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Observations on Human Connection & Contribution

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#126: Purring our way to strength

I woke up today in a deeply satisfying cat hug. My cat had installed herself on my pillow overnight, and I hugged her as I slept. As I woke up to this realization, I couldn’t help but move my hands through her silky smooth fur. Her softness is quite addictive and I have to make an effort to tone it down and not escalate the pressure, especially in response to that cute purring. So she purred and I cuddled…and the purrs became louder and consistent, like the engine of an idling SUV.

Then a forgotten fact popped into my head: cats purr for many reasons, including contentment, communication, and even to self-soothe during stressful moments. The frequencies at which they purr (25-150 hertz) are similar to the frequencies used to treat bone fractures, pain, and joint flexibility issues in humans. The thinking is that purring helps cats self-heal in similar ways.

So does this mean the more I love and cuddle with my cat, the better she can heal herself? My hugs, kisses, snuggles and squeezes make her stronger? It’s not so hard to believe, because it’s certainly true for humans.*

Another thing I notice with her: she only purrs when I give her high quality attention. It doesn’t happen when I’m multitasking. If I try to read or watch something while playing with her, her initial reactions are more muted and then she completely tunes me out. She only responds when my words, play and touch are in lockstep with her.

When I miss her subtle cues, she realizes that I’m not with her and in turn loses interest. Again, not so different from humans.

“Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.” ― Voltaire, French philosopher and writer

*People with healthy relationships and strong social connections tend to live longer and healthier lives; more here.

**Happy love day, to my Tim ― co-purrer, co-cuddler, and co-imagineer

#120: Emptying the regret-filled suitcase

It’s almost one month into the new year. Personally, this is right about when I switch from the optimism and promise of planning-mode into the reality of review-mode. I realized last year that I resisted my weekly reviews because that’s when my judgy mind would shoot regret-arrows. Every missed item became a perceived failure.

I had become really good at shoving regrets into my mental suitcase, zipping them up under pressure, and storing them in mind’s attic. To be opened at another time when I felt better resourced. Intellectually I knew that reviews and adjustments are what make plans successful and that planning is iterative, but I still found myself avoiding review time. The regrets I had saved were stealing energy from the future. 

So before doing any planning this year, I opened that regret-filled suitcase and spent time reviewing the regrets themselves.

It sounded scarier to me than it actually was. The fabric of each regret was simply dreams and hopes. Innocent dreams and hopes, might I add. Although I really had to pay attention to parse out the ones that were actually mine. Some were in my suitcase because they seemed to be in everyone else’s. Some were mine to begin with but I had outgrown them and they no longer fit. Some I kept, in case I could fulfill them in the future. No dream was left unseen. I essentially emptied the attic.

Whatever dreams I kept, I hope to hold them very lightly. Because even if I fulfill them, they may happen in a different way altogether than I imagine.

I don’t want to make superficial plans that I hold on to like a control freak. I want to orient around deeper and consistent intentions that transcend annual plans. I want to keep clearing this extra mental weight as it builds up so I can enjoy the process of doing, learning, and reviewing. Of succeeding at some things and inevitably failing at others. When regrets start stealing energy from the future, it’s time to let them go.

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” — Marie Curie, physicist and chemist

Photo credit: Gio/Unsplash

#116: Choosing our axis and rotations

Rotation is the action of spinning on an axis or a center, and we often associate this movement with the planets. It is Earth’s habitual movement that gives us the experience of day and night. Living beings also seem to spin around an invisible central axis, which creates our visible rotations. Animals have recurrent migratory and homing patterns. Humans go back and forth to school, work, grocery stores, to spend time with loved ones, and to entertainment spots. All of us like kites connected to invisible threads anchored somewhere in our life.

The central axis around which any individual spins is determined by their biological needs—both physical and emotional—and these keep evolving as we develop. This invisible and ever-present axis manifests clearly in the combination of roles one inhabits: a student, a sibling, an entrepreneur, caregiver, athlete and so on. These roles in turn determine how we use our time: the places, people, and activities that fill our days. Just like for Earth, our axis (needs and roles) determines our rotations (time spent in habitual engagements).

But unlike Earth, our axis shifts in response to life changes, both big and relatively small: moves, babies, deaths, acute injuries, new friendships, or home repair projects. We take on new roles or drop old ones. Consequently, the makeup of our time shifts quite organically; where we spend it, with whom, and how alter without too much effort. A change in our needs and roles changes our lived footprint. A shift in axis, changes the rotation.

Axis and rotations are inseparable from living organisms. They create the observable footprint of our days and, over time, a life. We can intentionally choose them or they come into form on their own by the mere fact that we’re alive.

If we wish to change our life experience, a useful first step might be to note the axis around which our life is anchored. While it’s not always easy or desirable to shift our axis, we do it many times over a lifetime when we make big life moves. Rotations rarely venture far from the axis we’ve settled into. Even so, it’s easier to shift the structure of our rotations vs. our axis. We can choose the physical places and online spaces we spend free time in, the relationships and interests we cultivate, ideas and information we engage with, and our patterns of engagement and rest.

Most of us have more agency over our life and attention than we realize, and we must exercise it. When we don’t, we end up creating a life that looks nothing like the one we crave to live. Unlike our beloved Earth, we have the power to see our habitual patterns and make changes.

“We give no significance to human attention. Things open up and change only in response to attention. Otherwise old cycles repeat endlessly.”— Sadhguru, yogi, mystic and teacher

#108: The emotional dust of creation

We don’t create things all at once, fully formed. Whether it’s an organization, a community, a tiny human or ourselves, creation takes time and the build is always unexpected. That’s a big reason why we subconsciously hold back from creating anything new: it feels risky to invest emotion and effort and not even have the guarantee that this thing we want will actually happen, or happen the way we want it to.

If we make a plan before starting (which is always a good idea), it’ll orient us in the right direction and help take suitable steps, but it likely won’t reflect the nuanced terrain we’ll actually walk. That’s because neither the terrain nor our creation remains static. Both respond to our actions and the events in our larger environment. Similarly, we ourselves respond and change; what we thought last week or last month will shift a bit when we engage in the work. Finally, we never build anything alone. Ever. There are others right next to us co-creating and going through the same push and pull of change and creation. So we’re changing, our creation is changing, our co-creators are changing and the environment is changing. This happens simultaneously and repeatedly. This dynamic is called emergence, and it asks for emotional flexibility. 

The work of creating something new is less like driving a self-driving Tesla on a traffic-free highway, and more like walking a dusty backroad full of brambles alongside others. It’s never a cool and collected experience of just sitting back and arriving. We all get scratched, stumble, bump into each other and kick up dust as we walk.

To make matters harder, we regularly pass through invisible gates that change the scenery and the terrain. What we did before needs to be adjusted in unexpected ways. If we were too absorbed in the work of creating, we may not even realize that we passed a gate. That’s when the emotional dust peaks―we all scramble to make sense of the new terrain, run furiously into the brambles and each other, kick up more dust, and make it harder to see things clearly. 

Knowing this, what if:

  • In addition to drawing maps, we prepare for that dusty and brambly trail with unseen gates.
  • Instead of a heroic solo journey, we note others who walk besides us.
  • Our commitment isn’t to one specific outcome but to staying on the dusty path. We develop resilience, integrity, and might I add―joy, so none of us opt-out in favor of the cushy Tesla path.
  • We invest time in creating trust: holding a hand, mending a wound, or offering a sip of water on this twisty path.
  • Most importantly, we create the capacity to be ok with emotional dust as we blind each other with it.

“The mighty oak was once an acorn that stood its ground.”― English Proverb, Author Unknown 

It may not happen.
If it happens, it wont happen the way you imagined.
If it happens, it’ll be its own thing: emergent and separate from you, uncontrollable by anyone.
Bringing it to life will dent you and others in unseen places.

So, why do it?
Because you came with these fertile seeds.
And if you hold back, first the seeds will wither…then you.
― A little ditty, by Suparna

#106: In Service (India Diaries)

A friend’s dad is visiting Seattle from India and asked me if I was “in service”. By this he meant if I had a job. This is the vernacular of my parents’ youth. When I was growing up, people were either in service (i.e. worked for someone else) or had their own business. The various professions rolled up to these two broad classifications. I didn’t really ruminate on this as a child but I do remember absorbing the term “in service” with a sense that there was subservience and potentially powerlessness associated with this choice. If someone had asked the little me to pick between these two binaries of “in service” vs. “in business”, I certainly would have picked the latter.

The question from my friend’s father made me realize that I don’t have the subtle negative association to being “in service” anymore. In fact, I silently answered in the affirmative. Because I am in service of a vision and it doesn’t matter to my self-esteem whether I have to start my company, work for another organization, or learn new skills to be in service. The line of work then becomes a purely practical matter and not the main thing. 

I don’t often encounter this phrase when I go back to India now; we seem to use a more globally enmeshed way of speaking in our cities. Although I still hear a version, both in India and the States, when we refer to people serving in the armed forces or government service (so and so is in public service, or is a servicewoman). These are professions where we still acknowledge the potential for impact on other lives.

Nonetheless, there is potential for impact embedded in every single profession. How can there not be? Our work is what we do daily for decades. But potential just means possibility, and not certainty, until it’s catalyzed by a personal and resonant aspiration for impact. When that happens, we are service.

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” ― Winston Churchill, British statesman and Prime Minister