Creating culture for a better 2021
Now is when the new year looms ahead with the promise of better things to come. This is a deep-seated belief stretching back thousands of years: at once a construct and magical thinking, like watching a rainbow appear.
Perhaps knowing the truth about why rainbows appear conflicts with the reminder that it is a promise from God that things will get better or it makes them less magical.
For me, explanations -and the truth in general- have become precisely the opposite. For many, magic lies in the ability to deceive others; for me, it lies in the resilience it takes to conquer improbability. Rainbows, sunsets or the diversity of magnificent creatures and plants that populate this planet might be commonplace, but they are yet improbable and magical.
The wonder of knowing the truth can be liberating because it gives us agency. Our wanderlust and our power to act do not rely on our capacity to delude ourselves with dogmatic traditions and beliefs. Usually, these hold us back not only as individuals but as a society.
So the hard truth is that 2021 will not change anything if we don't change ourselves. We need to engage directly with the realities that brought the misfortunes of 2020 upon us.
Perhaps the most important is the destruction of wildlife habitats which is linked to the spread of infectious diseases and our current pandemic. A second reason is our collective stubbornness in continuing to hold onto an economic system that values capital and ownership over the wellbeing of the people that make it work.
These two are interlinked and need integrative approaches to solve them. They require empathy and the foresight that fixing the problems will also necessarily cause some suffering. Even so, a bit of suffering that leads to solving our problems is better than remaining comfortable and maintaining the status quo.
Instead of talking about solutions, let's focus on our responsibilities in the new year. If you are interested in concrete solutions, I recommend reading about regenerative economies (ex. Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth) and ecological and urban system integration (it's a mouthful, I know, but the general concepts are not challenging). It only requires understanding that perpetual growth is not sustainable, that we have to live within planetary means, that we ought to protect the dignity of all beings and that things are much better when people, systems and institutions cooperate.
Now back to that ugly word: responsibility. It seems to be the opposite of magic and wanderlust. 2020 has made clear that there are problems that we cannot fix ourselves. No one could have solved the pandemic on their own. Our personal accountability was most precious when it connected to our collective efforts to achieve a better outcome.
More than ever, the assessment of personal risk had to consider the people around us and the community in which we live in. Our decisions to follow sanitary safety protocols had a direct effect on our household members' health and the delay of the reopening of our cities.
If there's a lesson in the tragedies that ensued from the pandemic, this is it. We often feel powerless to affect the realities and collective myths that frame our lives, like being on a packed airport unidirectional conveyor. Only when we acknowledge the power we have through affiliation and cooperation can our capacity for choice make sense. Paradoxically, how we choose to engage with the collective is the most vital individual self-affirmation.
Achieving a balance between collective and self-affirmation often depends on your level of privilege. It is easier to think about these things and look beyond when your head is above the water. I'm the first to acknowledge my own privilege. If you're reading this, your head is also likely above the water. I will not presume that the following text be meant as advice. I write it as an account of the lessons I learned during these challenging past few months. It seems like we cannot merely acquire such lessons second-hand; instead we must earn them by suffering through difficulties.
Collaborators: dancer,Claudia Chan Tak. Video: Guillermo Castellanos, Juan David Padilla Vega
The Personal:
a) Run towards the things that scare you (please don't jump into a shark-filled tank. Prudence should be considered). This mantra has less to do with courage and more with self-exploration. Behind what frightens us or makes us uncomfortable often lies the most essential truths about ourselves, the things that hold us back and keep us from growing. Knowing those truths is necessary before we can manage them, sort them out, or expunge them from our system. In my experience, being bolder takes practice, but it can be an acquired quality.
b) If you have the choice to dance or to not dance, always choose the former. Even if things go wrong, you'll always have the satisfaction of enjoying the moment and having tried. This weighs prominently in my decisions to try out something that before seemed too ambitious or daunting.
c) Fail methodically. Taking chances will very likely result in some less than desirable lows and missed goals. Not taking chances means no growth, as will failing without self-assessment. Failing methodically allows you to identify how and where to improve, what worked and what didn't. Failing is an investment.
d) Don't confuse renewable resources with non-renewable resources. Money is renewable; time is not. Money is only worth as much as you do with it and the time you have to procure your wellbeing and those around you. You are only worth what you decide to spend your time on.
The Collective:
e) We have a responsibility to be informed and to engage in making things better. The clearest example of this in 2020 was the conversation about systemic racism brought on by the Black Lives Matter movement. A system of injustice in which we all participate, but too often leave for black people to solve alone. We are all enforcers, bystanders, active or passive participants. When we are not informed, we delegate decisions to others. We cannot use ignorance as a protective shield in order to avoid engagement in the solutions. We are implicated whether we want it or not. It would be like having a tsunami bear down on your city and thinking that it will magically disappear if you ignore it.
This is true of the most significant issues that face humanity: racism, inequality, climate change. Knowing with certainty that our efforts will not be enough, even if we can forgive ourselves, does not mean that we can unburden ourselves from the responsibility of doing our best.
f) Engage in creating culture. The most precious thing this year was when my work has inspired others to create. I cannot solve every problem, but I can select a cluster of people through (and with) I can change the status quo of the things that need repairing and reimagining.
g) Remove yourself from the equation. We are here to serve others. I don't advocate for completely losing ourselves to fulfill the needs of others, depleting ourselves in the process. We need to attend to our own wellbeing. I'm saying that what we do only makes sense when we understand that it is in service to others. When we remove our ego from the equation, we concern ourselves less with our own misfortunes and more with fulfilling our purpose, which is conducive to happiness.
The impact we have on others is our only antidote to the constant fear of death. It is part of what fulfills our yearning for self expression and self-awareness.
Seth Godin claims that “The way we make things better is by caring enough about those we serve to imagine the story they need to hear. We need to be generous to share that story, so they can take action that they’ll be proud of”.
i) Be generous, be kind, be empathic. Every other point is lost if you don't use these three principles to relate to others.
The words that we most dread can be a point of liberation and magic because they give us a choice. As a true melancholic, happiness and fulfillment have never come easy. By practice, by will and effort, I've become an optimist because I've accepted the responsibility of finding actionable hope at every opportunity. I've understood that for the future to be better, I must sow as many seeds as I can regardless of how many will break the shell, grow, and become fruiting trees.
The improbability of those seedlings becoming and yet succeeding, impacting, interweaving, and cooperating is where purpose is fulfilled. Truth, responsibility -collective or individual- magic and wanderlust all become the same thing.
"True generosity toward the future consists in giving everything to the present." -Albert Camus.
Books that made my year and gave me hope:
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
All We Can Save edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katherine K. Wilkinson