Week 10: Spirituality, Podcasting, and The Main Thing

Welcome to my newsletter, where I share weekly wisdom on artistry, awareness, and digital autonomy. If you want to check out my essays/long-form writing, feel free to click the link here. Thanks for reading. Also started posting on Instagram again, so you can check it out here :).

Personal Updates

Greetings from college. I remember 2 years ago, I had a call with a friend who was starting his first year at university. I told him, “It’s almost as if you swapped lives with someone else. One day, you’re living this life back home. The next day, you’re x miles away living a completely different life.” I suppose that’s how I feel right now: disoriented. It’s such a common experience now, and it usually takes a few days to get adjusted.

Before I headed out to college, though, I recorded 3 podcast episodes in 2 days. While the last 2 aren’t published yet, my episode with Danny Miranda has. This was a very special one because he was one of the biggest inspirations that led me to start this podcast back in April 2024. Now, it feels like everything has come full circle. The best part? This is just the beginning. More conversations to be had.

Learnings

1: The Presence of God

After going through existential moments a year prior, my values have shifted quite a bit. As I continue the never-ending journey of finding the light (aka God), spirituality has started emerging as a way to connect reality with the divine. According to Wayne Dyer, when people feel ‘visited by a force that they always have been connected to but they’re now listening to for the first time…’ their values change:

As I experience the wonder and appreciation I have for this life, I continually ask myself: “Is this wonder a spiritual wonder or is it simply a wonder configured by the firing of neurons in my mind?” Perhaps it’s the former. We all want to feel unconditional love, peace, and joy. This presents the question: where does love come from? I don’t think the concept of love can be explained by science; instead, it can only be experienced.

2: The Benefits Of Starting a Podcast

Okay, I may be slightly biased here, but I think starting a podcast is one of the highest ROI activities you can do when you’re young and beginning your journey of lifelong learning and adventure. My friend Tyger Cho, who’s also a fellow podcaster, posted this clip from John Vervaeke on the importance of talking to others. The thing is: clear thinking comes from dialogue, not necessarily playing thoughts in your own head.

There are so many returns you get from starting a podcast. Some benefits off the top of my head: you become a better speaker, communicator, listener, empathizer, thinker, facilitator, note-taker, and researcher. That’s the hard skills. In addition, you get to connect with people you otherwise wouldn’t have. A lot of friends I’ve made on the Internet came from the podcast, and it’s only been 5 months.

3: Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

I can’t tell you how many times I fell into this trap. This quote is so brilliantly simple, yet when it comes to focusing on the most important thing, we often fail to do so. Why? We create shadow activities, lying to ourselves that those activities could substitute for the most important thing. But while we may make progress on these “substitute activities,” we end up making zero or little progress on what truly matters.

As I reflect on my summer, I did a lot of things: I ran my first marathon, started this weekly newsletter/wrote essays, recorded 11 podcast episodes, applied to a study abroad program, etc. But while those things were genuinely really fun and 9/10 activities, I failed to keep the most important thing the most important thing: my number 1 mission in life. What is that mission?

To create music films, to tell stories about the human experience around the world. While I did premiere my 2nd music film Homecoming back at the end of June (hit 1k views a few days ago :), I took a 2 month break after the premiere. I got back to it a few weeks before college started, working on season 3, but I failed to keep that as the main priority. The last quarter of 2024? You know what I’ll be cooking.

So, for the next 10 or so weeks, I’ll be working on season 3, this time to the beautiful city of Vancouver, Canada. I’m giving myself the deadline of Christmas to premiere the film, so there’s a lot to be done. This will be the first music film not set in Asia, so it’s going to be a special one. Oh yeah, and it’s going to be Christmas-themed. Will continue to post updates. Stay tuned.

Conclusion

I journaled this on an international flight back to the U.S. I revisited this journal entry a week ago, and was like: “Damn, this little bro speaking TRUTH.” Here it is:

Have an awesome week,

Jeston Lu