David Whyte On Hiding

I would like to share a short chapter from David Whyte’s book, “Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.” The following has been rattling around in my brain for the last couple of weeks, and I suspect it may be of some value to my fellow whisper writers.

The word of interest: Hiding

Whyte writes:

“Hiding is a way of staying alive. Hiding is a way of holding ourselves until we are ready to come into the light. Hiding is one of the brilliant and virtuoso practices of almost every part of the natural world: the protective quiet of an icy northern landscape, the held bud of a future summer rose, the snowbound internal pulse of a hibernating bear. Hiding is underestimated. We are hidden by life in our mother’s womb until we grow and ready ourselves for our first appearance in the lighted world; to appear too early in that world is to find ourselves with an immediate necessity for outside intensive care.

Hiding done properly is the internal faithful promise for a proper future emergence, as embryos, as children, or even as emerging adults in retreat from the names that have caught us and imprisoned us, often in ways where we have been too easily seen and too easily named.

We live in a time of the dissected soul, the immediate disclosure: our thoughts, imaginings and longings are exposed to the light too much, too early, and too often; our best qualities squeezed too soon into a world already awash with ideas that oppress our sense of self and our sense of others. What is real is almost always, to begin with, hidden, and does not want to be understood by the part of our mind that mistakenly thinks it knows what is happening. What is precious inside us does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence.

Hiding is an act of freedom from the misunderstanding of others, especially in the enclosing world of oppressive secret governments and private entities, attempting to name us, to anticipate us, to leave us with no place to hide and grow in ways unmanaged by a creeping necessity for absolute naming, absolute tracking, absolute control. Hiding is a bid for independence—from others, from mistaken ideas we have about ourselves, from an oppressive and mistaken wish to keep us completely safe, completely ministered to, and therefore completely managed. Hiding is creative, necessary and beautifully subversive of outside interference and control. Hiding leaves life to itself, to become more of itself. Hiding is the radical independence necessary for our emergence into the light of a proper human future.”

Hiding is a way of staying alive.

Hiding is an internal faithful promise for a proper future emergence.

What is real is almost always, to begin with, hidden.

I am thinking of my own hiding. Sometimes it has felt like climbing into a lovely canopy of personal essence and quiet vibrance, the kind of nourishment and gestation Whyte describes. Most other times, hiding has felt urgent and necessary, like I am being consumed by a dark wind.

Even as I write this, I feel that darker shade of hiding. I “launched” this online space in early 2023 and then neglected it under the guise of busyness. Beneath the guise were fears, embarrassment, and other painful sensations. I logically understand why—the ego does not like to leave itself vulnerable to judgment. But try as I might to negotiate with these sensations, it has been SO HARD to build the capacity to “just do it anyway.”

I think back to the world I grew up in, which did not reward vulnerability, personal truth, or boldness. I became very good at contortion and contrived apathy…AKA “fitting in” and being “cool.” It’s a skill that many of us, especially girls and women, have had to cultivate to achieve safety in any given environment. Ooo, I was so good at “cool-ing” myself. I used to clothe myself in its scent and texture. I would make myself worthy of any clique, table, team, or setting. I would mirror, I would mimic, I would fool myself at times. It was easiest with a bit of alcohol in the system. Being “cool,” at least in my era of child and teenhood, meant you didn’t care. You quelled the thrill of curiosity and hid authentic passions. You sloughed away your innate essence. You tensed into a fixed posture. You wore cool girl clothes and cool girl hair and did cool girl things.

I no longer want to be the kind of human who stuffs their depth and pleasure and curiosities and essence and love into permanent drawers. I’ve felt this way for most of my life, and it’s really no way to live or be in relationship with the world. But coming online again (aha) has been no easy task, and it feels like I am battling very deeply worn ways of being. Sharing my thoughts publicly, for example, is very difficult.

These patterns have frustrated me, and I have felt guilty and ashamed of them at times. Why can’t I just be bold enough to speak my mind?

Whyte’s gracious and nuanced interpretation of hiding offers me something new.

Maybe I’m right on time. Maybe these are the parts that haven’t wanted to be understood just yet. Maybe “I” have been waiting until “I” throw up my hands and realize nothing can be truly known, including myself.

I am turning 25 in several weeks. I still don’t have a credit card but I do feel like I am cresting a very specific wave of adulthood. I feel more steady, more trusting of myself. The push to finish undergrad is over. I have a decently reliable way of supporting myself. My partner and I are building a life of collaboration and creativity together. My mental health is good (thank you weight lifting, sunshine, meditation, and Lamotrigine) and my relationship with my body is healthy again. My family relationships have found new footing. It’s like the nervous system of my life has finally found some semblance of rhythm and regulation.

That…and the world is ever-embedded in oppressive systems, genocide, war, the Industrial Growth Society, ecological collapse, and all of the other meta-crises we’ve been spiraling with for some time.

How does one hold both?

I’m thinking of Whyte’s final line:

“Hiding is the radical independence necessary for our emergence into the light of a proper human future.”

Here, he suggests that hiding is generative for not only the individual but “our” collective human future. I suppose my relationship with hiding illuminates this concept—there is a distinction between destructive hiding VS life-giving hiding. One seeks distance from feelings, thoughts, and emotions, much like dissociation. The other gathers and embraces, retreating into the folds of an inner world to grow more familiar and more “of” itself.

I now recognize that when I practice generative hiding, writing happens. This is what took place today, on this unseasonally tepid January afternoon turned dusk. I have stepped away from friends, family, and social media (and oops my job) to immerse myself within a cosmos of sensations and language. Although I can’t say whether this post will grant me or you a “proper human future,” I do know that something life-giving has taken place inside me.

Hide generatively, my friends.