Yesterday, I read a tweet that said: “Go into monk mode with these 10 books:”
Monk mode? I had never heard of that term before, but it got me excited. Books on meditation, spirituality, and truth - oh boy!
As I read the tweet, however, I realized the 10 books were actually popular Silicon-Valley startup-scaling venture-capital books like Peter Thiel’s “Zero to One” and Ben Horowitz’s “The Hard Thing About Hard Things”.
The fk kind of monk mode is this? Being a hardcore capitalist startup builder is the opposite of being a monk.
As I read the tweet replies for context, however, I saw that monk mode is when someone temporarily eliminates distractions from their life in order to fully focus on something. Presumably in this context the author is recommending books that will inspire someone to go heads down building a startup.
In one of the replies was a quote that instantly resonated with me:
Solitude.
That’s where I’m at right now. I’m writing this essay on a Saturday night in Guadalajara, Mexico, where I’m currently based for at least a couple of months. I chose Guadalajara as a city off the global-beaten-path in order to avoid distractions from modern society and social pressures. I know people here, but am deliberately laying low to be 100% focused on what I came here to do: learn software development, build a startup idea, and write more essays.
The prior month, I was in Mexico City, previously one of my reliable and favorite cities to visit for transitionary stages of my life. But this year, I’ve noticed it’s not a great city for being productive. There’s too many parties, too many beautiful green parks, too many acquaintances and friends, too many places to visit on the weekend. There’s too many distractions. I feel too much social pressure. Thankfully, Guadalajara is much more boring, without compromising on the urban amenities I need to minimize mental effort expenditure on daily existence.
Monk mode. That describes my current state perfectly.
Is monk mode sustainable?
It certainly feels wrong that I’m not actively participating in society. I skipped a friend’s wedding this weekend, which doesn’t feel great. I’m also not picking up the phone and calling my friends, which brings me guilt.
But solitude also feels good right now. It’s what I need in this phase of my life as I grapple with changes in my personal philosophy and perspective on life and work.
Beyond the niche community of technology moonbois on Twitter, reputed new-age trauma psychologist Dr. Nicole LePera (@the.holistic.psychologist) writes about
“the cocoon stage of healing… that pull to disappear, be alone, and spend time actually getting to know who you are… needing to disconnect… and to spend time learning or growing.
In the cocoon stage, we might wonder ‘what’s wrong’ with us. Or why we feel the way we do… when we emerge from the cocoon stage, we’re not the same person. We see the world differently… disconnection is the first step in connecting to your true, authentic self.”
A related thought I’ve been pondering is how much human interaction we really need to lead happy lives. It’s commonly accepted that humans are a social species. But counterexamples abound: reclusive monks in the mountains of Asia; South American curandero healers living deep in the Amazon rainforest, etc.
Humans have physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs. The first two can be fulfilled without social interactions, and I believe monk mode can meet the last two. I’ve experienced this myself, at least for temporary periods of a couple months.
So, what does monk mode practically look like?
Here’s my daily schedule in Guadalajara:
08:30 - wake up
08:45 - meditation (Vipassana)
09:00 - go to co-working spot and start working
11:30 - lunch*
11:45 - back to work
18:00 - go for a run and bodyweight workout at the park
19:00 - dinner*
20:00 - shower
20:30 - read or work
23:00 - meditation
23:30 - lights out
* I’ll eat 50% of my meals at a street stand within 1-3 blocks distance of my co-working space / accommodation in order to save time and money, and reduce my mental effort spent on choice. Plus I love street tacos. The other 50% of my meals are at sit-down restaurants or cafes.
On weekends, I’ll give myself a few hours to explore the city or hike the local forests and mountains, but will make sure to also get in a few hours of productive work.
Upon further reflection, I realized that I’ve previously retreat into monk modes before. A consistent theme across my monk modes is that they happen during major life transitions and that I’ve remembered them as some of the most calm and healing periods of my life.
Istanbul
I was based in Istanbul for two months in 2020, early on in the pandemic. I worked 10-12 hours per day and socialized with friends in-person only 4 times in those two months.
I had the most consistent daily routine I’ve ever had, including cooking the exact same food almost every day (for lunch: peach/cucumber/cherry tomato salad + baked chicken tenders; for dinner: spaghetti with homemade marinara and meatballs from the most amazing ground beef from a local boutique butcher), and making daily trips to the shores of the Bosphorus river at 6:00pm, where I would sit and just take in the most enchanting urban sunsets in the world, with a curiously harmonious cacophony of ezans blaring from mosques in the background.
I lived a 5-minute walk from the Bosphorus. Looking back, I was so fortunate. I was content.
During those two months of monk mode, I transitioned professionally from corporate environments into a seed-stage startup. I learned about Indonesian culture, picked up the language, and built personal and professional relationships over Zoom. I left the pandemic-crippled West behind and saw the world for what it was in a place that doesn’t care about thes ame things. I emerged from my two months in Istanbul calmer and excited for my life ahead.
At the time, I had just started my Twitter account, and had tweeted this (now deleted):
I just re-discovered these tweets last week while digging through my Google Photos. It’s validating to know that back then, I felt the same “wrong-ness” about pulling away from friends and society, but that it all turned out okay in the end.
It’s worth noting that during this monk mode, I was spending a lot of time socializing with my Indonesian co-workers over video calls. Sometimes we would chat until midnight Turkey time / 4am East Java time. I would hear their mosques blasting the morning adzan.
Lima and Berlin
Earlier this week, someone told me they were visiting Berlin soon and asked me for recommendations. Even though I had spent a month living there, I realized I didn’t have much to share about the city. That’s when it occured to me that I had actually gone into monk mode while there.
More specifically, it was part of an extended monk period, starting with 3 weeks in Lima and 1 month in Berlin, offset by a few weeks of not-very-monk mode traveling with friends in New York, Medellín, Egypt, and Mérida. In Berlin, I was technically living with a friend, but we were kind of both co-existing in monk mode simultaneously.
This period of my life helped me transition professionally from web2 to web3, and from being heads-down in Indonesia back to the broader world.
In Lima, I spent 10 hours a day grinding on job interviews and catching up on global startup developments. I took period breaks only to cook and go running outdoors. Lima’s endless path along the Pacific Ocean is truly special and one that I haven’t found in any other major city in the world. It was while in Lima that I also bought my first NFT.
In Berlin, I went into a self-guided crash course in NFTs, cryptocurrency, and web3. Every day, I would trade, read, analyze, and learn everything I could. I would wake up at 6:00am to do some work in Indonesia, and then spend the rest of the day on Twitter, Discord, and OpenSea. It was a deep grind that continued after Berlin. So many people helped me learn web3; I don’t keep in touch with all of them now, but I’m eternally grateful.
Thanks to my heads-down focus in Berlin, I went from being a complete web3 n00b to landing quarter-million-dollar job offers from the most blue-chip companies in the industry. That was a productive monk mode and it shifted the course of my life.
Monk mode is an interesting concept, and I think it’s interesting that I “discovered” and utilized it organically. This time, however, unlike previous monk periods, I am unsure what exactly is next for me. Do I pursue entrepreneurship full time? Do I go back to having a full-time job? Where should I live next, after Guadalajara?
As confused as I am about the path forward, I am sure the answers will reveal themselves to me in due time. All I can do is trust the process.