ocean

a year and a half into the pandemic, I got more and more into podcasts. friends like Queena had shared a number of interesting podcasts trying to pique my interest for a long time before. but I kept circling Tara Brach and The Moth—hadn't really found a path beyond the old familiars. the whole podcast realm seemed enormous—where to dive in the ocean of podcasts.

listening to Beatrice Chestnut's and Uranio Paes' series was one of the podcasts that changed things. I've listened to almost every one of their Enneagram series over the last couple of years—likely a collection of posts at some point.

for years I have relayed when it comes up in conversation that moving around so often in growing up made me sensitive to questions of difference. between the last 15 years of Buddhist practice and better self-understanding, I know now there are plenty of contributing factors to these preoccupations with human history and its relationship with violence and trauma. but I've spent much of life naturally at odds with a binary way of thinking and being and have spouted related phrases like "humanizing the other." so the Talk Easy, "Play it Again", conversation between Sam Fragoso and Ocean Vuong was big. in particular this question, that, as Vuong states, "we as a species really need to reckon with":

"Why isn't the question...We shouldn't have conquered and murdered because they too are people? Why can't these lives be inherently valuable?...Do we need to know about a life to value it?"

the murder of citizens on the basis of race or sexual orientation, a catastrophically politicized pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the writing on the wall for Roe v Wade. why aren't human lives just inherently valuable to other human beings?

the question of how to create impact or change the inherent devaluation of other human beings. how is this possible?  

how can we reposition agency away from power?

how can we best "practice care in a meaningful way"?