Restlessness is not a flaw. It is the signal that something inside you demands change. The letters of 54 explore that discomfort that precedes every transformation.
From Letter 01 — Here we go again
It was "the beginning" that was the drug. That feeling of newness and magic of being able to be or go anywhere you want. An evolution that I still didn't understand the exit signal, the escape.
These letters are born for those who still believe. For those who despite everything are sure it's possible. For all those who keep searching, door after door.
For those who know life can be hard, difficult, but despite everything are still here. Under a wonderful sky made of possibilities waiting to be seized.
From Letter 02 — Choosing who to be
But it wasn't true. I hadn't chosen any of it. I had only inherited it, piece by piece, without ever stopping to ask: do I still need this? Does it make me better? Does it take me where I want to go?
From Letter 03 — The price no one wants to pay
And this is biology. The body is programmed to save energy and push away pain. In winter blood moves away from hands and feet and flows toward the heart. If you lose your hands you still live, if you lose your heart you don't. It's the same mechanism that keeps you on the couch when you should get your ass up.
My brain was screaming: stay. It's easier. You have a secure salary. You'll build your thing calmly, in your free time.
From Letter 04 — Week 4 of 54 — Happiness is a habit
And every time I got there, happiness lasted three days. Then the emptiness returned. Then the hunger returned. Then that feeling in your chest returned, telling you "it's not enough, it's still not enough."
Doctors won't make you happier. Nutritionists won't make you thinner. Teachers won't make you smarter. Gurus won't make you calmer. Mentors won't make you richer. Personal trainers won't make you fitter.
From Letter 06 — Week 6 of 54 — Monkey mind
I call it, for as long as I can remember, restlessness.
August 3, 2021 — "Why is there this sense of restlessness inside me? Why do I keep looking for something I don't even know?"
This is monkey mind's real game. Keeping you agitated on the surface, so you never go down to see who's underneath.
From Letter 07 — Week 7 of 54 — The art of defining your boundaries
They had decided what they were. I was still choosing.
From Letter 08 — Week 8 of 54 — Those who don't come down from the mountain
Because in all these years I've also seen people like those in the village — physically still, intellectually still, existentially still — and inside them there was another restlessness, identical to mine, except they didn't have a means to express it, or maybe they had just found a vice to suppress it.
The only thing I really understood, in those ten minutes, is that my brain doesn't know how to stay still.
So it's natural that they're still, it's a choice they never had to make, they don't even know they can make it.
From Letter 09 — Week 8 of 54 — Those Who Don't Come Down from the Mountain
Because in all these years I've also seen people like those in the village — physically still, intellectually still, existentially still — and inside them was another restlessness, identical to mine, except they didn't have a way to express it, or maybe they had just found a vice to suppress it.
The only thing I really understood, in those ten minutes, is that my brain doesn't know how to stay still.
So it's natural that they're still, it's a choice they've never had to make, they don't even know they can make it.
From Letter 10 — Week 9 of 54 — The music we keep inside
But — and here I finally get to the only thing that keeps me attached to this letter — it can still be done.
It can still be done, starting from where you are now, reading this thing, with coffee that's gone cold and a day that's already half over.
From Letter 11 — Week 10 of 54 — The Man on the Roof
A whole month. Not four days, not a week, not "passing through and then we'll see." A month still in the same place, with the same door I open in the morning, the same corner café, the same sound coming through the window at seven.
For the first half hour he's alone, him and the cold. Then the others arrive, but meanwhile he's already started: the blows on the iron rise up to my window while the city, behind him, wakes up calmly.
I don't know if he goes home in the evening and hugs his children. I don't know if he laughs at dinner, if he sleeps all night without noise in his head. Maybe he's ten thousand times happier than me — than me who's been moving for years and can't find a minute to stop, who looks at him from above and calls him blind while I'm the one who, from this window, can't see shit except the next goal to conquer.
From Letter 12 — Week 11 of 54 — The traffic light
I did it everywhere. I had the decision already in my pocket — clear, right, mine — and I stood still waiting for someone else to make it first.
And then, at the bottom, a line thrown there like a promise. I still find it, with the same date:
It was one of those promises you write at night, with the conviction of finally having understood yourself, and the next day you're back there, on the edge of the same sidewalk, waiting for the guy with the earbuds. It was written by someone who still didn't know how to cross alone. Someone who gave himself courage on paper because he couldn't find the courage in the street.
From Letter 13 — Week 12 of 54 — Head on the Pillow
That night, the concept that got under my skin was the answer to a question I'd left you with a few weeks ago — one I'd been keeping in my pocket. I'll ask it again, so you don't have to remember it: is it right to settle, or do you always have to raise the bar?