I came packed in oils, the residue of Eden.
Some said that grief made me.
Some said it was the death of a child.
Or a passion so dense no light escaped.
Some said it was sin.
They told me stories to account for the disease.
Of heavy elements that kept me from rising.
Of the ribbed wings of angels.
Of cells that changed.
I trusted the world to be natural. The voice
Of disease was the white noise I slept by.
What happened to me happened to you.
I ate too much or too little, the water was unclean.
I saw the face of illness mature in the mirror.
Everything that had been outside me
Came to be inside me.
I was unequally well and unwell.
I was my own medicine.
And now the endless remedies
Became the white noise I slept by, deeply.
For such and so many are the body's afflictions,
That to live is to die.
-- Marvin Bell, "A Healthy Life"
Friday, January 25, 2008
Monday, January 14, 2008
Please come here. Please come on over. There is no line that you can't step right over.
This morning I woke up, glanced out my window like I do every morning, and did a major double take, because there was 8 or so inches of snow on the ground. Maybe there's more, actually, but I didn't really go outside with a yardstick so I have no concrete number to report.
Got dressed, put on some snow boots, borrowed the ergonomic shovel from our neighbors, and began to dig out my car, which the plowman had so kindly packed into the snow like a little shitty red igloo. I've actually never been in Massachusetts for winter whilst also owning a car, so by some short-lived miracle, I've never had to un-burrow my own car. I did the best I could, getting most of the ice out from under the wheels. I turned on my car to warm it up while I went back into the house for my backpack and my coffee. I felt very strange, however... there was this latent but nagging feeling that something integral was missing from the picture. Like there was a step I was forgetting.
I went back outside and sat in the car to think:
I dug out the wheels.
I cleaned off the wipers.
I have the emergency brake on.
There's no snow on top of the car.
But that feeling was still there, and now it was compounded by me feeling really dizzy. And nauseous. I felt pretty sick in general.
I opened the door and put my head between my knees to breathe. Then it slowly dawned on me... I turned my head to look at the back of my car...
I never dug out the exhaust pipe.
I had neglected to un-bury the exhaust pipe, which was packed into ice and snow.
What happens when people try to kill themselves in the garage? They slowly asphyxiate to death, because the carbon monoxide filters back into their car. Which is almost what I accidentally did this morning.
I like to think that I'm not actually such a complete moron that I qualify for a Darwin Award by just trying to drive. But my mom did mention that my grandfather's childhood friend killed his entire family in a very similar manner.
And recently in the news, a man quite accidentally began to drive, passed out behind the wheel, and drove into incoming traffic. His tailpipe had been blocked off.
Why would I forget such a critical step of such a simple series of tasks? Doesn't our memories serve to protect us?
Yes and no. But not always.
From the November issue of National Geographic, an article discusses Harvard psychologist Daniel Schacter, who has developed a taxonomy for the types of forgetting with experience. He calls these the "sins of memory". Yet each sin, he believes, is also a blessing -- they are "a price we pay for processes and functions that serve us well in many respects". For each thing we forget, we remember something which our brains have prioritized as more important. Not that there's such a limited amount of room, but for our brains to work most efficiently, its easiest for us to forget extraneous details. The entire purpose of our brains are, after all, to be highly developed "prediction machines"; we touch, we taste, we talk and hear and move. From every outlet we have, we take in as much information about world as we can get. All that information could drown us; its part of the brain's job to throw away what's not important. Whats left in our memories, scientists theorize, are five types of memories:
- Short-memory, immediate. (sensory)
We hold these for fractions of a second; a street light down the block changing, a far off church bell, a whiff of the neighbor's dinner. These are also known as things subliminal -- most of the time we don't even realize that we are sensing these stimuli.
- Working, short-term memory. (recalled)
You can remember what this post is about. After dinner you remember what you ate. Tomorrow you'll know it snowed today. Simple immediate information.
- Long-Term Memory, Facts and Events. (declarative, aka, episodic and semantic)
When did Columbus sail? Who wrote Lolita? What was the name of your first dog? Where did your father trip and fall on the ice when you were 9? How many broken bones have you had?
These are things we consider as integral to who we are, our past, the books we've read, the wars we've seen, the names of all fifty states and our favorite sonnet. There is a spectrum of fact and event long-term memory; you might have known a line or two from the Talmud when you were studying world religions in 10th grade, but I doubt you remember it now. Yet on the other end of the long-term spectrum, there are Jewish scholars who memorized the Talmud so completely that it was passed down orally for generations.
- Long-Term Memory for Habits/Skills (procedural)
Things you do unconsciously, like how to make coffee, or paint, how to read, etc. "It's like riding a bike", literally.
- Long-Term Emotional Memory
Related specifically to fear (so we can react quickly to dangerous situations), but also other things: what happiness is. How you felt when you were accepted to college. These memories are linked to events, but also trigger uncontrollable physiological reactions. The smell of a perfume, for example, might cause you to feel suddenly nostalgic and sad. Interestingly, what we would consider "love", is often not found in this category.
Forgetting is a more complicated business than remembering. Remembering is so much more understood that forgetting seems to baffle scientists and doctors alike. In neurodegenerative memory disorders for example, contrary to what doctors would expect, there seems to be a strange order of which memories begin to disappear. In fact, in slow, cruel diseases like Alzheimer's and Multiple Sclerosis, strange memories remain where others disappear. The date, unknown, but a perfect random day from the 40s remains. Feelings of familiarity come and go. Some eventually forget how to feed themselves, but remember how to fix a watch. Some memories evaporate forever. Some return with no warning. What this means, although understood to relate to neuron degeneration, still seems to re-complicate all we know about memory.
When we forget things, however, it is dependent on what it is, it relates to a different part of the brain. I forgot (or maybe was never handed the Rule Book of How To Function In Snow) to dig out my tailpipe. I never had to dig out my car, so this information was stored in my Procedural Memory. I don't have fond memories of mommy and dad gathered around the exhaust, so it was stored in my emotional memory banks either. And I didn't memorize that Rule Book that I received, nor was snow-based carbon monoxide poisoning covered in my high school AP Biology class. So my forgetting didn't seem to be dire; my brain did not see the information as critical. But what if I hadn't remembered in time? Did my brain evacuate one memory for another? Some event that I want to remember -- what lyrics someone was singing to me in a car, or what my aunt made me for breakfast when I was eight, or how long it takes to bake chocolate chip cookies, instead of this information which turned out to be drastically important to my well-being and survival.
So if we could improve our memories by erasing old memories, would we? Would that mean we would have minds which remembered everything, but only with no emotional attachment? Or would we remember only highly selective events, like a newspaper edited by an OCD editor? What would we be willing to omit for the sake of ourselves?
Got dressed, put on some snow boots, borrowed the ergonomic shovel from our neighbors, and began to dig out my car, which the plowman had so kindly packed into the snow like a little shitty red igloo. I've actually never been in Massachusetts for winter whilst also owning a car, so by some short-lived miracle, I've never had to un-burrow my own car. I did the best I could, getting most of the ice out from under the wheels. I turned on my car to warm it up while I went back into the house for my backpack and my coffee. I felt very strange, however... there was this latent but nagging feeling that something integral was missing from the picture. Like there was a step I was forgetting.
I went back outside and sat in the car to think:
I dug out the wheels.
I cleaned off the wipers.
I have the emergency brake on.
There's no snow on top of the car.
But that feeling was still there, and now it was compounded by me feeling really dizzy. And nauseous. I felt pretty sick in general.
I opened the door and put my head between my knees to breathe. Then it slowly dawned on me... I turned my head to look at the back of my car...
I never dug out the exhaust pipe.
I had neglected to un-bury the exhaust pipe, which was packed into ice and snow.
What happens when people try to kill themselves in the garage? They slowly asphyxiate to death, because the carbon monoxide filters back into their car. Which is almost what I accidentally did this morning.
I like to think that I'm not actually such a complete moron that I qualify for a Darwin Award by just trying to drive. But my mom did mention that my grandfather's childhood friend killed his entire family in a very similar manner.
And recently in the news, a man quite accidentally began to drive, passed out behind the wheel, and drove into incoming traffic. His tailpipe had been blocked off.
Why would I forget such a critical step of such a simple series of tasks? Doesn't our memories serve to protect us?
Yes and no. But not always.
From the November issue of National Geographic, an article discusses Harvard psychologist Daniel Schacter, who has developed a taxonomy for the types of forgetting with experience. He calls these the "sins of memory". Yet each sin, he believes, is also a blessing -- they are "a price we pay for processes and functions that serve us well in many respects". For each thing we forget, we remember something which our brains have prioritized as more important. Not that there's such a limited amount of room, but for our brains to work most efficiently, its easiest for us to forget extraneous details. The entire purpose of our brains are, after all, to be highly developed "prediction machines"; we touch, we taste, we talk and hear and move. From every outlet we have, we take in as much information about world as we can get. All that information could drown us; its part of the brain's job to throw away what's not important. Whats left in our memories, scientists theorize, are five types of memories:
- Short-memory, immediate. (sensory)
We hold these for fractions of a second; a street light down the block changing, a far off church bell, a whiff of the neighbor's dinner. These are also known as things subliminal -- most of the time we don't even realize that we are sensing these stimuli.
- Working, short-term memory. (recalled)
You can remember what this post is about. After dinner you remember what you ate. Tomorrow you'll know it snowed today. Simple immediate information.
- Long-Term Memory, Facts and Events. (declarative, aka, episodic and semantic)
When did Columbus sail? Who wrote Lolita? What was the name of your first dog? Where did your father trip and fall on the ice when you were 9? How many broken bones have you had?
These are things we consider as integral to who we are, our past, the books we've read, the wars we've seen, the names of all fifty states and our favorite sonnet. There is a spectrum of fact and event long-term memory; you might have known a line or two from the Talmud when you were studying world religions in 10th grade, but I doubt you remember it now. Yet on the other end of the long-term spectrum, there are Jewish scholars who memorized the Talmud so completely that it was passed down orally for generations.
- Long-Term Memory for Habits/Skills (procedural)
Things you do unconsciously, like how to make coffee, or paint, how to read, etc. "It's like riding a bike", literally.
- Long-Term Emotional Memory
Related specifically to fear (so we can react quickly to dangerous situations), but also other things: what happiness is. How you felt when you were accepted to college. These memories are linked to events, but also trigger uncontrollable physiological reactions. The smell of a perfume, for example, might cause you to feel suddenly nostalgic and sad. Interestingly, what we would consider "love", is often not found in this category.
Forgetting is a more complicated business than remembering. Remembering is so much more understood that forgetting seems to baffle scientists and doctors alike. In neurodegenerative memory disorders for example, contrary to what doctors would expect, there seems to be a strange order of which memories begin to disappear. In fact, in slow, cruel diseases like Alzheimer's and Multiple Sclerosis, strange memories remain where others disappear. The date, unknown, but a perfect random day from the 40s remains. Feelings of familiarity come and go. Some eventually forget how to feed themselves, but remember how to fix a watch. Some memories evaporate forever. Some return with no warning. What this means, although understood to relate to neuron degeneration, still seems to re-complicate all we know about memory.
When we forget things, however, it is dependent on what it is, it relates to a different part of the brain. I forgot (or maybe was never handed the Rule Book of How To Function In Snow) to dig out my tailpipe. I never had to dig out my car, so this information was stored in my Procedural Memory. I don't have fond memories of mommy and dad gathered around the exhaust, so it was stored in my emotional memory banks either. And I didn't memorize that Rule Book that I received, nor was snow-based carbon monoxide poisoning covered in my high school AP Biology class. So my forgetting didn't seem to be dire; my brain did not see the information as critical. But what if I hadn't remembered in time? Did my brain evacuate one memory for another? Some event that I want to remember -- what lyrics someone was singing to me in a car, or what my aunt made me for breakfast when I was eight, or how long it takes to bake chocolate chip cookies, instead of this information which turned out to be drastically important to my well-being and survival.
So if we could improve our memories by erasing old memories, would we? Would that mean we would have minds which remembered everything, but only with no emotional attachment? Or would we remember only highly selective events, like a newspaper edited by an OCD editor? What would we be willing to omit for the sake of ourselves?
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
it's everything.
Although I feel guilty for not having written a post either vaguely academic, politically based, or anything otherwise social/science/theory oriented in a while, I will forewarn -- this post, too, will be on none of those topics. I will, eventually, get back to writing less serious, (or more serious depending on how you look at it), and less personal posts.
However. It is the New Year. I said on my birthday that my New Year was beginning then. It did, in ways. But there's something about the entire world looking forward at the same time which makes today feel undeniably like another new beginning.
A long time ago, I visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I hadn't ever been a religious person, didn't really consider myself spiritual. But standing in front of this towering wall, stuffed with tiny scrolls of rolled up paper; every corner was being touched, and every crack and seam was overflowing with people's written prayers. The feeling of standing in front of that wall... was like dry heat. It just set waves up from the rock, from the pavement. You could feel this sway... every single person there believing so strongly in one thing. Everything was slow motion and I felt like I was swimming in holy air.
That was this feeling I have today, in another way. Everyone believes, truly truly and truly believes, that THIS day will be a fresh start. This day means something. Everyone puts their hopes on it, that this year will be better.
Every end of the month, or end of the year, I always say: This has been a hard year.
But its always a hard year. There will never be a year without some difficulty; I embrace this. I love living, but I love all of living, and if you truly love something, ya gotta love all of it. Life, death, birth, joy, pain... (apparently new years day also makes me Deep and Thematic).
OK, yes, this is cliche. So is dressing up in red and green for Christmas or handing out valentines, or celebrating anniversaries, or Falling In Love, or giving birthday gifts, or really thinking about any of this. But... what else is there? I mean, other than These Things... these weird trappings and celebrations we have and create... other than this, what do we have? How do we define our lives? Shakespeare was on-point -- it's all Sound and Fury. But what certainties do we have after tomorrow? Or after the big final sleep? I think the only things we have are what we create. So we create reasons for reasons, and seasons, and holidays, and arbitrary-time-thingys, like New Years. Or Resolutions. Because that's how we give our lives meaning. Markers, definition... it's all we have.
It's like looking in your fridge for whatever ingredients you have for dinner. Here's what you have. Dinner will come and go, and you can make it or not. That's up to you. But here's what you have. What can we do with these? Let's do the best we can with what we have.
I'm not good at sticking to resolutions. I have a resolution-rebound-rate of about three hours. Honestly. I made one this morning and I already broke it. Twice. Ha ha.
Never-the-less, there are some things I am working on. Maybe "working" is too much of an action verb; some things I am seriously contemplating and maybe verging on strongly-considering-action.
I am trying to spend more time Thinking. Not worrying and agonizing, stressing, or if-BritneySpeares-falls-in-the-forrest-does-it-make-a-sound kind of thinking. Thinking. I'm talking about legitimate knowledge.
I'm already thinking about things the majority of my waking hours, and also several of my sleeping hours already. But to be truthful, most of this thinking is fruitless.
I want to think to the point of learning. And think to the point of changing. And creating. And moving. And living. So I guess that would be: Thinking to the point of Living. Maybe at least feeling, at the end of each day, that I've thought about something and come to understand something about it, or resolved something, or come to a meaningful question, even.
Second is ... to stop thinking about other things. Permanently. Some of the worst and most fruitless thinking I embark upon is Wondering. I wonder what would have happened if Things Had Been Different. If I had said other things, stayed longer, done other things... this is not to say I regret. But I wonder if I had spent more time Thinking and less time Reacting, if I would still be wondering.
... See, right there, I just did it.
I think about what would happen if I could go back, and appreciate, or apologize, or maybe just leave way sooner. Do you ever think about what you would say to people now, if this You that you are now could go back and be the You that you were then? (I know, very metaphysical-stoner, this train of thought.) Or... do you wonder, at weird times, how things would be different if you could open your eyes in a moment? Sometimes I think people are non-committal to their own stories, their own lives. Like we're speaking but we're not really there. We're waking up, but somehow still in a coma. We're out there walking back to our cars, but we could really be anywhere non-specifically walking anywhere. I think back to moments like that and I kind of want to shake my shoulders and yell in my own face: "Commit!". And then, perhaps, there won't be so many of those moments where I look back and wish I said what I meant, did what I meant, or just really BEEN there... etc. There are fewer of these as time goes by, but still. No one can say they have none of them. Earlier this month I had a particularly grisly one. The thing is, we change so much... and then we waste time thinking about all the places where things went awry, for whatever reasons. Its not much help, that. Things are what they are, though I wonder how much more living I could do if I let go of the wondering.
I won't do a cheesy "But all in all this year has been great...", because that's not what this post is about. Of course there have been wonderful, beautiful, silly moments. In one year so much changes. We re-meet ourselves, in a way. There have been amazing discoveries and insane parties and dancing and skin-to-skin and love and rain and all the good shit. Also, there has been gut-wrenching awful pain, and the worst in people, and anxiety and stress. There will always be both. This post is just part of a life examined, a year examined, examining the examination... etc.
Where am I going with this?
Huh.
Well... I guess that's the question of the hour, isn't it.
However. It is the New Year. I said on my birthday that my New Year was beginning then. It did, in ways. But there's something about the entire world looking forward at the same time which makes today feel undeniably like another new beginning.
A long time ago, I visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I hadn't ever been a religious person, didn't really consider myself spiritual. But standing in front of this towering wall, stuffed with tiny scrolls of rolled up paper; every corner was being touched, and every crack and seam was overflowing with people's written prayers. The feeling of standing in front of that wall... was like dry heat. It just set waves up from the rock, from the pavement. You could feel this sway... every single person there believing so strongly in one thing. Everything was slow motion and I felt like I was swimming in holy air.
That was this feeling I have today, in another way. Everyone believes, truly truly and truly believes, that THIS day will be a fresh start. This day means something. Everyone puts their hopes on it, that this year will be better.
Every end of the month, or end of the year, I always say: This has been a hard year.
But its always a hard year. There will never be a year without some difficulty; I embrace this. I love living, but I love all of living, and if you truly love something, ya gotta love all of it. Life, death, birth, joy, pain... (apparently new years day also makes me Deep and Thematic).
OK, yes, this is cliche. So is dressing up in red and green for Christmas or handing out valentines, or celebrating anniversaries, or Falling In Love, or giving birthday gifts, or really thinking about any of this. But... what else is there? I mean, other than These Things... these weird trappings and celebrations we have and create... other than this, what do we have? How do we define our lives? Shakespeare was on-point -- it's all Sound and Fury. But what certainties do we have after tomorrow? Or after the big final sleep? I think the only things we have are what we create. So we create reasons for reasons, and seasons, and holidays, and arbitrary-time-thingys, like New Years. Or Resolutions. Because that's how we give our lives meaning. Markers, definition... it's all we have.
It's like looking in your fridge for whatever ingredients you have for dinner. Here's what you have. Dinner will come and go, and you can make it or not. That's up to you. But here's what you have. What can we do with these? Let's do the best we can with what we have.
I'm not good at sticking to resolutions. I have a resolution-rebound-rate of about three hours. Honestly. I made one this morning and I already broke it. Twice. Ha ha.
Never-the-less, there are some things I am working on. Maybe "working" is too much of an action verb; some things I am seriously contemplating and maybe verging on strongly-considering-action.
I am trying to spend more time Thinking. Not worrying and agonizing, stressing, or if-BritneySpeares-falls-in-the-forrest-does-it-make-a-sound kind of thinking. Thinking. I'm talking about legitimate knowledge.
I'm already thinking about things the majority of my waking hours, and also several of my sleeping hours already. But to be truthful, most of this thinking is fruitless.
I want to think to the point of learning. And think to the point of changing. And creating. And moving. And living. So I guess that would be: Thinking to the point of Living. Maybe at least feeling, at the end of each day, that I've thought about something and come to understand something about it, or resolved something, or come to a meaningful question, even.
Second is ... to stop thinking about other things. Permanently. Some of the worst and most fruitless thinking I embark upon is Wondering. I wonder what would have happened if Things Had Been Different. If I had said other things, stayed longer, done other things... this is not to say I regret. But I wonder if I had spent more time Thinking and less time Reacting, if I would still be wondering.
... See, right there, I just did it.
I think about what would happen if I could go back, and appreciate, or apologize, or maybe just leave way sooner. Do you ever think about what you would say to people now, if this You that you are now could go back and be the You that you were then? (I know, very metaphysical-stoner, this train of thought.) Or... do you wonder, at weird times, how things would be different if you could open your eyes in a moment? Sometimes I think people are non-committal to their own stories, their own lives. Like we're speaking but we're not really there. We're waking up, but somehow still in a coma. We're out there walking back to our cars, but we could really be anywhere non-specifically walking anywhere. I think back to moments like that and I kind of want to shake my shoulders and yell in my own face: "Commit!". And then, perhaps, there won't be so many of those moments where I look back and wish I said what I meant, did what I meant, or just really BEEN there... etc. There are fewer of these as time goes by, but still. No one can say they have none of them. Earlier this month I had a particularly grisly one. The thing is, we change so much... and then we waste time thinking about all the places where things went awry, for whatever reasons. Its not much help, that. Things are what they are, though I wonder how much more living I could do if I let go of the wondering.
I won't do a cheesy "But all in all this year has been great...", because that's not what this post is about. Of course there have been wonderful, beautiful, silly moments. In one year so much changes. We re-meet ourselves, in a way. There have been amazing discoveries and insane parties and dancing and skin-to-skin and love and rain and all the good shit. Also, there has been gut-wrenching awful pain, and the worst in people, and anxiety and stress. There will always be both. This post is just part of a life examined, a year examined, examining the examination... etc.
Where am I going with this?
Huh.
Well... I guess that's the question of the hour, isn't it.
Monday, December 31, 2007
everything that rises must converge.
I recommend watching this video at night. By yourself. In the dark. With no one around.
Bat For Lashes - Whats a Girl To Do
stick with it, it only gets weirder.
and
just because its beautiful.
Sia - Breathe Me
and
Pharoache Monch - Push
Bat For Lashes - Whats a Girl To Do
stick with it, it only gets weirder.
and
just because its beautiful.
Sia - Breathe Me
and
Pharoache Monch - Push
Thursday, December 27, 2007
How'd you ever get the Devil to dance.
BBC NEWS South Asia Benazir Bhutto killed in attack
: /
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated this morning; the world is really just fucked sometimes.
I truly wanted to write a happy, light-hearted post, since it's the holidays. Unfortunately, the world does not stop for the Christ's birthday. The bad shit doesn't stop getting cranked out, even while kids are asleep in their beds, waitin' on presents, and a made-up man in a red velvet suit (hope there are no kids reading this, ha ha. SURPRISE!).
I don't think I'm a particularly negative or pessimistic person. I continually hope. I hope that things can get better, I hope that the world can find some spark of sanity, and that it catches and starts a three-alarm uncontrollable fire of human decency.
Last night, my 13 year old brother was talking about wanting to be a lawyer. I'm pretty sure I wanted to be a vet, or a scuba-diver or some shit when I was 13. What I mean is, next he'll want to be a genie or a spray paint artist or a monkey trainer or whatever rotating series of careers are desirable to a teenage boy (skateboarder? surgeon?). But last night he wanted to be lawyer, and was throwing all kind of prosecutin'-prefixes in front of his name:
A.D.A. D.A. Attorney at Law.
My parents asked him what he would want to do as a lawyer.
I don't know... be a prosecutor? Work with detectives? Some Law and Order stuff? Public Defense?
As soon as he said public defense my parents suggested corporate law...
Yeah, I guess I could do corporate law.
I don't know... maybe I'm the crazy radical older sister who goes away to college and ends up coming back with half a crew cut and 3 new piercings and a whole slew of impractical ideas about how the world works.
Dear Gabe,
Please don't become a corporate lawyer. I know you probably won't anyhow, but I want you to remember this moment, because this is the only decent advice I have to offer to you: Do something to help the world. You're only 13, but we've lived New York, so maybe you can kind of already see how messed up the world is and how many problems there are. I'm not trying to scare you, but there will always be unimaginable suffering and pain, and seemingly unsolvable problems, and things so fucked up that you want to look away from it. But please don't look away from it, look back at it, and decide that you want to at least try. You're one of those crazy-smart kids who is born genuinely caring about others without an ounce of selfishness. And that's so fucking rare. So please become someone who helps change the world, if that's even possible; don't be the gun-firer, the tank-driver, the 2.5 kids in the suburbs man. Please don't sell your soul to make it big in America. You'll regret it; maybe not right away, but one day you'll look back and wish you were Lot's wife. You don't understand what that means, but you will one day. I love you, please don't brush this off, but really listen to me. I'm asking you to make a hard choice. I'm asking you to give up on other futures you could have, on alternate lives which would be easier, and take less effort and thinking, and I'm begging you to take the harder road, the road where nothing is easy and there isn't much reward for living it. Not many people can walk it; I can't even do it sometimes and I want to give up and just paint for a living. I get exhausted trying to understand the intricacies of the human condition, and I think sometimes I exhaust others because of it. But I really try and I want you to try too; selfishly, one day years from now when I'm exhausted by this I want to look over and see you working for it too. Maybe nothing will get better in our lives, but I retain the hope that maybe, maybe, it will. So please, don't be a corporate lawyer.
Love,
Your sister.
I don't mean for this letter to be some artificially-made devastatingly poignant moment. I just watched him think about lawyers and remembered a letter I got, once, a really long time ago, that changed me. And I think, most of the time, even when I'm scared and really fuck up shit, that I'm doing the right thing, in the end.
: /
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated this morning; the world is really just fucked sometimes.
I truly wanted to write a happy, light-hearted post, since it's the holidays. Unfortunately, the world does not stop for the Christ's birthday. The bad shit doesn't stop getting cranked out, even while kids are asleep in their beds, waitin' on presents, and a made-up man in a red velvet suit (hope there are no kids reading this, ha ha. SURPRISE!).
I don't think I'm a particularly negative or pessimistic person. I continually hope. I hope that things can get better, I hope that the world can find some spark of sanity, and that it catches and starts a three-alarm uncontrollable fire of human decency.
Last night, my 13 year old brother was talking about wanting to be a lawyer. I'm pretty sure I wanted to be a vet, or a scuba-diver or some shit when I was 13. What I mean is, next he'll want to be a genie or a spray paint artist or a monkey trainer or whatever rotating series of careers are desirable to a teenage boy (skateboarder? surgeon?). But last night he wanted to be lawyer, and was throwing all kind of prosecutin'-prefixes in front of his name:
A.D.A. D.A. Attorney at Law.
My parents asked him what he would want to do as a lawyer.
I don't know... be a prosecutor? Work with detectives? Some Law and Order stuff? Public Defense?
As soon as he said public defense my parents suggested corporate law...
Yeah, I guess I could do corporate law.
I don't know... maybe I'm the crazy radical older sister who goes away to college and ends up coming back with half a crew cut and 3 new piercings and a whole slew of impractical ideas about how the world works.
Dear Gabe,
Please don't become a corporate lawyer. I know you probably won't anyhow, but I want you to remember this moment, because this is the only decent advice I have to offer to you: Do something to help the world. You're only 13, but we've lived New York, so maybe you can kind of already see how messed up the world is and how many problems there are. I'm not trying to scare you, but there will always be unimaginable suffering and pain, and seemingly unsolvable problems, and things so fucked up that you want to look away from it. But please don't look away from it, look back at it, and decide that you want to at least try. You're one of those crazy-smart kids who is born genuinely caring about others without an ounce of selfishness. And that's so fucking rare. So please become someone who helps change the world, if that's even possible; don't be the gun-firer, the tank-driver, the 2.5 kids in the suburbs man. Please don't sell your soul to make it big in America. You'll regret it; maybe not right away, but one day you'll look back and wish you were Lot's wife. You don't understand what that means, but you will one day. I love you, please don't brush this off, but really listen to me. I'm asking you to make a hard choice. I'm asking you to give up on other futures you could have, on alternate lives which would be easier, and take less effort and thinking, and I'm begging you to take the harder road, the road where nothing is easy and there isn't much reward for living it. Not many people can walk it; I can't even do it sometimes and I want to give up and just paint for a living. I get exhausted trying to understand the intricacies of the human condition, and I think sometimes I exhaust others because of it. But I really try and I want you to try too; selfishly, one day years from now when I'm exhausted by this I want to look over and see you working for it too. Maybe nothing will get better in our lives, but I retain the hope that maybe, maybe, it will. So please, don't be a corporate lawyer.
Love,
Your sister.
I don't mean for this letter to be some artificially-made devastatingly poignant moment. I just watched him think about lawyers and remembered a letter I got, once, a really long time ago, that changed me. And I think, most of the time, even when I'm scared and really fuck up shit, that I'm doing the right thing, in the end.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Protest Songs / in response to Military Aggression / Protest Songs / to try to stop the soldier's gun.
Felt not Heard-
Felt not heard
has been joined by
smelled not touched.
You wrapped me in your sweater
to keep the cold off of my bones
on the solo ride home.
Its an ugly rag,
but you better believe I slept with it
wrapped around my chest;
cause it’s the closest I’ll get this life around.
& I’m trying to dance w/ impossibility,
I’m trying to swoon drunk w/ the hum
you slip through my ribs.
but your generosity, accurate and free
sets my home awake
and a little too close to on fire.
It all started when I told you I’d been here 32 days
It all started when I asked you to turn up your bass
so I could grasp your voice
and the metaphor began;
“A good bass player should be felt, not heard”
Your notes, your steel sliding fingers
your goofy ass patentable grin
tickle that fine line
felt / heard
Music is dangerous.
sound waves don’t see skin as solid,
they reach through and shake
each little atom, one by one,
& whether or not you like that trembling
you have been changed.
And I just want to hear you,
I just want my fingers on you
my mouth, here and now
Fuck this dream state bullshit.
But what can I do?
we are cast off different homes,
you are wrapped in older skin,
still, I can’t stop feeling you.
- Samantha Barrow
Felt not heard
has been joined by
smelled not touched.
You wrapped me in your sweater
to keep the cold off of my bones
on the solo ride home.
Its an ugly rag,
but you better believe I slept with it
wrapped around my chest;
cause it’s the closest I’ll get this life around.
& I’m trying to dance w/ impossibility,
I’m trying to swoon drunk w/ the hum
you slip through my ribs.
but your generosity, accurate and free
sets my home awake
and a little too close to on fire.
It all started when I told you I’d been here 32 days
It all started when I asked you to turn up your bass
so I could grasp your voice
and the metaphor began;
“A good bass player should be felt, not heard”
Your notes, your steel sliding fingers
your goofy ass patentable grin
tickle that fine line
felt / heard
Music is dangerous.
sound waves don’t see skin as solid,
they reach through and shake
each little atom, one by one,
& whether or not you like that trembling
you have been changed.
And I just want to hear you,
I just want my fingers on you
my mouth, here and now
Fuck this dream state bullshit.
But what can I do?
we are cast off different homes,
you are wrapped in older skin,
still, I can’t stop feeling you.
- Samantha Barrow
Saturday, December 15, 2007
I fear no man / I know wrong from right / We push until the day we see the light. / and we keep on pushin, pushin, pushin...
PART I.
I don't really know where to launch into this from. But I have to just do it. I've been meaning to write about identity for a while... but every time I try to cut the extraneous bits of the conversation away, I can't do it. I want to write something witty, or succinct, or unshallow, but I'm not really sure I can.
There isn't any way for me to write some amazing entry about identity, because it can't be wrapped in a neat little package and tied up with a cute little bow. I have, by no means, gotten my mind around what identity even means. Besides the fact that understanding your own identity is ... the penultimate struggle of our lives, or something epic-sounding like that. [Part of it is also part of a confidence game – admitting you question things about you identity implies you haven't figured out who you are, which is seen as dangerous and awkward. But I guess I have to let go of both of those things and just do it, or I'll never get anywhere in understanding it.]
I will start by saying: I have a hard time making decisions. Its a truly complex particular breed of indecisiveness. I've stated this previously, and I don't mean to repeat myself, but recently I've wondered if indecisiveness is a much bigger issue than I give credit to. Not just with me, but with a whole culture of people. And I guess it goes further than indecisiveness, even the aggressive strain I seem to have. It crosses over into the world of commitment to identities and to labels.
I don't like being simplified, or simplifying other people. I value complication and complexity; I don't like multiple choice questions, one word answers, all-inclusive titles... I don't like being simplified.
As teenagers, and as children, and generally as human beings who are raised and educated by other human beings, we are taught to define ourselves as much as possible. We are taught to learn the categories that exist, and fit ourselves into them. In the process of doing that we receive a lot of mixed messages. A lot of conflicting ideas about who we're supposed to grow up and be. There's who our parents want us to be. Who our culture wants us to be. Who our friends want us to be. And then, eventually, who we want to be.
But who do we want to be? Even that sentence doesn't really make any sense. It implies that we wake up as one day as a finalized, categorized product. Which, as a culture (and as a subjects of social psychology) we want to perpetuate: we need to codify everything, so we know how to respond.
Everything is categorized, and then you have to pick one. Black and white, one or the other. As little kids it was: you are a girl or a boy. OK, you're a girl: here are your options for how to be a girl. (Not like anyone really has a choice there. Or at least when we're younger, gender doesn't appear to be optional.)
We get older, and find out that maybe there are more options present. You can be the subversive but sexy girl, but you have to be her in a certain way. You can be the 'tom-boy' girl-next-door, but you have to be her in a certain way. Even the “alternative” female identities have to fit into a certain status-quo.
At Hampshire we get it beaten into our heads that identity based qualifiers are on a spectrum. Gender is a spectrum; sexuality is a spectrum. But as much as we're taught that, I still see an intense pressure to conform to new identities present within Hampshire's insular communities. And Hampshire is pretty progressive... outside of Hampshire, its “Are you gay?”. Then once that answer is established, maybe its “Are you a lesbian?”, and if the person is really direct: “Are you femme?”. So I'm led to believe that once you “decide” that being queer is part of your identity, then you're supposed to find a way to fit in again. Early theory of homosexuality was dependent on lesbians being masculine and gay men being feminine. Are we really that divorced from that idea?
If I don't consider myself a lesbian, I don't consider myself butch, I don't consider myself femme, but does that mean I give up my right to be considered? Then when, exactly, is the tipping point when I'm considered queer enough to call myself that? To me, this mindset is just a whole other kind of binary.
This is from from NYMagazine, about Manhattan's Stuyvesant High School teens: (http://nymag.com/news/features/15589/index6.html):
“These teenagers don’t feel as though their sexuality has to define them, or that they have to define it.”
“But kids are... in the process of working up their own language to describe their behavior. Along with gay, straight, and bisexual, they’ll drop in new words, some of which they’ve coined themselves: polysexual, ambisexual, pansexual, pansensual, polyfide, bi-curious, bi-queer, fluid, metroflexible, heteroflexible, heterosexual with lesbian tendencies—or, as Alair puts it, “just sexual.” The terms are designed less to achieve specificity than to leave all options open.”
The article seems undecided whether Stuyvesant's small sexuality sub-culture is immature or just different; are they radically changing sexuality's definitions, or just not committing to a sexual identity out of uncertainty?
It's never been a conscious effort on my part to reject definition, it just happens. I just don't feel like being reduced to single descriptive words. A refusal to be defined became part of my identity. But at the same time, I always wonder... can an undefined identity be a legitimate identity? Or, in some way, is identifying as non-defining simply symptomatic of my generations inability to commit?
Is refusing to commit to an identity, actually because I'm scared to own it, or because I'm indecisive? If that's true, then am I not owning parts of myself? Or not owning parts of cultures that I'd want to be a part of?
By claiming no label, do I forfeit the right to be certain things, or to participate in certain cultures? As far as gender is concerned, am I not “feminine enough” to be a woman, but not “masculine enough” to be a man? Or as far as sexuality is concerned, am I not “lesbian enough” to be considered queer, but not “straight enough” to be considered heterosexual? Perhaps then, non-definition is just reactionary to not fitting into any of those categorizations.
[A note: Gender identity and sexual orientation/identity are not the same. I'm not lumping them together except for my own writing ease to address them both simultaneously. I'm also not addressing cultural, class, racial identity right now either, because there are only so many hours in the day.]
If we could strip away all the messages society has shoved down our throats, the words that have defined us throughout our lives, the people who dictated what we were, all the times we masqueraded as people we wanted to be, or thought we should be: if we could strip down to the core of who we are:
Who would that be?
Its almost too ridiculous to comprehend: with those external layers peeled away, definitions and words don't mean anything. But the ideas behind them would still exist. So who are we, then?
The problem is, our identities aren't created in a vacuum. Our identities are all wrapped up in the outside factors. Not only that, but its essentially impossible to exist without context. We only understand ourselves by what exists around us.
And then... at a certain point, when my face is an inch away from someone else's face, all of this stops mattering. And I have to put it to rest and say: fuck it... Theory ends here.
I don't really know where to launch into this from. But I have to just do it. I've been meaning to write about identity for a while... but every time I try to cut the extraneous bits of the conversation away, I can't do it. I want to write something witty, or succinct, or unshallow, but I'm not really sure I can.
There isn't any way for me to write some amazing entry about identity, because it can't be wrapped in a neat little package and tied up with a cute little bow. I have, by no means, gotten my mind around what identity even means. Besides the fact that understanding your own identity is ... the penultimate struggle of our lives, or something epic-sounding like that. [Part of it is also part of a confidence game – admitting you question things about you identity implies you haven't figured out who you are, which is seen as dangerous and awkward. But I guess I have to let go of both of those things and just do it, or I'll never get anywhere in understanding it.]
I will start by saying: I have a hard time making decisions. Its a truly complex particular breed of indecisiveness. I've stated this previously, and I don't mean to repeat myself, but recently I've wondered if indecisiveness is a much bigger issue than I give credit to. Not just with me, but with a whole culture of people. And I guess it goes further than indecisiveness, even the aggressive strain I seem to have. It crosses over into the world of commitment to identities and to labels.
I don't like being simplified, or simplifying other people. I value complication and complexity; I don't like multiple choice questions, one word answers, all-inclusive titles... I don't like being simplified.
As teenagers, and as children, and generally as human beings who are raised and educated by other human beings, we are taught to define ourselves as much as possible. We are taught to learn the categories that exist, and fit ourselves into them. In the process of doing that we receive a lot of mixed messages. A lot of conflicting ideas about who we're supposed to grow up and be. There's who our parents want us to be. Who our culture wants us to be. Who our friends want us to be. And then, eventually, who we want to be.
But who do we want to be? Even that sentence doesn't really make any sense. It implies that we wake up as one day as a finalized, categorized product. Which, as a culture (and as a subjects of social psychology) we want to perpetuate: we need to codify everything, so we know how to respond.
Everything is categorized, and then you have to pick one. Black and white, one or the other. As little kids it was: you are a girl or a boy. OK, you're a girl: here are your options for how to be a girl. (Not like anyone really has a choice there. Or at least when we're younger, gender doesn't appear to be optional.)
We get older, and find out that maybe there are more options present. You can be the subversive but sexy girl, but you have to be her in a certain way. You can be the 'tom-boy' girl-next-door, but you have to be her in a certain way. Even the “alternative” female identities have to fit into a certain status-quo.
At Hampshire we get it beaten into our heads that identity based qualifiers are on a spectrum. Gender is a spectrum; sexuality is a spectrum. But as much as we're taught that, I still see an intense pressure to conform to new identities present within Hampshire's insular communities. And Hampshire is pretty progressive... outside of Hampshire, its “Are you gay?”. Then once that answer is established, maybe its “Are you a lesbian?”, and if the person is really direct: “Are you femme?”. So I'm led to believe that once you “decide” that being queer is part of your identity, then you're supposed to find a way to fit in again. Early theory of homosexuality was dependent on lesbians being masculine and gay men being feminine. Are we really that divorced from that idea?
If I don't consider myself a lesbian, I don't consider myself butch, I don't consider myself femme, but does that mean I give up my right to be considered? Then when, exactly, is the tipping point when I'm considered queer enough to call myself that? To me, this mindset is just a whole other kind of binary.
This is from from NYMagazine, about Manhattan's Stuyvesant High School teens: (http://nymag.com/news/features/15589/index6.html):
“These teenagers don’t feel as though their sexuality has to define them, or that they have to define it.”
“But kids are... in the process of working up their own language to describe their behavior. Along with gay, straight, and bisexual, they’ll drop in new words, some of which they’ve coined themselves: polysexual, ambisexual, pansexual, pansensual, polyfide, bi-curious, bi-queer, fluid, metroflexible, heteroflexible, heterosexual with lesbian tendencies—or, as Alair puts it, “just sexual.” The terms are designed less to achieve specificity than to leave all options open.”
The article seems undecided whether Stuyvesant's small sexuality sub-culture is immature or just different; are they radically changing sexuality's definitions, or just not committing to a sexual identity out of uncertainty?
It's never been a conscious effort on my part to reject definition, it just happens. I just don't feel like being reduced to single descriptive words. A refusal to be defined became part of my identity. But at the same time, I always wonder... can an undefined identity be a legitimate identity? Or, in some way, is identifying as non-defining simply symptomatic of my generations inability to commit?
Is refusing to commit to an identity, actually because I'm scared to own it, or because I'm indecisive? If that's true, then am I not owning parts of myself? Or not owning parts of cultures that I'd want to be a part of?
By claiming no label, do I forfeit the right to be certain things, or to participate in certain cultures? As far as gender is concerned, am I not “feminine enough” to be a woman, but not “masculine enough” to be a man? Or as far as sexuality is concerned, am I not “lesbian enough” to be considered queer, but not “straight enough” to be considered heterosexual? Perhaps then, non-definition is just reactionary to not fitting into any of those categorizations.
[A note: Gender identity and sexual orientation/identity are not the same. I'm not lumping them together except for my own writing ease to address them both simultaneously. I'm also not addressing cultural, class, racial identity right now either, because there are only so many hours in the day.]
If we could strip away all the messages society has shoved down our throats, the words that have defined us throughout our lives, the people who dictated what we were, all the times we masqueraded as people we wanted to be, or thought we should be: if we could strip down to the core of who we are:
Who would that be?
Its almost too ridiculous to comprehend: with those external layers peeled away, definitions and words don't mean anything. But the ideas behind them would still exist. So who are we, then?
The problem is, our identities aren't created in a vacuum. Our identities are all wrapped up in the outside factors. Not only that, but its essentially impossible to exist without context. We only understand ourselves by what exists around us.
And then... at a certain point, when my face is an inch away from someone else's face, all of this stops mattering. And I have to put it to rest and say: fuck it... Theory ends here.
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