Hello!
Welcome to the first official edition of Maya’s Musings! I’m grateful that you’ve decided to join me on this destination-less journey, and I’m excited that my words are potentially reaching human eyes, rather than disappearing straight into the Internet void. Let’s dive in:
What’s this all about?
I’m beginning to write this on March 19, 2021, the day before the vernal equinox. That’s pretty much irrelevant, but it seems like as good a reason as any to try something new. That, and I was inspired by a couple books in the last few months on writing— Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird, for instance, comments on how “Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises,” how “Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.” And Stephen King in On Writing informs us that “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.” I’m not sure I want to be a writer, but I want to know how to write well, and maybe those are sometimes the same thing.
I’ve also been reading a lot lately, because of both personal and viral circumstances, and one of my favorite things is coming across unexpected links between my books, articles, and experiences. I just read something today that perfectly captured this idea— writer Austin Kleon, quoting authors Octavia Butler and Richard Powers, discussed how different ideas from your reading interact, bounce off of each other, triangulate, and ultimately can be seen as inputs to a collage. So, I thought I’d share one of these literary conversations today.
There are no hard lines
The Buddhist concept of the bardo refers, in part, to the perpetual transition of the current moment. In his memoir/crash-course on Buddhism, In Love With the World, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche explores the power of noticing this constant state of change, whether it’s the moment of inhale turning to exhale or entering a relationship, knowing it will be over soon. Every moment at every time-scale is a beginning and an end: “We are all of us together dreaming ourselves into being. Dying into being. Becoming and becoming. Always becoming.”
After reading this, I began to see the theme of soft edges and states of transition embedded in so many other works. In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert tackles what exactly it means to be “nature” in an age when many “natural” things are kept alive only by constant human intervention. Where does nature end, and the artificial start? Is the artificial not just a subset of the natural? The definition of nature, too, seems to be in constant transition— always evolving, I suppose. A similar question is addressed in Aloha California: what does it mean for a species to be native to an island chain like Hawaii, where everything arrived relatively recently, carried by migrating animals (including us, of course)? When is a new plant considered invasive, and when does it become native? For that matter, when did Hawaiians become Hawaiian, and not just a group of Polynesians? When does the state of being foreign and new end, and the state of belonging begin? For me, at least, there’s often an instinctual feeling that guides my answers to such questions rather than a rigorous rationale. And that’s okay, but that might be part of what makes the whole situation of immigration, identity, and being an American (and all the related socio-economic implications) so tricky.
I could go on. Simon Winchester’s Land explains how our whole paradigm of land ownership, which underlies key concepts of value and power, relies on the assumption that land is the one thing on Earth that will always exist, that will never end. Except, these days, it’s not. I won’t get started on climate change (this time).
Ultimately, it’s not so much surprising that such a fundamental idea of beginnings, ends, and their murky grey reality crop up so much, but rather an interesting lens through which to conceptualize and categorize what I’m reading.
Recommendations
A collection of some of my favorite recent reads & things:
- David Wallace-Wells on why the West failed at COVID— it’s not as simple as you think (New York)
- A popcorn jazz robot :)
- Ezra Klein interviews George Saunders on kindness, Russian literature, and moral perfectionism (NYT)
- Cryptic crosswords, a puzzling form of wordplay that’s as addicting as it is frustrating
- Mary Beard’s manifesto on the sexist history of public speech, and how to redefine power to include the strengths of women (buy it here)
- A different way to parent, as learned from several indigenous families around the world (The Atlantic)
As always, I welcome any comments, questions, thoughts, disagreements, or requests! Just reply to this email to get in touch. Not sure how this ended up in your inbox, but don’t want to miss out on more? Sign up here to get on the list!