Being and Doing

Nature and Culture

All week I thought about this newsletter rewrite. I was reading Karen Barad’s Meeting The Universe Half Way which is about science and culture - in particular quantum physics. But, as I sit down to write this I don’t want to write about this topic.

Questions

Last week I was on a call and someone asked, what question do you ask someone? The person asking the question was a podcast host. So this was almost a professional development question.

I ask questions to connect with people. This is how I get to know another person. It is also how I attempt to make people feel comfortable and to connect. I do think that talking to another person is the best way to get information, but this can happen in casual discussion. I don’t have an agenda.

Agenda

Did I garden because I wanted to eat tomatoes in august or because I wanted to play in the dirt, to tend the plants, to experience having a garden? Many times I do things for the effect they will have instead for how it feels to do that thing in the moment. In response to the Question, question, I said that the most important question I ask is “Is this what I want to be doing right now?” or “What do I want to be doing right now?”. This could be followed up by the “Is what I am doing right now in alignment with my highest self”?

I no longer make lists of daily tasks. Although I am creating more longer term goals, I no longer have short term goals. (I have a few but it sounds dramatic if I don’t say that). When say I have a long term goal, it is more that I have a long term intention. I have a view of my life. To realize that intention or view, is to live that intention not to check things off the list on the way to achieving the intention.

Privilege

This a super privileged position. What about people that are starving, or homeless, or jobless, or incarcerated? These individuals do not necessarily have a choice at every moment to do what they want to do. It is easy for me to not have a plan or agenda, when I have bed to sleep, food to eat, and a joy. Although as we have seen from COVID nothing is certain.

All my questions are about myself, not about others, not about service. Maybe it is a bit self-absorbed. But a lot of harm has come from people trying to save the world than from people trying to be their highest self. Although perhaps harm has come from both camps. I keep thinking what can I DO? But this is the problem - do. Maybe I can just be. Listen. Observe. Move through the world. Be Present.

x

Meredith