Have HeART

I've spent my winter break creating, making thoughtful, personal gifts for people in my life. I don't bring this up as a way of bragging, tooting my own horn and saying how awesome I am, especially considering the majority of people got/will get clone gift bags with homemade candy and a condom (free courtesy of the Sexual Awareness Center office where I work).

No, I bring up this act of creation because, as I was reminded in reading a letter from my friend Emerson, this is a form of heARTwork for me. HeARTwork so far as I know it is activism that comes from the heart and utilizes all the gifts we have to offer the world. It's speaking truth to power. It's genuine. It seeks to make a difference. And for the last few weeks for me, it's catharsis.

I feel hurt and heartbroken in a way I haven't for a few years now. I've had moments sitting in my apartment with only my roommate's cat for company, reading, where a word or a song played on shuffle on the other side of the room catches me off guard and next thing I know, I'm crying. In a sad way, it's kind of a beautiful thing, honestly. So beautiful.

And you probably wouldn't know it looking at me, I'm very good at projecting happiness. No, not projecting, projecting implies a level of falsity. It implies a covering up when this is a parallel. You probably wouldn't know it looking at me, because at the same time, I'm happy. Emotions are complicated, there isn't any kind of crazy paradoxical contradiction going on here.

There are days when I feel so big I could rival Walt Whitman. I am both the happiest and the saddest you will ever see. I am large, I contain multitudes: in this digital culture, I am multiplex, I exist on multiple planes and levels. I can project and be so many things simultaneously.

But I digress.

In the last few years I've been learning this practice of heART. It's a way of moving in the world that integrates art and action and love. You see it in spoken word poets at performing at rallies. You see it in youth workers pouring themselves into their service. Today I'm using this as a gift for my friends.

Much like the warriorship practice I wrote about yesterday, this is a matter of intention. HeART is a flourishing, is a fostering, is a cultivation.

Cultivate v. to improve and render fertile.

It is a service greater than ourselves gifted in something beautiful. A distinction that I might make is that it is additive, always seeking the greatest growth and joy. At times it might leave you feeling bare and reduced, insignificant and marginalized, but always with the seeds of power planted and ready to grow. To me, that's true heART.

What do you want?

What do I want?

This question has haunted me for a while now and I think it's about time I finally addressed it, because it makes me uncomfortable. But why does it make me uncomfortable enough to not want to express it?

There's something powerful about verbalizing an intention and in the same way, there's something powerful about expressing a want or need, and I don't know if I can commit myself to that. There's something comforting in floating aimlessly and being able to do what I want as whims change, precisely because I have not locked myself into one path. And I realize there's something irresponsible about this, something innately adolescent, but I already have my share of responsibilities.

I don't like being asked what I want. I'll tell you I don't know, but more often than not that's a lie, or at best only a partial truth. It's not about me. The world does not fucking revolve around me and I have a hard time dissociating what I want with that that kind of unwanted attention. As much as an extrovert as I may be, there are limits. When the attention we garner is unwanted, when it comes independently of the performance, it takes away our power, it takes away the autonomy of the decision, the part that makes it personal and gives it meaning to us as individuals.

I fill the void. I've always filled the void. It goes back to this idea of service I talked about when I last revisited Acelessthan3. I see and understand myself as a provider. It's not something I consciously choose, but it's not something I fight. I accept it as something inherent to who I am and foster it as something I want to encourage.

This is the role I want to fill, but the more I think about it, the more I question if I want to fill it because it is my desire to do so or if I do so because I feel obligated and this is not the kind of distinction I think I'm capable of making any more because I've played this part for so long.

The way I see it, I'm faced with this paradox of thought. How can what I want ever compare to what everyone else wants, to what the world wants? For me to express want is to contradict the provider within me. To want is to take, is to be selfish, it is to not attempt to make myself responsible for the world around me.

And I guess it takes me back to that advice the_author gave me the other week: at least once in a while do something for yourself. Which means I need to learn to separate what it means to do something for others and to do something for myself because selfishness in our society is not frowned upon. It is the basis for all entrepreneurial endeavors and indeed, of capitalism. We want the "American Dream" and so we work towards it.

I want to lead without the responsibility of leadership, but I recognize there is something dangerous about this. A leader who is not responsible has the potential to do great and terrible things. I don't trust myself not to fall victim to that trap, so I compensate. I seek out responsibility, consciously and unconsciously.

And I wonder, as I often do, does this make me a good person?

I have my faults. I feel like I know my weaknesses. I'm more than a little vain and self-centered. I don't push myself as hard as I could. And I have absolutely no problem saying this loud and often because these are facets of who I am and I accept them for what they are, faults, but I work to move past them. I'm not always successful and sometimes people catch me being lazy and call me on my shit, but that's why this is a work in progress.

And I'm sure any number of you reading this would be quick to jump to my defense, telling me I'm humble and blah blah blah, and that's exactly why this has become such an ontological question for me. Is being a good person based on what we project? What other people think? What we are hidden under the masks we make to fool ourselves?

To put it all another way: What lies underneath the performance?

I'm having a hard time with this one people, because it strikes to the core, because as I've come to believe more and more in the philosophy that everything has the potential to be a performance, answering the question of what I want seems impossible. In answering that question, am I just performing? And I can't answer that. Don't you see? It would be part of the performance.

I'm performing. I'm performing. I'm performing. I'm performing. I'm performing.

It wouldn't be the truth.

I can't lie. I can't answer. It wouldn't be the truth. It's NOT THE FUCKING TRUTH.

What do I want? I'll tell you what I fucking want. I want to live. I want to die. I want to have a happy life in between. I want love. I want to provide. I want to be provided for, to see some kind of return on this constant outpour of energy because it's draining being your ray of little fucking sunshine in middle of the night. I want to learn. I want to grow. I want to think. I want physicality. I want to not be constantly worried about all the problems but my own. I want to feel okay being a little selfish from time to time.

I want to help. I want to make a difference. I want to not do this alone. I want to escape these boxes, this or that binary.

I want all of this without feeling like it's some kind of performance I'm putting on for myself, for society, for my friends.

Are you happy? Did that answer your question? Probably not, but that's fine. You can deal.