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| ISSUE NO. 692 |
| WHY BOTHER COUNTING . . . the number of each weekly email we send out? Today, it's 692...Why does it matter? Why bother naming that we are in a new month this week, the month of May, the 7th day? Why do we record the hour of our birth, the hour of our loved one's death? As a writer, I've heard it said again and again: to write something that appeals to everyone (an impossible task by any measure, but what it really means is to write something that appeals to the human in each and every one of us) you have to get very specific. James Joyce is one of many who have captured the beauty and clarity of this truth: "In the particular is contained the universal." One of the reasons I want to focus on the specific today is because it reminds me, when I feel overwhelmed, to get very tiny - to zoom in, and be with the smallness of things: one breath, one drop of dew, one sensation of warmth from a cup of tea or a loved one's hand. It's a way to soothe the nervous system and return to the center of myself. The other reason is because I need this reminder when I feel puzzled by the words of others, by those arguments that come - whether by urgent, emotional plea or by calm, measured statement - with the sense of 'you might be wrong about this.' I want to be clear that, on a daily basis, it's very worthwhile to consider whether we are wrong about something. As a person with many avenues of power (not least, this very platform I type on), it's part of my responsibility as a human to question, examine, and reflect on how I show up in the world. It's also important to remain curious. I think of children - a population that has their own, inherent and untouchable power, but is given very little power on a societal level - and how they ask questions constantly, because they are open to learning. But to be specific, I heard someone ask a question at a community meeting recently, about why people would focus on the differences between us, when we could instead focus on how we are all the same - wouldn't the latter be a better way of finding commonality and treating one another better as humans? Doesn't all this attention to our differences only divide us and make us less connected to one another? And although I could not respond directly to that person's questions, in that moment, I did take them home and mull them over, and I keep coming back to Joyce's writing lesson: "in the particular is contained the universal." On a broader level, to ignore the differences between us as they relate to our individual power is dangerous - even downright nonsensical. But the question remains: how does the specific, the detailed, the individual, actually succeed at connecting us to one another? It's been captured countless times in literature, and it's a reason that people go back to the arts again and again: to experience what's human in themselves, and others. There are places we may never travel, people we may never meet, and yet the details of their lives - in books, in plays, in film and music and countless other ways - never fail to make us feel connected to place and people we've never encountered. Why is that? Why does specificity matter? There are probably as many ways to answer that question as there are people on the planet. We'd love to hear your thoughts, if you want to share. I think it matters for the tiny reasons, as well as for the biggest scientific and spiritual ones: humans were made to be separate from one another, in physical space, and we need these windows from our separate, individual experience to act as the vessels by which we will return to us - to the limitless spiritual community of truth and connection. In community, Tay + Dor |
tidbits...resources on anti-racism, environmentalism and food culture AKA stuff we're reading / listening to / watching / noticing / thinking about / captivated by this Tuesday . . . |
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