Always Becoming

One of the most exciting aspects of living in New York City is that I suddenly find myself in proximity with many movers and shakers of the world. Granted, most of these celebrities are way beyond my sphere of influence (though in some circles several of my professors are celebrities), and I so rarely leave the bubble of Teachers College that I have yet to have a celebrity sighting like some of my friends have had, but I had the chance to meet with a mover and shaker who I’ve been admiring for the (short) time that I’ve been exposed to her and her work. I wrote about how this meeting came about in my last post.

This mover and shaker is a journalist who writes about Indian experiences in the US. She does so in deeply reflective ways that unpack the layers of Indian experiences and reveal a strong intuitive theoretical understanding that our program takes an entire semester to cultivate in us doctoral students.

All of this meant that I was bursting to talk to her about a whole host of things: her own experiences, the pieces of hers that I had read, Indian ways of being, writing. The conversation jumped right past the usual realms of small talk to the thought provoking and so I wanted to use it as a springboard for some new thoughts that I have been beginning to explore.

Perhaps because of the anticipation and admiration, I unconsciously felt the need to perform (a need that has frequently been felt and been discussed among members of my cohort as well). While this performance may sound bad in a society where authenticity is prized above all else, I see performance as just a part of the process of finding ourselves. After all, one of the students in a class I am a Course Assistant for wisely said that we figure out our sense of style by first imitating many others before melding them into something unique to ourselves. Performance in conversations similarly allows us to try on and adapt new ways of thinking.

With that being said, I have realized that with this post and this previous post, I have been learning by imitating. I am taking ideas that others are have thrown out there and been combining them with/into my own thoughts. Forming new thoughts and ideas is messy and so my apologies for the randomness of this post.

The conversation was especially refreshing because it gave a different take on many of the perspectives that we have been talking about in so many of my courses. There were, of course, the conversations about how race and cultural identities play out in the various stories that she has and plans on telling (not to mention in our own lives, though I have thankfully been spared some of the experiences she shared with me).

Rather than focusing on tensions caused by race and differing cultural identities, however, we focused on the need for compassion and understanding to see the people around us as whole people and the need for us as professionals to refrain from judging their potentials.

Interestingly, we just read an article this week written by Srikala Naraian, a professor here at Teachers College that has helped me connect these ideas with another theory that has been resonating with me: Becoming.

Becoming is not something new. In fact, it is something very, very old, coming from Buddhist thought, where it is known as aniccha. Aniccha is the idea of transience. Things are always moving and never quite complete. Because of this, everything has an air of uncertainty because it could change in a moment.

It is because we as people are always becoming that we cannot judge a person based on what we see in that particularly instant. Instead, we can look at them for where they are going and where they can go. Within our conversation, the journalist and I talked about how this impacted our respective lines of work, with journalists needing to remember the people they interviewed were complex and multifaceted and teachers needing to remember to base their students on their potential rather than their current achievement.

My mother has been reminding me about aniccha for years now but somehow the spiritual nature of it limited how I saw it applying to my life. I used to it guide my personal life (relationships, hardships, emotions). It has given me a healthier way of looking at difficulties that arise and (sometimes) helps me realize that even the positive moments are temporary. But becoming has made me see how aniccha extends to my professional life as well. 

For one, I am coming to realize that the feeling of finally knowing what I am doing will never come because what I am supposed to do will always change. Take nap time, for example. Nap time at the preschool was, until recently, stressful for me becasue it requires making a squirmy three year old do something that he or she may not immediately want to do. There was one day last semester when one preschooler would not fall asleep, no matter how much I tried. The other teacher, however, let me work with her instead of stepping in and with a little bit of patting the preschooler on her back, and some cajoling her to please, please rest her body, she fell asleep. I felt I had conquered a mountain. I knew the strategy to make this girl fall asleep. Two weeks later, that same little girl told me she didn't want me next to her and has repeated this to me pretty much every time since.

So the message I've learned is that nap time changes every day. Some days I don't have to do much before the preschoolers fall asleep. Other days it takes a full hour of rubbing backs, patting heads and reminding them its time to rest for all of them to finally drift off. The bottom line is that I will never "master" nap time. It will change every day according to the moods of the preschoolers. Being a doctoral student and a scholar is the same.

The full extent to which becoming extends to my professional decisions and ways of thinking are still nascent thoughts in my head but I have learned there is a whole set of theories that centers around similarly abstract concepts. For now, I am content to perform and imitate so that I may become.