7 Years, 7 Lessons

This post is from Brain Pickings --Maria Popova shares her lessons gleaned from 7 years of running this extraordinary blog.

1.   Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind. Cultivate that capacity for “negative capability.” We live in a culture where one of the greatest social disgraces is not having an opinion, so we often form our “opinions” based on superficial impressions or the borrowed ideas of others, without investing the time and thought that cultivating true conviction necessitates. We then go around asserting these donned opinions and clinging to them as anchors to our own reality. It’s enormously disorienting to simply say, “I don’t know.” But it’s infinitely more rewarding to understand than to be right — even if that means changing your mind about a topic, an ideology, or, above all, yourself.
2. Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone. As Paul Graham observed, “prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.” Those extrinsic motivators are fine and can feel life-affirming in the moment, but they ultimately don’t make it thrilling to get up in the morning and gratifying to go to sleep at night — and, in fact, they can often distract and detract from the things that do offer those deeper rewards.
3. Be generous. Be generous with your time and your resources and with giving credit and, especially, with your words. It’s so much easier to be a critic than a celebrator. Always remember there is a human being on the other end of every exchange and behind every cultural artifact being critiqued. To understand and be understood, those are among life’s greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them.
4. Build pockets of stillness into your life. Meditate. Go for walks. Ride your bike going nowhere in particular. There is a creative purpose to daydreaming, even to boredom. The best ideas come to us when we stop actively trying to coax the muse into manifesting and let the fragments of experience float around our unconscious mind in order to click into new combinations. Without this essential stage of unconscious processing, the entire flow of the creative process is broken.
   Most importantly, sleep. Besides being the greatest creative aphrodisiac, sleep also affects our every waking moment, dictates our social rhythm, and even mediates our negative moods. Be as religious and disciplined about your sleep as you are about your work. We tend to wear our ability to get by on little sleep as some sort of badge of honor that validates our work ethic. But what it really is is a profound failure of self-respect and of priorities. What could possibly be more important than your health and your sanity, from which all else springs?
   
5. When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou famously advised, believe them. Just as importantly, however, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. You are the only custodian of your own integrity, and the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you.
6. Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living — for, as Annie Dillard memorably put it, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
7. “Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.” This is borrowed from the wise and wonderful Debbie Millman, for it’s hard to better capture something so fundamental yet so impatiently overlooked in our culture of immediacy. The myth of the overnight success is just that — a myth — as well as a reminder that our present definition of success needs serious retuning. As I’ve reflected elsewhere, the flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst and yet, as a culture, we’re disinterested in the tedium of the blossoming. But that’s where all the real magic unfolds in the making of one’s character and destiny.

Ruin is a Gift

A friend took me to the most amazing place the other day, it's called the Augustian. Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains. When the Barbarians came, they trashed it along with everything else. The great Augustus, Rome's first true emperor--how could he have imagined that one day Rome, the whole world as far as he was concerned, would one day be in ruins?

It's one of the quietest and loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up, around it over centuries. It feels like a precious wound--like a heartbreak you won't let go of because it hurts too good. We all want things to stay the same. Settle for living in misery because we're afraid of change, of things crumbling into ruins.

Then I looked around at this place--the chaos it's endured. The way it's been adapted, pillaged, burned, then found a way to build itself back up again and I was reassured. Maybe my life hasn't been so chaotic, it's just the world that is and the only real trap is getting attached to any of it.

Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.

Even in this eternal city, Augustian showed me that we must always be prepared for endless waves of transformation.

---Eat, Pray, Love

Illusory Cheddar

Flying over the Missoula valley, its golden belly punctured by the frosted Bitterroot mountains, a hum of familiarity rose up within me. After over 30 hours of jumping from airport to airport, paroosing the same magazine stalls and munching the same bland breakfast burritos—from Mumbai to Newark to Denver to Montucky— I was officially home.

            Upon exiting the plane, I was enveloped with that ever-familiar brisk mountain air. It filled my lungs harshly, as if the atmosphere could foreshadow the social adjustment to come. I waiting at baggage claim, in Chacos with mehndied toes and a tribal throw from the Nilgiris bundled across my shoulders, praying that my backpack caught all of its legs from the journey. Pack and mangled goat-leather carry-on in hand, I slowly exited the airport, half-expecting my girlfriends to run up to me, shrieking and giddy, champagne in hand. Instead I watched a young family greet their father, a rogue college student hail a cab, and an elderly couple cart suitcases towards their Subaru. I shivered and passed back through the automatic doors, finding a seat inside next to a Big Horn Sheep, fresh from taxidermy. 

            I will admit, it was an anti-climactic arrival home. I patiently waited, observing my surroundings with foreign eyes, overwhelmed with the recurring thought, “this is it. I am home. India is over.” It didn’t stick; it felt like a dream. I am sure most people can attest to this— the feeling of emptiness after you pour yourself into a grand plan, quiet and mounting as falling snow. For months prior to my journey, all that was on my mind was graduation and India. Quite frankly, given the tasks at hand that accompany graduating college a year early, and traveling around to a developing country for 6 months, if I did plan beyond that, I wouldn’t have made it. Self-imposed myopia was my saving grace.

I have been conditioned my whole life to plan, plan, plan. Because whatever cultural script running in our young brains tells us that to have a plan is to have success. We should always be yearning for that higher branch, the better bite, the most impressive lens. Like ropes these expectations constrict themselves around our psyche— from the moment we understand the concept of the self, we are already envisioning how we can morph it to fit into societal ideas of ‘the good.’

As kids, we devour any and every cultural message we can get our hands on, internalizing Manichean representations of the world: good and evil, fat and skinny, liberal and conservative, smart and dumb, right and wrong. In turn, we start to categorize ourselves in relation to this ‘Hollywood’ milieu; the sad thing is that our culture grossly promotes unachievable ideals, which children and young adults will never be able to live up to. And so an entire generation checks themselves into the box that says, ‘I will never be enough.’

            And so we make plans, we set goals, we bite, bite, bite for that illusory cheddar, programming ourselves out of today in search of a glamorous tomorrow. Perhaps we don’t bite our nails; we run five miles at 6am every day; we don’t have that 4^th gin and tonic and have sloppy sex with a stranger; we drive an Audi and decline cheese products with ease. Whatever your platter of insecurities, in this vision of tomorrow you are a better, more desirable person—a worthy person.

            I believe this doctrine of insufficiency to be the nascence of quotidian neurosis in my country. In India, I had to lie to rest this optimal version of ‘Kendall’ and rewire my brain to be content with and also appreciate my present. In surrendering, it was as if two decades of pressure released from my mental shoulders. I became more loving and patient with myself and with others. I recognized the blessing and opportunity in every encounter, however frustrating and menial. Most of all, I learned to listen to myself—to conjure the silence in my soul and open the space for self-exploration and growth.

            “Kenny Strauts!” Katie yelled from her dilapidated red sedan, dubbed ‘Diane.’ Jess jumped out of the passenger seat with pastel balloons as I hobbled with baggage across the street to meet them. We embraced with the ease of friends who’ve abandoned disclaimers in the wake of college drinking antics and went straight to shooting the shit.   

            “So, Jesus Christ girl,” Katie remarked as she manually rolled down her window and lit a cigarette, “you’re back.”

            “I know,” I smirked and nodded, “it’s fuckin nuts.”

            And that is the feeling I had all evening as we shared stories over box-chardonnay and bowls, lamenting over how much we missed each other. I retraced my steps, my belongings—where I left my life 6 months ago, neatly packed in soccer bags and hat boxes. I ceremoniously donned a familiar pair of tights with a statement necklace and hopped on the bus downtown. It was as if I had never left.

            We strolled into our usual watering hole, sat down at our usual table, and ordered our usual drinks. I made a toast to reuniting with my two favorite ladies; they repeatedly welcomed me back. I was truly grateful to be in their presence again. It is funny, how you long for something while you are alone and abroad. At times, there was nothing I wanted more than to just spit-silly-profane-nonsense with these girls over whiskey drinks in a crowded bar—where we pretend the door to the smoking lounge is a veritable catwalk fit for judging other ladies’ attire and/or possible men to bone.

They bear witness to my 20s-hot-mess state and ask no questions. This support network, however flawed and filled with too many substances, is what I craved when I was at my depths in India. Because it is the ultimate comfort— to be out with your friends who will have your back no matter what ill-thought-out rabbit hole you choose to plunge down. So this is was the solidarity I envisioned coming home to.

            “Kendall, you’ve really gotta stop fucking around,” Katie interrupted my welling nostalgia as she clicked a selfie whilst sipping a cucumber marg, “and get snap-chat already.”

            I rolled my eyes in the stench of déjà vu and irony. We had done this merry-go-round many times— her enthusiasm always met with my adamancy to never join another social media cult. My relationship to the twittersphere is the usual love-hate-mesmerized-obsession as my 20-something contemporaries.

I feel like it is an essential part of operating in society in this day and age, while at the same time I lament its alluring velvet vortex—where responding to an email can turn into ‘gypsy-blog-envy’ spirals or morally condemning every female which shows up on your ex’s ‘new friend’ FB scroll. Before I left for India, I had a (in the words of my father) ‘come to Jesus’ moment in which I concluded that Facebook is nothing but a source of negative energy and therefore, vehemently deleted it (Malbec in hand).

            It literally felt like mental shackles had been lifted from my brain; I had unplugged from the matrix. Creating that space made me realize what a toxic crutch facebook is for me—that I have to ‘upkeep’ this Internet version of myself. And in doing so, either radically boost my self-esteem via ‘likes’ or condemn my being due to a wrongly filtered photo without a ‘skinny arm’ pose. I am recognizing ever more how social media fragments my existence and my understanding of myself in the world.  

Back at the ever-lively Tamarac Brewing Company, I was glowing, thankful to be in a setting where I could merely blend in, the music, the language, the clothing, the whole vibe—I was certainly no longer an outsider. But in the strangest sense, I felt like a new anthropologist on assignment. I was observing my surroundings with keen eyes, highlighting cultural nuances with my Indian programmed psyche. Overwhelmed with the social dynamics of a place where most individuals present were born with every luxury, it was hard to reconcile the fact that two, so completely different social biomes could exist on the same planet. And I checked my watch, imagining what my dear friends Devi, or Rishi, or Selma were doing at this very moment and how they would react to this alien realm of privilege and facade.

It was at that moment, in my spliced cultural state, that I realized how tuned out my companions were. After the initial cheers and ‘OMG, I miiiisssed you!’s, everyone unlocked their iphones and plugged into the matrix with feverish intensity, as if every second they were missing an opportunity to document a faux pas of extraordinary proportion.

No one was present at the table; they were plugged in. My mind wandered to bonding with my Indian girlfriends, whom were all ears and eyes and handholding when we were together. When I sat silently at a train stop waiting for the ‘Loco to Chennai Central,’ I did just that—sat silently and waiting. I didn’t fill the space with music, or photo streams, or digital scrabble.

That night at the Tamarac felt anything but genuine compared to my interactions with friends in a (developing, mind you) country unpolluted by selfies and statuses and check-ins’s— Oh My! I can’t help but wonder what this constant buzz, this unremitting influx of advertising, relationship critiquing, and societal messaging is doing for our psyche. What kind of illusory connectivity are these ‘networks’ building? Was I witnessing the truth of Western solidarity in friendships—expressed through snapchats, and FB likes, and tags instead of face-to-face investment?

After a month or so in India, I reactivated my Facebook, obviously to spy on my friends and family whom I missed so much. But there, it wasn’t so much of a problem because there were a limited number of times when I had access to internet or Wi-Fi. When I could, I scrolled, typed, liked, tweeted, grammed to my heart’s desires, but then I would leave the internet café and be done with it. My realm of real-life and social media were kept separate, with the virtual world encompassing a miniscule part of my day-to-day thought patterns and interactions. This was manageable for me, and I enjoyed it.

The difference of being back here is the extent of connectivity. Literally everywhere you go, you can be plugged in. With Wi-Fi practically being a rudiment to any thriving public (and private) space, why wouldn’t you want the latest updates? It seems the line between real and simulated social interaction is blurred immensely; many of my generation are so consumed with their online avatars that they literally end up viewing their lives through the filters on their instagrams instead of experiencing some truly awesome memories in their raw, coherent state.

It is clear that a new age has dawned with a whole generation growing up on iphones and macbooks. I am extremely curious as to how psychological research is responding to such societal changes. Whether you call it a smartphone addiction, social media angst, FOMO (fear of missing out), mobophobia, the like thereof—we have to admit there is something seriously going on. Allow me to spit off some stats.

According to Psychology Today, on average Americans check their smartphones for messages 150 times a day—that’s about once every six and a half minutes. Based on Digital Insights data, Facebook has 1.15 billion registered users— mind you that is over 1/7^th the population on the entire planet— with 23% of that 1.15 billion who check their account at least 5 times per day.

Daniel Sarewitz, in an op-ed from The Oregonian, gives some riveting opinions,

“So what if your attention span has been fragmented into nanoseconds, if you measure your social life by Facebook friends, your professional worth by Google hits, and the worst words you can imagine are “airplane mode”? We are all one-marshmallow OCD narcissists, granted by our devices the magic of comprehensive instant gratification, of self-reinforcing worldviews, of control over the daily minutia of our fates and fortunes. To not be irrevocably addicted to our smartphones would be senseless.”

Okay so we admit it, we are all logged in all the time. Why—because we can! But how does this affect us psychologically? A 2012 study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, for example, found that the longer people spent on Facebook each week, the more they agreed that everyone else was happier and had better lives. Clinical Psychologist Craig Malkin described similar observations in an interview with NPR, commenting that the incessant consumption of projected and idealized images from social media results in rampant envy, social distress, hinders self-understanding and forecloses real-life intimacy.

It is well known that social media provides us with is a false sense of community. Even Abraham Maslow included ‘belongingness’ in his (ever-holy) hierarchy of needs, among the instinct for food, shelter, and self-actualization. Pre-google-circles, we satisfied this need through kin-networks—close friends and family in our immediate existence whom we would get personal acceptance feedback from in everyday life. The Internet has expanded this realm of feedback to infinite bounds, such that our brain feels the need to retain acceptance in the same style of Hollywood stars and highschool classmates who you never liked but ‘made it big.’ If you don’t have their sprawl of following and attention splattered across your feed, the message is, once again, ‘you are worthless.’

Theodore Roosevelt once said: “comparison is the thief of joy.” I couldn’t agree more that what is most damaging about social media is in fact its very purpose: to peek in on others’ lives. While the intention may be ‘staying in touch,’ one can’t help but internalize those images of perfection or perhaps a lack of ‘following’, even if underneath we know that no one is unblemished and airwave fanbases are superficial. 

Elliot Panek, of the Universit of Michigan, says of Facebook, "It's about curating your own image, how you are seen, and also checking on how others respond to this image. Middle-aged adults usually have already formed their social selves,” while the y-generation looks to this media for answers about ‘who we’re supposed to be.’ Perhaps my generation is more vulnerable to the dark side of social media, seeing as we are not fully formed humans.

Carl Rogers is one of my favorite psychologists—a humanist who believed that a fully functioning being had to have a coherent sense of self. He believed that all suffering and neurosis was a result of the gap between our actual selves, flaws and all, and the ‘self’ we wish we were, our perceived self. The key to content and fulfillment in life, according to Rogers, is addressing the whole landscape— thorns and all— and showering what you encounter with radical self-acceptance.

Personally, I have found this technique of, what I call, ‘loving your uglies,’ to be extremely transformative. But the catch here, is that you need the gift of age and hindsight to fully explore the dimensions of these multiple self-concepts we brew up. I fear that social media engenders the creation of selves beyond Mr. Roger’s dichotomy, which is tough enough to navigate alone.

Back to Panek’s comments: "social networking in general allows the user a great deal of control over how he or she is presented to and perceived by peers and other users,” ever-widening the gap between the real and perceived self. Malkin also argued that young individuals who get into the habit of always ‘touching-up’ their image, hiding their flaws, may develop a reticence towards intimate relationships with others and themselves. If we are constantly refraining from acknowledging our vulnerabilities, our humanness, how can we ever grow into a flourishing, whole human?

I was very quiet the first few weeks home. My internal dialogue-cogs were incessantly grinding as I observed those around me— the way they approached life, problems, desires, needs. I have been wrestling with multiple selves for a long time. During my self-exploration in India, there were delicate layers of my Americanness that I shed, which I wasn’t made aware of until I came home and had the urge to put those covers on again. So with each day I confront engrained neurosis, at times feeling like a conditioned rat pulling the lever in response to the pressures of society. And so it is my task to unburden each reflex through that every-god-damn-day self-awareness I always talk about. Starting with monitoring (and stopping) my interaction with the social media realm.

As of now, the jury is still out on whether or not my reunion with my beloved Mac is a blessing or a curse for my spiritual wellbeing. The most I can do is acknowledge this presence and, as with everything, it will be enmeshed in my lifelong sojourn to find that alluring notion of balance.

One of my favorite quotes from Mr. Emerson goes something like this: ne te quaesiveris extra—translation— do not seek yourself outside yourself. When I look to others for approval, or for comparison on how I should be living, I will only recreate an inauthentic vision of what my life ‘should’ be instead of simply glorifying what it ‘is.’ 

Photo-cred--Dust lookbook

                      

Be Ourselves

I must first say, however American and idiosyncratic this sounds, that it feels amazing to be back on my laptop, my generation's source of identity--where we filter the abstract influx of media messaging with our tabs and bookmark bars. That said, I am once again excited to share a post from one of my favorite sites, Brain Pickings, talking about 20-year-old Hunter S. Thompson's advice on living an authentic life and basically, not giving a fuck. Enjoy.

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles…”
And indeed, that IS the question: whether to float with the tide, or to swim for a goal. It is a choice we must all make consciously or unconsciously at one time in our lives. So few people understand this! Think of any decision you’ve ever made which had a bearing on your future: I may be wrong, but I don’t see how it could have been anything but a choice however indirect — between the two things I’ve mentioned: the floating or the swimming.

The answer — and, in a sense, the tragedy of life — is that we seek to understand the goal and not the man. We set up a goal which demands of us certain things: and we do these things. We adjust to the demands of a concept which CANNOT be valid. When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. I feel reasonably safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman. Why? Because your perspective has changed. It’s not the fireman who has changed, but you.

Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.

So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?

The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all, or not with tangible goals, anyway. It would take reams of paper to develop this subject to fulfillment. God only knows how many books have been written on “the meaning of man” and that sort of thing, and god only knows how many people have pondered the subject. (I use the term “god only knows” purely as an expression.)* There’s very little sense in my trying to give it up to you in the proverbial nutshell, because I’m the first to admit my absolute lack of qualifications for reducing the meaning of life to one or two paragraphs.

To put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES.

But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors—but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal. In every man, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires—including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that his life will be MEANINGFUL. A man has to BE something; he has to matter.

As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES. In doing this, he is fulfilling a need (giving himself identity by functioning in a set pattern toward a set goal) he avoids frustrating his potential (choosing a path which puts no limit on his self-development), and he avoids the terror of seeing his goal wilt or lose its charm as he draws closer to it (rather than bending himself to meet the demands of that which he seeks, he has bent his goal to conform to his own abilities and desires).

In short, he has not dedicated his life to reaching a pre-defined goal, but he has rather chosen a way of life he KNOWS he will enjoy. The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important. And it seems almost ridiculous to say that a man MUST function in a pattern of his own choosing; for to let another man define your own goals is to give up one of the most meaningful aspects of life — the definitive act of will which makes a man an individual.

A man who procrastinates in his CHOOSING will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance. So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life. But you say, “I don’t know where to look; I don’t know what to look for.”

And there’s the crux. Is it worth giving up what I have to look for something better? I don’t know—is it? Who can make that decision but you? But even by DECIDING TO LOOK, you go a long way toward making the choice.

I’m not trying to send you out “on the road” in search of Valhalla, but merely pointing out that it is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that — no one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life. 

-----Hunter S. Thompson

A Reflection:

            Why is it that us creative types feel so much more inspired when we are in the midst of turmoil or ‘newness’? Coming home I am faced with ‘the OTHER EYE’ and all its buzzing questions grounded in our societies’ idea that plans equal wellbeing.

The only hard part is that I spent all of my time in India denying plan making, surrendering to the wave of life before me—and it worked. So the part of me that found peace in not knowing and simply living is being marched to the guillotine by those American scripts, “What will you do next? What is your plan? School or work or boyfriends or babies?”

 I feel like this urge to ‘have our shit together,’ makes people negate the space for confusion and the unknown in our lives. No wonder artists drink. I welcome this space as a transition, but also as a progression. I believe that unknown is powerful, surrendering to it opens yourself up to the possibilities of unexpected beauties. While in India this perspective was respected by my fellow comrades and travelers, in America people just think I am smoking too much weed.

            Before I got on the plane from Mumbai, a friend of mine quelled my worries, “Kendall, you are going home, there should be nothing scary about it. Everyone has to at some point, its good for the soul. If you don’t go home, you’d be running away from how you’ve changed.”

            And I realized, without going home, the baseline of living, how else would I be able to measure and appreciate the growth?

            Amidst all of this readjustment, I can’t help but wonder, ‘are we so preoccupied with ‘who’ we will become that we forget to BE OURSELVES?’

Chastity & Gold

Late one evening, in the damp belly of crooked city-canyons, I strolled hand in hand with Devi, my Indian guide and new bahen-- 'sister in Hindi'. We jumped over sludge puddles and darted out of rickshaw paths in sync, hips swaying, kicking our feet out in that subtle Indian saunter. Street goats hopsped out of our way as we stopped at a street vendor to buy ropes of fresh jasmine to braid in each other's hair in the morning. 

I watched her haggle with the wallah (vendor), she is a very slender woman-- probably the height of my 10 year-old brother and half his weight. She swims in her bright, double patterned salwar kameez, hiding her birdlike arms and legs. Despite her stature, she demands a presence in the honest, no-bull shit way she carries herself. I would imagine Taylor Swift or Dakota Fanning to have a similar voice, with such pure open heartened intonation that no one could ever wish to do them ill. She shows the world only love and when it does not reciprocate, her thin eyebrows and button nose crunch up on her specs in utter disbelief--a countenance so charming, no human is impervious. 

The jasmine vendor surrenders to her contagious goodness, offers her the right price for a handful of perfumed white blossoms--  "theek hai, challo bahen" she smiles at me, pinches my cheek, "okay, let's go sister." We hop off the crumbled sidewalk over some discarded coconuts and continue meandering. A few paces down, Devi grabs my forearm to cross the clogged street, we snake in between rickshaws and carts and camels and cars, I glance back towards the jasmine-wallah and could only make out the faint spectrum of sarees circumventing his street tarp amidst the honking and the smog. 

Devi is a staff member at MCCSS who has embraced me into her life, treating me like a long-lost friend from the moment we met. She giggles constantly and strokes my hair and lays her head on my shoulder in the train and feeds me too many chappatis and teaches me hindi and sings butchered Rihanna songs and plucks lice out of my hair--a true friend. 

Indian affection is a beautiful thing. It needs no incubation period, there is no guise-- merely honest, exuberant expression of love for human connection, the oneness that brings us all together. Once you expose your nuggets of vulnerable humanness to an Indian, showing them that you are the same at your core, they express their affinity in a deluge akin only to sisterly or motherly love in the West. 

She was walking me back to the train station, as she always did when I stayed at her apartment past dark, despite my knowing the way and it being only two blocks down. "Alone nihi bahen," she adamantly replied, wrapping a shawl over my head and shoving a third serving of rice on my plate, "finish and we go, theek hai?" Stubbornness is another ubiquitous trait of Indian woman--there is always an opportunity to impose their 'right' way of doing things, whether it be with eating, sitting, speaking, drinking, or wearing your dupatta. The pushy interferences that westerners would view as appallingly rude are just avatars of that intense affection mentioned above. 

We reached the train station and merged into the current of bodies being funneled up and down staircases to various platforms. "So much rush, na?" Devi shouted. 

"Bahut!" I replied, "too much!," shoving a man beside me. We struggled through the nightly wrestling match and perched ourselves near the 'ladies only' platform. 

Just then I heard the booming echo of the railway chai-wallah's chorus reverberate off the steel blue tented awning. "Chai garam! Chai! Chai! Chai garam! Masala chaiya!"---"Hot tea! Tea! Tea! Hot tea! Spicy tea!" I find it hard to pass up that baritone catchphrase, immediately scrummaging for my last 10 rupee note as I followed his voice down the crowded strip of cement between parallel tracks where vermin feasted. 

When I found Miss Devi again, she was squished between two plump older women busting out of their neon sarees with jaundiced skin and too many gold chains, South Indian style. They quickly made space for half my butt-cheeck--which is considered beyond ample room. I squeezed in and handed Devi her scalding paper teacup. She was in a daze--said nothing but sipped her tea slowly, holding it like an expert, with fingertips delicately fastening top and bottom lips of the cup so you don't get burnt.

"Kyaa baat hai bahen?" I asked, "What's the matter sister?" 

She sighed and murmured with tea in her cheeks, "Your Hindi makes me very happy Kand," using her new pet name for me. Indians very much struggle with the pronunciation of my name--it is either Kandle or Kenol, there's no middle ground. 

I stayed silent, observing the clucking ladies around me with faith that Devi would reply in due time. There is no place like India to teach you patience. The train was already 20 minutes late, yet no one was bothered. People drank chai, sat cross legged on the dusty ground to read the paper, tied knots of jasmine flowers in circles of silk and slick black braids, and caught up with those around them--leave it to India to find a sense of community in a city of 6 million. While it was obvious that everyone was waiting, there was no urgency in the delay, almost as if they understood this to be out of their hands. 

Things happen when they happen-- there's a bead of Hindu culture for you, the value of process, not destination. And it is true, that something I am truly learning is how to be in the present moment; Mother India demands this of us. And it seems irrationally constraining at first, the way in which your choices are limited-- you have to eat all your food, you have to cover your head and tits, you have to endure the heat, you have to wake up at 4:30am when the call of the Mosque invades your sweaty sleep. But in reality all of our life is boiled down to the simple choice of opening your heart up to new experiences or hibernating in fear. 

"You can't forget me when you go home Kand," Devi whispered as she lifted her head off my shoulder, interrupting my rumination and meeting my gaze with those caring onyx eyes. 

"Of course I won't," I replied, caught off guard by her quivering tone, "how could I?"

"We're family, na?--sisters," she cackled and slapped the back of my hand, "You come to my wedding, okay?" 

She burst out, rolling in laughter as she often did, even when the situation wasn't particularly humorous. I caught on and sputtered between giggles, "and just when is that going to be Devi-didi? Are you and Anandh going to elope?"

His name took the breath out of her--quieted down and eyes cast aside, she solemnly recounted her recent issues with her boyfriend. They had been 'seeing' each other for around 6 months now. Recently Devi took him up North to her home state, Odisha (Orissa), to meet her family, which is a very serious move in Indian relationship talk. The two hadn't seen each other in two months. He no longer called or texted; she was heartbroken. Like most Western women I know, she automatically blamed herself, "I don't know what I did wrong Kand, I thought we would get married," Devi said with a click of the tongue and a roll of her watery eyes. She twisted my hair with her bony fingers; "When we love, we give the whole heart." She paused and sniffled, "s'not so easy to find one to take it though, isn't it?" 

You must understand that the term 'boyfriend' in India is a hop, skip, and jump from the term 'fiancee'--so much so that the terms are often intermixable. When two people enter into a courtship, they seek marriage partners, that's it. And a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship entails meeting for coffee or strolling on the beach (most likely with parental chaperones) or texting each other the lyrics to a Bollywood love-song. Pre-marital one-on-one time is rare and often frowned upon if it doesn't occur in very public places. As another one of my colleagues chortled upon my inquiry with this subject-- "in India, people love chastity almost as much as they love gold," as he took a drag of his beedie, a sip of his chai,  "which is saying a lot my friend." 

For Indians, marriage is the apex of life. It is all they dream about, search for, work towards. Their penchant for familial expansion is a fascinating phenomenon; once you've had your marriage and given birth to a boy, you can practically retire socially because you have 'made it.' And until that point, every fluttering female in a saree will badger you, try to fatten you up or spread skin-whitening cream on your cheeks for beauty and consult the stars for guidance until you are happily settled.

Speaking of consulting the stars, I cannot touch on the topic of love and marriage in India without going into the common practice of arranged marriages. When Westerners hear the term, I think we envision some form of forced child marriage or people having no say in with whom they are matched. And while this more traditional version of arranged marriage is certainly still practiced in rural parts of India, as with everything in this transforming country, there is a modern, more fluid version of this concept emerging. 

"Things just kind of came together for us," a friend, Vijay, explained to me over a breakfast of aloo parota, sweet curd and masala chai. Vijay was very recently engaged, and I felt comfortable enough to ask him about the subject of arranged marriage. "We started communicating online, on a website for people looking for marriage, kind of like your dating websites in the West." He was always good at making these sorts of comparisons; as a Tamil Brahmin, the most prestigious Hindu caste, he was fortunate enough to study in the UK and is familiar with the cultural idiosyncrasies. "I checked out her profile, our stars matched and our parents were happy with the family backgrounds," he continued, stirring more sugar into his already tooth-achingly sweet chai, "so we met for coffee and now we are to be married in November." 

Arranged marriage for more affluent Indians is not as strict as we would imagine. Earlier Vijay had told me how he had met with other women before, and recognized that they were not a good match. And although his parents and family were very much involved in the prospect of marriage, with their approval meaning the world to Vijay, in the end the choice was his. He felt that this match was meant to be. His ecstatic energy was palpable, but my head was swimming with questions.

"So, does it not bother you that you guys have only known each other for such a short time? I mean you've hung out like twice. How can you be sure she is the one?"

He bobbed his head and smiled, looking at me like a naive child, not out of condescension, but with a sincere  desire to make me understand. "This is not America-- marriage is not so complicated. We both want a companion; we both want a family; we are both committed; our families get along; she is beautiful enough; that is all that matters," Vijay stated matter-of-factly with a wave of his hand. He finished the gesture by tearing off a piece of his parota, scooped it into the sugar sprinkled curd like a spoon and ate it with the expert grace of someone who has been eating with their right-hand all their life. He looked into the distance,  observing the view from the rooftop-restaurant, contemplating his decided future. 

Above us loomed a grand hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, the tip of the step-wise edifice slowly emerging from the morning fog. Monkeys swung from the chipped arms of sexy-lady statues lining the temple facade down to the terrace level, strategically perching themselves above overflowing fruit stands, waiting for their chance to swoop breakfast. "Everything else we will work out in time," Vijay started again, "with guidance from our parents, we will make a happy life."

The Indian conception of marriage is obviously quite different from that in the West. They understand it as a long term, life commitment, and not a flurried, passionate romance; marriage comes first, and then, if you're lucky, love will blossom out of mutual respect. It is understood that wild romance is a thing for the youngsters, puppy love if you will. And it takes a different caliber of relationship, a more mature, realistic and grounded relationship to make a marriage. With that lens grounded in real facts of married life, they're process of arranged marriage and ornery family intrusion makes more sense. 

The truth is that modern day arranged marriages cover a lot of bases which end up unraveling many matches in the West. Once a young adult has grown out of his or her puppy love phase and they are ready to make a commitment, they seek someone who is on the very same page, ready to take that leap into the next phase of life. They make sure the two families get along, that the in-laws accept the spouse, that everyone is making money in the same playing field (cause lord knows the epicenter of cashflow, and all its refracting quarrels, can also be the nascence of a deal breaker), and most importantly, that you don't have to be wildly fanatic about your spouse because in the end, all that matters is the commitment, the willingness to get through the tough times after the honeymoon fades.

  

India lays all her cards on the table in this way-- all of her uglies and vulnerabilities and raw humanness is exposed in such visceral manifestations that it can be overwhelming and seems almost ludicrous. Because it is a crazy way to go about life, especially for someone from a culture that makes a living out of shuffling pain under the rug, to say, ' hey this shit gets rough so lets be honest about it and stake out a support network.' And every genuine Indian countenance I have encountered speaks that life is brutal but beautiful, so we should trudge on with bright smiles, compassionate heads and light hearts because it's worth it. And in this willingness to be vulnerable, India has taught me the true meaning of courage. 

I believe our fear of shame, guilt, and ugliness in every sense of the word, is the bane of many relationships and other facets of societal functioning in the West. How can we expect to live a life full of light when we can't confront the dark?  The truth is, we can't. So we fill our time with surface routines and relationships, without ever diving into murky waters, out of fear--of being rejected, of being found out, of being a vulnerable, imperfect human. 

The common pattern with people my age in the States is to fill our lives with glittering career paths instead of filling our tank with long-lasting, meaningful relationships. This is a cop-out. In this routine, we get to keep to ourselves and never truly open up to another human--we stay safe in our own glorified quest for independence. I often find myself recanting the mantra, "only make decisions for yourself, don't let anyone infringe on your lifepath." But at what point can we decide to lift the strike, and widen our avenue of possibilities to include that of another whom we care about? 

Its the biggest game of bull-shit my generation faces. We all play it off like we don't care, like were only in this life to please ourselves and that we don't need another human to fulfill us. Granted, in college, this is easy-- an almost necessary adaptation to survive in the environment of erratic interaction savoring something of romance (when I say erratic I mean belligerent).  

I can recount numerous instances when I have been talking with my girlfriends in college, or even during my internal tete'a'tete, when a chic will be brought up. We will peel back each layer, starting with her fashion sense, overall demeanor, any embarrassing drunken stories, and finally to the topic of sex. And when it is found out that she has a long term boyfriend, perhaps from high school or since freshman year, even a few months, collective sighs will billow in between clicks of judgement, always masking resent. 

Being in a relationship in college is almost like a death sentence. In my experience, all of my girlfriends who got boyfriends, except one who is a badass (you know who you are miss jack daniels infused turtle-tatt), were practically unheard of from that point forward. Either because they had no interest in going downtown, because who really wants to go downtown when you have a wonderful person you can cuddle up to all night, or because they were subsumed by his friend group. 

And it becomes a part of the single gal's pathetic superiority complex--like "I don't need a man to validate me," and "those bitches who do are insecure or weak or too scared to fend for themselves and to feel the bitter-twinge of lonely soul-searching." But deep down, we all want the same thing---to be heard, to be accepted, to have someone who understands us, who knows us and wants to be there despite all of the bullshit; someone who is willing to explore with you in this terrifying realm of commitment. 

I think a part of me hung on to the idea that college, or just my twenties in general, should be this time of great personal development. Like there are caverns only I can explore, which is valid and bears definite truth. But after all the personal, psychological spelunking, one has to come back to the surface and share what they have found in the depths. I am coming to recognize that there are some things you just can't learn about yourself until you see them reflected in the eyes of another who accepts you for you.

Devi crumpled up her teacup and tossed it on the rail-way tracks in front of us. She then glided over to the rusty faucet under a sign, 'Water Good Drink,' rinsing the masala sweetness out of her mouth and hands. She came back and instinctively linked my arm, "Puah Kand," she fluttered, readjusting my dupatta and slicking stray hair behind my ears. "Even though the men they cause us the pain, we will have it a happy life, no? Because the man and the woman--we need each other, isn't it?" She grinned brightly, throwing her head back as her bellowing cackle was swallowed by the noise of an approaching train. 

I shoved my way into the ladies coach and staked out a seat with Devi shouting Tamil commands at her fellow sareed akkas from her perch on the platform. "And Kand?" she shouted. 

"kyaa bahen?"-- " what sister?" 

"God-willing, you bring your musician-man to my wedding too, theek hai?" 

And a smile from deep within my chest tugged at my cheeks. I nodded and waved goodbye as the train lurched forward, enveloped by the tepid Chennai evening, with that contagious courage to believe in happy endings wafting into the carriage with the dust and the street chatter and the eternal smell of jasmine. 

Adieu

Saying goodbye is an inevitable part of the journey. This is not without reason. Goodbyes are so hard--you don't know how much emotion to show, what to say in those last moments. You are torn between navigating grey emotional area and honoring the present. Sometimes goodbyes are silent cognitive tips of the hat to one another. Sometimes they are curt and rushed because of a welling tear. Sometimes they aren't realized until you remember the last time you saw their face when you casually waved goodbye. Sometimes they are full of tears, and deep belly giggles; the kind when you have to get out of the car multiple times and run into their arms, squeezing and soaking up each others energy. 

I have said many goodbyes these past weeks. I bid farewell to my family, to college-life, my apartment, the rolling Missoula belly-trails I trampled life-miles on, silly thirsty-thursdays, lenient schedules full of yoga-workshops, infinite intriguing reading assignments and hour long runs. Today, I said goodbye to my two dear friends. And I've recognized how much I have changed even in the time of my knowing them; also, how my relationships have facilitated a 'settling' into myself. And although I am anxious as to what the future holds, I must remember that the good ones never get away. 

It feels like a whole life is ending and in reality that is true--because you never come back the same person after the world shakes up your soul-bones. I've found that anticipating that deep change is like a drug; it heightens your senses to the blessings around you. And I've learned to not fear change or goodbyes because the ones who really matter morph right along with you, flourishing in themselves. And when you meet again as Whole Beings, you can reflect on the progress and celebrate how life always rings round. The night before I left for NZ as a 16 year old, I went to the movies with Mom and my sisters--there is a quote from that movie, Benjamin Button that has always stuck with me, 

"We have to lose the ones that we love--how else would we know how important they are to us?"

And it is poetic in that all endings sprout new beginnings. We can't hold on forever, but have to adapt--transform our relationships and keep on growing. Holding on engenders pain. We must surrender to the flux of change embrace the new while honoring the necessity of the old. Slowly building blocks, priming for a celebration of the glorious present self. Change is scary, but stagnation is scarier. 

The Joys of Travel--Rilke

Oh, the joys of travel! To feel the excitement of sudden departure, not always knowing whither. Surely you and I are in agreement about that. How often did my life seem concentrated in that single moment of departure. To travel far, far--and that first morning's awakening under a new sky! And to find oneself in it--no, to discover more of oneself there. To experience there, too, where one has never been before, one's own continuity of being and, at the same time, to feel that something in your heart, somehow indigenous to this new land, is coming to life from the moment of your arrival. You feel your blood infused with some new intelligence, wonderously nourished by things you had no way of knowing.

Ranier Maria Rilke
Letter to a friend
February 3, 1923
 

Adjust My Sails

Sometimes it is so difficult for me to be grateful for the space I inhabit in the moment. If it's not school today it's work tomorrow--why do we always need a scapegoat for the discontent? 

I only have 5 weeks left of college. That statement incites terror and elation in one deep breath. The closer I get to the end, the more menial the tasks seem. I am itching for the future--the unremitting gaze towards a place beyond the present could be the source of much angst. 

I must learn to bask in gratitude for the tasks at hand because what lies ahead will come with a-whole-nother goodie bag of challenges. The reality is we have to do things we don’t want to in life. 

We have to fight apathy every day when all we want to do is play. Yet it is about flourishing in both acts--finding the way to make your rock your thing, like Sisyphus. 

Merely by a shift of cognition can we somersault the negative resistance. Right now my studies feel like a current I arduously paddle against, if merely I adjust my sails I can gain some mileage from this peculiar vessel we call ‘higher education.’ 

I still have so much to learn, I must practice patience--life's greatest lesson. Everything has a lesson, a purpose. Don’t rush it. Time is not as we see time, not in minutes lived but in lessons learned. I must rejoice in the lesson for today. 

A Letter from Ahmedabad

This is a letter I wrote to my future self whilst in India three summers ago. It it seems ever fitting to return to my India journals in reflective preparation for my approaching journey back to the mother land, enjoy the nuggets of wisdom 18year old Kendall has to offer.



August 1, 2010--1 Day prior to departure from India

Kendall Madame,

I'm sitting at the Environmental Sanitation Institute in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. There's a lanky dog resting beside me, giant ants crawling under the arches of my knees, huge bees, tropical greens and flowering tress--images and messages from Ghandiji. The sounds of children playing and birds chirping. I sit in the shade, in heat you probably cannot fathom. Yet I've become accustomed. Ah! isn't that the beauty of our species--to habituate, to make the most of our situations.  Even to learn to be patient with the flies is a grand lesson to take home from India.

Patience Kendall, a valuable lesson indeed. By now society has filtered your brain with schedules, materialism and skewed body image. But pause, take a breath. Take note of the space you are in--the air that you breath. Close your eyes and remember the drums from Manav Sadhna prayer. The power of voices chanting Ohm, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti--Peace, Peace, Peace. Remember the rambunctious children of Taltej primary school who held your hand and called you 'Didi.'

Don't be jaded by the abundance of the alternate reality America thrusts upon you. Stay true to yourself. Life is not all work, enjoy the little things.

I hope you are still incorporating pure LOVE into your life. Don't waste your time with malicious interactions or petty grievances. Cast off other people's perception of you. Their thoughts only affect you if you allow it.

I do not know what kind of state of mind you are in or the worries in your heart, but please be centered on your inner beauty. Remember the month when you wore no makeup, didn't shave, hardly showered, sweated buckets, never worked out, ate abundantly because food was energy, when tea brought people together. Remember having dance parties in the back of the car and being on India time.

You were unplugged.


Please consider the relativity of time. Here I am, at the end of my journey in India. When I can close my eyes and remember tipsily writing the night before I left and love and the Lassen sisters.

Here you are, in your own space and time. A list of things to do, im sure. Lots of worries on your mind: parties, clothes, sex, boys, body, school, grades, family, friends.

Remember Jemna at RamRahim. Remember Kamraben and Kamleshbhai, their kids. Are they still alive? Are they in the same slums?

Where are you? Where is your soul? Are you feeling how you wish you were? If you are feeling bad, Why? Is that realy an issue?

Always question yourself, but be patient with the answer. Everything comes when it must, a life must not be rushed--it will rush itself. Don't let life become a pile of paper achievements. Remember random acts of kindness.--(Rina just brought me a fresh Limca) Always consider the good in people. Always consider the good in yourself.

Don't jump to think your answer is right. Often times your are wrong. I hope you never come to think that fun and bonding can only be had when substances taper the awkwardness. Never mistrust the value in an awkward moment. I believe true relationships are built upon embarrassment and exposure of vulnerabilities. People imbibe to alter their reality and avoid the silence, the upsets, the annoyances--but it is in these normal, human interactions that the best memories are made, the strongest bridges fused. Why do you think we value childhood so? There is nothing clearer than a childhood memory. Before societal ideals, self-talk, and substances dilute the divine experience. Comfortability is built upon being uncomfortable. Don't judge others too quickly. You could never fathom their story just as they could never understand yours. Chances are, they've gone through some hairy shit aswell.

Life is built upon contradictions, be patient with them--seek to find a happy medium.

and love, love, love yourself.

Another Earth

 

 What if there was a parallel universe—a Milky Way mirroring our very own beyond a black hole. What if there was another Earth, exactly synchronized with our own: the same cities, the same environmental catastrophes, the same people. What if there was another YOU in that parallel universe. 

If you had the chance to have a conversation with your parallel self, what would you ask? What would you ask your‘self’ and what sorts of observations would you make? 

In reality we do this everyday—a constant chatter going on in our brains.

“Did I say that right? Don’t forget to water the aloe: Am I fat? I wonder if he’s angry with me.”

The incessant conversation—and what if our instinctual replies are in fact a telepathic tennis game with the parallel self? What if your mind is connected through the reciprocal fabric of the cosmos and the everyday cognitive script is truly your parallel self-replying. So when one question comes up, the other responds and divine inspiration, déjàvu, and intuition are all an illusion of the feedback from the other self’s experience. Without one another, your lives would be incomplete.

 Your parallel self is the unconscious, the divine sensation we all bathe in from time to time—that there is something beyond this beautiful life, a spiritual energy, like Xhosa beadwork, weaving us all together. Fate, destiny, time, are all projections of the parallel universe--for with every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is how I will come to think of relationships—embedded and intertwined are the energies, despite distance and time. We can feel one anothers’ presence affecting lifespace through the divine parallel tapestry of life.