On being stuck

I listened to a podcast this morning sent to me by a dear co-conspirator. On the podcast, adrienne maree brown discusses Octavia Butler’s conceptualizations of change. brown says butlers’s main message is super clear, “Change is coming. You can be prepared for it. You don’t have to be a victim of it, but you can actually shape it.” Fitting quote, as the friend had just left STL for the big city, shaping her own destiny. In fact, a few of my close creative friends have left this month for various periods of time on their own artistic and personal becoming. I’m excited for them and curious of my own becoming and of what’s next. A tension comes up for me: am I really shaping change here in stl, what feels like the easy route? Maybe it’s jealousy, maybe it’s fear, hell, maybe it’s joy that keeps me here in my hometown. This post probably doesn’t have a clear answer.

Reading butlers’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents a year ago has opened a discourse and discovering for me about what shaping change manifests as. A mindset that leans into transformation, into alchemy, into change and turbulence is patient with the knowledge that wisdom must be integrated (months later I am looking at a picture of him and I, and I so clearly realize that reality became muddled with the rose colored glasses of proximity). butler is insistent on the actual integration of ideas as to become a shaper of change. Life rn isn’t as rushed or exuberant as I imaged ‘growth’ to be when I was younger.

Transformation is not always abrupt nor an obvious metamorphosis. What happens when you just be in one place? How can I notice, cultivate, and celebrate the pervasive growth that is possible during stagnation? during safety?

I used to love transformation because of the adrenaline. Newness! Excitement! Maybe it was the youthful freedom I felt of finishing school in 2018, that I could choose my own change and my own circumstance. I left the country for a long while, traveling alone abroad until I ran out of the money. I had a job lined up to go somewhere entirely new again in 2020, but then the pandemic, and then the building of a business, the making friends and relationships, the literal tending to a garden (I have FOUR eggplants growing!!!). Along with new mental transformations of race and class that have left me associating foreign travel for the pursuit of discovery as the literal frontier myth, one inevitably starts to wonder how other things we’ve been told about growth and metamorphosis are just someone else’s imaginations on how society works and how we ought to move through it.

Theres this discourse in stl that’s like ‘I need to leave the Midwest. "I’m not understood, I don’t want to get STUCK here”, etc. etc.. And it’s awesome and brave to leave a place you feel safe, I guess I am just noticing and advocating for that slow beat of integration and building. I’ve chased expansion before…I can’t quite place my finger on it just yet, but it feels like my world and community are now expanding with ease?

I am attracting the opportunities and relationships I long for by prioritizing life enriching daily habits. Has my labor of shaping change already begun to integrate?

Taosim has a different texture of agency than butler or brown when it comes to shaping reality. Reality is fixed (Chaos. The Way. The Tao) but acting in alignment of reality is actually the ultimate liberation. Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense for ya, it doesn’t quite for me either. Remember what I said about wisdom taking time? Anyways, maybe you are familiar with Lao tzu, that old guy with a long beard next to a pinterest quote, credited with writing the tao te ching. Chuang Zhu was of the same school (around 400BC). He’s a philosophical skeptic, frankly comparable to today’s meme girlies or one of those people on twitter with 40 followers but posting the *most* real hot takes. Chuang Zhu’s text poked holes at the perceived reality of the time and mocked the accepted social order to reveal an underlying way of the world (the Dao) that is just pure chaos. But like a harmonious chaos. Again we’re back with the revealing of social orders as imagined, more proof that transforming movement is feasible and in fact is done over and over again throughout human history. TBH Chuang Zhu is an original shitposter, proof that silly little stories and sarcasm can actually undergird an entire ontology. And that’s what we’re trying to do, right? Plant seeds of loving revolution through the internet via emojis and subliminal messaging over American girl doll PNGs?

Here's a parable from Chuang Zhu. It has a lot of interpretations on its own, and even more in context of the rest of the text, the history of the warring states period, and in conjunction with other Daoist philosophies of the time. I know it’s long so I bolded the important parts, but left it all if you feel like meandering. It’s a parable so it’s a bit exaggerated…yea...Here’s the story:

HORSES’ HOOFS ARE MADE for treading frost and snow, their coats for keeping out wind and cold. To munch grass, drink from the stream, lift up their feet and gallop this is the true nature of horses. Though they might possess great terraces and fine halls, they would have no use for them.

Then along comes Po Lo. “I’m good at handling horses!” he announces, and proceeds to singe them, shave them, pare them, brand them, bind them with martingale and crupper, tie them up in stable and stall. By this time two or three out of ten horses have died. He goes on to starve them, make them go thirsty, race them, prance them, pull them into line, force them to run side by side, in front of them the worry of bit and rein, behind them the terror of whip and crop. By this time over half the horses have died.

The potter says, “I’m good at handling clay! To round it, I apply the compass; to square it, I apply the T square.” The carpenter says, “I’m good at handling wood! To arc it, I apply the curve; to make it straight, I apply the plumb line.” But as far as inborn nature is concerned, the clay and the wood surely have no wish to be subjected to compass and square, curve and plumb line. Yet generation after generation sings out in praise, saying, “Po Lo is good at handling horses! The potter and the carpenter are good at handling clay and wood!” And the same fault is committed by the men who handle the affairs of the world!

In my opinion someone who was really good at handling the affairs of the world would not go about it like this. The people have their constant inborn nature. To weave for their clothing, to till for their food — this is the Virtue they share. They are one in it and not partisan, and it is called the Emancipation of Heaven. Therefore in a time of Perfect Virtue the gait of men is slow and ambling; their gaze is steady and mild. In such an age mountains have no paths or trails, lakes no boats or bridges. The ten thousand things live species by species, one group settled close to another. Birds and beasts form their flocks and herds, grass and trees grow to fullest height. So it happens that you can tie a cord to the birds and beasts and lead them about, or bend down the limb and peer into the nest of the crow and the magpie. In this age of Perfect Virtue men live the same as birds and beasts, group themselves side by side with the ten thousand things. Who then knows anything about “gentleman” or “petty man”? Dull and ununwitting, men have no wisdom; thus their Virtue does not depart from them. Dull and unwitting, they have no desire; this is called uncarved simplicity. In uncarved simplicity the people attain their true nature.

Then along comes the sage, huffing and puffing after benevolence, reaching on tiptoe for righteousness, and the world for the first time has doubts; mooning and mouthing over his music, snipping and stitching away at his rites, and the world for the first time is divided. Thus, if the plain unwrought substance had not been blighted, how would there be any sacrificial goblets? If the white jade had not been shattered, how would there be any scepters and batons? If the Way and its Virtue had not been cast aside, how would there be any call for benevolence and righteousness? If the true form of the inborn nature had not been abandoned, how would there be any use for rites and music? If the five colors had not confused men, who would fashion patterns and hues? If the five notes had not confused them, who would try to tune things by the six tones? That the unwrought substance was blighted in order to fashion implements — this was the crime of the artisan. That the Way and its Virtue were destroyed in order to create benevolence and righteousness — this was the fault of the sage.

When horses live on the plain, they eat grass and drink from the streams. Pleased, they twine their necks together and rub; angry, they turn back to back and kick. This is all horses know how to do. But if you pile poles and yokes on them and line them up in crossbars and shafts, then they will learn to snap the crossbars, break the yoke, rip the carriage top, champ the bit, and chew the reins. Thus horses learn how to commit the worst kinds of mischief. This is the crime of Po Lo.

In the days of Ho Hsu, people stayed home but didn’t know what they were doing, walked around but didn’t know where they were going. Their mouths crammed with food, they were merry; drumming on their bellies, they passed the time. This was as much as they were able to do. Then the sage came along with the crouchings and bendings of rites and music, which were intended to reform the bodies of the world; with the reaching-for-a-dangled-prize of benevolence and righteousness, which was intended to comfort the hearts of the world. Then for the first time people learned to stand on tiptoe and covet knowledge, to fight to the death over profit, and there was no stopping them. This in the end was the fault of the sage

Yeah. The time of ‘perfect virtue’ is a false romanticization of a static ideal, but the critiques here bring something up for me. Take into consideration that Taosim (over simplifying here) refutes Confucianism and Heaven-mandated governance in Ancient China. What does this have to do with shaping change? The sage (take it metaphorically as a leader or teacher) shaped understandings of the world to be about scarcity, about reaching for something just out of reach. And the part about five colors and fashions, let’s interpret that as the creation of trends or certain aesthetics as more valuable ultimately create jealousy and fighting.

I mean, I’m an artisan trying to pay rent, but his critique stands the test of time for neoliberal capitalism. There’s a clear sentiment that being slow and steady is a true virtue compared to chasing the bag.

Here in my apartment (pls keep buying my art, I love it here), I’m not releasing adrenaline because I’m not in fight or flight. There isn’t excitement or some obvious change. The changes that are happening are tiny little shifts in understanding and tiny little shifts in my everyday actions. I can’t quite grasp what that final thing about this is… like, damn I’m only 26 this stuff should not be clear to me and that’s the whole point. Like, I don’t know the end point. The only constant is change (shout out Satya Narayan Goenka). Change can be scary and exhilarating and change can be scary because it isn’t exhilarating. Transformative cycles are ancient and constant. Am I not growing stronger roots by gently tending? What is so repulsive about comfort and safety? I am ready to learn the lessons from the tree who spends her whole life in one spot.