It's nearly summer. I've been away from home and next month I'm going to be traveling some more. I have a head injury that has made it hard to think very hard or look at screens, and is bringing down my mood. Everything feels like too much effort (I'm writing for the first time in weeks, though, that's cool!1).
Before my accident last week I had been considering participating in an online program run by some people I know from Twitter, called Give Your Gift, which is intended to help people clarify a service project.
Up until now I'd been thinking of the program in terms of what project I wanted to do. I have a dance event I've been developing. I want to make more of the kind of music I wish existed in the world. I want to explore a side of myself I didn't know existed until recently: the performer. I want to facilitate breathwork. And I want to weave a stronger social fabric around me, of my preferred flavor. I felt I had many gifts and could bring any of them to the world.
This week I am concussed and nothing feels worthwhile. None of these things is very interesting to me now. But listening to the Q&A session about Give Your Gift still brings me a little hope. I hear a lot of talk about articulating one's "vow," or "purpose" or "mission." And I start thinking not in terms of what I want to do, but what the longing behind my various callings and projects is. What is behind my desire to guide people in dancing with abandon, to bring them to altered states with breath, to express myself with greater rawness?
What I crave is connection at the level of immediate emotional reality. I very often feel lonely, not for lack of people around me, but for lack of the type of connection that feels alive to me.
The thing I seek is maddeningly ineffable. I've sometimes called it "presence" but that word is frustratingly vague, both to me and to others when I attempt to describe how I'd like them to show up2. But what the activities I'm drawn to lately tend to have in common is that they indirectly help people drop into the type of awareness where I feel the most excited and able to connect with them. Telling people "be more present" or describing the state you want them to be in doesn't work, you have to do it sideways (and make it enjoyable for them)! Getting people into other states of awareness is a moving target requiring subtle skill, but I'm rewarded with the forms of connection that I live for. That is why these particular projects are so important to me, what connects these apparently disparate interests.
What I always forget is that I too require an indirect path into presence. I try to zero in on working on My Dance Event or My Music or My Breathwork, and the creative spark vanishes. If I stare too closely at the goal of Getting People To Be Present, it can all feel inane and contrived and like there is no point to anything I do in life. Or maybe that's the head injury talking.
I also require an indirect path to talking about the things I care most about in the world. This post is maybe as close as I can get right now. My head is starting to hurt and I'm getting bored. I wanted to write this down because I was excited about this preliminary version of my vow, and am curious how it might change as I go through this program, if I go through the program. Nothing feels stable or certain right now; I can't commit to things. But after a bit of darkness I am just starting to get used to that and finding some happiness right here.
I'm under the impression that this week's writing is of worse quality than my usual. I will refrain from apologizing for it but I could not stop myself from commenting. My standards are probably ridiculous but I'm still unable to see that myself.
I do consider it a victory when I make an effort to ask others to show up differently at all. My default reaction to frustration is normally to preemptively feel defeated and retreat inwards, to give up on people. Now I try to suggest or request changes. It can make things a bit awkward when they're not capable of changing or even understanding what I want, but I have learned that people can surprise me a lot. (Also any awkwardness ultimately comes down to the way I ask. If I ask people to change it's on me to do it graciously!)
This was my favorite blog of yours! Maybe because I can’t remember your others as much as I can this one, but I love your clarity in what you’re looking for. Makes so much sense. And I love your awareness about how it disappears if you try at it too directly.
i strongly vibe w the idea that going at something like “connection” or “creativity” directly kills the spark!! i feel like often when i want to connect with someone (even just hanging w someone i already know) it takes ages or maybe we have to tire ourselves out (alcohol also works) for us to sort of forget what we are trying to do. i think injury can also sort of throw u out of established patterns. this was a good post btw. it doesn’t need to be long or deeply elaborated to be good