This is Of Common Clay, a love-letter-like documentation in pursuit of grounding myself to the common clay we walk on and are made of. This one’s a bit more special with this 19th turning point, so a compilation’s in place to complement it!
I used to care more a lot about consistency in all things in all ways—the familiar cadence and flow of routine and structure. It could explain the safety of written checklists, post-it notes, and entries on my Notes app that I’ve kept over the years, each bullet point building on itself and its entirety having grown in length and richness. Ironically, I enjoy the feeling of responsibility in balance when really, it’s bursts of passion toward coring out hours or weeks for education, a million fascinations, and people capable of settling warmth thick across my chest.
Nineteen’s a big one for me, somewhat because it’s my first one post-pandemic but mostly because I’ve become more at ease beyond the confines of my physical and mental comfort zones. To whittle these lessons down to a collection I can write with trail-run confidence, I’d settled for five. Each one overlaps with piecemeal losses to structure, but every single one ends with an excerpt of Savannah Brown’s Loving Like an Existentialist, one of the few poems I’ve kept close to my heart all these years.
#1 There are others.
Hyper-individualism draws on loneliness that draws on the belief that no one else is like you.
Or at least that’s what I think. It’s a valid want to hollow out the nooks and crannies of the world, discover as much as you possibly can, then weave them into bits of your identity. Or maybe that just comes with the needlework of the tech age and decentralised channels of knowledge distribution. Whichever the cause, ask yourself:
With over 7.97 billion people on the planet, whether or not another person shares your exact thought process and patterns of your mind, are you really under the impression that no one else has been in your circumstances?
With your head swathing in vast ambition, building a second brain, wearing laurels that reflect status, and finding limitless bounds of niche interests, check yourself. Have you managed to feed a one-person army of self-sabotage that has alienated you from the human experience?
Fine, you have a rich world with interests written in fine print. It’s easy enough to get lost in them when anonymous characters online supply you with an abundance of regurgitated echoes one tap after the other. However, the moment you start seeing yourself as an all-knowing fountain of mystery only seeking people who benefit you in that regard, you’ll have already lost the battle. You’ve set yourself up for disconnect. Think of it this way:
Self-distinction can grow from constant empathy, but empathy cannot grow from constant self-distinction.
But someday,
when beacons collide, not coincidence but prophecy,
wrenching claims of meant to be
The sparks erupt,
in ultraviolet chaos—volcanic, raging,
a mighty wallop of color and sound,
a shattering cry of belonging splitting time itself.
#2 Stubbornness can be cocooning.
What do the most influential people situated in positions of power have in common? Utmost confidence in themselves. They radicalise and reproduce thoughts, strip you of hesitation until your back’s against their Great Wall of My Opinion. Think of whomever has changed the way social media is used, and how we’re quick to grow disenchanted due to our participation in something first coined in Life Magazine 1995, the throw-away society. We get rid of clothes, packaging, trends, and even people with sometimes misaligned declarations of “doing it for self-care.” We say it gives us freedom for uncurbed growth and self-optimisation.
I get it, I do. Whether it’s unconscious or not, we silo ourselves into corners that confirm and echo our determinations, promote short-sightedness, and leave little room to contextualise the overload of information we sift through. This doesn’t entail forgoing your integrity and the familiar things that keep you sane; instead it asks that you remain critical of the media you consume and the parts of it you choose to incorporate into your own beliefs. These days, we don’t realise that adapting a contemporary lens isn’t so you can toot your own horn and exclude entire groups of authors and schools of thinking from your collection; it’s so you can read from these same authors and use your own interpretation to pick apart why they hold those views and why they won’t or don’t work for you. It’s to be flexible when you have high conviction beliefs.
I think we’re just moths,riding on the backs of giants
And I wasn’t drawn to you because our wings are both blue,
but, because they’re the same color as everyone else’s
And you were willing to listen
to why that scared me.
#3 Ask and be asked.
There’s no virtue in keeping what you’ve learnt to yourself. This monopoly of knowledge is already what overarchingly enables corporate environments and protects them from scrutiny. Please don’t let that monotony extend to your personal interactions. I mean, the knowledge economy precisely protests that exclusivity, and it’s a wave I’d gladly ride. Ask around. Anyone willing to answer will answer, and anyone unwilling won’t cost you anything other than short-lived embarrassment that’ll probably fade within minutes or harmless time. Reaching out has historically brought us to this interconnectedness and drive for filling the gaps of ignorance. Granted, not everybody has the same privilege to reform this, especially from outlier generations or classes we frame in bad light when they’d simply been a product of their immediate environment without the reach we have today. You can’t blame your old man for not being so nuanced in expressing themselves because who has time for that when you’re doing the best you can, struggling to simply put food on the table? So it’s either we make them aware of their predispositions or leave them be with more understanding in mind.
Similarly, when done right, priding yourself in having an understanding of a particular area shouldn’t necessarily be a proclamation of accomplishment, but a test of the foundation of your beliefs—why you believe in something, especially if it’s baseless or shallowly informed. Do your research before making some bold claim you stole from a 30-second video. That proactivity challenges you to question your ways and come out the other side knowing your chosen priorities, this time with more profundity and intention.
The air didn’t lock into place upon our arrival,
awaiting the moment our silhouettes
would one day fill the empty space.
#4 Silence is sometimes self-assurance.
A common interpretation of silence is uncertainty and timidity. Have you considered it might just be self-assurance? The more comfortable you become in that silence, the more assurance you have in the idea that you don’t need to include input in everything in order to have your presence acknowledged. It’s why we find listeners cool. They make active efforts to internalise what you’ve said, weigh in properly without rush, and remain deliberate with their words. We know they have more to show, but they’re content not having to.
It’s the art of asking “You first,” “You continue,” “How about you?” or words that affirm you heard what they had to say before launching into your own speech. The story might flow better when someone knows you’ve given them the silence to fully flesh out something they thought was really funny, or something they’re passionate in. Funnily enough, you’ll also pick out if they’re terrible with silence or active listening. I’m not perfect at this admittedly, and it’d be wonderful to move with that security and not be so restless. Though I guess we don’t naturally gain that until later for most young people… or those with relatively less self-conscious minds.
Bathe in the glow of the sun that doesn’t shine for us.
Run atop an earth that doesn’t feel our hurried foot steps
as they thump, thump, thump.
#5 Be fiercely affectionate.
Nondescript care carries little impact. Clipped affection hasn’t really personally helped thus far, unless there’s a necessary call for maintaining indifference. Go figure when that is, because I can’t think of a particular instance at the top of my head.
Affection that implies nothing in return but relies solely on the willingness to give it is purest in form and probably the most potent kind. It’s not something everybody can afford and it’s not to be confused with being a yes-man, overextending yourself to whomever. It’s simply being comfortable in the casualness of attentiveness and intimacy. It’s even more powerful when you’ve gone through things that only solidify your need to never let anyone else feel that.
This isn’t exclusive to people; you may be due for a change in perspective to grow appreciation for what you have. Today, I smiled at the overpriced toast I bought in desperation of hunger, I took in the dwarf peach tree blossoms that’ve started to mark the ending chapter of winter, this kid who showed me his YouTube channel dedicated solely to Sydney Trains and the uniform robotic announcement it blares in different areas, rewatching my ever-favourite Fleabag, packing with friends for a trip to the Blue Mountains, a best friend living her best life now that her sister’s visiting, another making fun commercials, more vicarious vibing with faraway friends, and the sticky miso pork recipe I nailed on Pinterest.
I could fall in love with a melody—
let it crawl into my body,
(Or a train ride, or alabaster sheets;
there are chemicals that do these things to me.)
I could grow fond of many things,
but how particular my fondness of you.
How fervent, How violent, how gentle.
Ending Note
I’ve learned many things this year, and I’d learned so much that reassures me I’m okay. I’m thankful to the ones I get to talk to about everything and nothing. I’m sorry to the ones I’ve hurt. I miss you to the ones I barely get to see and talk to. I say all these things because I want my love to live in all the people I know who deserve nothing more than joy. I’m happy for those that make it easier.
On other days, I feel afraid for not having known as much as I thought I would have at this age. I’m afraid of making the wrong choices, of losing. I’m guessing you do too, sometimes. Although today in particular, we can bravely, gratefully fasten our fingers onto our virtues and remain fervently drawn to the ineradicable constance of time and how it folds for no one. We say we need more time, but I feel like we’ve got enough to work with. At any given moment, the future is always ahead of us, and we’re just so lucky to be in the present, right now. We’ll have our days, but with ambition that hopefully sustains you and I, may this latter third of the year treat us with the resonant heed we likewise treat it with.
Quickly,
all the time we’ll ever know is tapping her toes on the doorstep
And I don’t want to keep her waiting.
19 years with a cake and platter of over-sentimentality,
Kristen <3