"I've been around the bend
Taking anyway to weigh myself down
But I could take a win right now"
-Mukharji, Senft, Mitchell, Paseltiner - (Lose The Keys - Darlingside)
When you hear those words where do your thoughts go?
What memories arise?
Whose voices do you hear?
What questions do you hold?
I've heard the phrase "It's complicated" oh so many times. I heard them just a few days ago. I even said them myself.
In my experience they are words usually spoken in response to a question, often asked sincerely, but maybe with a hint of naivety; naivety because perhaps the question can't be easily answered.
But the question is sincere, someone keenly wanting to understand something, for example, "Can you tell me how this software system works?", or "What exactly is AI?"
Now as I type those words I am noticing something else.
A power imbalance has revealed itself. The questioner places themselves in an inferior position to the questioned, simply by asking. They are vulnerable, having promoted their interlocuter into a position of superiority and assumed knowledge, a position they perhaps didn't ask for.
But in those moments the responder has choices, do they attempt to answer it with the fullness the question deserves? Do they mirror the vulnerability on show by admitting that they don't know either, or do they not answer the question at all and attempt to shut down the dialogue? I wonder if one chosen response for the latter is "It's complicated...".
Now of course it could be a simple statement of truth because some things are genuinely complicated. But for me, the phrase has become loaded with an undercurrent of judgement or passive aggression, maybe. For me when I hear those words I add unsaid things to expand the sentence like "...[and besides I don't have the time to explain it to you]", or worse, "... [and anyway you probably won’t understand it.]"
The examples here are systems and technology, which for a tech laggard like me definitely feel complex.
But I am mostly interested in us humans. So what about us, or more specifically me?
When someone asks "What's going on with Will?" and the answer that comes back is "It's complicated", what do we mean?
What's complicated about us humans? What are we trying to avoid with that seemingly benign turn of phrase? What tensions aren't we willing to grapple with? And for something so complicated why aren't we able to allocate the time to talking about it?
I got curious about the etymology of the word complicated. 'Com' meaning "with" or "together", 'Plicare', "folded".
So in my understanding, it means "with folds".
That was a lightbulb moment for me, when something is complicated, we really mean folded.
As an aside, it is said that you theoretically can't fold a piece of A4 paper more than seven times. I tried it and I could barely get beyond six.
I then started to imagine the story of us, our greatest, whole selves, drawn in intricate detail on a piece of A4 paper, and then someone or something came along and folded it seven times. That image is still there, but alas we can not see it, concealed as it is under all those folds, and looking rather crumpled.
So when I said to my wife a handful of days ago, in a spirit-depleted and weary state, "I'm complicated" I didn't need a conversation about it. I just needed someone to hear it. A witness. Someone who wouldn't judge me or try and fix me. Or, even worse, say something like "Oh I don't think so, you're quite a simple soul really", or "I feel just like you" (even if that latter is true).
So that begs the question why do I feel like I'm complicated?
Well, I could fill a whole newsletter with a list of 'complications' but many revolve around one particular theme, that of seeming contradictions.
You see, in perfect parallel, I can long for the bright lights of the city and at exactly the same time yearn for the crashing waves of Dungeness where I am sat right now, that I get so caught up in the tussle I end up staying put in my office chair, unable to decide what to do, and in the end going nowhere.
I can get so deep into something of importance to me, often tiny things, like researching the complete backstory of a lesser-known nymph in Homer's Odyssey, only to look up from my scribbled notes some hours later to discover there are several missed calls on my phone and I've missed some other more important commitment.
My phone can tell me that I have social media notifications on a post I've just written, lovely comments that are a true dopamine rush, but do I dare read those messages? Oftentimes, no, they stay unread and unacknowledged for days. My inner critic tells me that must mean I'm just lazy and rude.
Or, one last exhibit, I could be given 12 weeks to deliver something and spend 11 of those both with no motivation to start and a constant nagging sense of guilt that I haven't, finally to be met with blind panic at the eleventh hour, only then to fire up the cognitive engines and deliver some of my best work. I can tell you, I used to drive my line managers crazy.
But the downward spiral of shame around all this has been deeply destabilising and at times extremely distressing.
Rilke said
"I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie."
And I don't want to be a lie.
So it is that for the past couple of years, I have been working on an assumption known to only a small handful of people. You see in supporting my son through his neurodiverse diagnoses, dots started to connect for me too. Answers to questions that I had carried for nearly forty years, and which came more clearly into focus through burnout, failure, and different rounds of therapeutic processes, suddenly started to emerge.
And I know, there will be eyes a-rolling, and the engines on band waggons a-firing, but when the most guttural of gut feelings meets hours of reading, trying new things, and years of therapeutic untangling, the realisation becomes impossible to ignore. And more than that, claiming that part of me, the part that was too complicated, becomes a major step in a healing process. A major step in becoming a whole human being.
So saying the words aloud, albeit with some trepidation, turns the conversation you don't want to have, into the conversation that you absolutely have to have.
So my daily working assumption is that I am neurodiverse. That my brain is wired differently. It is self-diagnosed admittedly, but when the inner work meets the outer lived experience, supported by professionals who know their thing, suddenly everything starts to make sense.
Following Rilke's lead, you could say this month's Fenland Musings is a personal one, it's complicated, but less complicated than before.
Tony Hoagland said:
I thought some wrongness in my self had made me that alone1.
And as I have said in past months I have at times felt so alone, I wonder if all do from time to time.
But I am slowly feeling less folded, less alone, more truthful, more whole and every day little bit more healed.
Whether it's neurodiversity, academic failure, marital breakdown, burnout, seeing up close the painfully damaging effects of excessive alcohol consumption, or figuring out how the heck to be a good father (and you will have your own list I am sure) having a group, or a place, or a simple listening ear to speak your truth to and unfold, feels so very precious.
I am always here to offer you a simple listening ear. Sometimes that's all I have ever needed.
And truly, thank you for being here for me too. I say it most if not every month. I love this space to explore the wild waves of this world, which I'm trying my best to navigate, in what feels like a tiny boat but with an oar crafted from the dark forest's poetic, mythic, and confessional lumber!
Onward blessings merry folks and here's the full Rilke poem to see us out and a few questions I’m reflecting on.
What is not yet ready to unfold?
Who can we entrust our folds to?
How might we support the world in its unfolding story?
Do places have folds too?
“I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough to make every moment holy. I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough just to lie before you like a thing, shrewd and secretive. I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will, as it goes toward action; and in those quiet, sometimes hardly moving times, when something is coming near, I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone. I want to be a mirror for your whole body, and I never want to be blind, or to be too old to hold up your heavy and swaying picture. I want to unfold. I don’t want to stay folded anywhere, because where I am folded, there I am a lie. and I want my grasp of things to be true before you. I want to describe myself like a painting that I looked at closely for a long time, like a saying that I finally understood, like the pitcher I use every day, like the face of my mother, like a ship that carried me through the wildest storm of all.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
1. Spirit Work - “Black Water Brings Me Back Home”
I talk a lot about ‘Soul Work’, and boy have I needed to do a fair bit of that in recent years, but ‘Spirit Work’ has a completely different quality; more “out there” than “in here”, “up there” rather than “down here”.
Noticing the difference between the two has been one of my biggest learnings in recent years, and as alluded to above, my spirit has become depleted. It’s one reason why I’m writing this newsletter from Dungeness Beach, a kind of spiritual rejuvenation.
So this weekend my lovely wife strongly encouraged me to, I suppose, “go against myself” as John O’Donohue would have said, and I am heading to see one of my favourite bands, the aforementioned Darlingside at the Cambridge Folk Festival. Just thought of it has lifted my spirit - and directionally that feels good.
2. Self Care - Brianna Wiest
I came across Brianna Wiest’s words printed on the wall of a well-being store in Broadstairs. I loved them so much and I managed to track them down in this article.
“True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.”
3. Reading - Devotions, Mary Oliver
Along with David Whyte’s Riverflow, this was the first book of poems I ever bought and I am digging back into its pages, overflowing with such wisdom from Mary’s (often coastal) wanderings.
Three Things To Remember As long as you're dancing, you can break the rules. Sometimes breaking the rules is just extending the rules. Sometimes there are no rules.
[The Mythology of Dance will return next month with Part 4!]
4. Devotion to Place - Visiting Dungeness - ‘the place I grew up’
This newsletter was partly inspired by Dungeness, in Kent, a place that has truly unfolded and has held me over the entire arc of my life so far.
What places inspire you?
Where is the most unfolded, beautifully creased place you know?
1. Courage and Companionship: Spiritual Nourishment for Men
Wednesday 4 September - Wednesday 25 September
So far there are two! men signed up for this - will you join us in September or help spread the word? Booking link here.
2. Men, Myth & Meaning - A Gathering For Men, November 8th - 10th, Suffolk, UK.
Our group is forming and you’d be warmly welcome. Please get in touch if you would like to join this Circle of Trust retreat in November, and if finances are a hurdle, please let us know, we’d rather you were there than not.
3. Attending to True Self in Turbulent Times. November 15th - 17th, Amerdown, Somerset, UK.
This retreat is slowly filling up. 9 places left :)
All the details are HERE.
Grow Your Courage
If you would like to book a chat with me, you can use the link below, I would love to hear from you!
Fenland Musings will always be free to read, but if my writing efforts have helped or touched you in some way, please consider taking out a paid subscription - even a month or two would make a huge difference to me. And I appreciate we live in tough times, so your support is deeply appreciated!
Tony Hoagland, Bible Study, Bloodaxe Books
Wow. So many thoughts and feelings arise from this rich and vulnerable piece, Will. Thank you.
Firstly, I spent the first half of listening to you speak thinking, "oh! I never realised Will was autistic and/or ADHD!" And then you finally talked about your neurodivergence. It's a wild and wonderful thing, and I wish you all the best in your continued unfolding and unmasking. I see you and I hear you, Will, and it is always a privilege to do so.
Secondly, it reminded me of my 14 year old teaching me recently that if you could (theoretically) fold a piece of paper 42 times, it would reach to the moon - that's 238,000 miles! In turn, that caused me to muse on how very tightly folded many folk are, and how that is praised in a society that lauds reaching for the stars but which is not at all connected to the very earth we dwell on. No wonder loneliness abounds!
Thirdly, I love the notion of unfolding, and each time I encounter it in the poets or storytellers something within me resounds with the beautiful truth of it. I wonder whether there is any limit to our potential unfolding, or whether we can endlessly continue to become more real, more ourselves, more connected. Perhaps, like Brigid's cloak, we can magically unfold to cover great swathes of land, and all that lives on it...
I could go on. Thanks again for this wonderfully evocative offering.
A beautiful unfolding! It’s a Soul Journey. To write about it is a sacred experience. We only go through it. If it wasn’t complicated it would be too easy! Bless you. Keep writing. We need you! Vulnerability is a super power. Us men are definitely slow to get there from the heart. Thank you. 🙏❤️