The Spirit in Aspiration

This post was going to be about spirits of one kind, and then I listened to something that I think is life-changing and now I want it to be about spirits of another kind. Maybe it will be about both, and maybe the two things I want to talk about today are even part of the same thing.

Where I live, it’s been a bit dispiriting the last couple of days. The politics, the noise of fringe groups fed by disinformation etc. I could go on but you all watch the news.

I unplugged from social media and the news for a bit today and treated myself to the latest On Being episode with Trabian Shorters. So for anyone who works in a library, which is my lens, or who works with humans and hopes to make lives better, this is for you. I was just having a conversation yesterday, I kid you not, with a new co-worker and talking about the terms “homelessness” and “at-risk” and how I was finding they weren’t working for me any more. And then I listen to this conversation and my mind is on fire, blown, happy! (Houseless is tending to replace homeless btw but is that the right word? I’m not sure…I leave it out when possible).

So the episode is about “asset-framing” and it is about dignity, and love, and figuring out how to retain the spirit in aspiration. (Which reminded me of last week’s post because Amy Krouse Rosenthal was the queen of this kind of wordplay, finding words in words).

From the transcripts:

“Asset-framing is a direct expression of the love doctrine, right? It is defining people by their aspirations and contributions, before you get to their challenges. So whatever is going on in someone’s life, you don’t ignore it, but you don’t define them by the worst moment or the worst experience or the worst potential; none of that. You have to look past their faults, to see who they really are. And even the word “aspiration,” we are very intentional about that, because it has the word “spirit” baked into it”

I love this episode, because I can take it to my job tomorrow (well in my case this weekend) and get to work with it right away. The discussion around the way we have said “at-risk youth” instead of “students” speaks to my heart so clearly. It’s not even about the language that you use to describe humans, it’s about how you think about them or hold them in your thoughts, and how that affects the degree of openness, open-heartedness, with which you approach that human.

All I know in my many years of working at the library is that interactions are so much more likely to go well if I’m able to literally feel an open heart when I begin.

So. Please listen, or read the transcripts, whatever works for you, but especially if you want to be of service to others, or if you work, say, at the library.

I will not sugarcoat what it’s been like working the last couple of years in a pandemic. Some of us joke about the degree to which we’re dead inside. Like, you get to work, say hi how’s it going to your buddy, oh pretty good, dead inside you know, but pretty good. Some days less dead than others. And that’s truth, but there’s more to it. For me, I know I’ve been doing (in a larger sense), more deficit framing than asset framing some days and the thing is I’m aware, I’m trying really hard not to, but sure it happens. But I know too that once I get in the swing of asset framing I’m lighter, the job is easier. I’m rewiring my brain, again. I remember that I’m a fighting optimist, damn it.

In libraries, the word customer is used, where it used to be patrons. Neither of those words have ever worked for me. (Like what are we selling here?) I prefer humans. Which doesn’t really work always in conversation (unless you’re among Star Trek fans, which is often the case for me tbh) but I use it in my head, anyway. Person works. People. The words we stick in our heads matter, don’t they?

Anyway, here we are in a pandemic, no matter how much we all would like to be done with it.

When I posted a photo from this series of cocktail still lifes, I used the caption, Photography: a magic or an art? They’re just photos of three drinks mixed with various spirits, but I had a lot of questions floating around in my head at the time, as happens. Like, how are photos believable and in what ways are they simply pretend? What is beauty for? And can it be an antidote for the fuckery of the world? I was mixing these drinks up one afternoon like they were potions or cures. I was thinking about love because someone had said about the protests/illegal gatherings, that you know there’s something off about them because there is no love present. How did we even get here? Historians will be dissecting this time period forever. What happened to people? When did some of us stop caring about others? And I don’t mean just the anti-vaxxers etc. What about us too? Is it just generally harder to care about others because of distance, space, isolation, our hardened hearts? I know I have changed a lot in these past two years. I hold myself back, I’m less open-hearted.

If people can change, can they also change back? Is there a drink or a potion or a magic trick for that? I don’t know if I’m going be able to completely transform, you know, but when I’m not dead-tired and soul-dampened, I want to. If I can change, can I believe that someone with opposing viewpoints can also change? If I want you to see me for my spirit and aspirations, is it not only fair that I try to see yours? Maybe we don’t want to change back anyway; maybe we want to change forward.

February 9, 2022