Things I happened to them
Not a technical post; it’s a conversation with reality, philosophy with a hint of poetry. If you find yourself not connected by the third line, please know it might not be for you now. On a separate note, I have tried to keep it real. I have finite words, grammar mistakes are part of my learning process. I am inspired by many styles, not following any school.
2020, a year we all have experienced, some intensely, some less. While we all believe that we did the right thing, I started to think that doing things should not be only measured with right or wrong.
The pandemic allowed me to rediscover what is reality. While one presumes control of events at hand or in the future, it will be devilishly tricky not to fall into the trap of fighting with reality.
This year I learned that using the word “fight” is equally associated with negative and positive feelings, especially when the underlying measures are winning and losing. Emotions are employed here to grant the beholder instant gratification. I am not an expert nor a pedantic, but in neuroscience, this particular field has been exhausted with studies to know how our brain functions (with various technologies), big thanks to technology and what it provides about how we feel things and why. I believe science and society have to sit at the same table to provide what we need for life to be lived fully and completely. No hacks, no politics. Easy to comprehend, difficult to execute.
2020 is a year that made me personally revisit core definitions/places, not to find what’s wrong with them but to better know them, which puts me in mind of Frida Kahlo : “I am my own muse, I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better”. What a beautiful thought. Kept me thinking for days. I realised that one way for the muse to be discovered, one has to put away, or at least partially disable 2 words; fear & future and start to navigate internally. Life is a beautiful thing to be seen, it starts from the inside. Here was an attempt to verbalize my thoughts and feelings combined.
While navigating through the year, I went to places, and places went through me. Luckily I found a lot of wisdom, love, and joy at Whyte’s place. I will leave you with him, hoping you enjoy the talk as much as I did.
David Whyte
Minute 10:36–16:20, watching the full video is mandatory, key highlights:
“… And one of the difficulties about walking into your life, about coming into this body, into this world fully, is you start to realize that you have manufactured three abiding illusions that the rest of humanity has shared with you since the beginning of time.
And the first illusion is that you can somehow construct a life in which you are not vulnerable. You can somehow be immune to all of the difficulties and ill health and losses that humanity has been subject to since the beginning of time. If we look out at the natural world, there’s no part of that world that doesn’t go through cycles of, first, incipience, or hiddenness, but then growth, fullness, but then a beautiful, to begin with, disappearance, and then a very austere, full disappearance. We look at that, we say, “That’s beautiful, but can I just have the first half of the equation, please? And when the disappearance is happening, I’ll close my eyes and wait for the new cycle to come around.” Which means most human beings are at war with reality 50 percent of the time. The mature identity is able to live in the full cycle.
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The second illusion is, I can construct a life in which I will not have my heart broken. Romance is the first place we start to do it. When you’re at the beginning of a new romance or a new marriage, you say,”I have found the person who will not break my heart.” I’m sorry; you have chosen them out unconsciously for that exact core competency.
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And then we hope that our armored, professional personalities will prevent us from having our heart broken in work. But if you’re sincere about your work, it should break your heart. You should get to thresholds where you do not know how to proceed. You do not know how to get from here to there. What does that do? It puts you into a proper relationship with reality. Why? Because you have to ask for help.
Heartbreak. We don’t have a choice about heartbreak, we only have a choice of having our hearts broken over people and things and projects that we deeply care about.
And the last illusion is, I can somehow plan enough and arrange things that I will be able to see the path to the end right from where I’m standing, right to the horizon. But when you think about it, the only environment in which that would be true would be a flat desert, empty of any other life. But even in a flat desert, the curvature of the earth would take the path away from you. So, no; you see the path, and then you don’t and then you see it again.
On an ending note, this year I found that I happen to things as much as things happen to me. I wish you find your own muse and know it best and better. Happy new year’s. The vaccine is out, the hope is there and I am looking forward to having our lives back to the new normal.