Hello Dear Reader, (3) Dear Friends, Colleagues, Strangers, (2)

This is Ben writing to you at this moment in time and space. (3) I hope you're feeling rested and that you're standing, sitting, or lying in a comfortable manner. (2)

I'm writing this on the 5th of October and it looks sunny outside. I'm on a train somewhere between Plymouth and Totnes, travelling back from Cornwall. Kirsten is sitting next to me and we just went into a tunnel. This newsletter is made up of fragments from my multiple (4) attempts to write it. This is the fourth (and final!) time I'm starting again. You can tell it's the fourth time because there is a number 4 at the end of the sentence. (4)

I'm writing this newsletter for the third time. I told myself this morning that I would write as I walk between Lizard Point and my parent's house. Attempt number three will be written in motion. (3)

Waves hit Lizard Point from three different directions: east, south and west. It's an unusual sight to see at sea. When I stand on the point, I try to think about all the different waves that have broken here and then realise I can't because I am a small human being without that kind of capacity for imagination. It's currently low tide and the waves are breaking onto the reef. (3)

Last night, I was watching an interview with a surfer I follow on Instagram called Mike Lay. He said that "the nature of surfing is to start again". I've been reading a lot of things about surfing recently in an attempt to rekindle energy for it and to not forget how good it makes me feel. I bought Acid Magazine and started a subscription to The Surfers Journal and now my algorithms feed me the content and I lap it up like a puppy. (2)

I didn't really know what to write this newsletter about so I spent this morning reading through our old ones. I thought that by revisiting our dispatches from the past, it might help me formulate some thoughts I've been having about the present and the future. It didn't help me find my angle but it did reveal to me that this newsletter is almost two years old. On Wednesday the 20th of October at 12:25, I sent out a newsletter called "October Bulletin". I wrote that newsletter whilst riding on a train and I think that movement gave motion to my thoughts and feelings. (2)

About 500 metres out to sea from Lizard Point, there is a rock formation on which the waves are breaking. This rock is called the Man O'War and someone once told me that it's 500 million years old. They also said it comes from the African continent. I don't really know what that means but when I see that rock out there and think of these two facts I feel at peace. (3)

A woman we met this morning told us that she had been learning about the geology of The Lizard and how it had been formed through the collision of two continental plates and how happy she was that she wasn't around when it happened. (3)

Recently at XP, we had a three-and-a-half-hour long meeting where the majority of the meet was given to a discussion of commitment, accountability and communication.  (1) When the things we do separately come together under one roof, the internal thoughts we have about what we do also come together in ways that can complement or contrast one another. During these moments when internal thoughts meet one another, like during this meeting, I find myself entering into a state of quiet where I don't really think in sentences anymore. When someone says something, I find myself trying to make sense of it, ingesting it, and letting it have an effect over me. We went climbing in the street afterwards. (3)