A note from present-day-alana (April, 2023):
In recent years, the concept of ‘arbitrariness’ has, over time, become a core point of contemplation in my practice. As I consider the idea of ‘identity’, where it arises from, and, ultimately its hollowness, considering arbitrariness has been a key tool for me. Afterall, if the characteristics we choose to build our uniqueness – our identity— from are just arbitrarily selected, could have been anything, THIS OR THAT depending on the circumstances, can we really claim that the identity we have built is inherent and absolute?
Is my identity really so damn special if I just choose characteristics arbitrarily, choose the meaning I assigned to them arbitrarily, and then arbitrarily claim I possess those characteristics and therefore I am a certain thing? What is arbitrary is just a random choice, a personal whim, it is meaningless. The identities we build –that seem so solid and important to us – could have just as easily been something else if the stars had aligned, if that is what we had selected, and curated, and convinced ourselves of. There is nothing so special about what we chose, what we believe ourselves to be. There is no significance to an arbitrarily constructed ‘alana’.
But, I am getting waaaaaayyyyy ahead of myself here. We will, I promise, in due time circle back…I offer this introduction only to highlight just how important, and nuanced, a tool ‘arbitrary’ has become for me, because this blog here is going to share one of my earliest, nascent considerations of the idea of arbitrariness.
It all started because I had sent a brief line to Mae Neecha, sharing a bit about my recent contemplation efforts on the 5 aggregates of clinging, and asking for a bit of clarification about #5, consciousness. Something Mae Neecha said in passing really got my wheels turning. She said:
“Basically, it is a process that relies on arbitrary permanence (choose A or B – there’s no real meaning) and then builds upon that uncertain foundation (well, last time you chose A so since you’re familiar with A, let’s choose A again… over and over until you “become” A)”.
Below are the contemplations spurred on by her comment:
On Mae Neecha’s point that the creation of self-starts with some arbitrary ‘choice’:
I was thinking it is like moving to SF. I moved, once I was there, I came to identify with it. It became me, me an SFer. When I left, I was devastated, losing a part of me. And in NY I hated it because it was so ‘not me’.
Birth in a body is much the same way, I end-up in a body, just as I ended up in the city of SF, and over time it becomes who I am. I am defined by the body, I imagine that it manifests me, that I have a specific future with it. The thought of leaving it is painful.
Of course, from my current perspective, it is hard to see the ‘choice’ that went into my body, but in other circumstances, the choice is more clear. For example, I shop for homes, I buy one with architecture, or location, that reflect me, my preferences, who I think I am. I choose features I think will bring me comfort. In the selection process I imagine a future with the home, a future I believe the home will bring about (note to self alana: this didn’t work too great with the Manhattan loft or the country home in Connecticut).
If you have the resources, you can pick a home, one you believe reflects you. One that conjures an imaginary future you like. Of course, with less resources, you have less choice. With a body, this is likely how a transgender person is born into a “home” they don’t see as reflecting them (trans folks are the perfect example of how the 4e body really doesn’t manifest our imagined version of our self –I have used the idea of being trans in several contemplations about if our body can ever really reflect our identity).
Of course, even in a case of less resources, the identity built, and the objects selected to reflect that identity, are still arbitrary. Based on old aggregates, which were also arbitrary. Like the study of kids broken up into blue and brown eyes and told blue eyed kids are inferior and brown eyed kids superior: Before the study, the physical trait existed, but there was no identity. But the identity was planted, and then the trait used to prove it. Just like with the beaver dam (you can read the beaver contemplation here): I am the one who chooses which trait to focus on. I am the one that assigns one meaning over another. It truly is arbitrary. Worse, I don’t just choose the trait, the rupa, to identify me with, I choose a particular state of rupa, 1 arrangement in the continual shifting of a form that is optimally me/mine. And when rupa shifts past that peak state, I am stressed and saddened.
I call something mine. Mine is in my mind and not the object: At KPY one time I saw a ladder with a post-it note that read, “Mine not yours”. The writer was claiming the ladder. But every reader, from their perspective, would read the ladder is “mine”. No where buried in the ingredients of the ladder is an extra element “mineness”. That exists in the mind alone. No 1 ladder acts fundamentally different than other ladders: It is, as all things, a product of causes and will continue for as long as the causes allow, and then it will cease. Sticky note and imagination aside, there is no special ladder.
Just like all bodies are made of the same elements, none is special. I just choose a specific set of traits, give them meaning, claim they identify me or reflect my identity and then I try and force the particular body I am in to reflect those traits. Or, I choose the traits because they already exist in the body I am in. On and on this cycle goes. Trying to use form to manifest self.
But that is not what from is. That isn’t what form does. How do I know? Because everyone can use this body, just like everyone can use that sticky-noted ladder. Every woman knows anyone can use our bodies at anytime; we grow-up with stern warnings about the dangers of walking alone at night, of leaving our drinks unattended at the bar, we live in fear of rape. If this body is free for anyone to use, how do I claim it is something that will uniquely reflect me, my desires, my vison of who I am, my vison for my future?
If this body really manifested me, made my identity reified in form, then it wouldn’t change into states I despise. How do I reconcile a shift into aging, or ugliness, or smelliness, or sickness, or death, or post death decay, with a form that manifests me? Those aren’t traits or states I would claim. They are not how I see myself or what I imagine my future to be.
When my body, my objects, my traits -the As and Bs I have chosen – shift/decay/disappear, I am forced to adapt, to adjust, to accept; if I am the one needing to adjust to the objects (a little botox to bring that brow back to smoothness, a new car when the old one has broken down, devastating mourning over the lost ex and the quest for a new lover to fill the partner shaped hole in my heart) then can the objects really be proving anything about me other than my beliefs –my desire for them, the ignorance that I have that drives me to continue to chase and cling to what shifts and slips away?