"Grace not Greed"
Fourteen ways to find inner peace in unsettled times
I’ve been moved by all the people who have reached out to me since the election. Friends, colleagues and perhaps most moving for me, former students, have all reached out to say some combination of, “wow ~ that election reminded me of your work and are you ok?” I appreciate the connections but I am AT PEACE, y’all. Really.
I’m not good at predicting the future, especially around elections, so I thought the Harris/Walz ticket had a chance but I’m neither surprised nor shocked about the results. I’m sad-to-heartbroken for the people the Trump/Vance administration will harm but I also know that a lot of that harm was already here. If anything, I’m grateful for the clarity it might offer us, collectively, about what we’re up against. I’ll have more to say about the election, and specifically white women, in the coming days and weeks, but I wanted to use this space to talk about finding peace in unsettled times.
This morning on my way in to work, I passed a new food truck with a handwritten message on the back, “Grace not Greed.” The truck is parked in the middle of East Harlem, a predominantly Mexican, Central American and Puerto Rican neighborhood is serving Jamaican food (note the flag). I walk by this corner every morning and it’s the first time I’ve seen this truck, and there was something so hopeful in its appearance right now. The whole thing gave off a ‘Hey, this could work, let’s give it a go!’ kind of vibe. The message on the back, “Grace not Greed,” is mantra we need right now. More grace, more kindness. And, we’re only able to do that when we, ourselves, are at peace.
As Italian theorist and jailed (under Mussolini) dissent Antonio Gramsci said, “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” It can be a tall order to find inner peace at a time when it feels like the whole world is coming apart and monsters are in charge, but it is possible.
Here are some things that I’ve been doing and that you may find useful for finding inner peace now, in the time of monsters:
Feel your feelings. A lot of people are in grief right now, and that’s ok. Go ahead and feel those feelings. Other folks are angry, tired, disgusted. That’s all ok, too. The point is to go ahead and let yourself really feel whatever it is you’re feeling post-election.
Journal. There is a ton of research that demonstrates writing about your feelings is a really effective way of coping with trauma. Do it, grab a .99 cent composition notebook, a spiral-bound one, or one of those sleek Moleskin numbers and a pen that feels good in your hand. You don’t have to address it to anyone but yourself and no one ever has to see it. It’s FOR YOU.
Move your body in ways that feel good. Take a walk, ride a bike, go ROLLER SKATING, or dance by yourself in your bedroom. Find a way to move your body that feels good to you, and build that into your regular routine. Again, there’s a huge body of scientific literature that finds “somatic release” is key to processing trauma, otherwise those feelings stay all pent up in your body and make it twisty.
Find some plant medicine. This one is tricky since the racist “war on drugs” has made some plant medicine “illegal” in many places in the U.S. That said, I’m betting that someone you know is already using plant medicine so reach out to them and find out how to access it. If your networks don’t reveal anyone, contact me. The path to antiracism begins with ending the drug war.
Get intentional about sitting in meditation. I’ve had a meditation practice for a while now, but the last year has been a challenging one personally, so I’ve made myself get more intentional about it, and it has really helped. That just means that I recognize it helps me and so I make a plan so I don’t skip it. Try just sitting quietly for five minutes. Let your mind rest. Take some deep breaths. Easy.
Listen to music that calms you. Here’s a playlist that I’ve been using for sitting in meditation. You can use it, pass it on, remix it to suit you.
Embrace ritual. One of the things we’ve lost with modernity is ritual. It’s so fundamental to who we are as social beings that we have to find ways to bring it back in. It can be anything from a religious institution (they are good at providing ritual) or it can be simply lighting candles in your own home or something else. It just needs to be a regular thing you do that you find meaning in, ideally with other humans.
Read books. James Baldwin said, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” We are living through fascistic times, but we are not the first. It’s part of why I find Gramsci so compelling, he wrote The Prison Notebooks while locked up under a fascist regime in Italy. We’re also living through a unique-in-human-history period of assault on our attention spans, and reading books is a crucial way to reclaim our ability to pay attention, which we’re gonna need.
Visit with people in person. As a child, I found the adult proclivity for “visiting” intolerable. What do they do but sit around, drink coffee and talk? I huffed. Now, I see the wisdom in it. There is something very grounding about hanging out, with no agenda, in person. Go visiting at the weekend. Invite a friend over to your place. If you’re lucky enough to be housed, use that to have people over.
Go to live performances. My beautiful wife (!) took me to see Mx. Justin Vivian Bond for my birthday last Friday at Joe’s Pub. What a gift, what a treat, to see this trans cabaret artist and recent MacArthur ‘genius’ award winner. The best art is transcendent, it transports us to other worlds and possibilities, and gathering in rooms where it happens is the stuff of life.
Decolonize that to-watch list. I know the seductive pull of #Netflixandchill, but recognize that zoning out watching a screen is a kind of dissociation. It takes us away from our bodies and our feelings. Sometimes we need that, but hey, maybe decolonize that to-watch list. For example, try to curate what you’re watching to de-center men, violence and police. (Listen, that Law & Order habit, it’s not great.)
Make music. An elemental, primal thing that humans do is make sound. It’s connected to that “somatic release” thing I mentioned above (#3). Get that guitar down from the wall, pull out that tamborine, and have a jam session with a friend or a neighbor.
Visit a museum that inspires you. My favorite museum is the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). I’m planning a trip to go visit it before January to remind myself of the long arc of history. And, to my extreme delight, the NMAAHC has partnered with the Cooper Hewitt museum here for their design triennial, which I visited on Sunday (free with my NMAAHC membership!). Lots of inspiring installations around the theme of “Home,” including one about re-designing spaces for people returning from prison created by architects at Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, based in Oakland.
Start to build the new world you want to create. It’s through art and design that we will start to build the new world we want to create, whether that’s through writing, performance art, music, or architecture, these are the practices that will help us imagine more expansively.
“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned,” Gramsci wrote. That’s what this post-election period is for me: a time without illusions and the task is not to become disillusioned. Like setting up a Jamaican food truck in the middle of East Harlem with “grace not greed” as your motto. We have to imagine otherwise.
Later, we can talk about the revolution that we need to create a new world, a world beyond the monsters in charge.