We are waves, not mountains. Be a wave.

“It is not the present which influences the future, thou fool, but the future which forms the present. You have it all backward. Since the future is set, an unfolding of events which will assure that future is fixed and inevitable.”

Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

What if our intrigue for the sea is not the water in our mothers’ wombs calling us, but a longing for the waves that we once were? For waves, we were.

We are not computers, machines built under the laws of classical physics, determined, secure. We obey the laws of quantum physics, living beings, uncertain, irreducibles.

Quantum physics: the laws of the very large, the rules of the very small; we are — indeed — built of very small atoms, both waves and particles; endless waves of possibilities collapsing into definite particles when observed. We are waves, until observed.

We live — nevertheless — in the very large. Time and space, two but one. Our future is a series of waves, collapsing into the present moment, frame after frame unravelling our present, eliminating every possibility but the one in which we’re existing. The next second of your life could be anything. This second is just what it is.

The past of our future was waves, its present is now a particle of our present. Particles of dust. Determinate past.

And yet, where does that leave us?

Nothing is solid, permanent, immutable. Every”thing” is really an “event”. Even a stone is a form of river and a mountain is only a slow wave.

Paul Fleischman - The Experience of Impermanence (1991)

Do you exist? Does your self? The answer is not the same.

I asked this to my colleagues last year. I wasn’t able to explain myself, so they didn’t understand. The rock I threw in the lake made small ripples, tepid nods, lost in waves of thoughts that were much larger, started from much further away.

Yet some waves take time to build, they’re not entirely lost. They resonate with other movements, other thoughts, and come back stronger, tunnels you can surf in.

As everything that can be built, compounded, we can also be un-built, uncompounded. We exist, but we are not permanent.

I see that you do not believe me, and you shouldn’t. If the Buddha himself told us not to believe, but to experience and question each of his teachings, who am I to tell you otherwise?

You are reading now. Is this all you are? You are thinking of an answer now: is this all you always are?
Your self is contextual: it emerges in relation with what you perceive around you, with the thoughts that arise inside you, floating up to the surface. The endless waves of your multiple selves collapse into the particle of self that you are now. There is no stable you, no permanent self.

Now you are different.

Now you are different.

Can you guess what you are now?

Do you believe my now? Did you change from a non-believer into a believer?

It’s ok if you didn’t, you can still live your life as you were, don’t worry.
It’s ok if you think that this has no impact on your life; it does have an impact, but you can choose to ignore it.

It has an impact because when religion collapses, when physical third spaces vanishes and are replaced by digital toxic versions, the waves that could build our selves become fewer and fewer, shrinking the possibilities that could build our selves. What we once built as a complex kaleidoscope of self now is closer to monolithic beliefs about ourselves and others. Identities are shaped around fewer elements, making them foundational, essential to our existence.

Our teachers told us we could do anything we wanted, social media show us every day that other people can be anything they want, how come we are discovering we’re not where we wanted to be? What are the waves that collapsed into this present, into this job we don’t like? Into this relationship that’s dragging me down? Into this friendship that is more a chore than a pleasure?

Here lies the great misunderstanding: you are not either of those things. You are all of them, and more. And less. And none of them.

We are planting our feet firmly in the ground, letting the life that flows around you solidify them time over time. You struggle to keep your feet rooted where they are and at the same time wander why you can’t swim. What happens when the current gets stronger? When the water rises? Will you let yourself drown like a stone rather than swimming like the wave you are?

We mistake our jobs as our position in society. How many of you describe yourself as a relationship-being before a job-being? Would you say you are a brother before a lawyer? A sister before a doctor? Are you a friend before being a consultant? How come we’ve let our jobs shape how we think of ourselves more than what brings real meaning into our lives? How come we give more self-space to what we only do because of a salary than what we do because it actually gives us a place in the world?

We’re powered by the fear of regret — another face of the fear of death — yet we fear of not doing things, not having careers, not owning things, rather than fearing not spending enough time with our loved ones, our friends.

We use our ability to build relationships as a proxy to our value as human beings. I’ve talked with people that described themselves as INCELs (not out loud, but close enough), as drug addicts, dependent from another person. If your only way of presenting yourself to your friends is via the INCEL persona you developed, it’s really hard to let that go. If your therapist gives you mottos that you use to describe yourself, rather than to guide your decision making, they become who you are.

If you solidify yourself as a one monolithic stone, how hard do you have to swim to return to the surface, to swim again? We desperately hang onto these definitions when everything else around you is asking you to let them go, the safety of known evils against the unknown scary future.

We forget that political beliefs are not identities. Not ours, nor anybody’s. Left and right are not political views anymore, they are belief systems. You do not agree with a certain policy or an ideal, you are a communist, you are a fascist, you are a socialist…

We got to the point where we would rather stop talking to someone because they hold different political beliefs than ours, reducing a whole person to a slogan on a specific cause, letting that person present themselves as such. In a world with growing complexity we strive for simplicity, but are Community life and Relationships the areas we want to streamline? Really?

I quit my job in July. I had no alternatives, but I was sure that that was a present I would not have my future collapse into and the options were growing fewer. In the past three days I’ve met 3 other people that have made the same choice.

What will we do with our future? I still don’t know, but as long as there’s waves, there’s hope.