What historical moment?

I've been thinking lately about the ego required to opine on "this historical moment." Not just this one we're in, but I mean any commentator at any time having the small-mindedness to think he (usually a he) could find a general enough viewpoint that represents an entire zeitgeist. I feel as if I'm constantly battling my own myopia, struggling to shed my own subjective and biased entry into the world. I work at it, and yet I would never be shameless enough to claim any view I was able to reason myself to as some privileged uber-view representative of a whole mass of people. 

Yet I continue to read these types of commentaries because I keep giving them the benefit of the doubt, that perhaps someone cleverer than I has indeed been able to shed their own myths in favor of some grander narrative. But they never deliver. Inevitably these promises of wrapping up various threads of discourse and experiences yield nothing but, at best, skeletal narratives that are possibly representative at the cost of being so bare. Perhaps there are some universal truths about "our time"; but they are not very interesting in their necessary vacuousness. 

I don't mean to suggest that there are no universal human truths. For one, we all seek to avoid pain (probably, short of some biological abnormality). But that is a claim so general that it can't speak to a "historical moment." What I do mean is that it seems to me impossible (or possibly only impractical) to find actionable generalizations of the human condition for time scales of, say, a decade or two, for groups of people at the level, say, of a state or country. 

We need not despair, however. Instead of fretting over the meaning of the historical moment at the aggregate, why not interrogate the experience of the moment for the individual. Talk to your neighbor, ask him how he's experiencing this moment. Compare that to your own experience. Talk to more neighbors in expanding circles of proximity. Note the similarities, but be conservative in your extrapolation. Even within the same city, we're not having the same experience. Interrogate why that is. 

I'm afraid the rush to paint with too broad a brush is confusing us. Claim a universal narrative and you'll have to work hard to explain the divisions -- this is effort that can be more productively spent enumerating the divisions and interrogating whether they should exist at all. 

The joy of being a tottering idiot

I've spent only a very little part of my life trying to balance on my tippy toes. There were no dance classes in my early childhood and no one has accused me of being a particularly graceful mover. And yet! At the beginning of this year I signed up for an introductory ballet workshop for absolute beginner adults. Most of the other students in this weekly class are just barely adults and while many may technically have no prior ballet experience, some are dancers from other disciplines or former gymnasts. In contrast, I'm a lumbering, tottering idiot. 

I walk into class every week and think to myself, "You don't belong." And yet, here I am, several months into this adventure.

Although I watch the teacher intently, with all the best intentions of trying to recreate her moves, I fail. In fact, she told me at one point to stop worrying about getting the moves in the right order (there were only three moves, so, you know, I suck at ballet). So why is it that being in such an uncomfortable situation, feeling old and unstable among a group of swans, is an occasion I look forward to weekly, and pay for the pleasure of attending? 

Well, for one thing, it's been a great excuse to buy more pink-colored clothes (and shoes!). There are no tutus in adult ballet, but there are definitely brightly colored leotards (at least on this dancer). But the costume of ballet doesn't make me feel more comfortable about my lack of skill, so that's not the reason I keep going back. 

My personal history does not suggest that I'm a thrill-seeker of any variety. So being uncomfortable for its own sake isn't something I've sought out too much. But maybe that's been a mistake. Being uncomfortable (within safe bounds), and surviving that discomfort, is a wonderful medicine, I'm learning. In addition to ballet I've also taken up aerial yoga, which involves being suspended some few feet above the ground. I'm not at risk for breaking my neck or anything but the height and danger, however controlled, are a thrill for this desk-bound office worker. 

Age has mellowed me and in many ways I'm thankful for that equanimity. But we are all endowed with limited abilities to comprehend the world views of our neighbors, and as we make the choices necessary in living our lives, we are also forced to choose the few things to concentrate on. A lot of the rage and hurt in this world (according to me, at least) is exacerbated by the natural narrowing of world views that happens as we make decisions about what to pay attention to.

Consciously working on expanding the types of experiences in our lives is, if not a moral imperative, at least an obligation for those of us with the privilege of time and resources. I'm not saying my taking ballet classes is me fulfilling a moral duty; I'm saying that making the decision to take ballet, knowing it's an experience that would make me uncomfortable, is one expression of my trying to intentionally expand my world view. And it turns out to be an experience that's thrilling and brings me joy, even through discomfort. 

What I hope to take away at the end of each ballet lesson, in addition to a slim French vocabulary and an acceptance that my turnout will never improve, is a reminder of the joys of exposure to a new experience. And to bring that joy to the rest of my life. 

The beginning of wisdom is in the discovery that there exist contradictions of permanent tension with which it is necessary to live and that it is above all not necessary to seek to resolve.

Andre Gorz

The things in your brain that go tick.

My mom was visiting me this weekend and as our capstone weekend activity we went to a two-hour yoga workshop at the studio I frequent in my neighborhood. It was billed as a relaxing practice with elements of yin, restorative and yoga nidra. The workshop did not disappoint and was exactly what it should have been. A few days later and I'm struggling not to be disappointed in my own brain, though, disappointment that was magnified for me in those two hours.

Since I started yoga teacher training in September I've tried to make an effort to make seated meditation more a part of my everyday experience. I remember seeing a meme on the internet somewhere (... this vague internet ecosystem being where I get much of my philosophy these days) that said something like, "It's not that you don't have the time, it's that you don't care to make it a priority," but a lot more pithy. So I'll save my protestations of not having enough time and concede to the internet wisdom that I haven't quite made seated meditation a priority in the past year.

In the past few months, however, I've tried to sit at least a few times a week for ten minutes. Ten minutes is about the time it takes me to get motivated to put on clothes in the morning so I've tried to convince myself that I'm not robbing myself of any productivity while sitting. It is in fact this obsession with efficiency and productivity, concepts fine on their own but detrimental when pursued to the exclusion of all else, that is a good sign that I need to sit more. Sometimes I've managed to do it, other times I've rationalized needing sleep, other times I've just gone for coffee and called it a moving meditation instead (the things the mind will come up with).

There was a lot of sitting (well, not sitting per se but being in different restorative poses) on Sunday and my brain got louder and more unkind over the two hours. In my life, in all our lives, there's not often an opportunity to be a witness to our mind for two hours at a stretch. Having that opportunity gave me an uncomfortable but much-needed realistic assessment of where my mind is these days. And it's not a kind place, not to itself at least.

Over the past few months, as work has gotten more stressful, I've been striving in my everyday life to be more generous and more giving towards others. As I've felt more selfish hoarding my few free hours to myself during the week, I've been pushing myself to be more generous in any way I can manage. For example, I've paid for the coffee of the person in front of me and behind me at cafes many times, have endeavored not to speak unkindly to anyone, have tried to shut my mouth when others are speaking to give them my most expansive and authentic attention. But towards myself, my own mind continues to be a bit of a jerk.

Listening non-judgmentally to my own mind on Sunday, I found out a few things. I feel guilty for not being as generous as I can be. But I'm afraid that, short of becoming a monk, I'll always feel guilty for not being generous enough. If I'm not actively suffering, I seem to think this means that I could give more, more time, more attention, more love, more money. My intellectual mind know this is not true; if I burn out, there's nothing left to share. But the mind that still goes tick when everything else has stopped, that's the mind I'm fighting with.

These thoughts aren't going away. Being a witness to them, however, has given me something concrete to argue against when I'm feeling inadequate. I'll keep trying to give, of course. I still think I have more attention and gratitude and love to share. There are times when I should bite my tongue quite a bit harder than I have in the past. But as I endeavor to make everyone I interact with feel safe, I have to do that own work with myself, too.

Yet so blind and dead does the clamor of our own practical interests make us to all other things, that it seems almost as if it were necessary to become worthless as a practical being, if one is to hope to attain to any breadth of insight into the impersonal world of worths as such, to have any perception of life's meaning on a large objective scale. Only your mystic, your dreamer, or your insolvent tramp or loafer, can afford so sympathetic an occupation, an occupation which will change the usual standards of human value in the twinkling of an eye, giving to foolishness a place ahead of power, and laying low in a minute the distinctions which it takes a hard-working conventional man a lifetime to build up. You may be a prophet, at this rate; but you cannot be a worldly success.

-William James, "On a Certain Blindness"