Don’t let your newly-made rich inner world turn you into a smug bore
The wellness movement has peaked of late. I understand the logic of this phenomenon. After Covid-19 laid siege to and decimated whatever certainties we still held onto, we were left in a state of confusion and anxiety.
Enter the gurus of self-improvement. Not having breakfast has been re-interpreted as intermittent fasting. Sitting on a chair and looking into the distance with a vacant stare has become mindfulness. And increasing the amount of fruit and veg we consume has been turned into clean eating.
Welcome to the new New Age! (as if its previous 90s incarnation wasn’t “New Agey” enough).
I’ve got all the time in the world for spirituality. I grew up in a society where, if you were a boy, reading poetry and showing your vulnerable side were frowned upon. Anything that aimed at a deeper exploration of oneself was repressed.
All this changed in my 20s. My relationship with the material world was altered. I was suddenly interested more in long-lasting values than temporal ones. Whilst not religious then (and still an atheist today), otherworldliness was attractive in its unpredictability. In a country where news broadcasts were copycats of each other, a different imagined world was the balm I needed.
It took me long to realise that spirituality was always there, that it was an innate part of me. I just had to unlock it. It was spirituality that helped me navigate the choppy waters of “special period” 90s Havana. Whether sunk deep in a seat at a cinema or dancing my head off at a gig, these moments carried me through the social, economic, political and ideological crisis engulfing Cuba at the time.
Fast-forward twenty-five years, a Covid epidemic, and three lockdowns later and I’m puzzled as to how we ended up with the “manifesting” brigade calling the shots.
Mindfulness, meditation, healthy eating, self-care and other practices were the wooden planks we clung onto when the world as we knew it disappeared in early 2020. In between Zoom-broadcasting yoga classes and (re)discovering our local parks, many people found that there was more to life than the daily 9-to-5 grind. No wonder WFH (work from home) became our new favourite acronym and the phrase “quiet quitting” has become so fashionable.
But wherever there’s an opportunity capitalism’s rapacious, money-hungry, get-in-first attitude follows it. At some point we were told we were doing meditation wrong. First we had to invest in a new pair of bamboo trousers (of course, they were ethically sourced! This is “ethical capitalism” we’re talking about here), buy this or that cream, and download this or that app.
One of the intentions of both mindfulness and meditation is to minimise the ego. When we commune with nature as one, we need to divest ourselves of that pernicious, all-controlling human trait that has caused so much misery. In short, it’s not about us.
If you have to let all and sundry know that your insights into the human condition are greater than theirs, you’re not being spiritual, you’re just being a prat. If you have to go out of your way to show the world how compassionate you are, whatever acts of kindness you carry out will be overridden by your self-centredness.
Spirituality doesn’t need a loudspeaker through which to shout out how many retreats you’ve been to. We’re all spiritual beings. We’re born that way. It might not make much monetary sense. But, then again, if that’s your aim, you might be better off going back to your daily 9-to-5 grind. Even if at the same time you’re also “quiet quitting”.
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