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Zooming Out: To get a broader look at life

#129: Yearning for what we already have

October 18, 2024

(Renewed awareness, continued. Read related observation here.)

The first city I lived in outside of India was Los Angeles, California (L.A.). Until then, I had only experienced in-person sense stimuli in an Indian context. The concoction of smells, sights, sounds, touch, and taste all came from the culture I was raised in. While I often delighted in the bounty my culture offered, it became intimately known to me and I stopped reacting to every stimuli like I might have as a child.

When I came to L.A., my senses felt heighted like they had never been before as an adult. All at once, I encountered real life sense stimuli from a culture that evolved differently. It was sometimes hard to parse out why I was experiencing what I was. For example, I noticed that some homes and buildings had a distinct smell. It felt old and comforting; like the smell of wood from a long time ago that mixed with the bright L.A. sunshine and the crisp air. I loved those days when the old and new mixed up in my body.

When I moved away from L.A., I stopped smelling that specific smell in my everyday. Miami, Florida felt like a newer or different build somehow and the climate was different. Sometimes I’d encounter that familiar smell in old bookstores or during travel. Then I moved to Seattle, Washington. Also a different climate compared to L.A. but abundant with old structures. I smelled that smell a lot more, and when I started living in a 118-year old cottage, I was enveloped in it daily.

Then I got acclimatized, just like I had to all the Indian stimuli. The smell was so present in my everyday that I stopped noticing it. This is normal and called Olfactory Adaptation*. I was recently away for almost a month and that smell hit me so hard the minute I opened my front door. But now I’ve lost it again. I’m slathered in it everyday but can’t smell it. I notice it a little when I step out for the day and come back inside. But a few hours aren’t always enough to heighten my noticing. That level of presence happens when I get completely plucked out and then re-embedded again in my context.

If adaptation is built into our biology and I can only smell our house when I go away, what else do I crave that I already have? And how might I regain my sensitivity to it?

“Forever – is composed of Nows –
‘Tis not a different time –
Except for Infiniteness –
And Latitude of Home –

From this – experienced Here –
Remove the Dates – to These –
Let Months dissolve in further Months –
And Years – exhale in Years –”

― Emily Dickinson, American poet

* Adaptation is a common feature of all sensory systems. It helps organisms maintain sensitivity to new stimuli while being able to respond to new or changing ones.

Olfactory adaptation, also known as olfactory fatigue, is the temporary inability to smell a particular odor after being exposed to it for a long time. Some characteristics of olfactory adaptation:

  • Elevated odor thresholds: People are less responsive to odors after adaptation.
  • Reduced responsiveness: The decrease in responsiveness depends on the concentration of the odor and how long someone is exposed to it.

An example of olfactory adaptation is when the smell of food is strong when you first walk into a room, but fades after a few minutes.

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#127: Creative acts

October 4, 2024

I’m constantly falling in love with one piece of creativity or another. It might be a song that I can’t stop moving to, a sharp stand-up bit, a piece of heritage pottery, or an interestingly woven scarf. Creators and their acts of creativity have always felt magnetic to me. The artist’s studio feels like the epicenter of cultural, intellectual, material and spiritual evolution. I think of studios as any space where ideas get to surface, mix and remix; where they are chiseled with care, and offered to the world with courage.

In the presence of work I loved, I’d instinctively think “Now this right here is the epitome of the craft.” It was a kneejerk thought in an awe-filled younger self. Then another maker or maker collective would show up and absolutely floor me. They were not only musicians, writers, comics, poets, sculptors, painters, weavers, actors, and directors; they were also facilitators, chefs, scientists, business leaders, politicians, designers, and journalists. Some were interesting combinations of more than one craft. My creative loves were sprouting everywhere.

Alongside awe there was a deep longing to be them. This wasn’t hero-worship. I wanted to be as magnetized by my craft as they were. I wish I could absorb by osmosis how they did what they did: their passion, seeming ease and grace. I’d be curious about their influences, journey and the solitary experience of being them when nobody was watching. I thought these people were unique.

I now see is that this love of craft is all around us. There’s passion and inspiration at every turn. There are people breathing new life into my long-standing neighborhood bookstore and community hub. There’s Amanda, my wonderfully creative and kind hairdresser, who built the most welcoming hair studio from scratch. There’s David, who is dedicated to building relational cultures as a tool for social change and healing. Not everyone has a Wikipedia page but everyone has a rich creative backstory and is magnetized by their craft.

Here’s my current thinking about creative acts:

  • No one creative act can be the epitome of a craft. Each work is a point-in-time drop into a larger ongoing creative conversation.
  • Impact doesn’t wait for us to become broadly-known. Every creator has precious influences and as they create, they start inspiring and influencing others even before they become “known”. Also, there are countless impactful niches. We inspire and influence others even if when don’t become “known” in popular culture.
  • What we know or are curious about is the source of all we create. When we create, we tap into our Venn diagram of influences, experiences and perspectives. That is our personal source code.
  • We get more and more magnetized as we create. This happens organically when we get down to the business of creating what we genuinely value, just like the artists in their studios.

“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”― Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter

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#124: Beating up on past self is easy, and unhelpful

July 26, 2024

Learnings from momentum, failure, and recovery
(Read the first two in this series here and here)

When we fail at something we care about, it’s easy to fall into a blame-vortex. We look for someone to cast doubt on. When this accusatory gaze turns inwards, we invariably blame our past self for messing things up. I certainly did when I failed recently; I blamed my past self from a decade ago. I’m noticing that I frequently do this. I am often frustrated with my past self, for not doing this or that thing when she could have. I constantly chide her for not having her shit together. Sometimes this past self is recent, from the month or week prior.

This time I also examined my current self and current life. The present-day self came across as a work-in-progress and the present-day life, a complex web of things. Always evolving, always in the process of becoming the next iteration, and never fully where I’d like it to be. I’d like to try some things out, and I know I will in the future when the time is right. So if life feels messy now and I’m not ready for some things, it was messy in the past too and I wasn’t ready to give certain things a shot because of valid reasons.

When I try something later in life than I or culture imagine, it’s because that is usually the first point in time I feel resourced enough to attempt this thing; given the unique way my life is unfolding. 

Then why does my mind keep harping about this magical past self? Who does it imagine her to be? There was no magical past self with all her ducks in a row.

With this honest realization, I see my psyche start loosening its grip on my throat and self-compassion flows. The focus shifts from blame to learning from this experience of failure. I scan my present to see what I might be holding back from trying right now, and whether this holding back is actually wise or fear based. With this knowledge, I can build capacity and skill to try what I want to try, and learn from what didn’t come to pass.

The longer I live, the more past selves there are to be frustrated at. But there is no pristine past life and no magical past self to blame. 

“Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.”— Marcel Proust, French novelist

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#122: Momentum requires caring, but recovery requires letting go

July 12, 2024

Learnings from momentum, failure, and recovery

I’ve been away from this space for a bit; I was trying to do something big and intense that I’ve been hesitant to even attempt. I finally faced my fears. I created a stable psychological base and leapt knowing I might fail. And fail I did. The speed of failure was unexpected and the loss has reverberated in unexpected ways. It has also been an unexpected teacher. The observations and learnings are still unfolding and, over the next few weeks, I’ll share a few that are top of mind. May these be helpful to others.

Here’s the first one: Momentum requires caring but recovery requires letting go.

I knew going in that there was a high likelihood of failure so my goal in trying wasn’t to succeed at all costs, it was to minimize regrets and squash future “what-ifs”. I thought I’d give it a shot and move on if I failed. But my path was littered with obstacles and I could only build momentum by admitting to myself that I cared about the outcome and that it wasn’t all nonchalant under the surface. Once I acknowledged this truth though, I became more attached to specific outcomes. I gave my best in the service of a vision but giving it my all melted my internal boundaries. I started dreaming just a bit more even as I tried to be even-keeled.

I looked back at my hard road and I looked ahead at the potentially positive outcome. I thought maybe everything was harder for me for a reason, maybe I was meant to enjoy the richer sweetness of delayed joy. I didn’t even realize I was weaving these ephemeral stories. Although these stories were fleeting, they left enough of a mark that I started becoming a wee bit more attached to outcome. Even when I knew I was facing failure, there was a part of me quietly looking for the silver lining: “maybe the sweet ending will come in a different way…if I just keep going.”

The reality is that I don’t know why I was nudged in this direction by my psyche or the powers that be. I know definitively that this experience has added to my personal history and given me a glimpse of a life experience I didn’t have, and in turn created another flow of empathy. A big personal realization is that the act of letting go needs to be absolute and without caveats.

Abhyasa (practice) and Vairagya (non-attachment), is a core principle of Yoga philosophy that helps me in letting go whenever I get stuck.

  • Abhyasa means having an attitude of persistent effort but it’s a specific flavor of effort; it requires a focus on mental stability and not the outcome. This stance doesn’t just appear out of the blue at our time of need, it’s an everyday practice. It’s recommended we practice this type of effort uninterruptedly for a long period time of time so it becomes a part of our operating philosophy.
  • Vairagya is about learning to let go of the many attachments, cravings, aversions, fears, and false identities that get layered on just by the act of living and engaging in the world. This non-attachment isn’t about abandoning things and not enjoying life, it’s about the relationships we create with everything around us. We attach value, create dogma, feel aversion based on our subjective interpretations and then spend inordinate effort craving or avoiding things and situations. Vairagya is a tool to cut through these erroneous perceptions and projections to reclaim mental and emotional stability.

Abhyasa and vairagya represent two essential aspects of a spiritual life that, when combined, liberate us from everyday injuries. These principles help us create a dynamic balance on the polarity of practicing and caring on one end, and letting go on the other.

Failure is never easy but it’s a pretty regular life-occurrence. Being able to move through loss without letting our sense of self and psyche get too dinged is a helpful skill. It makes us more capable of navigating loss, taking chances, and contributing in life without the fear of getting burned. 

“The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.”— Tara Brach, psychologist and meditation teacher

Photo credit:  thelittlelabs. Click image or here to view animation.

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#119: The leaking faucet, unlocked door, and boiling kettle

January 19, 2024

My bathroom faucet has two knobs, one for hot and another for cold. On a particularly busy day, I rushed out of the bathroom and didn’t turn off one of the knobs fully. I came back later to running water that was more than just a minor trickle. I was disappointed in the waste I had contributed to and surprised by my lack of attention.

Then another day, my husband (Tim) left our primary key fob hanging at the lock on our front door. His hands were full so he left the key in the lock intending to come right back out to grab it. Meanwhile, I locked the door from the inside. We realized what had transpired after a couple of hours. The key fob had all our keys: the house, garage, car and mailbox. This was a big deal because we’ve personally seen an uptick and consistency in petty crime since Covid—stolen mail, packages, garbage cans, and most recently a smashed car window.

This last example is the most recent. We were stepping out for a walk when I felt a nudge to go back inside the house and check the stove. I found one of the burners on at low flame. We had just wrapped up brunch and Tim meant to make a second round of coffee in our moka pot but reduced the flame when he got interrupted. It went unseen by both of us.

After these events I became hyper-aware of turning off faucets and burners after use, and ensuring keys weren’t left hanging on external-facing locks. I was very tuned-in to the potential of harm from each of these scenarios. I knew that countless other random things can happen and do, but the ones I fixated on and learned from were those that happened to me.

I see this tendency in all of us and even for the bigger things in life. I knew a person who had almost drowned in her teens and had been on a life-long journey to overcome her fear of water. Another friend had difficult experiences in foster care and hadn’t seen healthy examples of family life growing up, so she chose to not have kids. Yet another highly competent surgeon friend was publicly brutalized by her boss even during intense surgeries, so she’s working on making medicine more humane for patients and providers. I have repeatedly experienced unexpected and out of turn deaths. This created an outsized fear of losing my loved ones and a heightened awareness of our limited time on earth. My experiences have shaped how I value human relationships and the work I’m choosing to do moving forward by centering relationality in my vocation.

There are countless human experiences and we can’t have them all. We are designed to tune into and learn from our leaky faucets, our unlocked doors and our boiling kettles. Experience is the primary tool for learning and once we embrace our own painful experiences fully, they become gateways to see another more completely. Difficult experiences may not be life’s weapon against us, they might be its most potent growth, connection and empathy tool. 

“Tears water our growth.”— William Shakespeare, playwright and poet

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