Letters to my children: Self Worth

Good morning my Beloveds,

Before I launch into what I want to talk to you about today… I want to bring up something that happened last night to the Bean. Bean, you dropped a water bottle on your toe and nearly sheared off your toenail. In the bath, your father was telling you that he needed to pull off the remaining nail so that your toe wouldn’t get infected. You were not happy about this idea and tears were falling fast.

The Dragon asks me. “What happens if your toe gets infected?”

“Well, worse case scenario, they would have to cut off your toe.”

Dragon, you pause, contemplate this exaggeration and then shift the interchange to awesome.

“With a chainsaw?”

Bean, you wail when you hear this, and your father interjects, “Well, a really small chainsaw.”

I go in and hug your wet body as your father ties a piece of floss around your toenail. “Deep breathing, Bean. You are safe. This is going to be okay. You are safe. Deep breath.” And off comes the nail. Once the bleeding stops, you can’t wait to show all of your friends your trophy - a bit of wizened hardening protein.

These snippets of our life that are precious and insane. Thank you both.

So, what I want to talk about is this. Your Uncle Michael writes online and his latest entry… wowza, I am loving the first two paragraphs.

Our economy demands certain behaviors from us as individuals. First, we must produce. Second, we must consume. Our system requires us to subsume any other needs or desires to those demanded by our roles as an input of labor. We must perform our primary economic function before taking “personal” time, before parenting, before taking care of our parents, before participating in our community. And in order to prioritize growth, it also requires us to accept the idea of non-satiety — that more consumption is always preferable, that there is and I am never enough.

These are not mistakes. Nothing’s broken. These are a feature of a system meant to maximize growth where efficiency and growth are moral goods. The inevitable product of the slow motion collapse of human progress under the weight of the industrialization of meaning. We have traded human and spiritual progress for technological advancement and economic growth.

We, as members of our economy, are taught that we are not enough in order to prioritize economic growth. We are trained we are only adequate if we own this dress, this car, go to a certain school, wear a certain lipstick, marry a certain person. etc etc. This is all bullshit. Please please children, I want you to understand this. You are sufficient and whole just as you are. It doesn’t make any difference whether you have the latest toy, go to a fancy school, attend a certain party, date a person deemed desirable by society, or live in a certain neighborhood.

Please do not get into the trap of thinking you are not okay unless someone is telling you that you are good enough, doing a good job, excelling at something, succeeding at something, playing by societies rules. This is what Michael is talking about when he says “the industrialization of meaning.” Meaning comes from the heart, comes from pushing and striving and love and relationships and self-awareness, it does not come from anything external to your own sacred soul and God.

I have asked many times in ceremonies of one sort of another a variation on the, “why am I here? What does this mean? What is life?” and the answer is always the same. The answers are above your pay-grade. Don’t worry about it. Answers I have always taken as, “love and do what you will.” (Thank you Saint Augustine)

Beloveds, I don’t care if you live in a cardboard box spouting poetry at the moon,* or if you choose to join the world of golden-handcuffs and mortgages. I want you to live your life. I want you to follow your heart, your conscience, your joys. Not a life that someone/society has chosen for you or thinks is the right way to live. You are enough without the trappings of goods/services as mandated by our economic maw (just as you are whole with them, if that is what you choose).

I will never forget visiting college as a senior in high school and calling home at 9:30 pm. In high school I had a curfew where I needed to be in my dorm by 10 pm. Baba picked up the phone, “Corinna, is everything all right?”

“Dad, I am alone in a big city and no one is telling me what to do or where to go. I can do whatever I want. I am feeling a bit weird.”

“Welcome to being an adult. You are exactly correct.”

There are so many choices available to you in this world. I hope you chose a life that sings your song. I love you so so much. Thank you for being my beautiful children.

*Though I reread this and my heart clenches because I want you to be safe. Then I pause and realize that my twitching about you being safe is my own fear and my own judgements that a cardboard box is not safe. Woof, my loves, so many layers.