Descent

The last year has taken on, for me, the distinct sensation of falling.

Not from grace, although some may characterize it as that. For my whole life, I have leaned left. I’ve been a pretty across the board liberal, feminist, progressive. But I’ve also spent my life feeling somehow untethered. On the “right side of history” perhaps, but floating and amorphous.

Looking back, I recognize a glut of reasons for this– my post-modern philosophy education, seeds planted from hippy parents, my own psychological tendency toward openness. Some of these reasons are thought-provoking, some are maddening, but last year’s tumble has ultimately been one of relief. It wasn’t hitting rock bottom but hitting solid ground… a ground I haven’t known existed for decades, if ever.

My entry into this newfound groundedness came through a gradual and unexpected transformation of my health.

I was in my early 30’s, working aimlessly, drinking daily, feeling bloated and lost and progressively more pessimistic about my future. I was engaged to a good-hearted man, but his wine habit was more pronounced than mine (which is saying something), his concept of the future more spastic, his self-awareness more clouded. My malaise certainly wasn’t his fault, but I was increasingly overcome with an existential dread. The feeling was almost life or death; I realized I had to do whatever it took to give my future self a fighting chance.

At what, exactly? Even then I wasn’t sure. Something like meaning or happiness, but maybe more accurately I had to give myself a chance to find out what I even needed a chance to find out. And in the state I was in, it was somehow clear to me that I had to begin by cutting out everything, ruthlessly by many measures, to see if anything essential would remain. In my swollen and miserable state, I couldn’t hear myself. I had drowned out my inner knowing, and my health, closest relationships, and lack of truly meaningful endeavors weren’t reflecting who I wanted to be. I was becoming, but not of my own decisive action.

So I left this relationship, moved into a beautiful 4th floor walk-up in a quiet corner of Oakland, and started over.

•••••••••••

Over the next two years, I slowly cultivated a new way of being in the world that is unrecognizable from the one I lived before. I quit drinking, ate gorgeous, vibrant farmers market goodies under the wise guidance of a nutritionist. I exercised daily, rested deeply, wrote consistently (and publicly). I was amazed to discover the life I barely dared dream about could become real in a matter of a year. I learned, or maybe unlearned, or maybe remembered, how to integrate my mind with my body, taking care of myself by honoring and disciplining my physical self.

I remember a bloated, hungover day in my old life wishing I ‘wanted’ to work out and move my body. And here I was, craving a run or a vigorous HIIT routine. It truly felt like a miracle to arrive here without the cruelty and force I used to talk to myself with. But this miracle was not magic, per se. It was stupidly simple– pay attention, breathe mindfully, get into sunlight, eat nourishing food, make bedtime a ritual, practice gratitude, drink clean water, move.

Day after day, my health improved using this set of simple behaviors that are available to all of humankind, in some manner. After two years of this, in the best condition of my adult life, my sense was that I had figured out something that was actually ‘true’, in the sense that it was universal and so effective. It had evaded me for so many years, but now it was mine to practice and share.

•••••••••••

I was in this health groove when reports of a novel coronavirus started coming on the news and social media. I watched the charts with their horrific vectors of contagion and the Italians playing accordion on their old stone balconies from lockdown. And at first, I bought in, maybe even welcomed the Bay Area Shelter-In-Place. I was a bit burned out with work and I loved being in my home. It was fascinating to watch these massive institutions shift at such lightning speed. So it is possible to change, I thought to myself. At first, I carried hand sanitizer and observed the mask recommendations. I mean, these health officials are experts, right?

I did these things, but I didn’t stop my sobriety and daily long walks and vibrant farmers market meals. And over time, I started to sense something disconcerting. Week after week, there was no calm guidance on treatment or encouragement to immune-supporting behavior. No calls for sunlight and fresh air, to manage consumption of fear, of junk food and entertainment and ‘data’. It was like a smorgasbord of Doordash and Zoom cocktail hours and Netflixing the hell out of the otherwise undifferentiated days.

People who did prioritize their health and wellness were pariah-ed on the socials. Mental health downward spirals were normalized but without any antidote. I have dark moments just like anyone else, with a particularly depressing day in late summer when wildfire smoke turned Oakland a deep and terrible red. But I had learned by then that drowning depression or anxiety with vices or rationalization only delayed and amplified the necessary work. A long walk works better than social media venting or ice cream 100% of the time.

It mutated so quickly from the initial (ostensibly shared) goal of ‘protecting people’s health’ to something altogether uglier. The obsessive focus on Covid cases and deaths, to the exclusion of literally any other health-related concern, was baffling. I kept thinking… the point is health, right?

 •••••••••••

And yet the ‘experts’ kept telling us, keep telling us, to be afraid of your neighbor, restrict your precious breath, coat yourself in toxins, stay away from loved ones, don’t celebrate, don’t work, let the sick die alone. For health! Fear is so clearly the foundation of their guidance. Terror, helplessness, and the pronounced expectation that we let these people override our own best judgment. Individual free will was so easily sacrificed for a conceptual ‘greater good’ that didn’t include anyone I knew.

This guidance, even in its cute, propagandized form, was the opposite of my own recipe for health from the previous two years.

Even the gratitude we were supposed to muster for our first responders and health care workers felt kind of ‘off’ to me. It was quite different from my understanding of gratefulness. It lacked that sense of awe and the seeds for courageous, loving action that true gratitude contains. When we thanked health care workers with some clapping and cowbells at 7pm, it felt more like reinforcement to inaction. Do nothing. Like our founding fathers, no doubt.

I sensed early on that maintaining my health (and I was full-body, state-of-awe, spontaneously-dance grateful for my health, to give some context) was a powerful form of civic contribution. I remember running up a hill and a smiling elderly man called out, “Well, we don’t have to worry about you!”.

I wasn’t going to allow my health to become so vulnerable that an illness would easily take me out. It was empowering to filter my choices and decisions this way. My health is, primarily, my responsibility, and it was also evidence of my deep commitment to life, to well-being, to the unlikely opportunity of being alive at all.

In light of this global situation, I was increasingly disheartened to see people I had voted for, bought books from, and admired, use rhetoric that was both patronizing and patently false. Advising entire populations to live in a way that would make us sick in the name of ‘health’ was so obviously absurd. And the consequences would be terrible.

 •••••••••••

By July, my spidey sense was on full alert. I couldn’t shake the dawning realization that if they would lie so easily about this, what else had my party and news sources been lying about? And thus began my descent to earth. The deceit was everywhere I looked, once I began going past the official interpretations of things to the actual sources. I was shocked I had taken so much of this deceptive filtering as truth. I became ravenous for more nuanced explorations of politics and culture, family and identity, health and religion.

Miscategorizations of people like Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson literally blew my mind. Conservatism in general was not what I thought it was. It was uncomfortable having to notice how much of my understanding of the ‘other side’ was flat out untrue. Whoever they were, these people (and their ideas) weren’t the enemy. Their ideas were often deeply patriotic, human-centered, and profound. It is something akin to nausea to look at my beliefs and start to see how many had formed from faulty characterizations of the issues. But I guess in some ways, it was also a heady ride to discover so much new thought that resonated with some neglected part of my mind. I am consistently grateful (again, that bones-to-skin, tingly and refreshed, let’s-get-down-to-business kind) that there are people who have views based on deep thought, synthesized research, curiosity and humility, and they are willing to share their findings. There is value in learning our history, both the glorious parts and the horrific, without the prescription of ideology or the censorship of certain ‘problems’.

 •••••••••••

It was as if my health philosophy was a puzzle piece of a much larger and pre-existing philosophical picture of Being. Perhaps I might find these ancient values made my life better, made the world better, measurably and meaningfully… seemingly obvious criteria that wasn’t on my list before.

It’s not that I was living under a rock before 2020. I am still working out the factors that kept me from noticing my own cognitive dissonance. But the past year has been a revelation. A bewildering, yet wildly enlightening experience.

And, as I said, grounding. The last year has helped me grow up because I now have something like a foundation on which to stand. I’m still feeling my way around this new terrain, and the learning is lifelong, but I can feel the place I have landed is more aligned with wisdom I was embodying through my wellness philosophy. It’s sturdy, and far less vulnerable to ideological temptations that oversimplify or overcomplicate the important issues of our lives. Perhaps most important, I have learned to assume the responsibility for my own beliefs and understanding of the world. It is the most freeing experience, simmering with potential, if we are able to put in the work.

•••••••••••

I worry now that I might be too late in recognizing that I’m not so ‘above’ the historical human priorities of things like family. My attempts at love have seemed to fail from both my former groundlessness and this subsequent process of landing. These failures hurt like hell, and every one shatters both my heart and what I think I’ve learned about love, life and relationships.

But the breaks also allow my heart to grow, and maybe there’s a value in coming to these beliefs at my age and place in life. There’s still an awful lot of opportunity. And although the past two decades seem rather hazy to me, I have been honing some skills in my wanderings that I know will come to my aid. I don’t have to learn from scratch how to communicate, for example, or manage mundane responsibilities. I’m not starting at square one.

But I am starting from this new place of integrity, commitment to truth, cultivation of courage. I may be in uncharted territory but more and more, I know who I am and where I want to go. The scales have fallen, I can see, and I am ready to navigate this land.