Being Alive in a Miraculous World
GUEST WRITER: In conversation with Mari Andrew
CONTENTS: Essay | Q&A | Author Bio
Hi everyone!
I am happy to report my dear friend Mari Andrew is today’s guest writer!
I met Mari (gosh, when was it, Mari?)… must have been back in 2015? I was still living in Los Angeles, and had started sharing my poetry online only a short while before. Mari was also, as I remember it, relatively early on in her own (now many) successes. We connected over Instagram and became fast friends, and she’s been a source of joy, wisdom, and generosity ever since. I’ve had the wonderful privilege of watching as her work has taken off, not only as an artist but as a best-selling author and a brilliant communicator. Mari is a beautiful, wonderful person through and through. I’m so looking forward to sharing our conversation with y’all. Give her Substack a follow (if you haven’t already!)… Then, enjoy!
- t
Mari Andrew on Orcas, Captivity, and Complexity
In the early days of lockdown during the first wave of Covid-19, I read an article about orca whales by Lori Marino, president of The Whale Safety Project. I’ve always had a soft spot for orcas, having grown up in Seattle surrounded by orca paraphernalia. In school we learned about the local First Nations legends about the orcas, how the “blackfish” became both killers and protectors and now guard the sea.
Depictions of them jumping into the air graced postcards and picture books about the Pacific Northwest. Who wouldn’t be enchanted by the sight of one diving straight up from the water with the power and grace of a prima ballerina?
I suppose that was the idea when people started capturing orcas from the ocean and training them for shows where they performed their signature leaps for wide-eyed cheering crowds a few times a day. Despite their reputation as killers, orcas have always gotten along well with humans and apparently were quick and easy to train for these shows. They would spin, shimmy, and soar on command, delighting families at marine parks all over the world.
Seemingly very low-maintenance, the whales appeared happy to do their routines for the reward of fish, and then went back to swimming around their pools until the next show. The trainers at Sea World and its competitors told audiences that orcas were much safer and happier in their pools than in the wild. After all, there was a zero percent chance that a whale would ever go hungry or face danger in their pools. They were fed fish all day and faced no challenges apart from an easy routine.
But Lori Marino’s article told a different story of whales in captivity. In tanks, where some orcas aren’t even provided so much as a single toy to play with, whales are under-stimulated to the point of life-threatening stress. They’ve been known to self-mutilate after years of life in a swimming pool, banging their heads on the walls or even attempting to jump out in an apparent effort to die. It’s as though their captive existence feels so egregiously wrong that it’s painful, and at times seems not even worth living.
But why would such a safe life cause them to suffer? In the ocean, orcas are met with all kinds of toils and troubles: the hunt for food, problems within the pod, parasites, and predators. You’d think the swimming pool would be like a lifelong spa day in comparison!
Same reason that Zoom Happy Hours got really old, really fast. Lori Marino wrote, “Orca brains and bodies have evolved to flourish in a complex, free-ranging sociocultural milieu. When they’re prevented from having this experience, as they are in display tanks where they’re forced to live in highly artificial circumstances, the result is chronic stress.”
As I read this from the chair where I’d been attending virtual baby showers, ordering delivery gnocchi, and taking online history classes to pass those bleak hours at home, I realized that all this doing nothing was actually causing anxiety. Apart from, you know, the regular pandemic anxiety.
There was a highly artificial veneer to super-sterile existence of seeing other humans only through a screen, as though I could have “people on demand.” It wasn’t supposed to be this way; it felt wrong, so wrong that I’d get a little nauseated every time a new invitation for a virtual gathering popped up.
Back to the whale world. Marino goes on, “Marine park proponents claim that life is less stressful for captive orcas than for free-ranging ones, but they aren’t recognizing that orca thriving means being exposed to the complexity, variability and even the risks and challenges associated with a life in the ocean. For an orca, an ‘easy’ life, where there are no challenges and nothing to do but perform tricks, is a stressful one.”
I can see why marine park enthusiasts got there, although as a member of the Free Willy generation, it’s obvious to me that orcas will develop all sorts of physical and mental problems from living in a tank. But I hadn’t factored in the stressfulness, even torture, of so-called ease. Not until I looked around at my deliveries for the day and my calendar items—none of which required me to move my tush off the chair for one moment—that I got a small sense of what exactly Marino was talking about. Yikes, I thought. Set those whales free!
Of course, lockdown is an extreme example of how a sanitized existence is a unique type of hellishness. But I wonder if there are other more routine ways that we are keeping ourselves in a proverbial swimming pool and left to swim in circles questioning why it’s not making us happy.
I think about the many ways that our hetero-patriarchal society has taught us to be comfortable and safe, when we are anything but. I think about how women limit their own joyous night out in an effort to return home safely. I think about how we isolate people who need community the most, in order to maintain the illusion of safety for the rest of us. I think about how my home, New York City, has recently started destroying tent communities of unhoused people, forcing them on buses to shelters an hour away. Are those shelters really safer than the community, full of chosen family, they’ve cultivated on the streets?
I’ve come back home from a day at the aquarium, sometimes shaking my head with pity for the wild animals confined to spaces that surely bore them, only to order some paper towels online when they’re available at the family-run market down the street. How often do we demand more for animals than we demand of ourselves: complexity, variability, risks, and challenges that come with being alive in a miraculous world?
Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in G.K. Chesterton’s melancholy quote: “The world will never starve for lack of wonders; but only for lack of wonder.” If we want to experience life as one of those breathtaking black whales who take flight above the ocean’s surface only to splash back down into a sea full of tests and treasures, we’ve got to give up on sanitized ease. Community is essential to our species’ joy, and we begin to hold our own selves captive when we exchange it for safety.
Q&A with Mari Andrew
Q: Mari, hi! First, let me say how much I enjoy reading you. I feel like we simultaneously come to the world with such a similar ethos and see the world from such different perspectives, which tends to lead to a very thought-provoking interaction with your work. This was no different! I found myself throughout your essay really wondering about the idea of captivity, of safety, of risk, of stress, of work… of course, these concepts will mean something a bit unique to everyone. The idea of captivity, for example, takes on a different definition for those who are primarily thinking about the 2020 lockdowns than they will for someone who is in a painful marriage than they will for someone who is literally incarcerated.
So I guess I’d love to start by learning how you’d define the terms personally! When you think of places you’ve felt “captive” in your life, what does that mean? What does that feel like? What about safety? What about stress?
I'm so glad you brought up safety, because that's a term I've been thinking about so much this year, as New York City has been addressing its homelessness and mental health crisis by "sweeping" the subways and parks, forcing unhoused people from their tent communities or familiar spaces into so-called "shelters" that might be significantly less safe than the streets. For example, shelters are separated by sex, following a wildly incorrect idea that same-sex assault doesn't happen. For another example, long-term unhoused people often have friends looking out for them and vice versa, and feel safer surrounded by community... as all of us do! It's just a very hetero-patriarchal definition of safety which is forced on really vulnerable people.
End of rant! But I was thinking about that as I contemplated the lives of captive animals. Sure, in a couple aspects the animals are physically "safer" in captivity than in the wild, but it's a paltry definition of "safe" that barely seems relevant. If a whale is clearly miserable living alone in a swimming pool, does "safety" even matter?
That's the question I think about during my city's egregious treatment of people living on the street. There are so many other concerns I have for them other than this isolating definition of "safety" (forcing them into far-away shelters) which I suspect is more of an effort to keep them out of sight than anything. The system may speak to one tiny sliver of one's human-ness, but not their whole humanity.
As I contemplate all that, I question whether I've actually ever felt captive myself! To a much lesser extent, I suppose other people have made decisions for me that were supposedly in my best interest, but didn't take my whole humanity into account.
Immediately, the Church comes to mind! It's funny, there's a very popular evangelical book about Christian femininity called Captivated, and during the time I read it, I was certainly more captive than captivated! By teaching such rigidity that didn't honor the whole being, there were parts of my mind and human experience that felt captive until I had the agency to choose a different path.
Q: For as long as I’ve known you, I’ve perceived you as someone with an adventurous soul, someone who leans into new experiences and tactile engagement. (First of all, have I gotten this right?) I, on the other hand, do not identify as particularly intrepid… I was diagnosed with autism last year, and allowing myself to settle into my body has actually taken the pressure off me to perform extroversion and daring the way I used to. I think I inherited a good deal of “shoulds” in my American Evangelical upbringing, and unlearning those has been critical to my growth and wellbeing.
And yet I sit here processing in real time, thinking, hm, are these just two sides of the same coin? The path of least resistance? Whether that’s avoidance of community or total conformity to it, we are abdicating our place in the world. I guess I’m unsure what the question is here, aside from just… Thoughts??
You definitely have the adventure part right! I spent so much of my childhood and youth avoiding any experience that led to any sort of intimacy or vulnerability--I was terrified of it. Instead, I kept to myself; I was safe there!
I made a very conscious decision to see, feel, experience, be everything I possibly could to make up for it. I say "yes" far more often than "no." And, now, that feels more comfortable to me than, say, sitting at home. It's 100x easier for me to travel alone to a place I've never heard of than to commit to a life in one place, for example. I fully acknowledge that I'm very bad at something that seems to come more naturally to other people: mundanity. (Hello, Enneagram 4!)
I read a small piece of advice recently that has really stuck with me: "We're all just trying to figure out how to be comfortable in the world." I loved that; it read like a more meaningful version of "Be kind, everyone is fighting a battle." It's really hard to have grace for someone who's super rude on the phone and tell myself they're having a bad day—I manage to be polite on a bad day! But it makes sense to me that they're trying to be comfortable in the world by, I don't know, asserting their dominance or whatever. Maybe they were a youngest child who never got any attention. Maybe nobody pays attention to them at work. Maybe raising their voice on the phone is the only time they can feel powerful.
It's not an excuse, but it makes sense of most of our human behaviors, whether we're neurodivergent, adventurous, homebodies, rude, or polite: The world is uncomfortable for everyone and we're all doing what we can to feel more comfy here. I think you speak to that very well! And, of course, it changes over time!
Q: I found the language you used around sterility, artificiality, sanitization of our lives and our environments particularly resonant. I find myself equally wanting an easeful, simple existence, and desperate for more. I wonder if that tension is itself life-giving. I hunger for contentment, and I think this is good. I also get bored and seek movement, change, and I think this is good too. Where do you experience that sort of life-affirming contradiction? What value do you find in leaning into it?
Well, it's interesting; I think my life is more simple and easeful and boring than ever, but it feels like the opposite of sanitized and sterile. I rarely order delivery; I like shopping at small businesses in my neighborhood and being out, engaged in the world. I spend time talking to my partner every night, which is not always easy, and presents more challenges for me than being alone! There is a simplicity that comes with the risk of intimacy, which feels like a really nice balance.
At the same time, I truly believe that "longing" is the most motivating human emotion and that we dull ourselves the moment we lose it! I used to spend so much energy longing for a career, a boyfriend, a home, whatever—all those pinings of youth. Now I long for a more collective shift, which is much more difficult because it's so out of my control, but feels a bit more mature, ha! Perhaps a key to gratitude, for me, is appreciating what I have, while always hoping for MUCH more for the world/collective.
Q: I love your description of the vibrant life we might demand for ourselves: “complexity, variability, risks, and challenges that come with being alive in a miraculous world.” How are you in your own life insisting on engaging the world like this these days?
Ahh such a lovely question! I am committed to engaging with my world on a very local level. While we are all exposed to massive global crises on a daily basis via the internet, we aren't evolved for it. It's disastrous for our nervous system to be constantly aware of problems we have no ability to even begin thinking about solving.
Instead, I want to be as active in my immediate world as I can. I care a lot about animals, so I volunteer-dog-walk a few times a week. Perhaps it's such a small task that it might deter someone—"Is that enough??"—but it's time spent with a living thing who is designed to enjoy the outdoors and wouldn't be able to otherwise. It also deepens my affection for nature and heightens my awareness of my neighborhood; I passionately and consistently support my local businesses and try to bring smiles to people who work around here. Who knows what kind of ripple effect that might have.
But I know for sure that it brings so much vibrancy to my own life! I am so inspired when I spend time with humans, animals, plants, and birds around me. It's a beautiful thing to literally engage with life. It gives me so much more compassion for myself, and for others. I think everyone should take a long daily walk and experience their own freedom to do so!
About the Author
Mari Andrew is a Brooklyn-based New York Times bestselling author, artist, and speaker, who has gained an international reputation for joyfully philosophical illustrations and essays that meander between deep and light, bitter and sweet. While she never formally studied writing or art, her greatest challenges have been her greatest teachers. Her books include Am I There Yet? and My Inner Sky.
FOLLOW:
 |
|