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Image description: Angled shot of me in a gray and pink striped wool hat. Rocks, trees, and water in the background, a sun flare in the middle of my forehead.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the unbounded self. Unbounded by my body. Unbounded by my likes and dislikes. Unbounded by my history, my thoughts, my passions, and all the things that I think make up who I am. Unbounded by any one thing to tie my identity to.
I’m a writer, I say. I am a woman. I am mixed-race. I am a queer femme.
But what if I don’t say any of that?
What if I look in the mirror and say, that is not myself. That is a body that has carried me through this lifetime mostly with grace and strength, and I am so deeply grateful. That is a body that has caused me pain and shame as well as pleasure and joy. But its not me, and it never was.
Try it. It’s freeing.
Capitalism needs us to feel tied to the self. Needs us to believe “the delusion that the self is so separate and fragile that we must delineate and defend its boundaries, that it is so small and so needy that we must endlessly acquire and endlessly consume...” as author and scholar Joanna Macy puts it. Capitalism needs us to consume and consume—an endless feeding that keeps us ever more hungry.
What if we understood ourselves not as a separate self we need to feed and defend, but as an awareness within an interdependent web? It would shift our whole frame of reference from individual to community in the largest sense. We’d move from thinking—how does this benefit me, to—how does this increase the well-being of us all?
The unbounded self is liberatory.
We can wake up to this reality. That’s what’s happening in Chile and so many places around the world right now.
“I think we were a people that were numbed in a big way by a model that enslaved us, that chained us to a lifestyle that, despite us not liking, we could not free ourselves from. Chile woke up and suddenly realized that it was indeed possible to change things, that together we were a mighty force, that the one next to me had the same problem.” — from Christian Opaso’s “What happened when Chile woke up,” in Waging Nonviolence.
It can’t be a coincidence that as people in Chile started really seeing the forces at work, the enforcers of the status quo—in this case, the police—literally blinded two people and damaged the eyes of more than 200 others, in addition to other horrific violence.
If we understood ourselves as unbounded, we would open our eyes and hearts, our borders and doors.
Image description: Fan-shaped bright orange mushroom, edged in light yellow, growing out of a stump. Tiny slugs are nibbling on it.
Walking on the path next to the flowing Neponset river, I noticed a luscious bloom growing from a tree stump. It had blossomed overnight. It was a huge, strange mushroom with fins like a fish and as orange as a pumpkin.
I took a picture and sent it to my friend Adam (hi Adam!). He said that it might be a lobster mushroom*, which is only poisonous if the host tree is poisonous.
In this blooming, the mushroom was the tree stump, and the tree stump was the mushroom.
And, the awareness that I call “myself” was also the stump and also the mushroom. And it was also the growing trees with bright red leaves, and the dying vines, and the big white clouds scuttling overhead. I was all of it, and they were all of me.
What does success mean to a mushroom? Water and nutrients enough to grow the most tender gills.
What does getting ahead mean to the vines? Climbing up the trees in the spring and dying back in the winter.
What does accumulation mean to the clouds? Rain.
Capitalism doesn’t stand a chance in the face of the unbounded self.
* Update: After seeing the photo again, Adam thinks it might be Chicken of the Woods, instead. But what are labels to mushrooms, anyway? It is a glorious thing, regardless of what we humans call it.
Prompting
Back story: I was trying to write about social media, influencers, the Buddhist concept of not-self, visibility and invisibility, and capitalism. The essay refused to come together, terrible revision after terrible revision. I despaired that I would have nothing to send you this month.
So I opened this app, which would delete my writing if I stopped typing. I typed nonstop for three, five-minute sessions. I threw away a lot; I rearranged, edited, added a little, and pulled a few quotes from the previous drafts. And that’s pretty much what you see above.
It works. Try it. You have the option in the app to get a writing prompt. Or you can use this prompt: Feeling into the invisible, I touch… Or, if you’re stuck on a writing project, just write—and see what happens.
Engaging
What else I’m reading/listening to/thinking about:
The essay I was trying to write, as described above, was in part a response to How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency, by Akiko Busch. I particularly found her introduction and the chapter on women aging, “Rereading Mrs. Dalloway,” to be thought provoking. The whole book is worth a read.
Twenty years ago on November 30, I was one body among hundreds of thousands shutting down the streets of Seattle to disrupt the World Trade Organization meetings. I felt, viscerally, and for the first and most intense time, the power of people showing up and coming together to challenge the powers that be. I learned what tear gas feels and smells like. It convinced me that great change was possible.
I remember reading updates and analysis on Indymedia during the days and weeks that followed. Stealthily, during my shifts as a temp receptionist at downtown law firm (you know, back before home internet was much of a thing and phones didn’t fit in your pocket or have the internet), I’d squint at tiny white type on the black background. I don’t remember how I found the website, but I remember feeling like it was the only place that was telling the truth as I felt and understood it. So I very much appreciated the Indypendent’s take last month on what the “Battle of Seattle” means, 20 years later.
Community / announcements
There’s just two more days left to get a book at The Brew and Forge Book Fair. Books are donated by authors and small presses, and all funds raised will go to Black Mesa Water Coalition, which organizes to fight climate destruction and build restorative economies in Navajo and Hopi communities. Don’t miss your chance to support climate justice and score some awesome books while you are at it!
Image description: Collage of books. Overlaid text reads: “Brew and Forge Book Fair #6. Opens Dec 1-14. Buy a signed book. Support grassroots organizing. www.brewandforge.com
Thank you to everyone who filled out the survey. It meant a lot that you took the time to do it, and your kind words filled me with joy. Much love to you all.
And happy solstice, if you celebrate the longest night of the year. May you feel the power of the dark, and honor the light as it returns.
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