Matt Birkhold
A few months into the pandemic, I was doing something around the house and a voice inside me said, “call Ahmad.” “I’ll do it later,” I replied. Ahmad died a few days later and I have regretted not listening to that voice ever since. Recently, I was eating a slice of pizza at about 9:00 on a Friday night, around the corner from my friend Samir’s house. A voice said, “Hit Samir up.” Samir has two young children and everything about conventional logic urged me to wait until the next day. I violated conventional logic, texted Samir that he just crossed my mind. He replied immediately. “Ask him if wants to sit on the stoop,” that voice said. I asked and he did. We had a conversation about death that we both needed but didn’t know we did.
A clear pattern exists in my life. When I listen to that voice, good things happen for me and others. When I don’t, I have regrets. Because of this pattern, I refer to that voice as inner-wisdom. It has a wisdom I don’t understand and probably can’t. It represents a logic that I don’t understand but can clearly trust. It has never urged me to try to control a situation. It always urges me to love. It’s useful to others and leads to fulfillment.
Despite this wisdom, I don’t always listen to it, and connecting to it requires practice. I know I’m not alone. Lots of people I know have a similar struggle. Why don’t we follow it more often and with less effort? When I locate myself in history and systems, the reason why this struggle exists becomes clear.
Without access to money, it’s reasonable to fear that I might starve or go without housing. My fear is reasonable because I live under a system that doesn’t value life. It values some lives more than others, but it doesn’t value anyone or anything’s life very much. It if did, climate change would have been arrested decades ago.
Under these conditions—life under the system of patriarchal racial capitalism (PRC), it’s only natural to focus much of our energy on satisfying our material needs, even if it means neglecting—or altogether ignoring—our non-material needs. This emphasis on our material needs can help us survive, but it doesn’t do anything to help us thrive. My inner-wisdom leads me to thrive and it’s really hard to listen to when I’m solely focused on my material needs or if I’m scared.
By locating ourselves in PRC we can see that our inner-wisdom offers a logic that is different from the logic of prioritizing material needs. Our inner-wisdom represents a logic that we can trust and follow, that can lead to thriving. Following it can be scary but I don’t know anyone who has committed to following it and not been able to meet their material needs.
I want to see people thrive and if I imagine organizations, communities, and relationships guided by the logic of our inner-wisdom, I see thriving organizations, communities, and relationships. I imagine these are spaces where how people feel is as important as what they do and I imagine that the people in them feel fulfilled. Organizations, communities, and relationships guided by our inner-wisdom meet our material needs but do so in a way that values the interdependent nature of life because our inner-wisdom is naturally considerate. These communities, organizations, and relationships are sustainable and transform us like good relationships do.
The logic of PRC has provided us with airplanes, the internet, and even ice cream. It has produced some pretty amazing stuff. Alongside this stuff, it has led to us neglect our mental, spiritual, and physical health, as well as the health of nature. Its logic has created communities and organizations where individual advancement matters more than collective well-being.
Thankfully, we don’t have to follow its logic. Instead, by connecting to, trusting, and following our inner-wisdom, we can create the kinds of communities, organizations, and relationships that support us to thrive as well as survive. As these experiments grow, I imagine the logic of our inner-wisdom can become conventional logic and can replace the logic and economy of PRC. When the logic of our inner-wisdom becomes more conventional and requires less practice to access, it will be easier to equally emphasize our material and non-material needs. By connecting to and trusting our inner-wisdom, we can facilitate the paradigm shift we need to exist differently.
