Don't Choose: We Grow Together

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Mina Raver asked me this morning, what values drive

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me? What values our lives become? And I had to answer with

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things that don't always go together: generosity and

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kindness and fierceness and justice and pleasure. And she

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wrote back and asked, do those things fit together? Do those

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things fit together? How do they fit together? Do they ever bump

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up against each other? How do you make a priority? How do you

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prioritize them? And I asked back in my head, before I

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answered, I asked, How can there be a priority? They're all

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important, they don't take precedence one over the other.

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We need to drop the fallacy that the priority is necessary, that

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one has to take precedence, that we can't have it all, that we

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can't have both. Can we have justice and generosity? Can we

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have generosity and pleasure? Yes, yes, we can have them both

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if we understand the ways that we are interconnected, the ways

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that justice and pleasure and generosity and kindness and

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justice all rely on each other. They become more themselves they

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become more each other they become more when they are

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together. More when they are together, not less. They become

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more, we become more, there is no priority. There is only how

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do these two things grow together? How do they dance

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together? How do they fit together? When you plant a tree

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next to another tree, they are impacted by the presence of one

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another. But they can both still reach the sun, they can both

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grow together, their trunks entwined even, and thrive. In

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the forest, about which I am forever talking, there are trees

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and trees and trees and trees, big tall trees and short trees

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and shrubs and bushes and vines. And underneath the soil, all

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those roots, interconnect, they are close, they are touching,

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they are talking, they are sharing resources. They are

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sharing lives. This is how we do the work. This is how things

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happen, is by not making a priority. Or rather by making a

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priority of specific things. By making a priority of things like

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humanity, humanity is a priority. The interdependent web

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of all existence is an even bigger priority. Taking care of

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the life around us that's the priority. The priority gets

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bigger and bigger, the bigger our vision gets. The bigger our

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understanding gets, the bigger our perception our

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proprioception our interoception gets, the bigger the body gets.

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And when the body is at its very biggest It is everything. And

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that is where we are located, is in everything. And so we cannot

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just say oh, well we'll have breath but we won't have blood

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circulation today. You can't do that. I mean, we do, when we're

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under absolute survival stress we do, our bodies do. They say

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you can have circulation but only in your trunk not in your

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limbs. Or they say you could have had breath but that's not

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working out right now we're going to stick with circulating

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the blood as long as we can. Bodies say you can have

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consciousness but not right now because we're under too much

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stress. So we're going to just put you in shock until we can

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figure out what to do next. So we do, we don't always do

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everything all equally exactly at the same time. But when we're

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planning, when we're living, when we've got a little room to

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make some decisions- if we are in a place to even think about

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priorities, and not just act, and not just grasp in

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desperation. Those are the moments when there are no

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priorities. Where priorities aren't a thing. When everything

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is as important as everything else. When everything is as

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important as everything else. And if these are already the

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values that I have decided are the priority, they are already

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the most important thing. And so we will have to find a way that

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generosity and kindness and justice can coexist. We will

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have to find a way that pleasure can exist with everything. We

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will have to find a way to enact love. We will have to find a way

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to enact love. And this is true even in our businesses, even in

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our work, even with our teams, especially in our businesses,

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our work our teams. This is the reason that I do this work.

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Because it is when we lose track of this, it's when we lose, lose

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our understanding of the interconnectedness of all of the

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values that we carry all together, when we lose track of

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all of that, that's when our institutions lose their

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humanity. That's when our institutions lose their

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interconnection. That's when our institutions facilitate and

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support us becoming disconnected, instead of

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facilitating and supporting us becoming connected. We need to

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become connected, we need to stay connected, we need to be

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engaged with each other, consciously engaged with each

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other. We need to have systems that support that. So yeah, all

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five of those things all together, all at once. Because

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without all five of those things altogether, all at once, we

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start to make something disposable. We fall out of

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integrity, because we make something disposable. If it's

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disposable, then it's not really meaningful anymore. And it

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causes moral injury. And when it causes moral injury, it damages

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us. And it damages our ability to move through the world and it

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damages our ability to make things better. It damages our

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ability to be interconnected. It damages our ability to lift one

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another up. And those are inherent to our existence. So

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no, I don't prioritize those things. I prioritize all of them

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together. I don't pick and choose. They grow together.