Do This, Don’t Do That
by Michelle Katz
I am a full follower of the Dalai Lama’s advice on learning the rules to know how to break them properly.
This week has been a real hardship for me in regards to “the rules”. I have begun to ask myself if some rules are just made for rule-making sake? Or because some person’s indiscretion or exploitation, one bad seed creating an unjust system for everyone else? Or some practice of authority that is unchecked?
Often times it seems like rules block progression, is keeps us caught in a system that doesn’t work and doesn’t benefit the majority. Hoops to jump through that are actually not in service to the greater whole, leave me baffled. This week, working my day job, has revealed to me how rules can be overly absurd and actually lead to people not seeing a greater purpose or keeping people from being of service to those who they are meant to be of service to. It was as if rules were made to keep people down and powerless. Then it occurred to me, that is what our systems have been doing for a long time to those who are disenfranchised. My anger grew with the awareness of how the microcosm of my experience mirrored the larger injustices of the world due to rules created and imposed upon us. The world is trying its best to change, to struggle its way out of this restrictive cocoon we have found ourselves in: activists hitting the streets or bending the rule in back rooms hoping to not be discovered, young people with fresh ideas (the ideals of our country’s founding) fighting to be involved in politics which is over occupied by the older generation not wanting change. Change is the purpose of the younger generation, listening to those who are younger helps our world move forward exponentially. People have known and lived “the rules” for too long, it is time to speak about how they just don’t make sense anymore!
I come from a lineage of holocaust survivors. All my grandparents lived though that traumatic act of injustice and genocide, rules that didn’t make sense to disempower people. One of the major teachings for the generations that followed: question. We were taught to question what doesn’t make sense, what subjugates people, question, before it is too late to say something. Question, because silence and blind obedience can often lead to great loss.
I wanted so wholeheartedly to believe that in a post-covid world; a world full of loss, a world that’s practices have been challenged, had us stifled in our homes, had us hyper conscious about our health and wellbeing for the better of two years – we would prioritize a world of health and possibilities. I wanted to wholeheartedly believe that in a world with racial upheaval; a world that watched George Floyd take his last breath in front of our very eyes, by the people we should entrust our safety to, the people who should hold all its citizen’s wellbeing as the soul purpose of their work in the world –that we would take a good look at our systems and spring into action about changing them. I wanted to wholeheartedly believe that in a world that is witness to an unnecessary war based on one man’s desire for power, we would question what leadership really means and how the heart of people is much more powerful than their might. But unfortunately, all I seem to see is more injustice, more big brothering, less freedoms, less emphasis on caring for human beings over the systems we live in, more requirements and restrictions, and expectations gone rampant. Less listening to each other and less actual change. I am disheartened by the rules that keep us stuck, and for those of us brave enough to step out and question or find a way to break them, I applaud you, I implore you, keep going! Even though you face the hardships of the repercussions, I know you are doing it for all of us, for the better collective. Question.
With such great aggravation, I take a walk.
I walk the land behind my house, up and down the hills, navigating to now avoid newly (just in the last year) built fences of newly bought plots of land, fenced in. “No trespassing” signs that once were never part of the neighborhood are now peppered throughout. Rules, boundaries we are forced to move with when the space was once open and shared among the community. I can’t help but wonder, rather than what are they keeping out, what are they hiding? I’ll admit, we put up a “no trespassing “sign at one point to stop the construction workers building new properties from coming into our area to defecate, leading our dogs to eat it and get sick, we put a sign to explain our request, next to our “no trespassing” sign. A month later, when we realized our request was clearly understood, we took the sign down. The others have not, and new signs are posted regularly. “Signs, Signs everywhere a Sign, marking up the scenery, breaking my mind, do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign.” How did a broken world leave us pushing away humanity?
Passed the hills and boundaries of new fences there is an opening. My favorite part of this daily walk. The opening to a large field that the monsoons have left bright green and covered with yellow coreopsis, towering over the dogs, leaving pollen on our tickled hands. It is hard to not smile when reaching this bright and beautiful open scene. Even in the winter, it is my favorite part of the walk, covered with a blanket of untouched snow that glistens in the late afternoon sunlight. And when there is neither flowers and bright green grasses nor angelic snow, there is still an expanse and feeling of openness, a view of mountains or hills in every direction, an place that ask us to take perspective, and take in what is real and true. A place that thrives with life: from owls and crows overhead, the coyote chasing the mice scurrying across the earth, vibrant juniper, blue grama grasses, and coreopsis and asters. Life lives in this wild place surrounded by the starkness of a sandy arroyo and rocky hills. It is soft here, things are flourishing in every direction of growth, unbound by hard edges that stifle development. Even when standing on those rocky hills overlooking this part of the land, I say to yourself, “that’s where it’s at, where the beauty is, where I want to be.”
I sit here a while. Taking in this landscape that speaks to me of what is so needed in today’s world. The hard edges all around this place, they are not thriving. But, these special few acers, somehow, it knew how to break the rules of the surrounding landscape, it knew to make something different happen. I look to this place, again and again for inspiration, for how to break the rules and thrive.