Letter 36. Reckless Texts
Movies, meditation, and all the in-betweens
Hi friends,
For this week’s roommate date-night, we watched Before Sunrise (accompanied by some hella good Chinese food). Although Ethan Hawke’s skinny mustache bothered us a little at times, we thought that what he said about missed opportunities seemed apt: to say yes to more things, and never wonder about the what-ifs. Funny, because we were having a similar conversation the other day about our freshman year selves. That even in our naïveté, there was something special about the openness and eagerness with which we went through life.
Anyways, here’s a meta-meme for all the KC readers who may have started to pick up on our favorite form of punctuation! We got a lot of love from last week’s letter, and just wanted to thank you all for your lovely messages and continued support; we’re nearing our 1 year milestone, and the excitement of this project never fades.
N:
Acceptance is a small, quiet room
On Wednesday night I tried a silent meditation for 20 minutes and found it really hard. My stubborn brain itched for stimulus as the last 5 minutes drew to an end. Isn't perception weird? How some moments feel excruciatingly short while whole years seem unbearably brief. This March (which feels only a breath away from last March) reminds me how time passes through you, sharp as a knife. Most times I find myself wishing that these glittering moments of college will feel renewable, never-ending. But I only have to look outside my window, where the pristine snow this morning has already converted to grey slush, to know that you can't freeze a beautiful thing forever.
Behind the whole mindfulness/consciousness movement is a belief that you should not prevent unwanted thoughts from entering your mind. You should accept them and allow them to pass through you as though they are clouds passing in the sky. I sat there, hearing the faint rock music thrumming through the thin-walled ceiling above me like a heartbeat. Outside, the world slid gracefully into darkness: that threshold moment before night where the sky holds on to blue for just a moment longer than you’d expect.
I keep returning to the idea of acceptance as a whole recently. About how hard it is to accept a lot of things about ourselves. Our bodies, our desires, our sufferings, our choices. Everything hideous, hidden, awkward, boring about ourselves. How easy it is to want to disengage from everything we've been, everything we've done, even the person we currently are. But A says that acceptance is possible, and that freedom can be found within it. Whether it is of thought, action, or outcome. I’d like to believe that.
In his book on self-esteem, Nathaniel Branden writes these important lines:
"Self-acceptance is the willingness to say of any emotion or behaviour: this is an expression of me, not necessarily an expression I like or admire, but an expression of me nonetheless. Self-acceptance is the precondition of change and growth. I cannot learn from a mistake I cannot accept having made."
Acceptance is the voice inside that asks you how willing you are to be honest to yourself. And if there’s anything I know, it’s that I’d rather live in truth than self-delusion. Even if it means recognizing I want something; even if it’s irrational and illogical and everything I try not to be.
Acceptance isn’t this self-actualization guru/starry motivational thing. It is seeking the mundane and invisible truths between the selves of yesterday and today, and this year and next year and the years to come. Maybe that’s what makes meditation so difficult but so necessary. To acknowledge and respect that everything in life, like thoughts, will come and go. In fact, what makes life warm and luminous is knowing that all of us aren’t defined by perfection, and instead want stupid things for no reason, make awful oh-god-not-again mistakes, and yet – how wonderful it is that we muddle through it anyways.
To end, I want to share what Cheryl Strayed would have told her twenty-something self if she had the chance to:
“Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”
J:
Notes to Self: On Being More Direct
One of the most valuable pieces of advice I’ve ever received came from a friend in the year above me; I think of her as a mentor-of-sorts. She told me I needed to be more direct. Though she was referring to my role within our student-run club, I sometimes like to think she meant in life, generally.
She pointed out that during our meetings, I had a tendency to ramble. Before asking people to do their jobs, I’d pad my requests with additional fluff instead of just getting to the point. I told her I was wary of coming off too strong; she simply asked, “And what’s so wrong about that?”
There’s a saying that the way you do one thing is the way you do everything, and I think it’s true. That my fear of coming off too strong tints other ways I conduct myself. Ending comments like questions in class as if it’s a sin to have an opinion. Make ambiguous statements like “working on a thing!” in reference to projects like these, rather than specify the depth of effort and time something like Kopi Club really demands. This habit even pervades the way I interact with those closest to me. I shy away from telling friends I miss them, as if any admission of emotion is cringe-worthy. It’s become reflexive – this constant dilution of emotions.
In this New York Times feature, Kyle Chayka writes about the rising “culture of negation”: our collective “obsession with absence, the intentional erasure of self and surroundings”. Chayka wonders if by this negation of feelings, of wants, of expectations, we no longer have anything to lose. But I also wonder if the opposite is true. That in denying ourselves the ability to express those very feelings and wants and expectations, we are ultimately denying ourselves everything.
Rachel C Lewis:
“I love being horribly straightforward. I love sending reckless text messages (because how reckless can a form of digitized communication be?) and telling people I love them and telling people they are absolutely magical humans and I cannot believe they really exist… And there is nothing more risky than pretending not to care. We are young and we are human and we are beautiful and we are not as in control as we think we are. We never know who needs us back. We never know the magic that can arise between ourselves and other humans.”
Recently, I’ve been finding the courage to be more direct. Graduating in the midst of a pandemic, there’s a nagging sense of urgency that seems to motivate my every decision. More so than ever, there is an understanding that everything is finite. We know our time as students here was never permanent, but now the days we have left are measurable, known. And so you let your guard down. Shed the cynicism. Reach out to almost-strangers, send the risky message, tell people you miss them; admit to all the wants you couldn’t before. There is so much I’ve already learned from this senior-year-final-semester mindset; I only wish I’d done this sooner. To treat all time with the same kind of imperative. Sometimes I wonder if this last semester has conferred something new to time, made it more valuable; I realize now that it has always been.
N:
Live from the Covid Testing Tent
I went to the covid testing tent really early one morning and they were playing ‘My Life’ by Billy Joel through the loudspeakers and it was the cutest thing. Imagine all the nurses and staff in full PPE wear just dancing to Billy Joel at 8am on a Saturday morning. It made my day.
A Podcast I Listened To
J:
It’s true; nothing rhymes with purple
It’s been a while since I shared a new playlist, so here’s a random assortment of tunes keeping me company through the thesis schlump (my fellow seniors, I see you):
Some personal favorites include Vitamin T, Olive Juice and The Gold :~)
N:
“That’s all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.”
– Raymond Carver
This week I attended a Raymond Carver themed writing session where we analyzed some of his work and workshopped our own writing. If you are looking for something thought provoking but also unsettling, something about love and its failures, you should read this short story: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Nicole’s Phrase of the Week
Notes from the Podcast Linked Above
Parts that resonated
“A lot of ideas have recognition capacity, meaning you can see them in the world. But they don't have generation capacity. You don’t ask ‘What’s Next?’”
“I choose Positioning over Predicting. I can't predict the future. I just want to be positioned for multiple possible futures. There's always somebody you can compare yourself to who's doing the exact optimal thing in the moment (Eg winning big in the stock market, getting a great job, looking their best) but what you don’t see is the years they took positioning themselves to achieve that.”
This really reminds me of that quote “don’t compare your process with someone else’s highlight reel”
J:
A Virtual “Third Place”
Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third place” in 1989. Third places represent anchor points of community life; a space that helps individuals meet new people, connect with each other, share knowledge. They are unique in the fact that they exist outside of our two normal environments: the home, and the workplace. Third places as a hybrid: a place where people can both gather and unwind together. Most of the places I love typify this notion of a third space: libraries, parks, coffeeshops.
But now, a life-hack: my much more tech-savvy friends have discovered that there is a computer-audio sharing option of Zoom (no more stress-inducing countdowns to press play at the same time!!), so we’ve started doing group work calls while jamming to the same playlist to replicate the cafe atmosphere. With our beverage-of-choice on standby, it was a coffee shop-esque “third-place” made virtual.
One of them – hi K! – said something I really loved: how lucky we are to share this. I’m not sure what “this” referred to specifically: the time, the music, the advice, the same sense of humor, the freedom to actually act goofy on a Zoom call– but I like how it seemed to encompass all of it. We then proceeded to take a dance break; thank you, Doja.
N:
“You must unlearn the habit of being someone else or nothing at all, of imitating the voices of others and mistaking the faces of others for your own.” – Herman Hesse
On the meditation theme:
"The Buddhists say there are 121 states of consciousness. Of these, only three involve misery or suffering. Most of us spend our time moving back and forth between these three." – Jenny Offill
J:
From Before Sunrise
“I believe if there's any kind of God, it wouldn't be in any of us; not you or me, but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone; sharing something. I know – it's almost impossible to succeed, but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.”
N:
Poem of the Week
J:
A new word: parea
Though there is no direct English translation, the Greek “parea” describes a group of friends that gather regularly (coincidentally, the Tagalog term for friend is “pare”). The defining trait of a parea is the fact that everyone derives pleasure just from the fact that they’re together. Last week, our best friend-slash-roomie came back to Philly to spend the next month here, and it feels like the parea we formed in freshman year is complete again.
Hugs,
J & N