Composting Insecurity

This week we thought about how the earth wastes nothing. What if we wasted nothing? What in our life would we compost and how might it flower? (Thank you to Leaf Seligman for her Pocketbook of Prompts for this question.) After a painful process of feeling insecure about the question, I finally sat down to write about insecurity.

---

I feel uncomfortable about this whole question and writing. But I'm going to do it. I'm going to write about composting my insecurity. The last time I felt insecure (that I am not too insecure to share about) was right after I left my job at ServiceNow. I had believed that my workplace, my title, my income -- it all made me valuable and an interesting person. Turns out, without a job, without the constant international travel, I felt uninteresting to others and uninterested in most things. To make things worse, I felt insecure about lacking the creativity to become something different. In other words, I was trapped in an insecure box of insecurity, feeling deeply insecure.

During this time I began writing, drawing, painting, singing, and dancing, in private. All of which I was even more insecure about. Turns out for me, insecurity is like an article of clothing-- a sweater for example. I can put it on and wear it, showing the world what insecurity looks like. It can become self reinforcing, because no one can deny I am wearing it. And my poor wife, when I look back on that time, she got to look at it everyday. (Honestly, who wants to wake up next to insecurity each morning?) It was uncomfortable for us both and, of course I eventually became insecure about that too. My sweater of insecurity eventually became a voice for a mistaken truth, weakening my resolve to be anything other than not good enough.

I found that if I wore the sweater, I couldn’t deny I was wearing it, if I took it off I couldn’t cover myself underneath it. Sometimes I would hear a compliment and I would enjoy the whirl until I got dizzy and needed more. Other times I would be reaffirmed that I’m not worthy. My wheel of insecurity was spinning -- and while I didn’t want to get off, I also couldn’t find a way off.

So what would it look like if I composted insecurity? What does a sweater woven into a particular shape -- in this case the shape of insecurity -- do when it starts to decompose?

Maybe a moth would bore a hole into the sweater showing the first signs of decomposition. It might be like a moment of truth breaking the cycle of unneeded external validation. In our ecosystem, moths are important because they are nutrient recyclers. They are also food for a variety of wildlife. And for scientists and environmentalists they are canaries in the coalmine, often providing a status on the health of an ecosystem, air pollution, and even indicators of climate change. In some traditions, moths are a mythological sign of transformation, change and rebirth. Perhaps if I were to decompose my insecurity, the beginnings would represent the first sign of truth and transformation.

After discovering a moth eaten hole in my sweater, I imagine a few more threads would naturally become loose, creating room for cleansing sunlight and truth. There is a creation story in the Bhagavad-Gita that tells how the world was created by Ishra (also known as God.) Ishra, unlike the Christian God, is not separate from the world, but instead created the world out of her/him/itself. And because of that, the entire universe is nothing but Ishra. The story of Ishra teaches about offering oneself to others, and that each time we offer something of oneself, we gain an appreciation of Ishra. In other words, Ishra (the world) is a reminder to place our individual desires below that of the interests of the world-- to offer oneself before providing for oneself. So what if, like Ishra, I come with a gift instead of need? Perhaps as my sweater of insecurity decomposes, it could become more like a devotional offering, not just to Ishra or the world, but eventually to the truth of it all -- I never needed my insecurity in the first place. A core underlying principle of the Bhagavad-Gita is that we don’t understand ourselves. Our fundamental mistake is that we don’t know our happiness is innate. Maybe as I decompose my sweater of insecurity, along with it I’ll find that I never needed it. Maybe I'll even find that my happiness is innate too.

Once the sweater unravels, I wonder about what happens to the remaining string. From a composting perspective, a pile of string could offer shape and form to birds or other animals building nests. Perhaps it would begin to grow spores and turn itself back into nitrogen, building nutrient rich soil for plants to grow and livingkind to nourish itself from. In other words, composting my insecurity could mean that I give up my insecurity, choosing to instead offer comfort to others on their journey as opposed to seeking validation on my own. I imagine this offering might nurture and grow the very community which I love and am surrounded by.