I Want Wholeness

My friend Jane posted this striking, illustrated poem on Instagram. I assumed she found it and was just passing it along, but the caption mentioned she had illustrated — and written it — herself.

She gave me permission to share it here, along with the unillustrated text. Jane didn’t title the poem, so I’ve drawn from the first words to include one here.

I Want…
by Jane Klinger

I want to be drenched in cold water,
to be fully saturated,
to explode into a nap,
to share a piece of truth so true 
that it shakes the schemas we've schemed —
most of all the divisions.

Most of all I want wholeness,
to feel the buzz of synchronized activity,
of shared reality, 
to bite off more than I can chew and chew it anyway,
to write in bold bold lines
to hold onto the center like the page before me —
a concrete block of what I know and can't yet say,
to be ambitiously lowly,
exalted beside each crumb, doorknob, and other person.

My eye initially landed on the phrase “it shakes the schemas we’ve schemed — most of all the divisions.”

I’ve been fascinated by the concept of schemas since learning about them in an undergraduate developmental psychology class. I think of them as cousins to algorithms — strategies we develop to navigate and organize information or tasks. Little recipes for turning apparent chaos into order.

If you’re able to tie your shoes, someone passed on a process that you’ve carried out for decades. You might have modified it over the years, but the process for fastening two laces into a secure bow is one of the many schemas you’ve acquired and rely on regularly without needing to give them much thought.

But what can shake or disrupt our schemas once they’ve been running on autopilot for years or decades?

Jane’s poem asserts truth might be up to this task. The truth would need to be really true, though. True enough to make us reassess some of the organizing assumptions we take for granted.

This resonates with the zeitgeisty tendency we seem to have for taking sides on every complex and contentious issue. The way we’ve turned politics into a de facto sport or religion requires the many schemas we’ve collectively schemed.

What could be true enough to shake our default organizing principles and set the stage for wholeness?

It definitely won’t be based on the superficial identity-related details, the demographic elements that drive marketing and social media algorithms.

Wholeness requires the kind of truth that allows us to recognize our shared humanity.

We are fragile, resilient creatures who need each other in order to survive and thrive. We all have thoughts and feelings and needs, but not enough of us have useful tools for navigating them.

To be whole people and whole communities, we need to develop better schemas for navigating discomfort (physical, mental, and emotional). We all know how to tie our shoes, but what are we supposed to do with uncertainty, fear, and sadness. We need to expand the range of emotional flavors and intensities we’re capable of processing.

The good news is that cultivating the skills of attention that support these deeply human capacities results in richness, vitality, and a greater sense of belonging. Becoming more objective about our subjective experiences, by observing our thoughts and emotional reactions, sets the stage for seeing the humanity we share with people we care about, people we dislike, and people we don’t even notice.

It fosters the kinds of enthusiasm for life this poem so boldly and colorfully illustrates.

Here’s to biting off more than we can chew and chewing it anyway.