Dearest Reader,
I turn 48 next week. The main thing I have to say about it is this:
The older I get, the less I know.
Or, perhaps:
I do know more than before. I’m just increasingly suspect about it. I’m increasingly humbled by the unknowing-ness and unseeing-ness of our essence.
I’m increasingly certain that much if not all of the time: 1. We are right. 2. We are wrong. 3. Both things can be true.
As humans, that’s part of the deal. As humans, we’re running around with myopic, dulled down, barely functioning senses presuming to make sense of…everything.
Constructing whole worlds inside. Constructing self and others and generally running amuck. (And that’s before we add social media and propaganda masked as activism, news, and politics.)
Self included. Self especially.
All to say, my twenty-something self was awash in righteousness and certainty. My thirty-something and early-forties self was more of the same (just with new wounds, beliefs, acronyms, and opinions).
Now in my late forties? Edging towards 48 and the great fifties beyond?
Not sure. And definitely not enlightened. But what I can do and am doing is this:
Make it a practice to un-know rather than know. Make it a practice to ask, “Yes, and… What else might be true?”
Because, psst, here’s the thing: None of us knows shit. Ask the trees. Ask the stars. Ask the oceans.
Meanwhile, we’re over here falling through time and towards the unknowable—towards wherever and whatever does or doesn’t await.
Trying to trace self and story along the way. Trying to untangle the impossible threads of how we became and our continuous becoming.
Until we don’t become anymore. Until that part is over.
From my mid-twenties through my mid-thirties, I worked as an Arabic-to-English translator.
Because I mainly translated news stories and human rights reports, there was a sterility to it. Just the so-called facts, numbers, formalities, violations, and such.
But I also lived and studied in Egypt and travelled through Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Syria. Speaking Arabic (both the formal fusha الفصحى and Egyptian colloquial) was a whole other thing. A whole other language, really.
There, new parts of me emerged—selves that didn’t and couldn’t find expression in English. Selves that were kinder, more curious, and more excited to engage. Selves that thirsted for face-to-face, heart-to-heart connection born of not knowing and wonder.
From my mid-twenties through my mid-thirties as well, I went through what today’s collective calls “coming out.”
Pressured to find a name. Eager to climb in box and pick a label. Clamouring for anything fully me and truly mine.
An identity. A clarity.
I’ve grown weary and wary of that now. I’m whatever gender and sexuality I happen to be. Internally. Externally.
I can sum those up for you on any given day. Ask me another day and the nuance has shifted. I prefer words and terms that honour this space—that normalize and celebrate it. Gender fluid. Pansexual. Queer.
What is it that insists we pick a thing to the exclusion of others? What is it that assumes we (along with our opinions) are fixed when all of Nature is fluid?
Asking for a friend. Asking from the final stretch of my forties.
I’ve meandered a bit. But if you’re still here, thank you. And if you’re a paid subscriber, a small gift awaits after the jump—a reverse birthday present of sorts.
Something for the changing seasons. Something that reminds us to take care.
Be well. Tread graciously, spaciously, kindly.
Dana
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This newsletter does not pay the bills. And yet, it’s my most important work.
As a tiny token of appreciation,