Wandering Thoughts

Today, one of my friends texted me asking if I was moving to the city I currently live in--and, I wasn't quite sure how to answer. I mean, I live here now. I'm going away to where I grew up for about a month, but then I'll be coming back. But, I'm also looking at possibilities of moving elsewhere--grad school, ESL teaching abroad, prospective jobs.

Being a bit rootless can be fun. I have the luck of living in the age of world wide connectivity through the internet, so I can stay in touch with the people I love wherever I go. It means I don't have much to drop to grasp for new opportunities, but it can also be sad to think about why its so easy to pick up and leave.

What does it mean to connect or disconnect in the age of internet? In someways, you never have to be alone, but the technology can consume more and more of our days till we don't remember the last time we had a face to face conversation--ones where we catch the glints in one another's ideas when we find our passions.

Today's a bit of a ramble, but it's what is rolling through my mind today. Tomorrow, I'll aim for a more coherent topic.

Gift of Time

Today, I watched 14 episodes of NBC's "Parks and Rec" with my family. This information will probably give you some insight into why my mind feels like a pile of unproductive mush right now, as well as why I had a little difficulty coming up with something to write about today. However, in the parts of my day not spent binge watching television, I also spent sometime considering volunteer opportunities that I want to join. These two things make me wonder about the true value of "my time."

As a part-time, low income earner who is passionate about justice in the world, I sometimes feel at a loss for what I can do to make an impact on the issues that I think are most critical at this time. Sometimes, it is not so difficult. Sometimes, it is just making the choice to stop using plastic bags and other efforts to reduce my personal waste. Other times, I am walking though a shoe store with my cousin and feeling just overwhelmed by the crushing meaninglessness of our consumption society and think how little an impact I make with my personal choices.

Volunteering is a way for me to organize with others so that we can amplify the impact of our personal choices. Shared caring creates a space for more people to join in. It can do something as simple as increasing viability for an issues or something as complex as organizing solutions to problems. No matter the degree of change a volunteer group seeks to make in the world, that change is possible because people come together to share their gifts, especially their time.

I cannot spend 24 hours a day, every day working on the projects that I believe will make our world a better place to live--partly because I need a paycheck (which I am fortunate to get from a source that I think is part of making a better world),  but also because SLEEP! Coordinating allows for services to be provided more broadly than individual kind hearts can manage. I do not have the resources or time to try to provide food for the hungry on a daily basis, but I can partner with other people to make that possible.

I know I am not telling the world anything it does not already know about volunteering. But, in the age of all day TV binges, I think it is important to remind ourselves that it does not take sacrifices of our entire lives--or even the almost entire day I wasted on TV--to make a difference. Joining with others, recognizing our role in and overcoming social problems takes just a little bit of time and it enriches all the other hours of our lives.

The Purpose of a Character Education

Yesterday, I read Martin Luther King Jr.'s essay, "The Purpose of Education," for the first time. It has all the elements that one expects from King's clear, articulate and passionate thought. What struck me while reading it, however, is how little we have done to make head way on the idea of education as being more than simply fostering intelligence.

This quote, in particular, sticks with me:

"We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character--that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living."

 I know that the majority of educators who taught me had a goal of fostering character as well as intelligence. I do not think that the importance of character is a strange mystery to be unlocked. However, our actions have not demonstrated that we understand how serious it is for human kind. Sure, my school had a "Character Counts" program, but that was a few hours a month, with no other concerted, systemic effort being made outside of that time.

It is not enough to take character on as a secondary quality. As King states, we cannot discern legitimate goals without an education that helps us develop the necessary skills for it. I am grateful for all the people in my life who cared that I be not only "smart" or informed but also compassionate and possessing integrity. Those attributes, my character, is what helps me decide the just ways to obtain and utilize information for myself and the world. Intelligence is simple brute force until with have the ability to discern the goals to which it can and should be turned.

Creative Recreating

One of the greatest powers the internet has given us is the freedom to write, rewrite, play, replay--over and over. It's an endless creative space that allows for ceaseless commentary.  I'm a big fan of finding inventive musical covers on the internet. Sometimes these covers are just about rediscovering favorites in new ways, other times they make palatable to me music that I find completely unappealing.

I think the interest in all kinds of homages, from fanfiction to musical covers, demonstrates something beautiful about the creative instinct in human beings. To me, it is a demonstration that what drives creativity is not the opportunity to do something that has never been done before--but to do something in a way that suits you. Perhaps creativity can be thought of as finding the blend of our interests with our abilities. It is fun to write your own stories or songs, to perform or create a unique work--but, who doesn't just want to belt out the Beatles sometimes (or whatever music you love)?

At the same time, I think it is an interesting division to try and define between copying and covering a creative work. It seems a cyclical news story to talk about how the current pop stars are ripping off one or another musician.

This song, for example, samples from Elvis Costello's song, "Pump it Up." The only reason I discovered the original is because in the YouTube comments, some people were debating the creativity, or lack thereof, in looping the catchy guitar rift from it. The internet has also become a place for not letting such "borrowing" go unnoticed. So, in someways, the copy/cover divide becomes a matter of public opinion--a crowd arbitrating whether or not to ostracize you for plagiarism or to embrace you as a creative off-shoot.

What do you think? What is just outright copying and what is creative recasting in the age of internet media?

After the storms...

I recently finished reading "Salvage the Bones" by Jesmyn Ward. This book was a fascinating and saddening read. Now that I am finished, I'm not sure if I would say I liked reading it, but I will say that I think it is a good book. Some stories are like that for me; I do not like reading them, but I am glad to have read them.

Ward's book follows the main character, Esche, through the twelve days lead up, into and after hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana in 2005. Despite its quite recent setting and events, I was amazed at how many times as I was reading about Esche's days I felt like she lived in the 1950s. Growing up without a mother or any sense of what sexuality is or can be, Esche's life is consumed by the men she is surrounded by: her alcoholic father, her three brothers and a slew of her brother's friends. She reads Greek mythology and idealizes Medea as she struggles with sex, power and looming motherhood as a child. She watches her brother, Skeeter, as he cares for his fighting dog and her litter of young pups and ponders the issues surrounding nurturing and especially what happens when we do not get it.

This story was unsettling to me because it left me feeling worried for all the people that humanity continues to leave behind. We cast them as backwards, ignorant, rednecks. It is fine to seek an end to ignorance, as much as it is possible, but we have to start seeing it as a symptom of an imperfect system. This divide where we see our "educated" selves as above, or at the least pitying, those uniformed beneath us has to end. Humanity has an amazing capacity for knowledge, but those who have lacked opportunity to grow in curiosity are still human.

I think Ward does a beautiful job of showing the logic that a young girl is forced to make out of a senseless world. Esche stretches her curiosity, but without the facts and the nurturing she needs within reach, she comes to conclusions and makes decisions that set her on a course to single, young motherhood. Curiosity is not enough--the storm makes landfall and reveals Esche's pregnancy. The reality is that her mother is dead, Medea is a myth and Esche lives at the whim of storms that cannot be calmed by her longing for knowledge.

Diversity in Media

Today, I wanted to share this video from PBS Idea Channel on Youtube:

I was recently talking about similar ideas (more about TV and movies) with my family at the dinner table. We have a friend who is very passionate about the misrepresentation of non-white non-male characters, and one of my family members was feeling a bit weary of our friends zeal for the subject.

So, one the one hand, I feel that it is completely valid to sometimes be annoyed with our loved ones and their passion projects, especially when they are ones we don't feel strongly connected to--but, part of our inability to be passionately connected to this is part of the problem. Being a privileged person means that we have only a small sense of being removed from our media representations of culture, so it can be easy for us to paint those who point these injustices out to us as hysterics. We make them into that indiviudal's problems, not things worth working on together, and that is a loss for us as a human community. 

As much as I want every person to feel free to be an individual who needs no label to know themselves, I also realize that human development relies on modeling. That means that we must ensure diverse models for children to observe if we want to reach for a society where groupings do not matter. I want to live in a world where people can be valued as individuals regardless of their group affiliations. However, that is not the world we live in today. The only way we can get there is by continuing these conversations, by not be blinded by privilege to the point of hiding others oppression. 

It is not comfortable to confront the fact that society is designed to make some of us comfortable and simultaneously ignoring or misrepresenting the majority. But, I want the value of individual acknowledgement to be extended to every person. And in the end, this will make life better for everyone (including cisgendered, heterosexual, white males) because then we will have the opportunities to flourish and reach for our highest forms of being. Our successes would be our own--not belonging to our "tribe"--and, therefore, open to be shared with all.

Anyways, this is a subject that I want to spend more time reading and thinking about because I know I rest on the tip of the iceberg. I look forward to discovering more voices, removing my own blinders to see the world as it actual is and not just in ways that are easy on me.

Things that keep me from writing

I think a good place to start on a short term goal (AKA, me writing a blog everyday for a month) is to think about why you are not already doing the thing that is your goal. So, today I want to write about the top three reasons I usually do not write on this blog.

1) Nothing dies on the internet. Living in the age of internet socializing and job searches, its not totally irrational to fear something flippant you say on the internet coming back to bite you in the ass. However, one of the great things about never being able to totally delete the past is that we have an opportunity to live more honestly. If I do say something stupid on this blog, I hope it will be relatively minor. But, I also welcome the opportunity to make mistakes, have them pointed out to me (hopefully in a kind way) and to improve from the experience.

2) English and I--not best friends. This goes somewhat with number one, but is a specific mistake that I know I make (and will continue to make) over and over again. I am no where near an expert at using English spelling and grammar. It is irksome to later read something I wrote and see a huge spelling error. (Case in point, discovering a spelling error in my work e-mail signature. Agh!) The fact is, my brain is not attentive to these kind of details and I don't prioritize them enough. However, writing more gives me an opportunity to work on making these mistakes fewer and, hopefully, less egregious.

3) What can I say that has not already been said? This was a problem for me as a student and it continues now. This belief that I have nothing important to add to the conversation is a real hindrance to developing clear thinking and writing. It encourages me to hide my ideas away from the harsh light of shared conversation, preventing me from improving and refining my thinking. This one is a difficult one to over come, for me, as it is really a matter of self-confidence. For now, I would say, Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance" is my best defense against this fear. I will have to reread it this month.

Because of these three aspects, I have several draft blogs laying in wait and many more for which I never even started a draft. I hope that I will get some of these fleshed out and shared with you over the next month. But, sharing is always a risk. The risks of rejection, failure and mistakes can crush any endeavor before it starts. I think, however, it is better for ideas to live out in the world, not hidden away in our minds. If we are in error, we live with a mistaken reality with no hope of remedy. If we have good idea, we might be missing opportunities to clarify and refine our thinking.  I look forward to remedying some of my mistaken perceptions and fine-tuning some of my more accurate ones over the next month.