The Denial of Going Within

The most vital cultures are those that are being challenged, changing, moving ...

Andy Goldsworthy, The Walk

This is one of those posts I’ve started 1/2 a dozen times over the last year. I think it’s been difficult to write because, as a topic in our culture, it’s just beneath the surface, almost ready to poke out. It feels like a line of poetry perched on the tip of my tongue that just won’t let go and fly free. We’re allllmmmmooooost ready to talk about it, but not quite.

It boils down to a simple understanding: the prevailing cultural winds don’t want each of us to explore and claim our own inner experience of being.

There are many of us who have a radically different experience of our own inner being than what was presented to us as “normal” when we were very young. Others of us discovered meditation, alternative spirituality, yoga, or psychedelics and have spent decades going deeper into those places that open up into universal, transcendent experiences. Still others - artists, scientists, philosophers, thinkers of various kinds have developed an ability to self reflect, to think critically about themselves in the greater world, all while staying in touch with their own inner dialog unfolding every moment.

Those of us with the low-down on the inner have gotten used to living in waters that have little awareness of a sense of inner being, certainly no inclination to support its exploration. We grew up in school environments that might be hostile to authentic self reflection, insisting that conformity rule over self discovery and self expression. A simple creative writing class could support a student in discovering that they were not heterosexual or comfortable with the gender identity assigned to them. Young women might discover that they were not happy with the roles given to them, young men might want to explore activities considered too feminine for them. At times we flew under the radar, at times there were attempts to shut us down. We understand this basic resistance out there.

Now the culture at large is going further. The urge to “make America great again” is the urge to return to a time before the ‘60s when a generation of Americans began to engage in activities that turned their gaze inward, awakening them to the importance and power of giving way to their own inner beings, and perhaps most importantly, recognizing that inner being in other people regardless of race or gender. It wasn’t that hippies discovered introspection, they just cornered the market on it for a decade or so. Realizations weren’t always deep or glorious. There were casualties, but the journey inward was well begun in the culture at large. Finally!

As the realizations born of that time take deeper and deeper root, the drive towards conformity raises its terrified visage. Combating racism, poverty, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia in legislation are all outer expressions of the inner realizations, its no surprise those laws are under attack. A recent advertisement for new ICE hires admonished applicants to “protect their culture.” Immigration enforcement is now the cultural enforcement arm of the US government hell bent on restoring the culture of a few at the expense of all.

I recently saw a news article about an effort to keep an Idaho town “white only”, to protect “European culture”. Their foods, arts, music, will conform to historically European traditions. It’s not enough to cultivate an appreciation of your heritage, it must remain static, cherished as a timeless object of identity.

The problem with those who worship idealized culture is that its based in a fundamental misunderstanding of culture. There is no such thing as static culture. The Christianity of today bears little resemblance to the Christianity of centuries ago. The farms of today are very different from the farms of our ancestors. The most vital cultures are those that are being challenged, changing, moving with shifts in technology, migration, and knowledge.

The outer expression of culture is transitory, to cling to it, without allowing growth, is to rob it of its life.

There is much to be lauded in European culture. Can you imagine what it must have been like to be one of the first people to hear one of Beethoven’s symphonies? In a world without radio or television, where media was a book or painting, to sit before an orchestra and hear any of his masterpieces unfold must have been life changing. It was, at its time, a stunning accomplishment. Some of us hear that music across time, imagine the community that experienced that rapturous moment, and seek to recreate it. But you can’t. That moment has passed.

Beethoven was not a conformist. He was moody, extreme at times in his behavior. He did not attempt to repeat what was already made. He lived at the edge of sanity at times, reaching into the creative chaos that he had unique access to. He would likely have been hungry to explore the music of many other cultures. He would not have been welcomed in the white only villages that worship his offerings, he would have disrupted their white-topia.

I’ve had a deep passion for Shakespeare since I was very young. The quality of writing, its colorful language and striking intelligence defines for me what genius in writing is. I used to think no sacrifice was too great in preserving and promoting Shakespeare’s work, until I realized I was falling victim to the common human failing of worshiping the past. Sometimes we have difficulty imagining that anything can be as good, or even greater than our ancestors accomplishments.

It has been an important mantra for me to affirm that the greatest writers, spiritual teachers, and artists have yet to be born. They are not all men, or white, or heterosexual. We don’t know who they are, but it is our responsibility to make room for them, to create a future where they have room to discover themselves and make their offerings.

At the suggestion of a friend I re-watched the film “Rivers and Tides”, a documentary featuring the art of Andy Goldsworthy. He’s a Scottish environmental artist, known for his striking imagery based entirely in objects found and assembled and viewed in nature. He often works on the land of his ancestors, his materials and subjects are deeply rooted in his own indigenous, Scottish roots. And it is entirely unbound from time and ethnicity. It can be claimed both as “European art” given his ancestry, and an environmental art that transcends this moment in time. The image for this post is from one of his exhibits in which a wall is assembled, disassembled and re-assembled as it moves across the land. It evokes the tradition of dry stacked walls that mark the land of his home, the ephemeral nature of art, and the archetypal serpentine shape that informs much of his work. He is an example of the way fine art, which may have begun as a European effort, has grown and changed by responding to the greater cultures of the world.

His is a vital art, both alive today and timeless. He didn’t arrive at that art by closing himself in a room and playing Scottish folk music.

Today we are all living through the fear reaction of many people in our culture. They don’t want change, instead they want us all to appear outwardly to conform to the standards of behavior that feels most familiar to them. While understandable, it’s ultimately a childish reaction, one lacking awareness of the nature of life and their own inner being.

They will not ultimately succeed, conformists never do. The river of culture we’re all a part of cannot be stopped or controlled. It is the deeper force upon which their carnival of performative citizenship is resting. It will eventually collapse in on itself, because life flows, moves, discovers and grows. Goldsworthy understands that. If there is such a thing as permanence it is to be found in the currents of water as it endlessly changes the land. Movement, endless change is all we can rely on.

Those of us who understand this intimately just have to keep being ourselves, loudly. Which is fortunately something we’re good at.

I hope those of us who are a part of this resistance, whether it be in quiet creativity or loud protest, can see the commonality in our cause. Whether we be women working to preserve and improve their autonomy and self-authority, gender queer people struggling to just live as themselves, POC trying escape harassment and achieve greater equality, lesbian/gay/bi people wanting to love who they love safely, or spiritual people not conforming to dominant religions, we are all responding to a deeper current, one that is authentically shaping culture.

I hope we can all continue to be extraordinary in our willingness to share our deepest experiences of being.