On Being Awake

My book, Good Burdens, arrives in October, 2021. Good burdens are commitments that bind us together as communities and families for the better- responsibilities we take on that enrich every aspect of our well-being.

Following is a discussion of the chapter, “Be Awake.” You can read my reflections on chapter one, “Be Here,” here.

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If you were a girl born in the 11th century that told your struggling middle-class parents you regularly heard and saw God, they’d probably give you away to a convent at the age of 8.

If you were Hildegard of Bingen, street name “Sibyl of the Rhine,” you’d end up becoming one of the most prolific writers of the age from within the walls of that convent, unanimously elected its magistra, a kind of medieval head professor, exchange a collection of 600 letters with some of the most powerful men in the world, invent your own language, write nine massive volumes of the most state of the art understanding of natural science and medicine, several hundred plays, songs, and poems, and be named Saint Hildegard after your passing.

300 years later, maybe you’d be called Joan of Arc, and end up being burned alive for heresy.

If it was 2021, maybe you’d get sent for therapy, medication, maybe an institution. Maybe head-patting, laissez-faire acceptance for being “creative” and written off as an adolescent train-wreck with a one-way ticket for cults-ville.

So many things in life are about being the right person at the right moment in the right place, and we can do very little about those things if anything at all.

What can we do? Stay alive, stay plugged in, and if we’re the right person for the moment, we’ll be ready to shine.

In Hildegard’s words, “The only sin is drying up…do whatever it takes to get wet and green, moist and juicy… WAKE UP.”

I made some big mistakes when I moved across the country years ago and tried to lean into the convenience of social media to keep those connections alive. I ended up reducing those connections to activity feeds and message walls and found myself without connection at all. I had to weigh up what was convenient with what actually sustained me and my relationships.

Hilde could have just moped in a tiny bedroom at the convent, maybe dragged herself out to belt out a few hymns with the girls so she’d still have a place at the dinner table. Run out the clock. Instead, she gave the Pope advice- because he asked for it. Because she became someone worthy of holding in a kind of respect and awe not normally extended to young women disowned by their families in 11th century Germany.

We’ve got a lot of misguided ideas about convenience because of a long pattern of thought that’s perpetuated the technological advancement of the 20th century.

The vacuum cleaner, dishwasher, and washing machine were all marketed at the time of their invention as “rescuing the woman of the house from the drudgery of household chores.” But to do what? Well, probably other things she didn’t have time or energy for, and yes, maybe just doing other chores. Those conveniences aggregated to the point, though, that women with enough of them in the home had time to, say, increasingly work outside of the house, become better educated, spend more quality time with children.

If literally all your time is spoken for, having a technological convenience free it up is like a glass of water in the desert- you’re grateful beyond measure and very, very conscious of what it’s doing for you. Let me be clear: not doing laundry by beating it against a rock for an hour while, say, breastfeeding is a good thing.

The conveniences of the 21st century largely aren’t this kind of convenience — the kind that frees us from real burdens, they’re simply facilitating doing more of the same activity.

We don’t use the time saved up quickly looking up information online instead of walking to the library to, say, take up a hobby or play ball with the kids or exercise. Instead, we use it looking up videos of people smashing their faces into bread, because that other stuff was work, and the bread-smashing is play, and we don’t even have to change the equipment we’re using.

My friend Rebecca isn’t on any social media at all. Yes, really. I think she maybe has an ancient LinkedIn page. When she explains this to people- and in no way questions or judges or even inquires after their habits- she’s nearly always met with some unsolicited defense of one’s own social media usage. “I use it to stay in touch with friends,” they very frequently tell her. “I use it to relax,” is the close second. I’ve seen it happen- people react like they’ve blundered into the Dalai Lama in the streets of New York and are guiltily explaining, unbidden, why they’ve got a hot dog in their hands.

This is all to say that there’s quite a lot calling itself convenience that might actually better be called seamless time-wasting or low-friction mediocre solutions or simply addiction engines if I’m feeling especially brutal.

And really, on some level, we know it and find unasked-for excuses pouring from our lips when we bump into the Rebeccas of the world.

Is responding to a Facebook post with a like or a ‘yas, slay queen’ genuinely considered “staying in touch with your friends?” Does that accurately reflect the level of connection, shared experience, and emotion for the people you consider the most important relationships in your lives? Is that actually “maintaining” a relationship at the same level as when this person was your best man, maid of honor, or partner in crime?

No matter how convenient the conveniences get, friending someone doesn’t constitute a friendship, seeing isn’t doing, comparing isn’t either, and time that passes in a blur with little or no memory or feeling leftover afterward was- I’m sorry to say- precious life thrown away.

Wanting to create something means actually spending time creating it.

Being alive means wanting things and pursuing them, and by definition, that means going beyond what you’re doing and who you are right now.

There’s no getting around it. You cannot create something new without doing something new. You cannot go to a new destination on autopilot.

You have to be awake.

Happy was the day I discovered saint, composer, and poet Hildegard of Bingen, who believed that the only failure in life is to not take delight in the beauty and grace of creation.

“The only sin is drying up,” she wrote. “Do whatever it takes to get
wet and green, moist and juicy.”

Well, then. That’s my kind of nun.

“WAKE UP,” she said. So, I did.

Listen, pay attention, stay plugged in, and if you’re the right person for the moment, you’ll be ready to shine.

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Originally posted on my dedicated blog on Medium.com