"The Will to Change"

In my growth era (again).

Every time I find myself on the precipice of change - that skin crawling feeling when you *know* there’s more for you, you’re the one stopping yourself - I lean towards reading what I believe to be certain truths of the world. Or a guidance that leads to forward steps, rather than remaining in square one, or my worst nightmare, going backwards. I lean towards the greats - again, to me, I know they are flawed in their own ways - but who is doing it like them? Arundhati Roy’s Azadi, bell hooks’ The Will to Change & Communion, the works of Audre Lorde, and Roxane Gay. I began reading bits of Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, and Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being. I keep Kalil Gibran’s The Prophet at arm’s length, knowing that any page I flip to will leave me speechless, as though he wrote the specific poem for me. 

I turn to writers I’m blessed to have in my circle through the interwebs - we have endless conversation over far-too-long voice notes, texts, Instagram messages, knowing that we simply get it, without further explanation. I turn to words that force me to once again, confront myself, and question the world that I live in, forcing me to push myself towards the direction I’d like to move in. 

While each of these individuals have wildly different approaches to art, to living, to writing, to truth, they all have a few common threads stitching it all together for me. 

1. To be committed to the elimination of ego. I think we can all agree (especially now) that ego only leads to the relentless path of destruction. Whether it be the self, the relationships we hold, our creativity, the pursuit of truth, understanding of our world, and thus, a complete loss of love and compassion. What we’re seeing now - that we’ve seen and learned repeatedly from our blood-spilling histories - is a complete loss of love and compassion. I will always believe that this ego-centric way of living and running society can change, it must change. This responsibility is ours, but also certainly the responsibility of people in power who have the ultimate hold on life as we see it today. On the flip side, the power of revolution is there - to run steadfastly in the other direction of everything we know, or believe to know, and turn our backs to those in power. To find purpose (and I’ll admit, validation) outside of these systems in place that prove time and time again, they are only capable of harm. To try, and try again. To learn what living without being driven by ego means to me. Allow myself to be seen trying, messing up, learning, and growing. To allow myself to be seen. By myself, and by others. 

2. To be committed to the pursuit of truth. This means, yes, to be a truthful and honest person, but to also question the systems in place. If we know damn well that something is wrong, unfair, unjust, to understand why such things are happening. To understand the truth from the oppressed, rather than the version that we’re forced to believe from the oppressors. The students, faculty, families, and communities protesting against genocide and for a Free & Liberated Palestine, Sudan, and Congo around the United States (and around the world) are relentlessly committed to the pursuit of truth. They have forgotten their ego in this pursuit, giving up their all, willing to sacrifice their standing, education, known comfort in search of truth, in hopes of freeing people across the world, because that is simply the right thing to do. Our discomfort is nothing. People do not deserve to be killed. Full stop. Period. To have uncomfortable conversations about caste, about class, about sexuality, sex, about the role of patriarchy, the importance of intersectional feminism, about the xenophobia that presents itself in what seems to be relatively insignificant ways. To unlearn the things I grew up hearing (whether they were right or wrong) and find what *I* believe to be true, right, and just. To use this as my anchor, as my compass, instead of the outside noise. The more we take upon ourselves to uncover history as we’ve been told, and believe deeply in a world without hierarchies, without unjust acts - war crimes - being committed, without power, without greed, without ego. Instead, work towards a future filled with, you got it, love and compassion. The desire, search, and fight for this truth may not always be peaceful, or comfortable.

3. To be committed to the search for myself -- and allow myself the gift of change. I’ve talked about this many times through my newsletter, but the quest for finding myself within myself has been constant, and by the looks of it, it’ll never end. Neither will my mention of it at least once in every newsletter. Let alone newsletter - I find myself mentioning this to myself, or my journal at least once, daily. And for that, I find myself incredibly lucky, blessed, and privileged. How lucky am I to wake up every day, safe, healthy, and have the ability to work towards my own happiness? How lucky am I to make small changes - but significant and important to me - to look how I’ve always wanted to look? Who am I? How do I want to see myself in the mirror? What do I like? How do I want to be seen by other people? How do I want to take in all that the world has to offer? How do I want to give the world all that I have to offer? What do I want out of this life? What do I want to pour into this life? 

4. To be committed to the art of storytelling. In whatever form this may be - the stories of our lives have the power to change us, and the future of generations to come. We are not saying anything new, but different versions of universal truths in hopes of a brighter life, in hopes of connection, in hopes of understanding, in hopes of compassion and love. Stories shaped our versions of our world so early on in life - and think of how joyful, innocent, and unassuming we were when our lives, growing hearts and minds were consumed by the creation and telling of stories. Perhaps if we listened to each other more, and shared more of our truths, we might allow some of the joy, innocence, and acceptance back into us too. 

5. To be committed to a life of love and compassion. Let it in, and let it out. To be honest, I’m not sure how to elaborate on this point - I’ve stared at the cursor blinking back at me for quite some time. But I’ll try.  At 28, I think love and compassion feels and looks quite different than it used to before. I am and will always be a hopeless romantic and dream of the love and compassion that will be bestowed upon me, but until then, I would be incorrect to say that my life is void of love or compassion. I feel it when I wake up in the morning and the birds are chirping on a PNW Spring morning, and I slowly open my eyes to the brightness of the sun through my blinds. I feel it when I hit a PB during leg day at the gym, knowing I can do anything I put my mind to. I feel it when I watch my parents care, and consider one another, after 36 years of marriage. I feel it when my parents give me endless, unconditional support in my non-conventional way of living my life. I feel it with my best friend when we have conversations across the room with our eyes. I feel it when I’m with my girl friends giggling, while passing our intentionally-differently-ordered drinks around the table. I feel it when online writer friends facetime for the first time, and it’s like we’ve known each other for years, and we simply get it. I feel it when my gym community says good morning, and tell me how strong I am - as if they knew that I needed the reminder on that particularly hard day. I feel it when I can feel myself changing, my thought patterns changing, and I feel more resilient, more willing, more confident. I feel it when I’m on a date, and there’s a (flirty) lightness to the air that feels hopeful and carefree. I feel it when listening to my favorite Indian love songs - lyrics that cannot be translated into English, that bring tears to my eyes without missing a beat. I feel it when reading a line that makes my heart ache, and my mind races all at the same time. I feel it when watching university students protesting for a Free Palestine. I feel it when we witness a collective change happening, pushing for what we, humble humans, believe to be what is fair, what is right, and what is just in this world. 

“Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust.”

― bell hooks, Communion: The Female Search for Love

And amongst it all to be hopeful, to be thoughtful, and to have an unbreakable love for life seem to be the biggest lessons of all. 

With love,

Nivita