When I was young I loved math. And I was a whiz.
I remember 3rd grade, when I'd pretend to take a lot longer to finish a math quiz than I needed, to avoid the shame I felt at always being the first kid - by far - to hand in his test.
In 6th grade I remember finding a solution to a math problem - a correct solution I bet - that the teacher just plain could not understand. All she could do was smile and nod.
Five years later, when my dad picked up after taking the SATs, he asked me how I did. I said, "I don't think I got any wrong on the math part." I didn't.
Math was always a breeze for me and I always loved it. I found beauty in the solutions and craved the challenge of getting there.
Maybe math also provided me with a sense of security in an insecure world. That's what the experts might say anyway.
Whatever the source of my passion, I thought my math mind might in some way underlie my life's work. I'd grow up to be an engineer perhaps. My dad always said with pride -
knew really - that I would invent something one day.
Then I started reading books by people like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn and Karl Marx. Since a young age, I was involved in politics. But after reading these guys, I found a new sense of urgency in tackling world affairs.
So I majored in political science (and history), and spent much of my college years organizing for peace and social justice.
"I have invented something, Aba," I told my dad. "A new society."
I wanted so much for this new society, one based on peace and freedom and justice and sharing, to come to be. It made so much sense - and still does - just like the math problems I was always so good at solving.
Capitalism = war + repression + environmental destruction.
Socialism = sharing + prosperity.
Anarchism = freedom.
Therefor, socialism + anarchism = a good society.
Simple equations. In theory.
But not in practice. I learned that pretty quick trying to turn theories into practice.
In practice people often go against their own interests. In practice people fight even though it's bad for both parties. In practice, really, humans are not perfect and they are not simple. They are complicated, and societies just as complicated, if not more.
I started to see the world as less black and white, and more grey. Politics, I learned, is anything but a science.
My politics - and my activism - evolved along the way. I kept many of my principles, but opened up to new methods and endgames.
5 years later, it took the deepest heartbrake of my life for me to begin to realize - to face, actually - that what was true out in the world was also true in me.
That despite our best efforts, we cannot be perfect. That no matter how hard we try, no matter how much a relationship seems to make sense, sometimes it just doesn't work.
That's been a tough lesson for me to learn, and subsequent heartbrakes have taught me the same. For example, that though 2x may equal y, (Jewish + Sexy + Fun + Nature-loving + Accomplished) plus (Jewish + Sexy + Fun + Nature-loving + Accomplished) does not always equal babies. As hard as you try.
(I'm not shooting blanks. You catch my drift I hope).
Good answers, in black and white theory. But we are grey, so very many shades of grey.
Now this past year. For me, it's been so much about letting go of control and stepping into a world of unknowns.
Today, as I pondered why I am leaving Asia (and simply could not find an answer), it sunk in that much deeper what a challenge I have set for myself - for this math mind, honed like a bird of prey, to live in a world with few clear answers. Or where if there are answers, they can take a long time to come - and the route to getting there can be anything but logical or clear.
I love the math part of myself. Love it. But the logical part of me cannot figure out why I am leaving Asia right now most likely because the answers, if there are any, they are not yet formed, and they may not lie in the realm of logic. The answers may come later, or they may be here - so very here - but may lie in the realm of soul or spirit or feeling or fate or chance or some combination of factors far more complicated than any math problem any human being will every conceptualize, much less solve.
Ooh does that make me uncomfortable! At least the part of me that wants to figure things out and get to answers.
What I'm doing instead, it seems, is practicing living in the unknown. Feeling my may through the dark, with as much lightness as I can muster. That this practice might shake me out to a deeper core of security, freedom, joy and humanity that I simply cannot achieve by problem solving, no mater how good I am.
This realm is more about trying. It's about riding waves. It's about trust, and love, and intuition and what feels true.
I've tried the other way, the logic way. Boy it has served me well in so many ways. It really has.
But for me, at least, it's not a way to live, not if it's the basis for everything. It never has been the only way for me, but perhaps it's been the dominant way. That's a treading of water, and water at a rather low level at that.
But ooh this journey into the unknown is hard for me. It is hard!
And its answers are not pat. If only we could sit alone in the desert for 3 days and nights and come home fully initiated into a world of mystery. If only a journey of 70 days could bring us fully into the people we want to be.
These are marvelous experiences. They contribute to our growth, sometimes tremendously. But they are not the be all end all.
Part of me wants to come back home and say, "I found the answer! I tested myself, realized x and y, and now I can come home. The Hero's Journey is complete, and now it's time for the next stage!"
But I didn't. And I don't think it is.
Or maybe I did and it is, though I don't think so.
The closest I can come to an answer right now is, "Peeps, I had a good trip. There were ups and downs, and I'm really glad I went. I had some hard times, and some amazing experiences. Holy shit! But I'm pretty tired now. I miss my friends and my dancing and my sports and my food and my culture, and I'm out of fuel for this part of the adventure. And I don't want to explore without a zest for exploration. I don't want to keep going just for the sake of keeping going. So I'm coming home, even though I don't feel particularly drawn to come home and even though I'm unsure what it all means for me."
There you go. Pretty simple, and yet not all that clear, to me anyway. Or maybe it is pretty clear?
In any case I can feel the heat spread through my body as my critic and the part that wants order reel at such an answer. Recoil at the thought of it. Go back and keep editing that last paragraph, so that even if I am unsure, at least I've written a paragraph that perfectly summarizes my lack of certainty.
LOL. Oh this monkey mind. Oooh oooh aahh!
So maybe that's part of it: to act anyway from this place of unknown. To play around in this place without looking for answers. ("'To live the questions!' as Rilke says, Roni!, I can hear my chorus of healer/ee friends exclaim!")
So maybe that really is it. And maybe it's that the lessons of this journey will sink in over time. And that the journey is never over. And that this stage is probably not over either. And that I can continue to embrace a sense of adventure and trying and the unknown in my life, and keep wandering for some time, whether it's in Thailand or Fairfax, or Utah or France. And that, tomorrow, so much more might sink in.
In short, can it be grey and unclear and complicated? And can that be OK?
There's so much more to all this. Of course. But I'll leave my answer at that for now, grey as it is.
Much love from the Taiwan airport,
Roni
ps - Wow writing this helped so much. Thank you for this miracle of writing.
