This morning I found myself sitting in bed, journal in hand, thinking on a situation from years ago and staring down at the thought I'd written down about it.
"This situation isn't over until they like me."
It felt so real. So solid.
As I kept sitting with it and questioned it from various directions, another thought emerged.
"This isn't about them liking you."
And I sat with that for a long time.
That felt more true. More deeply true somehow.
And then, from out of the underbrush the words of an elder with whom I study reminding me how prepositions speak to relationships in space. They say that you are somewhere and that which you are speaking about (the preposition in question) is somewhere else.
"This isn't about them liking you."
An image: I am walking in circles around something. It is in the center. It is holds a gravitational grip on my attention. I try to look away but it's dark everywhere else. Or it's utterly illumined and this is the dark mystery at the center of my days. I can imagine it drawn on a piece of paper. A map. There's a dark spot in the center and there's a circle around it where I'm walking. I am here. The situation is there.
In this world, the drum beat of my thinking becomes, "How do I get them to like me?"
But then the thought, "This isn't about them liking you."
The words are telling me that this isn't what you are walking about. This is not the proper center for your circumambulating. Your days are not arranged, though it might seem so, about this center.
Other possibilities emerged, more potent as a center worthy of my attention and considerations but that is a story for another time.
What I am struck by is that word 'about'. We use it so often.
"What's it about?"
That word speaks to something being in the center, about which everything else is orchestrated or, perhaps, you being inside of something that is all about you in which you are the center.
The next time there is contention, you might ask people, "What is this about?" and understand it not essentially but spatially, not that what they tell you is inherent in the DNA of the situation (or that the situation has a particular DNA) but that what they're telling you is about the relationship between things. They aren't invoking the archetype of the situation, they are describing the architecture they imagine.
Essentialism has its roots deep in Western culture and it is the beginning of much of our troubles. Essentialism says that there is a heart to things and, if you could just understand that essence, that spark, you would truly know that thing. This comes straight from Aristotle and Plato before him.
It comes from the verb 'to be' which finds itself in every Indo-European language.
Consider this: you couldn't have racism without this way of seeing the world. You could never say, "They are this way."
When we speak in terms of essence, we stop talking about relationships.
"This is about right and wrong!" comes the cry from many and what they are telling you is that this morality or right and wrong the the guide of their days and the terrain they imagine they walk in.
The consequences of this are immense.
The next time you say it, you might ask yourself not 'why?!' but rather, "Where am I? What is about me? What am I circling around?"
Look for the architecture. Look for the structure.
I would hesitate to completely relinquish essence, consider it the root of all evil. Whenever we lean too heavily on any one thing we run the risk of it becoming distorted, warped by holding the weight of being a singular answer to all things. I really appreciate these writings you're offering!
Perhaps both things are true: the essence of the being, situation or experience exists, and also an infinite number of possible relationships to it (or perspectives of it). And perhaps the inherent unknowability of this thing’s ‘essential-ness’ is reduced or qualitatively shifted in some deeply relevant way every time we’re willing to reconsider, think again, try something else, look at it from a different angle, and so on. Maybe there’s nothing to be done per se, only the willingness to be open, present, available in our capacity to listen and fully receive the ‘other’. Or, maybe not. 🙂