This a great piece, and you are right on. As someone who has always struggled with comparing myself to others it’s nice to hear that is more of a sickness of the times than an individual flaw.
Yes yes! I always think the antidote to comparison is to remind myself how integral we ALL are. It's like a forest or a garden. I'm a birch tree. I'm not a pine. Both are beautiful and so wholly needed.
This is absolutely brilliant!! Thank you so much for sharing your genius and wisdom and insight with us!! We love you and are so grateful for you!!!!! 💜😍✨
“The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us"
I think about this often along with how we are conditioned to be cops policing ourselves and others and effectively doing our oppressors' work for them. I must question my behaviour and motivations behind how I want to talk to myself and/or others. It's all so insidious. Thank you for offering such needed counter narratives in beautifully accessible ways. ACAB forever!
Thank you for articulating what many of us feel but often struggle to express. Your insight into the involuntary nature of comparison and its deep ties to societal structures resonates deeply.
Comparison indeed seems like an involuntary reflex rather than a deliberate choice, rooted in a culture that glorifies individualism and perpetuates inequality. Your analogy of comparison as a symptom rather than a cause of our suffering is particularly striking. It reflects a shift in perspective from blaming ourselves for feeling inadequate to understanding the broader societal influences at play.
Your journey towards radical acceptance and curiosity towards emotions instead of judgment is inspiring. It reflects a profound understanding that our emotions are not isolated experiences but collective manifestations of our shared human condition.
Thank you for igniting this crucial conversation. It's a reminder that the path to collective liberation begins with acknowledging and challenging the oppressive forces within and around us.
Wow this gives me so much to ponder – thank YOU. I love the way you share what's been on your mind. I want to keep reading and chewing on all of this. Grateful for your writing!
This is really beautiful and worthy of thought. Did you mean to do a bit of snake eating its own tail in the end there? Because I would argue that the idea of others as competition (comparing ourselves) is a tool of the oppressor (as in the Audre Lorde quote), so perhaps we do have some responsibility to squash that in ourselves? Maybe the key is to give ourselves grace knowing it's not a personal failing. But like just about every shitty/hard/unjust thing, even if we didn't make it happen doesn't mean we're off the hook for making it better.
One of the most powerful pieces of work I have read in a long time. Thank you for threading and weaving words together so magnificently. I am honored to read. I will remember the feeling I had reading your words. Appreciate you. In gratitude.
Thank you for lovely, deep insights. 💃🏻 I'm now dancing with this question: "in what way are you (am I) performing yourself? producing yourself?" as I film rituals (designed to inspire others to honor the Earth). And begrudgingly use the word 'Authentic.' For me, it means befriending (and thus de-fanging) the voices of collective brokenness that live in my body, what I call the Monkeys of Fear. What Audre Lord calls, "piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us."
YES. this essay satiated my hunger. and gave me so much food for thought. reminds me too of buddhist wisdom on attachments. how envy is an “attachment” to vision. meanwhile faith is belief in the unseen, in what is true /without/ “evidence” (what we perceive thru sight/smell/touch/taste/sound).
thich nhat hanh writes a lot about how the flower exists not just in its bloom in spring but also in its (unseen) seed in the winter… and so maybe envy is also this deeper cultural symptom of hopelessness & faithlessness … an attachment to the seen. (i think this relates to dating, romance, and sexual hopelessness too but that’s a whole other tangent.) fear of the unknown ❌ < faith in the unseen ✅
bell hooks once said something similar about consumerism, how consumerism is “a cultural practice of hopelessness.” that the oppressor’s relationships depend on Evidence By Sight and metrics and materials, etc. but there are deeper things… unseen things… ! and so again maybe envy is a symptom of when we have lost faith in the unseen & unknown ?
i think about too when muhammad ali was told to fight in the vietnam war but he refused, even when they threatened to take away his title. and he was like uh ok? take it. i don’t need it. you need me for your war more than i need anything from you (like fame or success, any material metrics). so in that way it’s like, these “seen” physical things and titles become tools of control whether we always realize it or not. the oppressors relationships!!!! which we end up modeling. ahh!!
that got long. talking out loud. loved loved loved this essay. awake & obsessed with your mind
I’ve read this two or three times now and I find myself coming back to thinking about how we respond to the crisis of individualism & alienation with further individualism & alienation. As a collaborative species dependent on one another for survival, at some point “your success is my success” became “your success is my failure,” we see this reflected back to us constantly in the institutions we’ve built, particularly academia. Even in the creative spaces/programs there, where collaboration enhances the experience and success of us all, we’re rewarded for competition. I think about the creative writing class where particularly good writers were cutting eachother’s work down instead of building it up, jockeying for that #1 spot in the class. This competition of self vs self/ ego vs. ego is so isolating and catalyzes withdrawal from community and creative spaces (at least that’s what happened to me!)
This a great piece, and you are right on. As someone who has always struggled with comparing myself to others it’s nice to hear that is more of a sickness of the times than an individual flaw.
Feeling extremely validating after reading this- thank you.
Yes yes! I always think the antidote to comparison is to remind myself how integral we ALL are. It's like a forest or a garden. I'm a birch tree. I'm not a pine. Both are beautiful and so wholly needed.
This is absolutely brilliant!! Thank you so much for sharing your genius and wisdom and insight with us!! We love you and are so grateful for you!!!!! 💜😍✨
“The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us"
I think about this often along with how we are conditioned to be cops policing ourselves and others and effectively doing our oppressors' work for them. I must question my behaviour and motivations behind how I want to talk to myself and/or others. It's all so insidious. Thank you for offering such needed counter narratives in beautifully accessible ways. ACAB forever!
Thank you for articulating what many of us feel but often struggle to express. Your insight into the involuntary nature of comparison and its deep ties to societal structures resonates deeply.
Comparison indeed seems like an involuntary reflex rather than a deliberate choice, rooted in a culture that glorifies individualism and perpetuates inequality. Your analogy of comparison as a symptom rather than a cause of our suffering is particularly striking. It reflects a shift in perspective from blaming ourselves for feeling inadequate to understanding the broader societal influences at play.
Your journey towards radical acceptance and curiosity towards emotions instead of judgment is inspiring. It reflects a profound understanding that our emotions are not isolated experiences but collective manifestations of our shared human condition.
Thank you for igniting this crucial conversation. It's a reminder that the path to collective liberation begins with acknowledging and challenging the oppressive forces within and around us.
Wow this gives me so much to ponder – thank YOU. I love the way you share what's been on your mind. I want to keep reading and chewing on all of this. Grateful for your writing!
This is really beautiful and worthy of thought. Did you mean to do a bit of snake eating its own tail in the end there? Because I would argue that the idea of others as competition (comparing ourselves) is a tool of the oppressor (as in the Audre Lorde quote), so perhaps we do have some responsibility to squash that in ourselves? Maybe the key is to give ourselves grace knowing it's not a personal failing. But like just about every shitty/hard/unjust thing, even if we didn't make it happen doesn't mean we're off the hook for making it better.
This is soooo great as always; thanks for inspiring mindset shifts and many restacks 🫶
I’m stunned. What an enlightening paradigm shift. Thank you for writing this, and thank you for sharing it. ❤️
One of the most powerful pieces of work I have read in a long time. Thank you for threading and weaving words together so magnificently. I am honored to read. I will remember the feeling I had reading your words. Appreciate you. In gratitude.
Yes! I’m asking the same questions. Love this piece, thank you.
Thank you for lovely, deep insights. 💃🏻 I'm now dancing with this question: "in what way are you (am I) performing yourself? producing yourself?" as I film rituals (designed to inspire others to honor the Earth). And begrudgingly use the word 'Authentic.' For me, it means befriending (and thus de-fanging) the voices of collective brokenness that live in my body, what I call the Monkeys of Fear. What Audre Lord calls, "piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us."
Thank you. Yes!!
YES. this essay satiated my hunger. and gave me so much food for thought. reminds me too of buddhist wisdom on attachments. how envy is an “attachment” to vision. meanwhile faith is belief in the unseen, in what is true /without/ “evidence” (what we perceive thru sight/smell/touch/taste/sound).
thich nhat hanh writes a lot about how the flower exists not just in its bloom in spring but also in its (unseen) seed in the winter… and so maybe envy is also this deeper cultural symptom of hopelessness & faithlessness … an attachment to the seen. (i think this relates to dating, romance, and sexual hopelessness too but that’s a whole other tangent.) fear of the unknown ❌ < faith in the unseen ✅
bell hooks once said something similar about consumerism, how consumerism is “a cultural practice of hopelessness.” that the oppressor’s relationships depend on Evidence By Sight and metrics and materials, etc. but there are deeper things… unseen things… ! and so again maybe envy is a symptom of when we have lost faith in the unseen & unknown ?
i think about too when muhammad ali was told to fight in the vietnam war but he refused, even when they threatened to take away his title. and he was like uh ok? take it. i don’t need it. you need me for your war more than i need anything from you (like fame or success, any material metrics). so in that way it’s like, these “seen” physical things and titles become tools of control whether we always realize it or not. the oppressors relationships!!!! which we end up modeling. ahh!!
that got long. talking out loud. loved loved loved this essay. awake & obsessed with your mind
I’ve read this two or three times now and I find myself coming back to thinking about how we respond to the crisis of individualism & alienation with further individualism & alienation. As a collaborative species dependent on one another for survival, at some point “your success is my success” became “your success is my failure,” we see this reflected back to us constantly in the institutions we’ve built, particularly academia. Even in the creative spaces/programs there, where collaboration enhances the experience and success of us all, we’re rewarded for competition. I think about the creative writing class where particularly good writers were cutting eachother’s work down instead of building it up, jockeying for that #1 spot in the class. This competition of self vs self/ ego vs. ego is so isolating and catalyzes withdrawal from community and creative spaces (at least that’s what happened to me!)
I’m so grateful you shared this when you did.