Splash No. 205 - Engaging
Engaging
For much of my life, I spent much of time trying to appeal to the external observer — I imagined that every one of my actions, my clothing choices, my movements were under constant scrutiny. I was self-conscious about everything, imagining that there was a right and wrong way to do anything and everything and I never knew which one I was doing. For a long time, I focused on what I could do: schoolwork and academic pursuits where effort netted outcomes. Later on, I applied the same framework to my social life. I did a ton of reading about how to have social skills, how to come across in the right way, how humor works and what type of humor makes you likable. I learned how to talk about the weather with a finesse that a meteorologist would be jealous of. Life itself seemed like a learnable skill to be practiced and honed until I mastered the art of existing.
One of the strangest parts of growing up is discovering that many of the neat narratives about the world that we were taught were vast simplifications or lies in general — the FBI killed most Civil Rights Leaders, the CIA has destabilized hundreds of governments around the world for economic interests, most social structures and laws have racist and patriarchal bases that prove to be extremely harmful, etc. All ideas of professionalism were based on what the rich could do, all ideas of the undesirable were based on race and what poor people were like. This influx of knowledge was extremely destabilizing for me, especially when I realized that the same principles underlaid basically every social script in life in general. For me, someone who was socially awkward enough to feel excluded from society, I started to wonder what was worth actually paying attention to, and whether following any of the rules and directives was worth it. My skill-based approach to life seemed stupid if I was just going to conform to the ideas of a deeply unjust world. But what was the alternative? How could I unlearn and rebuild an entire way of living and still be compatible with the world that I was already living in?
I don’t have any real answers here. When I stare too deeply into this problem, the depth of the darkness overwhelms. Most days I try to avoid thinking about these things at all, preferring to focus on the controllable things in my life. I try to constantly interrogate myself and my interactions, challenging every possible action to keep myself from simply following the flow of half-baked ideas that became de facto laws for life. Yet, this isn’t enough, there’s work to be done, to fight against the power structures that continue to hurt each of us in different ways, visibly and invisibly. I look backward, looking to the knowledge of the past and seeking the truths unmarred by external influences. Even though much of religion seems to be constructed to uphold hierarchies or push colonialism, I’ve been finding solace in Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea of Engaged Buddhism, which pushes for applying the Buddhist ideas to fighting injustice.
These ideas have been swirling around my head for a long time and have often been pushed to the side as I try to focus on my own life, yet that seems untenable longterm. Right now, I’m focusing on the fourth precept of Hanh’s Fourteen Precepts of Engaged Buddhism:
“Do not avoid suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who are suffering, including personal contact, visits, images, and sounds. By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world.”
I’ve made large strides in reducing suffering in my own life over the past few months, and now I hope to continue my journey by first becoming aware of the suffering in the world, and then working to reduce it through any means I have, whether it’s with my writing or design or money or body. And I hope that you may join me on this journey as well.
Drops of the Week
ALBUM - Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar - he's back
ARTICLE - "Trends are dead" by Terry Nguyen - “We live in an age where everyone is rushing to name and schematize cultural phenomena. [...] It just makes it easier for people to be organized for mass consumption.”
POEM - "Daedalus, After Icarus" by Saeed Jones - "We don’t want wings. / We want to be fish now."
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Yours,
Nikhil