christian, you know. But there's something just super beautiful about the kind of position you have to go to internally. The humility to say, I don't have a fucking clue. I don't know what I'm doing. So you combine this back against the wall. have to look for new ways to do things because I, you know, for so much of my life, I've bulldozed. I've had this huge energy, this huge ability to just make shit happen. It's how I built this channel. It's how I've moved abroad. It's how I've done so many things. And I think that that sort of contributed to a little bit of a, a little bit of a, I mean, an arrogance. Like I can, I can do it. And I think I needed life to, I needed to run into a brick wall, which was this experience. And I needed life to kind of sand me down, sand down some of the hard edges. And you sort of combine that with discovering the power of asking for help, the humility that's required to do that. And that's what's shaped a lot of this year for me, the whole year. Either you close your eyes. You turn away You shout it down or maybe It's when you drown It's when you fall apart That's when it really starts Maybe Maybe that's it Maybe this is just how it goes Maybe you eat shit sometimes Yeah, I don't think that needs to rhyme i was trying to get whatever on so many occasions i wanted to run and run away from this whole experience it did not match the image that i had in my mind but it also ended up becoming basically everything i could have possibly hoped for so i think that's enough reflection for today thank you so much for watching please let me know if you like this format i want to work on becoming a better guitarist and combining more of this kind of reflection, storytelling, and music. If you want to see more, consider subscribing. Consider liking this video because that definitely helps with the algorithms. And I also have a sub stack in my description down below. Have a beautiful day and I'll see you soon.

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