Why Do We Keep Building On Shaky Foundations?
During the 2022-23 school year, I don’t think there has been a single week in which all of my children were in school for the entire week. As of January, and entering the new year, I was so hopeful that my own personal and professional schedule would level out because the holidays were over and there was no more traveling in our plan, but I forgot to factor in the simple fact that I have children and everything is outside of my control.
My 3 kids attend two different schools, my oldest is at a small, independent PreK to 8th grade school, and my twins are at a small preschool center. Those two institutions run on completely different calendars. They both have lengthy fall, winter, spring, and summer breaks, which do not align. Winter and summer, obviously, share some of the same days off, but the start and end times are different. Fall and spring, forget about it. Spring break isn’t even in the same month. And then there are the random days off for family conferences and teacher professional development days…These are also on different days.
So that’s one simple strike against the stability of my schedule, right off the bat. Now factor in the worst “sick season” that I’ve ever encountered (and I’ve worked with children for a good long time now). We’re still managing waves of covid outbreaks, and the flu and RSV came back into our schools and homes with a wild vengeance this fall, not to mention all of the other random viruses. Two of my kids, it turns out, are pretty hardy. Not easily taken out by a virus. But one of them…the one who has already traumatized me with the biggest medical scare of my life, seems to catch everything and then keep it for weeks, with one virus rolling into the next. With school guidelines for attendance being rightfully cautious, there are many days where he just can’t go.
So, we’re left with me routinely adjusting my schedule away from my desired routine in order to care for my children on weekdays. The only plus side to this is that I do not have a full-time job and I am accountable to no one but myself and my family. The downside of that is that I’m working hard to START a business so that I can make money for myself and my family, but it’s real slow going when I’m moving at half the pace I know I could be capable of in other circumstances.
But that brings me to my next point…Why am I so focused on this concept of “in other circumstances?” And, oh! I’m not the only one. Every organization and community that I have ever been part of shares this in common. We are constantly seeking growth, when nothing is stable. The school Family Association needs to increase fundraising opportunities, but we are already begging for parent volunteers for the events on the calendar. Similar story with the synagogue! The non-profit organizations have big dreams and big goals and strategic plans, but policies aren’t functioning well and staff are burning out and funder expectations don’t align with the reality of human ability. Why is this so common? Why do we insist on having a growth-mindset, at the EXPENSE of the players feeling successful in managing the here-and-now?
My son and I watch a lot of nature shows together, and I watch a lot of documentaries about ancient civilizations. And I recently had this realization: we, humans, are biologically driven to build. The reason that blocks are an essential part of children’s play at many ages is probably because we, humans, are animals and our species has been instinctually driven to build shelter for millennia. Birds build nests, beavers build dams, bunnies dig burrows, why not include us? Add to that instinct a developing sense of self-awareness and pursuit of communication and beauty and meaning, and then you’ve got a species that builds for reasons other than shelter. Our history with creation is long and engrained, and we can’t seem to shake the urge to keep building, creating, and growing.
Unfortunately, we’re at a point in society where our instincts seem to be suffocating. The urgency of capitalism, with the need to turn the biggest profit as fast as possible, to prove our value to a machine that seeks only to use our labor, has permeated throughout much of our culture (if not all…), so that everything, even our own personal self-growth, has turned into something that we want to have on a quick timeline with a visible outcome.
There’s the saying “Rome was not built in a day.” Think about that. All of the beautiful architecture that we idolize for its strength and beauty (pyramids, the Acropolis, Machu Picchu), those were built over GENERATIONS. Kings and emperors would commission works that they never saw completed. But I just watched a whole subdivision go up in my neighborhood in a matter of months.
What if we could slow down? And I don’t just mean literally slowing our bodies, but also our inner world and our expectations. What if we could learn to embrace pausing to think and rest and heal and feel before making decisions, tackling new projects, and planning for growth? I’m currently following a slow, meandering, but committed path to reading the book Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey. I eagerly bought it soon after it was released in October (nearly 7 months ago) and I started it right away, still in the bookstore, but, at the author’s request, I’m reading it slowly and I often read it while lying down. Her message, that capitalism and white supremacy are robbing us of our ability to live fully human lives and that we can resist against that by resting, resonates with my entire body and soul. Each time I open it, I end up going back and reading the previous few pages, realizing that I had more to learn than I took in the first time. From following Hersey on social media at, The Nap Ministry, for the past couple of years, I’ve already embraced the importance of rest, but fully embodying the message (living it out in my thoughts and actions) has been harder and taken longer. And that’s OK.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and so, its complete dismantling won’t be done in a day either.
That’s the thing about those kings and emperors. They were building something that they KNEW they wanted to last for centuries. Their legacy of power and domination were of top importance to them, so the length of time that it took to prove their superiority wasn’t a barrier to the mission. The longer it took to build, the bigger and fancier it probably was, therefore more impressive, therefore a stronger message of their total control over their civilization…
And it is THEIR legacy that we’re building our shaky way of life on top of. We, as a society, are still seeking superiority and control (even if it’s not intentional). In valuing rapid growth and visible progress over slow, steady, strengthening growth, we continue this legacy of domination by doubling down on reinforcing the superiority of the ruling class, reenacting the hierarchy of the colonizing kings and emperors within our communities and our governments.
So, it’s going to take more than one person to pull it down, brick by brick, to create a new way for our society. If we want to slow down, have time for rest, build our lives and our communities with great intention and the ability to withstand struggle and increase growth, we first have to deconstruct the existing system that seeks to move fast and feel less.
And we can’t rush the deconstruction either! Even that has to be slow…steady. I’m starting by sitting still. Holding comfort, and discomfort, in turn, without seeking to turn towards or away from it. Easing my way through from one moment to the next. When I go slow, the systems around me have to slow down, the people around me have to slow down.
If you and I both slow down, that’s double the systems that are slowed, double the number of people. What if 100 of us slowed down and allowed growth to happen, step by step, on ever-stronger layers? That slow growth, building based on our ancestral instincts of communal survival, would start to chisel away at the abusive structures and systems beneath us, like plant roots breaking apart the carved stone of ancient palaces.
