My Word This Year - Acceptance

One of my friends lives in Hawaii. She and I have had long email conversations about life and things spirituality over the past couple of years - we both had this sense that she was to help me in some ways and she has. I think I still need to step back and think about how she has helped, but suffice it to say that she has. (My friend doesn't know I'm writing this - I write it knowing that maybe I shouldn't but hoping that she understands how I am processing what has transpired between us.)

When I saw her in February in Hawaii, she told me that her word for the year was the Hawaiian word (I think) for "move", which was a way to encourage her to become more active. She asked me what my word for the year and I wasn't sure at first and then I said, "maybe acceptance". Her reply if memory serves was, "be careful what you choose because some words are more work than others".

I haven't really thought much about it in recent months, but tonight, as I was sleepless in bed, it came to me again. I really do think "acceptance" is my word for the year. It has to do with accepting people as they are. It has to do with accepting my health situation. It has to do, to some extent, with me giving up this tight control I like to have over parts of my life.

I grew up poor at times - sometimes we lived in subsidized housing and on food stamps - and my parents were alcoholics. (The alcoholism wasn't bad and the drinking didn't happen often - maybe once or twice a month. But it was there.) I was the oldest girl and ended up being the babysitter of the younger ones as I grew up. And, while I knew I wanted a child, I also knew I didn't want to be a stay-at-home mom. I came to realize I had already done my stint supervising little kids. So, Eddie went to day care and I was at work. I did feel some subtle societal pressure that I was making the wrong choice. But over the last few years, I've made peace with my choices - and now some of those choices mean not going to an evening lecture or committing to any late afternoon meetings, because those times are for me and Eddie. Work just isn't that important for me to return to in the evening most of the time. Home is just as important.

To get back to my point about giving up this tight control is this: I grew up poor. I didn't want to stay that way. And, I developed a strategy whereby I kept tight control over things so that I could get to a point where I wasn't poor anymore. My intelligence has opened up opportunities for me to get away and I am fortunate for that.

I am an anthropologist, which means that I like to learn why people do things the way they do. Then when I learn it, then I can do those things as well. I am an anthropologist because I want to fit in to whatever new situation I find myself. Growing up, I didn't feel like I fit in at all and I always attributed it to being poor and/or too smart. Anthropology, though, gives one certain tools of observation - I observe the way people behave toward each other - all the time, I never turn it off - and then bring those behaviors into my own life.

I wanted to escape a poor lifestyle. So, I "studied up" - how do middle class people live? My education has allowed me access to middle class America and so I got some ideas of how middle class people existed. For a long time, that meant exerting a certain level of control over my image - how do I look to others? What can I change about my house or my clothes or my mannerisms so that I can blend in? How can I surround myself with people who are middle class? I tried to control the people around me so that they also "looked" middle class. I wanted them to behave in certain ways and would get frustrated when they didn't. I didn't want to be around people who didn't live like this because it brought me back to being the poor girl.

But after several years of trying to blend in and not really being happy, I came to realize that while my socioeconomic status says "middle class", in my heart, I am still more blue collar than anything. For example, a lot of my work colleagues grew up in solidly middle class homes. I'd go to social events with them and they'd enjoy talking about politics or NPR or whatever. BORING! I just wasn't interested. (I hate to watch the news, for instance.) Instead, I say, "give me a beer and let's go play softball!"

I also don't like wearing makeup, I hate high heels. I don't particularly like wearing dresses. I will wear simple skirts in the summer time with sandals. It' getting to the point where my work or lecture clothes are a nice pair of jeans, a nice shirt, with a jacket. I don't color my hair. I am not fashionable. But all of those things are trappings that go with an image of middle class. Our society is all about image, it seems, and I don't really want to play that game.

But I digress.

Over the past few years, my therapist and my acupuncturist have both helped me to become more comfortable with who I am as a person. For so long, I felt like I was on the outside of a house in our society, looking in to the promise of middle class America. But I was always always on the outside - I never fit in. It took just one phrase from my acupuncturist to change all that: "That used to be your story. It doesn't have to be your story anymore."

Wow. All of a sudden, I was the person in the house. Just like that. I realized that I, in fact, did fit in. I had tenure. I had family. I have many many friends and colleagues. I am in touch with people all the time from all walks of life - from my colleagues to my ball-playing buddies. People had already accepted me and I didn't realize until that moment that I already had what I wanted - to be accepted and to fit in.

In sessions with my therapist, I also came to realize that while I was accepted, I also occupy what anthropologists call this "liminal" space - a place that is "betwixt and between". It refers to rites of passage as discussed by Van Gannep. Van Gannep wrote about the structure of rites of passage - that all cultures and all peoples celebrate the passage of life from one stage to the other. These celebrations or rites all have a certain structure: the person (or persons) who is changing their status (say from childhood to adult), separate from the others in their society (think kids in the gym in high school graduation) because they are undergoing the rite. Then the rite or ritual happens - this is the liminal or "betwixt and between" stage. This is when the person is neither their original status or the one they are moving into. Then the person or persons enter the reincorporation stage, where they are presented to their group at their new status. (Other rites include marriage, baptism, military boot camp, etc.)

Anyway, as I said, I occupy this "liminal" space. I am betwixt and between. I have a middle class occupation (a professor), but I don't really socialize with colleagues outside of work because I don't necessarily like what they like to do. I'd rather go play volleyball or softball with my friends and drink a beer. I am also a King Islander who grew up in Oregon. I act more white than I do King Islander. I have learned to act more King Islander over the years, after much patient help from cousins and other relatives in Alaska. But again, it's a situation where I am "betwixt and between" because I don't ever quite fit in with my King Island relatives. I have, however, been accepted by them and for that I am grateful. I don't quite fit in with my colleagues. I don't quite fit in with my ball-playing friends because of my occupation and some of the issues I support. I don't live and breathe my job (I see colleagues who work like 60-70 hours a week. That's crazy.). I think once I realized my "between-ness" between this group and that group, I learned to accept myself and others around me more. My life has become an eclectic kind of blend of dipping into middle class and out again, of being a King Islander for awhile and then an Oregonian.

The point is that my "liminalness" (if there is such a word) has given me a certain degree of fluidity and flexibility in how I live my life. I kinda like that.

But to get back to "acceptance". As I said in my last post, my family moved in with me. When I wrote the first draft of my dissertation in 1997-98, I lived with my folks again for the first time in like 15 years. It was kinda hard. I had been angry with them for a long time for being poor and alcoholic and I didn't spend much time with them. I came to accept them, to some extent, at that time. But since they moved in, there's been another adjustment period and , as with all close living situations, we get irritable and frustrated with each other.

My dad just had open heart surgery in February. During her recovery at home, she said that one thing she learned was more patience and appreciation for family. But at the time of the surgery, my parents had been driving me nuts. I needed time away from them so the day dad had surgery, I went to Vegas to see my friend for two days. I don't even really feel guilty - my sister and brothers took care of mom and were involved with all the medical personnel. Dad was barely aware I was away.

But now I am home recovering from surgery and in just over 24 hours will be in surgery again. Even in these close quarters at home, with my folks taking care of and being with them all the time, I rarely find myself irritated. We are getting along quite well surprisingly.

Somehow or other, since the April 1 surgery, I have learned to be even more accepting and more patient. I think it has to do with understanding that they are just doing the best they can as I am. I think they recognize that too.

It reminds me of what my friend Phil told me a few months ago, after we returned from Hawaii. In difficult situations, it's best to learn how to navigate in terms of "spirit", not ego. (Phil had me read excerpts from a book called "This Thing Called You" and while I cannot, in any way shape or form, adequately paraphrase what Ernest Homes said, what I took away (or created in my mind to help me visualize what he said) from the reading is this: we are each threads in this tapestry of life. If I start tugging on my thread too hard, I mess up the design - the flow gets obstructed. When I tug on my thread, my ego is involved. I need to not tug that thread because then I start tugging other peoples' threads and messing up the whole design.

I think I'm learning to remove my ego from the situation - that is, that part of my ego that wanted control so I could fit in. And once I do that, things just flow easier. I don't feel like I'm butting my head up against a wall or trying to control what the people around me do. Things are much more peaceful inside me and around me.

That is acceptance, too. Like the serenity prayer - to accept the things I cannot change. So, I think "acceptance" is my word for the year. Okay. Finally sleepy again. I'm going to try to get back to sleep 'cuz it's 3am and the deep thoughts are no longer so deep! HA!

Yes, Renee, anthropology can be useful!

Renee is my new friend and colleague in Hawaii and I'm teasing her here because she was giving me a bad time about being an anthropologist when we first met. Anthropology does have a bad reputation in Native American circles . . . but it doesn't mean it has to stay that way if Native peoples use an anthropological perspective to their own advantage, which is the subject of this post: what an anthropological perspective can bring to a problem or issue that is new or unique.

Okay, so I'm gonna toot my own horn here, which is somewhat uncomfortable for me, but because I do think it's important, I'm going to tell everyone about part of my meeting at NSF.

This year, I served on the "AC/GPA" for NSF. (There are lots of acronyms at NSF and in Polar research generally.) The "AC/GPA" stands for the "Advisory Committee for the Government Performance Results Act" and our purpose is to assess NSF's performance to make sure that the investment that the U.S. makes in NSF is bearing fruit. I have to say that I read 60 highlights of NSF-funded research this year - and each of my colleague read about the same number. From my perspective reading these highlights, I was very impressed at the good things that are happening, many of which may have a long-term benefit to society. Of course, we are reading the "best of the best" but since most NSF-funded research is peer-reviewed, it is the "best" that gets funded to begin with.

Anyway, that was only part of what we did there at the committee; our chair also asked us for our collective opinions on what NSF can do to either make their processes better or to figure out better ways to fund cutting-edge, high-risk research, or how funding can be directed to make America #1 again in terms of how we educate our society in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) disciplines.

One gentleman, who was from the private sector, said several times (and I'm paraphrasing here to make a point) that NSF needed to direct funds toward projects that would make the U.S. more competitive in the global marketplace and then mentioned how other countries have learned to be more competitive and are progressing faster than the U.S. is.

Now, I have to say that I am anti-big business. I'm a tree hugger (and as someone with metastatic cancer, it pisses me off just what big companies can get away with in terms of environmental pollutants) at heart. I just wanted you to know my bias. I see big companies as greedy and only concerned about money, not necessarily people or the environment.

So, my first reaction to this gentleman's comment was, "sheesh, it's too bad that other countries are following our lead in terms of competition and technological progress, that they have learned our (American) game so well". I reacted this way because I have seen what's happened to indigenous peoples all over the world when confronted with the western/American mentality of competition, the bottom line, money, profits, etc. In general, the western economic model has not been too kind to indigenous peoples. For instance, there has been some research in the north that when indigenous/First Nations people engage in a wage economy, then they tend to keep those funds for themselves; however, when they have subsistence resources (food, generally), those resources are still shared with those that cannot get them. In other words, when it comes to western model, they've adopted a western mindset that that money is for individual, not community, use, which has negative effects on the community as a whole.

A couple of other individuals mentioned projects or ideas that they've been involved with in which collaboration with other people have lead to exciting innovations and another who mentioned that NSF should conduct the "science of NSF" as part of NSF's program SciSIP "the science of science and innovation policy".

After hearing these different opinions, when it was my turn to give advice, I related my reaction to the private industry representative who said several times that we needed to increase our competitiveness in the global marketplace. I said, "I think it's too bad because there is a lot of research in indigenous circles that shows that these ideas of competition and profit-making have had negative effects on those cultures". (Something like that - I'm still paraphrasing here.) I continued, "Competition does have positive effects; being competitive has certainly lead to some great innovations. But rarely in American society do we talk about the negatives of competition. Competition (and hence peer-review) are not the end-all and be-all of science. Making profits is not the end-all and be-all of life." (Another member caught my eye and gave me a silent clap of approval.) I then took several minutes and mentioned that while I am trained as a western scientist and see the world through a scientist's eyes, I also know that there are other ways of knowing how the world works, that there are indigenous peoples all over the world who are scientists in their own right, not necessarily following western science's method of systematic research and western science's preference for replicable results, but who can survive in the Arctic much better than I can. There is value in these other ways of knowing about the world. There is value in operating in a world where community is valued over the individual.

I then mentioned that I met a Hawaiian geographer (Renee, in the title of this blog entry) who gave me a chapter of her dissertation on Hawaiian epistemology and that I know that Maori scholars have been writing about their epistemology and said that these other ways of knowing have value, too.

I suggested, then, that perhaps as the lead scientific agency for the U.S., perhaps NSF should invest more effort in exploring the "science of indigenous/non-traditional sciences", that NSF should explore the ways that other cultures study and understand their worlds, that, in true western scientific fashion, that it seeks to understand, in a systematic way, how other people learn and know about their world. Later, on my way home or yesterday or something, I thought that, much like the NIH (National Institutes of Health) has a branch of alternative and complementary medicine, maybe NSF can develop a branch on "alternative sciences". And, I echoed another gentleman from industry that maybe NSF could develop a fund for collaboration, in which the individuals who get the money not necessarily outline at the beginning what they are going to do, but just get seed money to put their heads together and see what they come up with.

Afterwards, several people told me how much they appreciated what I had to say. And, then, the chair of our committee told me, "Wow, you gave me so much to think about. I don't know very much about anthropology, but I certainly learned something today." I told Scott on my way home that I think I surprised this man - that this man who has had so much experience in industry and at NSF was surprised to actually learn something new and learned a new way of looking at the world and attacking problems from another direction. I think I just converted this man to learning more about what anthropology can offer the world. Yay!

So, I've continued thinking about this issue since my return home. A couple of weeks ago, a couple who were VISTA volunteers in Nome and who worked with the King Islanders from 1969-70 gave me a DVD showing these competitive games that the King Islanders engaged in for their Christmas festivities. My dissertation was on the "Wolf Dance", which was actually a three-day celebration, which included competitive games. These competitions, from an outside perspective, were an opportunity to hone their skills, skills that they needed to survive in the Arctic, while subsisting off the land in the middle of a cold winter. I relate this to say that competition isn't necessarily bad and in fact, forms of competition can be found in any culture and are valuable. The difference is that in our western society, we tend to only acknowledge and reward those who win the competitions, especially in the marketplace and in the economy. Our society also tends to denigrate those who lose, by saying, "well you didn't try hard enough" and "if that person can do it, so can you". There is a strong preference for the individual and if the individual can't make it, then it's that individual's own fault. This then leads to a feeling of despair in that individual because they begin to view themselves as failures. And, if they failed once then they begin thinking that perhaps they will fail all the time and why should they even try. In King Island community, while there is certainly competition and politics, at the end of the day, those who have access to a lot of resources, or who have the skills to gain those resources, must share the results of their hard work with those who do not have the skills or resources. The only way they can continue to be in power is if they are generous and share what they have with those who do not? (Imagine what a better economic position we would be in if the CEO's that got so much money and golden parachutes had shared what they have with those who don't. Well, if you didn't know it before, you know by now that I'm a liberal!)

I know there's a lot of research out there about the welfare system and that there have been efforts to empower those individuals so they don't feel like failures, so that they can get off of welfare.

I have also been introduced more to the problem of substance abuse in this country, because several friends have kids or family members who struggle with the disease of addiction. I have learned a lot about different programs that are out there for these individuals - and realized just how many of them there are out there. In Native America, when discussing the high rate of alcohol abuse, they often say that it's because there's such a high level of poverty, of hopelessness because they have not been given the tools to succeed in our society. Then, if there are so many programs out there for substance abuse, then what does that say about our society? What is it about our society that contributes to the rate of substance abuse in this country? Is there a connection to the valuing of the individual ("pull yourself up by your own bootstrap") and their achievements and the denigration of people who can't win that then leads to the vicious cycle of substance abuse?

Well, these are just thoughts that I've been having over the past few weeks and this meeting at NSF caused them to coalesce in some ideas that I have. I'm under no illusion that this will make things better in our society. But if, just if, NSF decides to create a "science of indigenous sciences and epistemologies" branch, I would love to be part of that effort. I'd be really excited to see what would come of it. What would happen if instead of valuing an individual contribution, we could value a group's or a community's contribution? What if we did something where we didn't compete but collaborated more? What if? : )

Okay, enough philosophizing this morning. It is a summer morning after all. It's cloudy and cool out at present, but it's still summer and time to get out of my brain and engage with the world at large. Right? LOL