On Shaping a Kind of Life
Answer truly, if only for a moment and to yourself: how are you in the home of your body?
Since I last wrote to you, my days have taken interesting turns. For one, I’ve been laughing. Laughing at the irony of a University that struggles to run a portal successfully, proposing that an entire semester be made virtual. For a moment this week, I saw a thing I found beautiful. An old woman looked at me and I was lost wondering about her eyes. She had cataracts in her eyes, and it reminded me of how Safia Elhillo had described glaucoma in a poem as: swirled thick with smoke […] the white water and as I had imagined then, I saw now, how she was right. The old woman’s eyelashes had begun to grey, so the black lashes were few. Every blink looked like an unravelling; thin ash lashes fanning over her eyes, a strange colour streaming into her lens from where I was looking at her, making the smoke of her eyes lofty, like clouds. Earlier this fortnight, I was pouring with joy. Just pure joy at the sight of a friend. And if I will leave you with anything in the light of that, it is the consciousness you should invest in your friendships, however many, however few. It is a common attribute for us to ease into comfort or complacency in our relationships and offer less, becoming less intentional because it seems certain those friendships will remain. A term that partly describes this tendency is the Moral Credential Effect which allows history to birth complacency. Partly, because that is not all the effect is about. So, check-in on a friend today, leave a message, hold a vulnerable conversation, retrace how your relationship began, relish it.
I hope you are enjoying the belated harmattan.
I enjoyed reading your replies—hearing about your list of joys and how you’ve been—and I am grateful for them.
Shaping a Kind of Life and other thoughts
"won't you celebrate with me / what i have shaped into / a kind of life? i had no model. / […] / what did i see to be except myself? / i made it up"
—won’t you celebrate with me by Lucille Clifton
I
I don’t know how. Everything is an attempt.
II
In my last letter to you, I muttered something about a hybrid of a philosophical theory that posits that meaning is not inherent but attributed. Well, I’ll say that my muttering got me in trouble. The good kind of trouble—one that involved various replies asking if I was sure, and what did I really mean and pleasurable conversations spiralling from one thing to the other. In that vein, I will be exploring parts of that muttering in relation to today’s thoughts.
My muttering on philosophical theory is one that relates to meaning and by extension spans across ontology, religion, arguments on the inherent vs attributed, on monism vs dualism vs pluralism, on being vs becoming; and on and on. However, because these subjects can quickly spiral into lengthy conversations, and the length of those conversations are by no means exhaustive, I will write to you briefly on becoming as against being; with the hope that at some distant time, I will write further on these subjects.
III
In many conversations, you will hear the phrase either/or being used. You will hear people assert that you are either this or that, either here or there, either emotional or logical, and on and on. In other conversations, you will hear people emphasize the one. The only way out is through, one true God, golden rule—I find this one interesting because the only golden rule should be that there is none. This constant reaching for dualism or monism in viewing the world affects many things and aspects of our lives, and our identity is one of those things.
When you are viewed through a stereotype or a duality it limits the expanse of your identity. It denies the layers and nuances that you embody, the absence of simple lines that define you and your experiences, despite the eagerness to fit your identities into one box or the other. And this circles back to Lucille Clifton’s idea that a life, or better still, a kind of life is shaped in the absence of a model. The absence of a model I will not say is for a total lack of models. Someone like Lucille Clifton or Audre Lorde may not have had clear models of their own, but as pioneers in their own right, they serve as models for others. The absence of a model in this sense furthers the question of what did i see to be except myself?. Because you have never existed before and never will again, in a very real sense, to see to be yourself is a personal attempt to shape life in a distinct way of brief beauty.
IV
When we are told, as we often are, to be ourselves are we being told to assume an already existing form or self; or we being told to become ourselves?
Using the example of conversations for instance; when we open ourselves to conversations, in small and sometimes significant ways, we leave different than we came in. Of course, we could argue in the other direction. We could lean towards nature, stating that some things are inherently themselves. That is, everything that you will be, you already are. This was the argument put forward by Parmenides who stated that “what is-is”, arguing for being as the true nature of things.
One begins to see how this argument extends into areas of agency and consciousness, and how much one can reasonably aim to change if there is a divine, immovable order to things. This reasoning is evident in many oppressive social systems where any discontent or questioning is met with that’s just the way it is. On a smaller scale, the individual who resists change or development claims they are being themselves and every question is met with, this is who I am.
On the other end of this argument is Heraclitus of Ephesus, who stated that “no man ever steps in the same river twice”, arguing for becoming as the true nature of things. In his arguments, he maintains that nothing in the world is constant except change, making everything essentially impermanent. For the individual, this would mean that you are what you become. To go back to social order, the idea of monarchy becomes interesting when the question is asked: Are you born a king, or do you become a king?
To say that one must pick one side of the argument and apply those theories into shaping one’s kind of life is to return to the limits of dualism. Your life can be shaped with the touch of various theories and in that light, it is safe to say that although things change, there is a relative permanence to other things. This argument goes further into other subjects such as the immersive thoughts of process philosophy. But the question remains, to be or to become?
To be is to become.
V
"So, so many of us [immigrant] children end up betraying our parents in order to subversively achieve our parents’ dreams."
—Ocean Vuong
"Today I see it is there to be learned from you: / to love what I do not own."—Exclusive (for my daughter) by Sharon Olds
For most of us, a large part of our identity is shaped by our families or primary care-givers. The influence these people have over us is palpable, and due to differences across cultures and societies, these influences vary. I can write to you of the extent of influence that applies in the African home, and that is significantly different from what would obtain elsewhere. One could even say that many African parents exert near-absolute power over their children; and you know how the story of absolute power ends.
We could discuss this, as a story for another letter.
When considering the interplay of identity or the attempt to shape one’s life and the weight of expectations we bear; it is a common feeling among us when we try to make something of ourselves—something we too often see alone—to feel like we are betraying our parents or families. This is not to discount the functional loving families where the members make a conscious effort to let their children be and welcome their differences, but they exist in the minority. Despite this reality, it goes without saying that although parents are not always correct—even though many of them don’t know this—they are not always wrong either. They are human. When they urge us to have a career we are passionate about, it is in our best interest. When they help us develop a healthy relationship with rigour and discipline, it is in our best interest. When they buy us clothes several times larger than us; or take us to the barbershop to barb skin; well, not so much in our best interest.
The earlier reality of functionality or otherwise within the family is not solely a result of the dynamism of the individuals who eventually become parents, who are all too human but also maintain several high grounds; or for a lack of love—keeping in mind that despicable acts can be carried out in the name of love and love is never any better than the lover […] violent people love violently, manipulative people love manipulatively, abusive people love abusively, tender people love tenderly. It is rather a result of something I find to be entrenched in the imagination of individuals who embark upon parenthood. It is a problem of images, of expectations.
In the first chapter, and throughout his remarkable book, Far From The Tree, Andrew Solomon explores the dynamics of identity between parents and children. He writes:
“There is no such thing as reproduction. When two people decide to have a baby, they engage in an act of production, and the widespread use of the word reproduction for this activity, with its implication that two people are but braiding themselves together, is at best a euphemism to comfort prospective parents before they get in over their heads. In the subconscious fantasies that make conception look so alluring, it is often ourselves that we would like to see live forever, not someone with a personality of his own. Having anticipated the onward march of our selfish genes, many of us are unprepared for children who present unfamiliar needs. Parenthood abruptly catapults us into a permanent relationship with a stranger, and the more alien the stranger, the stronger the whiff of negativity. We depend on the guarantee in our children’s faces that we will not die. Children whose defining quality annihilates that fantasy of immortality are a particular insult; we must love them for themselves, and not for the best of ourselves in them, and that is a great deal harder to do. Loving our own children is an exercise for the imagination.”
VI
To be continued?
Readings
At the start of this fortnight, I enjoyed a book of poems that has remained with me since and is shaping some further thoughts. The collection was written by the stunning Leila Chatti who explored womanhood, religion and spirituality in intense and refreshing ways. Enjoy reading as many of her poems as you can from her list of publications.
Enjoy.
Poet's Dictionary Entry
Love [verb]
love | \ ˈləv \
loved; loving
Definitions of love
1a : the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.
1b : to mix various ingredients—care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.
1c : is never any better than the lover.
Etymology: English word love; from Erich Fromm; from M. Scott Peck's book The Road Less Traveled; from bell hooks’ book All About Love (New Visions); from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.
Playlist
If a particular set of features qualify as a sub-genre, I have been listening to Drake ft PARTYNEXTDOOR(s) and Drake as well. I returned to love songs as always, and an album I had not listened to in a while, and I’ll leave you parts of it to enjoy as well.
Enjoy listening to Drake ft PARTYNEXTDOOR’s Since Way Back, Drake ft Chris Brown’s Not You Too, HER’s Take You There, Judo’s Honey and Daniel Caeser ft Kali Uchis’ Get You and Daniel Caeser’s Freudian.
I wish you a blissful fortnight. I hope to read from you soon.
Love.
Ọbáfẹ́mi