Why do we yield to a torrent of mental anguish and work-based strain before we ask for help? What makes us believe that we have to hold an unbearable and impossible load alone? When we know that the unspoken expectation to "soldier on" serves the folks at the top of the proverbial layer cake and definitely not us, why do we do it? And how can we stop?
All useful questions to consider, and I encourage you to reflect on your own answers, but for the most part, I'd say they're not the primary focus when it comes to moving on skillfully, because a) we know the answers already (cultural conditioning, capitalism, social pressure, systemic inequality, etc), and yet we carry on regardless, which leads me to b) the realm of "why" can lead us to conceptualising, excusing, ruminating, lamenting and bemoaning. Whereas the more constructive and change-making approach is to ask: what now, what do I/we need to do differently, how can I/we help to make things better?
On doing hard things & feeling our feelings
I love second hand books. I love all books in fact. But there's something uniquely special about a book that's been leafed through, pondered over and passed along. A sense of which, if you're lucky, comes through from the marginalia and love notes within the folds.
These are the words on the inside cover of my pre-loved copy of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche's The Joy of Living: "Dear Zach, If it's hard....do it! All the best, Wyan". My 11-year-old niece and I were sat reading our separate books in the garden recently when she asked me what my book was about. She noticed the inscription, which sparked a conversation about doing things that challenge us, and how navigating life's undulations does indeed, like the subtitle suggests, unlock the secret and science of happiness.
What's the rush?
"Ahsta, ahsta!" Punjabi for "slowly, slowly!". Words my parents used to, and still, say to me. When I drop something because I've not quite quelled the habit of needless haste. When I forget there's a cup of tea by my feet as I practically sprint to attention and leap out of the moment to head and do whatever else. When I bump into something and hit my elbow, head, knee, because my wavering mind is half elsewhere. “What's the rush?" They'll ask. What indeed.
On silence and wonder
A good friend and yoga teacher alerted me to this wonderful book before leading me through a powerful pranayama practice involving The Pause, essentially allowing a natural break at the end of the exhale and the inhale, without strain, without effort.*
It was one of the most calming and elevating experiences that my ordinarily chaotic mind, so resistant to rest, has had the joy to experience. Moments of clear wonder.
What to do when feeling blue
There are some books that I turn to regularly, mostly when I wake, as I did this morning, inexplicably a tad grumpy, maybe owing to interrupted sleep, compounded by the windy nature of the season and my likewise prone to mood-shifting inner state (Vata-inclined in Ayervedic parlance). Here are my tips, via the practices shared by the eighth century Dharma master and student Shantideva, on how to pivot your mind and your mood.
The enriching nature of mind weeds
Meditation is tough. Sitting patiently with our selves, with our messy minds, is not an easy task. That's why we do it. Not for self-flagellation or ego-pumping determination. But to cultivate acceptance, discipline and calm.
The discomfort, the mess, the challenge, is part of the process. Intellectually that makes sense. Feeling it though, when you're sat there doing battle with your internal narrator (i.e. your little, vulnerable, weak and shouty self), it's enough to make you give up. Don't. Persist. This is where the lessons lie.
How other people’s stories teach us who we are
It was DH Lawrence who said that “the only history is a mere question of one’s struggle inside oneself”. His point being that the collective story of humanity, whether in fact or fiction, as chronicled in the billions of words scratched onto paper and battered into computers by individuals across the world and throughout the ages, are testament to the enduring struggle that we all face to make sense of our place in the world.
The deceitfully simple idea that “to know thyself” is the reason for living, the ceaseless echo through the centuries of Socrates’ call that “the unexamined life is not worth living”, is the most maddening challenge there is.
As the philosopher Alan Watts once said: “Consciousness seems to be nature’s ingenious mode of self-torture.”
Why so? Because this interminable process of becoming who we are, of knowing what we should even aim to become, is exhausting. Writer or reader, the challenge is the same. We think therefore we suffer. That’s the unavoidable truth. The point is how you respond, which is where autobiographical accounts or indeed any story, fact or fiction, come in.
Read the rest of the article in the London Literary Review here.
The art of not reading. Or, selective attention as a means for intellectual survival
Reading is a serious business. It takes precious, irrecoverable, finite time to devote yourself to a book. In doing so, you make an active decision to press pause on your ordinary life so as to step into another world, another place, another time.
Why then, would you choose to continue reading something that is not only uninspiring but frustratingly disappointing?
What's the root of our suffering and is it possible to escape the carousel of despair?
What’s the most good we can do – and is there even any point in bothering?
Your efforts are just a drop in the ocean, insignificant in the context of a global population where the majority do relatively little to make a difference, and those that do barely make a dent in redressing the global imbalance.
What difference can one person really make in the grand scheme of things?
Is it always wise to make an impact?
Where’s the value in what you do? What is the purpose of your work? Why do you live the life you lead?
These are the questions that regularly occur, in varying word formations, in many of the conversations I have.
Each of those questions assumes an answer, and carries with it the implication that it must be a noble one.
What if it's all been said before?
We writers are known for being tormented by the anxiety of influence.
The fear that one’s work is not original, that it isn’t good enough, that it might be a transmuted version of source material subconsciously absorbed and observed via the greats that precede us.
What’s the value in what we have to say, what’s the point in adding to the infinite pile, hasn’t it all been said before?
On memory & forgetting, via Cave, Kundera & Nietszche
Words to live by when you're struggling to find your own
For days when you feel torn or dissatisfied, when you wake up and all the toughness of determination seems to be weakened for no apparent reason, the words of others can save you.
They can fill the spaces between moments of clarity or confusion with meaning.
Where you stumble to understand let alone express yourself, and where you understand but can’t do the feeling or the knowledge justice, it can be useful to delegate the task of communication.
What difference do words make?
“Screw or fuck?” asks a member of Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), to which another responds, “screw, it’s more visceral”.
It’s one of many striking moments in the 2014 film Pride, which tells the story of how in 1984, a group of lesbian and gay activists from London befriended a struggling Welsh community during the UK miners' strikes.
When actions speak louder than words: Why I’m trailblazing for Oxfam
Newton’s third law of motion tells us that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The Buddhist principle of karma similarly teaches us that everything we do, every decision we make, has a consequence. Philosophical determinism suggests that we cannot escape the inherent causality of human existence, and that our actions will inevitably give rise to the effects that reflect our essential morality. Faced with the imbalances that subsequently blight much of our over-exploited, under-resourced, conflict-riddled world, the question is – how should we live?
I run therefore I am: How conscious movement can set your mind free
The novelist Haruki Murakami describes himself as "a runner and a writer". The two are inextricably intertwined elements of his whole being. As a runner and a writer, I wholeheartedly agree. What is it about the physical exertion of running that is so vital for the parallel process of creative release? How do the two activities mirror each other such that the Holy Grail of "the flow" finally becomes attainable?
The restless whirlpool of life
The power of words in an age of anxiety
“The magic of escapist fiction is that it can actually offer you a genuine escape from a bad place and, in the process of escaping, it can furnish you with armour, with knowledge, with weapons, with tools you can take back into your life to help make it better. It’s a real escape — and when you come back, you come back better armed than when you left.” - Neil Gaiman.
What Does Aldous Huxley’s Island Tell Us About the Essence of Humanity?
In his final novel, Island, Aldous Huxley created a vision of utopia where the Pacific island of Pala is an “oasis of happiness and freedom,” free from the trappings of capitalism, consumerism, and technology. Some say that the Island is an example of humanity at its sanest and most admirable. Yet it ends, predictably, in sorrow, “the work of a hundred years destroyed in a single night.” So, what was Huxley’s point in creating then destroying a vision of paradise?