constraint is not a cage

I have a million and one ideas, and I want to pursue them all.

For a polymathic freedom junkie like me, picking something to focus on is difficult because it requires abandoning everything else that I want to do. Currently, I'm in a season of career reinvention, which (obviously) requires picking a path, and so I've been feeling this inner conflict acutely.

But then this morning, I saw this:

Constraint is not a cage.
Ironically, it is the opposite.
Constraint is the choice… that will set your best work free.

- Alexandra Franzen

And, I remembered something I learned long ago, through a little life experiment I called "A Season of Vegan."

The goal was simple: Eat only foods that grow from the earth for three months.

This was way before Foodstagram existed, and was a revolutionary choice in Nebraska, my home at the time. The question I was met with by almost everyone I knew was, "Whatever will you eat?" It was a fair question in a land of beef and corn, but also in general, now that I think about it.

It's easy to conclude that cutting out entire food groups in favor of others might be limiting, and in some ways, it was, because I could no longer default to the dishes I had always eaten. But on the other hand, I quickly realized that the way I'd always eaten was quite limited.

Within the narrower scope of what I could eat, I found a whole new world of ingredients as well as new ways to prepare the dishes I couldn't live without. At the beginning of the experiment, I thought I'd surely have to muscle my way through the three months. Instead, I was so joyfully overcome with cooking creativity that I accidentally stayed vegan for two years.

The thing I'm reminding myself of today is this:

When I refuse to choose, I'm actually working within the most constraining box of all: the world of already-created things. I can only recombine what I already know exists. I stay at 30,000 feet, circling the same familiar territory, seeing only what's been mapped.

But the moment I choose—and really commit—something miraculous happens. I descend. And as I get closer, details emerge that were invisible from altitude. Then I choose again, zooming closer still, and new details appear. It's fractal. Each constraint reveals complexity that didn't exist at the higher level.

This is why vague ideas actually feel so limiting, even though they seem "open." A vague idea like "I should eat healthier" or "I want to write a book", although good starting points, give me nothing to work with, creatively speaking. It's too big, too abstract. I circle it helplessly.

But "only plants for three months" or "a memoir about risk structured around celebrity case studies"? Now I have edges to push against. Now I can see what's actually there. The constraint doesn't shrink my world—it focuses it into resolution.

The polymathic freedom junkie in me sees choosing as closing doors. But what actually happens is the opposite: specificity opens portals into territories I couldn't even see before. I don't lose worlds when I choose. I gain access to the infinite complexity within one.

Here's what I'm realizing just now: The paralysis I've felt in this season of career reinvention hasn't been from having too many ideas; it's been from refusing to pick one and descend. I keep circling at altitude, trying to keep my options open, telling myself I can't figure out what I want to do – when really I'm just staying in the realm of pipedreams where nothing gets made. I've been searching for my purpose, when the truth is, I have to create it.

The vegan experiment taught me that constraint doesn't cage creativity, it targets it. Without those boundaries, I would have kept making the same five comfort meals forever. I would have never discovered the nutty delight of tempe or how decadent a dairy-free alfredo sauce can be.

Choosing my career focus now feels the same. It feels like abandoning everything else. But if the vegan years taught me anything, it's that I'm not abandoning worlds, I'm finally getting close enough to see them.

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