What will be the thing to radicalize you?
What to do during an existential crisis? Make a list, of course!
Have you ever had a moment of complete and overwhelming clarity about the state of the universe and your place in it? It seems like an ordinary moment and then a tidal wave of emotion crashes into you. What am I doing? Why am I here? Why is anyone doing what they are doing? Why is anyone here doing anything at all? I’ve had many such moments over my lifetime, most recently as I was standing in line at CVS.
As I was standing in line zoning out, the hat display was staring back at me.There were at least fifty hats on the rack. Where did they come from? Who made them? Where are they going? What will become of them at the end of the season? Who is Panama Jack? Why do we keep making all of this stuff when I can find fifty hats abandoned on the beach by the end of the week?
Why are we even doing any of the things we do? Why are we on this Earth? Why do we value material things so much and also the act of showing them off to others? What does a status symbol really mean? What void are we filling when we display these symbols?
You could say it was a moment of existential crisis.
It makes me want to buy nothing ever again, because the thing I want and need is rotting in someone else’s trash bag at this very moment. All of our belongings are churning around the planet and we don’t have the infrastructure to radically re-distribute (and repair) things so we just put them in our garbage cans and go back to our jobs so we can buy more stuff.
If I open my eyes and look around me, I can find all sorts of amazing things. This week’s finds include brand new sunglasses (found by my husband who jumped into a rose bush to get them), a cute dump truck for the kid, an umbrella from the New York City Parks Department (this is a hot ticket item!), many broken umbrellas, entire sets of abandoned beach toys, beach blankets and unlimited socks.
I’ve started a list (another list!!) of ways to live more radically, here’s some items from that list:
Making space for others to join you in whatever you are doing
Finding things for free, or used. Thrift stores are radical! Free stores are RADICAL! Is there still a free store in your area? What can you give, what can you take?
Mutual aid, because the government does not seem to be willing to provide a social safety net, but your community might be offering it already. I have both given and received generously from mutual aid groups. The receiving felt much more difficult for me personally. Consider when you need to receive as we are conditioned to be people pleasers!
Participating in local “Buy Nothing” groups
A community forum somewhere (a literal bulletin board) or whatsapp group. These things can turn sour without proper boundaries and maintenance but I have seen them work quite well for redistributing physical things. Our local one also works well for things like “hey I need to move this mattress 10 blocks on Saturday can anyone help me?”
Giving money with no strings or expectations.
Citing your sources (why is this radical now?) because the internet loves to pull things out of context, so putting them back into context feels radical even though it used to be the norm.
Just ask, “how can I be of service?”
Rest when you feel called to rest
Give your full attention to whatever you are doing at the moment
Considering which problems are individual problems and which ones are systemic problems and learning to see the difference.
With that, then accepting that sometimes you make an individual contribution to a systemic problem because that’s within your power and some candles must be burnt from both ends.
Accepting that two opposing things can be true at the same time.
Choose joy
Any additions to the list? I would love to hear it!
A sewing kit made of scraps
I took two of the Tatter quilting series classes (there’s one class left!!) last month and then used the small quilt blocks to create this lotus bag as my sewing kit.
All of the blocks are made from scraps! Some of the pieces as small as a square inch.
Circle quilting class by Tara Faughnan
Patchwork quilting class by Arounna Khounnoraj
Flower shaped bag instructions from Youngmin Lee’s YouTube
That’s it for today!
See you next Sunday :)
Bekka
Thanks for sharing, Bekka!