Friday, October 19 - Day II.127 (491) to Monday, November 5, 2012 - Day 144 (508)
Sometimes the well runs dry. Sometimes you have to start over. Sometimes you can't bring yourself to acknowledge the truth about yourself: the truths that are ugly, that counter who you try to be, the ones you just keep wishing weren't true.
My mind is tremendously powerful, and I am trying to work myself out of the box I have mentally created.
I have to let go of so many things to get to the next place - so many habits that brought me successfully here will not allow me to evolve into what is coming next. So I have to let go, jump into a void, create space for mistakes, allow myself to mess up, risk looking foolish, and run (kicking and screaming, let's be honest) out of my comfort zone.
In the past weeks, I keep returning to three quotations, that, if we are to believe linguistic anthropologists and their belief that our choice of words and self-expression reveal deeper structures of personhood, identity, and self-construction, represent this self I am building into:
"All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
...
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die." - WH Auden
This so much as we prepare to vote. So relevant - but also as I think about the kind of anthropologist - and thinker - I want to be and what I hope to contribute as my legacy to the way people understand the world.
And also:
"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul" - Emily Dickinson
May there always be hope. May there always be hope.
And finally:
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” -Anais Nin
Tuesday, November 6, 2012 - Day II.145 (509)
Congratulations to Barack Obama!
"What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on earth.
The belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works
when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future
generations. The freedom which so many Americans have fought for and
died for come with responsibilities as well as rights.
And among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That's what makes America great."
-Barack Obama, Acceptance Speech, 11.6.2012
I am happy - and so so so so relieved - to have my faith in this country reaffirmed, and this man as my president for the next four years. It is reassuring that when you stand up for values, that is worth something, still.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - Day II.146 (510)
May you be blessed enough to have a best friend who acts as a mirror, holding you back up to yourself in clarity when you cannot see yourself.
Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.
You know who you are. Thank you. I love you.
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