ISSUE 04: NOSTALGIA • OCTOBER, 2026
Finding Beauty in Disappointment
When did relentless progress become the norm?
Happy Autumn, {{first_name | friend}} –
Here in the Midwest, we’ve officially entered cozy sweater season. The weather, the colors, the light, the sounds, and the world around us is changing. Thing don’t just look different, they feel different.
If you’ve never experienced this season, it’s a unique energy to take in, embrace, and interpret. That first 45ºF morning, planting your bare feet in the cold, damn ground, is both invigorating and concerning. The season doesn’t scream like the sweltering heat of summer or the callous of winer. It enters with a subtle – but strong, sustained – sense of heightened emotional awareness.
It makes sense. The holidays are just around the bend, remembrances surrounds us in the form of trick-or-treaters, homemade baked goods, warm spices, familiar songs, and thick textiles to keep us warm and fuzzy during the months ahead.
Autumn makes change not just visible, but visceral.
The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, 2007
So, why the topic of disappointment? Because change around us invites permission to acknowledge changes in ourselves, too – especially entering a time of year riddled with expectations.
As a society, many of us have become so obsessed with moving forward we've started to see disappointment as something to get through as quickly as possible.
A missed opportunity becomes a lesson learned. A breakup becomes a chance to reinvent ourselves. Grief becomes an endeavor for closure. Even the worst things that happen to us are expected to leave us with something useful.
But maybe not everything needs to become something…
That doesn’t mean we should unnecessarily lament, or wallow, or give up. But, hell… we all need a good cry every once in a while, or even just a simple moment of understanding that things aren’t necessarily where we want them to be. It give us a sense of not just how we are in life, but where we are in life.
In Japanese, there’s a term: mono no aware. It translates to the “transience” of things. Representing an understanding of a gentleness – sometime, bittersweet sadness – or wistfulness when observing that all things must pass, fade, or end. I, personally, love the sentiment.
If we neither witness nor embrace the decay of what’s around us, how can we honestly interpret growth?
Fall Loop, gif by @LivingStills
Maybe disappointment isn't getting in the way of progress. Instead, disappointment is simply a component of it. Making it something worth sitting with for a little longer than we allow ourselves to.
Every autumn, we celebrate the beauty of things coming to an end. We drive for hours to admire trees losing their leaves, and call it beautiful.
So when it comes to the things in our own lives falling away – or even, simply, never happening – I hope we’re reminded to find a little more comfort with the idea of disappointment. To not try and replace it. Or fix it. Or feel the need to find attach some bigget meaning in it.
That is, not until we've give ourselves the chance to feel it – letting it fall from the tree and ride the wind only to settle on the cool, damp ground. Whether we pick it up, or walk away… that’s for us to decide.
Stuff for Doing Nothing
Nothing Vibe
of The Week
Portrait of Mark Rothko in his Studio (1964), by Hans Namuth
~ See Ya Soon ~
✌🏽🍂
