Friday, October 8, 2020
Orlando, Fl
Dear Varun,
When you sent me your letter originally, there was so much I had planned to say in response but since then so much has happened and I began questioning my original thoughts. But last night I looked over the notes (yeah I made notes, I’m an academic DUH) and I realized that the recent events have only strengthened my beliefs. You see my answer to your question can be summed by a simple statement: being in love, loving, is the same as changing the world.
Love, true love, fulfilling, joyous, the kind that makes you fly, feel safe, and cherished – all of that can be summed up by the words: “you see me.” The first time I heard this phrase was when we were watching Assassination Classroom (thank you for introducing me to that by the way – I would link it but Cruncyroll took it off their site). There Koro Sensei talks about his teaching philosophy and what it means to really see his students. Later, during an emotional conversation, you said to me, in awe, “you really see me, don’t you?” I’ve thought a lot about that phrase, what it means to really see a person. You often talk about your life philosophy as one in which you see yourself in another person and treat them with the tenderness you would yourself. I agree with you but I think it is also important to not see yourself in another person, that is to not confuse them with yourself, but to see them on their own terms. In my very first Buddhism class, Mario (my professor at Rollins) explained that instead of a soul, Buddhists believe that we are “a series of interrelated processes of momentary events.” I’ll never forget that phrasing because it has pretty much guided my worldview since. It was like something clicked for me. We are made up of everything we have ever experienced, this life and the last, and it is always shifting and changing, the relationship between those events in constant flux. I don’t know why but that was such a comforting and revealing thought to me. It also means that to understand a person, to see a person, you need to understand or at the very least think carefully about all those moments that construct them. If every person is a unique combination of experiences, then our job as people, people who want to be more compassionate, is to tap into those combinations and to treat those experiences as a very fragile and delicate thing because it gives us access to that entire person, to who they really are.
Humans of New York recently had a series where they followed the fascinating story of Stephanie, also known as Tanqueray. Her story is amazing, but underlying it all is her desire to feel love, to be loved, and mostly to be seen as Stephanie not just Tanqueray (I know I told you a little bit about the story, but it is really worth reading all the way through if you haven’t). As part of the conclusion, she was reunited with her son who says, “My worldview is this: ‘At all times, people are doing one of two things. They’re showing love. Or they’re crying out for it.’” I think that’s what it means to see a person. It is to know that at the root of all our actions and thoughts is the desire for love and that our particular combination of momentary events is what makes love for accessible or inaccessible for us or what affects our ability to show love. Humans are suffering. If people would just be quiet, you can feel it all around you, all the time. It is so palpable, but we harden and shield ourselves from it to protect us from our own suffering. If we keep all these things in mind, then changing the world requires us to truly see people as they are, stripped away from all the things they have used for scaffolding (do you like how I used your word there?), and then loving them in their most vulnerable and bare state. Loving them in the way that you love me and in the way I hope I love you. It is a very old idea, no? That love is change. And yet…there is a reason it is so difficult to put this into action.
When I think of Trump, the Hathras case, and most recently everything that has happened to me, I feel frustrated, baffled, and, at times, angry. How can people not feel? How can they do things so vile and heartless? I can abstractly theorize about it, from a distance coldly analyze it, but it doesn’t matter. What good is understanding it when people are literally being harmed by the actions of some people. It doesn’t matter why Trump is the way he is, the point is that he is actively harming people. This brings me to my most important point about what it means to change the world.
Love isn’t going to solve Trump or change caste discrimination or the violence done to women and that’s because when people wax poetics about love, they often forget about power. When it comes to ideas about justice, it doesn’t matter why a person is the way he is (and I say “he” purposefully here because men kind of suck, present company excluded of course). All that matters is that he is in a position to hurt the vulnerable and continue their oppression. So I think changing the world requires you to always be on the side of the oppressed.
I don’t think these two ideas I have set out are in opposition. Here I am thinking about both Marx and Fanon who both argue that particular systems of power hurt the oppressor as well as the oppressed though the former may not realize it because they have convinced themselves otherwise. Our job is to prioritize the oppressed while simultaneously creating systems which give dignity to all people. I’ve shared this with you before but in his criticism of religion which is in fact a criticism of politics, Marx writes:
“Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower.” (forgive my lack of citation here as I don’t have my books in front of me).
I love this line so much. It reminds me of something you said in your last letter. Once you realized you had nothing to lose by recognizing and accepting you could be wrong but in fact had everything to gain, you were freed. Changing the world too requires realizing we have nothing to lose by a radically different system in which everyone can be truly seen.
I want to end with a critique of myself. This worldview of mine has sometimes led me astray in that I have tolerated way more than I should have. You asked in the your last letter, “If we forsake our own happiness because we feel we don’t deserve it, then what help will we ever be to anyone else?” I never felt that I was forsaking my own happiness. I thought I was doing the right thing. I had been granted so much, how could I not give even when that giving was destroying me in many ways? I do not see this as a flaw of my worldview. This is what I had to think about before writing this letter. Instead I see it as a proof of its validity. You see there is yet a third part to this vision of change and that is, in addition to seeing others, you must first see, really see, yourself and love yourself in your most raw form. This is, of course, what you were talking about before and is the most difficult part of this process. The reason that it is often difficult for us to practice self-love is also related to power. I have come to accept and excuse a lot of things because I have been trained in particular ways about what it means to be a woman, an Indian woman, an Indo-Caribbean woman, an Indo-Caribbean woman living in United States. Changing the world requires me to deconstruct all these ideas while also being generous and compassionate in my understanding of others. So what I realized is that despite everything that has happened, I feel free because to live in this way doesn’t mean that you live a life without pain or suffering, but it does mean you live a life of love which ultimately saves you. It brought me you after all.
So to finally answer your question, I didn’t become a teacher because I wanted to change the world. I became a teacher because I was good at it. But then I started teaching and I realized that it gave me access to students at a very vulnerable time in their lives. By trying to see them, I could prick the bubble they have been forced to construct around themselves and plant a very small seed. It is my hope that they will then water this seed themselves and allow it to bloom within. So all this to say, I teach because it keeps me hopeful.
Love you always,
Prea