Hi! I’m EP. For those of you new around here I write about society and observe our whims as humans. I am an enthusiast for myth busting the beliefs we have gobbled down and made personalities out of. I love mixing up our feeds from angry outbursts, life advice and advertisements and sending you a big packet of art right to your internet door.
Right now, you get *some* free articles in your inbox, and *some* paid articles where I go even deeper, with more juice and pizazz.
I am a queer woman, mum, feminist, author, cat fanatic and all round work in progress. I love having you here, and if you love being here — make sure you head to the substack app or website so you can comment and engage with the discussion.
Picture this: You’re 20. In the closest (with somehow NO fashion sense). Hungry for love and validation. You are a third of the way through your political degree and the world is looking bleak.
You walk into your first tantra workshop, with no idea whats coming.
What I experienced in that room was at the time the most I had ever felt. From that moment, I was like “this is what the world is missing, this feeling”. This ecstasy. This pleasure. This feeling. Like, being truly willing to react and respond and go “oh shit that makes me feel something, and I’m going to express it and feel it fully.”
Being 20, I was like “THIS IS IT… Should I quit my degree and pursue teaching this??”
I didn’t, obviously.
See like all of you (probably) I had a deep desire to change the world (see: save it from itself). I was so deeply confused, I had so many questions and I ached for answers,
How the hell did we get here?
Who’s idea was this?
Why do we keep doing this?
Its 2015, how the fuck are we still solving issues with war? With discrimination? With segregation? How are we still killing people and getting away with it? Why are we torturing people? Why is there no body autonomy? Why are we hurting each other so deeply?
Questions I’m sure, you are still asking yourself too right now.
I thought — this lack of feeling could be the stepping stone towards the new world I was aching for, because (and I quote)
This one is broken.
I thought the lack of feeling was the thing that would create heaven on earth (and tbh was told that in the workshops).
Good god, I wanted that to be true. I wanted to experience peace and love and connection and togetherness. I wanted, so desperately to believe that humanity was more than pain and war and destruction. That human nature was more than a mix of what we can take from each other and ‘primal’ desires.
That human nature, at its core, was good.
But if thats the case, what (and I cannot stress this part enough) the fuck is going on ?
I was (and still am sometimes) looking around like a director of a stage play being like “CUT. not enough heart, not enough passion, I didn’t believe your performance. FROM THE TOP” then the dinosaurs strut back in to take their place and we start over from the meteor.
Being a part of this community was like being in a warm little healing cupcake sprinkled with arrogance and separation, but that was okay because we were all very connected in the cupcake. All using the right words, feeling our feelings, giving “reflections” in the hope of helping people grow (see: tall poppy syndrome).
I was convinced we were “pathing the new way” bringing in the new world, creating it from scratch with these “ancient” teachings. So convinced, the “new world” became the only one I played in. Anyone who didn’t “get it” was part of the problem.
Low key have a “is this a cult?” draft I am working on. So don’t worry if you are reading this going “EP… this is sounding like a documentary I watched on netflix…”
The deeper I went into self help and self discovery and self obsession, the further I was from the rest of the world. I was convinced that everyone just needed to work on their trauma and then we would be in utopia. And maybe there is an element of truth to that, but the separation from the world was not helpful.
It took me a long time to realise that.
I attended so many self help workshops, tantric and otherwise, and there was a distinct theme: a majority of the group were always teachers of this work themselves.
It was more a skill building workshop for our own practices and businesses, than a self healing workshop where we could be fully immersed.
It took me a long time to go,
Hey, there needs to be more feeling, heart centred empathetic people in politics… and more politics in these heart centred groups. Because even though it feels like, on a deeply personal level, change is happening, the world is not changing.
It took me even longer to go: hey… seems like a lot of people are teaching this work, and no one is bringing this work back into the masses.
It was (for lack of a better word and cause I don’t wanna use another word lol) a huge circle jerk of healing and teaching but nobody was really effecting the “real” world. No one was interested in changing policy, in revolutionising industries, in protesting, in debate, in discussion.
This weird little pyramid scheme of teachers made me go “huh… sure, some stuff is changing on a personal level maybe… but making a “new” world isn’t the answer, we gotta get back in that old one and give it some TLC”.
Like, we need more teachers who are trained in emotional regulation and school systems that aren’t based on a 200 year old structure. But in order to get them AND have them regulated and state funded so they are accessible — we need heart centred people advocating for them.
We need health care that doesn’t just treat symptoms but is looking for the root cause. We need clean water. Healthy food that is accessible and subsidised. We need community gardens and connection. We need electric cars and less fossil fuels. We need better foreign policy and communication. We need better science and more depth in our research. We need to question our beliefs around patriarchal rule, capitalism, gender, sexuality, domination, race and class.
But NONE of this happens if we just check out into fairy land and leave the “masses” to fight for themselves.
Creating a “new world” is not only a pipe dream, its a situation that will eventually crumble for the same reasons as the OG world. We need to multitask - unravel our personal trauma, myth bust our societal conditioning AND be curious about a new way so that we can create it.
The key issue with our world (in my humble opinion) is that we are scared shitless of it changing. Of evolution. We have convinced ourselves that we are “done” and that “this is just the way it is” when at a core level we are always growing and changing and thats the whole damn point.
I know its not as sexy to say “it will take lots of small changes and evolution is slow but we will get there and there will be change but we have to want it. We have to be involved in it. We have to give a profound shit about this world we are ALL a part of, no matter how much you have convinced yourself you aren’t.”
compared to
“BURN IT DOWN. START AGAIN. EVERYONE IS WRONG BUT YOU. YOU KNOW THE ONLY WAY TO LIVE AND EVERYONE SHOULD BE LIKE YOU AND SHARE YOUR STYLE OF LIVING.”
Our world isn’t inherently good or bad but our evolution is moving at a rapid speed in some areas (technology for example) but slowing down or going backwards in others (good communication and emotional intelligence).
It will always change and evolve but will you have a say in what direction?
Will you take responsibility for a little change, or is it every man for themselves in the life boats?
Love this, and the little private joke giggles I had with you in the cosmos reading.
And you’re so great at this conversation.
I love that everyone does their part in some way or another.
Just gotta merge them a little more