Working Meditation

Observations on Human Connection & Contribution

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#114: Recalibrating the everyday mundane

I find it easier to notice and make space for the big events in life vs. the everyday mundane. I found it easier to line up my attention with intention, and my actions with hopes when I was planning to relocate to a different country, give a job interview, or build exciting new friendships.

It’s the everyday mundane that trips me up. Where I find it harder to see how my current level of attention and action might support larger intentions and hopes. It’s harder to see how my small silent actions will add up over time. Harder to see how that one missed walk with a friend will turn into weeks, months, then years of not seeing her. How long work hours and missed workouts will turn into muscle tightness and loss of flexibility. That a weekly yoga practice will create unexpected strength for heavy gardening. That the sweetest friendship will turn into a life-nurturing marriage. That a few gangly flowers will fill the yard with blazing color all summer.

Culturally too, it feels easier to acknowledge our big visible moments of joy, loss and growth compared to the everyday delight, grief or momentum we silently gather in our pockets. We tend to acknowledge the small moments as children, and for children, but it peters out as we grow. First externally and then even internally. Yet, our experience of life—which is very subjective—is shaped by the ever-flowing quieter experiences.

A moment of misdirected volcanic-anger at a loved one followed by a vulnerable and healing conversation can be as much of a life-changer as seeing someone we love after years. Friendships lost to distance and repeated moves can be as hard on us as breakups. The slow buildup of a beloved new skill as an adult can be as delightful as painting our first full watercolor image as a child. But we’ve internalized the message that experiences capturable by cameras are the ones we should seek.

When driving, we’re only able to notice the big trees and not the small wildflowers. Speed and distance make it hard. That’s modern life in a nutshell. It feels as if we’re being forced to drive through life faster and faster. For this experience to be checked-off so we can jump into the next. It takes some practice, but we can step out of this car and walk amidst the fragrance and thorns. Into the messy field where our joy, creativity and wisdom live.

“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”— Mary Oliver, Poet

#109: The two core building blocks for everything we create

There are only two building blocks for all that we do and create in life: what we get from nature (sun, earth, water, plants and animals) and, what we get from humans (attention, ingenuity, effort…).

That’s it! Only two core building blocks1 and this is not an exaggeration. Look around. 

As an example, I’ll list out the building blocks for planning my week using my linen-bound notebook:

  • Me
    • My body, time, attention; which are impacted by my emotional, mental and physical state
  • My planner
    • Designs that humans came up with, using knowledge passed down from others plus their own creative riffs +
    • Computers to design and exchange information; also built from a combo of human and natural resources +
    • Paper and cloth from plants +
    • Manufactured in factories that were built by humans using their creativity using resources mined from earth +
  • My mechanical pencil
    • Made of plastic, rubber, metal, graphite and clay. Each of these parts is an amalgam of materials extracted from earth.
  • Bought online
    • Used the internet, ecommerce and shipping infrastructures humans built using the same two building blocks repeatedly

I’m keeping it high level because we can double-click endlessly with just this one example and find these two core building blocks everywhere. Seen with this lens, every physical artifact of human life starts appearing like a fractal2, built from the recurring partnership between natural and human resources.

And what’s a core feature of these resources? Some of these building blocks are non-renewable (like minerals and time) and others renewable (like trees and human attention). However, being able to renew something doesn’t mean being able to renew it automatically or immediately. It means that replenishment is possible over time and under certain conditions. If we keep chopping that tree repeatedly or keep binge-watching Netflix day after day, neither tree nor attention will replenish.

So, given our absolute dependency on these two building blocks for literally everything we do and create in life, it’s surprising that we don’t hold them more sacred.

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”― Wayne Dyer, author and speaker

  1. Nature is really the core building block because humans are also a part of nature. Even so, it made sense to call us out separately because we have an outsized influence on the planet.
  2. Fractals are infinitely complex never-ending patterns that appear similar at various scales. Snowflakes, tree branches, and coastlines are examples.

#105: Lucky, and we don’t even know it (India Diaries)

I was at SXSW* a few years ago and a corporate partner gave my team electric scooters to navigate the spread out events. Everyone hopped on and happily explored together, except me. The team bonding I had imagined never happened for me; while people rode, chatted, bonded and made plans, I walked and explored alone. No one I asked me why I didn’t join, and I didn’t feel comfortable saying that I didn’t know how to ride a bike.

It’s not just biking, I didn’t grow up running, swimming, rollerblading, playing any sports or musical instruments, with computers, or with access to endless books as one might find in a public library. The list goes on and it’s not meant to be a pity party. I’m simply pointing out that there are everyday things that we take for granted, and assume that everyone has them. If we note the disparity, we often attribute it to financial lack. Even if my family could afford bikes, running shoes and rollerblades (which we couldn’t), our city wasn’t safe for little girls running or biking around. Only the wealthy had access to swimming pools and computers, and there is still no concept of free public libraries in India. So the reasons for lack of access weren’t only financial, they were also social and structural.

The structures we grow up with massively influence our well-being throughout our life. Public infrastructure like parks, clean and uninterrupted water supply, public libraries, safe streets and friendly neighborhoods, and even clean air. And the valuable private infrastructure of our families: the financial resources for a well-rounded upbringing, the support of extended family or the guidance from parents’ professional networks.

My visit to India reminded me of my social and structural luck: progressive and loving parents who valued education; growing up in a close knit extended family with cousins, uncles, aunts and grandparents, which formed deep bonds of enduring love and care. My maternal aunt and uncle felt like a second set of parents and my cousins became siblings and mentors. Despite the early loss of my father and all the ensuing hardship, the unconditional love by not just one but many became foundational to my life. 

You may have grown up playing sports or musical instruments, or as part of a debate team. You may have been able to hone skills in a way all your peers did. You may have matured in the environment of a stable home and a good university, gaining access to internships and even more skills and confidence. Until one day, you found yourself next to a teammate who seemed capable and yet somehow unexplainably different.

The unique social, structural and cultural combo of our upbringing was likely mirrored by a big chunk of our peer group. They experienced what we experienced and our overlapping spaces became our ecological niches. It was easy to imagine that every niche was like ours. But everyone gets these inflexion points, where worlds meet and we get a view into the lives of others with markedly different histories. A vantage point that can help us see our ecological niche differently and hopefully value the things we take for granted.

Our niches and their associated luck can easily become invisible. It happens to me too. The longer I live in one niche, the more I forget how people live in other niches. I also forget all the ways in which I am uniquely blessed. While I was in India recently, not once did I feel alone, unloved, or that “it was all on me”.

I read somewhere that “if our ecological niche doesn’t change, we don’t change”. Most of us may not get the chance to change our ecological niche but a great way to understand our share of luck is to befriend people from other niches. Or step outside ours for a bit.

“It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.”― Albert Einstein, Physicist

*South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW, is an annual conference with parallel events for film, interactive media, and music. It take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas, United States. 

#104: Touch (India Diaries)

My primary sources of touch when I’m in the States are my husband and cat. I instinctively hug people but there aren’t as many opportunities to hug during workdays. When I see my friends, the main moments of touch are hellos and goodbyes. If someone I know is having a hard time, then I may touch their upper back as a mark of support and, if we are close, linger my hand there so they feel connected and safe. I do this because in my darkest moments, simple and genuine touch helps me metabolize difficult emotion like nothing else.

When I was in India, I touched humans a lot more. There were more loved ones to touch, more ways in which I could touch them, and it was ok to stay in physical contact a bit longer. I touched my mom, brother, sister-in-law, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends. I could hug and kiss them freely, touch their face with love, massage their scalp, put lotion on my mom’s feet, hold my aunt’s hand as long as we both wanted, and sleep with my mom in the same bed. I felt hydrated and nourished by so much loving touch. 

Touch is our very first sense to develop in utero, with development starting at around 8-weeks, before the senses of smell, taste, sight and hearing. Skin is our largest organ, at 22 square feet for an average adult. We can see, hear and smell from afar but taste and touch are the two senses that invite closeness. And how we touch, like other expressions of care, is personal but also very cultural. For instance, it’s a common sight in India to see men from a specific social strata walking down the street holding hands or with an arm wrapped around another’s shoulder. I didn’t see these behaviors in the more educated or affluent Indian men. It’s also a common sight to see groups of children in their uniforms after school holding hands, doing shenanigans, laughing and joking freely on their way home.

I have not experienced this level of physical closeness in the west. Despite the many well-researched and documented benefits of touch, our general lack of touch makes me wonder if we have oversexualized the act of touching another human? What would happen if we had the freedom to express love in platonic relationships through consensual physical touch? How would it change lives?*

“We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.”― Mother Teresa, Albanian-Indian Catholic nun

*Touch has been shown to have physiological, psychological and social benefits. Supportive touch releases feel good hormones and chemicals in the brain (oxytocin, endorphins, dopamine and serotonin), lowers the stress hormone (cortisol), and increases the production of white blood cells in the body. These biological reactions combined help lower the heart rate and blood pressure, lessen depression and anxiety, boost the immune system and even relieve pain.  

#102: Daily caregiving (India Diaries)

Continuing my India observations…

Another contrast between my life in the States and India is the daily collection of people that come in and out of my mother’s home. The cleaning lady, the cooking lady, the elderly vegetable hawker who calls her cellphone everyday like clockwork to pester her to buy something from him, even if a few potatoes. And his son, who runs up the five flights of steps to deliver them, who once requested I charge his phone for a few hours. This seeming entourage of help is common in India and not just a luxury for the wealthy. Our ad hoc infrastructure has developed over time in such a way that contemporary professional life is powered by this collective of daily care givers. People couldn’t work the long hours with the insane commute times if they didn’t have someone helping with cooking and cleaning. Most Indians I know also live in multigenerational families with more people, so there is more daily cooking and cleaning to do compared to the States.

I can slice this infrastructural and socio-economic dynamic in many ways but my point here is this: An offshoot of many different people coming in and out of one’s home is the human connection and engagement it creates for anyone who is at home, including the elderly.

In India, caregiving isn’t just reserved for when people face difficulties of old age. When the same people come into our homes daily over the years, bit by bit, we get to know about them and their families. We share food, tea, and old winter blankets. The stuff we’ve outgrown or don’t have room for doesn’t go to unseen people; the people who care for us get first dibs and we can see the impact of our generosity, which trains us to be more generous. There’s an oiling of the machinery with conversation, food, laughter, tears and some reprimand. People who rarely leave home end up staying mentally and physically engaged, even when alone.

The comparatively smaller daily care footprint of nuclear families in the west, supported by an array of gadgets, makes life practically and emotionally simpler. And it has the potential to distance us from interactions and slowly train us out of caring for more types of people; that is, the everyday interactions that help us become more humane.

“Humans interacting with humans in a human way”
― My friend Avishkar’s pithy summary of psychological safety, a concept developed by Prof. Amy Edmondson.