perceiving choice
May 17, 2009
“the truth is rarely pure + never simple”
- oscar wilde
i thought i had lost my laptop or that it had gotten stolen during that brief moment yesterday when i walked away and got distracted by something else. someone else…and all day today i was riding along a roller coaster of emotions: anxiety, grief, frustration, fear, sadness, resignation, peace, worry…wondering what happened. there was 30 minutes yesterday i could not remember – traveling home from work…i remember driving, i don’t remember the details. did i put the laptop in the car? did i even have it with me? why couldn’t i find it at my house? at work?
it was a curious day today…at the end of which, in meeting with one of my students about her current film project, i stopped when i realized exactly where my computer was. i hadn’t been careless. it hadn’t been taken. it was simply, in a bag, at home.
the ways in which the possibility of losing my computer today made me realize just how much of our emotional reality is all just perception. or that perhaps, truth is perception? the truth i thought i was facing (no more laptop…) was not real, given it was sitting there, in my living room (albeit slightly hidden). yet, in the moment of today, it was gone. and somehow, a false perception…a mis-fed perception, created a reality for me to which i reacted….and that was real.
what does this mean for the rest of my life? for how i approach the world? how i relate to others? i can only respond to what i perceive, and how i see the world…based on how i have lived in and through it. does that make my truth any less valid than yours? than his? than theirs? or does it make it more valid? simply because it’s mine.
is the experienced truth of someone who is a working class person of color without legal documentation more valid than someone who was born into an european-american family with established wealth and political access? does the truth of a female-bodied person who has experienced sexual discrimination carry more weight than that of a male-bodied person who has not?
it is easy to say “no”, and that we all are valid. yet we do not often organize in this world in a ways that reflects that “no”. we create camps that are us vs. them – women vs. men, queer folk vs. straight folk, workers vs. executives, the young vs. the old. in both large and small ways we build ourselves up by tearing down others…or by tearing down ourselves and building up the importance of others…yet it is just two ends of the same stick. consider: white supremacy and white guilt.
can we perhaps find a new stick with which to measure the world and act from there? one that isn’t about better than or less than, but is about equity, interconnectivity and intersection. one that is about building together, and about holding the truth that perception is fleeting…and unique to each one of us.
can we reach a place where a shared reality is about building webs of connection between our complex experiences and perceptions of each other, the world, our lives? how can we better build relationships that mirror a practice of breathing that honors every anticipatory moment of the inhale, every exquisite moment of the exhale? equally.
in losing my computer today i realized that i am the master of my reality…and that i can choose. my perception is not something i can, or have to, hold fast to. it can shift…and i always have the options, within me, to choose something else.
i always have a choice.
daydreams + that thing called feminism
August 21, 2008
all my life i have been plagued (or perhaps, entertained?) by the ability to get lost in a daydream…pretty much anytime of the day…or the night. basically, anytime i’m awake. if i don’t watch myself, i can live out a number of lives each day that bear no reflection of the waking reality outside me. so it makes me wonder, what is reality?
reality is as reality is.
my reality is only and simply my reality. it belongs to no one else…and your reality is only yours…no matter how much we try to intersect, understand and connect. we all live in, respond to, and develop expectations based on our own realities. what we think is real. what we think is actually happening around us. and yet, two people, sitting in the same place, at the same time, breathing the same air are experiencing two very different realities…because what we bring into that space is our own unique history. a well-informed storybook. memories of pain. scars. and disappointments. along with a pocketful of hopes and daydreams…
which then gets me to thinking: if all of our realities and experiences are not the same (even if we pretend to understand someone else’s situation, perspective or views of the world), then how do we manage to communicate with a language whose meaning is so subjective, at best?
i was at a dinner tonight, that i co-host each month with a friend and mentor of mine, to offer informal space to dialogue about feminism across the generations. and tonight, i realized that so much pain and miscommunication and challenge sits in the single word “feminism” or even, more personally, “feminist”. that it’s no wonder we are a segmented and uncoordinated movement. what does it mean to be a feminist? what is feminism? what was reaffirmed to me tonight was just how different all of our ideas are about what that means. one person can say one thing — and though i may agree — it’s still her idea based in the stories she holds. it doesn’t make it the definitive or last-word on the topic, and yet, can we ever get to a place where we can divest a word of painful memories, challenging associations and/or empowering epiphanies…to understand it merely as a philosophy of community wide change whose roots are in humanism and equity?
yet, i don’t think that’s possible…does that make me a cynic? perhaps. i feel strongly that it is about moving beyond the conversation about what does the word “feminism” or “feminist” mean, and really dig deep into the values and ideas and ideals we hold and fight for in our lives. that we are hoping will create more equitable realities for our lives. as we perceive them. i think it in through that level of dialogue that bridges are built, alliances are forged and trust is grown. we can all use the same language. spout the same words. but without breaking it down, deconstructing the syntax and lexicon we choose, we will forever exist in a surrealists daydream of (de)naming an apple, an apple. because image and word are not the same. object and representation are not the same. yet, the longer we hold on to words as labels. as signifiers of ideals. the more we assume that each of our realities are in fact the same…
which we have already ascertained, is, well, simply, not true.
so then, what is truth?
