Vantage Point

on selfishness

One of the best gifts I’ve ever received is: learning (the hard way) how to be my own best company. This time last year I was in New Orleans, in the same house I’m currently writing this essay from on the corner of Octavia St., contending with the most excruciating internal loneliness. Have you ever felt like the only person in the world? It never ceases to astound me how place holds memory. This time around I’m staying in the room upstairs that overlooks the oak tree rooted in the center of the backyard. Something about this change in vantage point makes sense. 

My second day back it happens to be 75 & sunny on a Friday afternoon. I’m huddled on the wooden chair smoking my jay. The sun is now waning, peeking through the branches of the oak. I relish the feeling of each ray shining down on my skin like a warm hug. My mind is still wandering but I will myself to savor this moment of pause. The crows squaw in agreement. 

Growing up I learned that the word selfish meant putting yourself first, as in being your own priority. In Sudanese culture the idea of privacy is practically nonexistent. You belong to a klan, a village, a community, you are not just an individual because you are tied. The needs of the collective are the priority. As a diaspora kid, as an only child, as the shy one, I resisted this idea. I desperately just wanted to be left alone. I wanted the agency to say no to the call of the collective. Sure, maybe I self-ostracized at times because it was easier on my nervous system. But at the end of the day I remember a deep personal need to protect my privacy. A need that was never met and over time started to feel unattainable, as if I was asking for too much. Is that selfish?

The last two months in New York took everything I have. Two months, two minutes, two years, the constructs of time bend and morph before me. There was a series of 10 consecutive days when the sun didn’t come out. Somewhere in this darkness I turned to look inward and was shocked to see all the ways I give my energy away. Divine feminine energy that is often directed toward my romantic partner and my lovers. Whether it’s a cognitive preoccupation with their well being, time spent communicating in ways they can hear me, emotional resources expended to ensure they feel cared for, sacral and sexual energy given freely and consistently. So, what happens if I stop giving this? Stop centering romance as the place in which I pour my self-love. Where else in my life do I need this energy? Is that selfish?

I’m an earth baby as in my big 3 astrological placements are earth signs (Double Taurus + Virgo moon). But underneath the surface my chart shows fire igniting my Venus, Mars & Jupiter. When I tell Lenny this his first response is, “So you’re like a volcano then?” Ha, exactly! I already knew I was a mountain but I just got upgraded to volcano status. I am enamored by the ferocity of lava, flowing like water with the ineffable force to shape all it touches. To melt the earth only to create new earth. I feel the power of this ecological alchemy unfold in my body. This fire warms my breath, flushes my cheeks, invites me to shine under its light, like the New Orleans sun. Finally, I can say I don’t fear the fire within me. That fear that said I might just explode if I allow myself to fan this fire, to let it fuel my own engine. 

I am immediately reminded of the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes, Pele. In different mythologies she is known to be born from the female spirit Haumea, a descendant of Earth Mother, and Wakea, Sky Father, both descendants of the supreme beings. Pele is also known as "She who shapes the sacred land," often recited in ancient Hawaiian chants. I pray that Pele helps me guide the fire within me, to wield it with autonomy, confidence. 

In the last year since I was in this house, I learned that to be selfish, as in to center yourself, is survival. There will always be relationships, jobs, homes, finances that will demand a great deal of energy, commitment and time. And the question I have learned to develop is: how does this serve me? Now, don’t get me wrong, I am painfully aware that it will always take a village to create, to reciprocate, to make life worth living. But the collective can only thrive when the self is nurtured, adored, and centered. Is this selfish? 

My first trip to New Orleans was in November 2019. I went to City Park with Selma and she invited some of her close friends to have a moment of gathering by their favorite tree. We ended up playing the game oracle, where we all write a question on a card, flip the card, pass to the left and write an answer on the back without seeing the question. I asked, “What is the source of this itchy ache?” and the oracle responded with, “Center yourself and the way shall be revealed”. This message has been a central piece of my altar work since then, and throughout the years it has come to hold many different meanings. Today, the handwriting is starting to fade along the words “shall be”, so it just reads, “center yourself and the way revealed”. I am getting closer to myself, to that core, hot, gooey center.

My last note on selfishness is to say that I recognize how malleable it can be. Self-centered behavior can easily sway into the extremes of narcissism, shrewdness, apathy. On the other hand, the selfless, as in without the self, can verge on martyrdom, victimhood. We all might know someone who overextends their support to others ahead of their own needs. Hell, this has been me before, believing that to show my love I have to give all of me. But then, what’s left for me?

In my life philosophy I believe that the individual soul is interconnected with all of creation. The self is only a part of the collective, and in that way I know I am never truly alone, despite what the voice of the Judge might whisper. James Baldwin cautions us, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” 

Since beginning to center myself I no longer think selfish is a slur. I am proud of myself for having the courage to trouble the narratives I received about selfishness. Sometimes, even if just for a second, I can see in the reflection of my mother’s eyes a buried envy. Maybe a jealousy of how I can choose to be selfish, in ways that were never available to her. 

But, if I am the one to break the curse, then I must sit in the discomfort of this choice. Instead of asking, “Is this selfish?”, I dare to reframe and wonder, “Can I let myself be great?” Sometimes all it takes is a new vantage point.