Cycle Day 21
6/30 - us versus them and the third force in every artificial binary
It’s cycle day 21. I cannot be held accountable for the things I will say in the coming days as I’m entering my pre-menstrual phase… (just kidding; we should always be held accountable when our actions cause harm) Fair warning – luteal vibes.
You know what’s funny? I say shit like this out loud in real life to “normal” people. I often forget that my whole being can be misunderstood or judged as weird, and so I genuinely don’t even do this on purpose to provoke anyone, but it does tickle something in me whenever I notice the normies’ faces in response to some of the shit I say.
That makes me wanna list some of the funniest shit I’ve been judged for in the last 5 months since starting that side job…
Drinking tea
Wanting to find creative solutions instead of debating the problem dead
My curly hair
Referring to a specific tree as “she”
Smelling like lavender
Being in a good mood about work
Being optimistic, in general
Both, not eating meat and eating meat on separate occasions but by the same person…
I cannot find it in me to be invested in such shallow judgments (she says as she’s writing about such shallow judgments). Or celebrity culture. Or pop culture. There are bigger things, real things to be engaging with. Class and race consciousness. Genocide and ecocide. Collective liberation. I used to think this way. I sometimes still do. BEcause it is so fucking easy to fall into/onto(?) the saddle of a moral or spiritual high horse. And so, life is a constant array of moments to practice my alchemy, to apply my third way vernacular.
I heard something quite disturbing the other day. Apparently, 13th grade physics classes don’t do any actual math anymore. Instead they now debate ethical dilemmas, such as “running over the grandmother versus the child” in autonomous driving scenarios. While dystopian as hell, I generally don’t want students debating these types of dilemmas. I don’t want tech bros or politicians debating these dilemmas. I don’t even want philosophers debating such dilemmas.
Frankly, I want the storytellers and poets to dream up worlds that are so utopian, that such ethical dilemmas become entirely obsolete.
I am not sure that I will find the words to explain what my issues are with ethical dilemmas. Or debates in general. But I’ll try nonetheless. I feel like they foster a general attitude of “if you wanna make an omelet, you gotta break a few eggs.” This idea that someone has to suffer in order for progress, growth, or even just comfort to be possible. That there will always be this inevitability that “a few” most suffer so that “the many” can thrive. Or whatever these ugly and cynical little sayings are (I hold a Master’s in Economics; unfortunately, I know many of those nasty little arguments for capitalism all too well).
I often wonder where this comes from. Have humans really always been like this, as the proponents of such harmful ideologies will have us believe? Is this whole “survival of the fittest” really all there is to us? Constant competition, negotiation after negotiation, boring compromises arranging themselves somewhere “in the middle” between two already very limited choices, moving further and further in a single, dystopian direction over time? I refuse to believe that. Yeah, I really don’t like debates… And I used to be really good at them in debate class in school. But eventually I realized, “You’re both wrong” and “You’re both right” and then “So, let’s look over waaaaay over there for solutions to actual problems that exist.”
I guess I am an eternal optimist, a dreamer who actually does believe in “the good” in all beings, not as a moral judgment, but as a sign of aliveness.
I am alive, therefore I am (good.)
(and there simply is no alternative.)
You know? I must believe this, because look at the evidence! Our species would have easily already died out if we were truly biologically wired to strictly compete for resources and kill each other. How do you think we survived 160,000 to 300,000 years? It is such a limited and boring old story to believe that “we have always done things this way” when it’s really only been like 5,000 to 10,000 years or so (that’s 1–6% of the entirety of our existence on this planet…) PLUS, the ample evidence from all types of Indigenous cultures that are still alive, that have somehow survived hundreds if not thousands of years of genocide, to show us how there are a myriad of alternative ways of organizing life in sync with the web of life and creation. Reciprocity, interconnectedness, co-creation. Aren’t those some incredible stories to tell?
So, how do I challenge myself continuously to not fall on the spiritual/moral high horse? And trust me, if you’ve been born and socialized into this supremacy myth, it is a fucking challenge to get out of that (even for someone who considers themselves to be empathic, highly sensitive, neurodivergent and whathaveyou). Any white person you encounter that’ll have you believe otherwise is probably lying to you and/or themselves… [Oop, there I go again, with my judgments…]
The trick is to not conflate my newfound third perspective, the third force, the neutralizer of any binary with the actual binary itself. So, if there is a debate going on between good and evil and I now have realized that there is a third perspective (i.e. let’s say it’s live and let live or empathy or just simply the cycle of life itself), I must not fall into the trap of equating this realization with being good as opposed to bad (i.e. flattening it all back down onto the binary). It is so tricky to not take that new position and say “Ah, this is good, and all the others are bad.”
As with all inquiry processes the key lies in continuing to ask the question. What is the third force?
I have another more practical example: Izzy — Palestine. That’s a binary that all too often, still, gets presented and debated as an equal pairing between two similar opponents. What’s the third force here, that which contains or neutralizes the “conflict,” the set of conditions that even make it possible in the first place? Settler-colonialism. Bullies win.
Now that I’ve realized this, I wanna change those conditions, right? Collective liberation. Create a world order that does not reward the bullies with the biggest guns. Change systems of accountability so that genocide and war do actually get prevented. Etc. This unfortunately opens up a new binary. There are people who will go “that’s not possible” or “but that’s just how the world works” or “that is a childish pipedream.” Instead of oversimplifying my newfound position (collective liberation for all) into the category “Good” and equating every other position out there with “Bad” or “Evil,” I could instead ask “what’s the neutralizing force here?” Remember, my baseline assumption is never “people are bad,” so there must be an answer. If I want to engage in meaningful conversation with folks who “are on the other side,” if I want to understand them better, or even if I want to change their minds, I believe I must start with genuine empathy and curiosity. Remember also, in this scenario, I’m the one already practiced in looking for the third force, that which creates the conditions for people’s beliefs. Our beliefs are often not innate things that grew organically out of the soil beneath our feet. Much more often than not they are stories we’ve been told often enough so that they have dug down into our inner root system and spread out, like invasive non–native plants. Yes, I could simply pull at them and try to get rid of them that way. Or I could create different soil conditions, dig down and excavate their roots, or simply plant enough of what it is I want to grow there instead.
I think that’s all for today. I will probably continue down these thoughts…
See you tomorrow.
Xx, Nat