Weeknotes #2
End of the week reflections on ups, downs and positive confusions … Friday, 9th Feb 2024
Ups
Following last week’s Weeknotes#1 I’ve been thinking a lot about energy and exhaustion and attempting to pay more attention to my body budget. I tried to keep a wee log of all the tiny everyday moments that sparked energy and provided moments of rest, ease and aliveness. There were so many of them and as I write this, and recall them, I can feel a wee surge of warmth and ease ripple through my body.
An email exchange with an inspiring collaborator that puts fire in my belly and makes me feel like a teenager ripping open love letters. Rambling voice notes from old friends with nothing much to say. Laughter. Tiny droplets of water on sprouting moss (above). Hidden sticky notes from my 7year old. A spontaneous cuddle with my almost teenager who fits perfectly under my chin. The smell of his hair. Conversations with strangers on the bus. Giggles. Fresh air. Rain. Celebrating little wins with colleagues.
Looking over the list of things I took time to note down is a great reminder that so much of what we need is here right in front of us. Inside all the everyday moments we often ignore/take for granted.
This week I’m grateful for all these moments. It feels good to take responsibility for noticing them and remembering they matter.
Downs
Paying attention to my body budget has also been a stark reminder of how costly interactions within the professionalised and bureaucratic paradigm can be. Trying to put communities first goes against the grain of pretty much every business model, policy, structure, culture. It’s a constant battle to try and stay anchored in this commitment and resist the dominant, paternalistic and extractive behaviours and instrumentalization of communities that are baked into so many of the systems and structures we’re all part of. Working with good, talented, smart, well intentioned people inside these bad systems can make it even harder.
I really appreciated a recent blog by Cormac Russel about the Paradoxes of Helping Institutions:
#6: progressives and moderates are more impactful at maintaining the status quo than sceptics because they believe they are doing the opposite. They resist change by focusing on reform and behaviour change, not the relocation of authority towards community alternatives 6/8
#7: if people within the institutions feel shamed/demeaned, they will shut down and resist. To re-centre citizens in a democracy, we must decenter professionals but not demean them. Pivoting from deliverer to discoverer & from provider to precipitator is a noble civic act 7/8
#8: the paradoxes will be misinterpreted by some as anti-institutional. This will happen in institutions & communities alike. In contrast, social, economic & eco-justice advocates will understand these paradoxes aren’t anti-Institutional; they’re anti-monopoly & anti-syndicalism
Remembering that the act of carving out spaces for ourselves and others to “be differently” requires a huge amount of labour, energy and determination feels good to name and acknowledge. We’re not starting with a blank page. We’re starting from inside systems and structures which make certain things easy, and other things very very very hard.
“Like an operating system, the medium of infrastructure space makes certain things possible and other things impossible”
This invisible labour needs to be recognised and factored into our thinking so that we can work together to collectively resist, be, do, make and create new pathways, channels and groves for resources, power and benefits to start flowing differently.
Positive Confusions
I’ve been reading this incredible book called TOGETHER by Ece Temelkuran. One of the invitations is to “Choose attention over anger”, replacing anger with resistance against distraction. Given all the ups and downs above I’m holding this idea tight.
“It might benefit all of us to realise that systemically forcing the individual to misplace there attention is a hallmark of fascism”
“Attention can enable us to see clearly the questions of our age, weeding out the infuriating spectacles manufactured to keep us busy … it is only when our attention is in tact that we can find the serenity of mind to look around and see those who are in need of genuine solidarity: those who are silently suffering behind their forced smiles”
I’m ending the week with these questions buzzing around my head:
- How can we manage/mitigate/take responsibility for the individual and collective exhaustion that stems from having to do work and exist inside structures/systems that the heart has already moved on from?
- How can we build up our collective capacity to resist distraction, keep our attention in tact and find the serenity of mind to see clearly and work together to untangle ourselves from solutions that are keeping us stuck?
