It seems premature to write about something that I haven’t finished reading or without fully understanding it, but that hasn’t stopped me before, so why should it now? The other day I picked out “The Four Agreements”, by Don Miguel Ruiz, from our bookshelf. Which, after several rounds of decluttering, only has a handful of books. Literally, with the exception of six art books and the series, “Reef and Fish Identification of Florida, Bahamas and the Caribbean”, that Ken insisted on keeping, you can hold the remaining books that might be read for fun in one hand. A few of the books that have made the cut(s) are Lord of the Flies and The Catcher in the Rye, both belonging to Ken, and the only David Sedaris book I own, When You’re Engulfed in Flames. (However, I always have an electronic copy or an audio version of his other books on loan from the public library.)
I don’t exactly know where The Four Agreements came from or who it belongs to, but if I had to guess…
I had once enrolled in a Health Coach Training Program a million years ago (read: at least twenty) when I still lived in NYC. The seminars took place in a huge auditorium at Columbus Circle, held over several weekends spread over the course of a year and costed several thousand dollars. It was meant to be the path for a new career, a new life. Each of those weekends, students were distributed a red, reusable shopping bag filled to the brim with nutrition and wellness books and the occasional cooking implement. But because I wasn’t mentally or emotionally ready for it, I attended the first few sessions feeling completely fraudulent and out of place, and then I stopped attending altogether. I would pick up the bags but not attend the seminar, promising myself to read them on my own when I was ready. I carted those books from apartment to apartment, year to year, with nary a glance. When I moved in with Ken, the bulkiest of those books were relegated to the attic of my parents’ home, and they were obliged to deal with them when they downsized to a small studio in a coop.
I suspect the book may have been from one of those red-bag hauls. Distilled from the dozens, if not hundreds, that came along with it, it stands as the lone survivor from that bygone era (save for a red silicone spatula that I use to this day.) I vaguely remember reading it once but have no distinct recollection, and there isn’t any trace of wear. I don’t necessarily feel sentimental about it, so how did it remain in our possession for so long? I relinquished half of my bread book collection, the majority of my language books, and a library of training for climbing manuals. Those books were tied to my identity — or, my fantasy self — and I held on to them fervently until I came to the realization that I am not my books. They also took up a lot of space and so I put them on the chopping block. Now I marvel at the empty space, keenly aware that I am as close to being a master baker/polyglot/Alex Honnold without the books as I was with them. (That is, not close at all.)
So, perhaps what may have saved The Four Agreements from ruthless elimination was its diminutive size, a slim, pretty paperback with an earthy green spine; and that it associated itself with the few other notably thin volumes that Ken held on to for decades. It might be crazy to think that a book would conspire to save itself, but I don’t know. Maybe the book was holding on to me until I was ready to come back to it to receive its message?
Or vice versa?
I settled into the big yellow armchair in my daughter’s room with The Four Agreements. It has become our routine to read quietly before her bedtime. I’d become accustomed to reading ebooks on my phone but I find myself wanting to hold an actual book, to increasingly part with this electronic device that is practically sewn into my hand. And because I’m overdue on a visit to the library, I didn’t have much in the way of options unless I wanted to sink my teeth into my daughter’s Harry Potter collection. As I read the introduction, I experienced a sense of déjà vu, the feeling of being puzzled by the cryptic prose. Three thousand years ago, a man realizes that everything in existence is a manifestation of one living being that is God, that human perception is a light perceiving light, and that everyone is a mirror surrounded by a wall of fog.
What in the? I groaned. I still don’t know what the hell is going on.
Hesitantly, I continued on to the first chapter, hoping that it makes more sense.
”Chapter 1: Domestication and the Dream of The Planet. — What you are seeing and hearing right nothing but a dream. You are dreaming right now in this moment. You are dreaming with the brain awake…”
I imagine myself fifteen, twenty years ago, eyes sweeping over these words quickly, reading without comprehending. In that way, I could’ve finished the book in less than an hour and moved on with my life without it ever leaving an impression — except that I kept the book all this time. And in the strangest, almost mystical way, it feels like I was meant to read it at this exact moment. Something in my heart tells me to read the words slowly, and slower still, and to absorb as much as I can.
I’m struggling to summarize or paraphrase what I’ve read so far because I don’t want to do it a disservice. The prose and vocabulary are simple enough, but the concepts are so confounding, so challenging to how I’ve lived my life so far. I’ve taken for granted that we, as humans, come into this world and are immediately influenced by our family, our environment, and our circumstances. We don’t choose our parents or our native language, those are predetermined for us. And we are taught to believe what our families and the larger society that encompasses us believe, until at some point we have enough agency to assert a different opinion. (While you’re living under my roof, you do what I say or else!)
But the book elaborates on just how these beliefs are encoded within us until they become our own, into our personal Book of Law, the standards which we would forever measure our life against.
“As children, we didn’t have the opportunity to choose our beliefs, but we agreed with the information passed to us from the dream of the planet via other humans. The only way to store information is by agreement.”
It is in our agreements that each of these beliefs are written into our minds and hearts, and as long as those agreements hold, we will punish or reward ourselves and others accordingly, trying to live up to them. This is how we are domesticated, and in creating an image of perfection of what it means to be good enough, we reject ourselves constantly for not being able to live up to it.
These words may not speak to everyone. But as someone who has experienced childhood trauma, addictions and depression, and in general struggles everyday with the feelings of not being good enough — these words speak to me. Or, at least they do now. Maybe because I’ve pulled my head above water to grasp at a breath, that I can recognize that I’ve been drowning this whole time.
The words make sense in a way that they couldn’t have before, back when I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t have been ready, because back then, they were just words on a page. They didn’t stop me in my tracks, beg to be read over and over, and implore me to take responsibility for all the things I have agreed to that are making me miserable. But maybe, just maybe, I hoped that one day I would be.
And I think that’s why this book is a survivor. Just like me.