On Clarity
A few thoughts on where I am learning to lean.
It’s hard to read and write lately. My media intake is overwhelmed with high and low forms of news. I’m distracted and distractible. Not to be dramatic, but there’s a lot about “these times” that has me feeling like I’m fighting for my attention, my thoughts, and my sense of reality. I don’t think this experience is necessarily universal, but I also don’t think I’m alone.
Matters of attention and action are coming up a lot in sessions lately–how to manage information intake, how to live according to one’s values, how to take responsibility and participate in what the world is and will become. In these conversations, I am often making the argument somewhere in there to “do whatever you need to do, but to make sure you can still move.” Staying mobilized is important. I know I need to work on it.
Marilynne Robinson (an author I love) once said in an interview something like–you have your mind your whole life, you might as well make it into something you want to live with. I can’t even tell you how much I have talked and thought about this idea; I’ve probably even already written about it somewhere. It’s one of those admonitions that help and haunt.
Right now, my daughter is yelling from her bedroom. I tucked her in over an hour ago. I keep typing and pausing to yell back: “I said 5 minutes!” [I finish a sentence.] “No, it hasn’t been 5 minutes yet!” [I delete the sentence.] “Okay, 3 minutes!” “Still 3!” [I stop writing that paragraph and write this.] “Now it’s 2!” Meanwhile, the cat is trying to find a spot on my lap but the computer is there….What was that about distraction and attention!?
I asked a good friend recently how she knows when something is true. “I guess it’s when I feel clarity about it,” she said. This is random but, last week, I listened to a podcast where Stephen Colbert talked about how he thinks people who are good at holding multiple levels of perspective with clarity and coherence (like his wife) are smarter than people with good memories (like him). Anna, you’re corroborated.
When I think about it, I know what clarity feels like, kinda like being washed with water. I also know that I don’t really hang out in it long enough. I am too wary of what I could be missing, too quick to move to the next problem, more comfortable with overstimulation than peace…so many growing edges. I also know that my attention shapes my reality. I have some say in where that goes.
She is asleep; the cat moved to my knees. I am clearer on the clarity thing. I wrote something! All in all, pretty good. :)
Our monthly meetup is coming up! The third Friday is this coming Friday, February 20. I can’t wait.
xx,
Morgan
The world is so lucky to have u!
Why is this so good 😭