Butts gotta shine. PFCs gotta meta.
I want to make a difference. I know we need all hands on deck, not just in America but the world over. But… it is frustrating to be still figuring out the what and how for where I can contribute best.
I know my strengths. I just don’t know where they fit in the systems of this world; I never have.
As I sat, honestly, just stewing in this frustration last week, the following intuition dropped:
To not sit still, nor rush in. Tempering action with presence is key.
I am frustrated that I’m not yet in a position where I know with clarity what I can do, along with the how and where.
Yet, I shouldn’t be frustrated, really. When I closed my coaching business in August and rebooted this website, the intention was to take all the time I needed precisely to work this out with patience, compassion and emergence.
And I know that shouldn’t change, just because that happened, and now we’re all watching the United States plummet into dictatorship, setting the example for dictator-wannabes the world over.
Otherwise, I would just be rushing in, and rushing in does nothing but harm.
It’s like Traci Harding wrote in her book The Light-field:
In the middle of a crisis is the perfect time to stop, reflect and find clarity.
Unfortunately, in the middle of a crisis is also the perfect time for the ego to rear its crafty head, which is precisely what this frustration is all about.
In the middle of a crisis is the worst time to want to be something; to satisfy one's urge to be of substance under the sneaky guise of being:
- "Meaningful"
- "Useful"
- "Helpful"
During my last session with my mentor at the start of this month, she grilled me:
What is your dream? Why are you doing this? What is the big picture?
You need to be honest with yourself. What is it that you want people to take away? And what's in it for you?
What is the point of everything you are doing?
I've been mulling her words every day since.
Do I not know what I want?
I know that's not true because it is the same feeling that has been driving me since I was a child. The words may have changed over the years, but the feeling has never changed.
I find myself thinking of a dear friend's words to me:
This dream of yours has had many incarnations, hasn't it? Almost like, what your meaning in life is.
It's very satisfying to witness this in you because it just keeps evolving. Not that you become a different Silver every time. I see a very steady thread through it, so I don't see you as changing.
I kind of see it as becoming, "More Silver."
When she said that to me, my heart felt like it would burst. ❤️ I hold on to those words so tightly these days.
I've found myself juggling the question of:
If no one understands what I'm trying to do, will it still help anyone?
Of course, the answer would likely be no, right? But here's the next question:
If contorting the thing (I'm trying to do) to make it understandable to others no longer makes it understandable to myself, will it still help anyone?
I would argue that the answer is still no.
Then what? Is this a no win situation? 😮💨 I’m an eternal optimist (it seems) so my answer will likely always be a dogged, “Nope. There has got to be a way.”
I just... don't quite see it yet.
It's not like I don't already "have words" to describe my picture: I've had them for several years now.
- Sovereignty, and
- Generativity. And, they now have a new sibling:
- Plurality.
When I was explaining the concept of my still-in-the-process-of-being-born podcast titled Misfits Making Meaning to my partner Max, he pointed out, "Wait, isn't that just the same thing you've been doing for years, just in different language?" I was mildly miffed then, but he's right.
- Meaning making falls under sovereignty, and
- Change making falls under generativity.
What about plurality? That, at present, is best explained through my recent post:
- Sovereignty is the ability to honour self, through healing, integrity and authenticity.
- Generativity is the ability to honour other, through communication, connection and relationship.
- Plurality is the ability to honour both of the above ecosystemically, through intraconnection and interdependence.
To brainstorm-answer my mentor's questions:
- Why am I doing this?
Because I'm driven, frankly. I have no other reason why. I laugh to sound Maybelline-ish here, but, "Maybe I was born with it." 💃🏻
- What is it that I want people to take away?
I think... all I realistically want is for people to consider this in their decision-making in all things, big and small. To consider the self, the other and the human and non-human ecosystems we all co-exist in.
- What's in it for me?
Community, and it would be nice for this to give birth to a way I can contribute financially to our household once again, in a way that is genuinely resonant with my values and needs.
- What's the point of everything I'm doing?
The answer to that is the same as always, but today, I want to answer it in a different way:
So I stumbled across this game called The Life Engine from the YouTube channel Emergent Garden the week before the US presidential elections.
I found myself spending hours during my rest times staring at the little pixels scurrying around, enthralled by epochs of species rising and falling, in waves of domination and mass extinctions, thinking, "This is us! This is what we're doing! We're just like these little pixels; we're bugs!"
The following is an amalgamation of two separate exchanges I had with two good friends about the thoughts inspired by this:
Fireflies evolved the shiny green butt, and the shiny green butt does things that allowed fireflies to be adaptive to the environments the species found itself in, right?
So, too, is our prefrontal cortex (PFC). There's nothing inherently special about it. It's just another organ that does things that allowed our species to be adaptive to the environment we found ourselves in.
Organs gotta organ. Butts gotta shine. PFCs gotta meta.
So... the answer to that question is: I'm just organing my organ, man.
(Golly, that sounds wrong... 😅🤣)
