It was a passing comment in class, a brief mention. But the phrase “self-cultivation” made me pause. The idea is a pillar of classical Chinese philosophy, and as I read more on it, I realised it was a parallel force to the one that had brought me to that classroom, pursuing yet another degree. Parallel, because it was a desire for self-improvement, a desire to heal myself, to fix myself, which inspired me to begin studying acupuncture last year. Similarly, while Moon Face began as “a message in a bottle” (that’s how I described it in my first essay), it was more than just an abstract cry for connection. It was yet another form of self-excavation, a continuation of the drive that asks why I am the way I am, how that fits with the world, and how I can move through habits and beliefs that cause me pain, all part of a never-ending struggle to “improve.”

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I’ve always had a strong superego, the authoritarian in my head who tells me I’m doing things wrong. This is what fuels my impulse to excavate myself, to forensically examine where things have gone “wrong,” and dictates where I should improve. The origin of the word improve is from the Old French emprouwer “to turn to profit,” while cultivation comes from the Latin root colere, which means “to till” but also to care, to protect, to worship. This etymological difference articulates the nuance between the two concepts: self-improvement seems to me about the outcome; self-cultivation is about the process. Self-improvement is the Steven Bartlett hustle, shaming the past you in desperate hope of creating a “better one.” Self-cultivation, on the other hand, is the belief that to have a happy life and a peaceful world, we owe it to ourselves and others to commit to continued work on ourselves without a fixed endpoint in mind. Self-cultivation is rooted in Confucian philosophy, a philosophy where personal growth and social harmony are interdependent, each sustaining the other. It’s not just about you and your happiness: it’s about doing your part to make the world better, and by extension, finding peace and purpose.

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To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order;

to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order;

to put the family in order, we must first cultivate the self.

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Confucius, The Great Learning

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Self-cultivation is the care of the garden of the self; it’s the same idea as expressed by Voltaire: we must tend to our own garden first. Over the last few months, I have been reflecting on the garden I am growing, and I want to learn how to be a better gardener (there’s that superego again). When I think about my autoimmunity now with the lessons I have learnt from Chinese medicine, I see I was disadvantaged by bad seeds, that years of floods and droughts meant my soil was poor, I reaped and reaped the same crops, I never replenished the soil, and so the crops failed and the garden began to rot. What I have also learnt from my studies is that this does not have to be judged as good or bad; it was just out of balance, and my job now is to restore balance, to cultivate and care. But I must also remember that there are seeds that only fire can release, and others that only floods can carry, and that sometimes disharmony is simply part of our path.

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My writing for Moon Face has been infrequent, and this reflects the way I have learnt to garden my life. It’s a panic-neglect cycle. I panic and work myself ragged getting one area of the garden to flourish as another begins to rot, so I then turn to that bed and reject the flourishing one. I want to learn how to build a healthy ecosystem, to work with the seasons of my life, not to expect everything to always be in full bloom. I want to build a repository of self-cultivation to help me keep the practice and perhaps offer something to you as well. Future topics I will explore include space and order, self-mothering, and living in time.