(The- Networked)- Self Development
Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real. ~ Iris Murdoch.
Extremely difficult in this context of neoliberalism. Compulsory for liveable futures.
And yet, when we enter into many mainstream areas of 'self development', we are encouraged in the opposite direction. We might notice ourselves (and/ or others) lulled into Main Character Syndrome (when in fact, life has a vast and varied ensemble cast). Other people are conceptualised as NPCs with behaviours we need to manage, or realities we need to hide from in order to protect our peace. Remember everyone, BOUNDARIES.
I've particularly noticed the inadequacy of so many 'self development' tropes whilst supporting my clients and friends who are in deepening relationships with families in Gaza. How does one protect one's peace and hold boundaries whilst in daily contact with, and taking some responsibility for the survival of fellow humans enduring a genocide? It's not that this mainstream self development nonsense only ceases to make sense when the context is so intense, it's simply that it becomes impossible to conceal it's shortcomings here. The idea that 'it's working' elsewhere is flawed and often delusional when we actually zoom out. We've never been more coached, therapised, 'healed', and yet it seems to me that we have never been more unwell.
(I know very well that there are dozens, hundreds, most likely thousands of 'us' who understand this (perhaps that includes you), and are working to decolonise our wellness work as best we can. I don't discount our individual efforts, they are as necessary as they are insufficient and I am fortified every time I come across someone else with the required appetite for complexity).
Picking up from the last post (Is Leftist Self Development Even Possible? You can read that here)...
When I'm talking about the culture of liveable futures, I'm talking about a world where my needs and yours are not competing, but the meeting of those needs is collaborative. What do you notice here?
We need to include more people in our lives to do this, because in tiny webs of support with finite resources, needs do compete.
We need to get more skilled in "relation" to bring and keep more people in our lives.
We need to develop our self- concepts to commit to the relational re-skilling, and to brave putting it into practice.
As a simple example, my friends and clients pouring care into their friends in Gaza need comrades more than they need boundaries. They don't need to be asked to choose- me, or them. My mental health, or their meal for the day. My relationships with my family or their access to water. How can anyone be well in this context? This culture of double binds we find ourselves in emerges from assumptions that underpin it- that problems can and should be solved by individuals, or at most, by nuclear families.
As Margaret Thatcher (she who braids the devil's hair but STILL put arms embargoes on Israel...) told us...
"They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours."
You might read this and think it's not that malicious. Except in Late/ Last Stage Capitalism, you may never feel sufficiently resourced to support others in meaningful ways. The "then" will never arrive. And what if our neighbours (near or far) can't survive the waiting? And what happens to the relationships during the weeks, months and years of "me first, I'll get to you when I can?" And who do we become in the withholding of care?
Absolutely bizarre that so much of the "feminist" and/ or "anti- Capitalist" branded self development out there is so keen on telling people, especially those socialised as women, to practice asking for help and holding boundaries without locating this in the weaving of a wider, deeper ecology of care. When we live in this Neoliberal hellscape (thank you Thatcher & Reagan), 'me first' is not sustainable. 'Me first' as a generalised outlook erodes relational terrain, severs us from the ecology of life, surrenders to the constraints of individualism. Me with, me alongside, me included, me amongst might be better suited to weaving a post- Capitalist world where everyone has liveable lives.
Meaningful contemplation might look something like, "how do care & support flow through the ecology of my life?"
Moving from "how do I keep (hoard?) my energy, skills, resources & time for myself?" to "how do we synergise our energy, skills, resources & time together?" Accepting the reality of a networked self.
“Finding where exactly the outside world ends and I begin—is not so easy.”
This is NOT "you can't pour from an empty cup"- that's giving "me, then you" and also "me, for you". Healthy relational dynamics would better be described by nature based metaphors. Mutualistic, symbiotic, mycelial. "All of us, together".
Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about the 3 sisters- corn, beans and squash:
"…Of all the wise teachers who have come into my life, none are more eloquent than these, who wordlessly in leaf and vine embody the knowledge of relationship. Alone, a bean is just a vine, squash an oversize leaf. Only when standing together with corn does a whole emerge which transcends the individual. The gifts of each are more fully expressed when they are nurtured together than alone. In ripe ears and swelling fruit, they counsel us that all gifts are multiplied in relationship. This is how the world keeps going."
All gifts are multiplied in relationship, and yet interdependence has been propagandised as weakness, and structurally prohibited. We find ourselves alienated from ourselves, from our true nature, as well as from one another.
We often ask ourselves, "who do I need to be?", or rather, "who do I need to perform?" to be ok in these hostile conditions?
Instead of, "who do we need to become to transform these conditions for all of us?"
How do our networked selves participate?
This is where I think 'good' coaching, wellness, therapy comes in. We are going to need support to expand our capacities for complexity, for conflict, for intimacy in order to move towards relation.
