{"id":4614,"date":"2026-05-15T02:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T10:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=4614"},"modified":"2026-05-14T15:24:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:24:39","slug":"threads-and-stitches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2026\/05\/15\/threads-and-stitches\/","title":{"rendered":"Threads and Stitches"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years back, at an event in which Rebecca Solnit was talking with Joan Halifax Roshi, she said something I remember as \u201cYou know what you do. You don\u2019t know what you do does.\u201d<\/p>\n

That apparently can be traced back to Foucault. I am not well-versed in Foucault, but I like the idea a lot. You should just do your work \u2013 the work that you think matters \u2013 and leave what it does to the future. You can\u2019t control what it does.<\/p>\n

I know, for example, that various things I learned from Aikido teachers along the way have stayed with me, and that I have been pleased \u2013 and sometimes surprised \u2013 when someone tells me that something I said on the mat or in a presentation stayed with them.<\/p>\n

Likewise many things I\u2019ve read have affected me, such as the ones I\u2019m writing about here. And I\u2019m always thrilled when I discover that something I\u2019ve written had an effect on someone else.<\/p>\n

You do what you think is important and sometimes someone else gets it and takes it somewhere else. That\u2019s what life is about.<\/p>\n

I just finished reading Solnit\u2019s The Beginning Comes After the End<\/i>, and was struck by this sentence:<\/p>\n

You yourself are not a single garment of destiny, but a thread or a stitch in the tapestry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She is talking about how interconnected we are, despite all the efforts to disconnect us. It\u2019s also a warning to let go of the hero myth, to reject the idea that there is one hero coming to save us all, that one hero becomes the garment of destiny. <\/p>\n

\"cover<\/a>Heroes of that ilk are created after the fact, after everyone has done their part \u2013 sometimes very heroically, true, but never really alone. We tell stories about what happened and because we have read and heard so many hero myths in our time, we focus on one person and make them the symbol.<\/p>\n

But there are many of us, all doing our part. And, because in my mind the idea of being one thread or stitch relates to the idea of knowing what we do, we do our part without knowing how it will all come out.<\/p>\n

That means the challenge is to do what you think is important and to do it in community wherever you can.<\/p>\n

It is probably still doing something in community if you by yourself refuse to go along with something you think is wrong and take a stand on that point. Thinking something is wrong, but going along with it to avoid rocking the boat, is not the way to build good community.<\/p>\n

There is a balance \u2013 god, there\u2019s always a balance \u2013 between going along with a group even though you prefer a different path and going along with a group when you think what the group is doing is wrong.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you need to compromise and sometimes compromising is bad. It\u2019s not always easy to tell which is the right choice, but we cannot build a future together unless we learn to work as a group and yet we cannot let a group go down the wrong path without resisting.<\/p>\n

There are times \u2013 and now is one of those times \u2013 when we need people to stand up, oppose something harmful or wrong, take the lead when others are faltering. Some of them will heroes, especially in that moment.<\/p>\n

But heroes are just threads and stitches in the tapestry, as are we all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years back, at an event in which Rebecca Solnit was talking with Joan Halifax Roshi, she said something I remember as \u201cYou know what you do. You don\u2019t know what you do does.\u201d That apparently can be traced back to Foucault. I am not well-versed in Foucault, but I like the idea a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[335],"tags":[1202,516],"class_list":["post-4614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","tag-heroes","tag-rebecca-solnit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4615,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614\/revisions\/4615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}