Good Intentions

But goodness alone is never enough. A hard cold wisdom is required, too, for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom invariably accomplishes evil.

- Robert Heinlein

I used to excuse people's mistakes a lot by saying, "Well, they have/had good intentions." A friend once pointed out that most people have good intentions. Fewer people than we think go out, thinking, "Wow, I really want to make life harder for this person." I think it's important to be mindful of these things when it comes to forgiveness, but forgiveness does not mean lack of punishment.

Chris Brown is getting popular again. This worries me because he was caught perpetrating domestic violence, yet girls are still swooning over him. Sure, maybe he went to therapy (that's what every celebrity does when they get in trouble). I'll even give him the benefit of the doubt, believing maybe he changed and will work to help end violence against women. Someone made the point that a lot of celebrities are probably doing the same thing (domestic violence), but not getting caught. I'm sure that's true, which is why I think as a culture we need to make it clear that we will not stand for any form of violence. Chris Brown's career should be over, unless he wants to go public about preventing domestic violence and start singing songs that portray women in a better light. What does it say to other celebrities, actually people in general, if Chris Brown can make a come-back after such unacceptable behavior?

In my Psychology of Women class, I get depressing statistics about a variety of inequities between men and women. I've always been a feminist (since I learned what one was in like fourth or fifth grade), but my class is making me crack down much harder on how women are portrayed in the media. It's tricky because I like a lot of hip-hop. I listen to mostly talented artists who don't degrade women, and I try not to like or listen to the ones that do, but sometimes they're just catchy and good to dance to. I'm working to find some sort of balance between standing up for fair treatment of women without being a social outcast, which turns people off to the point of not listening.

A lot of harm has done by people with good intentions. I will never forget the panel I went to on religious tolerance. Everyone of all faiths was agreeing on the importance of tolerance. The guy speaking for Buddhism said, "Tolerance is, of course, something to strive for if the beliefs are not harming anyone else. I will not, nor do I think I should, tolerate beliefs that infringe on another person's rights." There are times when good intentions are not enough. Verbally keeping the peace is not always the best choice. I'm a firm believer in choosing my battles. My therapist said I'm good at choosing my battles. I don't waste my breath on people who won't listen. There are many times someone says something that might offend me, but I hold my tongue. There are other times where I cannot and will not hold my tongue if someone says something plainly hateful. I don't know how to handle hate. It terrifies me, and I would even go as far to say as I hate hate. It threatens my world-view, because I like to believe people are generally good unless they are sick in some way.

For example, in psychology class we learned Jeffrey Dahmer's parents were butchers. He was around dead animals and blood a lot. His father used to torture animals and his mother chased him around with knives. Now, that in NO way should excuse his horrific acts. In fact, thinking about it all disgusts me. But I'm all about seeing people as human, even hateful people, even though I don't like seeing their humanity. It reminds me that we are not that different, and I could be like them. It makes forgiveness more realistic to see our enemies' humanity. That being said, I do not tolerate hateful people in my life, and sometimes feel hatred toward hateful people. I can't always practice what I preach, so I would prefer to keep hateful people out of my life altogether. It's one thing to wish I never see the person again and another to wish harm on them. I often joke about fighting mean people, but in reality I just don't want to see them. I don't really delete people off facebook. I'm just too lazy to go through my billion friends. Plus, if I ever write a book, I will try to get all of my friends to read it. I've only deleted a couple people that I found to be harmful for my world-view. People that I just didn't believe to be good people. I try not to judge, but there are some behaviors and words that I cannot tolerate and do not want to be surrounded by. I prefer to keep the arrogant, ignorant, hateful, and straight up selfish people out of my life. I don't want to be tainted by their darkness.

Pursuit of Happiness

"Americans are saddled with the idea that we can and should be happy. It's as if we've misread the Declaration of Independence and think it guarantees us the right not to pursue happiness but to achieve it (Susanna Kaysen pg 41 in Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression).

I woke up at 4am today. I used the extra time to read, tried to fall back asleep again, but gave up at 6. I've been up since. I slept all day yesterday from being sick, so maybe I just didn't need anymore sleep. I still feel tired, though. I'm not really a morning person, but mornings are beautiful, so I can appreciate them once in a while like today. Walking to the library in the snow, the sun rose and the moon stayed in the blue sky.

I'm wearing the Ganesh (Hindu god responsible for creativity amongst many other things) t-shirt I bought at Venice Beach, hoping it might spark creativity. My fiction writing is almost non-existent, and I'm just not as far along in my chapter as I'd like to be for my ind. study. I can't help but remembering my bosses reassurance that the writing process never goes how we think it should, and that I need to just keep trying and be patient. It will surprise me eventually. It always does.

The quote above is from an essay by the woman who wrote Girl, Interrupted. Her essay is titled, "One Cheer for Melancholy." I like a lot of what she has to say. I think in order to enjoy life and feel content, we must understand it's about the journey, not the destination, and that human limitations will always wreak havoc on us as individuals.

In Kaysen's essay she talks about how the high rates of depression relate with people having more time to ruminate on how unhappy they are. I don't know that I'm doing her argument justice, but without trying to summarize the entire thing, I will say that I didn't agree with all of it. I agree that sadness or grief is not depression and that our culture doesn't like to be confronted with sadness and grief, so they try to make it something medical to "cure" it. The harsh reality is that no one makes it out alive. Life is filled with emotional, physical, and spiritual pain. It's okay to be sad. I would say it's even okay to have a day or even a week or two where one is depressed. All of the most joyful people I know have experienced some sort of depression, so it is clearly a natural part of the human condition. I fear that too many people compare their natural grief and sadness to clinical depression already, and I worry Kaysen's essay might affirm those beliefs. It's hard enough not to feel like the illness is your fault without people making outside assumptions about what your problem is.

Catharsis

1. February

Four straight weeks of some drug-like theme park ride that plunges from euphoria to detox before I can even let out a scream or figure out the theme of whatever park I’m living in. It seems telling that it’s my birthday month. In fact, when I told my therapist my birthday was on Leap Year, she laughed. Apparently, it’s so symbolic of my life and personality that it would be considered a cliché if someone chose to write about me as a fictional character in a class and included that detail. Take that however you choose.

I share my birthday month with many other intense individuals: Langston Hughes, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Abraham Lincoln, Darren Aronofsky, Cesar Ramero, Chris Farley, Kurt Cobain, Mary Carpenter, Herman Hesse, Johnny Cash, and John Steinbeck—to name a few.

Age is something that reminds us of our mortality. We use our birthdays to celebrate life, yet I know so many people who look at their birthday as something depressing, as a sign that they are getting closer to death. I have friends and family covering a wide variety of ages. I’ve noticed after a certain age, we all seem to hear that voice reminding us we have spent another year of our life, which causes anxiety. Did we pay too much? Not enough? Did we cherish our purchase? I’ve tried to rise above this from my experience working with the elderly, but I’m ashamed to say I know that voice already. I fight it by living to the best of my ability, loving as deeply and as genuinely as I know how, and allowing myself to feel the purest forms of joy and grief still trying to keep depression and death from consuming me.

Then of course there’s Valentine’s Day, a holiday that makes me regress psychologically more than Christmas ever will. For the days surrounding the Hallmark holiday, I return to the mindset of my fourteen/fifteen-year-old giddy girlfriend days where dozens of roses were typical, kisses still made me nearly run into doors or drop my keys, new necklaces and bracelets sparkled against my skin, and I said whatever my boyfriend wanted to hear to live out a fairytale. There’s something about this holiday that makes me believe in magic despite my bitterness toward the materialism and the fact that I always end the week by ruminating on what a failure I am at maintaining intimate relationships.

2. Skin

I got my first sunburn of the year this past week in Los Angeles. It wasn’t the painful kind that makes me feel trapped in my skin both metaphorically and literally. It was the pleasant kind where I appreciated the warmth radiating off of my skin. I fell asleep outside on a bench lying on my side, causing me to burn on just one side of my body. My face looked like the gray scale you’d find in an art class, except transitioning from bright red, instead of black, to white.

After a day at Venice Beach with Perla, she pointed out the white peace sign tan line on my face from my dangling peace sign hoop earrings. We’d spent the day people watching and shopping along the beach. My time with Perla proved to be incredible. I guess I shouldn’t have expected otherwise, but six years can be a long time to go without seeing someone…a lot can change. A lot DID change. It was comforting to be reminded that no matter what changes, real friendship doesn’t fade. It’s a shame the way life keeps us from staying close with everyone we love.

The sunburn on my left arm has developed some sort of rash. It could be the sunscreen I kept putting on it after it burned. I used to have allergic reactions to sunscreen as a child. Either way, I study the little red bumps and am intrigued by the way they go back and forth between being tiny and barely noticeable to sometimes inflamed, red, and itchy. The change in the color of my skin also has me examining my scars. I have scars from a variety of situations and utensils. They all healed in different ways, shapes and colors.

My biggest scar, the one on my neck from having a giant Hygroma cyst removed as a child, sunburned this week, causing the wide centipede looking pure white scar tissue to turn pink. It’s a strange sensation having my scar burnt because my nerves are still so weird around my entire shoulder from that surgery. In fact, the nerves are still so damaged that when they gave me a shot in my armpit to numb my arm for wrist surgery (I was hoping to avoid anesthesia because it makes me so nauseous), my arm wouldn’t go numb. They were amazed that after two giant shots, I could still feel them pinching my wrist.

Speaking of my wrist surgery, that scar is incredible. It’s so tiny for the hours of work that went into putting a screw in my disintegrating bone. The scar stops right at the edge of my tattoo, which makes me smile because the surgeon said he hated tattoos and couldn’t promise he wouldn’t have to cut into it. The fact that it stops right where my tattoo begins shows what caution and precision he used to protect my tattoo, knowing that it meant so much to me.

I can’t talk about skin without mentioning my tattoo of course. I love the font I chose to have such meaningful words written in. The blue “wisdom” I stare at underneath both the green vine that represents growth and my surgery scar calms me. The purple “courage,” and the part of the vine near it, is faded. It didn’t heal right because that part of the wrist is incredibly sensitive. It was constantly itchy, dry, and just didn’t seem to heal no matter how much Vitamin E I put on it. There’s a gap in the ink bracelet because they can’t tattoo over scars. Apparently trying to tattoo over scars is like drawing with permanent marker on wet paper; the ink spiders out of control. Luckily, the scar that bisects my tattoo is not deep. The last time I had the tattoo artist look at it, she said it is finally healed enough for her to go over it. I hope to get the faded parts and the blank in the bracelet all fixed soon. I think it will be monumental and symbolic of a full recovery, or as full of a recovery as one can ever attain after such trauma. I mean the scars both emotional and literal will never go away completely even though they fade a bit more each year.

Skin is both thick and thin, depending on perspective. I’d argue my skin is too thin, metaphorically speaking. Having once tried to access veins that seem to erupt at the surface, it’s still surprising how many layers of skin protect the flesh and bone. Skin serves such important purposes, can change and heal so significantly, in addition to just being aesthetically pleasing and essential to being human. Despite skin’s importance, the color of one’s skin does not change any of the real protective functions it serves.

Why does skin color have such power and importance in our culture? Skin color determines how we are treated and judged by strangers, who we are more likely to connect with, and how we identify ourselves. One thing that sticks with me from having discussions with some of my friends of color is the pressure that is placed on minorities of any sort to represent their entire minority group. An example that sticks with me is the fact that if my African American friends are laughing loud in public, strangers use that to confirm or disconfirm their stereotypes about the entire race. If my Caucasian friends and I laugh loud in public, people blame it on either our age (which brings up another aspect of discrimination) or more likely just the fact that we are loud and obnoxious people. They’d never think that because of our behavior, all Caucasians are loud.

3. La Ciudad de Los Angeles

I had a great time in L.A. I’ve been rocking out to every song I own about Cali and The City of Angels just to reflect on how our environments impact our creative and everyday lives. Evan mentioned how his diet has even changed since they moved west. I experience similar obvious changes in my creativity when I travel, which is probably why I make traveling such a priority in my life. It’s not that I have any more money than most of my friends… in fact, it’s probably the opposite because I have much more debt than the majority of them. It’s just that the highlights of my life and times I’ve felt most alive seem to happen when I’m traveling, and I know I only live once. I try to take advantage of the fact that I am at a point in my life where I get breaks with little responsibility and that I’m not responsible for anyone else right now.

It doesn’t have to be any extreme traveling like my trip to Spain (although those trips are magical), but just leaving my comfort zone is helpful for me to expand my mind and jump back into a creative interpretation of the world. This is important, because I am generally healthier when I’m creatively nourished. I’d rather be stingy about how much I spend at the bar or how often I go out to eat instead of eliminating travel from my life. Next year will be tough since I will be living with no source of income with the nuns. Traveling won’t really be an option, which will be difficult considering most of my close friends don’t or won’t live by me anymore.

I am grateful for the sunshine I experienced all week. It really lifts my mood. I’m even more thankful for my time with April, Evan, and Silvio. They are wise, articulate (Silvio, too--haha okay not yet, but someday he will be:), and overall healthy people, which I need more of in my life. I got used to having insightful, caring people to bounce my ideas off of and affirm me when I felt doubt in regards to my abilities or past decisions. It was also nice to meet some of their friends and observe what their lives are like there.

It’s strange when friends move away, because it often leaves me with no idea what their lives are like anymore. For example, I can’t imagine Kristin’s life in Chile, or even in Phoenix now. I’d really like to visit her and her mom before she leaves the country again, but who knows where that money would come from. She said she might come here to MI before she leaves, so hopefully I, at least, get to see her.

I guess, similarly, many of my friends and family do not know what my life is like here at school. Many of them have never seen my apartment, the campus I’ve wandered for five years now, my job, or met any of my close friends in the area.

4. Writing Right

I got a great idea for starting my chapter about the South Dakota trips while at a prayer/meditation service with April at her college. I feel like a slacker because this is my third time meeting with my ind. study prof where I have just not made the progress I should have. I got a nice start of about 2 pages, but it’s nowhere near the five plus pages I should have had. This week kind of got the best of me. I didn’t get home from my trip until midnight Sunday night. Monday, I had to work, go to class (where I couldn’t stop from dozing off every two seconds), and then cram for an exam I had Tuesday. Tuesdays are my day where I’m on the go from 9:15 AM to 9:15 PM, so I did not get the five pages done when I finished work. Then, I had a giant paper due today. I’m currently running on three hours of sleep. I will most certainly be napping when my school week concludes at three.

I’m not feeling confident as a writer lately, which is not good for pushing on through exhaustion and writer’s block either. My fiction class is messing with everything I know. I have such a love/hate relationship with fiction. I’ve been getting comments about how I need to tighten up my language, which is a very elementary mistake to be making considering I’ve technically specialized in poetry for my undergrad degree (non-fiction is not a real option). Poetry is all about tightening language to be as concise as possible. My non-fiction prof seems to respect my long sentences. I’ve been paying close attention to sentence structures in all of the memoirs I’m reading for that class. The idea that my writing structure is flawed is shaking my very idea of my voice as a writer. Writing is so subjective. I am just trying to appreciate comments from such a variety of professors and students, taking what helps and leaving what doesn’t. Considering I’m still trying to gain confidence in my stylistic choices, I am not yet in a place where I feel I can disagree with a professor. Not saying that I don’t appreciate these comments. I love my fiction prof, and I’m really enjoying getting his perspective on my writing. It’s just challenging some of my beliefs.

5. Goodbye to Romance

I’m cautious when I date people—slow to trust, let my guard down, and share my vulnerability. This has caused problems in the past. I was mindful with this last relationship to show my enthusiasm, put myself out there to be burnt, and dove in full force. The fact that things crashed and burned so quickly isn’t resting so well on the ego. There has to be some sort of balance, right?

Being raised Catholic mixed with attending Church and Catechism regularly all through my childhood taught me that sex was something to be both put on a pedestal and treasured, yet dangerous and morally wrong to engage in before marriage.

However, being raised in a family with very modern and open views on sex in addition to being surrounded by both the media and people in my life encouraging casual sex, I’ve had trouble learning how to approach relationships.

I had an epiphany over break after reflecting on a fact we learned in my psychology of women class. We talked about how both men and women are capable of feeling love just as intensely for one another, unlike some of the stereotypes that suggest women tend to care more for men than men do for them.

The difference is that women tend to feel that intensity more quickly and directly in relationship to sex. It was great to hear my professor talk about her belief in women’s sexual choice, but talk about the importance, from a health perspective, of not rushing into sex. I appreciated this factual approach that did not involve morality at all. It was nice to hear a perspective focused strictly on keeping myself emotionally healthy and experiencing deeper and more fulfilling relationships instead of suggesting I am flawed for choosing either side of the argument.

I read an article for my freshman English composition course here at school called, “The New Sexual Deviant” from Bitch magazine. The author talked about how women are just as oppressed sexually than ever. Instead of the old oppression that suggested a woman was a “whore” if she chose to have sex before marriage, the new repression proposes the idea that women are “prudish” or “repressed” if they choose not to. The author was advocating for balance and choice. She said she was just as uncomfortable with waiting to have sex until marriage, as she was the idea of sleeping with too many people to count. Yet, she made it clear that her opinion and sexual morals were not the point of the essay.

Some people require going from one extreme to the other in order to find the proper balance. For example, not to compare commas to sex (although I once heard a quote that poets are obsessed with death, sex, and commas), but there was a time in my literary career when I did not use any commas. I then went to the extreme of placing commas everywhere before I learned how to properly punctuate my sentences. I observe this a lot with the students I help in the writing center. Too many commas make a mess. Not enough commas can be just plain confusing. One is not better than the other, but when commas are used properly they allow the writer and reader both to exchange much more complex ideas, enhancing the quality of work.

6. March

My February drug detox time is over. I’m back from Spring Break and emotionally, physically (okay maybe not physically due to my lack of sleep this week), spiritually, and creatively recharged. I’m still evaluating the highs and lows of Febraury—completely perplexed and disheartened by my naivety in regards to the latest relationship. I’m not even sure I learned anything from it. I suppose I discovered that I can get burned a lot faster than I thought possible and that traveling, sunshine, and supportive friends are a pretty damned good remedy to the burn.

It’s sunny here today. If I’d gotten more than 3 hours of sleep, I’d get my skateboard out instead of napping. I’ll make up for it hopefully by enjoying my usual Thursday night pizza with Tambo and some $2 microbrews for St. Patrick’s day at our usual Thursday night hangout. I’m wearing the green shirt Jordan got me for Christmas two years ago. Tonight, I’ll sport some of the green beads Laura gave me from Mardi Gras in Louisiana. I’m not crazy about St. Patrick’s day like a lot of college students, but it is far better than St. Valentine’s Day from the previous month. There were students that set their alarms to get up and start drinking this morning. That can’t be healthy. I mean, we’re talking students who can’t wake up for class on an ordinary day, but they can wake up to drink? There were bars opening at like 7 this morning. I don’t feel good about the several sirens I’ve heard speeding through town throughout the day either. Despite the fear of alcohol abuse, I will admit that it’s nice to have a reason to wear green and be unified with strangers on campus. It’s also nice to have an extra reason to look forward to a couple of my favorite beers tonight.

Monday was Adam’s birthday. He is the last birthday that happens in just slightly over a month for my siblings and me. Ashlee is February 9^th. I’m twenty days later, and then, Adam is exactly two weeks after mine. It’s fun to share a birthday month with Ashlee and a Zodiac sign with Adam. Maybe that explains why I am kind of the middle ground between the two. Or maybe it’s just that I’m the middle child between the two in age. Adam’s in London right now. That’s my dream location to visit one day. There’s so much literary and music history there. Not to mention, I heard it’s just beautiful and British accents make any man ten times more attractive :)

March is such a fun month because it starts out so rough (which I got to miss mostly because I spent the first chunk in Los Angeles, soaking up sunshine and not thinking about school), but often ends beautiful. If it doesn’t end beautiful, it at least has provided some sort of hint that beautiful weather is on the horizon. I’m off to take a much-needed nap and feel relieved that I finally put these swirling thoughts into sentences.

First Born Unicorn

The title of this blog is from "Californication" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. It seemed appropriate due to my recent trip and love for unicorns. There's a ton of music about California, and I have been reflecting on the lyrics lately. I'm back from a wonderful week with a lot of schoolwork, jet-lag, and thoughts swirling in my mind. I'm working on a long, thought-out blog entry that I'd hoped to post today on my break. However, it is still unfinished and I have a busy week, so I'm not sure when I will post it. It's thoughts I can't get off my mind, though, so I hope to finish it ASAP. I posted pics on facebook just now. I can't wait to post my thoughts on everything. Stay tuned. Thanks for your patience, and I appreciate everyone asking me for an update on my trip. It's nice to know people read this and actually care what I think and how my week went. I shall come through soon, friends :)