Hey y’all. There’s been a lot of tough, crazy, cortisol-inducing news in the past month.
All the injustice, democratic corrosion, and loss of life has put me in touch with my fear, anger, and despair in new ways. I keep thinking, “Oh god. I’ve got to do something. What should I do?”
I want to show up for this moment. I’d like to be the voice that says, “Stop don’t do that.” The thing is, there are healthy and unhealthy ways to do that. I’ve found that my impulse to help too often burns me out. It makes me feel like a soldier in the idea wars and leaves me feeling like I could always be doing more. How do I help from a place of resilience, and in a way that feels life-giving rather than life-sucking?
I’ve come across 3 pieces of wisdom that sort of answer that question.
Your gift is your responsibility.
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about the emphasis many native cultures place on cultivating an individual’s gift. Parents and elders urge younger folks to think about their talents — what it is they are especially good at — and to spend time bringing those skills to fullness. They counsel that an individual’s gift is intimately connected to an individual's responsibility. When you are good at something, it’s your duty to use it for the good of the community. So if you have a proclivity for basket-making, you ought to develop and master this craft — then those around you will have functional and beautiful containers. When your gift bears fruit the tribe is fed.
If you think about it, you are positioned to respond to a problem in a way that no one else can, given your particular set of skills and talents. When you don’t know how to respond to an injustice or a threat, a very good question to ask yourself is “What am I good at?”
Maybe Democracy is fractal.
In Emergent Strategy (and this interview), adrienne marie brown talks about fractals — the idea that the largest and smallest manifestations of a system share similar characteristics. Take a tree as an example: The trunk shares a similar relationship to the branch as the branch does to the sprig, as the sprig does to the twig. adrienne wonders, what if democracy is like that?
So if you feel (like I do) that our institutions are often making decisions that subvert the will of the people, you can (and should!) take action on the system level — by writing your representatives and voting. But another, perhaps equally important way of responding is by practicing democracy at the cellular level. We can all counteract anti-democratic tendencies in everyday, mundane, one-on-one interactions. What if we got better at democracy on this level — simply treating our partners, our cats, and our neighbors with a little more fairness and decency? If everyone got better here, how could it not bubble upwards?
The trichotomy of control.
This idea comes from Stoic scholar William Irvine. It is his modification of Epictetus' thoughts on control. Life falls into a few buckets — there are things completely in our control (whether or not we pick our nose), things completely out of our control (whether or not the sun will rise), and things that we have partial control over (whether or not we win a game of tennis). You flourish when you devote yourself to the things you can control, and when you refuse to lose any sleep over the things you have no control over.
Let’s look at the hybrid category, taking the tennis game as our example. It turns out this category is simply a mixture of the first two! A stoic wouldn’t worry about how well their opponent plays, after all, that is totally out of their control. They’d put their energy into what they can control — practicing before and trying hard. Even though these things may not guarantee a victory, they can only help.
The nutshell version of this: do what you can, with what you have, where you are. That’s all you can ever do.
Anyhow. Super simple thoughts. But if you’re anything like me it’s always nice to be reminded of them. Hope they help. See ya next month.
Recent Work
Some of what’s flown the coop. You can always see more over at the ol’ portfolio: brentmccormick.com
Whiskers on kittens
A few of my favorite things.
This video echoes some widespread (but still vital) critiques of modern technology and media, but the swiss army knife analogy was new to me and an extremely helpful framing device. Our phones are the ultimate multi-tool, but sometimes (very often) a single tool is much better for the job. Do you want to cook an entire meal with a tiny switchblade, or with a chef’s knife?
Working through The Gift by Lewis Hyde. Super dense and much of it is a few stories above my head, but a lot of it lights me up and makes me better understand the world and my place in it. Good reading for anyone creating art (Margaret Atwood agrees).
This song surgically adhered itself to my brain for a few days. Fun.
Great stuff! We need to catch up and chat sometime!