Give Up To Change
To give is an action, and that action is directed upwards.
What do we do when we are confronted with forces beyond our control? What do we do when we face opponents who have overwhelming strength? What do we do when our ability to change the situation is simply not enough?
In a world where war breaks out, pandemics spread, and markets crash at the whim of politicians and their puppeteers - how do we make real change?
My solution is to Give Up.
Giving up is seen as the act of a quitter, someone who doesn't have the grit and the determination to follow through. It's rolling over, doing nothing, becoming resigned to the suffering of the status quo. It's the wimp's way out.
That is not what I mean by giving up. To give up does not mean that we sit quietly. It does not mean that we simply roll over and accept our fate. To give is an action, and that action is directed upwards. This yields two questions.
- What are we giving?
- Where is up?
In order to answer the first question, we need to be realistic. Changing anything requires an understanding of what we have to work with. A social movement has to accept that the status quo exists in order to change it, just as an individual needs to be willing to confront their shadow self and embrace it.
Ultimately, I can only give what I have to give. If I'm not aware of the potential I possess, if I'm not grounded about where I'm starting from, and not honest about what I need to work on to get to my goal - then I'll never be able to give upwards in a meaningful way.
Upwards then, is a destination. People focused on social change have an "up" - the corrupt system that seeks to keep them down. Self-help courses speak on visualizing your success - this is just reaffirming where "up" is to you. The clearer someone is on that destination, the easier it will be to get there. Spiritual traditions do the same thing: their "up" is their God, upwards to the heavens.
Any process of perfection necessitates a period of weeding the garden (in my spiritual tradition, this is termed anartha-nivṛtti), but equally as important is growing the plant you want to grow (artha-pravṛtti). A plant has a clear "up" (the sun) that it moves towards, and in doing so facilitates its own flourishing.
Both giving (an action grounded in the reality of what we possess) and up (a clear destination in mind) are necessary for change to happen.
It's a theme that appears in multiple philosophies and systems: the detachment of the stoics, the transformation of the 8th house in astrology, and maybe my personal favorite: The Lord of the Rings.
Theoden: "What can men do against such reckless hate?"
Aragorn: "Ride out with me. Ride out and meet them."
