Overcoming Usefulness Optimization Ambition
A friend of mine wrote me, that he is having a much harder time than he thought with the quarantine. He’s having a real struggle slowing down, and finding the surrender and trust in it, and asked what he can do to make more peace in it.
I sympathize with his plight– it’s been a real ride! We are all being confronted with how much our self-esteem and equanimity are tied to how much we get done, how busy we are, how hard we work, and how much money we make. We are all Yang –daytime, brightness, work, fire– turning into Yin –stillness, silence, rest, night; an endless sunset. For a lot of us this is really hard, not because sunset is a challenge, but because we have all existed in our lifetime in a culture that exclusively celebrates and validates Yang.
But I think it’s really important we remember: our discomfort with slowing down is entirely by design. The people who created our modern world (corporate, rich, white men) built it on the presumption of the virtues of hyperactivity, work, brightness, extroversion –Yang– and to solely reward those virtues of Yang. They need us reliant on productivity and busy-ness because capitalism only succeeds if it can convince us that rest (and its very necessity) are exclusively for “those people”: the weak, the lazy, the sick, the unsuccessful, the unpopular.
They want you to feel wretched and punished to not work, to not make money, to not buy. They need slowing down and stillness to feel like betrayal, so they can capitalize on your shame to keep you working. Capitalism loathes Yin, and rightly so because Yin shines light on just how inhumane, unbalanced, and toxic capitalism is. Your discomfort is built into the modern system because recognizing any upside to slowing down –generating any esteem or virtue from powering down– points the finger at those who are exploiting us, and convicts them.
All the deeply entrenched ‘virtues’ of commerce- speed, volume, expansion, accumulation- are Yang. The American medical complex is Yang. Corporate politics- pay inequality, exclusion of body literacy, working hours- is Yang. Certainty, and resulting information addiction, is Yang. Amazon is Yang. Colonialism is Yang. White supremacy and patriarchy are by definition Yang. Your Frappuccino is Yang and your Sweetgreen Chopped Salad is absolutely Yang. When we talk about “anxiety,” we are talking about all the ways the culture of Yang creates suffering, and then shames you for it. This is the plague of our time.
I think it helps to remember it wasn’t always this way! For millennia, it was half day/half night. It was half work/half rest. Half the day was dark and half the day was light, and when the sun set, the earth exhaled and work was done. And if there was still work to do, it would be done by candlelight, which meant, a lot less.
It was only about a 100 years ago (which is nothing in the grand scheme of things), the industrial complex created the lightbulb which said it can be daytime all the time. It could be work all the time. It could be endless production, endless optimization, endless grind. The balance shifted. Cut to today: every single one of us carries an external hard drive and processor in our pockets, and we bring it into our bedrooms- into our beds that are meant for rest and recovery- so that we can do work and be Yang in the one space specifically designed for Yin, and then wonder why we don’t sleep and can’t relax.
I myself, an acupuncturist, fight with Yang as much as anyone! The most frequent battle in my household is over who gets possession of the power cord- and I have on occasion over-exaggerated how dead my battery is to claim the cord because I have learned to associate a fully-charged-Iphone with personal safety. This is real, siiiiiiick behavior. :)
Now as for the question of what he can do to make peace with Yin, this is the annoying part! Because the ways to include more Yin in your life cannot be summed up in a to-do list The point is: Yin can’t be ‘done.’ Yin is not a thing you cross off. (In fact, believing it should be, that a couple of acts could efficiently, permanently yield such a result is….well…that’s Yang, too).
Yin is an understanding that you should feel as rewarded and celebrated for doing nothing as you are for doing everything else. Yin is wonder, and awe- it is the ocean and its vast potential- it is not knowing what comes next and not needing to know. Yin is allowing for the possibility of slowing down, and doing so with kindness and patience, instead of judgment and shame. This is the correction for life’s hardness, not “hot yoga three times a week.”
The real challenge is re-training ourselves to not use Yin as fuel for our self-loathing. I refuse to feel shame around not working right now, which I understand is a privilege. We are allowed to catch our breath. That’s Yang and Yin. Readjust your numbers.
See through the spell of “I have too much to do to slow down.” To repeat that to yourself means that the advertising of a deranged world has worked on you.
Understand a new relationship with time itself — where you no longer see it as a bully or thief, but rather as a generous parent or gracious choreographer who directs you to move carefully, with intention, with breath and above all, grace.
Take a slow walk — but don’t make it a “Yin Challenge” for Facebook. You don’t need to push against something to grow. That whole idea is deranged advertising, too.
Drift directionless into the mysterious night sky without wondering why, or what comes next. To even sit still and simply tell yourself, “I don’t know how this will turn out, lots can happen,” is Yin.
Dim the light. Always keep something beautiful in your mind.
I personally am surprised by how much I am enjoying the quiet (for now!). I had thought I would be posting more and reaching out, but the solemnity has felt more appropriate and actually the privacy healing. I doubt there has ever been- or will be- a better time to consider the tremendous power in sitting alone, in stillness and softness, waiting for something to happen.
I’ve spent years disdaining capitalism - business - the world but believing deeply I could not disengage from it. These past few weeks have shown me that isn’t totally true. I can, it feels good, and honestly now that I have, I don’t know that the world can have me back.
xo
rb
************************************
now if all of this is not terribly useful, there are a few resources I recommend:
Jenny O’dell’s book “How to Do Nothing” was great for me. This is the transcript of her original lecture on which the whole book is based: https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do-nothing-57e100f59bbb
Jack Kornfield is sort of a classic but always speaks to me just right: https://jackkornfield.com/compassion-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/
Johanna Hedva’s manifesto “Sick Woman Theory” fundamentally changed the way I view care, and recontextualized “wellness” as a capitalist construct to maintain Yang. http://maskmagazine.com/not-again/struggle/sick-woman-theory
Jia Tollentino’s “Trick Mirror” is a book of essays that came out last year and it includes this very powerful chapter on the insidiousness of our culture of ‘optimizing’ https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/aug/02/athleisure-barre-kale-tyranny-ideal-woman-labour
American labor activist Ai-jen Poo, author of “The Age of Dignity,” speaks to Krista Tippett on the economics of caregiving via the lens of civil rights, and the rise of the ‘beloved community’ https://onbeing.org/programs/ai-jen-poo-this-is-our-caring-revolution/
Celeste Headlee wrote a book about the science of doing nothing, this is the NPR piece about it https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/12/813737687/too-busy-make-time-to-do-nothing
