Acceptance is difficult. I have always been a bit of a “try hard”. That was what we called people at school who were constantly doing something. The implication being that you are trying to impress the teachers. Like the idea of a “Teachers Pet” or “Brown Nosing”.
The world is structured towards encouraging activity, and the conspicuous things that we can see. We look for cause and effect, so that we can control our environment. The assumption being that we are the reason for things, and knowledge will allow us to act with dependable outcomes. By acting, we further our goals. Which seems logical, and Cartesian. We think, therefore we are. Think then do. Try.
Through Josh Waitzkin, and his book “The Art of Learning”, I was introduced to the idea of Wu Wei, which means action through inaction. You start by seeing things as they are, rather than living in our minds. Rather than living in how we want things to be. See then nudge. A less anxious way of engaging with the chaos.
To really gain an understanding of the world, you need a pinch of salt for the way you think things work. Understanding that can be quite frustrating when things do not respond the way you thought they would. When we are children, we are much more willing to let things play out. We enjoy being surprised. It delights us when things are interesting. Rather than the joy of a fascinated two-year old, we can be enraged.
Ken Robinson pointed out that almost all children believe they can draw when they are 5 years old. You learn your way out of creativity. By the age of 15, someone has convinced most of us we cannot draw. Our creativity is bounded by the belief that we need to be sorted by conspicuous, immediate, competency. We stop learning as we create a story about who we are, and how we control the world. We specialize to get recognition for how we are special. We tell stories so that we can categorise and create boxes in which we can find comfort. A safe space we understand. That allows us to ignore the world that is not the way we want.
These worlds we understand are less confusing. We prefer doing things where there is a script. The stories we tell ourselves become stories we recognise. When somebody clashes with that, it is difficult. Accepting this confusion, accepting that the world is to complex, ambiguous, and random is a challenge. But from a point of acceptance, you can start to see how things work. Without trying hard.
We can start to get an understanding by looking at how our story connects to the story of others. As people, we can pay attention to the past and to others. We can look at case studies and see how other people operate. We can learn through the people we meet. This is why a lot of privilege comes from from the bubble that you're born into. The conversations you are exposed to. The mentors. The questions that you are asked. The possibilities that seem possible because you have seen them in someone who seems vaguely like you, becomes the set of options you recognize. And that can feel unfair.
A lot of what we are doing is unpacking things like past prejudice, and pre-determined roles. Historically, many people were born into roles. There was someone who could tell them what their path was. The options are opening up, there are fewer people who can tell us what that path is. There are fewer people to walk with us. There are lots of options. Lots of places to go. We start going off on our own. We live more isolated lives where people don't necessarily know our story anymore. Don’t want to know. When you are growing up, your parents are there to guide you. They are interested in your story. But once you leave home, you start making your own way in the world. And because we have so many paths, even the people who knew us well when we were younger massively diverged from where we are now. We might not make time or space for each other in the new lives.
When we are at school, we see the same people every day by default. If you get to go to university, you can make great friends with more of your own discretion, but we start dividing up as we specialize. The people that we spend time with are other people that we work with. We end up living very different lives.
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