Since early in life, I have viscerally felt that I am always a beginner.
IT’S TRUE
It’s true in that there is always infinitely further to go with anything.
Compared to what’s left, I am always far on the beginner end of the spectrum.
There is always infinitely more to experience, learn, and explore. There are always infinite more possible insights, perspectives, and contexts, many of which will make far more sense to me than the ones I have now. There is always infinitely further to go in clarifying, deepening, maturing, and living from.
IT’S A LIMITED TRUTH
It’s also a limited truth.
We know more or less compared with others – the general population and the ones actively exploring something similar to ourselves.
In a conventional sense, we are somewhere on the spectrum from beginner to expert. (Although that spectrum is very short compared to the infinite possibilities out there.)
I have a few decades of actively and close to full-time exploring some of the topics I write about here. That means I likely have more familiarity with some topics than someone just setting out exploring it.
SOME CAVEATS
At the same time, I am aware there are many out there with far more experience, insight, and ability to communicate and share than I have.
I am also very aware that many – independent of age and years of experience – will have insights that go far beyond what I have. It’s far from all about time or effort or what we may think of as credentials.
A HANGUP
There is also a hangup here.
Parts of me strongly dislike attention. This is a family hangup fueled by my parents’ experiences growing up. (For instance, my father’s father was a Nazi in Norway during WW2 and was sentenced to hard labor after the war. You can imagine what that meant socially in a small rural community.) This was strongly reinforced by my own childhood and teenage social experiences. (Traumatic in the real sense of the word.)
This hangup means I am far more comfortable taking on the role of a beginner. When I take on the role of a beginner, it means I can listen, take in, feed my curiosity, and learn.
If I took on the role of someone who knows, it would mean I would have to take more of a central role which I am not very comfortable with.
This is clearly a hangup. I know that someone with a more healthy relationship with this would find far more fluidity between these roles – or any other related roles – according to what the situation asks for.
SOME COSTS OF THIS HANGUP
It also has a cost. It cost me a career in what I have, by far, been most passionate about in my life which is art.
When I got into art in my teens, I quickly received attention in national media, noticed how friends started treating me differently, and so on. I also saw what was required in terms of publicity – creating an image and public persona, cultivating a certain social group, and so on. All of that was a little too much for these sides of me so I decided to study psychology instead. I am passionate about that too, but leaving art felt like tearing off a very important piece of me. I still haven’t recovered from it.
In my mid-teens, I wrote one travel article, which was immediately picked up by the largest newspaper where I lived, given five full pages, and was intentionally read by four or five million. That too felt like a bit much to me so I didn’t write for newspapers or magazines since, even if parts of me would love to.
When I worked with sustainability in Madison in my twenties, I also started to get some attention in the community. Whenever I went outside, I would meet people who knew me from my community work in sustainability and they would often thank me. Of course, a part of me felt good about it, and other parts felt strongly uncomfortable with the attention. I got out of that too. I loved those people and that work and it felt profoundly meaningful to me. We were on the threshold of taking it much further (I handed it over to others who did). That too felt like an amputation and parts of me still feel sad about it.
It also plays out in other ways. For instance, when I was in Norway over the last couple of years, I have now and then gone to a Buddhist meditation in Oslo. There, I take on the role of a complete beginner. I ask questions, listen, and so on. It’s enjoyable and comfortable, but a part of me wishes for a different kind of interaction as well.
When I write here, I do it anonymously. I also chose to write fragments in an ephemeral and marginal format instead of writing for magazines or writing a book.
I am aware that my chronic illness (CFS) nicely fits into this pattern. It allows me to refrain from taking on any role where I could risk visibility. I can stay anonymous.
With the food forest, I have found something where I can stay mostly anonymous. My work benefits innumerable beings that don’t have a voice in society. I wish they had a voice, for their sake, but in this context, it works out well.
On the one hand, I wish these beings had a voice, and I wish food forests and regeneration work were central in human society and the media. It would be, in a more sane, sound, and ecologically informed society. On the other hand, it is a niche that seems to fit me nicely right now. I love it, and I can do it anonymously.
The drawing is one I made when I was sixteen. It was accepted into Høstustillingen, an annual prestigious juried exhibition in Norway, and I was likely close to the youngest to be accepted into that exhibition. The drawing is by a literal beginner since I had just begun drawing. It has a lot of technical imperfections, but there is still something there.