The only right answer to all the questions and feelings we have about how we should be handling any situation in our life, including the pain and urgency we may feel to counter the changes we are currently witnessing in our country (and world), is the physical activity we are in right now. As it will always be right now, that answer will never change (though of course our actions themselves will). Though this may sound ludicrous considering the pressures that loom, it is the truth of our physical reality. There is no way to act if not with our body, and it is always occupied with whatever it is presently doing.
I am especially speaking to the newer anxieties being added to our plate daily, resulting from the political and policy shifts we are collectively undergoing. It is why I think it is important, if you are someone who relates to my work, to highlight that no matter what our thoughts or mental preoccupations, the reality of what is possible in terms of action does not change. There is only one way to do things, and only one thing we can ever be doing (which thankfully happens to be the correct thing). That is the physical activity we find ourself in in any given moment.
Our only tool for action is our body, the whole of it. This, however, isn’t something our mind can “use” (as it mentally misperceives) on behalf of its desires and interests. From a conscious perspective, thoughts arise on their own, as our brain produces them involuntarily beyond our conscious will. Even our conscious will, as it is felt, is a product of unconscious neurophysiological processes that “we” cannot bring about because that “we” is also a product of neurological activity. It is all beyond “us.” Thinking, like circulation, is involuntary, but that doesn’t mean we can’t, don’t and won’t act in ways we hope. We may or may not, but this will only be discovered as we are doing something, while we are already in action, which is, for all intents and purposes, after the fact. This phenomenon is the choicelessness of our humanity, yet nothing changes by knowing that. That’s how it has always been. We still act in ways we like and are proud of (when that happens to be the case).
So, no worries. Ease up in the tension you feel to “do something” no matter how dire a situation, and acknowledge you are always doing all that is possible regarding your general worries and any new concerns from some of the terrors taking place on the national front. Morality is not lost just because we cannot consciously choose where to put our energy. Your body will act as it must, notwithstanding your personal judgments.
See what you are doing now, in this moment, and know you already have all the answers you will ever need for every second of the rest of your life. This is because your body will continually be on a surface (a mandate of gravity) and, therefore, doing something, even if only resting. The answer to your frustrations and wishes to act will always be “this,” referring to whatever your bodily movement happens to be “now.”
Jill Eng 