I don’t know what I’m doing (but I’m making progress)
An outtake and afterthought from my conversation with Timm Chiusano
Welcome to Human Pursuits, the column that features need-to-know names and stories in media and other creative spaces. Today, an outtake from my conversation with Timm Chiusano – and an afterthought on early mornings.
Read part 1 of our conversation HERE.
Outtake
ES: One thing I find inspiring about you is that you tend to conquer your mornings. We’re speaking at about 10:15 AM your time. How’s the morning been so far?
TC: Pretty good. It’s pouring rain but I still managed to get a run in. I published a piece of content on LinkedIn. When we’re done talking, I’ve got a couple of different voice-over ideas that I can knock out. I made my kid French toast and took her to school. I’m ahead of any specific brand deadlines I have.
ES: That’s not bad!
TC: Plus I just had someone from The Real Real come by my house and take away 3 or 4 gigantic bags of clothing as part of my closet purge. So it’s all relative. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I’m making progress.
Afterthought
There’s a scene Timm includes in most of his TikToks that I think about a lot. It’s him, sitting on his couch, entirely in the dark, his face illuminated by the blue glow of a laptop screen. He wakes up at an ungodly hour — 5 A.M., sometimes earlier — to work before going for a run.
He does this almost every day. Before he responsibly fired himself, he would do the same routine, and then commute to midtown Manhattan for a full day at the office.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
I respect the hustle. But I’ve always thought there was something a bit lonely about this recurring moment. About seeing him rise before the sun to grind it out for an hour or two when he could just as easily stay in bed. What possesses a person to do such a thing?
I ask because my own routine looks increasingly similar.
People sometimes wonder how I’ve managed to publish this newsletter so frequently. The truth is that I also wake up several hours before my real job to write, edit, and transcribe it. I enjoy the process, but I know it’s unusual. That on some level, it is making my life more complicated. Like Timm, I don’t know always know what the fuck I’m doing, but it feels like I’m making progress.
I keep going, in part because of videos like Timm’s. It’s easier to wake up and get working when you know someone else is doing the same thing. We’re different people, living with similar compulsions. It gets lonely if I think about it too hard, but it’s inspiring in the moment.