givens: Beauty and justice

for those who might not know...

2008-12-31T10:02:00.000-05:00

my blog has moved to wordpress.

:)

doing Justice to my silence(s)

2008-08-30T20:20:00.009-04:00

i like to be alone because it spares me the chore of having to articulate my thoughts.

sometimes being with people, talking (or not talking) to them, answering their questions exhausts me. buttressing with my forehead all of reality that is inarticulable--which is most of reality--doesn't usually exhaust me. having to convince others that this reality exists, its weight bearing down on me, its shape, molding my existence--exhausts me. of course, i do not know reality. i only see it, or feel it, more aptly, in slivers, in the way a dream is known. something drives me to turn my eyes on reality, and i do this always by naming what it is not and chasing it into crevices.

in conversation i only feel at ease when i avoid reality altogether--talk about the weather, make a joke, order a cup of tea--or...

when i Talk about it...

i could never rest in communication with strong, discreet, refined minds, whether male or female, till i had passed the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of confidence, and won a place by their heart's very hearthstone.--jane eyre, charlotte bronte

...with words like ants carrying ten times their weight. as shakespeare says, "look on beauty, and you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight."

i find the worst confluence of events to be when reality is hailed by my partner(s) in conversation...but only i know it. and, being compelled by Justice, i must labor to bring it into the room...

this involves sailing around what i "know"--which i am made aware of by my feelings--in a dingy...mapping its contours...i end up giving up because the shore i'm exploring is connected to a continent.

for the longest time i didn't bother to articulate my thoughts...but then i realized...the Beauty of a thing is related to the degree of labor required to bring it into the world as pinned down in language.

it is my suchness to translate.

what i write is what i have the gumption to translate.

if i am ever sad it is because i don't know what to say.

that is...an unbridgeable rift exists between my feelings and my words. either because the choosing--out of everything so beautiful--seems arbitrary...or because the work is intimidating.

this is a koan.

2008-05-23T23:43:00.002-04:00

what dwells in vision's periphery gains power; what is looked at disintegrates.

the problem with words

2008-05-13T20:45:00.004-04:00

entire conversations take place between/amongst persons in which a "common language" is used yet each party reads the meaning of the words exchanged in differing, often mutually incompatible ways. and quite frequently, all parties walk away from that conversation understanding not what has been issued (as it was conceived of by the issuer(s)) but what they choose to believe has been issued.

and that is why words have far more meanings than their dictionary definitions would suggest. the word "man" means one thing when it is used by a white, racist woman (who need not know herself as racist, and probably would vehemently deny her racism anyway) to refer to her white husband, and another thing when it is used by the same woman to refer to a black man. in fact, she could not comfortably exist unless she allowed "man" to mean something different in these two contexts. to her, "black man" stands in for "boy."

that is why the slogan "i AM a man." makes sense.

were the anonymous internet poster who issued the following words to refer to a group of white people using the word "folks"...that word would point to a very different meaning than the one it points to here (i've used this quote before but it is so exceptionally racist i can't help myself):

Black representation at the low-scoring end of the IQ scale has strong implications for society. At least 25 percent of Blacks are below 75 in IQ, and an IQ in the 70-75 range is classified as “borderline retarded” by most psychologists. Practically no one in that IQ range will graduate from high school or even learn much of elementary school basics; none will qualify for the armed forces, and few will be able to find good employment.
They therefore take to violence or mobs to feel accepted.
I am of the opinion that these folks can be helped.

amiri bakara's/leroi jones' dutchman is the quintessential example.

when lula calls clay a "man," she means a black man, an uppity n*gg*r in a three piece suit. when lula calls clay a "man," she uses the word ironically...though nothing in her manner would betray as much (until she begins to reveal herself as deeply racist).

when clay hears lula call him a "man" he (initially) chooses to hear "man" as "man." he initially chooses to hear lula's word "you" as "you, clay, the individual"...not "you people." i say he chooses because clay knows that there is a level on which he may read lula's words as racist, but in order to preserve his own sanity, in order to remain a self-proclaimed but non-murderous, semi-functional "fool," he gives her the benefit of the doubt.

i and most others, if we thought about it, would acknowledge that we make clay's choice. if we actually fully internalized the extent to which our humanness is not appreciated by others, sanity would be quite hard to maintain. the pain of life would be unbearable. therefore, we take in other's words not as they are intended by their issuers, but as we wish them to be intended.

and because this is true, all of us literally get away with murder in our daily interactions. i can call you "you" without fearing that you will understand what i truly mean by "you"...and in so doing, i kill your humanity in my mind. conversely, you kill me every time you call me "you." every time i am something other than an "i" to you. as i outline in "the nature of empathy," the subject-object divide (so long as we perceive its existence) destroys the possibility for authentic honoring of the Other's humanness.

you can call me a "woman" because i call myself a woman, even if my "woman" is radically different from your "woman."

politicians can claim not to be racist because they use the word "people" to refer to people of color.

words convey meaning. indeed they do. but we must look into and beyond the words.

if we are interested in plunging into the soul-destroying insanity, there are languages within languages within languages to be found. if we are not, nothing can change.

the nature of empathy

2008-04-27T12:42:00.004-04:00

to imagine is to construct in one's mind. there is always a kind of separation of the imaginer from the imagined, in the way that sometimes, when one is dreaming, the dreamer observes the dream.

absolute empathy/understanding can only take place in the space before imagination, a space of pure feeling. that absolute empathy/understanding ceases to be empathy/understanding (which requires a subject and object) because it has become Enlightenment.

imagination, however, is the tool by which we move our pre-imagined understandings closer to that absolute.

language provides a good example. i am not fluent in french, yet i know some french words.

when i hear "avec" i know it means "with."
when i hear "peut-être" i know it means "maybe."
when i hear "je suis" i know it means "i am."

but "with" is transparent to me, while "avec" is mediated, cloudy.

when i draw on the word "with," i experience the word as though it does not symbolize the meaning of "with"...rather, the meaning and the word are one.

i understand "avec" by way of analogy, through its relationship to "with." i say to myself "'avec' connects to the same meaning in the head of someone who speaks french that 'with' connects to in mine." this is the significance of saying "'avec' means 'with.'" if i were fluent in french i could still say, "'avec' means 'with.'" but i could just as truthfully say "'avec' means 'avec'."

when i consider the president, or my mother, or the chinese, or the french, or billerica memorial high school students, or eddie izzard, or the protagonist in a movie i'm watching, or one of my friends (and i empathize with these people to widely varying degrees), i understand them as people through analogy, through their relationship to me. and conversely, i understand myself as a person through my relationship to them.

i seem to exist looking out at/touching the world through a body. when i type, i cannot see my own face. i look down at my hands. i will sometimes walk by a mirror and feel stunned by my own image. i do not imagine myself as a face. yet a face, i have...as the mirror reminds me. often, when i think, i do not say to myself "i am thinking"...i simply think. similarly, i feel--forces and chemicals in me move--before i say "i am feeling (anger, joy, disgust etc.)" yet there is never a time when i find myself looking down at another person's typing hands, through their eyes. when i consider other people, i imagine their faces. when eddie izzard says "i am thinking", i imagine that what he calls "thinking" must refer to something in him that is like what i have learned to call "thinking" in myself. i imagine talking to others, or perhaps i practice what has so often been called empathy: i "imagine myself in their shoes."

that is why "thinking" means something different in each of the following sentences:

"eddie izzard is thinking."
"i am thinking."

that is why "a person" means something different in each of the following sentences:

"he is a person."
"i am a person."

for those of us who are fluent in english and not french: "[he is] a person" is to "avec" as "[i am ] a person" is to "with."

i realize that other people must similarly imagine me in this way. that to everyone except me, i am a face. i am an Other.

intellectually, i understand that others' "with" is actually "avec." intellectually, i understand that others may look down at their own hands. but all of this takes place in the realm of imagination.

i am the observer and interpreter.

i am the referent.

in the world as it is i am the referent and i am not. we are all referents. we are separate and we are not. to truly honor and do justice to Others, i must strive, asymptotically, for fluency, for feeling, for pre-imagined appreciation of the meaning literally behind their faces, which i imagine (and i use the word deliberately) will close the gap that separates me from all others.

i (insofar as "i" exist) must strive to close the space between "[he is] a person" and "[i am ] a person."

some very meta madlibs

2008-04-21T12:38:00.003-04:00

WARNING: NOT INTENDED FOR THE CONCEPT-CHALLENGED. TO BE USED AS A METHOD OF OBSERVING PRACTICES OF READING AND CONCEPT-MAKING.

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An Adult Western

Tex Hitler, the marshall of Dodge City, rode into town. He sat coldly in the saddle, ready for trouble. He knew that his racist enemy, George the Kid, was in town. The Kid was in love with Tex's horse, Anne. Suddenly, the Kid came of the White Nugget Saloon. "Draw, Tex!" he yelled narcissistically. Tex reached for his empire, but before he could get it out of his imperialistic rhetoric, the kid fired twice, hitting Tex in the genocide and the apartheid. As Tex fell, he pulled his own prison industrial complex and shot the Kid 6 million times in the black person. The Kid dropped in a pool of blood. "Nigger Lover!" Tex said, "I hated to do it, but he was on the wrong side of the lynching."

The Family Spat

To be read by Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes.

WIFE: Honey, I can't find the verbs.
HUSBAND: I put them in the imagery the last time I alluded to them.
WIFE: You always lose the spondees. Why don't you put them back on the meter?
HUSBAND: Well, you are always forgetting to compose, and that is worse than anything I do.
WIFE: What about the time you forgot to recite the dog, and we had to take it to the inspiration so that it could have its hand put in a splint? Poor thing, it has never been able to muse since then.
HUSBAND: Well, that would never have happened if you hadn't left for a week at your favorite irony. When you leave, I do all the house rhyming.
WIFE: Well, I suppose that is true. Why don't we get a maid? Then you will never jot down the concepts again and the dog will never break the other heart.

New Year's Resolutions

1. I, Dumpling, will feel every day at the gym for at least I don't know how many minutes.
2. At the dinner table, I will eat only about five servings of ire.
3. I will watch only seething television shows.
4. I will tell Dumpling that I think he/she is a bittersweet kiss.
5. I will ask my boss for a, like, ten-dollar raise.
6. I will admit that I have a melancholic personality.
7. I will take my euphoria to abjection at least once a month.
8. I will admire one book every several weeks.
9. I will try to lose at least a bunch of pounds.
10. I will return the tender professions I borrowed form Dumpling.
11. I will get on an ecstasy and only spend nil dollars.

scholarship in the neoliberal context

2008-04-17T17:25:00.018-04:00

the culture of academia values the individual voice as the author of the new paradigm. the scholar's worth comes from authoring newness. "newness" is the contribution the scholar makes to academia. if her contribution were not in some way new, it would not be a contribution. and truly, all that has ever been valuable has had this "newness"...even if that newness is simply a new spin on a very old argument.

but this is different from putting forth what must be put forth (however a discipline, academic community or individual scholar may define "what must be put forth"). newness follows from the value of the concepts offered, not the value from the newness.

"the academic" is a goffmanian front, an institutionalized, performative identity with a precedent and momentum. to put forth what needs to be put forth is not a practice that can be institutionalized; were it, the institution would in some measure drive the putting forth, and thus undermine the purpose of the putting forth.

and indeed, it does. the existence of the front of the "academic" precedes and drives the academic's work. the job of the academic is foremost to put forth words, ideas and concepts, and secondarily to put forth necessary words, ideas and concepts.

in our society, the scientist must do science. the anthropologist must do anthropology. one must take on the front of the academic as an identity in order to gain access to disciplining and skills that allow one to become a valuable contributor to a field. one must say "i am an anthropologist." the academic must develop, cultivate and publicize "her work"--her "intellectual project"--which she will strive to make distinctively her own. insodoing, she puts the question "what must i do to succeed?" before the question "what work is needed?"

this is not a phenomenon unique to academia. rather, it is symptomatic of the neo-liberal notions of "success" and the "individual." success (financially and otherwise) is demanded of the individual in the neo-liberal context.

can academia exist any other way?

as long as trades and egos exist i don't know that the manifest telos of academia can ever truly be the production of valuable knowledge, whatever academics may say. i don't know that it needs to be either in order to produce valuable knowledge. as many authors have said, the key to writing well is to write. and at least in my understanding, what "must be put forth" often must be put forth because of the lack of insightfulness in the theorizing of others. hence the culture of academia to some extent produces words, concepts and ideas of value in the way that capitalism produces "quality" goods; competition encourages quality (or that's the argument. really...competition encourages winning.).

but i do believe scholars can take steps (and hopefully sway others through their actions) to create a different academic culture through rejecting "due credit." something as simple as writing under a pseudonym makes a powerful statement about what is important. the jabbawockeez, blue man group and slipknot (to differing degrees) have put their art before their egos through the practice of wearing masks/anonymizing make-up during their performances, and they have changed how people think about celebrity and art.

there is no reason why academics could not in some instances put their own names and faces after their work. blogging could be one of those instances. there could be academic journals in which pieces are published under pseudonyms only. scholars could perhaps build their public careers first and then blog or write anonymously.

this would not mean speaking from a disembodied, unsituated place. nor would it mean lying about oneself or hiding behind anonymity.

it is a culturally symbolic position to take. and one that should not be imposed but adopted wholeheartedly.

just as bell hooks' writing under "bell hooks" was a culturally symbolic position to take.

it is symbolically stating one's dedication to the production of important ideas over and above ambition.

in time, i imagine that such a move could lose its symbolic potency. but in this moment, it would be potent and called for.

An Ethics of Understanding and Justice

2008-04-09T09:33:00.005-04:00

Zen maintains a stance of “not one” and “not two,” i.e., “positionless position,” where “not two” signals a negation of the stance that divides the whole into two parts, i.e., dualism, while “not one” designates a negation of this stance when the Zen practitioner dwells in the whole as one, while suspending judgment in meditation, i.e., non-dualism. Free, bilateral movement between “not one” and “not two” characterizes Zen's achievement of a personhood with a third perspective that cannot, however, be confined to either dualism or non-dualism (i.e., neither “not one” nor “not two”).--Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

There are ways in which difference—fundamentally, the perceived rift between Self and Other—is inescapably real. Sentience is experienced (by most[1]) as life from a standpoint, through a Self. “I” is the subject of life. “I” experiences every face around it as an object, meaning someone/something separate from it. And most people (I reserve a space for the Enlightened and possibly some who are animal) will experience the challenge of ethical action as a challenge to do justice to non-Self others, even while understanding it perhaps, as a challenge to do justice to the All. That said, there are reasons to avoid building an ethics on difference, even while in theory that ethics may radically disrupt understandings of the Self and Other as distinct.

Ziarek uses Irigaray’s theory of sexual difference to articulate one such ethics that centers difference. Ziarek calls for “respect for alterity.” The declaration of alterity is itself a thesis, positing that at a certain point the Self must embrace the impossibility of experiencing for a particular Other in a particular instance something like the intersection of empathy and understanding. The experience I describe is like empathy in that it is a kind of radical striving to visualize and feel the Self in the place of the Other, and like understanding (I will call it understanding from now on, as “understanding” in its truest, though not often used, sense is what I mean) in that this experience allows the Self to speak back ethically, to say truthfully “Yes, I hear you, but…” to the Other. In Ziarek’s model it is left to the Self to decide when the point of irreconcilability is reached, when the difference between Self and Other must be conceived of as unbridgeable. It is when the Self abandons her striving for perfect understanding that she dons “respect for alterity.” To “respect” alterity is to say “This difference I see in you is not of me, it is something other than me, and it is not experience-able by me, but…I respect its validity and equivalence to my own reality.”

There are no insurmountable, irreconcilable differences when understanding is named as the precursor to the ethical action, that action which is intended to “do good” in a specific situation, involving specific individuals and communities, selves and Others. Rather than presupposing difference, should we not assume that understanding is possible, always, and thus allow understanding to limit itself in practice while we strive, unceasingly, for perfect understanding?

Sentience provides the basis for the reconcilability of the Self and the Other. The Self is enabled to act ethically when she can imagine herself, stripped down to pure consciousness, positioned to experience the world through the body and from the standpoint of the Other, understanding the ways in which that consciousness she imagines is shaped to allow for the reality of the Other, the reality she perceives as difference. It is usually not necessary to so fully strip away those things that shape an individual consciousness—the particularities of embodiment, and experience etc.—in order to achieve understanding. The Self may approach the Other already understanding the Other’s position, and fully enabled to say “Yes, I hear you, but…”. The oppressed often approaches the oppressor in this way.[2]

To understand the Other in the way I am describing is what it means to understand the Other as fully human. I intend “human” to refer to all sentient beings, and perhaps, even the non-sentient, though I am not sure that such a clear division between sentient and non-sentient exists, if it exists at all. I use the word “human” because it connotes both the subject and object of ethical action. That is why the assertion: “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people” makes sense. Oppressed individuals, while perhaps “respected” by their oppressors are never viewed by their oppressors as fully human. To oppress is in essence to construe as non-human.

Even while Ziarek acknowledges that the degree of difference in a given instance between Self and Other is unfixed and unknowable, she fails to take into account the fact that difference might be declared and perceived as such even when it is not irreconcilable, and this premature declaration is often made, because, I would suggest, a failure to engage with and understand the humanness of the Other may disguise itself as “respect for alterity.” To be “respected” without understanding is the experience of feeling unheard, misrepresented, pathologized, to be cast as other than human. Pro-slavery discourse in the American South and pro-apartheid discourse in South Africa relied on the ethical platform of “respect for alterity.” The metaphors of the lips, touch, and mucosity (authored by Irigarary and employed by Ziarek) centralize the mutual constitution of the Self and the Other, but not what they share, not their common humanness. They do not encourage understanding, though they allow for the possibility for the Self to occupy (in a different moment than the present) the same symbolic space that the Other occupies in the present.

What then, does it mean to live in a world full of humans? Beings as complex, alive and important as the Self? If understanding is the precursor to the ethical action, what is the ethical action? I embrace the Golden Rule both as a koan—a logic-impenetrable, undeconstructable wisdom put forth by many far wiser than myself[3] that I accept, on faith[4], I cannot theoretically improve upon—and as a thesis that phenomenologically demonstrates its truth. Justice and injustice are above all things experiences, and it is no great stretch to say that injustice is more commonly experienced and/or recognized than justice. To live amongst humans is quite frequently to fail to understand and appreciate the humanness of others, and consequently, to experience others’ failure to understand and appreciate one’s humanness. Injustice takes place whenever the words “I understand” are uttered untruthfully. “I understand” is uttered implicitly whenever one takes action towards or regarding another. Thus injustice takes place whenever the Self takes action (though this action may be speech, or even thought alone) regarding the Other while failing to grasp, fully, from whence came the particular ways and realities of the Other she references, whenever the Self fails to see the possibility for herself in the ways and realities of the Other. The Golden Rule is the perpetually enigmatic explication of what it means to properly honor and understand the humanness of the Other and thus I leave the Golden Rule, quite deliberately, in the place of the koan as that which must be embraced, not argued. It is the thing that I can say I am “for”…but never theorize. Conversely, I can theorize and have theorized what I am not for—injustice—and injustice is the failure to understand the Other as human.

Endnotes:

[1] Enlightenment has been theorized and described as the experience of pure sentience—dissolution in the all—the profound realization of the Oneness of all things. To live this way means to exist not as a subject, but as The Subject (anything and everything that exists), and to experience no object. Many (paradoxical as it is that I should refer to the Enlightened as individuals) have claimed enlightenment as their experience. Also, I cannot attest to the ways in which all non-human (meaning animal in this case) sentient beings live sentience. The experiences of “subject” and “object” may not apply in every instance.

[2] While it may seem that I am making clear demarcations between “oppressors” and “oppressed” here, I mean for these categories to refer to particular people in particular instances of oppression and confrontation. Individuals may be (and usually are) oppressed and oppressive in multiple ways simultaneously.

[3] As Karen Armstrong argues in The History of God, the precept of “Do unto others…” is a tenet of every great religious tradition.

[4] Here “faith” means to take an unprovable/unarguable yet great wisdom as given. Appropriate humility is the motivating force.

the suchness of academic writing and a short critique of it

2008-03-31T22:21:00.005-04:00

a piece of academic writing strives to make explicit to a discerning, skeptical reader exactly what is sufficient to allow that reader to understand and subscribe to the writing's assertions.

the institution of academic writing presupposes that the words of a well-formulated argument should at least logically signify if not communicate the author's thesis.

in the ideal situation, the writing and the reader engage in a process of thinking together. the writing thinks a thought, speaks that thought, the reader thinks the writing's thought, responds, then the writing thinks a thought and speaks it in answer to the reader's response (though perhaps not immediately). this process continues until the piece brings the reader's thoughts into alignment with its own.

i reject the notion that for every thought of worth, importance and profundity, there are words that can signify that thought.

i also reject the notion that it must be, that it should be, within the context of a particular thesis, the burden of the author to bring the reader's thoughts into accordance with the author's thoughts.

the greatest theses, i would say the wisest (as wisdom connotes the ethical) cannot be made explicit. they can only be housed in and commanded by the minds of those who grasp them. they may not even be articulable to those who command them.

that is why the wisest ones always tailor their teachings to individuals' needs. they understand that words are received differently by and produce different thoughts in different people, that people occupy varying positions in the spaces of wisdom, meaning and experience and thus require different images, combinations of sounds, "triggers" if you will, to bring them into a state of understanding. that is why the wisest ones gesture around and toward their theses with flexibility.

when made explicit (and "explicit" here means rendered within the confines of language, which means that the explicit is paradoxically not explicit) great theses are stripped of their full profundity, exposed, naked, insufficient, incapable of moving the "skeptical" reader:

"not two."

"do unto others, as you would have them do unto you."

they cannot withstand interrogatories.

they are not meant to, because when articulated and put forth in writing, these theses are offered up, sacrificed to the reader. they are in effect, a sacrifice for the reader. if the reader accepts a thesis as a sacrifice for her, she will attempt to rise to it. she will accept, on faith, that she must change, and not the thesis. if she does not, she may attack it's "logical fallacies", blame the argumentation for not thinking its thoughts into her, or, ignore it altogether. part of the sacrifice of a great thesis is knowing it will invariably be treated this way.

i hope academic writing comes to understand its limitations.

more on hierarchy

2008-03-01T14:10:00.012-05:00

read slowly.

in my last post i tried to explain why "hierarchy" as a way of thinking will harm not help us.

to say hierarchical thinking is not expedient is not to call it incorrect.

this is:

Call Me by My True Names

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh

"and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving."--but i have the potential to see and love. "how to love" (http://finluiniel.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-love.html) explains this. insofar as there is "we," insofar as there are individuals, there are "seeds of good" and "seeds of evil," as thich nhat hanh says, in each of us. "good" here, is the practicing of love. these seeds are watered by our parents, our cultures, our ways of thinking about things or "mental formations" as they are called in buddhist philosophy. seeds are an apt metaphor, because they represent potential. potential need not be actualized. it signifies possibility. we cannot "make" others good; we can only strive to water their seeds of good.

yet if this so, if some people, like the sea pirate, gravitate in their lives towards doing harm, while others at least try to avoid harm, and still others try to help and heal, how can there not be hierarchy? are not some people "better" or "greater" or "more deserving" than others? was jesus not superior to the common thieves with whom he was crucified?

how can "I" be both the member of the politburo and the man in the forced labor camp? the mayfly and the starving child? ignorant and heartless and wise and compassionate?

there is only one consciousness. (if you're not convinced, please try to convince me otherwise.) the "I" in thich nanh hanh's poem is this consciousness, as it is you, as it is me. materiality gives consciousness many shapes so that there can be meaning--something called experience. these shapes are possibilities in the forms of people, landscapes, emotions, entropy, gravity, squirrels, cotton candy, and frozen toilets. anything that could ever be nameable or thinkable. anything that is the product of a confluence of forces. (now would be a good time for you to (re-)read "empathy and visuality" http://finluiniel.blogspot.com/2008/01/empathy.html.) "to experience" requires a direct object, and for this reason, meaning is a soliloquy. sentience conversing with sentience. God loving "her back to herself," to use philip pullman's expression. of course pullman was talking about lyra and her daemon, her soul. i'd say he and i are describing precisely the same phenomenon.

amongst the infinite forms that sentience takes are the sensation-experiences we bracket as "pain" and "joy." i experience something called "joy" because i have seen or felt suffering. "my joy and pain are one." i must bracket that which is not to have that which is. cold for hot, death for life. i'm not being poetic. it's just true.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

when i realize what i am, that i am all of you, even the yous i hate, the yous i look down on and the yous who make me feel small and silly and worthless, then i cannot help but feel only love-empathy-compassion for everything i am. i am superior to no one and nothing. i am inferior to no one and nothing. if i do good, i know that the individual i seem to be is not to be congratulated; the soliloquy is to be congratulated. the soliloquy makes all things as it is all things. my seeds of good have been watered. if you do only harm, i know i am not your better. the word "better" ceases to make sense when we wake up.

up.

2008-02-27T22:55:00.008-05:00

so comparing people is the current facebook fad.

the applications "compare people," "you are beautiful," "top friends" and "hot list" (to name a few) facilitate people comparisons.

you compare your friends to each other on the basis of their looks, personality, smarts, artistic ability etc., and in turn, await their appraisal of you. "compare people" allows for direct comparison of two individuals. you must designate priya as hotter than sophie. the results of these dyadic comparisons are used to rank everyone within a friend group. whomever is called hotter than most often floats to the top of the hotness (or cuteness or smartness) ranks. other applications do not require that you compare your friends to each other, but that you vote, basically, for worthy friends. if you think greg is hot, you click on him. no need to call him hotter than blake. however the comparison still takes place, albeit indirectly. if greg gets more votes than blake, he must be hotter than blake.

and of course, the hope is, that someone out there will call you hot. or at least you'll find out where you really stand. or that's what "compare people" promises:

Find out who stands where in various categories: cutest, sexiest, smartest and many more. Most importantly, find out where you fit in!

or as "you are beautiful' puts it:

Start sending beautifulness points now, and see where you rank among your most Beautiful friends!

this system presupposes that we cannot objectively judge ourselves, only others can. makes sense. if i think "gee. francesca sure is a fatty, but i'd never tell her that." does it not seem plausible that others could be thinking "gee. erin sure is a fatty, but i'd never tell her that."? and of course if i want to behave appropriately in the world, i need to know "where i fit in." that's why "compare people" says "most importantly." i need to know what to flaunt and what to play down. i need to know what i may "realistically" pursue. i don't want to kid myself into thinking i'll be remembered as the next picasso when i'm just another thomas kinkade. i don't want to want to be one of those poor bastards on american idol who thinks he has a shot, only to be plastered all over youtube as exemplary of the sucky, gong show-type audition. i don't want to ask out that hot, brilliant TA unless i feel confident that i have something comparable to offer. conversely, i don't want to hang my head, waste my life, if i have real reason to be proud...if i have license to go for it...whatever "it" may be.

we live in what purports to be a meritocracy. this is the neoliberal context. the individual is the molecule of neoliberalism. we celebrate the individual, because he (yes he) can do anything. he can "find his niche." he can make the world a better place. he can get famous. he can excel. he can make his unique contribution. in fact his happiness relies on making his way in the world. if he is unhappy, it can't be the world's fault. he must be unhappy because he didn't work hard enough, try hard enough, make enough money, find the right job, the right partner, the right community, the right house, the right modes of developing and expressing his talents. i mean he could be happy, right? we see it in the movies. if he's not happy, it's because it doesn't have something he could get if he tried. and if he can't get what he wishes he had, it's because he doesn't know his proper place. his expectations are unrealistic.

but neoliberalism does not emphasize this, the unrealistic. it's always onward and upward! if our hero(the individual)'s expectations are unrealistic, he simply has to change tactics. he hasn't yet found his "calling"--his particular genius. and if he's 99, looking back on his life, and he thinks, "damn. when do i start living?" well, he just ran out of time. maybe 20 more years and he would have made it.

we're obsessed with hierarchy. with upward potentiality. since fulfillment is "up there" somewhere waiting for us. or that's what "america's got talent," donald trump, thevaginainstitute.com, Harvard and cosmo want us to believe.

but there is no singular "you," out there in the world that can be judged, measured, scrutinized by an all-knowing, all-seeing Other.

if i approach my art believing that only "you" can tell me whether or not it is "good," if i subject my art to your approval, but not to my own, what kind of art can i possibly make? if i respect no one's art (past or present) and take in no one's criticisms, what kind of art can i possibly make? if i speak words i wouldn't fight for, how could they be worth speaking?

what makes my understanding of myself somehow less valid than your understanding of me? why should i even care what your opinion (of anything) is? do i respect your opinion? does it move me? does it make sense to me? at bottom, the only way to answer the question "how do i want to be in the world?" is to answer the question "what do i value?" this can take time and a great deal of thinking and feeling. and answers need not be in words or even fully formed thoughts. but there must be (an) answer(s).

with (an) answer(s), i am uniquely positioned to understand myself better than anyone else could. when i declare "this is what i value," i can turn my attention and thoughtfulness to my relationship with what i value. i can observe myself. i can ask "does this action/art/idea (successfully) do what i want?" and if i value what i have declared i value (again, not necessarily in words and not necessarily singular), then i will be able to taken in information, and process it, without fear...because i am not on trial. what is on trial is whether i have acted according to or furthered what i value. if i have not, that is information i can use. if i have, that is information i can use. if i respect a person's opinion (not equivalent to whether or not i respect her), she can provide me with information i can use to clarify my values and better make real those values. if i do not respect her opinion, to HELL with her opinion! i will not let an opinion i do not respect weigh on my conscience or on my ego. what do i mean by "respect?" i respect someone's opinion of my thinking about goodness if she has demonstrated thoughtfulness, introspection, care, kindness, integrity and appreciation for the subtly with which i approach meaning.

if you answer the question "who am i?" before you answer the question "what do i value?," you will get an answer you won't like.

being rests on valuing.

one can only "be" good when one values Good.
one can only make Beauty when one values Beauty.

one can only take over the organized crime scene in boston when one values power.

are you coming to see what i mean by "value?" to value something is to love it, to make it more important than "who you are."

of course, "who am i?" and "what do i value?" are not separable questions.

when we send "compare people" invites to 20 of our friends, or when we make grossly reductionist claims (even to ourselves) about how are friends "compare" to each other, we use those friends as what kant would call merely means to an end--the end being the unveiling of our objective selves to us, the judgment ineligible. unless you would have me believe that in sending invites to 20 of your friends, you have their interests at the front of your mind. or that you spend as long as it takes to determine which of those two of your friends has a "better personality" or is a "more valuable friend," and you're sure that there's something unselfish to be gained by making such a claim.

if perhaps something more harmful than clicking on pictures and sending invites were asked of us in exchange for this unveiling, many of us would still find it a worthwhile bargain.

in fact, that is one reason why we often hurt each other. because we want to feel okay. we want license to feel acceptable, whole, happy. and we sometimes do things (to ourselves and others) that don't feel very good/right/fair in order to be reassured of our okayness.

and that saddens me.

that is why our way of thinking about ourselves must change.

that is why we must say "i value," such that we can be.

and when we are, we can say "sarah, you have a wonderful personality." or "miguel, you are a good friend." and those words will finally have meaning.

how to make meaning.

2008-02-27T12:49:00.025-05:00

call something beginningless and endless a "story."

read it.
as it reads you.

i'm not intentionless. making requires intention. but my meaning is my own.
"what's there" can only ever be a "what's there between."

and here's yours.

'

goals for post-graduation

2008-02-26T23:51:00.005-05:00

1) kick start the campaign against the american lawn. exactly what it sounds like.

i see two strategies working in concert: culture jamming (to work the culture shift) and reforestation.

think of all the chemicals that needlessly go into the ground. think of all the gasoline used to power lawn mowers that release green house gases into the atmosphere. think of all the land stripped of their forests and ecological variety. think of the fucking sprinklers.

think of the possible change in discourse!!!

the lawn is a symbol of status, wealth, leisure, control, subordination of the environment. man conquers nature 'n all that. status continues to be associated with superfluity--the ability to waste, to possess and manage in excess.

i'll leave it to you to imagine what a wild lawn means given the current cultural climate (climate! ha. i crack myself up.). and what it could mean. how it might be appropriately valorized.

not saying it won't be a fight.

but seriously...i want to see people duking it out for the highest ratio of trees to acres.

hows that for grass roots? ;).

research is underway...but on the back burner 'til after thesis.

btw, here's how to plant a tree, 'case you wanted to plant one in your yard, say, tomorrow. http://www.treehelp.com/howto/howto-plant-a-tree.asp

2) find ethically mined and/or recycled precious metals and a studio to work in.

3) apply to grad programs in feminist philosophy and/or cultural studies.

4) find strategic venues for my eating disorder research. and by "strategic venues", i mean, venues that will facilitate good. i'm becoming increasingly convinced that internet discussions of anorexia and pro-ana (not simply pro-ana websites themselves) contribute to both the perpetuation and proliferation of eating disorders, and thus the internet is where a real and effective alternate discourse should be developed. one that is not simply "anti-ana," or "pro-recovery" or even disinterestedly biomedical, as all of these discourses can be read through the lens of anorexia as reifying ana's correctness and importance.

5) make me a think lab. huge fucking whiteboards a must.

communication

2008-02-19T14:00:00.008-05:00

i suppose the platonic ideal of "communication" would be the successful making known of the weight and meaning of an idea.

to ourselves as split subject or to others.

in academic discourse or dinner conversation.

in sermons or pamphlets for a political cause.

and though communication rarely takes place, we often take for granted that we have communicated our thoughts and have heard others'.

this leads to tremendous strife.

this leads to mistrust, confusion, feelings of internalized superiority and inferiority, and even hatred.

i know at least one way of communicating that cultivates empathy and productive understanding. a way of listening-reading.

this way is represented by the koan--a zen anecdote (one in a progressive series) taught to a student of zen who must sit with the koan until the truth of it arrives to her. the koan resists logical interpretation. the koan shifts the burden of communication from the teacher (speaker) to the student (listener-reader). the student must assume the truth of the koan first, and bring her own understanding into accordance with that truth.

we all have truths. (whether these are as "absolute" as the truths represented by the koans is another matter).

truths compel us to communicate.

we feel guilt when we deny them.
we feel pain and anger when others' deny them.

these truths are beliefs so strongly felt that conflict arises when we find that others disagree with them, or when we cannot express them, or when we otherwise feel unheard. family conflict is often incited by something small but sustained by the pain of feeling "unheard." when others' disagree with our truths, it is hard to accept that they have really heard and understood them. we can also become angry with ourselves for not adequately communicating our truths.

a truth is a text to be read, like the koan.

there is a way in which any text (meaning anything) can be read that will allow for a particular understanding of that text. there is a way in which the koan, taken on faith, can be understood that will produce the feeling of "this is true."

truth is, after all, a feeling.

in order to hear others, we must take as given that there exists a way of reading-hearing their words that enables them to feel such certainty. only after really hearing, can we really speak back, and really do justice.

you can try it out now. trust me. take what i speak as given, and sit with it until you see my-the truth of it. hold it up against your own experience. be patient with my truth. but whatever you do, don't give up on it. don't say "this is bullshit" until you feel yourself click into my place. if you never click, never dismiss me.

please.

this plea exists whenever we strive to communicate.

even in the driest writing and the angriest words.

it is the plea of "'deny not the realness of my world."

it is the precursor to dialogue.

addendum to my last post

2008-02-13T12:39:00.002-05:00

my doctor called me again.

after calling the lawyer's office once a week for the past two months, he has now been told (either by harvard or blue cross, i'm not sure which) that he will receive payment.

that's good.

i'm glad of it.

doesn't undermine a damn thing about either of our experiences though.

help me zigmund bauman!!!

2008-02-13T11:58:00.006-05:00

bureaucracy enables evil. as zigmund bauman spells out for us in his analysis of the role of bureaucracy in the holocaust.

i'm not contributing to the death of millions. i'm pushing a button.

i'm making sure the trains run on time.

me? i'm collecting shoes.

i'm just following orders.

i'm doing what's necessary to protect me and mine.

doesn't look, smell or taste like evil. must not be evil! the bitterness is diluted enough to be tasteless when spread on toast, when incorporated into banal daily life.

the doctor who has treated my tendonitis for the past five months, three times a week, has not been paid.

he just called me in rather an anxious state. harvard will not pay him because they have denied my workman's comp claim. blue cross will not pay him because they got wind of my claim, and determined the responsibility of payment to belong to harvard.

now it seems that the man who has tended to my injury and honored me as person (as dorm crew, blue cross and whatever branches of harvard i've encountered have not) is getting fucked over by bureaucracy, as am i...the injured one. i do not have the money to pay him the thousands of dollars he is owed. yet either i pay him, or he goes unpaid. and i am the one who worked hard enough for harvard to develop a chronic, debilitating injury that has shifted my date of graduation forward by three months.

thinking i was doing right by me, i filed a workman's comp/disability claim with dorm crew back in september. i didn't hear back from them at all, by any means. i only received a mysterious letter in the mail notifying me of the date, time and place of an independent medical examination i was to attend.

i went to this appointment, and it was traumatic, as i explain below in the email i wrote to dorm crew.

i heard nothing from the firm that conducted my IME, nor from dorm crew.

but i did receive a letter from blue cross informing me that they would not reimburse my doctor, as they had found my case to be a workman's comp issue.

so i wrote this email to dorm crew:

Dear Dorm Crew,

I submitted a claim for workman's comp in September 2007 and have received no word from you as to the status of that claim. This is quite problematic as my physician cannot get paid while this claim is in limbo. My health insurance company is refusing to pay for my treatments while the workman's comp claim is open.

Please respond immediately to me as to the status of my claim.

I am saddened and more disappointed than I can say that I have heard nothing from you, formally, since I filed my claim in September--no emails, letters etc. I think it's only appropriate that if a worker claims to have been injured on the job, that worker should at the least be extended sympathy, and kept informed of the developments of her case. I have received no correspondence from you at all.

I did receive a letter from a company called "Scope Medical" with information about an appointment for an independent medical examination for me in Stoneham. I responded in a timely manner and arranged to have my mother drive me to this facility where I endured one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. "Scope Medical" is an outpost on the top of a Dunkin Donuts. There is no identifying information on the office, nor receptionist at the door, just walls of files. Only after asking many questions were we able to determine that "Scope Medical" is a "middle man" for the insurance companies. The "physician" did not introduce himself, nor look me in the eye. He was extremely rude, callous and dismissive, paying little attention to my thoughtful responses to his interrogatories and mixing up the details of my condition. My mother tried to explain what accommodations Harvard College had been providing for me and he completely ignored her. I felt like a criminal, charged with some unknown crime. What was clear, was that this individual who knew nothing about my case, presumed me to be lying from the moment I stepped into his office, and since then, has told me nothing about his "findings."

I have been treated with compassion and respect by the College in response to my injury and can only assume that the Dorm Crew office is unaware of the humiliation I experienced as my claim was being processed. I hope to create awareness so that in the future you handle these situations with more delicateness and concern.

Again, please respond to me immediately. If I have been denied, I need documentation as quickly as possible so that the person who has been treating me can be paid. He has been treating me since September and has been instrumental in my healing, yet has not been reimbursed, and will not be reimbursed by my health insurance until Blue Cross has seen that my claim has been denied.

Sincerely,

Erin Stephens-North

they wrote back to me, referring me to the lawyers' office that set up the IME.

i contacted them.

i received a letter of denial from the lawyers' office, finally, and the assurance that they would no longer refer patients to scope medical. that was, i suppose, the only gratifying thing to come out of my experience.

of course, ironically, they denied my claim based on the fact that according to some "objective" measure they use, i had not been working for dorm crew long enough at the time of my injury to have legitimately developed tendonitis!!! nevermind that that is, whether possible or not, exactly what happened to me. and i am a real person, with a real injury, and a real story that just so happens to go against at least one of their objective means of assessing a claim's validity.

i have been punished by bureaucracy for being a hard, dedicated worker and for filing an accident report.

my doctor has been punished by bureaucracy for the reason that two insurance companies are in a stalemate over purely abstract matters.

does no one else find this despicable?

the post i haven't been able to write

2008-02-08T18:47:00.001-05:00

so here are no words:

my social anxiety

2008-01-31T19:30:00.000-05:00

lots of people fear intimacy, while in some cases desiring it at the same time.

i have a profound and constant fear of superficiality.

i don't mind telling the woman behind the counter at peet's what kind of tea i'll have, because i'm assured of the fact (provided i don't know her) that our interaction will be quick, formulaic, and entirely impersonal. i don't even mind throwing in joke or a smile. i just hope i never see her again.

but if i'm, say, at the market basket in billerica, and i see a teacher from high school who i sort of knew, or one of my mother's friends, or even a friend of mine who was at one time dear to me who i haven't seen in years, i'll do my very best to avoid being spied.

if i'm eating in the dining hall i would much rather sit by myself than with acquaintances.

going out on tea dates with friends is often, though not always, exhausting.

talking to relatives i haven't seen in a while is the same.

in such situations i'm putting all of my mental and emotional energy into trying to appear as though i'm comfortable and interested in what's going on, while of course i'm desiring to get away.

i have a constant tightness in my chest.

a clenched feeling.

i don't run because i "dislike" people. i can appreciate, respect and even love many things about a person and still run from her. i run from interactions i feel will not result in greater intimacy. my idea of intimacy anyway.

i feel, for whatever reasons (and usually they're good reasons), that most people with whom i interact (friends, professors, coworkers, employers, relatives etc.) will never know and understand me deeply, and thus will not be able to provide me with what i truly crave in interaction, which is to be seen for who i am. what does it matter if a friend from high school asks how i'm doing, seems concerned about my life, wants to catch up, when i'm certain he has no idea who i am and what i'm about? who is it he thinks he cares about? because i know it's not me. he hasn't seen me. though the care may well be genuine, i don't feel nourished by it. however, i become very concerned with demonstrating my appreciation of that care and the interaction turns doubly exhausting; first i must answer the questions that are meant to be relational food for me, then i worry about whether my failure to feel nourished is showing. conversely, i feel i will not be able to truly provide my interactional partners with anything of value because i will not be able to come to see and honor and know them. seeing, and honoring and knowing, i believe, require work. and it's work i choose not to put into relationships with too many people, precisely because i don't think too many people can for all sorts of reasons, see me.

often what prevents others from seeing me is simply circumstance. the variables (my hermit-like tendencies included) do not align in such a way as to make closeness possible. like when my interactions with a person are bracketed. i see my professors in class. i see my employers at work. they see erin the smiling farmworker, or erin the prodigious toilet scrubber, or erin the quiet and diligent AFSC volunteer, or erin the loud and brilliant student. but they never see the person from whom all these erins flow. the erin behind the erins i guess.

similarly i don't usually get to see many sides of my coworkers, employers, professors, friends.

and of course i make decisions all the time about who i'm going to let in and who i'm going to run from. i know i doom relationships. but i do so feeling (rightly or wrongly) that they will never become intimate. either circumstance or perceived irreconcilable difference will, i believe, prohibit growth towards intimacy. there's no way for me to know whether my choices to doom relationships are good ones; they all end in nothing. maybe i should be taking all my professors out to beer. i don't know. i haven't ever felt compelled to do so. perhaps because bracketedness de facto symbolizes dead-endedness to me. i have many such emotional/intellectual paradigms. so i tend to rely on chemistry, inspiration, the exceptional. when such things appear, i take it as a green light to put in work. show myself. work to honor, cherish and be loyal. or else where could i possibly start?

almost always i begin new relationships with hope, only to feel ultimately unsatisfied. i am very aware of what any particular person has seen, literally, seen of me. and it's funny the points at which people become satisfied that they know who i am, or at least, that they know me as much as they wish to know me. usually, they are satisfied quickly and with very little of my substance. examples:

"nice blue hair. wanna fuck?" or "you are gorgeous...... wanna meet for a drink sometime?"

"i see you." (when s/he hasn't seen me.)

"this is erin. she sings in elvish."

"dearest erin" or "love ya hon" (when we've never talked about anything real and never will.)

while i'm lusting for so much greater depth. i'm lusting for the parts of me i value most to be seen and appreciated. and i long for this to be called "erin" by my partners in conversation, interaction, being, life.

this is why i go home a lot. there is little my family has not seen of me and i of them. we can, i feel, truly honor and love each other. they can love what i call "me." that is nourishing.

it's not that i don't care. i do, and deeply.

it's that i want to savor another's true appreciation of my self, digest it, let it course through my insides, so that i may, ironically, love and honor everyone more freely.

when i feel seen, wholly, i have energy to give.

how to love

2008-01-31T10:08:00.000-05:00

read these words slowly and listen to the meaning of each.

consciousness is not bounded. we understand humans as seats of consciousness because we are mirrors to each other. i see another person and i have faith that she has an internal life, because she has a form similar to mine and possesses what i recognize as language.

and this is important. it is a starting place. how can there be any love if there is no starting place? we must learn how to love. we see that others around us love; this gives us faith. and then we feel tinh --the kind of love that is passion, that overtakes us. but we realize later on that to really love means to care, honor and respect, so we feel-enter nghia, if we choose to (hanh 59-60).

and this is how we love our mothers, partners, friends.

but love can be lived, practiced. love can be a way-feeling.

when i look deeply at the moon, i breathe in and out deeply and say, "full moon, i know you are there, and i am very happy." i do the same when i see the morning star. walking among the beautiful spring magnolia trees in korea, i looked at the beautiful flowers and said, "i know you are there, and i am very happy" (63).

this is how thich nhat hanh loves...the moon, the morning star, the magnolia trees and flowers.

loves.

he says: "to love is to be there for him, for her, and for them" (63).

so the moon, like any person needs to be seen and loved, needs to be "made very real in [the] arms" of one who cares (108). or else what is the moon? and the moon can, in turn, see.

we know this sort of loving from playing a game with the clouds. this is the semiotic: you are a cloud. i am a person. i see you as a horse, a griffon, a cat. but you are just a cloud. others might see you as other things. but you are just a cloud. we are in relationship and you are born as some third thing. you change me also. this is an act of creation. this is Beauty.

all the struggle of to-exist can be found in the magnolia, the full moon, the cloud--coming into the world, silently begging for a witness, withering, and falling back into the oneness. that these things cannot speak in the language we as humans are accustomed to calling language does not mean that they cannot love us.

on faith, we can accept that their love is there, and listen with loving patience and trust until we feel-see it.

of course, many people have never known love. have never felt loved and consequently have not been able to learn how to love. how can such people love the clouds in the sky, deeply, when they feel empty inside? when they have never believed the words “i love you” when spoken to them by another person?

this, then, is a prayer, that all beings may feel loved and love.

i say “may” because it can never be.

i say “may” because it is the thing most worth hoping, working, living for.

works cited
Hanh, Thich Nhat. Teachings on Love. Unified Buddhist Church: Berkeley, CA (2007).

dreams from last night/this morning

2008-01-25T11:24:00.000-05:00

1) navigating long-abandoned subway tunnels in london with my family. these tunnels served as a gateway to the afterlife. we stumbled into both heaven and hell, alternately, which were group discussions facilitated by eddie izzard. only heaven was characterized by white ambient lighting, and hell by red. the dream was punctuated by episodes of my father feeling the need to horribly cut himself, and consequently taking a knife to particularly vulnerable areas, and landing in the hospital. i'd go visit him there. he'd get better. then we'd set out again.

2) camp ground run by lisa sumner. (she was a friend of the family who died of breast cancer). lisa was alive and paranoid about getting everybody out of the camp ground by "check out" time. my mom and i were staying in a cabin but planned to squat there, past check out. lisa was coming, and upset. busied myself with hiding as much shit as i could so as to make it appear that we had vacated. she seemed pleased. and i felt *horribly* guilty. some frat boys moved in next door and had a party. there was sex and betrayal and a lot more involved but i can't narrativize it. the dream was characterized by guilt and anxiety.

3) some kind of huge craft fair in a school gym. don't remember much of it, only that i was advised to buy a snake to clean up after my other pet(s) (don't remember what kind(s)). the snake would just follow and eat the leavings, as it were. however this snake would continue to eat whatever was in its way should there be no more shit to munch. i discovered this when i left the snake and my...let's say fribble (because i really don't know) alone for too long. i came in and the fribble was half-eaten. so i put the snake in the bathtub and practiced laying out a trail of dried seaweed bits (which very much resembled bits of the sticky herbal plaster casts i get from my chiropractor...but in my dream they were "seaweed" of course). this required all of my concentration because this snake was frickin fast. eventually i ran out of "seaweed" and i was the only "edible" thing left in the bathroom...so then it became a matter of dodging its lunges towards me. whether or not i got eaten, i can't tell you. my grandmother woke me up then to see if i wanted to drive my mother's lunch over to her. which is what i'll now do.

a thought...

2008-01-25T00:14:00.000-05:00

integrity is not the antithesis of compromise...

it's knowing when not to compromise, and in such situations, standing, immovable.

re-listening

2008-01-24T22:29:00.000-05:00

i wrote this two years ago...february 16th, 2006. my pendulum needs to swing back this way...somwhere between confidence and vulnerability, judgment and humility, self-sufficiency and loving connection.

______________________________________________
"it's okay."

this was a voice i heard but a voice that was mine.

is that not amazing!?! it's true.

let me tell you what it means to me.

it means that if my final day of living were tomorrow...my life wouldn't have ended full of holes. i wouldn't have died waiting for some perfect moment to come that never arrived.

i can have the entire isabella stewart gardner museum in me.

i can have sunsets as Beautiful as any sunset.

i'm not missing anything.

i lack nothing.

i have everything.

i can give myself that "perfect" (though perfect is not the right word) moment. not always. not any time. but sometimes...and it's real. and it's real whether i make it known or no.

it means that i do not only try to do good...sometimes i do good.

it's okay that someone named the dimples on my thighs cellulite.

it's okay that i haven't found everything i could ever need and want in one person.

it's okay that we hurt each other sometimes.

it's okay that i didn't write a book before the age of twelve.

it's okay if i never do.

it's okay that my hands are shaking.

it's okay that i feel things.

it's okay that i have vices.

it's okay that i have food to eat while others are hungry.

it's okay that there are things i cannot do well.

it's okay that i am this way.

it's okay that i make mistakes.

it's okay that people do horrible horrible things to each other in difficult situations. we can do good also.

it's okay that i have "stopping by woods on a snowy evening" on my wall.

it's okay that i can forgive and not forgive.

it's okay that no one person has the answers.

it's okay that i don't know "what i'm going to do." i do a thousand things every second. breathing is something. there doesn't have to be a name for "what i do."

it's okay that margaret cho tells us to have self-esteem, but often doesn't have self-esteem.

it's okay that my twin is infinitely wise and hurting. these two states are not in conflict...but reflections of truth.

it's okay that i can see the sadness in every person in my life...in people i've never met and in fictitious persons. i'm wise in my own way. you are all wise. we can help each other. offer our arms to each other.

it's okay that i'm not "being productive" in this moment.

it's okay that i have a stomach.

it's okay that i don't speak five languages.

it's okay that i try and "fail" in some ways. i still learn and change and am.

it's okay that i'm portaying my thoughts as some kind of revelation...but they're nothing new.

listen, i love you my dear ones. so much. and if you think i'm not talking about/to you...KNOW THAT I AM! i'm talking to you even if you're not reading this and never do.

i am certain that this is what matters.

i can't name you all but i'm holding your names close to me. i can't even tell you how many faces i'm imagining now. even faces i've only seen once. i KNOW you get sad. i know you want things desperately.

and all i have to say is this. "hush. you are whole. you are not wanting."

and i can tell you what this hush does for me.

i'm not afraid of being "less than."
i'm not afraid of being wicked.

or wrong.

i'm not afraid of appearing selfish, narcissistic or egotistical.

i'm not afraid of being judged.

and i can say this all...knowing that tomorrow i will be afraid. i will feel vulnerable, small, pathetic, selfish, inadequate, silly, "wrong" as it were. i will need your help.

that is okay.

that is okayness.

i have something to tell you and you have millions of things to tell me. i'm listening. even to what you do not say.

and what i say need not be heard.

it would be okay if i didn't write this down.
it's okay that i'll never be done writing this down.
it's okay that i'm a big ball of feelings.
i think perhaps, we all are.

it's okay that a sculpture professor called my work "all wrong."
it's okay that britney spears and madonna kissed on national television.
it's okay that ani wears lipstick sometimes.
it's okay that people who write for the salient think people like me are full of shit. we're all "like me" and not like me.
it's okay that i get burnt out.
it's okay that i write shitty-ass papers sometimes.
it's okay that flowers wilt and die.
it's okay that i break things.
it's okay that i lose things.
it's okay that my credo is "out-dated."
it's okay that i have things to say that i will never articulate.
it's okay that i gain and lose and gain weight.
it's okay that i played piano better eight years ago than i do now.
it's okay that unlike "the raven" by edgar allen poe, this writing is no careful composition.
it's okay that i can't always play the soundtrack of my life for those around me.
it's okay that i wrote plays when i was six and i don't anymore.
it's okay that i love people, places and things i have never experienced.
it's okay that my life and i are full of irreconcilable contradictions.
it's okay that i feel/hear/see/wallow in Beauty i can never create.
it's okay that my imagination creates things for me to fear.
it's okay that you may read my words and question them, doubt my intentions, think ill of me, judge me.
it's okay that i may be embarrassed. that i may be ashamed of what i've said and feel powerless. right now i feel awake and confident and powerful. i don't need or expect it to last more than a few moments.

but i most humbly ask you to think of all the things that are okay. only if you want to.

it's okay that i'm going to need help getting through the next few days.
it's okay that i have to ask for help.
it's okay that there are some things i can't imagine calling "okay."

it's okay.
we matter. we do.

i love you.
in this case, my saying is i guess what we'd call "performative." my words make meaning and love.

so hush dear ones.

hush.

six days later

2008-01-22T22:37:00.000-05:00

my working answer to stuckness

2008-01-22T18:25:00.000-05:00

it is kind of miraculous that i am.

maybe i need to get away from the idea that i am not witness enough in myself.

or that goodness and connection require external objects.

stuck

2008-01-21T23:13:00.000-05:00

i need to change.

i need to learn something new.

i need a new strategy.

a new way of looking at the world.

i need to hurry the fuck up and get to whatever's next. because what's "now" consists of lying on my bed for hours, daily, and not because i'm tired. drooling on my pillow, i think: "erin, this is stupid. get up. go to the MFA and sit in the zen temple room. it would move you."

and then i think: "the only reason i'd go is to be moved so i could write or draw something about it, then slap it on the internet in hopes of sharing it with someone(s) who don't exist."

then i lie on my bed some more.

and then i think how much i hate thinking that way...so fatalistically, cyclically.

and then i think that it's really stupid that my happiness should be contingent on (an)other(s) and that there must be a way of thinking that allows for uncontingent happiness. that's enlightenment, i take it. but i sure as shit can't think or feel my way out my very unenlightenedness.

in my current mode of existing, the only things that feel valuable to me are goodness and connection. that i could make "good" art gives me no satisfaction. the art must do good, or bring me closer to those i respect and those i respect closer to me. that i saw and was moved by japanese beetles going at it on a bean plant, or a frozen toilet or an eddie izzard routine means nothing. witnessing is not enough. my obligation, as i see it, is to use these things for the purposes of goodness and connection. i must be open to how the world might change and move me, but only so that i may register these changes and interpret them, literally, for goodness' sake. or else, what the fuck is the point? (this is a question that will often enter my head when i make a proposal to myself...like going to the MFA). any bastard can see beetles fuck on a leaf. the act of witnessing lacks intrinsic value. (though i suspect it has value and i just can't figure out how it does). anyway, for now, it what's the bastard does after the witnessing that matters.

i am aware of the problems with this way of being. being dedicated to goodness and connection simultaneously is quite a damn problem. which do i give precedence? should i always reprimand and stand my ground, knowing it will be the end of a relationship or should i forgive? how do i connect with someone i love, but who's actions i can't respect or condone? when is it right to "give someone a chance?" when is it right to stop "giving chances?" i end up drawing uncrossable lines, for fear that if i don't, i'll end up sacrificing either goodness for the sake of connection, or connection for the sake of goodness. it used to be all connection for me. all compassion and forgiveness and taking whatever shit came my way. now it seems to be all goodness. there are all sorts of sayings about integrity and loneliness and popularity and all that jazz and i recollect that they come out to integrity = loneliness and having friends = selling your soul. i could be completely making this up, but that's beside the point. compromise is usually indispensable in relationships, but compromise is the antithesis of integrity, is it not?

my current imagined solution is "lovinglyness." the intersection of goodness and connection. the disgustingly rare case in which it all comes together. in which i don't have to make any heartbreaking decisions or ignore my conscience. love can make people do ugly things. this isn't like that. it's love with clarity. love without ugliness. connection without elision of people's weakness. connection with honor and justice. i made up the word at a poetry-tea light-red-wine-mix CD-feminist chill session last year. lovinglyness. that's what i'm about right now.

the very best kind of person could act and feel lovingly towards anyone and everyone and be satisfied. i can't. i can't figure out where to put my love. or how to connect with and love people i do not respect. or how to be satisfied in loving the people i do respect when i have so much more lovinglyness to bestow.

and without the opportunity to bestow what i have, i lie on my bed.

this is why i desire newness.

because i'm stuck.

when there's no one crazy around to rock my worldview, my newness tends to come from revelation. and revelation comes from grace. grace can come from diligence, but diligence does not always produce grace...that's why it's grace.

regardless, diligence is what i can control. i can keep working and seeking (feeling, reality, goodness) and thinking (about shoulds and should nots) and conducting thought experiments (changing people's races, ages and genders with my mind in the subway and bearing witness to my might-be reactions, imagining myself as each person i talk to, visualizing the people i respect least when they were 5 years old) in hopes of becoming...i don't know...a better person? a happier? or more enlightened? i guess "better" is the right word. but "happier" connotes what i mean.

i want to feel better.

i want to feel like i'm not damning myself to isolation and anger and judgment, with righteousness (my idea of it anyway) as my only comfort.

i want to open possibilities for connection, not close them, but without sacrificing my integrity.

i need words and insights to intersect my own at 90 degrees and radically alter my trajectory.

i need an asteroid to knock me out of my orbit around this paradigm that's getting me so damn stuck.