Trayvon.

My facebook is blowing up with feelings about this trial.  Mostly disgust, peppered with some "woohoos!" and "See, there? Not guilty!!"    I was refraining from comment, mostly because I think the whole thing's bullshit.  I eventually caved and wrote this in response to a friend's post.

Am I horribly naive in thinking that there needed to be something *other* than a trial here? That this should've somehow opened up a lot of things for serious discussion--*outside* of currently accepted forums--to re-evaluate some things we take for granted, possibly without even know that we do so? That maybe, in the same way that Boston shut down after the marathon bombings, we all needed a minute to do the same--to shut down, to cease movement, to examine what really lay at the heart of this? 

A conservative friend posted that Zimmerman said something to the effect of "There are no winners here; this is still a tragedy." Part of me bristles at this; for someone thrilled at the outcome, that's a hollow concession. But a part of me wants to scream that that's exactly right. That putting this through a justice system that we already *know* is corrupt is missing the point: that the event, in itself, is telling enough. That nothing new will come from filtering it through a biased system. That at some point, we're going to need to address the why and not just the outcomes.

I don't know. I suppose I'm just disheartened by seeing the same thing go down with the same responses...over and over and over again. I guess I thought it was time for something....else. Something honest. Something even *remotely* self reflective.

Then:

The thing that the sixties did was allow us (The general "us", the country of "us") to believe that equality is something that can be legislated, that once it's 'on the books', there's no further need for discussion. But the experiences of individuals is what creates any 'ism', and you simply can't legislate that. 

So yeah, for what....40 years? There's been a story, a myth, that because of the 60s, racism does not operate in America. Even when literally thousands of stories can be found to contradict this. We put so much energy into these myths that all the things that add up to disprove them cannot be seen....it's too scary to think that we have so far to go, especially after so much went into something that appeared to be a solution.

I honestly think that all of these issues that have been coming up lately: the apparent war on women's reproductive health, queer rights, and racism, of course--they all deserve some serious sit-down time. Which will never happen. The people who believe in the system do so whole-heartedly, and in my experience, react to any request for discussion that threaten to dismantle by completely shutting down, by reverting to the adult equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and chanting "I can't hear you!" And we on the other side do the same, unfortunately, when our rage reaches a point where we can't see how we demonize and "one-dimensionalize" those we disagree with. 

I've been trying to figure out how to instigate real conversation between people who use not only completely different language, but are working with completely different sets of concepts around these issues with no luck. Hannah, this seems like what you do....any thoughts? I'm so close to just deeming it impossible and trying to find a nice, cool place to hang out with Liz and my dog and let my writing be found posthumously.

It just seems pointless to continue pretending that any of this is doing any good.  All of the commentary, all of the debate....it doesn't get us anywhere because it's all avoidant of the issues that lie at the heart of all this, which is something like....I don't know.  Our fear of differences? The ease of stereotyping?  (Dare I say, the neurobiological predisposition to do so?) The refusal to allow ourselves to live in complexity?

This was not a simple "racial" case--so much was at work here.  Much of it, yes, stems from racial beliefs, but where do those come from?  And can we honestly believe that we can simply ignore those roots?

Too frustrated and too sick to write more.  Time to cuddle with Dog.

Risk

For the longest time, I kept my mouth shut about the things that I thought.  When I realized that there was only like....one thing....that I could honestly see doing with my life, I also realized that, unfortunately, I'd have to stop doing that.  This thing....these questions I've been asking for more than half my life now, they don't go away.  They stay with me, and when I think I've found some diversion, some project that might take the place of them, they come back harder, louder, more impossible to ignore.

When I think about pursuing an advanced degree in philosophy, the thing that scares me the most is that  I'll have to defend this position, these beliefs I have, that are so damned unpopular.  I never feel smart enough, fast enough.  I don't want to be famous, I don't want notoriety.  I just want to figure this damned thing out.

But I know that that requires a certain degree of challenge.  It requires discussion, rebuttal. As much as it scares me, it requires discourse.

So I tried.  

Not in the best way, I'll admit, but I tried to point out some of the logical inconsistencies I saw in  groups that I would otherwise agree with.  Anarchists, say, who call for the banning of teaching creationism.  

I dared to say that possibly, there was a problem with simply banning an idea because you disagree with it.  And I lost a friend because of it.

And you know?

It wasn't as bad as I thought.

I was hurt, yes. Confused.  But instead of making me stop, it made me want to go further, to clarify this position so that the next time, maybe I can get through before the door gets slammed in my face.

I don't care if you don't agree with me, I just want to be able to have the discussion, because we have so fucking much to learn from each other.

hey, jealousy...

So I was at work today, pissed-offedly trying to play catch up from the shitshow of last week, and I started thinking about people who I used to work with, who I used to go to school with.  I tried to fight it; this is never a good topic for the ol' brain to land on.

Everyone I know, seemingly, is doing fucking amazing shit.  Going to med school, already pediatric RNs saving babies with cancer, lawyers, getting their Ph.d in education, their MA in education, in sustainable agriculture, in social work, in whatever....

And I know I should be proud of them, but damn.  I just get angry.  Jealous.  Angry and jealous...what the hell is that about?  My life has not been a smooth ride.  I thought I had it figured out...I had been reading psychology texts since I was 11...it only made sense that that's where I would end up, right?

Yeah.

I learned this lesson that it seems like no one else learned in college.  I learned that success was about toeing a philosophical/political line.  I learned that psychology, as a field, was about falling into lockstep with theories and treatments that were sanctioned by those on high, and much less about helping people actually overcome these mental issues that paralyzed them.

It all seemed like bullshit.

And so I dropped out.  At first, it was more of a mental checkout.  I let myself get distracted by music, by lovers, by social crap.  And then, of course, I was "asked to leave" because my grades were so bad. One year left, and I just couldn't do it.

So I left.  I worked shit jobs, found and lost a career, worked more crap jobs.  And in all of this, where it seems that everyone else found answers, I found more questions.

I don't know how people land on careers.  How do you accept all the crap?  How do you wade through the politics, the obvious compromising of your own values, to find success?  I can't do it.

And so I'm jealous.  I want to feel fucking successful.  I want to be comfortable, financially.  I wish I could just...fucking do it.  I just can't seem to get out of my own way, and I suppose, that's the worst part of this mind-numbing jealousy.  It's jealousy, but then it's also self-loathing, frustration.  Blah blah blah.

I'm sorry.   It seems that everything I write here is so depressing.  I'm working on turning it around.  I need to figure out a way to see my path more clearly, there's just so much crap in the way that I have to clear out first.   How did you find yours?   How did you know?  How do you stay on it?

::sigh::

I haven't been around much lately.   (She said aloud to no one in particular.)

All sorts of opportunities have presented themselves and shown themselves to be...well...bullshit.  One opportunity was taken and has proven to be of the utmost level of bullshit, to the point where mere survival is threatened.  Which makes other opportunities very appealing in a desperate kind of way.  Which leads to a much greater danger of poor decision making.

Ughhhhh.

I dunno, man.  I keep trying to hold on to this idea that something good is going to happen any day now, and I keep having this feeling that that's true.  But the stress of it is honestly killing me.  I'm exhausted.  I can't concentrate.  I've had so much to write about for weeks now, and I sit down to write and the ideas just disappear.  I fall back into that desperate, wordless, back brain frustration.  Here, there is no cognition.  There is no logic.  There's just this frenetic, impossible to direct energy.

So much doesn't make sense.  

I never really bought into the idea that somehow attaining a degree would open some magical door to success or at least security....at least...I thought I didn't buy into it.  But apparently...apparently some part of me did expect some change, some opportunity that hadn't previously been attainable.    The past year has been so anticlimactic in that way.  After the years of being hounded by my family, of feeling like a disappointment to myself and to everyone else, after finally getting that damned piece of paper (which is now a $300K piece of paper on my wall)...there's just....nothing.  There are still no jobs.  There is still nothing I can do, seemingly, to improve my life.

We're looking at a somewhat big move to the city....somewhere that might afford both of us some more opportunities.   We're not asking for a lot.  Just enough to pay the bills and save some....maybe enough so that we could take a vacation once in awhile.  Maybe  just enough that there's something to look forward to a few times a year.  Maybe just enough to feel like we're living, not just surviving.   Maybe.

Apparently....

Apparently, this new attempt at proactivity is making me want to write tiny little blurbs with no real point to them. I suppose this is a stepping stone to the more substantial stuff I have burbling around in there...without putting these out there, I'll have to weed through these snippets of crap to get at any kind of real idea.

Since about three people read this on a good day, I'll ask for your kind indulgence.

I'm struggling with the power of belief and the instability of knowledge.  I'm reading some philosophy that I haven't touched in awhile, and I'd forgotten that one of my biggest issues with the field of philosophy is the tendency is this reliance on the concept of a deity as a foundation for justified belief.

Seriously?  You're going to tell me that I can't trust my senses about the couch I'm sitting on, but I'm supposed to absolutely  trust that there is a Supreme Being that enables all things to exist?

Ok, it's fine in the context of a philosophical discussion about a table, but the problem is that this kind of thinking permeates very real conversations about very real issues that have a very...real...effects on very...real...people.  That it's an accepted form of philosophical argument is troubling because I honestly think it lends intellectual weight to using the Deity concept as a fundamental argument. (Hell, if Descartes could do it....)  It allows us, in a way, to dissociate ourselves from our beliefs, placing their basis on some unseen Other instead of really picking apart all of the experiences and thoughts and information that has actually gone into our embracing of one concept over another.

I suppose that, in a way, this somewhat more analytical approach leaves us more vulnerable to more compelling arguments, but then...why is that a bad thing?  Why do we feel that we have to be married to one idea or set of ideas for a life time?  Is it better to stubbornly hold onto beliefs with no real foundation, simply because we can take comfort in them?

I don't know.

This is somehow an integral part of what will hopefully become a masters/doctoral thesis, but I can't figure out quite what it is. Is it philosophy?  Psychology?  Sociology?  Cog Sci?  Something completely different?  And if so...what the hell is it?  And how do I put it together so it's a) something that people will want to read and b) that they will be able to use it to make this shitshow of a world better?

Oh, Alexis de Tocqueville. How I love thee.

"There is no class, then, in America, in which the taste for intellectual pleasures is transmitted with hereditary fortune and leisure, and by which the labors of the intellect are held in honor. Accordingly, there is an equal want of the desire and the power of application to these objects. A middling standard is fixed in America for human knowledge. All approach as near to it as they can; some as they rise, others as they descend." AdT

"There is , in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which incites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. this passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." AdT

Quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America.   


Why don't people talk like this anymore?  Why isn't there this level of critical thought, and why, oh why, is it so damned NOT acceptable to critique a culture without coming across as hating that culture?  AdT (yeah, I'm on that level with him)  was intrigued by democracy, and so he too his aristocratic ass on a big ol' trip to see what all the hubub was about, and the wrote a phenomenal piece looking at the system of democracy, as it unfolded, and then identified the probably issues that might arise in such a system.  

He was not wrong.  

And yet, most of us are not required to read this amazing piece.  Many of us have never heard of it.  Are we that afraid to look at critiques of ourselves, short of the now all-too-common self hatred that the PC movement of the last turn of the century has so firmly foisted upon us?   

 There will be more on this as I reread.  In the meantime, grab yourself a copy.  They're on Amazon for like, two bucks.  Read it.  Don't get reactionary.  Just...read it.  And then look around.  And then think about how we can turn this shit around.  

Lately, I've been feeling like my life lives me, rather than the other way around.  I feel, overwhelmingly, like I'm the proverbial cork on a turbulent sea, battered by massive, roiling waves, completely lacking control over which way I'm tossed and thrown.  

I don't love it.

I look at the people I envy, the people I wish I could be like.  I admire their self possession, how it transmits through every aspect of themselves.  Every piece of clothing is absolutely them, their food, the books they read, the music the like...it has all been selected and considered.  Even their paths, if they're meandering and completely bizarre, there is always this element of intention which lends an air of meaning to even the most frivolous behavior. 

There's an element of laziness that prevents me from acquiring this apparent intent.  I used to, for example, comb through the music stores on payday, flipping through CDs, looking for that one Aerosmith album I hadn't found yet (I know, I know...but it was like, seventh grade.  Gimme a break).   I used to do things in my free time.  Now, I come home, muster up some energy to take the dog for a walk, and pass out until bed time.  It's like I spend so much time merely surviving that I can't spare the energy to live.  

What an awful thing, and how many of us are there?  

So I'm trying, starting this week, to devote time to the things I used to love to do. No more plopping down in front of the toob for umpteen hours a day, allowing the last bit of creativity and passion to be slowly sucked out through my eyeballs.  I'm going to find another job by the end of the summer that will pay me to at least kind of  do something I care about, even if it's writing ridiculous medical pamphlets.   At the very least, I'll have enough money to only work one job so I can have the time to start putting stuff together for grad school. 

It's an odd thing, remolding yourself at thirty.  But it's kind of exciting, at the same time.  This is not about living up to some model of What I'm Supposed To Be--there's no groupthink to dictate my behavior or my look, there's no reading list.  It's just, up until now, remembering the things that make me happy, that make me feel empowered, that give me energy instead of use it up.  These are things that I've found, and some of them are fine with other people, some of them piss them off, but the point is it doesn't matter.  I've wasted too much time already, and it's time to go.