This is Norm

Drafting the Promised Oath of Formless Delight

• Norman Chella • Season 5 • Episode 32

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260110: What if you could sign your creativity into being and make it sacred? 

I'm working on what I call the Promised Oath of Formless Delight—a living contract that turns art into duty, ritual, and shared tenderness. In it, I ask what shifts when we treat the act of making as a vow witnessed by someone we cherish.

I walk through belongs in this oath, that matters to ritual and reverence to articulation and consistency; an “if true” clause that changes the relationship once it’s signed, from access to private letters to conversations with personified characters—logic, warmth, comedy, passion—who can answer your questions in their own tones.

Through this, those I cherish can belong to the world of Eterna, and are offered a seat by the fire. 

The promise is long-term: tenderness in the abyss, courage over metrics, and a steady practice that measures aliveness instead of vanity stats. We close with the ritual of signing: a date, a signature, a few personal words, and a simple sigil. This is how we commit to bravery.

Thanks for listening to the show! You can find out more about it at Eterna Garden, where I collect all my notes, conversations, podcasts, and more.

SPEAKER_00:

10th January 2026. It is currently 12:30 p.m. This is norm. I had a long writing session yesterday while I was waiting for a friend for lunch. I had an hour, an hour and a half to myself. I made some really big breakthroughs. It was pretty interesting. One of the resolutions that I had when 2026 came about, one of them was to send more flowers to people. That's always a given. Flowers add a lot of color into people's lives. And I wanted to continue with that. But the other one is that I wanted to make the draft for an oath, a contract, basically, for my capacity to be a creator on this very earth. I thought that I could write some notes on it, some preliminary bullet point notes that I can begin such that when I am ready to write the contract, I have some foundational stuff that I can like begin the template off of. So to have other pairs of eyes who are interested in my work, that's going to be amazingly important. And two, I feel that by declaring this oath together with someone that I find precious or is also just as hard of a creator as I am, we also are signing into this agreement made tangible that we are going to support each other in any way, shape, or form. So I'll write some initial notes there on the board. Accountability and ritualistic emphasis. I think having the treatment of being a creator to be treated as holy, to be treated as this powerful force, this tradition that spans generations almost. If I were to treat it as such, that would make it more amazing to draft this out, share it with someone, and then both persons reciprocate and understand and comprehend the weight of what they're getting into. So the accountability of turning whether it's content creation for somebody or something else, but to turn that into a duty would be absolutely wonderful. So let's write up some notes. So I'm gonna start off with a few things. So let me just write them out here. What was the purpose of it? And then the actual contractual stuff happens. So you in this case would be who are you in my paracosm? Who are you in my in the realm of my writing? What is who who are you? And when I say that, I mean it in a muse-like way. I mean it in an inspiring way. I mean it in when I intend to give this oath to you, this is how I view the weight of your existence in my writing. Number two is me, myself is in the titles that I proclaim to be in my realm, what kind of a writer I am, um, what I aim to express and articulate with this newfound energy, the translations I'm aiming to do from all the muses that uh gather around us. And three, if true. So if this oath is true, if this oath is activated, if this oath is to be believed between two people, what happens then? So that would mean like, for example, um, you get access to this, you get access to that. Um, all of my characters get to talk to you, you get to request to chat with one particular character, you get to contribute, you get to make suggestions, you get to chime in on what's possible. Number four, benefit. Well, contracts are kind of scary for anybody. If you're signing your name and your sign and what you're aiming to do, etc., onto a piece of paper, you kind of want to know what you're signing into. So, what how does it benefit you? Right? So I would have to outline things like what do you gain from from this, from the conviction that I'm trying to share with you? So I'll probably outline that a little more a lot more here. And five is the promise. So it's something that I'm aiming to do until the end of my days for the rest of my life. And how can you be a part of that? And six is the declaration, is like treating this entire thing as a ritual, treating the seriousness of it. Yes, I'm using older writing methods. Yes, I'm maybe blowing out of proportion this entire thing where I could just not make this oath in the first place and then just start writing, etc. But I want to share the weight of this with you as someone who could potentially receive this oath. I want to give you a promised oath that when I have already done so to myself gives me such profound delight that it is inherently a love language of myself towards you, and I want to share that with you. Hence the decoration. So, yeah, let's start off with some of the notes that I have in here. This is gonna take some time, so let's see how that goes. Okay. Defined a hundred mad. I wrote here a hundred mad mainly because those who are insane enough to follow my path and relish from it. I wrote a hundred there, but that's an arbitrary number. Witness the madness of this vessel as they proclaim with conviction such violent delights, and with an intangibility exists my infinity. The waltz of death, the light, or steps of life. I'll probably have to explain that in greater detail. This is a point for number three to keep you in mind when creating. This is a benefit. Uh shareholder updates. So these are probably like private letters on my health, future goals that are not public, stuff that's gone wrong. You never know. Um, this is something for point number two, which is me speak of velvet, my inner god, trust in instinct, describe the wildfire. What is that that keeps us alive? To be in pursuit of saunder, the subtleties of humanity and people's stories, translator of the muse blessed, the muse blessed, someone who is fluent in the language of articulation, especially even in silent encounters, suddenly creative inspiration strikes, and your muse kisses you atop your head and lets you know something needs to be created. To be a translator of that, I think, is one of the greatest satisfactions that humanity can give you. At least that's what I think. I'll probably write more about that in another time. I was talking with a friend over dinner yesterday, and we were talking about writing, and I didn't mention Muse Blessed. It's wonderful that you look at any language that humanity uses to write and express and speak, and you play around that language, and you find stories, narratives, conciseness, conclusions, fables, whatever it is, because your character in that moment is blessed with a muse that chooses to send you in a specific direction. Blessing you with story. Anyway, back to this. So this is duty. So this is a point for me. Acts of the vessel. So what is this vessel going to do? Servitude to the language you oh not you, your mind is fluent in. This is a benefit, I guess, but it's also for an if true. My characters are free to talk to you. So the different personifications of logic and emotion and creativity, motherly warmth, comedy, passion, curiosity. Yeah. Those are all personified characters. Maybe I can act them out and then talk to you in that way. Maybe you might need that for your own journeys. I'm not too sure. I don't know. Uh my characters to you in gestalt-like ways. So it doesn't have to be one character in isolation, but maybe a group of them at the same time to receive an aliveness kin to rapture, ecstasy, and bliss. I did forget to mention the name of this oath. Should put it up here. The promised oath of formless delight. Why is it called that? You'll find out. To regard your words of love and carry them throughout life. Yeah. Declaration of friendship. Carry your words with love. This need Okay. Uh this is a point for me, although it's also an if true, even in the abyss, I am filled with love. And my vessel with tenderness. Very important word. At least in my vernacular. Um, also to recognize that you indeed are a cherished one. And that means you, the one who may receive the oath. I mean, I love all my friends, etc., but definitely, definitely the ones who who go ahead with this and sign this for me. Anyway, yeah. I'll talk about who gets to sign it in a bit. Uh there's something about articulating your presence as if basking in dawn slash dusk. I think that's just more greater poetic vernacular for heart. Um, what's the word for it? Like regarding you in greater importance. Staying warm and lovely. Uh so we're getting to the ending already for eternity and a seat in the garden of eterna, my world realm under velvet's embrace, and a place for help by the fire. This is essentially saying that I will always be there for you for help and support and love and comfort no matter what. And you will always have a place in my notes and my writing, which means I will always remember you. I think that is pretty much it. We just move this here. You might be able to see it a bit better. So once again, this will be something along the lines of a promised oath of formless delight. Firstly, a letter to the person to thank them for being in my life. And then I wanted to share with them a letter of eternal gratitude, and the way that I'm willing to do that is through this oath. The purpose of this oath is accountability and ritualistic emphasis, or probably more details about the purpose or the power of rituals in that sense, and how that imprints itself into our lives. To have initial notions about who would be so cherished as to become part of one's immortal oath. I initially had the note of the hundred mad, but maybe I might take that out. Actually, it might not be part of this oath. Uh, this might be the public, what do you call that? Like the public group name or community for the world to see, but then those who sign are of a different group, maybe a lot more exclusive, maybe a lot more powerful, a lot more close. I'll put the reward thing in later. Their purpose in my oath is to be cherished, their presence articulated. They bear witness to the madness of this vessel, this vessel being me, because as they witness it, they can see that I can proclaim violent delights, creations of many different kinds, many different edges, and spectrums and levels of insanity, for intangibility and everything in the imaginary realm exists an infinite definition of my own to bring into the human senses what I believe must be witnessed by the rest of humanity, and you, as the signer of this oath, give me power to do that. In doing so, if true, you and I enter a waltz of both death, where we listen to the rhythm of time and dance the steps of life and light, where I will carry your words with love, I will keep your mu keep you in mind, sorry, when creating, and my characters become available to you in gestalt-like ways, because maybe when you reach out, you don't want to talk to Norm, you want to talk to a character that I've created. Instead, how would they respond if they'll hear a question that you might have? That might be something that you're curious about. That even in the abyss or such bad days that I might possess, I'm still filled with love, and my vessel is filled with tenderness, because even in the abyss, even in my darkest days, knowing that you have made the oath with me means that I'm not alone. Knowing that I'm not alone means um that I have proof that you've never given up on me. Yeah. Cherished, I think I wrote that. Well, carry your words of love. Cherished, I guess I can mix both. Articulating your presence as per dawn and dusk. So all of this gives me power and meaning. So the benefit for you would be maybe you get private letters, maybe you get um physical letters, maybe a handwritten one. I'm not too sure. I could do, I could figure out uh something like that. But maybe if this gets blown out of proportion, it'll be a bit difficult to do physical ones. I don't know. We'll see. Shareholder updates, maybe like private letters. Um, specific notes that are too private, maybe they might concern the names of people or events that are too much for the public eye. To receive from my inn an enliveness akin to rapture, ecstasy, and bliss. By signing into this with me, you give me permission to be eternally happy with you. And I hope that that happiness that comes from me, a an abundance of love, lights you up as well. So that's a benefit for you. Aha. Plus points. A seat in eterna. Eterna being the realm of my writing, my writing world, my imaginary realm, and a place by the fire where if you need to escape to a cozy getaway, even if it's in conversation, there's a place for you here. Yeah. That's a lot of notes for just the first four points. Which I guess leads to number five being like maybe the time span of things, maybe it's a declaration of the promises for all of these points to be held up. And then a declaration that, you know, from now on, as soon as this is propped up, as soon as this is signed, I treat my connection with you like something akin to faith. When I talk with you, it would be the feeling, it would be the same feeling of going to church. It would be the same feeling of finding God. I find God through you. I seek Velvet's embrace through my compassion found mutually between the two of us for those who have given me or signed the promised oath of formless delight. The delight then comes from both ways, you and me. So the promise then is happiness, is bliss, is to dance all the time. And I guess the declaration is like the signing part will be like, you know, name, date, sign, and then maybe an extra box that says like what are some other words that you want to put in here that mean a lot. And then to end the note with the usual phrasing. To stay warm, to stay lovely, and I will always be thinking of you. For eternity. Norman. But then Norman is just a vessel, so I will put N. The actual character here is NT Clover. I hope you can see that. Can you see that? Which is my writing name. But I feel like a change in persona feels a lot more comforting to me. So yeah. This is already a lot for a very intangible, vague declaration, and I think that's fine. I didn't want it the I didn't want the contract to be like, yeah, sign this, and then at the end of the year, I will have made 100 blog posts and two books and three speech.

unknown:

No.

SPEAKER_00:

No. The metric I want to measure is the depth of meaning, not actionable metrics. I understand the advantage of actionable metrics. But I think I can do that on myself. That's that's fine. I can track that on my own. I can have a timeline of things that I want to do. But this oath is for motivation, it's for encouragement. And actually, this oath is for one of the forms of delight, even if I wrote here formless, is bravery. You give me permission to be brave. Brave enough to chase after my delights. That's the point of this. I seek the light in all of its forms through my connection with you. So who was cherished enough to receive this? I can already think of a few people. I mean, maybe like ten. Those who know me well enough that they know that my imagination spans this much and more. That they won't disregard it and be like, what the hell are you talking about, dude? This is not a this isn't a meme, it's not funny. It has to be someone that I have become so vulnerable with. It's akin to adoration. I would rather make promises with those that I adore and those that I cherish. So, yeah, that's the first draft of the oath. I will have to write it sometime, but we shall see how it looks like in the future. Maybe I have to sketch it. Oh yes, that reminds me. I forgot about sketching my symbol, my sigil, which is an open ampersand. Lovely. Alright. Now we'll leave no explanation to that. It's like noon, and I'm this doing this insane random brainstorming session talking to myself in a room by myself, uh, with my hair all messed up and messy, and I put like treatment on it because we have an event later, and I'm like in a mess, I don't look the best, but I feel the happiest that can be today, right now. So it's lovely. Thanks so much for watching. I hope you enjoy it. Maybe I can live stream this soon. These ramblings of mine. It is inherently part of my body of work. But I'll make it a lot more narrow-minded, or narrow in terms of theming and topics. Because maybe instead of something as vague and esoteric as this, I could start doing drafting for fables and stories and posts and research, etc. So we'll see. Thank you. Bye.