July 2023: Quiescence

It’s odd to have come into a place in my life where I have said most of what I want to say in a public setting about religion and spirituality — The Soul’s Inner Statues was such a pivotal thing, as were the posts I’ve written here about community and compassion meditation and so on. There’s such pressure in our society for an individual to always be broadcasting. In various media — and I think this is behind why so many YouTube, Instagram, &c. personalities burn out — there’s a certain existential dread of being forgotten, the idea that what someone has contributed may languish instead of being used if someone grows more silent over time. I keep pausing and thinking, “Oh, I haven’t said much on KALLISTI recently.” But I’ll post things when it’s time to do them.

Most of what I have to say is more close-conversation in scope. That, or it’s the fiction I’m publishing. Or it’s photos of my extremely adorable cats, who are both on cat trees as I write this taking in the calmness of this Sunday afternoon. I like being in small-conversation spaces because they’re gentler than the Internet, at least in my experience. You get to a point in life, I think, when you want actual authenticity in people, not false authenticity fueled by visibility hunger. And visibility hunger is very different from the “we’re like coworkers but in a religious sense” vibe I tried to maintain. I think the two different approaches explode when put together.

One of my personal development goals right now is to speak less, and another is to live more offline. (I think my word processor/story-writing time counts as offline.) This is probably the last regular monthly update, in other words. Updates may happen sporadically a few times a year, probably when I review my goals and check in about where I’m at. The substantive content will be ad-hoc.

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I had a very cool moment while doing worldbuilding background for a novella I’m writing (it’s basically Late Antiquity fanfic about philosophical schools, except set in my own far-future worldbuilding). When you have conlangs, everything becomes pregnant with meaning, from names onward. I was creating character information for someone and decided that her family name was Tarekasa. The word tare means salt in Narahji, and -kasa is a protective suffix given to families to connect them to a deity. Who is the deity? Who is related to salt? I looked through my worldbuilding materials to figure out if it would be a new deity or an already-present one. I landed on Tærin, the sister of Tsemanok, who is significant in shipping trade and commerce. She is usually depicted with tools for paper-making and ink production. I don’t know why associating her with salt was so compelling. But I googled how salt is used in paper-making and found out that saline is fairly important. That was a really cool, serendipitous moment. I love how just doing a little bit of conlang work while character-building created such depth to this person and allowed me to simultaneously round out setting.

I’ve been posting writing updates on my Substack, by the way. The Village of Strong Branches (now in print on Amazon or Bookshop) comes out on Saturday, July 29.

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One thing I really enjoyed this month was Obama’s documentary about work. It was a keen reminder of how stratified American society is. With the caveat that the following statement is not an endorsement of our state’s imperialist policies, Obama is my favorite president. His documentary hobby is so wholesome. The fact that three workplaces volunteered to have everyone from the lowest-paid to the companies’ owners followed during the episodes was just so, so interesting. The way it ended was very good, too, with a conversation about how uncertainty and disconnection and lack of meaning are fueling the breakdown of democratic institutions and what that means for society. I think the documentary is a good antidote to social media’s “keeping up with the Joneses” phenomenon and a great reality check about Americans’ circumstances, especially for those of us who rarely leave our office-gym-groceries-home bubbles. We always adjust to our own challenges, and zooming out is so helpful for developing some perspective.

The only weird thing to see was the open Christian prayer in workspaces. One of the companies may have been faith-based, but another one wasn’t. One family (that of the programmer) that I am gathering is either Jain or Hindu based on context clues was interviewed in their home with a lens that blurred out via focal point what I’m guessing was a shrine mixed with family photos based on the impressions of some statuary. It reminded me a lot of how that NASA intern was Internet harassed a few years ago for having religious icons on her work desk when NASA shared photos if its interns’ workspaces, as if some college kid in America has anything to do with bad things happening halfway around the globe or wasn’t a good scientist just because she’s Hindu. (I have a Muslim coworker who has prayer calligraphy decorating her work desk, a few coworkers who have Christian prayers tacked up, and I have an icon of Athene. It’s totally normal for Americans of any religion, even those in science, tech, and information fields.) I wondered in that moment if the focal point decision was motivated by that backlash or if it was a neutral choice driven by the director. It’s impossible to know — I was probably just sensitized to the difference due to not being Christian.

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I was really happy when starting to re-read the Parmenides commentary to see how much Athene-love is saturated in those pages. It’s such a delight to return to this a few years after my initial read, hopefully with more experience to bring to the text.

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Prayer-wise, I’m still doing the focused prayers related to the household Gods, and also to Apollon and Eir. In the evenings, often due to having lower energy because my cats are still disciplining me into my new bedtime (10 PM, as they wake me up between 5:30 and 6 AM), I’ve often been doing a brief meditation before reciting Proclus’ Hymn to the Muses and saying a gratitude prayer. The gratitude prayer is something new, and it’s modeled after the self-help writing practice that is very popular.

I thank you, O Gods, for [–––].

I thank you, O Gods, for [–––].

I thank you, O Gods, for [–––].

There is nothing that I have that you have not given; there is nothing that I am that you have not knitted within me. In my actions, words, and deeds, may I enact the best I am capable of under your providential guidance.

I find that resting in the quiet after this is immensely relaxing. And then I go off to bed. One of the cats jumps onto the bed to sleep beside me, and the other goes to sleep on an under bed storage box that she has claimed as hers.