Happiness for revolutionaries

Aran Jones Author, SaySomethingIn

‘May you live in interesting times’ – apparently, it’s not a Chinese proverb at all, but it still feels like a particularly relevant curse for the 2020s. And for Wales, these are unquestionably interesting times.

Opinion polls are telling us that in a year’s time we’re going to see Labour replaced as the dominant party in Welsh politics for the first time in over 100 years – but it’s far from clear what we’ll get instead.

If you care about change – whether you’re for it or against it – interesting times offer a curious combination of hope and fear. Whatever you’d like to see happen, it might be coming just within reach – and whatever you dread most might be about to fall on you like an axe.

As the stakes rise, so does the pressure.

I’ve watched so many politically active people burn out over the years, and I know this next year is going to be particularly stressful – for many people I disagree with, for many people I care about, and for some people I care about and disagree with.

Effortless action

Which leaves me wanting to talk about the Daoist principle of ‘wuwei’ – it translates literally (I’m told) as ‘not doing’, which doesn’t sound like particularly good advice for activists. You’ll often see it translated, though, as ‘effortless action’, which I think is a very important and useful idea.

The key component which turns action into effortless action is the subtle skill of being detached from the outcomes of your actions. I know, that doesn’t sound like the clearest possible set of instructions; so I’ll do my best to break it down a little further.

The first step has become increasingly familiar to the West as part of the process of mindfulness (but it’s central to all meditative approaches) – notice your thoughts.

If you spend time noticing your thoughts – not getting caught up in them, not getting carried away by them, but just noticing them – you will eventually start to notice gaps between your thoughts. If you overthink as much as I used to, this might take a long time and seem impossible until it actually happens – but if you have the determination to keep noticing your thoughts, it will eventually happen.

Then you keep noticing your thoughts, and you also notice the gaps between them – and gradually, the gaps will become longer, and your thoughts will become less interruptive – like the snow in a snowglobe gradually settling after you finish shaking it.

This is not an easy skill to develop – but it is an extraordinarily powerful one.

As you spend more time noticing the gaps between thoughts, it will become increasingly obvious to you that you are not your thoughts. When you’re not experiencing thoughts, you’re not being troubled by the past or worrying about the future. You’re just here, in the present, with a clear mind.

Spend enough time in the absence of thoughts, and you will realise that it is an inherently happy state of being (unless something painful is happening to you right now, like a cat biting you, which just happened to me as I was writing this). As you become more confident in your ability to let go of thought whenever you want to (like anything else, it gets better with practice) the happiness can even turn into joy.

This state of mind, the clarity of freedom from thoughts, is where wuwei not only becomes possible, it becomes inevitable.

Cymuned

Being free from thought doesn’t take away your understanding of how the world works. You can pour a glass of water or prepare a meal, skilfully, being present in the moment, without thoughts arising.

And if you’re familiar with the work that you need to do to help build a better world – whether that’s knocking on doors, writing or posting leaflets, organising local groups, helping develop policy ideas – you can do that as skilfully as ever (or perhaps more skilfully!) without thoughts arising.

But when you stay present in the moment while taking action – wuwei – here’s what doesn’t happen.

You don’t get caught up in anger at the opinions of people you disagree with.

You don’t lose time worrying about what will happen if an election result is different to what you’re hoping for.

You don’t become exhausted by thinking about all the things that are wrong with the world.

If you’re tired, it’s because your body needs sleep, not because you have driven yourself to distraction. And if your mind is peaceful, you will get more sleep, and you’ll have more energy to keep doing the next useful thing.

That’s wu-wei.

You do the next useful thing.

And you keep on doing the next useful thing.

You have more energy, because you’re spending less time being distracted and upset, and you’re sleeping better, so you can keep on doing the next useful thing for longer.

Which makes whatever changes you’re working for more likely to happen.

Of course, if you’ve read this far, I do hope that you and I agree about what those changes need to be! In particular, I hope you don’t think that it would benefit Wales in any way to funnel money into the hungry pockets of Nigel Farage’s private company. If you do, then please ignore everything you’ve just read – get as upset and angry and exhausted as possible, so that you don’t have any energy left for any practical effort.

If you broadly agree, though, that human beings do better when we help each other, rather than when we scapegoat each other, then do please take a little time to breathe, to let your thoughts subside, and to foster the happiness and the energy to keep doing the next useful thing.

For your own sake, and for everyone else’s sake as well.

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