The Problems Of Articulation

What am I trying to accomplish by writing?

I. Relating through choice more than reaction

If someone punches you in the stomach, right before the blow lands, you may tense up your abdomen in preparation. Is this a choice or is this a reaction?

On one level, the act of tightening up appears automatic. There was no forethought; the action wasn’t based on prior calculation. The body appears to be reacting of its own accord. Instinct by itself, however, doesn’t point to a lack of choice.

Actions perceived as unconscious by the mind, are conscious when perceived on a different level. The capacity for choice extends past the mind, into the body, and in many cases outside of the body. Indeed, part of your choice-making apparatus lies in the person who is preparing the punch you. Otherwise, there would exist no cause for your abdomen to respond to.

I’m not interested in entertaining a philosophical debate on the existence of free will or lack thereof. However, at a basic level, what seems to be less true is that “individuals act out choices” and what seems to be more true is the reverse: “Choices act themselves out through individuals.”

With this view, choices become more available to individuals who are responsive enough to perceive them. Someone listening to a more complex “radio frequency” downloads more complex choices.

Following this perspective, the tension between choice and reaction doesn’t lie with the action itself; it instead lies in the process that compelled the action through the person making it. The question becomes: what type of relationship do I have with the choices that wish to avail themselves to me?

Reaction remains the only option if an individual gets stuck on only one radio frequency. They can’t turn the knob anymore, or they forgot how. Tightening one’s abdomen is good self-protection; it becomes a prison when it remains the only radio station playing. Worse still, when it becomes the only option, you may believe the only way to exist in the world is with a permanently tight abdomen.

Choice occurs when an individual develops enough skill to tune into multiple or different types of radio stations. The body and the mind can then, in service to a larger spirit, both stick and unstick; tighten and loosen; stretch and shrink. Learning more moves enables more appropriate responses.

What type of relationship do you have with the words that you write on the page? Do you aim to tightly control language – to make it your slave? Or do you perhaps let language enslave you instead?

I want to relate to language based on choice; to have a relationship where we can thrust into each other, and bring each other alive. Tuning into the complex stories that want to bring themselves alive through my words — that’s hard, and that’s what I’m practicing. I’m practicing articulating; I’m trying to solve the problems of articulation. With proper articulation, I need not be locked into any narrative reactively. I can instead serve stories that use me to tell themselves responsibly.

II. Gazing at the agendas driving me

One big danger of this era is getting swept up and away by some meme that has nothing to do with who we truly are. It is always true that people are driving forward a host of agendas, but also that a host of agendas and plans are driving forward through people.

How conscious are we of these agendas, and more importantly, how do we relate to them? My experience of the current moment is that agendas that are irrelevant to “me” are in my driver’s seat far more than “I” am and that “I’ve” been losing this battle for a while. I am not alone in this experience.

A bulk of these agendas are inherited from my lineage and the family systems that entrained me. A lesser collection of them comes from the assumptions and behaviors of the civilization that enculturated me.

The smallest collection, but maybe the most potent, are reactions I’ve accumulated over decades. Stances that may have initially proved to be vital for survival have now calcified into a consistent fixture of the way I move through the world. This is a problem because the calcified reactions no longer protect me from danger. Additionally, their rigidity refuses to allow my psychosocial being to reconfigure in a way that would be liberating. This is an immune system that is somehow failing in two ways simultaneously: it is out-of-control and inadequate.

The metaphor extends further. “I’m” in the center of a cathedral that has crumbling pillars and a roof that’s been blasted off and trapped me under the rubble. “I’m” crawling out of tight space with little room to maneuver. The cathedral is surrounded by sentries who are too far away to hear “me” cry and who are acting on orders to let nobody in to help.

I hope that I can use language authentically: to maneuver out of the rubble; to make the sentries at the perimeter to hear my voice; to determine precisely where repairs ought to begin. Ultimately, though, this project won’t finish until God returns to sanctify the memetic architecture and chase the remaining demons out of their hidden corners.

III. Learning to breathe through my asshole

Awareness is stored in the butt. I bet you didn’t know that, did you? Well, even if you don’t consciously remember, there is some part of you still keenly aware of it.

There’s a reason that upon encountering someone who is stiff, enraged, clenched we turn to them and say: “Who put a stick up your ass?” They’re operating from an experience in which they are not allowed to exist yet they must still act in the world.

मूलाधार ( “Muladhara”, the Sanskrit word for root chakra) literally means the root of existence. Someone who breathes freely in and out of this pool of energy breathes freely into every other part of their experience. Someone who is blocked in this pool of energy will bring that blockage into every other aspect of their experience.

Often, that someone is me. Currently, I do not believe I am allowed to survive. I am making a gamble that if I learn to express myself properly in public, I will find evidence that I am allowed to survive.

When I write, I seek proof that I exist, and that my existence matters. I haven’t found it so far and every moment that passes I become more desperate that I never will. I am not alone in this experience, either.

IV. Transmuting grief that won’t yield

Declaring in public “I don’t believe I am allowed to survive”, “I don’t think my life matters”, or “I feel close to giving up” causes alarm. I’ve learned that a lot of people can’t handle hearing it. It’s too heavy, and if there’s a choice between being around me or feeling light – well, that’s easy. I don’t mean to be alarming, but I am not interested in hiding who I am, and sometimes who I am is f***ing intense.

I’ve also learned that there are many who interpret these phrases as a cry for help. I don’t need help; or, at least, not in the ways usually offered: paltry suggestions to wear more spiritual makeup that makes me look presentable.

Just pray more. Or exercise more. Make sure you are being social. You just need to get a job. The income will make you feel better. Help others. Take on a challenge. Or a hobby.

I might be grateful for the compassionate intention behind such advice if it didn’t rattle around my head like a heated pinball. This advice assumes there is a problem to be solved within the grief.

Whatever “problem” you think I have is probably wrong. There is no “problem to be solved.” I’m not an incel; I’m not socially awkward; I’m not faithless; I’m not hopelessly stupid; I don’t lack marketable skills; I haven’t been secretly abused. There is nothing circumstantially you can point to that justifies why I find myself trapped underneath a 300-pound spiritual wall. I am, yet again, not alone in this experience.

Regardless of what the “problem” might be or why it exists, I think the solution is to articulate myself out from under it. And, I can learn to express myself in a way that doesn’t scare everyone else, perhaps with artful language.

Playful articulation is a gift – it is a way to acknowledge the reality of being crushed by a concrete wall without threatening to drag others underneath it. In the best case, it offers a way to dissolve the solid concrete back into wet cement.

Being covered by wet cement is distressing, but at least wet cement is malleable. I can move through it, wrestle with it, sculpt and shape it, or float on top of it. That minor shift offers a modicum of breathing room – of creativity – in an otherwise suffocating existence.

V. Drilling into life with desire

If there is anything that I want deeply, it is the ability to express myself freely even in the most overwhelming situations; to engage with the dangers of life on my terms; to penetrate through the fear that blocks access to my sovereignty. This is not a simple desire.

For this reason, I’ve made an existential bet: if I find ways to successfully articulate my complex desires well, I will commit to life, unflinchingly – even while facing what threatens to asphyxiate me down to the base of my spine.

This piece of writing is a contribution to that existential bet. It is also an invitation to join me in my practice.