The City that always sleeps on the subway
The cheerful person who defined New York City as the city that never sleeps must have never stepped on a subway car.
There is no time of the day, no subway line, no neighborhood that is immune from the army of NYC subway car sleepers. We sleep in the morning and in the evening, but also at lunch time and in the early afternoon. We sleep crossing downtown Brooklyn, we nap in Gramercy and Soho, we snooze in Forrest Hill, Washington Heights, and the Bronx.
Some subway travelers sleep lightly, their eyes gently shut and sitting straight as if meditating, still holding a book or a bag. Some sleep hard, falling down from their seat, leaning on the person on their side, snoring, and sometimes missing their stop. People can even sleep standing on their feet, their forehead on the metal bar.
Train sleeping crosses all the boundaries of race, age, economic status. Entire families find harmony in shared sleep time on the hard seats of a subway car. We all come together in the sweet arms of Underground Morpheus.
New York is the city that is chronically sleep deprived, and takes naps on the subway.
[See 800 more pictures of NYC subway sleeping on Flickr]
[Sleep Bonus: Look at politicians sleeping at public events.]
Happy right now!
I’m looking out of the window at a bright blue sky and the naked tree branches of the end of winter, with new buds waiting for the spring a few weeks away, shivering in the loud wind. For a moment, just a moment, I feel at peace. Just looking out of my window and listening to the wind, there is nothing missing from this moment. I feel, I dare to say, happy like Louis Armstrong in my favorite song of all times.
I’m aware that this state of mind is fragile. In a minute, I will be thinking of what I need to do today, tomorrow, and in the far future. I will start worrying about the pile of todos in my GTD system that I don’t have time to finish, the difficult discussion with my boss that is waiting for me this afternoon and that I’m rehearsing obsessively, the feeling of my own inadequacy, and I’ll be back to my familiar state of hectic anxiety.
I wonder: do we really want to be happy? I look at myself and most of the people I know, and I notice our remarkable gift for postponing happiness and justify why we couldn’t possibly be happy now. An old boyfriend of mine was certain (and tried to persuade me) that we could not be happy until the inevitable proletarian revolution would take place. His belief was the marxist version of my Catholic Sunday school’s teachings: life is a bitch, but if you don’t sin and/or if ask for forgiveness when you do, when you die you’ll end up in Heaven and then you’ll be happy. I give credit to my boyfriend for believing that happiness was possible in this life.
Raise your hand if you think you’ll be happy when life finally gives you a more satisfying job (or, in this economic situation, just a job), or a better relationship, nice warm weather, more money in your 401(k); you’ll be happy when you retire, when you get the money to buy a Kindle, the new MacBook Pro, or a shine motorcycle, that beautiful pair of shoes, or that fancy new table for the dining room. Perhaps you’ll be happy when you move to the West Coast, or to the East Coast, or to that tropical paradise you’ve visited once. You’ll be happy tomorrow. Today is for making your life better.
I thought so. We all hold our breath and wait for the wave to pass, for the rain to stop, and the sun to shine again.
But why? What is preventing us to be happy right here, right now?
A few days ago, while reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings for a class that I’m taking at the Interdependence Project, I found this paragraph on aimlessness:
“If we think we have twenty-four hours to achieve a certain purpose, today will become a means to obtain an end. The moment of chopping wood and carrying water is the moment of happiness. We do not need for these chores to be done to be happy. To have happiness in this moment is the spirit of aimlessness. Otherwise, we will run in circles for the rest of our life. We have everything we need to make the present moment the happiest in our life, even if we have a cold or a headache. We don’t have to wait until we get over our cold to be happy. Having a cold is a part of life.
(…) We don’t need to become anything else. We don’t need to perform some particular act. We only need to be happy in the present moment, and we can be of service to those we love and to our whole society. Aimlessness is stopping and realizing the happiness that is already available. If someone asks us how long he has to practice in order to be happy, we can tell him that he can be happy right now!
(…) I’m happy in the present moment, I do not ask for anything else. I do not expect any additional happiness or conditions that will bring about more happiness. The most important practice is aimlessness, not running after things, not grasping.”
This quote hit me directly between the eyes. If you have run into Thich Nhat Hanh in person or in writing you know that, other than having a lot of Hs in his name, he is a delightful, sweet vietnamese zen monk that writes poetry and knows how to speak to your heart. This book is on the foundations of Buddhism, and as other books on the subject, it has important insights, many numbered lists, and practices to perform. But that quote spoke to me directly.
I could see Thich Nhat Hanh looking right in my eyes and saying: please stop using any possible excuse to avoid to be happy now. Don’t tell yourself that you are not wise enough, that you don’t meditate enough, that you don’t have enough money to retire, that your coworker just yelled at you, that your friend just yelled at your, that the sky is not blue, your mom didn’t love you enough as a child, or that you are socially awkward. Take responsibility for what you are doing to yourself day after day, moment after moment: not paying attention to what can make the present moment the happiest in your life and obsessing about the things that make yourself feel miserable.
Dear friend, continues Thich Nhat Hanh, there is nothing in the future that will bring you happiness if you are not willing to listen to your happiness right now. Some of us are in really ugly situations, it’s true, but even that is not a good excuse to deny ourself the happiness that we could experience if we just paid attention to what is here now.
Perhaps we are afraid of happiness. Perhaps we are just used to be worried and busy, as if our worrying could save us from danger or improve our situation in the future. Perhaps this particular state of peaceful and fulfilled happiness is unfamiliar to us and we don’t recognize it as a useful state of mind. Whatever the reason that makes us focus more on what is missing than on what is there, we should think of the price we pay for procrastinating happiness.
But, I hear you and myself say, how can anybody be happy with all that is happening in the world, the people who are killed, the kids that are dying of hunger or preventable disease right now, the economic crisis that is hurting so many? The old Thay replies:
Yes, there is tremendous suffering all over the world but knowing this need not paralyze us. (…) Worrying does not accomplish anything. Even if you worry twenty times more, it will not change the situation in the world. In fact, your anxiety will only make things worse. (…) If we don’t know how to breathe, smile, and live every moment of your life deeply, we will never be able to help anyone.”
So, ask yourself, do you really think that something outside of yourself will bring you happiness? Something that may or may not come, that may or may not stay, that may or may not be the way you expect it to be? And how can you be sure that even if this mysterious and elusive thing exists, you would recognize that it’s arrived if you don’t paying attention?
So, I realize, happiness takes responsibility and commitment. Believing that what I’m not yet or I don’t have yet will bring me happiness is such a hurtful illusion. There is no great next thing I’ll be able to buy, achieve, possess, obtain, that will bring me happiness. Deep inside, I’ve always known it. And I know you’ve always known it darn well too.
You might have noticed that I suspended my blog…
At the beginning of October I decided to suspend my blog, and my life. I took a month off from work, packed my stuff, and jumped on a bus to Pennsylvania. I worked for a month in Norristown, the Headquarter of the Obama-Biden campaign in Montgomery County as a volunteer coordinator for Lower Providence, West Norriton, and Worcester.
Of course I didn’t do it on my own (there were literally hundreds of volunteers and many paid campaign staff members), but I did what I could to contribute, and yesterday Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States.
I’m profoundly grateful for the opportunity to work on this campaign (and I thank my employer that made it possible). I learned a lot. I witnessed how improbable things can become reality with organization, determination, and passion (yes, we CAN and we DID). I met many wonderful people, who worked on this campaign as “their life depended on it.” I also learn quite a few things about myself.
Incidentally, yesterday I cast my first vote as an American citizen (I was voter number 64 at my precinct).
I’m too exhausted and sleep deprived to tell you more, but you can look at some pictures if you like.
Post-debate meditation on loneliness, greatness, and imperfection
Starting next week, I will be in Pennsylvania talking to undecided voters and getting out the vote. Just to be clear, this means doing all the things I’m not good at and scares the shit out of me. But I’ll try to do my best, and to make a difference. Never more than today, I feel the absolute urgency to succeed.
Last weekend, I went to a two-day training for “Deputy field organizers” (this is what I will be doing in the next month). Of all the things I watched and read about this campaign, a video they showed us during the training stuck with me the most. And what I mean is, I can’t stop thinking about it.
The video was shot at Obama’s campaign headquarter in Chicago the day Barack Obama learned he would be the democratic presidential candidate. Senator Obama wanted to thank his volunteers and talk about the work ahead of them.
You would expect him to be super-excited and cheering, but he wasn’t. He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes and very serious. He thanked his people for their amazing hard work and for “lifting him,” in all his limitations and imperfections, to the place where he now stood.
But he also pointed out that the hard fight had just started. “If we had lost the primaries,” he said, “it would have been OK.” Another democratic candidate would have taken over and continued to support the values they all so much cared about. “But we won, and now there is no going back. Now, we cannot afford to lose.”
For most of the video, Barack is seen from the back, as we were standing behind him. We could still see a slice of his smile, so endearing and yet somewhat sad. A smile that has seen too much avoidable suffering, in a country that has the potential of being the best place on Earth.
I found Obama’s display of vulnerability much more motivating that all the celebratory DNC extravaganza. Barack Obama’s sense of responsibility for the people who are the easy victims of History’s mistakes ad bad decisions and his insistence that the only guarantee of a fair government is not a perfect leader, but popular participation in the democratic process is what draws me towards him so powerfully. Much more strongly that any single stance he took, his value system and his vision for America makes me feel so passionately about him.
During the first McCain-Obama debate I looked at Senator Obama as he was listening to his opponent and taking notes. He had the same smile, his head lowered and slightly tilted. Obama was thinking of what to say and how to say it; he needed to be careful to strike the right balance of strength and respect.
It’s a tight tight balance, slim razor’s blade between being perceived as forceful, knowledgeable, and assertive and being perceived as arrogant and disrespectful. His victory or defeat depends on his tightrope walker’s ability to strike just the right chord. Because he is a black man with a scary name and, despite his charm, he has no margin for error.
Barack Obama is too smart not to have full awareness of how close he is to winning and how close to losing. He has the burden to do exactly the right thing not only for his own sake, but for the impact that this election will have on millions of people. And he has to do it while the entire world is watching, in a country that has not been very tolerant of dreamers. Now, that’s terrifying.
This morning I stumbled on this quote from Theodore Roosevelt, that seems the right way to end this reflection on greatness and imperfection.
It’s not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worth cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.
An urgent call to action
Dear friends,
I know that many of you are passionate about this elections as I am, and want to see Barack Obama elected in November with all your heart. (if you are reading this post and you are planning to vote for McCain, that’s OK. But please, please, verify the information you take for granted, and vote for him because you are convinced he and Sarah Palin are the right choice for America, rather than for the comfortable lies and inventions you hear in the TV ads.)
Dear friends, I read all your twitters and your posts on Facebook. I’m grateful for them. I’ve learned a good deal from what you have posted and I appreciate you spreading the world. It feels good to have people around me who believe in a more compassionate and committed America and in the chance to return to America’s profoundly democratic values.
But both you and I know that we are preaching to the choir. Most—if not all—of our friends and Twitter followers already think like us and know a lot about these elections. They don’t need to be convinced, they don’t need to learn the facts, they don’t need to be warned about the dangers of electing John McCain and Sarah Palin, or to learn about the amazing opportunity to rethink this Country once again. We are wasting our wit and persuasion power with people that don’t need them.
There are only 49 days left to November 4th. Look at this electoral map from the New York Times. Obama’s margin is slim, and depending on how the toss-up states vote, McCain can still win by a broad margin (see map below). The situation is still very very fragile. How do you feel about having Sarah Palin as our future President?
We need to take action now. Obama’s message is one of activism, responsibility, and bottom-up influence. The hope Obama talks about is not an excuse to stay home and keep things as they are. It’s a powerful motivation to change what we think is wrong or not working. We need to get out and talk to the world who doesn’t think like us. We need to meet the people who are still undecided, or not yet registered to vote, or fearful, or misinformed.
Please do something. You can donate money, but we both know that is not enough. This election is about changing minds and hearts, one at the time. Find your field office and call them to learn how you can help. Find events close to you. Make phone calls, register people to vote, talk to your neighbors, spread the message. Use your remarkable dialectic, knowledge, and wit to connect with people who are still not sure who they should vote for or if they should vote.
Let’s get out of our homes, away from our computers and mobile devices, and practice what we all believe in: that change starts with us and requires our action.
Thank you,
Antonella
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