Dearest Reader,
I’m reworking a chapter on my twenties and brokenness and Mongolia this week. In it, I speak of action as a declaration and decree. In it, I speak of the choice we each have to change our entire trajectory in an instant.
Below, an excerpt. Then, questions and considerations for you, as we move towards an arbitrarily determined turn of the calendar and quote-unquote new year.
This is not a post about resolutions. Nor is it (yet another) post about how we all need more rest.
No.
It’s about choosing with body and soul. It’s about getting out of our heads and off social media. It’s about doing the fucking thing.
That “thing” may be more rest, for you. But, if so, what does true rest look like? If it involves more screen time, I’m sceptical. If it involves booze or food that makes you feel horrid, I call bullshit.
That is not rest and is not self-care. That is more of the same.
Another option, below.
The Choice
Note: What follows is part of a larger project. It touches on yoga and ancestor medicine, brokenness and courage, surrender and sovereignty, navigating a health and soul crisis within the so-called healthcare system in America, attachment to eating -isms (vegetarianism, in particular), choosing our fucking phones over Nature and body-mind-soul, etc.
After the excerpt, you’ll find questions for you as we finish out this day, month, year. I’d love to hear your reflections in the comments (open to paid subscribers).
Deciding, on a heart-and-body-broken whim, to leave for Mongolia in my twenties was a declaration and decree.
I will not stay here, in this privileged prison of days spent tapping on a laptop in a windowless basement in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Body bent in conformity and acquiescence. Selecting the oppression I knew and everyone okayed rather than braving the freedom just outside the door.
Sometimes, we forget a door exists, in this place. Pretending safety and conjuring roles within windowless walls. Breathing stale, grey air and feeding on food that’s not food but something…other. Transfixed by screens and all things familiar if slightly or massively miserable, we say: Okay. Sure. Take me.