Learning to Be of Two Minds – A New Year's Post, 2024
Last year, I declared it to be the year of “my All.” And while I wouldn’t take any of it back, it played out in really interesting ways. Most of them good but with a few unexpected moments thrown in for good measure — because health (mental and bodily), because spread too thin, because hustling like mad, because so many things all at once with loved ones, self, others. There was a lot going on, and a lot that one doesn’t talk about except in private. Which, I increasingly find to be true, must be the case, unless you’re writing a poem, you know?
So, this year, I’m declaring it to be the year of being okay with being of two minds. (Though I will also say I’m not giving up “my All” because time is picking up now, rushing by, I’m on the downhill slope babies and so many freaking things left to accomplish).
I’m swinging back and forth between some words by Marilynne Robinson and some by Alanis Morissette.
I feel drunk, but I'm sober
I'm young and I'm underpaid
I'm tired, but I'm working, yeah
I care, but I'm restless
I'm here, but I'm really gone
I'm wrong and I'm sorry, baby
And what it all comes down to
Is that everything's gonna be quite alright
'Cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is flicking a cigarette
Let’s not forget:
And what it all comes down to
Is that I haven't got it all figured out just yet
She’s of two minds and hasn’t got it all figured out just yet, and I’m pretty down with that.
Here’s Marilynne Robinson:
“When I write fiction, I suppose my attempt is to simulate the integrative work of a mind perceiving and reflecting, drawing upon culture, memory, conscience, belief or assumption, circumstance, fear, and desire — a mind shaping the moment of experience and response and then reshaping them both as narrative, holding one thought against another for the effect of affinity or contrast, evaluating and rationalizing, feeling compassion, taking offence. The things do happen simultaneously, after all.”
I’m interested in excellence speaking to excellence, and I’m also interested in holding one thought against another. In a recent post I talked about Tommi Laitio’s ideas on conviviality and our “capacity to live together.” I liked his way of thinking about the frictions we experience as similar to being on a crowded dance floor. And this is also what I talked about a bit in my last year’s NY post, dancing with change. I have also been wont to consider the opposite, which is also a decent tool in my tool belt.
I’m not, obviously, a psychologist, so you can always take whatever I share here with a grain of salt etc, and know that others have looked at the idea of being of two minds more clinically.
Another thing I’m always thinking about at the beginning of a new year is change. You know Rilke’s “you must change your life” thing. And this past year the stoics, in particular Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations have been so valuable to me in sorting out my rubbish-bin-brain.
“Is one afraid of change? Why, what can take place without change? And what is nearer and dearer to universal nature? Can you take a hot bath unless the firewood suffers change?”
Last year at about this time, I made a rather huge leap for me, which was to change libraries where I work. Once you change one thing, it changes others. And I’m going forward, more open to change, which is honestly going to happen whether I like it or not, right? Change goes hand in hand with thinking about possibility. In the Tim Carpenter book which rocked my world this past year, he talks about making photographs, and says, “Do you see a pattern here: a parallel between the limitations of living and those of making?” This I also find helpful. He ends his book so beautifully with a Wallace Stevens quotation:
“It is possible, possible, possible. It must Be possible.”
I feel like for myself, I have to get back to my absolute basics, and to rebuild my compassion and empathy all over again, not to mention so many of the other good things that have been slowly dismantled from just living the last few years. Sort of like a stripping down and refurbishment. I’m not saying I completely lost those things (some days I did), but maybe this is the path. We don’t get to ever feel we’re “done” becoming better humans. So when I saw this article about the campaign in Sweden to say “hi” to each other, it struck a chord within me and had me really examine my basic interactions. Is it a perfect place to start? I don’t know. Some days it won’t be. I spent last year saying yes to so many things that I overextended myself, but also, wow! I got to do some cool things because of that. Sometimes yes is good, and sometimes no. Sometimes hello, sometimes, let’s just cruise on by.
So here I am, of two minds, holding two thoughts up in my hands like apples, I’m open to change, I’m dancing. I’m saying hello, but sometimes it’s goodbye. I’m playing hard to get but I’m right out in the open. Of course it’s all still a LOT. I’m drunk but I’m sober, as dear Alanis sings.
David Foster Wallace said this about the “tiny inadequate bit of it all you ever let anyone know”:
“That this is what it’s like. That it’s what makes room for the universe inside you, all the endless inbent facts of connection and symphonies of different voices, the infinities you can never show another soul. And you think that makes you a fraud, the tiny fraction anyone else ever sees? Of course you’re a fraud, of course what people see is never you. And of course you know this, and of course you try to manage what part they see…” (Reminded of this quotation via the Carpenter book).
We’re all just one of the fakes, right? I am, anyway. That’s a certainty.
I think that’s part of being open, being of two minds. You’re going to feel that way. You just are.
I’m wishing you a great year ahead. The world is a hard place right now and it’s tricky, too. I don’t think there’s really much I can do to change anything in the world but to continue to work on my 3 meters of influence. It’s not a lot but it’s something and I have to believe that something is still better than nothing.
If you follow me on social media you know that I have a book about art and still life and the creative life coming out in January of 2024. I think some folks who pre-ordered have even already received a copy. I’ve recently updated my author website a little if you’re considering picking up a copy there are the deets for doing so.
If you’re interested in helping me out beyond ordering a copy (which I really appreciate! but understand if you cannot)…..you can place a hold at your local library, or suggest they purchase a copy. You can review it on GoodReads or Amazon, etc. Post a pic on social media, share it anywhere :) You know the drill :) and thank you!
