steubenville

3/20/13 Author's Update: I am grateful for this forum where i can publicly display my personal beliefs and how the act of sharing helps to refine my voice. This post is about the recent events in Steubenville and some of the reactions to those events. My refined voice has found these words for my beliefs: I'm struck by the fact that in every moment we have the choice to see the humanity in another person or see them as something other than human. Each one of us has the capacity to cross the line as far as was crossed by everyone involved in that situation and what keeps us on one side or allows us to cross to the other is our tolerance for inhumane activity, tolerance we build by the attitudes and actions we choose to take and the example we see in the actions and attitudes of those around us. The habit we make when interacting with others sets the standard of what is acceptable.

A couple of people were recently informed of the punishment they must serve for the horrible things they did to another person. Lots of other people have lots to say about the whole situation, a lot of it about how they think society needs to change in order to insure horrible things are not enacted in the future.

A popular argument in the reactions I’ve seen begins with the thesis that the current culture, focused on educating everyone who may become a victim how to protect themselves from victimization, is antiquated, unfair and downright ineffective.

This is the start of a movement I could find myself getting swept up in.

The call to action then goes that we should instead be educating every single possible victimizer on every single possible way victimization might occur and letting them know that that behavior is absolutely unacceptable.

In my experience the opposite of a problem is rarely the answer to that problem.

This reaction, like many other reactions to this and many other tragedies, ultimately calls for predictable order in the outside world and that is ultimately never going to take place. Society might be something like an invisible structure we are all living in, but at the same time we are actively constructing it and it is through our own internal shifts that we will begin to see change.

A fact of this case that caught my attention was the report that those who were punished extended apologies and that the victim was not ready to offer forgiveness at this time, this made me think about how compassion may be shown to those who do horrible things to other people.

In this case I ultimately see two people who completely forgot another person was a human being. And that is something I do on a daily basis. When the car in front of me is going too slow, when the garbage sits in the garage on trash day, when I read something I don’t agree with on the Internet. I have the capacity to forget that behind each of these things is a person with the capacity to laugh until they are crying and hot and light headed with joy, as well as to feel alone and afraid and as unsure as an four year old spending their first night away from home.

At the very least this case has focused my attention on my thoughts and actions. As I commit to the practice of treating every person as a multi dimensional human being this treatment is extended to me and I unexpectedly find the space where I can feel safe to feel free.

phobophobia

At least one of the textbooks on the shelf to the right of my fireplace states that the most effective way to deplete homophobia is for a phobic to get to know a homo.  We witnessed this reaction last week when a politician switched his stance on gay marriage after his son came out to him.  I think this effect is what people are driving at when they ask 'how would you react if you found out your kid was gay?'

I don’t believe gay is a choice or a sin or a defect. I don’t have first line of defense deflector shield levels of homophobia to chip through.  I do have numeral best friends, some of whom are gay, and I can honestly say I do not know how I would react if my child came to me and told me they were gay.

I know many gay people but I’ve only known three people before and during the time that they were coming to understand themselves as homosexuals.  Looking back I have to admit that my role in all three of their journeys was at best unsupportive and at worst downright cruel.  While I supported the fact that they were gay I was annoyed by their process of discovery and wanted them to accept the fact of their life that I could already see.

I can blame my behavior on youthful inexperience.  I can see that my actions were prompted by my longing for these people to cross the finish line and just be themselves already.  I didn’t understand how grueling the race toward truth could be.   I don’t know how or if my attitude had any effect on these individuals.  I do know I now have a person in my life who is wholly affected by my attitude and that all I can really do with my mistakes is learn from them so that I may do better in the future.  And this learning, it is a process.

When she was just a few days old our daughter exhibited behavior that wasn’t congruent with the idea we had about how our child would be.  She started sucking her thumb.  In that moment, during that time of overwhelming change and personality crushing stress, her thumb was forcibly removed from her mouth and she was given frantic direction about unacceptable behavior.  And then I hugged my daughter and I allowed her to follow her instincts and I cried out for help.

In that moment I broke.  I broke one of my connections to the societal ideal.  I broke the reaction I normally have after following a habit.  I broke into a place in my heart where I hold spots as soft and tender and vulnerable as a newborn baby.

In that moment I understood another facet of the human experience, one that ever person I have every judged has the capacity of feeling and one that will inform my every interaction from here on out.  Looking back on that moment I know that if my future holds the moment after my daughter tells me she is gay I don't have to worry about what my reaction will be.  I know can give the best support I have to offer in her endeavor towards the most important thing, being who she is supposed to be! 

when the student is ready

When I first started to get to know my yoga teacher I learned that she had recently adopted a practice that prevented her from offering advice.  She explained that she loved giving advice but was backing off and instead focusing on honoring the feelings those in need were having in order to support them in meeting those needs.

This made me feel like I had just missed out on learning the secret to life… or to my life anyway.  At that time I felt directionless and unsure and I longed for someone to tell me what to do.  I was pretty sure that, given an hour and a half and a fair amount of chocolate, my yoga teacher could examine my life and point me in the direction of certain prosperity and happiness and had I only come to her a year earlier it would have made her happy to do so.  So for the four years I have known her instead of advice I’ve received the gift of being in the presence of my teacher as she handed off one habit that made her feel good in the moment for one that, by virtue of the practice, sometimes creates very uncomfortable moments but ultimately (I believe) leaves her truly contented because she is constantly uncovering and honoring the truth.

In the time since I met my yoga teacher I have noticed in myself the desire to be given advice has fallen away.  I have learned to recognize the signs that point to the fact I am on my right path and understand that when things are going right it isn’t a fluke, but a result of the way I have been tending to all levels of my existence.  I had nearly forgotten my desire for an advisor when a few months ago my yoga teacher offered me advice.

At the time I was sort of crushed.  I was setting out on a difficult journey but had begun to set up systems that could put me on cruse control.  My teacher suggested that taking the scenic rout would not only be more beautiful but also offer benefits that I would be glad for later.  The last thing I wanted to do was follow the path she was sending me down, but I trusted that she had my best interests in heart & she had already been down the road I was traveling at the time so I made following her advice a priority.

As hard as it was to do as I was told, when I would feel like giving up I would remind myself of who had told me to do it and was able to stick with it (and its likely that had I taken the shortcuts I originally thought of I would have abandoned the trip all together).

As hard as the act of following the advice had been, I found accepting the fact that it had been offered even more difficult.  I though about my long forgotten wish and it soon occurred to me that as I released the desire for someone to tell me how to live my life I had developed the need to be told I was living my life was right… I’m currently working on just living my life, and it’s the most difficult thing since slicing bread.

It turns out that receiving advice from my teacher was exactly what I needed.  In the end I needed to hear what my teacher told me and my teacher is the only person to make me listen to what she had to say.  And though in the grander scheme I’m at a loss for how to live my authenticity and be fulfilled, I still have my teacher and shed bound to come up with something good to help me find my way.

watching Tron was a lot like spending time with my mother

There were times when I was like, 'are you seriously saying that right now,' and i didn't think i could take another second!
Then there were parts that were so endearing that all i could do was enjoy the simplicity of the scene.
It made me think about mortality, what I'm doing with my life and what the point of it is in the grand scheme of things any way.
It had me asking the question 'you have all access to all of this advanced technology but you are never even going to get close to using it to it's potential, are you?'
And just when i thought i had it figured out and was totally over it it surprised me and made me look at it in a whole new way.
But seriously Tron, making Daft Punk's cameo be as DJs? LAME!
and those are ways that Tron was like my mother.
The uncomfortably unclear nature of the relationship between Sam & Quorra, who are essentially brother and sister, that part was just gross.

Strangelove, PhD or: How I Learned to Stop Hindering and Love Lady Gaga

My first impression of Lady Gaga was roughly : "oh, so this is what you would get if you shoved Peaches and every single incarnation of Christina Agullera into a meat grinder." I tried to watch the Poker Face video in order to make a list of everything that was wrong with it, but I just couldn't take it. I flipped off the television and that was it. I hated Lady Gaga.

And, OK, maybe i thought Just Dance was a fun song that would have totally been my Wednesday night jam if I were still someone who went out on Wednesday nights. But as far as i could see that was all Lady Gaga had. I figured that, in time, she would quietly shuffle off to Ibiza to hang out with the Venga Boys, and i went on about my life.

Then one day something aired on VH1 that captivated me with the same seductive power as The Ring from The Lord of the Rings. Once i was able to look away and got my wits about me I had the strangest feeling. You know how after you overindulge in dessert you can just feel the diabetes coursing through your veins? It was sort of like that except after watching the Paparazzi video sort of felt like i was coming down with clamidia.

I fought against my urge to eat moldy bread and allowed my love for Lady Gaga to secretly fester so deeply that when the bad romance video was released I watched with excitement and presence and from the first frame i got it and i not only got it i got Gaga.

Now there are so many things I love about her, but the very fact that i am a Gaga fan is at the root of my adoration. The journey i went on in the process of becoming a Gaga fan makes me grateful for the fact that she exists. I had strong opinion about her for a long time and it completely changed. And that's allowed to happen in me.

It is absolutely OK for me to let go of the way i thought about things in the past. If i change my attitude towards something I don't have to think the person i was who held it differently in the the past with the different opinion in the past was a bad person, and it is completely plausible for me to change things about my self the I currently can not see a chance of changing. And none of it has to be at the cost of what else I'm doing or i did that may be or have been laying the foundation for other parts of my life in the future. I am a house that is going to go thru many renovations in this life time. And if I'm happy being different than i was it isn't because who i was was so terrible... it was just a different version of me. And if i enjoy who i become in the future it isn't at the expense of who i am today. And knowing that makes me feel liberated, and saying it makes me feel powerful. And.

When I experience Lady Gaga's work I'm not simply enjoying a performance, I physically feel a wave of emotion connected to all of the blips of inspiration she has to offer, my right to evolution included. She is the little red string tied round my finger to remind me of that.