I'm reading Maria Popova's Figuring. her women heroes that she writes about in this book are exhorting me to persevere in my work (repeating a much-needed message that I saw also in the feedback from my midterm review), whatever my work is in this world. sometimes I feel my work is to be an example of a goal-less dripping sponge who immerses herself in everything and anything that moves her in this magical world, who digs tirelessly in spots no one would think of digging, for the pure fun or joy of the digging itself, and then exhausted would prostrate herself under the trees the birds and the wind, giving up to the fatigue while bells ring around the world waking others and keeping time in their clockwork lives; who would have nothing to show for her adventures and explorations but her half-remembered unverifiable stories and the lingering joy and sadness of her being which she emanates, upon continual self reflection with her eyes looking inward when relating them, which are also only partly share-able. that anything else is human hubris, to capture and want to define and explain, to kill sometimes only to view and record the inner workings of the beauty of this world. can this indolence, what comes easily to me and is my base nature, be my work or am I just being lazy.
but also I thought women would have a different perspective on hard work, perseverence, success and contribution; and yes, some of that is true in her writing of these women. they cared about creating or discovering more than about the accolades their creations received.
------
a few days ago we met some old friends. one of them I always had an inexplicable shared warmth with. he had recently, accidentally, found a 13-yr-old email rant from me, one he never replied to, and he read it aloud to us. I first thought he was making up a story to pull my leg as he often does. from that I went to prepared embarassment as his reading started. and from that to a small sense of awe for my younger self, with a feeling of self-acknowledgment of "I guess I was always tending to be who I am today; this is my work and my destiny, my personhood." viewed from a regular person's life, I am ridiculous, a failure who partly revels in the failing and thus a double failure. but in doing so I question the desirability and definition of 'success', and illustrate another way of being. but of course I have been lucky that the world has let me survive despite my futility and failure.
another friend put it aptly in words about me, that I don't know the concept of picking my battles. these two are married to each other.
and yet another, after some indignation, absorbed my argument regarding the actual implication of the work 'woke' rather than its caricaturization to imply left wing or 'liberal' which itself has been caricaturized enough. a day later she also messaged me thanking me for having 'moderated' the conversation very well such that it was general interest and fun. I told her I hadn't realized I was moderating anything; but I did also realize that I had interjected a spasm of incessant questions about a friend's spell of unemployment and past jobs from another friend.
a few days ago, in an online group training for workplace behavior, I felt I aptly put into words the subtle questions that might come up in trying to isolate and define a case of sexual harassment from that of unwanted commentary which might be sexist, colorist, or simply needlessly judgmental. someone thanked me in the comments section.
reflecting upon the above I realize I love talking and writing about myself. a work friend would call this solipsism; I call it valuable self-reflection and insight.
------
and after nights of intermittent sleeplessness and days of replaying conversations from the dinner at our place that night I realize my last post was incorrect. although I reached out a 'hand of friendship' (what does friendship mean?) to communicate both that his curiosity for me could be platonic and that contradictory to my crab-like backward/sideward movements, even I desired to know him or be in his presence, his intentions are fuzzy and unclear still. the last time I had instantly shrunk away from the slightest accidental graze of my fingers on his on a glass, and had felt him notice that. this time the tips of his fingers touching mine did not perturb me, but left me wondering if he had designed it, to test my courage or to communicate something else. there is also surely still something wordless between us, in our eyes when they meet. but do I even know my own intention?
"It is almost banal to say, yet it needs to be said: No one ever knows, nor therefore has grounds to judge, what goes on between two people, often not even the people themselves, half-opaque as we are to ourselves." - Maria Popova.
And her quoting Emerson in this book: "Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary. The stream retreats to its source. A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. Does he lack organ or medium to impart his truths? He can still fall back on this elemental force of living them. This is a total act. Thinking is a partial act. The scholar loses no hour which the man lives."
And her quoting Ursula K. Le Guin: "Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it."
