abstract contradictive notions

IDENTITY VERSUS CULTURE

2010-04-20T02:13:00.002-05:00

Everyone struggles with their identity at some point. Sometimes we struggle to find ourselves as distinct members of a family, community, society. Other times we must face the challenge of recognizing ourselves outside of those boundaries or in a new context, outside of a stereotype or an expectation and in a new place, time, age. We may live with a slight discomfort our whole lives, an uneasiness, a sense of isolation but we may never discover the root causes of these feelings until forced, or simply asked, to examine the situations from which they arose. When we do so, I think many of us will find the same thing, as many of the authors of these essays have. In essence, our insecurities within society seem to stem from insecurities within the family, regardless of our particular struggles. Insecurities about race stem from cultural expectations upheld by parents that may not apply to a new, expanded culture. Or they can come from a shared racial insecurity, as depicted in The Bluest Eye. Or they simply arise because in everyone’s life, especially in America, we are at one point severed from a family of shared experiences, cultures, genes, and cast into the melting pot. Our shared struggle – regardless of race, gender, or sexual preference – is maintaining our shape over the flame of a greater culture, a pressure larger and more intrusive than even our families. Despite their obvious differences, I see this struggle in each of the stories we’ve read.

We all struggle not to get lost in the melting pot of American culture.
source:http://iron.lcc.gatech.edu/~ntrivedi6/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/malting-pot.jpg

As a society, I feel that we are obsessed both with maintaining unique ancestral cultures and rejecting them. We at once want to be unique and fit in. So where does diversity, the ideological byproduct of our country’s foundation, sit in this innate contradiction? We obviously don’t know how to deal with it, despite its pervasiveness. I feel that the essays we read for this discussion focus less on racial tension and more on the culture war that we all face in America, especially those who must struggle to solidify their place in this country, this culture. I was struck by the observation in the first essay: “Race and culture are synonymous when people with a similar history or genetic make-up share common life experiences unique to their heritage (p.866).” Outside of those conditions, the two are not synonymous, and in America especially, may have very little to do with another. So in America, one isn’t necessarily born into a culture, typecast by appearance alone; and in many ways one has the freedom to escape any standards of culture pressed upon them by parents or communities. In the second essay, the author wasn’t embarrassed or outcast because of his race – there were many other Asians at his school – but rather because of his culture, something foreign, noticeable, unique – the smell of his food at lunch.

I can imagine that it would be easy to vilify one’s native culture during youth since it not only presents a challenge to “fitting in” but is also representative of parental dominance. It would be natural for any young person to rebel against the culture their parents forced onto them. I think that this ease of rebellion is unfortunate, because it sets up an identity crisis lying dormant, a cultural rift within a family, and a general loss of culture. I saw the trend in the essays that as the authors aged, they began to revisit the cultures they thought they had lost, or been cast out from, as adolescents. It’s a question of finding the right balance that people growing up in America, especially those raised by immigrant parents, must answer in order to function both within a family and within a larger society. In the third essay the author realizes that “Part of coming to terms with who I was involved reconciling the distant personal relationship I had with my father, but I also realized that I needed to reconcile myself with what it really meant to be Chinese, since that was the source of much of our conflict (p.887).” It is a discomfort with one’s culture, a struggle to reconcile it with the pervasive culture (or anti-culture) of America, which leads to problems within families. But it can also work the other way – a cultural identity associated with a dysfunctional family may not be held onto as a means of coping, or repressing, the pain of a fractured family life. I agree with the statement from the second essay that “we all exist with scars that seem too deep and too painful (p.879).” These scars may be experiences that sever us from our heritage, our history, our families. Or they could be those glimpses of an identity unexpected and unwelcomed by the safety net of sociocultural standards, those revelations that you don’t necessarily fit the niche you’ve been given.

"Who are you?" may be an unanswerable question.
source: http://www.alexross.com/whoareyoubenson.jpg

It’s hard to know who you are. I can only imagine the added struggle of growing up with multiple parties constantly telling you who you should be, with the threat of disownment at the betrayal of their expectations. I can only be in shock to read about the reaction of the parents in the second essay, their complete denial and disgrace at their son’s homosexuality. Though it isn’t their reaction that is most striking, in fact I might say its typical, shallow even. Rather, it is the predicament of the son who wants to love his parents and belong to his family but can’t live within their expectations that haunts me. To have to pit one’s own identity – a tentative and elusive definition – against the establishment of family, of ancestry, of an entire culture would be a debilitating struggle. But I suppose it’s a necessary one. We can’t forget where we come from, even if its vestiges appear only as guilt or resentment. The author of the third essay seemed to reconcile the dichotomy of familial culture and personal identity thusly: “While I see my roots as an important connection to my past, I do not see them as defining my future (p.887).” In the end, it takes confidence to move away from one’s roots. I don’t see this as a rejection or dismissal of culture, but rather as a necessary attempt to separate one’s identity from a cultural identity that may be susceptible to generalization and subsequent discrimination or persecution. I think it is just as dangerous for a person to devote themselves wholly to a cultural identity – to say “I am Korean” or “I am a Latino” or “I am a homosexual” – as it is to reject one’s cultural, or sexual, identity completely. In both cases, we become hollow shells of people, type-cast, narrowly defined. It is easy to get into the habit of “constructing layers of social identities that do not communicate a consistent core self across space and time (p.888),” because those layers, those social identities, are easy for others to process and judge and react to accordingly. If we only represent ourselves as this race or that culture, we not only alienate others, but we isolate ourselves, we become detached from our true identities as complex, multidimensional personalities. Racism, sexism, and homophobia will never go away if we keep representing ourselves in singular, static ways, because the generalities, the assumptions, are created in our own narrow definitions, in our own inability to reconcile diverse cultures/identities/roles within ourselves - much less among others.

WRTING AS THERAPY

2010-04-12T16:49:00.002-05:00

Writing is therapy. Whether you are conquering a self-doubt or merely conquering your to-do list, writing about what is troubling you is immensely rewarding and stress relieving. I have always been a writer in this regard – even before I took up visual art, writing was my primary form of expression. When I was a child this expression was fairly simple – poetry and fiction describing the world around me or creating worlds I wanted to see. As I got older however, writing became a way for me to deal with the troubles that come with adolescence, not unlike what some of the characters in The Bluest Eye face. I never sought counsel from my peers, siblings, or parents when I was upset – instead, I wrote. I have a written account of my most troubling thoughts and feelings, my most inspired ideas and goals, and my most humiliating failures. The refuge I found in writing developed my sense of independence an

d self-confidence as well as my personal voice. If something can be so powerful as to help sculpt a person like writing sculpted me, what can it accomplish for society?

I spent a lot of time writing as a child.

source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_sh_ujz809_o/SYIsntKA5CI/AAAAAAAAAXY/mubTA1XKt2g/S692/girl_writing2.jpg

Toni Morrison understands this. She understands the power of communicating our inner dialogue, our inner conflicts, in a way that not only removes stress from the writer, but effectively illustrates a mindset, a voice, a time place and character for the reader. Morrison goes beyond this even, writing for a culture, a race, a gender, through the voice of “the most delicate member of a society: a child; the most vulnerable member: a female (p. 210).” There is something about that voice, the observing yet unknowing voice of a child, which tends to illuminate greater truths so powerfully. In the case of The Bluest Eye, the child narrators can only comprehend trauma within their limited frame of reference. They understand the severity of a conflict, but not the stigma or social response to it. In this way their voices could be considered pure, their responses truly reactionary at the most fundamental level. The simply drawn conclusions of a child make the adult reader wonder, “Why do we invent so many layers to express and identify a conflict?” In the case of Pecola, adults rely on social stigmas and pre-judgments attached to the Breedlove family to detach themselves from her pain, to avoid empathy. But a child, without an understanding of those constructs, cannot avoid the emotional response, cannot help but try to help. Adults are equipped with a huge tool set for dealing with conflicts that children lack, and thus are able to remain detached, unmoved by situations that call for a strong voice, a helping hand, or at the very least a bit of empathy. Morrison recognizes this and tries to strip the adult reader of their tools, their guard, and make them see the true issue at hand. She describes the role of the child narrators, “If they have any success, it will be in transferring the problem of fathoming to the presumably adult reader (p. 214).”

Morrison depicts self-loathing.

source: http://michaelalonzo.com/images/photography/people/selfloathing.jpg

What is Morrison trying to express by stripping the reader of their emotional blockade? To some extent, this is the expression itself – the frailty of the constructs we employ to defend ourselves against caring, a frailty built on our own self-doubt, and in the case of the characters in The Bluest Eye, their own “racial self-loathing (p. 210).” This is the attitude that Morrison tries to tear down by exposing its weakness as well as its potential to cause irreversible harm. Morrison is attempting to reveal feelings that she believes to be “lodged in all young girls (p. 210),” and I think she succeeds. Beyond that, she has used writing as a tool, an outlet, for sharing a secret with the society that’s been working to keep it as such. Morrison says that, “the writing was the disclosure of secrets, secrets “we” shared and those withheld from us by ourselves and by the world outside our community (p. 212).” Thus, her book was a form of therapy, not only for herself but for her community, for her readers, and for the girl who only wanted blue eyes.

INESCAPABLE IDEALS

2010-04-05T20:51:00.002-05:00

I wonder if it’s safe to say that every culture struggles with its own establishment of physical ideals. In The Bluest Eye, the ideal is associated with white culture, thus keeping all minorities outside of what is considered desirable. But I feel that at some point we all feel that alienation, regardless of our race. I think this point comes along most frequently during adolescence and that this, possibly even above racism, is a central conflict of Morrison’s novel. The specific example illustrated so strikingly by Morrison is just an extreme case of the implications of culturally manufactured physical ideals. These implications go deeper than a simple feeling of inadequacy or envy- they reach all the way into self-hatred and even the projection of that hatred onto others. These feelings generally stem from the experiences of adolescence, as that is a vulnerable time for anyone, when extreme pressure is applied both from within a family structure and within a society.

We can all relate at some level to the “fear of being rejected because of our appearance, abandoned by the group, left homeless (Bump, p.334).” These feelings arise in our younger years because our relationships, our ties to the larger world, are tentative and only beginning to emerge. Without the security of an encouraging family or teacher, it is easy to be consumed by self-doubt. Especially when the role models around you are also plagued by insecurities – financial, marital, societal – it is difficult to be hopeful about your future development. Rather, these perceived shortcomings come to define people, as is the case of the Breedloves. Each member of the family has their own story of self-doubt and displacement, culminating in a group identity of inadequacy. Pauline is especially affected by the societal ideal of beauty, engrossing herself in films to escape her own physical reality and feelings of constant longing. She equates her unsatisfied romantic dreams with her unsatisfying appearance thusly: “Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion. In equating physical beauty with virtue, she stripped her mind, bound it, and collected self-contempt by the heap (Morrison, p.122).” The pervasive culture that affects all of us is almost guaranteed – designed – to create feelings of envy and longing. Perhaps this is a phenomenon unique to our society and others similar to it, as the aim of a capitalist system is to encourage consumers to buy into the culture. Without the commodification of beauty, of social status, perhaps these feelings of inadequacy would not be so universal.

Ads like this create a standard of beauty that consumers want to buy into.
source: http://www.shoppingblog.com/pics/dolce_makeup_ad1.gif

Morrison really captures the full spectrum of emotions and behaviors associated with these insecurities. In the extreme case of the deep-seated racism in the novel, there is nowhere to hide from society’s disapproval. The negative connotation associated with dark skin was so engrained in society that even African Americans, and sometimes them worst of all, associated their skin color and physical appearance with an inescapable inadequacy. Some, like Maureen and Geraldine, try to mask it through dress and obsessive cleanliness. Others, such as the taunting boys who “seemed to have taken all of their smoothly cultivated ignorance, their exquisitely learned self-hatred, their elaborately designed hopelessness and sucked it all up into a fiery cone of scorn (Morrison, p.65),” lash out against those with similar traits. For Claudia and Pecola, however, it is just a constant question – why them? Why not me? It is frustration – perhaps the first signs of a break in the cycle. Claudia does not accept or understand the sovereignty of Shirley Temple. Pecola believes her problems would be solved if she only had blue eyes. Two very different attitudes, but both speaking for the shallow and arbitrary nature of the cultural ideal.

Shirley Temple, the source of Claudia's insecurity
source: http://www.breakingthetape.com/keeping-pace/Shirley%20Temple.bmp

As obviously shallow and distorted as these constructs are – in the case of The Bluest Eye being dictated by decades of racism and discrimination against blacks – we are still so affected by them. We have all felt the drop in the pits of our stomachs when faced with the “seeming helplessness in the grip of fears generated by judging ourselves and others by appearance (Bump, p.333).” It is a vicious cycle of unattainable standards and arbitrary preferences. Pecola cannot make herself have blue eyes. Pauline cannot put her foot back to normal. I cannot make myself grow five inches. In a sense this powerlessness to ascribe to a standard that has been imposed upon you is the most destructive feeling of all. A task that seems so effortless in the movies, that seems so natural among the affluent, the task of being desirable, of being attractive, is incredibly hard to attain based on society’s standards. And with this powerlessness comes fear – the fear of rejection, the fear, reaching back to the beginning of the novel, of being “put outside”. And when those people who should form a community of likeness and support – families, cultural groups, neighbors – reject their own, then that fear becomes very real and very damaging.

The blue eyes that Pecola can never have.
source: http://www.chrisdellavedova.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/blueeyes.jpg

FAMILY

2010-04-01T00:51:00.002-05:00

Family is something everyone can relate to. Whether your family was a large part of your life or if they were essentially nonexistent, from the very act of your creation they define who you are and in many ways, who you have the ability to become. I think struggles related to the family transcend race, class, and location. Abuse can exist in the most affluent homes, and harmony can exist in squalor. Family dynamics constantly shift as children grow, new relationships form and disintegrate, loved ones pass away, and members are forced to question – who are these people that define me?

Anyone can be the victim of abuse.

source:http://www.afroromance.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/rihanna.jpg

We cannot control the family we are born into, and thus we must sacrifice much of our autonomy right from the start. Some people, depending on their family situation, carry this sacrifice with them their whole lives, never able to transcend the barriers put on them by the simple fact of their birth. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the Breedloves represent this predicament. The narrator describes their relationship thusly, “from the tiny impressions gleaned from one another, they created a sense of belonging and tried to make do with the way they found each other (p.34).” Their whole existence has been defined by the chance interaction of two people on two nights, of four people in one place, and two sets of genes pitted against one another like a dueling couple. There can be no joy in this life of bitter resignation. They belonged to a group they resented, they made do with abuse and hatred.

But they, like anyone seemingly trapped in a negative family situation, had options. As we see in the novel, “a family of choice can be and often is healthier than a family of blood (Bump, 350).” When the Breedlove’s shallow excuse for a family implodes, Pecola has the opportunity to join a new family and thus separate herself from the negative self-image her biological family forced upon her.

Claudia’s family, while not perfect, is far from the tempest of Pecola’s. Still, Claudia struggles with her own identity much as Pecola does, confused as to where she fits not only within a family of individuals, but in a world full of diversity. This confusion often leads to self-doubt and deprecation. Whereas Pecola internalizes her struggles and seeks to disappear, Claudia lashes out against the world and tries to assert her identity. As Professor Bump states, “Claudia is able to keep her sanity partly because… she has a tendency to get angry at the other and defend herself rather than to turn inward and sink into depression (Bump, 354).” But even this anger challenges Claudia, as she realizes it is misdirected and shallow. In the case of her treatment of dolls, and by extension white girls, Claudia analyzes her behavior with a sense of regret: “when I learned how repulsive this disinterested violence was… my shame floundered about for refuge. The best hiding place was love. Thus the conversion from pristine sadism to fabricated hatred, to fraudulent love (p.23).” This fraudulent love can be just as damaging to someone as external violence, especially in a family environment. Our families are the easiest group in our lives to resent, as we had no responsibility in assigning them. When we put on a mask of false love to cover up a bitter sense of anonymity, we create a shallow framework for a family that will never grow, only shudder under the weight of building resentment. Claudia’s realization about her relationship with the doll foreshadows her feelings about the role she plays in her family: “the change was adjustment without improvement (p.23).”

Being in a family can cause an identity crisis.

source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_UZCczEayolg/Sw1v15PGT3I/AAAAAAAADhQ/AreTyfhTj5k/s400/IdentityCrisis.jpg

From as much of this book as I’ve read so far, it seems that a major theme is the inability to ever truly escape from the family you’re born into. I am curious to see how Pecola gets sucked back into the severe dysfunction of the Breedloves, and also how Claudia reconciles herself to her place in a large and assertive family. It is interesting to once again think of family from the perspective of a child who is still so trapped in that world, now being so separate from my own family. Being the youngest of four very independent siblings, I can relate to the identity crisis caused by being part of any family, no matter the level of functionality.

BLACK ELK SPEAKS DISCUSSION OUTLINE

2010-03-30T01:00:00.003-05:00

Native American culture is something we cannot forget about our history. We cannot separate the economic and political systems of today from those that caused the slaughter and destruction of an opposing system. Our ideas of human rights may be more advanced, but the materialism and greed that defines us as a capitalist society is the root cause of acts of injustice against Native Americans. Our best chance at reconciling our current culture with the one it nearly destroyed is to attempt to understand and immerse ourselves in the rituals, experiences, and way of life of the American Indians. Perhaps by doing this, we will identify aspects of their culture that better serve a society committed to "liberty and justice for all," as well as behavior that promotes a sustainable world.

Native American drumming and chanting rituals serve to unite the community in the act of worship. But even greater than that, the music created mirrors the harmony and rhythm of the culture itself, drawing from primal beats and a trance inducing tapestry of sound. I think maybe during this class, instead of trying to imitate recordings of Native American drummers, we should try to create our own sense of unity through a sound that represents us as a group.

drum circle commence!

source: http://www.drstandley.com/images/nativeamerican/Drums.bmp

Now let's analyze the different reactions to this kind of experiential immersion into the culture versus reading a translated account of the culture by one of its members.

What did you gain from Black Elk's story?

One of my problems with Black Elk Speaks is my inability to discern reality from the narrator’s “visions.”

I know that this account of a Native American ritual is supposed to give me a greater appreciation for a culture different from my own, but how can I appreciate something that to me sounds like empty words?

-molly

Because of the history of Native American subjugation, Black Elk's testimony is therefore that more fascinating and important. It is not often that we hear about the Native's viewpoint about incidents like Wounded Knee

-jose

What did you think the story was about?

when I read this story, I didn't feel like it was about failure.

What I felt, instead, was this deep, aching sense of loss.

I felt that Black Elk, with the death of his peoples dream, was losing his place in the world, and he was going to have to relocate, to find a new place, and the only way he was going to be able to do this was if he confronted what he felt was his failure and transformed it into something that would bring good things to the world, whether they were the good things he was originally aiming for or not

- lauren

This was a powerful message to me that there are important lessons to learn in suffering and that regardless of our circumstances we always have the potential to laugh or cry.

-katherine

How was Black Elk as a leader?

He is chosen to be the leader, to accomplish the destiny for his people. Spirits call to him with a“sacred voice,” emphasizing his important role in this greater plan for his people (xxi).

-jade

To be honest I felt a little betrayed by Black Elk. He had set himself up as a redeeming, heroic figure.

I felt that his final sentences, his lifelong reaction to the events that he had witnessed, were complete and total contradictions to all that he had said before.

-katherine

how far can spiritual confidence and affirmation through hallucinations really get you? I feel like Black Elk overhyped his initial gift of power and used it too frivolously.

- alice

When it seems as though the power of the cosmos is driving you forward, then nothing is impossible, no bar is too high, and greatness transforms into a trivial trait.

- sharad

How does this relate to your leadership vision?

Unlike Black Elk, I do not perceive my vision as fulfilling a destiny, but rather accomplishing my passions

-jade

As we prepare ourselves to be leaders, I think that we should keep in mind the trials leadership brings and develop an indomitable mindset, ready to tackle any task

-katherine

While Black Elk’s story relates to my leadership vision, his experiences also remind me of my totem animal quest.

- helen

What is your general reaction to the story?

I cannot for a second believe that the white men responsible for these killings viewed Native Americans as equal, or maybe not even as true people.

-jose

The Native Americans did not have the technological innovation to stand up to the United State’s armies which ultimately led to their defeat, but the Sioux people understood an important concept that we so often talk about in class: unity.

They understood that land can’t truly be owned by any one person. They understood that all living and natural forces are in some manner sacred.

- chris

I realize they faced extreme hardship, but this is generally when a culture reaffirms their faith in the power of their spirituality and rituals

- alice

Power, in these situations, just means the failure to understand each other and the constant desire to hold the upper card.

They have a beautiful connection with nature and live in harmony, but they lose this sense of innocence because of what is brought to them.

- emily

Obviously, stories aren't the only things that make life circular. But I feel like they're a big part of the circle. And I also feel like they help point out to us the other parts of life that are circular.

-lauren

How does the story, and Native American culture, relate to our topic of diversity?

when we attempted to recreate Native American music by listening and mimicking its sounds, I feel that we just glossed over another important aspect of the culture. We never learned what the music we made meant, or what purpose it served in the culture, only to imitate it in sound and hope that it made us more cultured.

I think context, drawing comparisons, and finding common ground are important aspects of learning about other cultures. If the true goal of diversity is not only acceptance, but understanding, simply reading about rituals and mimicking practices isn’t enough.

- molly

What aspects of Native American culture do you think we should incorporate into our current culture?

CIRCULAR POWER

2010-03-29T19:59:00.004-05:00

Black Elk introduces us to the Native American idea of power, an internal force that comes with specific instructions and limitations for its use. I thought this was an interesting aspect of their culture that is not often discussed. Because tribes operate as communal systems, although there is a hierarchical order, power is not connected with material wealth, but rather a force of spirit. Power, in this sense, is a quality of being, an aura so to speak. The ritualistic way Black Elk taps into this power reaffirms the importance of community and heritage to the native Americans, as it is his six grandfathers that guide him to his new spiritual knowledge.

A Native American circle of power.
source: http://www.firstpeople.us/native-american-art-for-sale/kirby-sattler/pt/circle-of-power.jpg

Another interesting source of power, and the recognition of power, is the imagery of the vision itself. Black Elk says, “a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see (p. 28).” This means that the inner journey is not enough to command the kind of spirit strength it provides. Rather power is only begotten by public display and approval. This is somewhat similar to the American political race, which I find ironic, in that politicians must prove themselves as charismatic leaders with a patriotic and dramatic background, not unlike the vision quests Black Elk must relate to his people.

But what is the substance of this power? Black Elk regarded it as a calling, a tool to be used to help his people. But how far can spiritual confidence and affirmation through hallucinations really get you? I feel like Black Elk overhyped his initial gift of power and used it too frivolously. He was able to rally his people around him for a time, but when the memory of his vision faded, when the new generations looked for substance and action, he could not deliver. I think perhaps this made his defeat even more bitter. A power he built upon his spiritual belief was not sufficient to save his people. I know he says, “It was the nation that was dying, and the vision was for the nation; but I have done nothing with it (21),” but I think what he realizes is that the vision was never sufficient, despite how he used it. The reality was that a leadership based on messages from an alternate, spiritual reality could not guide the native American people through their hardship. But as a true spiritual messenger, Black Elk blames himself for his failure, instead of questioning the belief system that was unable to empower its people to the point of survival.

What I don’t understand is why exactly this power was so easily diluted. Black Elk makes a strong statement when he says, “everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken, the people flourished (26).” I feel like this is a very empowering attitude, and if the Native Americans were truly attuned to it, I don’t understand why he would be so quick to proclaim the “sacred hoop” broken. I realize they faced extreme hardship, but this is generally when a culture reaffirms their faith in the power of their spirituality and rituals.

Native Americans experienced unsurmountable suffering.

source: http://www.nativevillage.org/Archives/2009%20Archives/APRIL%20News/April%202009%20News%20V4/Cherokee.jpg

The end of this selection brought home the tragedy that occurred among the native American people. When Black Elk says, “And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, - you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer (p. 35),” you can feel his defeat, his shame, and his sorrow. The native American people will never be able to forget this injustice, and that sense of sorrow will continue to define their tradition no matter its positive roots. Their power has shifted to become more morose. The visual tradition remains and the importance of oral story telling and the relating of spiritual quests. But it is scarred by a lost sovereignty, a lost power that can never be regained. I think Black Elk’s words, “You have noticed that the truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping. When people are already in despair, maybe the laughing face is better for them; and when they feel too good and are too sure of being safe, maybe the weeping face is better for them to see (p. 25),” are very poignant considering the fate of his people. It is a stoic power they still posses, that Black Elk’s words posses, that maintains the beauty and majesty of native American culture.

BLACK ELK SPEAKS

2010-03-25T01:59:00.002-05:00

I would like to know more about the context of Black Elk Speaks. Is there a continuous narrative going on, organized in a coherent manner? I know it is supposed to be the narration of Black Elk’s life, but so much is missing from the selection that I find it easy to miss the point. Perhaps at the time it was just meant as a cultural expose to introduce people to a then unknown way of life. But now, Native American culture has been so popularized by movies such as Pocahontas and Avatar that reading something like this is not especially striking to me. I know both movies are complete facsimiles of the true culture and struggles of Native Americans, but from what I’ve read here, they give me the same main ideas.

Pocahontas may not accurately illustrate Native American culture.
source: http://redsonika.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/pocahontas.jpg

Native Americans have a profound respect for place, akin to that of many eastern religions. I wonder what it is that makes these ancient religions so focused on unity, on worldly power and divine knowledge. I do not get the same feeling from western religion, that divinity exists all around us, that it is a natural power source to be tapped into. What do Native American and eastern cultures have in common? When Black Elk describes himself “standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being (x),” I am reminded of Siddhartha’s enlightened state, and the oft mentioned state of higher awareness of spatial realities in eastern culture.

Another similarity I see with eastern spirituality is the emphasis on compassion for all creatures, and on the maintenance of a balance between man and animal, almost a karmic responsibility to give as much as one takes. When Black Elk says, “I felt sorry that we had killed these animals and thought that we ought to do something in return (xi),” he is showing his appreciation of all life and of the subtleties of human/animal interaction. He believes in atonement. And that is exactly what his father offers him when he says, “To all the wild things that eat flesh, this I have offered that my people may live and the children grow up with plenty (xi).” They understand that existing in the natural world requires a reciprocal relationship with the environment. If you take, you must give back. If you want to survive, you must not over-consume.

Native American tribes created no waste in building teepees.
source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__TkYG1RhmoU/SuPMjZLuj_I/AAAAAAAACQg/gUkK6zc9at4/s400/teepee400.jpg

I believe this to be the greatest lesson we could glean from Native American culture. They are extremely wise in the art of sustainability. Their craft is based on recycling and the creative use of materials, their community structure based on sharing and conservation. This attitude stems from a greater understanding of the unity of all life on earth, an understanding shared by Siddhartha. When we become aware of this interconnectedness, we can see the implications of our actions far into the future and thus structure them to better mitigate destruction.

BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE

2010-03-24T21:25:00.003-05:00

In my first ever discussion board entry for this class I asked myself the question, “what am I doing here?”. I’m still not sure I know. I’ve been through so many majors, so many career plans, student organizations, social groups, and emotional states – the only thing I know for sure is that things change here, all the time, unpredictably. Midway through my second semester, my feet are dragging. All the fleeting interests, the four-year plans, the missed (and taken) opportunities have piled up behind me, and I’m dragging them along too, like shackles across the penitentiary yard of early adulthood. At first this was the quest that allured me most about college – the freedom to change my mind, the ease at which I could shift interests. But the clock is ticking now, and I can’t move fast enough while carrying this ball and chain.

I'm limited by the shackles of my past.

source: http://atlanticportal.hil.unb.ca/acva/blackloyalists/en/context/gallery/images/chains.jpg

Now is the time to sift through the silt of these past endeavors and find something golden. I’m sure its no coincidence that this cumulative essay is due right before we determine our next steps in academia. I’m grateful for this timing, as I have been for all of the questions I’ve been made to answer in this class. My answers may no longer be true, but the questions remain, and they help shape much of my decision-making. So I look towards them now to help me make my last decision for this class – what goal will define my leadership vision? With this train of thought I’ll actually be answering two questions, not only what my goal is, but what’s stopping me from reaching that goal. The latter I’ve already introduced – my chronic indecisiveness.

I know I want to be a leader, it feels almost like a biological imperative. I know I assume leadership roles naturally. I know I’ve been generally effective as a leader. But I don’t know what I’m leading towards in my own life. I have the ability to forge any path ahead of me; all I have to do is choose one. But I’m stuck, looking back across past interests, past passions and causes, and seeing how easily they blew through my life plan. And I see future interests, current interests even, blowing through just as easily. It’s a windy plain of indecision – thousands of viable stalks bent out of shape by the currents of life, of distractions, of constant thought – never to flower or come to fruition.

A windy plain of indecision.

source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/media/inline/global-wheat-crop-threatened-by-fungus_1.jpg

The only way to attack my indecisiveness is through constant questioning. That’s an invaluable lesson I’ve learned in college. I’ve never been hesitant to question the world around me, but I’ve been under the illusion for quite some time that there are no questions left to ask myself. But honestly, those are the ones that matter most. Until now I’ve always thought opportunity would come to me, that circumstance would shape my future, and that I would simply adapt to change as it occurred around me naturally. But when faced with questions such as “who are you?”, “wh

at’s your passion?”, and “what is your leadership vision?”, I must be the one to take an active role in my own life, I have to make the decisions, I have to make my own answers. This reminds me of the famous Gandhi quote, “be the change you want to see in the world.” I could talk for days about my solutions to the world’s problems, to my new ideas and intricate visions, but what have I done about any of it? I’ve put very little into action. I am a passive observer of my own life. This is an extremely odd revelation coming from a complete control freak and infamous micromanager.

So what’s the problem? I’m often overwhelmed by the combination of infinite potential and limited time. I truly believe that any accomplishment is possible. What I can’t reconcile myself with is that all accomplishments are not possible, at least not within a human lifetime (as the current human lifetime stands at least, but I won’t get into that). So I’m left with a choice to make. A decision for the indecisive.

It would be very easy for me to outline my future. In fact, I could create infinitely many versions of it, including every detail. Its not the action plan that’s the problem, it’s the action. I would feel dishonest simply describing one of many hypothetical “leadership visions”, knowing it’s unlikely to become reality or even keep my interest for more than a semester. This flightiness is my deepest problem. Until I know for sure what path I want to take, I am extremely hesitant to do anything on that path. But I’ll never know if a path is right unless I start on it. I’m not a fan of retracing my steps, of moving back to the beginning. My stagnancy is caused by fear – a fear of failure, a fear of lost time, wasted potential. I suppose to sum it up, I’m frozen by my fear of death – my fear of the limited time frame I have to accomplish something.

But as we’ve been taught, love is more effective than fear. As much as I fear death, I have come to love life. That love is the first step in discovering how I’m going to affect the world, what my life is going to mean when I’m gone. So the first question in determining my leadership vision is easy – what do I love to do? The answer is slightly more complicated. There are so many things I love doing, love learning, love creating. However, being required to take courses outside of my current interests, and finally getting to take courses in them, has helped me narrow it down somewhat. Subjects I used to be interested in, such as neuroscience and Mayan history, have become less attractive to me as I’ve seen the slow pace at which they are taught at the undergraduate level.

Conversely, my required Plan II courses have given me a lot of positive direction so far. World Literature has made me more aware of my role in helping others and doing things for the benefit of society, along with asking questions that have forced me to define myself in the context of this university and the academic experience of college. Plan II biology re-introduced me to conservation ecology and pointed me towards environmental science, which is my current dual-major with Plan II. Perspectives on the Future gave me just that, a perspective from which to analyze what’s going to be most important to our civilization in the near future and what I can do to help. And finally, my freshman tutorial course, pathways to civic engagement, has introduced me to so many creative and feasible ways to affect change in my community and the world at large, which will always be a goal of my leadership vision, regardless of details. That class also introduced me to a field that I had never considered before this semester but that, when viewing my life from my new perspectives on my past and future, makes more sense than any career path I’ve ever considered. That field is urban planning and sustainability.

The type of future city I want to design.

source: http://interesting2008times.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/future_city_highresolution.jpg

Urban planning is going to play a huge role in the future of humankind. As populations rise all over the world, more and more people are moving into urban settings. The cities of the past have been built as huge energy consuming scars, concentrating all of the most unsustainable technologies in a high-density area. Also, cities have not been designed to facilitate local resource management, requiring all goods to be imported far distances, generally by truck or freight train. If cities continue to be built this way, we will use up our resources before our unsustainable steel structures collapse. They’ll be the graveyards of human accomplishment.

I am dedicated to making a change in the way people live, in the way they consume, and in the way they view the spaces they occupy. I feel that one of the best ways to do this is to become and urban planner with a background in sustainable design and environmental science. I have already begun taking steps towards this path. I decided to start on the track for the Environmental Science major because I feel like threats to life on earth are the most imminent and serious threat to the life of humans. In my field research class, I realized that I didn’t want to be a pure scientist collecting data, but rather wanted to apply what we already know, and are learning, about how humans interact with their environment. Urban planning combines my passion for the environment with my passion for design and community organizing. Urban planners and designers control the way people move around, how they interact with their environment, and how their environment is sustained. It is a field that is going to require creative, visionary leaders to reach its full potential.

To become one of those leaders I must first commit myself to a career path, something I have always avoided. I must conquer my fear of failure, of dissatisfaction, and simply start. It’s possible I will change my mind in the future, but for now I plant to stay on the track I’ve started on. My first step was adding my environmental science major. Within that major, I will concentrate in geographical studies and take classes that focus on land use and resource management. If that major is not satisfying, I will switch to a major in environmental engineering. I am currently considering adding an additional major or minor in architectural studies to develop the technical skills involved in drafting and designing city plans. This path is going to be truly interdisciplinary, which will go along with the Plan II curriculum well. All of my classes will add insight into the problem of organizing people into places that best serve the environment and thus humanity. A writing component is also necessary, because effective communication will be essential in proposing ideas to city boards and clients. Also, there needs to be community support behind all the changes that are going to be implemented in cities, so communication is again important.

Outside of academia, there are many steps I could take to ensure not only a successful career in urban planning, but also garner support for the way I feel cities need to be built and operated in the future. Most likely, I will start by interning at an architecture firm over a summer, which I would arrange through my father who is a prominent architect in Dallas. He has already connected me with some landscape architects and urban designers in Austin, and I might be working with one on a research project this semester. I also need to start developing my creative vision more seriously. I see the cities of the future functioning like trees – self-sustaining, evolving, efficiently designed closed systems that give back to the environment as they support human life and happiness. This requires an intersection of innovative technology, creative resource management, a deep understanding of sociology, and an artistic aesthetic vision. Because of this, my education is going to last a long time. At some point, however, I will make the shift from institutional education to real-world experience.

There are multiple options I have for getting started in the field of urban planning and sustainable design. I could go into architecture and work for a private firm. I could be a publicly employed city planner. Or, I could go into the non-profit field and promote change from the roots up. I feel like I am best suited for the last option, as it would allow me more freedom in my work and the opportunity to be my own boss. I don’t work well as an employee – I always have to be in charge of anything I work on. Creating my own non-profit committed to socially and ecologically responsible city planning will require lots of experience in many fields that I will gain during my education. It will also require me to build connections with people who could be potential resources for my business. That, I feel, will be the greatest gift this university will give me. Already, so many of the people I’ve met I can tell are destined for great things. I’ve also been able to meet professionals already working in this field. Austin is at the forefront of the types of changes I want to see in the world. Being here will help me be the change.

I know all of this is tentative, but I have already found a lot of support on this path. I know there are other issues out there, other problems I want to solve, but this seems the most attainable, and best suited to the type of education I’ve received thus far. I am still afraid that this might not be the right path, that I’ll have to back track and lose much of my limited time. But I’ve realized - if I never go down a path, I’ll never know what I could’ve found there. I might as well experience things while I am alive, regardless if they fit into an ‘action plan’ or a career path. I know I want to change the world, I know I want to lead myself and others through life strongly and with purpose.

But who knows, I might just end up in business school.

WORD COUNT: 2242

ALICE AND INTOLERANCE

2010-03-10T21:50:00.002-06:00

When looking back over the Alice books, I am less confronted by the idea of cultural diversity than I am with the idea of socioeconomic diversity. Written from the joint perspectives of a little English girl and a Christchurch professor, the books don’t seem to contain much of an allusion to, or awareness of, the trials of living in a diverse society. What does seem apparent, however, is the conflict of interactions between characters from different social classes and the interplay between authority figures and their subordinates. Examples of this are the white rabbit and his maid, the queen and king of hearts, and the train conductor, among others. Not only do these people treat Alice and the other characters with disrespect and authoritarian attitudes, they often condescend towards Alice because she is an outsider and a little girl. From this perspective, I see Alice not as the source of intolerance but as the target of it.

The white rabbit is very condescending and intolerant.
source:http://preaprez.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/white-rabbit1.jpg

I don’t blame Alice for getting flustered by this treatment. When she first meets the caterpillar he is very bossy and condescending to her, and she is just lost and confused. He is extremely reactionary and causes Alice to wish “the creatures wouldn’t be so easily offended! (53)” Generally, the wonderland creatures are more intolerant of Alice then she is of them, though she may make a few faux-pas simply by way of being ignorant of the strange social conditions of wonderland.

The characters are also intolerant of each other especially in terms of social justice and authority. The monarchs throughout the books definitely have issues with stereotyping based on appearances. An instance of this is the king of heart’s treatment of the cheshire cat, when he responds to his appearance by saying “I don’t like the look of it at all,” said the King: “however, it may kiss my hand, if it likes (86).” Thus the king and other characters do not respond well to diversity at all, as they see most everyone beneath them, including Alice.

I think a primary motivator behind this intolerance of diversity is fear. The king is afraid of the floating cat head and so treats it with disdain. Likewise, when Alice encounters the animals on the train in looking-glass land, she is at first afraid and hesitant to interact with them. She feels uncomfortable because “it was a very queer carriage-full of passengers altogether (171).” When she meets the gnat later in the forest, she admits “I don’t rejoice in insects at all… because I’m rather afraid of them (173).” She may not be entirely understanding of all the creatures she meets, but can we really blame her? She’s a small child in a strange and contradictory world.

Alice is frightened in a strange world.
source:http://a7.vox.com/6a00ccff930f92d756011016297207860c-320pi

Although I feel like Alice is judged more than she judges, it is true that she slowly learns to be more comfortable in her new and strange environment and thus more accepting of the creatures there. By the end of Through the Looking Glass, when characters are morphing all around her, “at any other time, Alice would have felt surprised at this, but she was far too much excited to be surprised at anything now (266).” By the end, Alice has become acclimated to the constantly shifting and new world she’s in, and is no longer afraid or in contempt of the things she doesn’t understand. I think this is a lot like the college experience. At first we may be overwhelmed by constantly being exposed to new things and people, and we may never be able to fully grasp and appreciate all that’s going around us, but eventually we become accustomed to that way of life and try to make the most of it.

OPTIMISM AND INITIATIVE

2010-03-08T23:24:00.003-06:00

This class is a pilgrimage with no foreseeable path. With no definite end. It is a journey that despite having marked stops, assignments, goals, and activities, constantly changes and is unexpected. At times we may resent this journey, we may not see the necessity of what we are doing. But until the end, until we have truly hammered these thoughts, these days, these discussions into unity, we won’t really know what we’ve gotten. This is the biggest and most significant similarity I see with Siddhartha. We are here to engage in an “independent inquiry,” although it is guided we are encouraged “to think for [ourselves], decreasing reliance on secondary sources, practicing what is known as active, experiential or discovery learning.” This is the only way to reach our destination and to answer the question “who are you?” Just as Siddhartha had to go through years of experience to learn that he could not be taught, we are being taught that experience is the only way to learn. In Siddhartha’s case, “no teacher would have ever been able to bring about his salvation (94),” and it’s the same here, we can really only get out of this class what we put in. So it is in college and in life.

We may get unruly in our attempts to

shape our own education.

source: http://bumataystudio.com/cc/class08.jpg

To get the most out of anything we must learn “how to maintain a pro-active, positive attitude.” Siddhartha is a great example of this. Even though he reached his lowest possible point, at the brink of ending everything, he was able to come back out of it with an even more positive outlook than before. This teaches us that we’re only at the beginning of our journey and can’t go forward in constant fear of failure, because such failures are inevitable in life, and are only opportunities to grow. We can help ourselves by remembering the power of love vs. fear, which is a theme of this course. Hopefully we can come to a place where we are “only interested in being able to love the world (137),” for we will never be able to change it unless we first accept it for what it is.

Both of these things play into our leadership essay. A leader must be a self-propelled learner and an optimist. We must learn “by creativity rather than going through the motions, by curiosity rather than compulsion” if we wish to be leaders in any field. I personally feel that leadership comes from having creative solutions to problems and being willing to take risks to let those solutions come into reality. Siddhartha displays this trait of a leader completely. He is never satisfied with pre-existing knowledge; he must solve the problems of his identity and of the universe through his own methods.

Another theme in Siddhartha pertaining to leadership, especially option two of our essay, is the importance of listening, also one of the course goals. Vasudeva represents this trait in the book, and we, just as Siddhartha did, can learn a lot by his example - “without him saying a word, the speaker could sense how Vasudeva let words enter his mind, how he was quiet, open, and waiting, and how he did not lose a single word by impatience (98).” The ability to listen is a key factor in “the composition of self, the construction of character” that we must pursue in order to become better leaders for the benefit of society.

We can learn a lot about leadership by listening.

source: http://wheredothechildrenplayla.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/listening-to-nature.jpg

One of the most intriguing aspects of essay four is the consideration that “the trait, role, or goal you are discussing is but one of many possibilities radiating out from your center, from the core of your being.” This was one of the ideas that resonated most fully for me in Siddhartha and which gives me much optimism as to developing future goals and plans. As someone who changes her path constantly, I like the idea of infinite potential.

SIDDHARTHA DISCUSSION OUTLINE

2010-03-04T00:55:00.002-06:00

It’s going to be a beautiful day, so let’s go outside.

Our meditation today: listening to music
By focusing our upper-mind on listening to repetitive, calming sounds, we can better focus our lower thoughts, or our subconscious thoughts, and perhaps reach a state of focused, calm, energy.

AND NOW TO CONTEMPLATE SIDDHARTHA’S JOURNEY TO INNER PEACE:

What is the significance of Siddhartha’s pilgrimage and how does it relate to your life?

His position afforded him luxuries which many people can’t have which undeniably altered his path
-Katherine

If Siddhartha had not acted on his decisions, if he had not lived with the Samanas or merchants, he never would have been able to make his own judgments on life
-Helen

As how Siddhartha learned an immense amount of wisdom from listening to the river, we can learn from keeping an open mind and listening to the ones we meet on our pilgrimage
-Jade

He had spent his entire life on a journey seeking spiritual enlightenment, just as I had spent my entire life on a journey to become an Olympic swimmer. I felt so much pressure to please the people around me, to not let them down, that I tortured myself to reach that goal
-Spin

This idea of unified change throughout life, of one person really transforming into many different people, is not a completely unfamiliar one
-Lauren

I do not think I could achieve enlightenment just following this simple path
-Emily

What did Siddhartha’s pilgrimage accomplish? Was it a necessary path to take?

I think that the human ability to transform ourselves, to mature, to become (hopefully) better, more caring people as we grow older, to gain wisdom through living life, though "it can't be expressed or taught in words" (Hesse, 132), is special.
-Lauren

We will be continuously seeking. Yet while obsessing over achieving a goal, we will not be open to the answers all around us
-Jade

Siddhartha spends a majority of the novel over thinking his life, tackling everything with a philosophical and spiritual approach. Eventually, he learns the wisdom of just letting things “be”
-Chris

Siddhartha and I both realized that this journey we were so desperately trying to make reach a “perfect” climax was not something that can be forced. It is something that - when you let go, relax, and just let it flow like a river - comes naturally.
-Spin

There is no “right!” We can search all we want for the true path, but we’ll “never stop searching.”
-Katherine

Is suffering necessary to reach a state of inner peace? What constitutes suffering?

Oftentimes we must go through hardships to find what our true beliefs are
-Jade

I am not entirely dissatisfied with the world—I see room for improvement, but I understand that I am a part of this world and I can work to improve it instead of setting myself apart.
-Emily

“I’ve had to experience despair […] in order to be able to experience divine grace,” (Hesse, 91) and it has definitely been worth it.
-Spin

Is suffering a byproduct of love? Is this why the ‘childlike’ people cannot escape from their suffering?

Siddhartha’s struggles with his son mirrors lovesickness in many ways–the devotion, envy of others’ happiness, loss of self
-Molly

How does unity lend itself to all encompassing love?

I continue to seek to see all things, all beings of the world, with love and appreciation
-Helen

EVERYTHING IS.

2010-03-03T17:53:00.003-06:00

Today has been radiant. Today has been reaffirming, beautiful, unified, and complete. The sun is shining on my back, the grass is cool and soft, dandelions are perking up around me, bees going about their labor. I have been joyful all day. This is how the world should always be. Even in inclement weather, witnessing life around me should be the ultimate source of joy, and it often is.

Enjoying the beautiful day outside.

photo credit to author

Why did it take Siddhartha so long to find what he was seeking? This is the main question I have of his pilgrimage. I feel he knew his conclusion all along. But I suppose this is the lesson of misguidance. He knew where truth lie, but he was diverted from it by lessons and words, constructed dichotomies, and the pursuit of quantifiable meaning. Aren’t we all… I find myself retracing my own steps, through philosophies, sciences, teachers – all meaningful, none satisfactory. But these are the paths we are left to take. It is frustrating and circuitous sometimes to seek all within yourself, it is an easy task to give up on. We must find where to take our measurements, when to pin down the constant inner monologue that is the truth as it exists from moment to moment. But what we most often find is that those moments contradict each other. It is living in the contradiction, not trying to reconcile everything.

Because everything is. It’s a simple lesson that Siddhartha learns through a complicated life, and a lesson I often fall back on. I suppose it may seem trivial, naïve even, to be content with such an explanation. But it is so obvious when you sit and listen and observe that being is enough. Being as everything else is. This satisfaction with existence as it is – and whatever that implies – has many applications in our dealings with one another. The “awareness and conscious thought of the unity of all life (p.121)” brings us to realize that we are all of the same material and have the same potential for existence in one form or another, or in no form. By recognizing that potential, we recognize something worth loving and admiring in everything and everyone around us. As siddaharttha tells govinda, “one has to worship within themselves, in you, and in everyone else the buddha which is coming into being, that is possible (p.133).” In this case I take the Buddha to mean our potential for pure love and happiness, for a state of nirvana so-to-speak. By seeing this potential we are “able to look upon it and [ourselves] and upon all beings with love, admiration, and great respect (p.137).”

We are all part of one earth, one universe.

source: http://greenerloudoun.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/nasa_earth.jpg

It is difficult to achieve this in a society that is based on competition, or in Siddhartha’s case, a society based on the differing values of individuals according to a caste system. So it is a cycle we must escape from, like samsara, but must still appreciate as a manifestation of the perfect universe we exist in. Although Siddhartha experienced the negative consequences of living in the sin of “the childlike people”, he still “saw people living for themselves, saw them achieve an infinite amount for themselves, saw them travel, wage war, suffer an infinite amount, and endure an infinite amount. He could love them for it, and he saw life and that which is alive - in each of their passions and actions (p.121).” So we must let go of our judgments and classifications, and allow everything to exist in its current form with the knowledge that it has the potential to occupy any form, including our own. I hope that despite our attempts to categorize the world, to explain the minutae of life, we can “learn to leave the world as it is, to love it, and to enjoy being a part of it (p.134).”

FALLING LEAVES

2010-03-01T21:10:00.002-06:00

Our lives are rife with contradictions. We shift from one personality to another, always aware of our own identity but never really experiencing what it means to be alone with ourselves, or within ourselves. And so it is difficult to fix ourselves to a path, or a set of goals, without being influenced by the outside world. But it seems as though if we could be determined in all of our actions, if we could channel all our energy into a singular purpose, we could achieve anything with ease. We would be like Siddhartha, whose “goal attracts him, because he doesn't let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal (p.59).”

But how do we reach this state of being? Even Siddhartha, after going through the rigors of ascetism and the learning of a Brahmin, cannot hold onto the sublime state of moving independently through life. What hope do we have, constantly bombarded with materialism and fed the opinions of others? We are indeed “like a falling leaf that is blown and is turning around through the air, wavering and tumbling to the ground (p.69).”

Even after becoming a samana,
Siddhartha did not find nirvana.
source: http://www.wikiwak.com/image/Ascetic+Bodhisatta+Gotama+with
+the+Group+of+Five.jpg

Hesse’s book has given me a lot to contemplate thus far, and I am curious to see how this problem gets resolved. How does one hold onto a supreme sense of self, capable of overcoming any worldly trial, without becoming completely detached from the actual world of humanity? We must constantly sacrifice parts of ourselves to function within a society; I watch it happen everyday. We must then decide if that loss is outweighed by what we gain from human interaction – whether it is a physical relationship like that between Siddhartha and Kamala or a deep friendship like that between Siddhartha and Govinda. I think that the balance depends on surrounding yourself with the right people. Siddhartha maintained his love for Kamala because he saw in her a similar soul, but had to sacrifice that relationship because he was disillusioned by the other people he had to interact with.

We are all like falling leaves.
source: http://problemamuslim.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/falling_leaves.jpg

I can relate to Siddhartha in many ways. His constant yearning for an ultimate knowledge and his revelation that certain types of knowledge are not to be attained by learning mirrors my own. I have sought much by looking first inside myself rather than looking towards others, and like Siddhartha, “my trust in words that come from teachers is small (p.25),” not out of disrespect, but out of an understanding of the relativity of truth. I face many of the same contradictions in my daily life as Siddhartha, mainly in my attitudes towards other people and the importance of the self in attaining a nirvana-like state of existence. Sometimes I feel like Siddhartha felt when “he saw mankind going through life like a child or an animal that he both loved and despised at the same time (p.67).” I often feel disconnected from the culture I’m entrenched in, despite being a large participator in its daily manifestations. In the end, my goal is happiness, the cessation of suffering, and as Hesse’s book reaffirms, a weighing mind and constant moderation is a way to attain that goal.

MORAL IMPERATIVES FOR ENVIRONMENTALISM

2010-02-25T00:13:00.002-06:00

What is the point of viewing environmentalism from a religious perspective? Does their correlation support the validity of environmentalism, of religion, or of both? I think that this task of trying to find a moral imperative to be environmentally conscious overlooks the scientific fact of man’s place in nature. If we destroy our planet, we won’t be able to live on it, plain and simple. I don’t really understand why this logic isn’t enough to encourage people to think more sustainably towards the future, but since it obviously isn’t, we must create moral imperatives for them in the only thing they seem to believe blindly, religion.

Religious faith is sometimes the only source of moral imperative

source: http://petursey.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/blind-faith.jpg

We’ve already discussed Western religion’s role in this, and how its view of compassion can be selectively applied. In Jainism, however, who, or what, the moral code protects is strictly delineated. Following the path of Ahimsa, humans must not harm nor think of harming any living thing, plant or animal. This comes from “the development of a mental attitude in which hatred is replaced by love (236).” Love for all things and people within creation, stemming from a shared divinity of life. The implications for this in environmentalism are obvious. However, such a path is not enough to mitigate the affect man has on the environment. Would a Jain monk understand the long term implications of releasing carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels? Or the interruption of natural land progression by suppressing the periodic burning of scrubland? What about the overpopulation of deer which results in the end of oak regeneration? In these instances, ahimsa is not enough, unless coupled with a deeper understanding of the implications of all our actions, not just those that result in the direct destruction of life.

Jainism does have a positive effect overall when put in the context of human relations. The idea that “one self dwells in all… by serving another, you serve your own self (237)” speaks to the unity of man as a species. From that perspective, ecology arises once again as a central issue. If we are all each other’s protectors, if we all dwell in a singular self of existence, then we have a responsibility to maintain a suitable environment for that singular self to continue to exist. Thus we protect the environment for the future success of human life.

What are we leaving for future humans?

source:http://www.thedailygreen.com/cm/thedailygreen/images/beautiful-nature2-pp-www-lg.jpg

But what does this interpretation say of morality? That it is fueled by self-interest? I don’t think most Jain scholars would agree, from what I have read in the anthology and on the theory of ahimsa in general. In the essay on Jainism and ecology it argues that “we have a moral obligation toward nonhuman creation (145).” But where does that morality come from? Is it a spiritual creation, a respect for the divine natural world, or a humbled view of human accomplishment in the face of nature? This does not seem self-serving, but rather depreciative of humanity, and I think this is one of the main differences in Eastern and Western spiritual tradition. As the essay says, “the most urgent task of both science and religion is to assert the unity and sacredness of creation, and to reconsider the role of humans in it (245),” and I believe that Jainism fits that role. In western tradition, however, the sacredness of creation has been asserted, but man continues to dominate its trajectory.

It is a good question to ask what role man is to play in the “divine” theatre that is nature. Will we be shepherds or slaughterers? Will we take what we need, or take what we want? We recognize the importance man has in interacting with nature, caring for it, using it to serve the species, as it states “agriculture is the noblest profession (241),” but where do we draw the line? What perspective do we take on the environment and our responsibility, our moral imperative, to protect it? When viewed from a spiritual perspective, we must consider where divinity lies, or to be less secular, where the beauty of creation is manifest. And this is the difference between eastern and western thought, for in the east divinity lies in all nature, but in the west it lies in man and in gods work through man. So if we could merge these two perspectives, superimpose them on one another, we’d be left with a question similar to Professor Bump’s: “who would not be upset if a saint was lopped, maimed, and killed? (222)” The only difference lies in who your saints are, but regardless, it is agreed that the divine should never be destroyed.

Nature is divine.

source: http://static.flickr.com/63/171449609_ca3f8640df.jpg

RELIGION AND THE ENVIRONMENT

2010-02-17T23:34:00.002-06:00

At first glance, there might not seem to be much of a correlation between religion and environmentalism. However, as we saw in our own discussion of spirituality, many of us have a profound connection with our natural world, in the presence of which we often feel closest to the divine. But how is that feeling reflected in religious doctrine itself? And how can this correlation be used as a tool to foster environmental awareness?

Western religions don’t have the best reputation for being environmentally conscious. Recently there have been adjustments, such as the Pope making pollution and environmental degradation an “official” sin, but overall, and judging by the bulk of their doctrines and practices, there is little room in their moral code for the protection of any life, or any environment, that isn’t human. As the essay on ecology and world religions stated, “religions have traditionally been concerned with the path of personal salvation, which frequently emphasized otherworldly goals and and rejected this world as corrupting (anthology, 28).” In most western religious tradition the moral code is focused on human interaction, and hu

mans are the only ones created in the image of god, and thus at the top of the hierarchy of life. And so the only way to relate western religion to environmental responsibility is through its human components. If we destroy our world now, where will our children and the children of our brother’s live tomorrow? A hint of this reasoning can be found in the Qur’an, as quoted in the anthology, “live in this world as if you are going to live forever: prepare for the next world as if you are going to die tomorrow (30).” But still, the concept of an afterlife makes it much easier for people to overlook the degradation of this life. As does God’s command in Genesis: "be fruitful, multiply. Fill the earth and conquer it (115).”

The Pope made pollution a sin,

but does that really reflect

catholic doctrine?

source: http://www.polishamericancenter.org/Pictures/pope-new2.jpg

The whole relationship, or rather disconnect, between god, man, and the environment creates many hurdles to using religion as a motivator in increasing environmental awareness. From the very start, man is separate from nature. However, in eastern tradition these separations stop. Man enters the world machine and is part of the cyclical whole of the environment and the cosmos. In this way eastern tradition is more conducive to celebrating a symbiosis with nature, and conservancy becomes the natural course of man.

The might of nature.

source: http://www.treehugger.com/forest-nature-scene.jpg

Despite differences in the two philosophies, it can’t be denied that religion is a powerful tool to promote certain actions of the part of the individual. By tapping into one’s spiritual beliefs, you tap into their sense of purpose, of duty, and of legacy. One thing that flows through all beliefs and all people, however, is the awe and power of nature as we experience it on earth. As Virgil says “see how it totters- the world's orbed might, earth, and wide ocean, and the vault profound, all, see, enraptured of the coming time! ah! might such length of days to me be given (124).” Even in the face of all our ascribed divinity and doctrine, nature still dominates our current space, and we cannot avoid the fact that the world around us will outlive us, whether we work towards saving it or not. Our bodies will die, and go back into the larger system of the earth, regardless of the destination of our souls.

THE END POINT OF A CIRCLE

2010-02-08T22:36:00.002-06:00

In the second half of Life of Pi we are shown the ultimate end to suffering. We are shown what happens when we are left alone, how we manifest in a new, displaced reality. Again the idea of humanity comes into question. What is the universal truth that so separates us from animals? In Pi’s case, that truth is relative. As is all truth when looked at through the lens of the ultimate end – the end of loss, complete separation from past identity, it is the end that is not death of body but a reemergence from the death of soul, or rather, the splitting of a soul.

Could Richard Parker be an alternate
reality for Pi's sense of self?
source: http://thebeliever07.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/parker460.jpg

Pi’s end comes from an early realization that, “when your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival (p. 151).” In his story he first loses an empathy that was once so easily engrained – vegetarianism – and later an empathy with far more profound consequences. Richard Parker lurks through this new reality, an example of unrestrained determinism, and a symbol of fear for Pi. But what does the tiger on the boat threaten? We do not know if it is threatening Pi’s survival of body, or whether it threatens to overtake his moral soul. Perhaps the threats go hand in hand, and so once again, in the end, the truth may remain relative.

And what of Pi’s loss? He maintains his body. He maintains a will. A wit. A God. Even a scrap of sociability. But he does lose something profound on the boat, he loses his mother. And what is more of an ultimate end than that? Pi says, “to lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you (p. 160).” This is the final straw to sever pi from his place, to leave him disoriented in reality, and to start anew with another narrative, not of loss but of sacrifice. For a maternal chimpanzee is not a mother, a wounded zebra not a young sailor. And so the loss is not the same. It is not so much a loss at that point as it is a trade off, one life for another. Even to a zookeeper’s son, or especially to him, the circle of life is a firm reality, that is until man, until Pi, turns into the end point of the circle – and thus must work against it.

Pi suffers. Pi is lost. Pi is displaced, disoriented, removed. Yet Pi lives, and what is the most striking thing left in his life? It his ability to tell a story. To create a story where God exists, from a situation in which God, to most of us, would seem so far away. The most striking thing left to Pi at the ultimate end of his suffering is this realization – truth is relative. Truth is relative to the end one wishes to achieve. Pi’s end is the same no matter the narrative, and he asks of his interrogators, “which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals? (p. 398)” Which is the better story, the better truth? In the case of ultimate suffering, it does not matter the means to the end. A soul is left ripped open, split, allowed to create whatever meaning it so chooses. And the meaning it chooses is the meaning that keeps some semblance of human wholeness, of order, of will. And yet it is the realization that these semblances are but that, mirages on an open sea, that affirms in the end the triviality of distinction. All that is left of life is to live, so it went with Pi, “and so it goes with God. (p. 399)”

In the end absolute truth should never
be sought nor found.
source: http://www.therawdivas.com/HHH/images/truth-nextexit.jpg

PAST AND FUTURE ETHICS: With Heart Agape

2010-02-01T22:33:00.004-06:00

A woman is walking down the street. Her universe is solid. Her thoughts busy but controlled. Her morning starts with tea and periodicals, every day. Behind her trail the rigid structures of her past decision making, a tessellation formed carefully and completely. Her path is clear in both directions, backwards and forwards.

'a tessellation formed carefully and completely'

source:http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/eps-gif/DemiregularTessellations_600.gif

She’s an unshakeable woman, and not for lack of being shaken. She sees hardship daily at work. She sees it, enters it into the formula, and calculates the appropriate response. The heat has been shut off in nearly half the units on Avenue B. Bonham Elementary just cut 6 teachers. There are no proposed budget raises for the education sector – or any sector. Crime rates have risen. She has eighty-seven unread e-mails, all urgent, all the same. And at her desk, tea getting cold, periodical set aside, she makes decisions that chip away, slowly and deliberately, at the inefficient cycle that is American Poverty.

Here she sits - successful, moderately affluent, rigorously intellectual. She sees justice in everything, by constant judgment and classification. Her views shift with the circumstances, reason intact. She follows the path of constant resistance; a skeptic. She finds joy in making things orderly, connected, part of a greater whole. But to create unity, she is consistently destroying the individual. She recognizes differences, she recognizes even her own uniqueness, but she continues to lump things – and people - together. Differences are but runs in the perfect cloth of her universe - a tapestry that explains everything, growing at the edges with beautiful and ever intensifying patterns. Complexity grows, disorder fades. The heat gets turned on in unit twenty-seven.

Out for her second biodegradable cup of chai. Metallic ringing tells her that her father is calling. She considers her schedule – does she have time for awkward banter? Irritating questions? Too much time, it turns out.

“Hi Dad.”

“Hello.” A sob, broken. “She’s dead.”

It’s not the call she expected, least of all from him. And in one moment her formula has broken down. She has contemplated the event of her mother’s death before; that she is reconciled with. But her father was not accounted for. One would not call their relationship loving, at least not on her end. Resentful, yes, impatient perhaps, but she never allowed him her sympathy before, and considering it now made her extremely uneasy. How would she deal with this man, this sobbing man, for whom she fostered little respect and less affection? He would need constant attention, the same attention her mother had wasted so much time on. He was a very needy man, incompetent in the most basic of household duties, easy to fluster, easier to depress. She didn’t have time for this. She didn’t have the emotional capacity.

That dull feeling starts welling up in her chest. A precursor to sadness perhaps, the unmitigated sorrow she never gets to feel. And why not? Why now, when she has an excuse to break down, to reach out, empathize in a common situation with a fellow human being (family no less), does she feel nothing?

What causes emotional paralysis?

source:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Gray784.png

Worse than nothing, she feels the barrier, pressed so hard against that wall she could suffocate. All she has to do is show something, some scrap of love or compassion, pathos – but she can’t. And she traces back to the why, because that’s all she knows how to do.

I was fifteen and I could feel everything. The ills of the world were my passions – everything in my future set aside to solve them one by one. Dred-locked, revolutionary, I felt that the trials of those less fortunate were my trials to bear, oppression mine to defeat. Apathy was the ultimate enemy, ambivalence disgusted me. My motto – never be content.

And then I met him. His passion rivaled even mine (though I definitely had the better dreds). Where I came from a loving, stimulating environment, his had been broken. And so his passion, though just as strong, was somewhat fractured - energy with nowhere to go. His ills were now more important than the world’s. His sadness – unbearable. And so with the selfless love we all contain – agape – I poured everything I had into him. And for awhile I was approaching that contentment I so loathed.

Young romance may seem frivolous to some, but for us it was anything but. We were entrenched. For once we each had someone else to take us seriously – our optimism, our compassion, our grandiose schemes – finally we were sharing them. It was a tumultuous love between tumultuous people – one of those huge life relationships, compacted into mere years. And despite many of my more skeptical, cynical moments, I will never discount what we had because of its scale or age. And that is the hardest to bear.

We talk about a selfless love, spiritual, all-encompassing, divine love – but how many of us experience that? Perhaps we sense some abstract form of it through our religion or our connection with the environment, but to create that love between people is a rare and amazing experience. Once you’ve loved like that, you can never forget human potential for compassion. You can’t forget your own potential, even if it never rears its head again. And so I can’t forget this relationship. I can’t deny that it left me how I am. I can’t deny the potential it showed me.

But maybe I do. To lose a love like that – or rather to give it up – is debilitating. To give everything you have to someone – to be truly selfless in loving someone – well, it can cause you to give up too much for too little. I saw a man suffering. I reached out with all available compassion, all possible love, demanding so little – but perhaps expecting too much. I expected to alleviate suffering. To help him help himself and the others suffering in his life. But sometimes another’s suffering is not in our hands. Sometimes love is not enough.

So I gave up on love, I gave up on his suffering, as he had given up long ago. But it was too late; I’d spent my reserves. The passion I once had was diluted. My old optimism seemed naïve. Love was too painful a concept to appreciate. But ethics – my ethics remained.

At the end of it all, I would still not accept suffering as a fact of life. That would be indulging in my own weakness – a weakness I had learned from him. But the path to alleviate suffering was no longer abrupt, loving-kindness – it was never to be rushed along again. It was cold, calculating, relentlessly driven. It required a steady mind andpatient labor. Most of all, it required constant risk management.

So a life emerged: numb of compassion, withholding of love. But driven to compensate for the one failure that meant the most.

What is life now, in this numbness?

A woman is walking down the street. It’s cold outside, but she feels the residual warmth of the space heater she just dropped off at unit twenty-seven, Avenue B. The home of a student, met working the afterschool program at Bonham Elementary. A new baby brother, a single mother, no heat. But the warmth is there now, and she can still feel it. She passes the café, hands three dollars to the man huddled outside. The city’s budget may be frozen, but hers remains flexible – she chooses which commodities to cut and trade. Her phone rings. Her father – a kind man.

“Hi Dad.”

“Sweetheart, your mom…” A sob, broken.

A sob, echoed.

“I’ll be there. I love you.”

Once she thought she was numb to this kind of pain, this kind of love. Once she thought, it is no one’s right to suffer.

But those thoughts were fleeting. And she entered life again, with heart agape.

Life is nothing in numbness. So I go forward in my actions, I do not run out of fuel, I do not run out of love. There are many ways to apply ethics in our lives. Some ways help reach people most efficiently. Other ways help us reach them directly. When we combine both, keeping in mind all our past and possible future experiences, we can change lives – across the world and across our dinner tables. I plan to apply my knowledge and appreciation of justice, democracy, and social responsibility to a career that alleviates the suffering of a community – a society – at large. But I will never forget the love and compassion that flows through me, though I may try to guard myself against it. I know it is there, and I know it can make a difference in cases where reason alone, where the most complex of calculations, cannot control an outcome. And I will love as if love is limitless.

Love is necessary in ethics.
source:http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii31/sandralovescj/LOVE.jpg

WORD COUNT: 1468

MY FAITH

2010-01-27T23:44:00.002-06:00

I have never participated in organized religion. I wasn't brought up in a religious household, there was little to no talk of spirituality in my upbringing. And yet I've had a strong sense of it for as long as I could remember. Of course I went through the rebellious anti-establishment phase, where god was as bad as government and nothing was important, and I keep a few tinges of that attitude in my personal philosophy still. I think religion as an establishment, especially as a powerhouse, has predominately negative consequences. But as far as my spiritual identity is concerned, I am open to many philosophies and am often inspired by religious doctrine and ritual.

Piscine Patel’s spiritual identity crisis in Life of Pi is something I can particularly relate to. When I was in elementary school, all of my friends were very active in the Christian church. I went to their houses and prayed before dinner. I woke up after a slumber party and went to church with them. I even spent a summer at vacation bible school. To my parents, this was just a side-effect of my social life. But one night at dinner when I asked them why we didn’t pray, and suggested we should, they did not take my new-found religious passion seriously. And rightly so, it was just part of an identity crisis resulting from my unconventional upbringing in a highly conventional neighborhood. But what if I had been serious? What if like Pi, "I just want(ed) to love god(p. 87)?” What if I had felt there was some spirituality, some sense of wholeness, that I was lacking because of my family’s lack of religious faith? They wouldn’t have understood. But at that point, it wouldn’t have mattered. But because my ‘quest for God’ was just an effort to fit in, they made me realize that that kind of conformity is what’s dangerous about religion. By not taking me seriously, they made me realize that spirituality is not about praying before dinner, that it’s not about going to vacation bible school. It’s highly personal, and like for pi, it transcends the boundaries of establishment.

fun-times at vacation bible school

source: http://www.oklahomabrethrenassembly.org/W2vbs.gif

I started my true spiritual journey as an atheist. I did not believe in a singular god who had a continuous presence in our daily lives. But I still believed in a greater meaning – whether it be the harmony of nature or personal success, or simply the quest for joy in life. But as Pi says about atheists, “they

go as far as the legs of reason will take them – and then they leap (p. 35).” My leap is the one that I see all serious scientists –

especially physicists – having to take at some point in their careers. My leap is faith in the infinite, or more precisely, the infinitely small uniform composition of matter. Within that infinite rests a force – the force that causes all physical reality, the first force that determined the history of everything. To believe in this force is to have faith, my faith, in the idea that everything is connected, and everything follows a path of elegant uniformity.

an elegant, uniform universe

source: http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/docs/rst/Sect20/heic0309.jpg

My faith may seem to be purely philosophical in nature, an abstract concept meant to create an elegant meaning of the universe, but I think, like all religion, it has greater humanitarian applications. Like Pi, “to me religion is about our dignity, not our depravity (p. 90),” and in a universe where all pheno

mena can be explained by activity occurring on infinitely smaller scales, our dignity is always maintained. All people – all matter – follow the same laws, despite seemingly different intentions.

TIME TO ACT

2010-01-25T16:59:00.003-06:00

Lately it seems the world is trying to tell me something. Everywhere I go, the classes I take, the books I glance through, what I hear on the news or read in periodicals - a common vein of thought has emerged. Apparently, I'm supposed to go out and affect some kind of change. Reach out in the community. Start to organize. The signs are coming at a tough time for me, caught up in a new semester, faced with constant questions of my values, my priorities, my goals. I think its a wakeup call. I need to stop asking so many circuitous questions and start making decisions, start acting on the few things I know for certain. What the world is telling me: I can analyze every angle indefinitely, but I won't get any perspective without experience.

Is changing the world my destiny?
source:http://www.starstore.com/acatalog/destiny-poster-l.jpg

The last chapters of 'How Can I Help?' were just another drop in the bucket of instructions I've been receiving from the universe. When I first saw the chapter titled 'The Way of Social Action', I almost had to laugh. Last week I started out in my TC course, Pathways to Civic Engagement. Already this class - after just two meetings - has brought back so much inspiration that was lying stagnant for a long time. Professor Walker's career history is enough - his path through corporation to non-profit to teaching is exactly the kind of life I've seen for myself. Already I've started picking up books by authors he's suggested. The first I checked out from the library yesterday, and I haven't been able to put it down. The funny thing is that Dass' last few chapters are a near regurgitation of this book, Saul D. Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'. Granted Dass uses different language - appealing to those not already attracted to the role of community organization and social action. Dass also makes an assumption that Alinksy directly refutes - that man is fueled by compassion and that it is the motivator in his acts of service. To give a sample of Alinksy's opinion, and his overall civic perspective, he speaks of innate compassion thusly, "the myth of altruism as a motivating factor in our behavior could arise and survive only in a society bundled in the sterile gauze of New England puritanism and protestant morality and tied together with the ribbons of Madison Avenue public relations. It is one of the classic American fairytales." I feel that although Dass makes good points on the nature and requirements of social action, he buys too much into this 'fairytale' of altruism.

Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals', an especially
inspring book for me.
source: http://jdwaggoner.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/rules-for-radicals.jpg

Both books give a good account of the steps towards social action and the type of thinking required to carry them out. In both cases, I feel that communication is one of the most essential aspects to affecting social change within a community. As Dass says, "even the slightest bit of self-righteousness can get in the way (p. 161)," when trying to help people, directly or indirectly. In terms of organizing around an ideal, people have to see you on equal footing before they take you seriously, and self-aggrandizement can only cause trouble. And yet organizers, leaders, 'helpers', must retain a sense of right-ness, not necessarily righteousness. They must have courage and a strong sense of identity in order to make change happen - to help others help themselves to make the necessary changes. The sign of a truly great organizer is one who can affect change without making any direct movements of control, one who manipulates situations not through power, but through understanding and strength of character - an infectious and positive strength. To do this one must do as Dass suggests, "if we are serious in our criticisms of the practices and habits of helping organizations… we've got to be light, free, and sufficiently above it all to see where we can untangle the knots and bring about change. (p. 199)"

I plan to change something in my life. Be it an organization, a community, a standard, or the world. Now more than ever I realize the paths to doing this are open and varied, but they don't have to be unnavigable, and there are countless stories of success. I hope that by the time I come into my prime, Dass' words will be true that "we're an environment, not an argument for social change. (p. 163)"

WALLOWING IN OUR COMMUNAL HELPLESSNESS

2010-01-20T21:28:00.011-06:00

I've been bitter about this book from the very beginning. Perhaps it's because I don't agree with some of Dass' fundamental concepts - that helping others is an innate human quality, that it makes us feel good, that it is the truth of the human condition.

Is this kind of compassion truly innate?
source: http://www.worldproutassembly.org/images/poverty_india11.jpg

Now I may be taking too much of what Dass says at face value - his rhetoric is filled with abstractions and contradictions, so I can really only respond to what I feel are the points he's trying to make through a somewhat subjective analysis of the words he's actually using. I understand the merit of trying to free ourselves from barriers to compassion, but I believe there are some barriers that must stay intact. We can't grant everyone our full attention all the time, we can't sacrifice so much of our ego - our sense of self - that there is nothing left to identify with besides the effect that sacrifice has had on those to whom it was delivered. And what if there is no effect? What if despite all of our openness, our earnest caring and understanding, our constant sacrifice of selfishness - there is no beneficial result?

Is that the equivalent of what Dass calls helplessness? Is this the point at which, "having surrendered into helplessness we can now get on with help (Dass p. 146)?"

I think the contradiction here is obvious. When we get to the point where

we are overwhelmed by the seeming fruitlessness of our labors, when we have spent all we can spend on our own happiness and another's, should we really call ourselves helpless? We have been helping this whole time, to our greatest ability, and yet nothing comes of it. This is not our own helplessness, but rather the inability, the unwillingness, of others to be helped. This is not the time to pick up another's burden once more - to toil on someone else's fallow land.

We should not be expected to
continue to toil on someone else's
fallowed land.
source: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/07/01/images/2006070108860401.jpg

These are the times that remind me, that have reminded me throughout my life, that I am primarily responsible for myself. Dass has warned me of "false facades of courage or self-sufficiency (Dass p. 136)," the things limiting my ultimate acceptance of helplessness and selflessness. But it is exactly those things - courage and self-sufficiency - that make up a large part of who I am, and give me the competence and opportunity to truly help others, if they are willing to accept it, in meaningful and lasting ways. And if that is merely a "false facade", well, I'm going to need a lot more help than anyone outside of myself can give me.

THE LIVES - AND WILLS - OF ANIMALS

2009-11-16T23:20:00.002-06:00

In my last response to Elizabeth Costello, I discussed the human bias towards reason as a superior mode of perception. It is this bias that makes us discount animals’ ability to perceive a spectrum of reality that is similar in scope to ours – emotions, pain, compassion, the prospect of death. We assume that because we cannot recognize a comparable faculty of reason within animals, that it must not exist, and they are therefore inferior. But it is not their lacking which is the problem – it is our inability to perceive an ulterior form of perception, to give credit to a phenomenon we cannot observe, that has created this misunderstanding between humans and animals. And yet people still strive to understand this different perception, this different state of being, which animals hold so furtively. In Elizabeth’s lecture, it is the poet who seeks to come closest to uncovering these secrets.

So what is the difference? What is the intangible essence of being that animals posses which we do not, and cannot define? If they don’t see the world through our lens of reason, what lens do they see it through? Instinct? Survival? Or something else entirely? Costello uses the example of poets Rilke and Hughes, their attempts to posses, or be possessed by, the being of animals; to capture the feeling, the being, the perception of a beast. Both poets recognize a will of animals, a will that powers their being, which asserts itself in their movements and in their very presence. We cannot describe what powers this will of animals, but, as in Rilke’s poem, we can determine what breaks it. In the cage, the panther exists, and continues to move, yet, “inside, a gigantic Will stands stunned and numbed (Rilke, anthology, 372).” Costello describes it as this, “a concentric lope that leaves the will stupefied, narcotized (Coetzee, 95).” So perhaps an animal’s will comes from its freedom of movement – its existence in space, in nature, from where it draws all its stimuli and channels all of its responses. Because if an animal’s perception is not contained within the frame of its own mind, within a network of reasoning and deduction, it must be free to exist outside of the mind, to move with what is being perceived – as Costello says, “his consciousness is kinetic rather than abstract (Coetzee, 95).” Does this mean animals have a greater ability to project into their environments? To have a confidence, and assertiveness, of movement and of being that is limited by the human need for rational order, for cognition over impulse? We cannot know, because of that very limitation. To get close to how animals feel and think, we must let go of the backbone of our consciousness – reason – and feel blindly, as Costello describes, “Hughes is feeling his way towards a different kind of being-in-the-world (Coetzee, 95).”

An affront to the will of animals, confinement.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/yoni.alon/R0ljYgnFTNI/AAAAAAAAATA/KGbSY34AE7Y/76a80e6e_SAFARI2520033.jpg

What drives poets to want to capture the mystery of animals? Is it the same thing that draws people to zoos? That creates an audience for programming devoted solely to documenting animals in their natural state? We recognize the mystery in the lives of animals, just as we recognize the mystery of the cosmos, and so we seek to explore it further, we are engaged, fascinated by that mystery. One would think that the idea of animals containing some force that we don’t know about would be a concession to their equality with humans, and yet we continue to treat them as inferiors. This is the contradiction that comes with our fascination – we see the beauty, the mystery, the magnetism of animals; and yet we destroy them, thoughtlessly.

This destruction has not always been a contradiction. Costello makes the case for primitivism, as addressed by poets such as Hughes. Primitivism is a celebration of the animal, “a contest, a ritual, and honour (Coetzee, 97).” When we must face the creature we are about to destroy, match it in physical strength and dexterity and reaction (a cognitive prowess), we are conceding to it an equivalence, making it something that must be earned, that is not ours by right, not innately inferior. We destroy animals not because we have contempt for their existence, but because we recognize the power and the sustenance they give us. If this were how we got all of our meat, by matching ourselves against animals in their natural state, by earning their destruction, I would not mind eating it. But if that was how we got all of our meat, we would never have had the time to develop human civilization – of which the relative importance is a whole other discussion. And so we abandoned primitivism out of what most consider necessity, and here is where the contradictions emerge.

The Eagle, an animal we admire and revere.
http://www.desktopwallpapers8.com/images/wmwallpapers/flying-eagle-1.jpeg

Humans still hold a primitive fascination with animals – a desire to run with the wolf, fly with the eagle, swing through the jungle with the monkey. Yet, as Costello’s son reflects, “You won’t get a bunch of Australians standing around a sheep, listening to its silly baa, writing poems about it (Coetzee, 100).” We are biased in the animals we choose to revere, and it is no coincidence that the ones we don’t choose show up on our dinner tables. The ones we continue to admire are the ones who remain free – who retain that mysterious will, the power of being that we struggle to define. We recognize that an animal’s freedom is what makes it beautiful, and yet we take it away. We take away what makes animals powerful, unique, and proceed to slaughter them. We do not feel for them because we do not see the power, the being, that we are destroying, because we have already stifled it. And yet despite our stifling, who is to say that it is gone? This could be an argument for either side. On one hand, if we have deprived animals of what defines their perception, their will – their free movement in nature – than they no longer have that will to live, and their deaths are of no moral consequence. But on the other side, a creature’s will to live is immutable, and though we may have reduced animals to their base function, depriving them of an opportunity to flourish, the will exists, trapped, tortured, rebelling until death. Hughes suggests as much in “The Jaguar”-
“By the bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear-
He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him
More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom” (Anthology, 375)

We cannot assume that an animal is simpler than a human, that its will is easier to break. And we cannot deny that there exists a will – we concede to its existence in our art, poetry, and educational programming. So we must live with a contradiction, or seek to resolve it.

THE LIVES - AND MINDS - OF ANIMALS

2009-11-11T23:54:00.004-06:00

I had many acute responses – skeptical and celebratory – to Elizabeth Costello, her character and her lectures. I was a little discouraged, however, to see these responses similarly outlined in the commentary in our course anthology. My little gems of enlightened post-its seem perfunctory now, moot points.

The main ideas I found to share with the commentators were the arguments on the relative importance of beings by Singer and the focus on eastern religion by Doniger. Both posed the questions, found the flaws, of Costello’s argument that I did.

Do the inherent differences between man and animal create a disparity in their worth? Or do they negate that perceived disparity as a symptom of narrow-mindedness? Singer argues the former, Costello the latter, and neither convinces me entirely. So I think I’m left with a question which, at least for now, I wont seek to answer.

Is there a scale to measure the
relative worth of beings?
source: http://hollis333.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/scales_of_justice.jpg

On the other hand, Doniger discusses all of the points that immediately came to mind as O’ Hearne claimed that compassion for animals was a modern, western concept. Granted, O ‘Hearne does specify the “obligation to animals themselves (Coetzee, 106)” rather than the hope for human well-being or salvation that is often the case of animal veneration in eastern religions. Yet his, and ultimately Coetzee’s, complete omission of eastern tradition in the issue of animal treatment seems like a gross oversight. Be it calculated or careless, I think it weakens both arguments considerably.

Costello could’ve used the examples of eastern tradition, as Doniger discusses at length, to present two arguments. The first, that humans have associated the cruelty to and killing of animals with evil, or moral depravity, for hundreds of years. Even if in their own interests, the idea that killing or harming an animal is an affront to god, an affront to one’s own soul, definitely gives animals more worth than is ascribed to them in western religion, even when viewed through a “compassionate” western lens. In western tradition, animals are lesser, more innocent creatures, and we should protect them because of their weakness and because of our strength. In the east however, animals posses souls of equal value to those of humans, and are regarded as equals by the gods, and so must be preserved for the preservation of man’s own being - man must share his right to exist. On top of this, Doniger points out that eastern tradition calls for a heightened moral consciousness in man, “the… argument that we know that they are going to die, and that that makes it bad for us to kill them. (Anthology, 351)” Costello does not use this eastern perspective in her argument. She does however, criticize one thing that eastern and western tradition have in common, though it manifests differently in both, and that is the use of god as justification – scapegoat – for the killing of animals. Doniger discusses examples of this at length, and so I won’t repeat them.
The veneration of the cow in
Hindu tradition.
source: http://www.harekrsna.com/gallery/krsna1/krsna1.jpg

Although Coetzee omits specific religious ideas in Costello’s argument, there is much discussion of God. Yet it is the abstract God of western tradition that Costello depicts, not the anthropomorphic Gods of the east. It is the God referred to in irony, in an attempt to undermine the very notion of God, and thus to undermine the doctrines of a God that says we are different than animals, that we were created in a different image, with a different worth. Costello calls it “the God of reason (Coetzee, 67)” and suggests it is a false god – not “the being of the universe (67)” against which man and animal are measured and separated. It is a construct, a faculty given too much value, a device twisted to become exclusionary. Man can reason, animal cannot, and reason is thus superior to all other faculties – even those which animals posses and we lack. Through our reason we may be able to unlock certain “secrets of the universe,” but we can only describe them insofar as reason allows, and having become so enamored with reason as to disregard other forms of perception, we limit ourselves, and at the same time feel we posses such higher cognition than the animals who remain unfettered, subject only to the reality of nature, not the constructs of man. The idea that reason is the penultimate method of understanding is a flaw in how we view our own cognition and especially in how we seek to distinguish ourselves from animals. Reason is the God which, as Costello would argue, we use to justify the killing of animals. Reason is the scapegoat, the excuse, for our cruelty, and reason is why we must have a scapegoat to begin with. Reason is how we try to answer the question I posed at the beginning – do our inherent differences give us different worth? The God of Reason says that yes, our cognitive faculties make us superior to those with a different sort of cognition. It says that it is no matter if animals feel, if they love, if they empathize - only if they reason, in our terms and in ways we understand, could they be our equals. This is the fallacy of man - a comfortable fallacy that not only leads us towards depravity, towards cruelty, but that goes so far as to limit what is good in us - our vast cognition, our capacity for several modes of perception.

EMPATHY, SYMPATHY, AND COMPASSION

2009-11-02T21:59:00.001-06:00

What is the difference between the “specific talent(s)”(Dick, 124) of empathy, sympathy, and compassion? When I read the anthology definitions and the abstractions website, and then applied them to what I was reading in Androids, I was faced with numerous contradictions. It seems that one thing they all have in common is that they are unquantifiable – and rightly so. Because if we could truly quantify these aspects which, as argued in our last discussion, make us uniquely human, we could then apply that knowledge to non-human things – in Dick’s case, androids.

We are warned against the dangers of abstractions, but what about the danger of trying to define, to quantify, the things that truly are abstract? I base my view of abstraction on the Oxford English Dictionary definition “the idea of something which has no independent existence.”(Abstractions website) Basically, something which is subjective, that cannot exist without reference to other phenomena – be they tangible or imagined. In this way, our concepts of empathy, sympathy, and compassion truly are abstractions. The only differences to be found between them are in how they are carried out – how they are manifested in human actions. However, those actions do not define their nature – as their nature is intangible, abstract as the emotions that they produce and are produced by. So the nature of empathy, sympathy, and compassion is subject to the emotional context they are being viewed in, and thus leaves their “definition” open to much debate and inconsistency.

Perhaps then we shouldn’t try to define these concepts, but rather allow them to be innate, intangible qualities we recognize in ourselves and in others – not only through their actions, but through some immeasurable response in their person – a gut feeling, pulled heartstrings, etc.; all abstract rhetorical devices used to explain something that is not concrete, but that we know exists. So is the nature of empathy, sympathy, and compassion. Why then is Rick Deckard’s “gut feeling” not enough to distinguish humans from androids? They can’t project sympathy onto him, can’t empathize, are not drawn to compassion – they posses none of the human subtleties, none of the intangibles, that we sense in one another. So why is Deckard fooled by their ability to synthesize such reactions, through their words and actions?

Androids may seem to have human emotions,
but merely mimic them through their actions.
source: http://loyalkng.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/robot-love.jpg

This question helps to elucidate the nature of how we classify actions as being empathetic, sympathetic, or compassionate. They are all a result of how we project our own feelings, and can only be comprehended within the frames of our individual selves. They can also only be fully realized, fully observed, as we see them inside ourselves – we cannot honestly make judgments on the motives of others – even the intangible feelings we get from them could be merely projections of our own feelings, our desire to fill the gap between individuals, to support the idea of our capacity for co-feeling. But this desire gets in the way when trying to determine, as Deckard must, who possesses these uniquely human emotions and who does not.

As I said earlier, empathy, sympathy, and compassion are emotions that cannot be quantified. However, in 2021, and admittedly in our own age, humans have found ways to do just that. What is empathy? A subtle spasm in the eye muscles at the mention of a mounted deer head. What is sympathy? Compassion? Neuroscientists would say they’re the result of a precise sequence of neural firings, a combination of chemical compounds, a reaction not to a person, but to an electric signal. None of the definitions in the anthology follow this line of thinking, this new capacity for quantifying emotions. So we must ask ourselves – will we ever be satisfied with a quantifiable definition of our emotions? Or is it that which we cannot define – the intangible, the abstract – which makes them meaningful, which makes them human?

The definitions and the analysis by Walter Jackson Bate on page 274O do not attempt to describe empathy, sympathy, and compassion as independent forces, but rather describe them in terms of their effects – on the subject and the object. Both rely heavily on general terms – citing things such as “feelings”, “projecting one’s personality”, and “the fundamental reality and inner working.”(Anthology, 274J-O) What does any of this signify? Only how little we are able to articulate about our specific emotions without referencing some equally-as-vague construct. As it seems in Bate’s analysis, the more we try to explain these intangibles, the more we contradict ourselves. I’d love to go into an analysis of these contradictions, but I feel I’ve gotten far enough away from the issue of Dick’s novel already, and so I’ll take this opportunity to leave you with my vague assertions and circle back around.

So, Deckard cannot rely on his emotional responses in dealing with androids, but must remain detached – observing in them only that which is quantifiable. The issue arises when he cannot help but to project his own emotions onto the androids – specifically female androids. He reflects on how “it was an odd sensation, knowing intellectually that they were machines, but emotionally reacting anyhow.”(Dick, 95) This just proves that we create emotion where it doesn’t exist – not unlike forced relationships, with false constructs of love left clinging to a semblance of human connectivity. This is the world of 2021, where emotions – empathy included – have become hard to come by in their honest forms. It is not only that Deckard must struggle to believe that androids don’t posses emotions, but that he struggles with the idea that humans are equally as devoid of emotion, and that theirs might be of the same construct as the androids’ – synthetic or imagined. He shows this when he thinks, “most androids I’ve known have more vitality and desire to live than my wife. She has nothing to give me.” And so the constructs of empathy, sympathy, and compassion are essentially the same, despite their differences in application – they come from a selfish desire, or perhaps even a need, to experience the emotions of others – to remind ourselves that we are among other living, feeling beings, that we are not alone in our suffering or our joy. Perhaps this is why androids are threatening – because they refute that belief. Androids show us that we cant really tell who is feeling and who isn’t, that our ideas of sympathy, empathy, and compassion could merely be constructs of our own desire for that reality – a co-feeling reality in which we are all connected and our emotions for each other are real – real beyond the concrete, real in the way that only an abstraction can be.
Is this shared emotion real? We like to think so.
source:http://www.openhandweb.org/files/openhand/images//HuggingKidsSmall%5B4%5D.jpg

ALICE AND ANIMALS DISCUSSION OUTLINE

2009-10-22T00:22:00.005-05:00

Lewis Carroll uses many devices to comment on the human relationship with and treatment of animals in both Alice books. How do these devices, these characters, and these interactions reflect on the larger question of animal treatment, in the books and in our world today?

DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN HUMANS AND ANIMALS

Before we can discuss how animals are treated in the books, we must first see how Carroll treats them as characters. Which traits does he develop in these animals and what do they signify? What point is Carroll trying to make about the distinction between humans and animals?

KATHERINE:
“Carroll wants his readers to notice that animals clearly have their own worth outside of the lives of humans.”
“Carroll also demonstrates an animal’s worth by showing the deer’s sense of identity.”

MOLLY:
“By introducing us to characters like a weeping Mock Turtle, a Caterpillar with a Napoleon complex (kind of), a fearful mother Pigeon, and a greedy, conniving Walrus, the author forces us to see human qualities in wild animals and savagery in ourselves.”

CHRIS:
“Our author brings into question an animal’s ability to communicate, feel, love, and reason. So, is there a distinction between the actions of humans amongst animals, versus animals amongst themselves?”
“The moral consequences of eating an egg become more apparent when its mother can argue and attack you.”
“…one can hardly distinguish the differences between human and animal in his imaginative world.”

LAUREN:
“Humans and animals both have deep emotions? SAME PERSON.”

SPIN:
“I believe he emphasizes this by making these animals as human-like as possible – so we as readers could take out the descriptions of the animals, replace them with human descriptions, and read the book never knowing that Alice was kicking a talking lizard named Bill but rather kicking a talking person named Bill. Would Alice kick a man named Bill for no obvious reason? I doubt it. Carroll’s human/animal parallel is drawn effectively in this way.”

THUYEN:
“Carroll’s personification of the animals in the Alice books further serves the purpose of equalizing man and animals.”

TREATMENT OF ANIMALS

Having recognized the distinctions Carroll consciously makes between humans and animals, how does Alice struggle with this distinction, or lack thereof? How does this relationship affect Alice’s treatment of the animals in wonderland and looking-glass world?

CALLIE:
“Lewis Carroll’s failure to differentiate between animals and humans in Alice and Wonderland poses the interesting question: Why do we treat animals as inferior to humans?”

LAUREN:
“…we dehumanize animals just because they don't communicate and act the same way as us and therefore allow ourselves to treat them unethically, although lack of understanding for animals is not a “good and sufficient cause” (Anthology, 329) for this unethical treatment.”
“…the astounding difference in Alice's treatment of animals that arises when they DO communicate and act like humans. I think that animals possess a lot of the same traits as us, but we fail to recognize these similarities because we are blinded by what separates us, such as the ability to talk”

SPIN:
“Carroll uses the narrow-minded lens through which Alice views the animals around her to make obvious that treatment of animals as if they are worth less than we as humans, or as if their feelings are any less real or important as ours, is simply wrong”

KATHERINE:
“While Carroll writes about an animal’s individual worth, he also demonstrates how humans and animals may coexist.”

ANIMALS AS PETS

Although many animals in the books are characterized as humans, Carroll still emphasizes the difference in Alice’s treatment of animals she regards as pets. What does this connection to our pets say about our treatment of animals overall? What is hypocritical about our attitudes towards pets? How does Alice illustrate this hypocrisy in her dealings with non-domestic animals?

EMILY:
“Many people learn to accept animals as their best friends or members of their family, proving that they see animals “more and more the aspect of gentle friends” (Course Anthology 320).”

KATHERINE:
“Perhaps Carroll is suggesting that if we could see all animals as we see our pets, we might treat them all much better.”

SPIN:
“Especially, I think, is this true with pets, for we feed them, we keep their environment clean, we control much of their lifestyle. We are in a position of power over them to the point where it is difficult to put ourselves on their level and truly understand what is going on in their minds.”

CHANGES IN ALICE’S TREATMENT OF ANIMALS

How does Alice’s attitude towards animals change as the books progress, especially towards the end of Through the Looking Glass? What assertion might Carroll be making with this shift in behavior?

JADE:
“… when Alice herself becomes a Queen, a transition Carroll uses to represent her coming of age, she seems to lose her initial patience and fascination with the creatures.”

EMILY:
“One major trend I’ve noticed is that children are usually more sympathetic to animals than adults are. Combined with a greater sense of imagination as well as a tendency to be naturally compassionate (due to their innocence I presume), children, no matter how they end up as they get older…are more likely to sympathize with animals.”

WHAT IS CARROLL TELLING US?

Carroll’s inclusion of animals in the books and his outrageous crafting of their individual and absurd characters makes it clear that they are meant to represent some larger truth about the human relationship with animals, and perhaps about the human condition in general. What truth is he trying to convey?

HELEN:
“Through her mistakes, Lewis Carroll warns us against indulging our carelessness and selfishness. Through her moments of kindness, Lewis Carroll inspires us to change. In the end, Lewis Carroll reminds us that all creatures of the world are just as worthy as we are to be treated fairly and compassionately, to live and exist harmoniously.”

SPIN:
“I think that was one of Carroll’s goal with his Alice books – to allow us to examine our own convictions and question our own ideals, especially with respect to animals”

THUYEN:
“Only when we can really look pass the surface of differences and judge based on fundamental similarities can we view animals as equals to extend our compassion towards them.”

MAYSIE:
“Throughout Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Carroll again and again thoroughly unites man and nature. Kittens as the Red and White Queens, talking flowers, Cheshire Cat with clear and cool logic- countless points are made that we are all connected, we are all the same.”

THE PIGEON AND THE PUDDING: ANIMALS IN THE ALICE BOOKS

2009-10-19T18:00:00.002-05:00

Lewis Carroll makes many comments on the relativity of suffering between humans and animals in his criticisms of vivisection. Though buried in his functional analysis of the problems of the research method, these comments present an idea most directly addressed in the Alice books – what differentiates us from animals, and how does that justify our treatment of them? Carroll states clearly that “the prevention of suffering to a human being does not justify the infliction of a greater amount of suffering on an animal”(Anthology 329), and while he makes it a purpose to differentiate between inflicting pain on an animal and killing it (which “needs no justification”), in the Alice books, Alice is confronted, and most puzzled by, the moral implications of killing animals for food.

Where does our food come from? Animals, a fact
that Alice must face in Wonderland.
source: http://ephemerist.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/meat47hands01.jpg

Though taken out of context, Carroll’s statement that “ while science arrogates to herself the right of torturing at her pleasure the whole sentient creation up to man himself, some inscrutable boundary-line is there drawn, over which she will never venture to pass,” (Anthology 329) brings up an important assertion that Carroll makes in this essay and in the Alice books – that animals are equally as sentient as humans, and therefore have the same capacity for experiencing pain. The problem arises for Alice when she is confronted by the abrasive sentience of the animals in wonderland – not only are they fully aware of themselves and their own suffering, but they are quick to judge and classify Alice, forcing her to admit to her selfish and sometimes hypocritical reasoning.

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice’s encounter with the pigeon marks the first time that she really starts to consider the implications of her animal-rich diet. When the pigeon assumes that Alice is “a kind of serpent” because she confesses to eating eggs, “this was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent for a minute or two,”(Annotated Alice, 56). It is this silence which signifies Alice’s struggle to accept herself as being the equivalent of an animal – in her case a predatory one. The next lines support this as the pigeon asks, “What does it matter to me whether you’re a little girl or a serpent?” “It matters a good deal to me,” Alice replies, showing her disdain for the pigeon’s lack of distinction between the two (Annotated Alice, 56).

Alice being berated by the pigeon.
source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19033/19033-h/images/i015.jpg

In Through the Looking Glass, Carroll makes an even more outrageous attempt at forcing the reader, and Alice, to accept the sentience of the animals we kill for food, and ultimately the sentience of the animals we inflict suffering upon. At her coronation feast, when introduced to the leg of mutton she was to slice, “Alice returned the bow, not knowing whether to be frightened or amused,”(Annotated Alice, 262). This exchange marks Alice’s continuing dilemma throughout the books- are these talking animals simply an amusing fantasy of wonderland? Or does their sentience reveal a truth that Alice has never considered, the truth of their feeling, their awareness of suffering? The question is answered partly by the queen’s response to Alice’s attempt to slice her new acquaintance - “it isn’t etiquette to cut anyone you’ve been introduced to,” (Annotated Alice, 263). Even in the looking glass world, where everything is opposite, one would not dream of eating a creature that is self-aware, feeling, and in this case, rather polite.

Alice's encounter with the mutton.
source: http://www.ebbemunk.dk/alice/89leg_of_mutton.jpg

Although Alice must question, once again, the morality of eating animals, in this episode Carroll also suggests the futility of trying to prevent all suffering, and makes the same distinction between killing and hurting animals as he does in his essay on vivisection. After the fiasco with the mutton, Alice is quick to avoid the same interaction with the pudding, stating, “I wo’n’t be introduced to the pudding, please… or we shall get no dinner at all,”(Annotated Alice, 263). Though Alice has been forced to accept the moral fact of eating animals – that she is destroying once conscious beings – she makes the point that if we were to let that fact deter us completely, we would never eat. Alice introduces the concept of a necessary evil – one that Carroll also describes when he states “that man has an absolute right to inflict death on animals,”(Anthology, 324). In that vein, Alice takes the initiative to slice the pudding, despite having been properly introduced. She is once again affronted by an unexpected sentience. One could say that Carroll is almost mocking an extremist view – that we offend creation in every instance of killing another creature. The pudding’s ire at being consumed reflects Carroll’s opinion of the “reductio ad absurdum” proposition of trying to classify or justify the relative importance of creatures we kill for food. It is as ridiculous to feel guilt for eating an animal as it is to be scolded by the pudding at a banquet.

Though the points I have discussed here are only a fraction of Alice’s interactions with animals, I believe they have the most bearing on Carroll’s actual opinions on the treatment of animals, which, as evidenced by his essay, he cares about greatly. The Alice books serve to confront us with a reality we often ignore, or are indifferent to, that animals have the capacity to feel, and are as vulnerable to suffering, if not more so, as we are. Although Carroll seeks to reduce the suffering of animals, he is also aware of the absurdity of trying to prevent all suffering, and illustrates this in the ridiculous difficulty Alice has in her dealings with animals throughout the book. The challenges Alice faces in this regard can be characterized by an excerpt from Jude the Obscure, a story in which efforts made by the protagonist are equally as futile as Alice’s attempts to treat the creatures of wonderland fairly and with as much civility as she can manage – “It was impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing some of them at each tread,” (Anthology, 322). As Jude must “carefully [pick] his way on tiptoe among the earthworms,”(Anthology, 322) Alice must be constantly wary of what she says and does while in the company of these incredibly sensitive and easily offended animals. Though it would be easy to criticize Alice for her insensitive dealing with these animals, we must feel sympathy for her in that she is overwhelmed not only by the curious and often illogical demands of these creatures, but also by their blatant sentience, as we would be overwhelmed if we were expected to keep track of every animal we harm in passing – from the food we eat to the very steps we take.

Are we to avoid every earthworm?
source: http://www.conservationmagazine.org/images/worms.jpg

PASSION FOR EDUCATION

2009-10-12T20:01:00.010-05:00

I’ve had many fantasies of my future self. In almost every case I am some sort of charismatic leader - whether political, religious, or revolutionary, I am always at the forefront of new and controversial ideas, proudly proclaiming them to the masses, raising my fist on the podium, a master of extemporaneous speaking…

But that isn’t me. Yet.

I often fantasize about being a speaker
like Barack Obama(1), isn't he charismatic?

I’ve had many causes in these fantasies, environmentalism, socialism, science, art; they’re all interchangeable passions. So what is it that fuels this persistent dream? What passion makes me a leader, makes me the one with all the answers? I have to look at what all of these future selves have in common. Yes, of course in all of them I am the one on the podium, the one conducting the crowd, but this reflects more of my distorted ego than it does my guiding passion. But there is one other consistency. Regardless of the subject of my declarations, I am always exposing some new truth, enacting some new knowledge, and giving it to the world – I am educating.

A passion for education has been apparent throughout my entire life, first in fantasies and later in my actions. One of my fondest memories of the third grade is standing on the large log in the playground and giving my classmates a lecture on the topic “why nothing is something”. No one was listening. But I developed the ability, at a very young age, to be completely unfazed by a lack of attention. If I have something I really want to say, I will keep saying it no matter what. From that point on, lunchtime lectures were a common affair for me. I suppose my real goal was to have some sort of intellectual discussion with my peers, but seeing as they were all also in the third grade, it usually turned out rather one sided. This pattern continued throughout my life. My freshman year of high school brought me back to the lunchtime lecture, a sign that it was my standby method of socializing in uncomfortable situations. Passions make themselves most apparent as comfort zones – what do I do when I don’t know what to do in a situation? I start talking, discussing things I’ve recently learned, giving my opinions on the news, formulating philosophical ideologies, etc. I know that talking for the sake of talking isn’t what makes someone a teacher, and it isn’t the same as educating, but it is the passion that has led me on a path towards education, in many ways.

A precocious child(2), not unlike myself in the 3rd grade.

In my last few years of high school, I started talking less and doing more. Somehow my passion for sharing my ideas with large groups was able to overshadow my disdain for student organizations. I was never the type of person who liked to be involved. But I saw an opportunity to do the things I liked to do – organizing people and information, communicating new ideas in new ways – and I took it. This is the power of passion, it forces you to do things you otherwise would not, to pursue all opportunities to share that passion. I joined senior council, became president of National Art Honor Society, joined an advisory board for a nearby museum, and became active in organizing student exhibitions in the arts district. My family is still confused by my level of involvement - I’m the last of four children and the first to ever join any sort of organization, let alone be in charge of one. So how do these actions lend themselves to a passion for education? In all of my extracurricular activities, similar to my fantasies, I sought to bring something new to the table, either a new idea for an event or a publication or an exhibit. All of the things I helped organize served some sort of educational purpose. One of the projects I am most proud of is the zine I created with the NAHS. Not only did I want to give the visual arts cluster something to present to the public, beyond our gallery exhibits, I wanted to give them experience in a field that our curriculum touched little upon, but that many students end up going into – publication design. In order to produce the zine as a collective, everyone had to learn about using layouts, creating printing forms, book making, copy editing – everything involved in making one little book. Because this was my project, I was in charge of getting people involved and making sure they knew what they were doing. Though the final product could’ve come out cleaner and earlier (December vs. May),
the experience was one of the highlights of my time at the Arts Magnet, and really helped to define my passion for education and information dispersal.

The cover of our first zine, lovingly hand-printed
photo credit to author

I also had the opportunity to bring my “lectures” to a wider and more attentive audience through my involvement in the visual arts cluster. I helped organize student exhibitions for the printmaking department, at the Crow Collection of Asian Art and the Dallas Museum of Art. My main contribution to these shows was solidifying the theme and purpose of each exhibition and communicating that idea to the artists involved, and, eventually, to the viewers of the exhibit in the form of the wall text displayed at each show. So not only did I get to help determine the general direction the show would go in, what statement the art would make when put together, I got to make the final statement, the paragraphs that explained to strangers what we were doing and why we were doing it. I also spoke at the openings of each exhibit, and getting to share my ideas in front of a receptive audience was one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done. My passion for education becomes very apparent in the projects I choose to take on and how I interpret those projects. It would be easy for me, as an artist, to simplify the exhibitions we planned and focus solely on the visual nature of the artwork. But because of my passion, in every case I made it about the meaning, about the statement, and about the context of each piece within the larger group. And that should be the goal of every educator, to show people what’s beyond the obvious.

Presenting the wall text I wrote
for the Crow.
photo credit to author

Not only has my passion manifested itself in my actions, but it is also very apparent in the actions of those I consider to be my role models. I am very quick to respect good teachers, and equally as quick to write off bad ones. As someone with a passion for education, I expect to see the same passion in those who have chosen to pursue it as a career. I have had the privilege of working with some amazing teachers throughout my life, and these people are my role models. No doctors, no lawyers, no artists or scientists – my role models have all been teachers, even my mother, who has taught art to children for as long as I’ve known her. It’s teachers that have shown me the most about myself – how I learn, the type of work I like to do, what I’m capable of. It’s teachers that inspire the best in people, and it’s the best in people that inspires me.

Me with Charlotte Chambliss, a
teacher and a huge influence on me.
photo credit to author

Though seeing people reach their potential does bring me joy, it is just a convenient product of my passion for educating. Education has its roots in compassion, in selflessness, but I cannot say that this compassion is what drives me. I am driven by something different, less humanitarian. Passions are solely internal forces, and it is an internal force that leaves me desperate for an outlet for my thoughts, for a venue in which to organize all the information floating around in my head, and for a way to make this knowledge useful to others. I can’t say that I want to change the lives of teenagers or bring enlightenment in the form of heightened literacy – I just want to talk, and be listened to. So the passion that drives this compassionate endeavor – to teach and to give knowledge – is a completely selfish one – a passion for talking, a passion for knowing, a passion for giving my opinion even when it isn’t asked for. But I think this is what makes my passion for education more versatile. I’m not passionate about any specific type of education; I see no difference in the relative importance of school and television, literature and magazines. Every source of information seeks to educate in some way, and all sources can be improved upon. It is really this improvement that I seek, not just in what is being taught, but in how it is being taught, and in what format. This is why I am so drawn to publications and graphic design as sources of education. Once people complete their mandatory twelve years, what incentive do they have to continue learning, aside from obvious professional reasons? My passion for education goes beyond what I can accomplish in the classroom. My fantasies of a future self may not be so far off. Though I may not end up on the podium, I want to educate on a massive scale – reaching out through publication design and my ability to organize information in unique and appealing ways. I may not have the courage or interpersonal skills needed for direct education, but my passion will not be quelled, and I will always seek new and exciting ways to get my message across.

Cover of Seed Magazine(3), a great
example of an educational publication.

Although my passion for education may be internal, its application is sure to have positive external consequences. It’s already reared its head in how I’ve approached school, how I’ve learned to work with others, and how I choose to communicate in general. Despite my “selfish” motivations for wanting to educate, it is, nonetheless, a deed whose benefit to society is obvious. Not only do we need more educated citizens, we need them to be educated correctly. For this end, we need more great teachers, teachers with not only a passion for knowledge, but a passion for packaging that knowledge in its most accessible and usable form. Educating will always be much more than a source of income for me because I am truly passionate about the dispersal of information. It is that level of personal investment that makes great teachers across all fields. When teachers are passionate about what they teach, their students can become passionate about learning it, and the lust for knowledge can become contagious.

WORD COUNT: 1769

NOTES:

1. Zimbio, "Obama Gives Fathers Day Speech At Sunday Church Service,"
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/GG06DN95lZ-/Obama+Gives+Fathers+Day+Speech+Sunday+Church

2. News @ SpreadIt.org, "Precocious: Precocious Definition,"
http://i39.tinypic.com/zj9ov4.jpg

3. Seed Magazine, "Issue Number 22: The Last Experiment,"
http://seedmagazine.com/issue/

WHAT AM I DOING HERE?

2009-09-28T19:36:00.003-05:00

I was never incredibly enthusiastic about the prospect of going to college. I knew I would have to, eventually, but I always had my sights set on doing something far more outrageous. My life plan in my freshman year of high school consisted of a series of renegade political maneuvers that would allow me to control a small, Latin-American country (Guatemala seemed most promising) and establishing there an experimental Utopian society and a genetics research lab. There would also be greenhouses involved. Possibly a bio-dome. By sophomore year, I'd decided I would be attending the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where I would study neuroscience and Mayan culture simultaneously. This was also my third year studying French. Sometimes I miss my old idealism. Though to be honest, I haven't come much closer to the surface of the earth since then, and I don't especially want to.

the strategic location of my future empire
source: http://blog.seva.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/map_of_guatemala.jpg

So here I am, falling back on Plan II, pun intended. Though I've put my dictatorial ambitions aside, temporarily, I feel like I am on the right track. Because what do we do when we don't have the money, the knowledge, or the language skills to accomplish our dreams? We go to college!

In reality, I came to the realization last year that I would go to college, a normal college, and get whatever I could out of it. This wasn’t a submission to the norms of society, or the pressures of my parents, or the fear of actually entering the “real world”. I realized that learning was what I loved to do, and what I was good at. I fully appreciate the statement “[college] is the last time in your life you will be given the chance to simply learn things with few other responsibilities”(Course Anthology, 110). That is the kind of chance I have always wanted, the freedom to simply pursue knowledge, without having to apply it to some end result or major life decision. I have always wanted knowledge to be “an inward endowment”(167), not just something that would help me get into college, or get a job, or sound interesting. This is why I’m so happy to have found Plan II, and the University of Texas.

The Plan II emblem reflects the duality that I seek.
source: http://www.laits.utexas.edu/sta/wiki/uploads/Main.CamriH/planIIoutline2.jpg

Plan II is a perfect fit for me, as it allows me to major in something while not really having to pick a major. While I probably will narrow my focus somewhat, its comforting to know that I can pursue knowledge freely, without having to worry much about getting my required hours and coursework etc. Plan II provides the breadth of study and the unity of knowledge that I crave. The classes I’m required to take may not pertain to subjects I’m interested in, but they all have a common goal – to help me understand the best way to learn, to adapt, and to think ahead of the curve. This way I’ll be able to take all of my interests, all of my goals, all of my thoughts, and “hammer them into unity”. I am touched by the statement “all branches of knowledge are connected together, because the subject-matter of knowledge is intimately united in itself”(165). This is a concept I’ve tried to explain to my parents, my teachers, my friends, who cannot grasp my seemingly pointless pursuit of fields that have nothing to do with another. But Plan II gets it, and that’s why I’m here.

I’m already excited by the types of learning I’ve engaged in so far. I expected college to be solid lecture, with little interaction and few ways to make myself known to the professor. While I do enjoy a dry lecture, the same way I enjoy driving long distances and manual labor (this is not sarcasm), the direct exchange of knowledge from professor to student does leave something to be desired, or rather, something to be learned. I'm glad my classes aren't like this one!
source: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2069/2814710002_711e3b2d82.jpg

That’s what this class, heavy in experiential learning, has begun to teach me. It is essential to have something that “force[s] you to confront your current ideas about the subject… and reconcile them with what you now observe to be the case”(184). It’s easy in a lecture class to hear what a professor has to say, repeat it back on an exam, but never really believe or understand it. There needs to be a conflict, a challenge, that forces me to either find ways to make my ideas undeniably true or concede to other viewpoints. Basically, I’m glad to be in an environment where bullshit will not be tolerated, because it’s incredibly easy to revert back to that tendency, so well manicured in high school. I feel like Plan II, coupled with UT as a whole, gives me free reign to explore all the possibilities of academia, while still keeping me in check, making sure that my efforts lead to something, if not something as solid as a career or grad school, at least to a unity of thought, a focus in my pursuit of limitless knowledge.

I still have ridiculous ambitions. I still want to major in Mayan culture and neuroscience, plus maybe physics and linguistics and studio art. But I realize that there must be a structure to my education, and that’s what college gives me, along with a piece of paper that will help me access the knowledge I may be unable to acquire here. I can only hope that my mind will reach the state of “the intellect… which knows, and thinks while it knows… which… cannot be but patient, collected, and majestically calm, because it discerns the end in every beginning… because it ever knows where it stands, and how its path lies from one point to another”(168). To me, this is internal bliss, something I will work towards the rest of my life, far beyond where I get in college.

My inevitable academic future?
source: http://neworleanstwilight.com/pondering.jpg

HUMMINGBIRD

2009-09-20T18:50:00.020-05:00

"I ask you:
What is your substance?
And from where do you originate?"

- Pablo Neruda, Ode to the Hummingbird (1)

(2)
From where does my totem animal, the hummingbird, originate? Hummingbirds are uniquely American, they only live in the Western Hemisphere, so it follows that they are common in Native American folklore and spirituality. But hummingbirds are not such common animals, and have not appeared to me so often. So from where do they originate as my totem? The hummingbird is inside of me, the strongest animal impulse I contain. The hum of its flight is manifest in the hum of my busy thoughts, the rigor of its heartbeat appears in the rigor of my passions. It is not only my spirit guide, but rather my spirit, that the hummingbird embodies. So how did I come to relate so strongly to this animal, to recognize it inside of me?

There was a jolt of something - electricity perhaps - at the tip of my finger, and I flipped the card. On it perched a little jewel of a creature. Cliche, I thought. Tiny, feminine, flippant. I ought to be something regal, stoic, large... a hawk - hawks had appeared to me many times. But I hadn't drawn a hawk, I had drawn a hummingbird. So I didn't put much store in the Medicine Cards (3). I forgot about them.

(4)

Until recently. I was doing imagery research for a tattoo, and the small, delicate creature seemed suitable for a thigh. As research generally does, it took off on a tangent. I remembered the Medicine Cards. I remembered the essay I needed to write about a totem animal. I was inspired by the different mythos containing hummingbirds, and decided to give them a second chance. Their message resonated more fully this time. My interest was piqued initially by the significance of hummingbirds in Mayan and Aztec mythology, two subjects that I am very passionate about. To the Maya, the hummingbird represented the coming of the 5th sun, or the current stage of humanity (5). It was the messenger that traveled between worlds, as it had the ability to fly in any direction, and was therefore the first herald of the new age. In both cultures the hummingbird was seen as a purveyor of love and beauty, depicted often as a bride or groom, or as a symbol of fertility. This characterization is the basis of the hummingbird’s role as totem animal as described in Native American folklore. The hummingbird, as a guide, is meant to “open the heart to love” (6). This is the message I was unable, or unwilling, to attune to on my first encounter with the hummingbird.

(13)
My perspective on love, and on joy, was very different then than it is now. At that time I was still reeling from the end of a long and somewhat debilitating relationship. I was definitely not open to love, and would not be for quite some time. The hummingbird I drew was a message, to warn me against closing myself, encourage me to keep moving, and to once again find joy in the world outside of myself and outside of my relationships. I was too stubborn to accept this message, and so finding my connection to my totem animal, and ultimately to myself, took a longer route.

Perhaps the hummingbird has come to me now as a sign that I’ve followed its path, I have embraced everything that it stands for. It’s been over a year since the end of my last serious relationship, and I’m finally at the point where the idea of love – romantic, passionate, joyful love – is no longer terrifying, it's not even scary. I make a point of loving everyone for who they are, rather than judging them and criticizing them as I used to. With this sense of love, and the necessity of it, it is much easier for me to find joy in life. And that is really what the hummingbird has given me. According to the Medicine Cards, hummingbird’s principle characteristic is joy(7). You can see it in the animals themselves – flitting through the flowers, energetically and enthusiastically, delighting in sweetness all around them. If we could all see the world as the hummingbird does, we would see nothing but beauty, life, and joy. That’s why the hummingbird also represents aesthetic values – "know[ing] instinctively where beauty abides and, near or far... journey[ing] to that place"(8).

This ability is another strong bond I have with the hummingbird. One of my main goals in life is to surround myself with beautiful things – found objects, plants, artwork, colors. I also wish to contribute something beautiful to the world, and from that comes my passion for creating art. My aesthetic is apparent in everything I do. My room décor matches my wardrobe matches my blog matches my website matches my school supplies… everything I keep around me subscribes to a standard of beauty that I’ve created. In many cases this has happened organically – or at least subconsciously. It's also not surprising that my palette – of colors and of images – is largely inspired by nature and especially by spring, the hummingbird’s key season. Recently I have even started to draw hummingbirds – on the edges of notes, in sketches, and in my continuous drawings. I started to do this without realizing its significance as a way of “honoring my totem” and therefore awakening to it, allowing for “its medicine to be effective in [my] life” (9). Drawing animals does force you to connect with them, to take on aspects of their form and movement and truly relate to it, a practice we have mentioned in class. To draw the hummingbird, I have to imagine its flight, its movement, and its purpose in that movement, to be able to capture it accurately.

So is my recent fascination with the hummingbird enough to make it my totem animal? The hummingbird is definitely the key anima of my identity now, but how do I know if it will remain as my totem? I don’t. There are other animals I closely associate with, even others that I drew from the same medicine cards. For instance, the mouse is one of my totems, representing scrutiny, which is a large part of who I am and how I perceive the world. I am also connected to the otter, my feminine and maternal instincts. And there is the hawk, an animal I admire greatly, that symbolizes the messenger and the strength of intuition. I have seen all of these animals within myself at different times. I can relate to the shamanic belief that “every species and every aspect of its environment had the power to remind them of what they could manifest within their own life" (10). I have always been in awe of animals and the way they seem to function so effortlessly within their environments. Because I am a human, and have no specific environment (11), being able to look towards these animals as inspiration to adapt to the ever-changing human world is truly an asset.

Although I draw inspiration from many animals, I feel like the hummingbird will continue to manifest itself most strongly in my personality, my identity. There are simply too many similarities to ignore. Our shared tininess, for example, is an obvious connection. Though the hummingbird is small, it defends its territory and its young fiercely, often scaring off much larger animals. Being short has never been an issue for me, and though I may be meek physically, I can make very strong statements if need be. The hummingbird also has an important mutualistic relationship with nature. It is adapted perfectly to obtain nectar from and pollinate flowers. Though I’m not necessarily adapted to taking care of plants, it is something I find joy in. I can spend hours outside, basking in the beauty of nature and just feeling its energy. The subtle relationships between plants – ecologically and aesthetically – bring me an immense amount of joy. The hummingbird’s general demeanor also mimics my own. It's speed and agility rest on the brink of frenzy, it seems close to exploding with internal energy. Though I may seem calm much of the time, inside my mind is teeming with thoughts, jumping from one to the next, reaching towards the tipping point. As with the hummingbird, it takes the most energy to stand still - to hover in space, a quivering mass of potential energy.

The more aware of the hummingbird I become, the more obvious it is that is has been within me this whole time. It is hard now for me to separate from it. When I listened to the obligatory totem animal vision quest, the hummingbird was with me the whole time, before I even entered the tunnel. I was comforted by the fact that not only did the hummingbird maintain its presence during the "quest", but that it led me to a place I knew, the jungle. The hummingbird thrives in the jungles of Central America, the same jungle that I thrive in. My sense of empowerment, of identity, unity, and happiness, originated from the same place - the same geographic location - as my totem animal. And so we are, yet again, even more connected than I ever knew.

The "time when humanity recognized itself as part of nature, and nature as part of itself", when "Dreaming and waking were insperarable realities; the natural and the supernatural merged and blended"(12) does not seem so foreign to me, in fact it is quite a familiar condition. I have always been drawn to nature, always found my true peace of mind when immersed deeply into the natural world. So I don't take my connection with my totem for granted. I will always keep the hummingbird's message of love, joy, and beauty in mind, as they have become essential parts of my identity.
The hummingbird is now of the same substance as myself. It originates from within. And it hums throughout.

WORDCOUNT: 1564

NOTES:

1. Pablo Neruda, Ode to the Hummingbird

The hummingbird
in flight
is a water-spark,
an incandescent drop
of American
fire,
the jungle's
flaming résumé,
a heavenly,
precise
rainbow:
the hummingbird is
an arc,
a golden
thread,
a green
bonfire!

Oh
tiny
living
lightning,
when
you hover
in the air,
you are
a body of pollen,
a feather
or hot coal,
I ask you:
What is your substance?
And from where do you originate?
Perhaps during the blind age
of the Deluge,
within fertility's
mud,
when the rose
crystallized
in an anthracite fist,
and metals matriculated,
each one in
a secret gallery
perhaps then
from a wounded reptile
some fragment rolled,
a golden atom,
the last cosmic scale,
a drop of terrestrial fire
took flight,
suspending your splendor,
your iridescent,
swift sapphire.

You doze
on a nut,
fit into a diminutive blossom;
you are an arrow,
a pattern,
a coat-of-arms,
honey's vibrato, pollen's ray;
you are so stouthearted —
the falcon
with his black plumage
does not daunt you:
you pirouette,
a light within the light,
air within the air.
Wrapped in your wings,
you penetrate the sheath
of a quivering flower,
not fearing
that her nuptial honey
may take off your head!

From scarlet to dusty gold,
to yellow flames,
to the rare
ashen emerald,
to the orange and black velvet
of your girdle gilded by sunflowers,
to the sketch
like
amber thorns,
your Epiphany,
little supreme being,
you are a miracle,
shimmering
from torrid California
to Patagonia's whistling,
bitter wind.
You are a sun-seed,
plumed
fire,
a miniature
flag
in flight,
a petal of
silenced nations,
a syllable
of buried blood,
a feather
of an ancient heart,
submerged

2. Hummingbird Lithographs by John Gould
Source: Bibliodyssey.
http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2007/03/gould-hummingbirds.html

3. Medicine Cards consist of a deck of numbered totem animal cards that correspond to a book containing descriptions of each animal as a totem. To draw the cards, you lay them all face down in a semi circle around you, trace over them with your right hand, and wait until you feel a jolt or twitch in your fingers over a particular card. You can do this until you draw six cards, or just the one. The order in which you draw the cards determines the way in which the animals affect you.

4. Hummingbird Medicine Card
Source: Peaceful Rivers
http://peacefulrivers.homestead.com/animalcard44.html

5. The other "suns" consisted of civilizations or beings that did not suit the gods, and thus were destroyed. The 5th sun is our current civilization, or era, that will end on December 21, 2012, according to Mayan calendrical cycles. Thus the hummingbird is significant for all of us, as it is the messenger that brings about the beginning and end of the current Mayan era.

6. Medicine Cards - The Healing Power of Animals, Animal Card 44 - Hummingbird
http://peacefulrivers.homestead.com/animalcard44.html

7. Medicine Cards - The Healing Power of Animals, Animal Card 44 - Hummingbird
http://peacefulrivers.homestead.com/animalcard44.html

8. Spirit of Red Arrow, Hummingbird Medicine
http://www.birdclan.org/hummingbird.html

9. Course Anthology, p. 418

10. Course Anthology, p. 415

11. Though I do favor certain environments over others - another connection and clue to my animal totems. I love the jungle, where hummingbirds originate. I also love small places, and have a tendency to nest, not unlike my totem.

12. Course Anthology, p. 415

13. Aztec Hummingbird God
Pacific Lutheran University, The Aztec Empire
http://www.plu.edu/~wilkinam/home.html

WHAT TYPE OF PERSON ARE YOU?

2009-09-07T19:35:00.014-05:00

An Experiment with the Meyers-Briggs Personality Test

I know what type of person I am. Or rather, I know what types of person I am. I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing where I fit, what my function is, how I operate in society. My deductions on the subject have come mainly from observing how I interact with others, how I complete tasks, and how I deal with my flaws. I’m confident in saying that I know myself, not necessarily in the sense of who I am (because that requires a much more context-based analysis), but definitely in the question of how I am, a general definition of myself that applies in any situation. So I had a good idea of what my results were going to be when I sat down to take this personality test. And they pretty much lived up to my expectations. What was interesting, however, was that when I took the test a second time, a week or so later, my results changed.

This inconsistency didn’t surprise me; in fact I was impressed that there was only a one-letter discrepancy between the two, as I’ve often suspected to have a few extra personalities loitering around my subconscious. So I’ll start with what’s certain- ENF, extroverted, intuitive, feeling. According to Keirsey, this makes me an “idealist”, which is an incredibly fitting title. I quickly identified with Keirsey’s description: “The real, practical world is only a starting place for Idealists; they believe that life is filled with possibilities waiting to be realized, rich with meanings calling out to be understood”.

me pondering the nature of the universe,
a typical idealist activity

My idealist tendencies are very apparent in my learning and writing styles, as I often seek to grasp or invent broad, theoretical concepts that help to unify the information at hand. I’m also aware of the flaws that come along with this personality type, such as the inability to follow through and a habit of switching ideas, projects, and attention mid-stream, as my inspiration fades in and out (Anthology p. 138, 140). Despite these flaws, I think my idealist nature will be an asset in this class, where projects are open for interpretation and the subject matter subscribes to unifying and over-arching themes. I might struggle with some of the writing assignments, as I am very prone to writers block. The two areas of my type that give me the most trouble with this are intuition and feeling. Writing Process Inventory describes my problems with writing exactly, such as my tendency “to forget to include concrete examples and… not provide the reader with background information”(Anthology p. 151). I apologize for this in advance, but I’m always more concerned with making a point rather than proving it with concrete evidence (though I think my writing is evidence enough to support this assertion). I think that because of my idealism I pay more attention to making an elegant statement or theory rather than making sure it’s sound.

It seems like the main function of this test, or at least in my results, is to define the different ways in which people perceive the world, how they synthesize all the information that makes up their individual realities. That’s why my two results are very intriguing, although not surprising. The difference lies in the last letter. My first result came up as ENFP, my second ENFJ. So I’m stuck with a contrast, perceiving versus judging, the Champion versus the Teacher. I’m content as both, and I know that both apply. In fact, I find myself switching between the two very
often.

THE TEACHER VS. THE CHAMPION

The main difference between them seems to be in terms of organization- the perceptive side is more cluttered, at least mentally, and has a shorter attention span, whereas the judging side can synthesize information quickly and come up with solid conclusions and decisions. I guess that these two different sides of me come out depending on the task at hand. According to Saumya’s Typology Assessment, my ENFJ side might be better suited for this class, and probably most classes for that matter. In retrospect, I can track the shifting of my personality type, from when I’m in class to when I’m out and about. I’m definitely an ENFJ in class, quick to judge, quick to decide, and quick to instruct. I’m guessing this is why people I have class with always seem to have a different idea of my personality than the people I’m with outside of school. I think it’s obvious when my ENFP side starts showing, usually when I’m in a more comfortable social situation. I get very excited about ideas or projects that pop into my head and start speaking more quickly than usual and have dramatic hand gestures and use an inordinate number of conjunctions. I can definitely relate to what Joe Butt calls “the silly-switch”.

I’m pleased with the results of this test, though they do nothing to help me decide between career paths, as my two types are suited for different callings. But if anything, at least now you guys will know that when I have outbursts its not because I’m insane, I just have two personality types. Which does sound kind of insane. But you can’t argue with Internet tests.

- ALICE ARMSTRONG

asparachoke

2009-01-21T12:21:00.002-06:00

a hybrid vegetable

that rattles

texture joy

glazed terracotta

cuddle guts

2009-01-21T12:19:00.003-06:00

soft and squishy organs

crocheted with love

soon to be mass produced for profit

Dreams

2008-12-12T12:52:00.004-06:00

the amalgamation of instantaneous associations

the entirety of consciousness in action

reclining

2008-12-08T12:52:00.006-06:00

a random assortment of lines defining shapes creating an aura

dreamspace

multi-dimensional protrusions

magnetic fields

color theory

amalgorithm

monster truck

2008-12-05T12:51:00.000-06:00

superior preference is the ultimate brand name. mad props.

next time- amalgorithm. a definition.