Got out on a walk this morning in the dark to look at Halloween decorations and to try to not let new Taylor Swift songs get in the way of focusing on breathing in wet Fall smells and my emergent thoughts (I don't want to actively dislike her, but really don't wish to actively engage either - her shit is just so sticky!). What came up was this:
Purpose. Expansion. Poles. Which eventually led to the crux that I'll share later.
Let's start with Purpose. A common theme for me. One that I came to my car to write about so as to be 'undiscoverable' (ie not in the house), in between my walk and being on my way to the rest of the day. It's actually kinda cozy in here, but I digress :)
As I thought about what I might title this entry, and the photo I might grab to accompany it, it occurred to me to consider - for the many-ith time - what the point is of capturing any of this - ie my thoughts, let alone sharing it out.
Which of course spiraled to a larger wonder about making art. A wonder I have at LEAST once a year.
Who is it for?
How big an 'audience' does something need to be worth one's time?
Is something 'not worth it' because it might only affect a small group of people, or even just you?
A particular job posting got me thinking recently about how I'm not even halfway through my career yet. My first reaction was feeling horrified. When I shared this casually with the executive coach parent of another kid in Niko's current swim lesson, she was surprised, and said she thought I might have said that I was thrilled by the possibility.
This reaction lead me to think 'damn girl, what a negative initial reaction.'
But you know what? I don't NEED to be positive all the time. It's not possible or really even helpful to think we should be. I recognize that this is not a groundbreaking thought. None of the ones I document here are. I'm just another human, swimming around in the stardust, trying to navigate her own view on the universe. We're all navigating, whether or not we write down what we learn along the way :)
But that's not what I came here to say.
Along the way in my walk, my brain drifted to Poles.
Why poles? I think I'm just gaining this language for myself regarding what I think to be something every human who earths must swim around. Poles. 'Either end of an axis.' An implication of two opposite ends of a spectrum.
I've used the word 'oscillate' before, but it hasn't entirely captured the thing I've been trying to get at.
I think, whether we notice or not, we humans have a range of poles we swim between, spectrum within throughout life. I think many of us tend toward trying to organize natural chaos, entropy. It's a way of trying to make sense of everything, even the things we cannot control. Kudos to those who don't try to organize entropy - I think I could gain a lot from not trying all the time, but it's not really in MY nature.
Who can be blamed, I suppose, for TRYING to organize it all. TRYING to get a firm, immutable grip on ones place in the world.
'Immutable' is the problem here. 'Ones place' is also.
They suggest arrival.
When even gently pressed, we all know there isn't one, no matter how hard we wish there was.
Yes, ever-fancy ways to say 'change is the only constant.'
But I don't think it's that simple. Maybe the folks who are not constantly trying to organize entropy can live with that one. I'm going to apply one thin layer of organization to this idea: Poles.
Let's start with the first one that swam around my brain this morning: Purpose and . . . the opposite of having purpose. Haven't been able to land on the right word yet, even with the help of the internet.
Purpose v. Inconsequential, perhaps.
That's not quite it, but it'll have to do for now.
Got thinking this morning about how important it is to me to have Purpose. Which got me thinking about what criteria I think must be met in order for something in my life to contribute to this. How many other people does it have to impact? I guess I do think of Purpose in terms of impact, but I think where I sometimes lose the thread is on the 'how many' or number of it all. The age-old 'quantity v. quality' question.
I hesitated to 'v.' these conversations with myself, as if that's not how I'm thinking about it, but it is! Poles. In this pole, I think I'm desiring to accept that impact is NOT only based on HOW MANY people's lives you affect positively, but also how deeply. Arguably, outside of distinct (and sometimes questionable) platforms, depth decreases with scaling up, and visa versa. It reminds me of the Dunbar Number regarding how many really close people one can have in their life: the benefits of friendship do not necessarily increase at the same rate as the number of people you have in your life, because the depth most likely decreases as the number increases - at least if you are TRYING to have the same kind of relationship with all of those people.
I'm losing the thread again. Back to Purpose v. Inconsequential. I think I'm realizing that in thinking about poles - at least the ones I'm thinking of this morning - one end feels like what I fear and the other feels like what I strive for. But it seems that feeling this way is stoked by false narratives I keep letting myself buy into. For example, will I feel less Purpose if in the future I am impacting less people? I already feel that by choosing to lean into my mother role two weekdays per week, I am impacting less people. I am arguably teaching less, even though I've tried to maintain the pace I held before I had kids (ridiculous, and I kind of know it). But is that really detracting from my purpose? Also arguably, I am having a DEEPER impact on fewer people - namely, my kiddos.
Is this pushing me downstream, or have I been trying to swim against the current? Or is this river comparison a fallacy? I'm leaning toward the later.
Just the fact that I'm sitting here in the car, two blocks away from my house, in between waking and what I had planned for the morning, just to shove this all out, indicates that I'm not in danger of purposelessness. I have no doubt that having Purpose, creating impact will ALWAYS be important to me. I think I have to keep allowing myself to discover, over and over again, at different points along my star swim, my own variants of what Purpose looks and feels like.
Ok, another Pole: Expansion v. Contraction.
In trying to find 'a better way' to discuss all these themes this morning, I swam around the word 'Expansion' too, and it's less appealing opposite 'Contraction,' this morning too. I think this again enforces the thought I've been getting to: Aim v. Fear. I think I fear that if I am not Expanding, I'm Contracting. But does one only Expand if they are reaching more people? If their net gets bigger? When I take these thoughts out of my head and put them into writing, it seems ridiculous to suggest that impact is only measured in numbers. That Expansion is only outward.
Ok, sure. The word 'Expansion' does have some unshakeable, agreed-upon meanings - 'increasing in size,' for one. I think I'm sticking with this word because I think it's beautiful to consider that you can expand within yourself. As if there are corners of yourself that have always been there, that you have had since your beginning, but have had yet to discover, each area like these becoming unlocked thanks to receipt of a key life experience you had to gain.
Contraction, Expansion's opposite, does feel like fear to me. But I suppose there is beauty that can also be found in contracting down, right-sizing, decreasing something in number but increasing in depth within that smaller number. Perhaps there's no rules here either, in this concept of Poles. Or maybe the flaw here is the idea that one end of a Pole is negative and the other is positive. If that were the case, there would be no oscillating.
Perhaps I've chosen my words wrong. I know I'll always have Purpose. Perhaps the concept my brain was really trying to get at this morning, when Purpose fluttered into my brain, was 'Quantity v. Quality.' The Poles are still there, but the inherent negative v. positive is not.
So, a final word that was among the original batch that cropped up during this morning's walk - a word I've used purposefully already several times: Discovery.
It's not that one Pole along any spectrum will become inherently and permanently the one you'll plant your flag into. It's that within your star swim, you have to Discover where you are, at any given point, in your relationship to those Poles. An embrace of the natural desire to Organize Entropy, with the understanding that you never will.
Perhaps it's Discovery (just a more inspiring way of saying 'change'?!) that's the actual constant.
No comments:
Post a Comment