How to be selfish
And why that's a good thing...
I didn’t go to the No Kings protest yesterday. I went to the first two. I struggled to come up with justification for not going to this one, because there was a part of me that felt I SHOULD go, for all the obvious reasons…
I just didn’t feel like going. My body didn’t feel like going. The thought of being in a big crowd of people, many of whom I might know, was exactly what my body did not want. I’m in a particularly introspective space right now. At present the inner questions I’m asking are so compelling that the prospect of being interactive, friendly, and caring with lots of people (as I want to be when I am with people), sends my nervous system into fight or flight mode.
I thought up lots of excuses for why I didn’t need to go. And at the same time I was meta-thinking about why I needed an excuse. Why couldn’t I just say I didn’t feel like doing that? Or even more boldly, “I don’t want to.”
I don’t want to
If somebody, anybody, in your childhood or youth, gave you the message that it is perfectly fine to say I don’t want to, because you don’t, you are an unusually lucky person.
They sure don’t teach that in school. They don’t teach you to be aware of how you feel in your body and emotions and to take that into account as you make decisions. They teach the opposite. They teach you to do as you are told, no matter how you feel.
The first step in saying I don’t want to is knowing how you feel. Self-awareness means so much more than cognitive awareness. It means being tuned into your body—your body’s expression of emotion, without fear.
Which is a big ask. From the moment we are born we are dependent on others. We aim to please—for survival, connection, love. Fear is a part of our inheritance that we can’t deny. What does it take to convince fear to get out the driver’s seat… to sit in the back and shut up (most of the time)?
I want to redefine the word 'selfish'
The common definition, the dictionary definition, is undeniably negative. The gist is:
devoted to or caring only for oneself
It’s the word ‘only’ that makes it negative. There’s nothing wrong with caring for yourself… in fact, my point here is that caring for yourself in the right way is the precursor to caring for others in the right way.
The point I’m really trying to make is that we can’t get the best out of ourselves, we can’t bring our best to the communal table, unless we deeply respect and listen to ourselves. Unless we trust ourselves. Unless we have faith in our ability to understand what to do next by feeling it in our heart and bones.
The right kind of selfishness
The right kind of selfishness—self-knowledge, self-respect, self-trust—is the antidote to most of what causes harm in this world. People who think their safety, security, and salvation lies in forcing other people to do what those people don’t want to do, including die, are disconnected from the vibrant, almost erotic experience of true agency—the agency of creative expression, that gets no pleasure from harming others or forcing them to obey.
The ineffable mystery is that being self-aware in mind/body/spirit is to be open to awareness of the great interconnectedness. In that context, what you want or don’t want is informed by that connectedness. So it’s not ‘selfish.’ It’s being-who-you-are-ness.
Even more mysterious: People who can perceive and accept their own feelings without fear or judgement are in a better position to consciously override those feelings, when necessary, in favor of a more complex equation.
What makes us happy and whole is more than satisfying immediate desires du jour, as pleasurable as that may be. It’s satisfying desires du eternity. And those desires can sometimes land us in extremely difficult and painful situations, like getting nailed to a cross. Like I said, it’s ineffable…
Do you have to be selfish to be an artist?
In the best sense of the word, yes. Definitely yes. The power of creativity is great indeed. It can be all-encompassing and even frightening. It takes more humility and maturity than most of us possess to let this power come through us without getting confused by it.
The power of creativity is the power of knowing what you want on a micro level, on an intimate interaction with the present moment level. It’s letting something come to life through you. It’s not just about making art; it’s about making a life in which the desire to serve/connect and the desire to feel, make, express, are not necessarily in conflict.
Conflict, especially interior conflict, is okay too. It’s inevitable. Life is too complicated, we are too complicated, for there to be easy answers or formulas for how to live. Conflict itself can be a generative path.
I will just say that it is my hope and faith that the more I move in the direction of self-trust, the better off I will be. Because that is how creativity flows, and we need all the creativity we can get in these here parts.