Stepping into A Thousand (Per)Missions
Explorations of the self and how we relate to ourselves and our history
Here is a truthful truth. When you finally find your voice and get comfortable listening to it, you can never go back to the silence that held you captive. Thoughts and ideas will flow freely. Out of you. In their rawness. With unrefined glory. Thankful to be out in the world. Touching whatever lends itself to change.
I didn’t know that one week, five days, can change one so drastically. I could not notice it either. Until I met myself on the other side. The fatigue that had engulfed me at the end of each day left just enough energy to shower, occasionally eat and collapse into bed. So I could not notice the shift. Maybe I didn’t need to.
The curatorial workshop with celebrated curator from South Africa, Gabi Ngcobo, at Goethe institute in Nairobi run for five days. I had the pleasure of meeting and communing with some of Nairobi’s finest artists and curators. It’s an entirely different experience when you mingle with famous people while in blissful ignorance of their social or career standing. I choose to call it bliss because prior knowledge lends itself to filters. Filters that blur how you experience the present. Filters that diminish what could have been for what you wish it to become. So for once, I am thankful for ignorance. It kept me open to possibilities. To learning from anyone and everyone. And learn I did.
We had the privilege of shadowing a master for week. In real sense, she shadowed us. Hoovering, sharing and prodding. Giving us texts and clues to challenge us. To awaken us. To set free that which we sometimes were unaware of its’ captivity.
At the conclusion of the workshop, Gabi assigned us a task to create an “event/experience” that will showcase the explorations we unearthed during the workshop. It was my first experience of working with the unknown. My first conscious experience at least. Of deliberately trusting the process. With protests and complaints. But trusting all the same.
I asked Gabi if she was happy with how the event turned out. If she got what she expected.
“What type of question is that?” She said. “You know the answer, You were here the whole week. The correct question is, Is it working?”
“For who? Us or You?”
“Both, Either…”
“So is it? Is it working for you?”
“Yes! I love it.”
I struggle with uncertainty. It’s not a unique affliction. We like predicable and reliable events. The ability to control through forecasting or pulling strings. The week was an exercise in letting go. Letting go of association, assumptions, presumptions and methods. The embracing of the unknown. Being comfortable with only questions. With the now. This moment, right now, is the only moment we are certain about. We are in it now. Feeling the miracle of existing and taking up space. But often we get distracted.
We are governed by the movements of two inanimate sticks hoovering above a finite surface. Moving in an infinite loop called time. A construct that rewards optimization. A system that keeps you in constant need of movement. The tick, tock, tick, tock, that heightens the speed of your heart. Of the lie that we need to keep moving. The inability to pause. A divorce from silence.
The very concept of tomorrow keeps us hostage. An unending preoccupation with the future. Succumbing to the privilege of making decisions that influence the quality of your next moments. Is this all we can choose? Is that all we permit ourselves into living?
Gaining the ability to ravish the unknown is learning how to permit yourself. To permit myself. A thousand permissions to live in the moment. Tossing agendas overboard. Only what IS matters. What could be is wishful thinking. Powerful but wishful. We can create our desires but how do we prevent them from creating us?
The present needs to feel seen to permit you safe passage into tomorrow. To give you the peace and clarity to impact tomorrow. The preamble to satisfaction is setting the table to receive it when it arrives.
What is the best thing? It was that I learnt that only I can permit myself to ask more questions while being comfortable with no answers. I learnt to dream.
I had taken one week leave to attend the workshop. Leaving work to go work the brain. It’s a questionable way of spending your hard earned leave days. But so is vegetating at home with the TV.
A thousand (per)missions. Created and curated by minds full of a thousand and one questions. In the answers we found expression. Sometimes even found rest. And pride. And achievement.
The lack of certainty tried to gnaw at me. Sometimes it won and I would find myself berating my teammates about deadlines. How could I not? It’s in the world which I usually operate. Deadlines are my mainstay and rushing towards them seems to be the rhythm of our work. The mad dash to completion. That’s why we probably go mad. Sooner than later. It is hard to keep your sensibilities when surrounded by chaos. Occupational and often times self inflicted chaos.
To exist in a space does not guarantee ownership. Having lived in a city doesn’t necessarily make you local. You’re are local as you decide to be. When you declare your version of living as being local.
Belonging is a mirage. A shifting goal post we can never reach if we allow others to define it for us. Every tale is different. I belong to the version of the world that I choose to be. We could be right next to each but inhabit vastly different universes.
A thousand (per)missions was about flight. The conscious leap into examining what we regard as true about our locality. The workshop was interactive, immersive, disruptive and unusual. It was only fitting that the concluding event would turn out the same.
The first thing I noticed when the audience walked in was the instinct to pause at the center. Unsure. Looking around for clues. For a map to the beginning. A map to the guide who will explain away the confusion. Followed by the unsure movement towards an installation. The first one that catches your eye. The one that called out your name to rescue you from feeling lost.
In their searching, they eventually found resolution. Sometimes in understanding and other times in shrugging and walking away. Answers wear different cloaks for different folks.
We are rescued by raising questions.
We are rescued by permitting ourselves to love the process. The process of embracing the uncertain. A thousand permissions to live. A thousand permission to breath. A thousand permissions to dream.
