Lightward

Abe and Isaac

5.0 (1)
SELF-IMPROVEMENT

How we live, grow, do business. This is what we know. :)

09/04/2020

Direction, Home, and Lightward

Pulled from our newsletter: abeandisaac.com/newsletter. :)

3 min
04/26/2020

The wander and the arc.

Miyazaki's movies leave me peaceful, and complete as I am. Their plots wander a bit, bringing in characters in turn that are not present at the conclusion. There isn't much of a conclusion, much of the time. The viewer's perspective takes a pause, takes in a scene, before moving on to the next beautiful thing. There are elements of tension and resolve, but they aren't the purpose of the thing, and their shape is different than the whole: we wander through a story, and it's okay to forget what happened long ago. We may remember earlier details, for a pleasing moment of time-space symmetry, a harkening back, but they aren't critical. It is life, as it is, without aggrandizement or the illusion of finality. The society I know leans hard toward the arc. The rise, the crest, the fall. The same four chords. I think the arc is a drug. Like sugar, it is food for a primal need, and we have not yet learned to push back from the table of modern abundance. Life is both, of course. Effort is followed by repose; the conservation of energy means we see arcs manifest naturally, constantly, inexorably. But in total, they are a wandering. Life goes where it will. It unfolds, and vacuums are filled and pressure is released and the part of our mind-body that knows that pattern latches onto these tiny arcs, finds satisfaction in closure. The wandering, though – I think that is the purview of the consciousness. This progression does not end, or culminate, or conclude. We grow, we evolve, we turn ourselves here and experience this, then go there to find that. Is there a grand design, a plot with satisfaction and a freeze frame high five? No: these are punctuation marks in a never-ending story. It does not matter when you tune in, or when you tune out. The story continues, changes, introduces and re-introduces, and abandons. It wanders. I mention the society I know, because I think that base primes us to find true refreshment in this kind of wandering peace. It's why Kiki's Delivery Service is such a balm. If all we knew was that kind of time-less progression, I think encountering an arc would be equally as attractive – the kind of attraction that you know is for you, but you're so without experience that you're unsure how to step into it, how to approach it, to ask for a dance. I think this may be why people respond to my music, and why I've never felt inclined to give it broad structure. Its structure is deep, takes the other axis instead – meta-patterns, handing the thread off to each other in turn, with no verse, chorus, or bridge. It's centering, because it isn't setting you up for a finish the way every other song you heard today has done. Tea in the sun, alone on a quiet patio. A walk in the woods, finding and losing the trail, then finding another. Realizing that what was so important to you a decade past no longer has purchase on your heart. Pouring fire on your white-hot inspiration, and taking to the workbench whatever remains, when it has cooled. More tea. Both are good, the instant and the era. Lose any addiction to either. Partake in all, for all is yours, and no one knows where you will go.

4 min
03/21/2020

Lightward's pricing policy: Pay what feels good

Pay what feels good. (2020-03-20) A note, in light of COVID-19: This has been our official pricing policy since January 2020. It took us a while to distill what we know/feel down to this specific policy; but, this is the heart of how we've operated from the beginning, and it's how we handle pricing for all of our offerings (see lightward.com). While this way of doing business has proved integral for many of our existing customers, it's all the more important as the world finds its way forward. Our top priority is to create health for ourselves, and to give you the best tools we can for creating health for you. (We interpret “health” broadly: healthy transactions created in healthy business can enable health in a million other areas.) We believe (a) that the financial side of this is as important to get right as the functional side, and (b) that the best way to guarantee healthy financial movement is through clear and invitingly open conversation. In practice, here's what that means: When you do business with us, we suggest a price based on what we know about you. If the price feels good to you, you pay it – no further conversation needed. If the price we suggest doesn't feel good, you tell us what price does feel good to you. This is important: the price we suggested was based on the best knowledge we had, but we're not claiming to know your entire story. In this part of the conversation, we rely on you to improve our knowledge of what's right for you, by asking you specifically what price you'll feel good paying. Our turn! If we can meet you at that number, we will, and we all proceed. If we can't, then we'll talk about that too – it'll be our turn to execute step 3. A note about “what feels good”: when talking about numbers, it’s that sweet spot where you feel you’re appropriately investing in something. Only you know what that number is for you, where you’re neither straining yourself to afford the thing, nor paying a number that represents undervaluing what you receive. If that gives you pause, it’s okay. Take a minute and feel it out. :) That's the entire policy. We apply this everywhere, in both our off-the-shelf-ish offerings, and our more involved engagements. --- Why? Because we’re here to catch hands with you and make something. It’s only secondarily about money. Because we don’t believe in having to watch your back when focused on your work. If your financial circumstances change out from under you, we’re the last thing you have to think about. Because a stable relationship is made of the mutual trust that we will both show up again tomorrow, even if we need to ask something different of each other when tomorrow comes. We’re here to make something real, not make a castle out of contracts. Ultimately, it’s because we recognize that numbers are a clumsy-at-best proxy for value. Especially with software. Who knows what any of this is worth, you know? For us, numbers only make sense in terms of specific relationship, and that value can only be discovered in conversation. It should be said that not everyone will opt in to this conversation. That’s okay. We’ll never, ever force a conversation. That’s not a relationship either. Everyone is free to accept our suggested price immediately, or to walk away. Because we begin with a variable price suggestion, based on what we can see about the specific customer at hand, we make more from those non-conversations than we would if we offered everyone a single low flat rate. (We used to do that.) We feel ethically clear about this because of the transparent invitation to talk pricing. If the suggested offer works for you, great! We’ve made that offer from a place of self-respect for ourselves and our own value. If it doesn’t, great! We made that offer while only knowing the barest details about you. Tell us what feels good to you instead. And when you tell us, we do require that you tell. us. Like, in an email, addressed to us, signed by you. We don’t give you a text box inside the app that automatically grants us whatever price you type in. There are two reasons for this. First: we get a say, too. This conversation is about respect and acceptance for both of us, and we won’t enter into any situation in which we feel actively devalued. It’s not worth it. Second: this is about human relationship, and a text box is not a person. A text box is for “pay what you want”. But we’re talking “what feels good” instead, and because that is highly dependent on the relationship context, you have to talk to us about it. You have to participate in the relationship. It’s easy to type a one into a text box and hit enter. It’s less easy to make direct, one-to-one contact with someone, and behave disingenuously in that context. We’re showing up honestly and openly, and we very directly ask the same of you, too. --- We have this theory, this feeling, that an economy made of this kind of arrangement would Just Work. We think it would result in balance, and peace. We can’t prove that, and we recognize that we’re speaking from our specific corner of the world. But still, this feels right. This is the kind of business we want to run. This is the kind of business we want to do business with. This is the kind of world we want to live in. Dear friends: it works really, really well.

5 min
03/02/2020

Positivity is a direction. Your body holds the momentum.

Positivity is a direction, not a feeling, and *that* is why it's always available. We experience the now, right? That's the space we inhabit here. And if we're drawing this out on paper, the now is a single point, and we get to decide which direction the line of our life passes through it. This is why gratitude is so damn important. If you can look back at the moment just behind you, and see how it builds you *up* to your current moment, you've just drawn an upward line, passing through those two points. And *now*, you've got momentum - it's easier to keep drawing that line in the direction you've established. Here's a neat thing: your energetic momentum is stored IN YOUR BODY. They're listening, these bodies of ours. With each moment that the line of my positivity is held, my body slowly absorbs and then reflects *back* to me that energy. When I've forgotten my positivity in a moment, I can look to my body for encouragement. He changes more slowly than my mind, and I easily find currents of positivity running through him – he grows, he heals, he develops and learns, he feels joy in movement, and he can easily, easily, easily remind me of what I've forgotten. The reverse is also possible, and true: if I choose negativity, my body hears that, too. I've experienced this. Once your body has heard sadness and despair and worry and snark for long enough, you'll start having that reflected back to you from your very physicality. It's still fully possible to recover, to come back from that place (so long as it's alive, your body has positivity to offer you), but don't make it harder for yourself. Take it from someone who's been there. This is the nature of momentum: easier to build than to change. And yet (bringing back home here): everything is possible. Positivity is a direction. Begin there. Begin again tomorrow. Let each point of beginning be higher than before, drawing your line upward. Show your body that you're here for the positivity it was made for. Share that intent, and let it hold your momentum as you move. Use everything available to you as you climb. You have everything you need.

2 min

4 Episodes

How we live, grow, do business. This is what we know. :)

Creator

Abe and Isaac
Years Active

2K
Episodes

4
Rating

Clean
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© Lightward Inc
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