I'd love to hear more of what you agree and disagree with. I'm still finding my way, maybe I'm in the feeling in the dark piece, and so any reactions or conversations will only help.
I've been practicing Advaita Vedanta for coming up on a year now, which has begun to open me up to possibilities beyond what I grew up with. I would love to learn more about Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism if you're open to sharing. I'll check out the video as a good starting point.
Such a powerful piece to kick us off Latham. You put me there with you in those moments of sureness and those moments of doubt. Thank you for so clearly illustrating that Recovery is about being human. We’re all in recovery--from something we’ve learned or been taught—that no longer serves us. The self aware “somebody” you are now is authentic and real. That is good and that is plenty. 🙏
Thanks Dee. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Whether the "somebody" I am not is plenty I can't say, but it's all I can be these days. And you guys are helping me see that regularly.
Great piece, Latham. I really enjoyed the back-and-forth here. I feel like it is such a human quality. I waffle between wanting to be someone and wanting to be a quiet noone type. Maybe I want to be known for being enlightened and quiet. I am not sure. You capture that feeling well. Great writing brother.
Thanks Nico. I too think sometimes I want to be known for being enlightened and quiet. Just this weekend I was at a friend's house watching the Army-Navy game, and everyone was catching up about what they're all doing. I felt kind of embarrassed I didn't have much to add, but I also know if I try to "have things to add", I get burnt out and I need space to be quiet and sit.
Thanks David. I hadn't heard of Isabel before, but looking at her about page I suspect we're on a similar trajectory. I'll have to check out the article when I sit down.
I appreciate you reading and am glad you enjoyed it.
Love that you're seeing that the two extremes aren't necessary. That's a big step in recover, IMO. I'm wondering now if doing work that matters is the same as being an important someone? This is one of the toxic aspects of personal branding. There's little space in our culture to feel successful without promoting yourself, not just as an individual, but as a kind of commodity. I hate it. It's destructive for everyone.
Kids help put it all into perspective. And this poem by Emily Dickinson, written with a child's heart, might help a little:
I think for me, doing work that matters was the way I told myself I was an important someone. I don't think that's true for everyone, and maybe it won't be for me as I learn more about how I want to be in the world. I agree about personal branding, I too hate it, whether it's my brand or my personal monopoly or whatever word. I'm just not sure it's part of the life I want to live.
Yeah, what matters is definitely separate from public importance for me. Although I definitely want to feel like my work is important to those closest to me.
A beautiful reflection. It takes work to become a no one. And to be a nobody is growth. How hard to shed the expectations of the human world. This is a useful and healthy perspective. Food for meditation and thought. Thank you.
Latham, I'm sure this took courage to write and even more to live it out. You've put put some beautiful words to my own struggle. I look forward to reading more.
I had never heard the Hugh Thompson story. Incredible. His story touches on a key for me, which is simply the ability to do what is right in any given moment. And doing what's right might look very mundane, but it's the rightness that elevates it to a sense of meaningfulness. I see the rest of my life's work as the effort to string as many right moments together as possible. If that looks like I'm being somebody, or being nobody, either one is okay with me.
You are so right Rick (do you like what I did there?) Hugh's story really struck me as a 19 year old kid, and it strikes me every time I remember it. Such courage, such bravery, and such conviction to be able to keep on living even when he was hated for doing the right thing. I'm glad I could bring his story to a few more people.
Thanks, as always, for reading and commenting Rick.
I've loved every piece of writing by this group and this one is no exception. What's fascinating to me is how there's an underlying East vs. West philosophy within the story you tell. You juxtapose the problems of the latter with writings from the former. It's self vs community, pride vs humility, success vs contentment. Worth digging into further.
Thanks Johnathan. I feel the Eastern vs. Western philosophy pull regularly, although I'm not sure I would have identified it that cleanly. Definitely worth spending more time and energy on, which I am pretty regularly.
Wow, Latham... you pulled me right into your world here. The frustrating thing about this particular addiction is that, on the outset, we're merely trying to be productive humans progressing through life with a goal to become better than the person we were yesterday. "What's so wrong with that?" they said in unison. But unlike the typical vices, alcohol et al, it's a little more complicated than abstaining from the innate human urge to improve in order to Recover (<-- I DO believe progress is innate). Coincidentally, after I turned 40 and said "this ends NOW," I dabbled a bit in Taoism myself. Admittedly, after the bout of over-striving, "non-doing" felt pretty good. Similarly, as I read the incredible Hugh Thompson story, I felt as though being a nobody can often feel like a weight lifted, freedom, independence, unshackled from expectations. With all that said, admittedly the old striver in me will not be muzzled. She always returns hungrier than ever. It's a cycle. But as any addict would admit, Recovery is a life-long process that only ends when you end. Recovery is relearning how to love yourself broken but to see you are actually still whole without the accoutrements. After reading Alex Dobrenko's piece on dopamine, I considered my own addiction to the dopamine that couples my achievements. My cycles are paired with that sensation, the more I achieve, the more I need the high. My baseline is all out of whack. I've had a very productive autumn and I'm heading into a 2.5 week work break with an opportunity to practice non-doing. What could be an opportunity to do even MORE, it's also an opportunity to bring me back down to baseline, like going into rehab. It's going to feel incredibly uncomfortable. I could've come out of break with two fat fistfuls of productivity and feel like a million dollars. I'm going to miss that feeling. But it's about the long game, about the Recovery, about teaching myself the lesson that I'm worthy and lovable and "somebody" just as a living breathing human. Thank you for writing this piece. It's a signpost for me. And thank you (as ALWAYS) for letting me wax poetic in the comments section :)
I enjoy and look forward to when you wax poetic. It's some of my favorite experiences with writing.
Good luck returning to baseline. It's so hard, and sometimes its easy to overdo (returning to baseline becomes it's own form of doing, where we want to see just how free we can get). I'm guilty of the cycle too. I would imagine being a nobody could be quite freeing, but I also struggle to know how to embody that. My biggest block is that I think I need to do something, to teach myself to accept being a nobody. But the teachers (in most of the teachings I've been studying) all say that you can't seek that wisdom, but you can't drop it either, you must simply be earnestly ready for it. How the hell do I do that?
“… you must simply be earnestly ready for it…” Wow, see now there’s something! It’s like being WILLING a to choose the nobodyness when the opportunity arises. Discerning when it’s called for to just “step away/step down” because you may not be, well, necessary in that particular instance. You’re right, it’s not a teachable experience, but more so a teachable moment in hindsight. “I didn’t say/do X in that scenario… and I’m ok. I made it and I remain a worthy human.”
This was beautiful Latham. Especially as someone who deeply resonates with the feeling of wanting to be someone, wanting to matter. But knowing how identity can deceive. And quietly yearning for a simple plain life.
I came across an idea in a Dharma talk about worshipping your desire. In the sense that it’s beautiful. That something within you strives towards the good, strives to be better.
Thanks for reading Tommy. I think this feeling is somewhat universal, or at least conditioned in us by life the way we live it in the West. Maybe it's school, maybe it's society, maybe it's just the scripts we've all inherited from our parents and their parents and back and back. It doesn't really matter where it came from, but I take heart knowing that people like you and I want to break that cycle.
I'd say I've learned to acknowledge and observe my desire. Maybe not worship it, but realize that it isn't me. It's a manifestation of my ego, and that's neither good or bad except that I make it so. Becoming an observer to my own desires has helped me a lot. But I suspect also that worshipping it would help put a lot of things into perspective as well. Somedays I feel like all of these ideas point to welcoming and loving the raw, messy humanity that we have been taught to avoid. Really seeing and loving it. Or maybe that's just the stage of love I'm at right now.
“welcoming and loving the raw, messy humanity that we have been taught to avoid”
I learned with mimetic desire, the way to cut through it is to become aware of your models. Consciously. State them. Write them down.
Like the boogeyman models of mimetic desire shrivel up and lose their power under the light of awareness, without trying to change or eliminate them at all.
Wow Latham. This is one of my favorite essays I've read all year. It captures a lot of the tensions that I didn't have language around, but now I do.
This paragraph hit me like sonic boom.
"I don’t love it. I tell him I don’t think it’s for me. I don’t tell him that it’s not the job I don’t love. I don’t love anything. I don’t remember how to love, I’ve been so busy trying to achieve and become someone and work towards that goal, that I can’t imagine loving anything. That would be too much: to admit the emptiness I feel inside when I think about work and my own life, to expose the shame I feel when I realize that the things I always wanted are even more empty than I was when I wanted them, to accept the fear that I’ll never figure out this life."
Thank you Camilo. This was one of those pieces that I knew what felt right, but finding a way to say it that would resonate with integrity was where the work lied. I'm grateful that it landed with you.
And yes, that quote kind of came from the spirit, channeled through my keyboard, and it hit hard when I read what I'd written. Recovering from that duality (my joy from my outward expression of life) has been my focus for the last year or so. And I'm only now starting to see signs.
There is such power sitting in tension. Too often I think we try and throw it off to find rest and resolution, but when we sit in for long enough it begins to shape and mold us. It's there as the teacher we need, but don't always want.
It's so true. Every time I've simply surrendered to that tension, something more than what I expected has come from it. I'm sitting in that tension now, in my writing life as well.
Thank you John. I'm grateful you read it.
I'd love to hear more of what you agree and disagree with. I'm still finding my way, maybe I'm in the feeling in the dark piece, and so any reactions or conversations will only help.
I've been practicing Advaita Vedanta for coming up on a year now, which has begun to open me up to possibilities beyond what I grew up with. I would love to learn more about Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism if you're open to sharing. I'll check out the video as a good starting point.
Such a powerful piece to kick us off Latham. You put me there with you in those moments of sureness and those moments of doubt. Thank you for so clearly illustrating that Recovery is about being human. We’re all in recovery--from something we’ve learned or been taught—that no longer serves us. The self aware “somebody” you are now is authentic and real. That is good and that is plenty. 🙏
Right?!
Thanks Dee. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Whether the "somebody" I am not is plenty I can't say, but it's all I can be these days. And you guys are helping me see that regularly.
So damn solid. Love the honesty and vulnerability. Raw, true and poignant. Powerful stuff.
Michael Mohr
Sincere American Writing
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
Thanks Michael. I'm grateful you liked it.
Great piece, Latham. I really enjoyed the back-and-forth here. I feel like it is such a human quality. I waffle between wanting to be someone and wanting to be a quiet noone type. Maybe I want to be known for being enlightened and quiet. I am not sure. You capture that feeling well. Great writing brother.
Thanks Nico. I too think sometimes I want to be known for being enlightened and quiet. Just this weekend I was at a friend's house watching the Army-Navy game, and everyone was catching up about what they're all doing. I felt kind of embarrassed I didn't have much to add, but I also know if I try to "have things to add", I get burnt out and I need space to be quiet and sit.
Glad you enjoyed it.
From a post this morning by Isabel; Cowles Murphy, this Chekov quote: " “Any idiot can face a crisis; it's this day-to-day living that wears you out.”
You might enjoy her article as a complement to your article, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
https://thenobletry.substack.com/p/the-pull-of-discontent
Thanks David. I hadn't heard of Isabel before, but looking at her about page I suspect we're on a similar trajectory. I'll have to check out the article when I sit down.
I appreciate you reading and am glad you enjoyed it.
No one can avoid this if they are truly conscious. What a great piece. Sharing with my children.
Thank you Patris. I hope your children like it. I'd love to hear what they think.
I’ll let you know
Love that you're seeing that the two extremes aren't necessary. That's a big step in recover, IMO. I'm wondering now if doing work that matters is the same as being an important someone? This is one of the toxic aspects of personal branding. There's little space in our culture to feel successful without promoting yourself, not just as an individual, but as a kind of commodity. I hate it. It's destructive for everyone.
Kids help put it all into perspective. And this poem by Emily Dickinson, written with a child's heart, might help a little:
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
I think for me, doing work that matters was the way I told myself I was an important someone. I don't think that's true for everyone, and maybe it won't be for me as I learn more about how I want to be in the world. I agree about personal branding, I too hate it, whether it's my brand or my personal monopoly or whatever word. I'm just not sure it's part of the life I want to live.
That poem is wonderful! Thank you for sharing it.
Yeah, what matters is definitely separate from public importance for me. Although I definitely want to feel like my work is important to those closest to me.
A beautiful reflection. It takes work to become a no one. And to be a nobody is growth. How hard to shed the expectations of the human world. This is a useful and healthy perspective. Food for meditation and thought. Thank you.
Thank you Renato. I am grateful you read it and enjoyed it. We'll both be meditating on it together, as I'm still finding my way.
Latham, I'm sure this took courage to write and even more to live it out. You've put put some beautiful words to my own struggle. I look forward to reading more.
Thanks Ryan. It was a process to get it on paper, but I think it was worth it. You're not in the struggle alone.
I had never heard the Hugh Thompson story. Incredible. His story touches on a key for me, which is simply the ability to do what is right in any given moment. And doing what's right might look very mundane, but it's the rightness that elevates it to a sense of meaningfulness. I see the rest of my life's work as the effort to string as many right moments together as possible. If that looks like I'm being somebody, or being nobody, either one is okay with me.
You are so right Rick (do you like what I did there?) Hugh's story really struck me as a 19 year old kid, and it strikes me every time I remember it. Such courage, such bravery, and such conviction to be able to keep on living even when he was hated for doing the right thing. I'm glad I could bring his story to a few more people.
Thanks, as always, for reading and commenting Rick.
: )
I've loved every piece of writing by this group and this one is no exception. What's fascinating to me is how there's an underlying East vs. West philosophy within the story you tell. You juxtapose the problems of the latter with writings from the former. It's self vs community, pride vs humility, success vs contentment. Worth digging into further.
Thanks Johnathan. I feel the Eastern vs. Western philosophy pull regularly, although I'm not sure I would have identified it that cleanly. Definitely worth spending more time and energy on, which I am pretty regularly.
I'm grateful you liked it.
This was an amazing read, Latham.
Thanks Matt. I'm glad you liked it.
Wow, Latham... you pulled me right into your world here. The frustrating thing about this particular addiction is that, on the outset, we're merely trying to be productive humans progressing through life with a goal to become better than the person we were yesterday. "What's so wrong with that?" they said in unison. But unlike the typical vices, alcohol et al, it's a little more complicated than abstaining from the innate human urge to improve in order to Recover (<-- I DO believe progress is innate). Coincidentally, after I turned 40 and said "this ends NOW," I dabbled a bit in Taoism myself. Admittedly, after the bout of over-striving, "non-doing" felt pretty good. Similarly, as I read the incredible Hugh Thompson story, I felt as though being a nobody can often feel like a weight lifted, freedom, independence, unshackled from expectations. With all that said, admittedly the old striver in me will not be muzzled. She always returns hungrier than ever. It's a cycle. But as any addict would admit, Recovery is a life-long process that only ends when you end. Recovery is relearning how to love yourself broken but to see you are actually still whole without the accoutrements. After reading Alex Dobrenko's piece on dopamine, I considered my own addiction to the dopamine that couples my achievements. My cycles are paired with that sensation, the more I achieve, the more I need the high. My baseline is all out of whack. I've had a very productive autumn and I'm heading into a 2.5 week work break with an opportunity to practice non-doing. What could be an opportunity to do even MORE, it's also an opportunity to bring me back down to baseline, like going into rehab. It's going to feel incredibly uncomfortable. I could've come out of break with two fat fistfuls of productivity and feel like a million dollars. I'm going to miss that feeling. But it's about the long game, about the Recovery, about teaching myself the lesson that I'm worthy and lovable and "somebody" just as a living breathing human. Thank you for writing this piece. It's a signpost for me. And thank you (as ALWAYS) for letting me wax poetic in the comments section :)
I enjoy and look forward to when you wax poetic. It's some of my favorite experiences with writing.
Good luck returning to baseline. It's so hard, and sometimes its easy to overdo (returning to baseline becomes it's own form of doing, where we want to see just how free we can get). I'm guilty of the cycle too. I would imagine being a nobody could be quite freeing, but I also struggle to know how to embody that. My biggest block is that I think I need to do something, to teach myself to accept being a nobody. But the teachers (in most of the teachings I've been studying) all say that you can't seek that wisdom, but you can't drop it either, you must simply be earnestly ready for it. How the hell do I do that?
I'm grateful you read and enjoyed it.
“… you must simply be earnestly ready for it…” Wow, see now there’s something! It’s like being WILLING a to choose the nobodyness when the opportunity arises. Discerning when it’s called for to just “step away/step down” because you may not be, well, necessary in that particular instance. You’re right, it’s not a teachable experience, but more so a teachable moment in hindsight. “I didn’t say/do X in that scenario… and I’m ok. I made it and I remain a worthy human.”
This was beautiful Latham. Especially as someone who deeply resonates with the feeling of wanting to be someone, wanting to matter. But knowing how identity can deceive. And quietly yearning for a simple plain life.
I came across an idea in a Dharma talk about worshipping your desire. In the sense that it’s beautiful. That something within you strives towards the good, strives to be better.
Thank you for sharing (:
I would say that frailty is reality. We are rather told the opposite in our consumer culture but it is the God honest truth!
Thanks for reading Tommy. I think this feeling is somewhat universal, or at least conditioned in us by life the way we live it in the West. Maybe it's school, maybe it's society, maybe it's just the scripts we've all inherited from our parents and their parents and back and back. It doesn't really matter where it came from, but I take heart knowing that people like you and I want to break that cycle.
I'd say I've learned to acknowledge and observe my desire. Maybe not worship it, but realize that it isn't me. It's a manifestation of my ego, and that's neither good or bad except that I make it so. Becoming an observer to my own desires has helped me a lot. But I suspect also that worshipping it would help put a lot of things into perspective as well. Somedays I feel like all of these ideas point to welcoming and loving the raw, messy humanity that we have been taught to avoid. Really seeing and loving it. Or maybe that's just the stage of love I'm at right now.
Ah I love that.
“welcoming and loving the raw, messy humanity that we have been taught to avoid”
I learned with mimetic desire, the way to cut through it is to become aware of your models. Consciously. State them. Write them down.
Like the boogeyman models of mimetic desire shrivel up and lose their power under the light of awareness, without trying to change or eliminate them at all.
Sometimes simple awareness is the simple salve.
Wow Latham. This is one of my favorite essays I've read all year. It captures a lot of the tensions that I didn't have language around, but now I do.
This paragraph hit me like sonic boom.
"I don’t love it. I tell him I don’t think it’s for me. I don’t tell him that it’s not the job I don’t love. I don’t love anything. I don’t remember how to love, I’ve been so busy trying to achieve and become someone and work towards that goal, that I can’t imagine loving anything. That would be too much: to admit the emptiness I feel inside when I think about work and my own life, to expose the shame I feel when I realize that the things I always wanted are even more empty than I was when I wanted them, to accept the fear that I’ll never figure out this life."
Thank you Camilo. This was one of those pieces that I knew what felt right, but finding a way to say it that would resonate with integrity was where the work lied. I'm grateful that it landed with you.
And yes, that quote kind of came from the spirit, channeled through my keyboard, and it hit hard when I read what I'd written. Recovering from that duality (my joy from my outward expression of life) has been my focus for the last year or so. And I'm only now starting to see signs.
There is such power sitting in tension. Too often I think we try and throw it off to find rest and resolution, but when we sit in for long enough it begins to shape and mold us. It's there as the teacher we need, but don't always want.
It's so true. Every time I've simply surrendered to that tension, something more than what I expected has come from it. I'm sitting in that tension now, in my writing life as well.
Thank you, Tim, for reading and commenting.