tearing down the wall
You’ll notice likes and comments are back on. It was an interesting experiment turning them off. I noticed viewership goes down and emails are sent to spam folders (at least some readers and myself noticed this when I first turned them off). Cool substack! However, the experiment clarified something for me: if I am writing on a platform where writers share their writing, I do in fact want it to be seen and engaged with. How much or how little needn’t be the focus or a torment. There are other more important places to focus, namely on the writing itself. And that is that! Thanks for following along.
Now that I have graduated (applause, applause), I am about to recollect considerable free time. This is generally what all of my striving is towards—time that is free. Which means I am upon the peak of my latest climb and I intend to soak it in. What I plan to do this with time, besides write, lie in the sun at the park, and resist the urge to overfill it, is undertake a personal archival project in revisiting my lore.
I’m calling it an “archival project” in revisiting my “lore” because it sounds more artistic than “sort through” all of my “junk.” And by “junk” I mean writing I’ve kept since the third grade as well as four drawers worth full of old cards, letters, and miscellaneous what have you’s. Surely much of it is meaninglessness I can joyously toss—I’m craving a good de-clutter. But I imagine some of this clutter will not be junk. That there are hidden love notes and long ago forgotten myths. I sense there are good reason(s) for having held onto my “junk” for so long, if even just to navel gaze.
I already started digging in one box—the one that’s been sitting under my ex-boyfriend’s bed for the past three-something years. I finally picked it up when he let me know he’s moving out of our old apartment. I guess it was about time. I had written a few paragraphs about meeting up to grab those boxes, but the long and long short of it: he’s a genuinely good person to have kept them for me all this time, and it was nice catching up. It’s a good reminder that even though he and I didn’t “work out” by the metrics of time, I choose to date loving people.
Upon getting the boxes I wondered if I should just throw them away. I mean, I lived for nearly three years completely oblivious, surely nothing too important could be in them. This was true for one of them. The remnants have since been donated or discarded, and left me in awe that a me existed who once found resonance in such possessions. The box that remains is mostly filled with photo booth strips, cards from other people, and pieces of my own writing. There’s a lot of B in here, the best friend who I stopped being friends with because, at the time, I didn’t know how to properly friend. Sigh. As a writer herself, the notes she left me are both painstaking and tender. Apparently lots of people have written me incredibly kind and loving messages throughout the ages. Reading them fills me with a sense of affection and scratches my ego in the spot where it’s leg uncontrollably kicks. Maybe this is why I held on.
“Even though existence is meaningless, I sure am glad the universe smashed us into each other because I like spending it with you.” - B
“You are such a beautiful person, inside and out. We are so proud of you and love you very much.” - M & D
“I admire your courage to follow your dreams, to travel, to step up on a stage and even to face yourself.” - T
“Tear down the wall Samantha. Wish you were here.” - R
I don’t know where I ever got it in my head that I’m not loved and supported—this box reveals otherwise. And yet, I don’t know why it’s still so hard to give up that belief upon finding all this evidence of love, love, love. Cue the sappy music. Digging through old boxes is a total cliché—and just like in the movies, the memories are finding their way into my eyes. I flip over a postcard from Berlin and think of R, the man who gave it to me. Now he’s not only on my mind, he’s running down my cheek. He was an old love of mine, the first love where I fell at first sight—and hard. Things didn’t end great, but for a sweet little off-and-on-again moment he was my whole world. The card must’ve been from when he went on tour with his band. I bet I nearly keeled over from swooning when he gave it to me, that was generally the effect he had on me. Of course until it wasn’t.
When R and I were together, I was always searching for a hammer—anything to break through the barricade he kept his heart behind. It was a painful and precarious way to love someone. And in the end, it turns out his heart was behind steel. In rare moments a screw would fall out and I’d catch a tiny glimpse into his inner world. It was barren as far as my eye could see. Which is why I never really wanted to end up with R. I mean I thought I did, but as I move through time I become wise enough to notice that I’m far better at missing the mark than nailing it on the head. And I don’t think the goal is to get better at nailing things on the head, but to simply notice where I’m missing the mark and gently reorient. Moment to moment we like to think we have ourselves all figured out, but truth is… we only wish we knew.
“Tear down the wall, Samantha.”
“Tear down the wall, Samantha.”
“Tear down the wall, Samantha.”
The good news: I did tear down the wall. Or to be more apt: I am tearing down the wall, Samantha. I’ve also built a fortress or two around identities I remain steadfast in believing protect me—and are me. It’s an ongoing process standing naked before godd. Every day I find new ways to loosen the bricks. I’m past the phase of swinging a hammer, now I try singing so loud the wall begins to shake—or slingshotting flowers, big ones. I’m not dismantling these walls in any grandiose, revolutionary way and this is not a failure. There’s nothing wrong with moving slowly and leaving boundaries that still serve me in tact. Boundaries aren’t the same as walls. I’m not certain why exactly humans love walls so much, maybe because we are scared, because we long for safety, structure, and guidance. Or maybe because by now we’ve gotten so used to them.
I recently took an online workshop from
whose work consists of re-animating the world by offering insights/workshops that help decolonize one’s mindbody and senses. I highly recommend checking out their work, it’s important and has already shifted the way I relate with life. In the workshop I took they made an interesting point I hadn’t really considered; how our early, early ancestors didn’t have walls. It shaped their perception entirely, not so forward-facing but more panoramic. Nowadays, we humans live with walls all around us—physical and mental, yes, but also emotional and unseen. It doesn’t help that we also spend so much time staring into screens, our gaze narrowing, perpetually disconnecting from the world around us—slipping further and further into no-man’s land. It would seem in classic paradox fashion, what promises “protection” can also close us in on ourselves.What is a wall?
Unboxing the pages of my written past, a timeline roughly between my teens into my mid twenties, I notice an inner-authority repeatedly taking stance. Sentence by sentence there’s a frequently woven voice telling myself what to do, whether it be to weigh less, eat better, get sober, or be grateful. Sometimes lovingly and sometimes scoldingly. I even catch myself telling myself to love myself as if I’m being held at gunpoint (by myself). You need start loving yourself more!—If you do not love yourself I will not love you! It reminds me of something Alan Watts once said, that you can’t force yourself to grow or relax anymore than you can force an orgasm. There’s a rhythm to becoming and it doesn’t answer to control.
I see this little voice of authority as both an act of love and an act of distrust. It’s a self-imposed wall—a way I try to offer myself safety, structure, and guidance, but also a way I can punish myself for any place I fall short. It’s not that I see this voice of authority as inherently good or bad, but that it requires context and right relation. After all, when my life was in disarray from addiction, this voice helped pull me out. And, ironically, it was also the very same voice, whether indirectly or in rebellion to it, that helped lead me into addiction in the first place.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the voice of authority in my own mind and about the global rise of authoritarianism. I can’t help but wonder if the two are connected. This authoritative way of relating—the impulse to be told what to do, or to tell others what to do (including ourselves)—seems less rooted in certainty and more in insecurity. It’s as if the need for control grows in proportion to the fear of uncertainty.
I remember a while ago commenting on someone’s post here. It was yet another essay by a spiritual girl boss on fiNdIng your inNer autHoriTy and SteppIng inTo YouR poWeR. As I excitedly read, something suddenly clicked for me: the inner authority is not the inner authoritarian! I rejoiced at having unlocked yet another code for my spiritual up leveling. I even shared this sentiment on her post and she was like, OMG Yesssssss queen! But now I’m starting to think that might’ve been silly—this whole notion of an “inner authority” versus an “inner authoritarian” might just be an overcooked abstraction. Maybe they’re not so different at all—just variations in tone, temperament, or position on the same spectrum.
Of course I think what so many people are trying to reclaim in their inner authority essays is their ability to make their own decisions—to not be so easily misled in a misleading world. This makes sense. It has value. But I also think constantly trying to be an authority just to avoid making mistakes or be seen as foolish is precisely why authoritarians become so unhinged. The drive for perfection is poison. We’re going to mess up. Royally. We’re going to trust the wrong things—like buying the beef collagen from the puritanical lifestyle influencer. And that’s just part of it.
The point I want to drive home is that in our modern, capitalist, spiritual girl boss age, there is a lot of hype placed on authority, inner, outer, whatever. But I think that, once again, we’re missing the mark. I think we’ve forgotten about surrender entirely. And not surrender as it’s often misunderstood—a passive waving of a white flag—but a true “release of our authority in a direction.”1 Some of us like to pretend surrender isn’t part of the package, that it isn’t necessary. But it’s never too late to remember we are embedded in something far more connective than the so-called ‘singular’ self. And if that tiny self hardly even exists, then maybe this authority we cling to is mostly a fiction too.
It seems to me that when there is ample trust—not necessarily that things will go a certain way, but that we can be in relationship with whatever comes—then neither the inner authority nor the authoritarian feels imperative for functioning. When there is real trust in self and other, in world and nature, the need to constantly assert control softens. And so I have to wonder: what if ‘being our own authority’ is less about maintaining it 24/7, and more about knowing when and how much is needed?
Can we make decisions without an authority?
I still can’t get over that Aurora quote:
“It is not my business to know who I am.”
It really moved me. As someone who’s spent years under the self-reflective microscope, trying to detect what’s wrong in hopes of resolving or ridding myself of… well, myself—it feels like a liberation to admit that despite all my self-searching and self-flagellating, I’m no closer or further from the truth that I am, and may always be, mostly a mystery. But this doesn’t mean I’ve learned nothing about myself or the world or what I can do in it. It’s becoming clearer that the work isn’t to solve myself—that indeed this is a distraction from other more important work—for instance, tearing down all these damned walls.
Categorical and classification frameworks are born of colonizer logic, and while they can be useful in math and organizing our belongings, they have no place on bodies. What we truly are can’t be “known” by labeling, can’t be reached through extraction, and can’t be quantified by measuring. In a world that demands we “Know thyself”, that insists the unexamined life is not worth living—where the self-help section’s covers scream at you to Be More Yourself, Free Yourself and Find Success, or How to Win Friends and Influence People—Aurora’s words “It’s not my business to know who I am.” land in my ears like a god damned symphony.
Funny I mention all of this as I am about to revisit my “lore”—as I am about to begin an “archival project” of sorts. But I’m learning it’s not about what we do so much as how we do it. I’ve sifted through my “junk” before looking for answers as to how I got which neurosis and when. But this round will be different. Instead of revisiting myself with those hungry, searching eyes, I shall try something new: a gentle, loving gaze. I’ll sip my chia seed water and let myself giggle, or cry, or whatever wants to come. I shall keep what is worth keeping and toss what isn’t. Nothing will be forced to be other than what it is—not by any authority, especially not mine.
Realizations by Pea (on insta) said this.