(This is not a posting about politics, or the Democratic Convention, even if it starts out talking about that for a second, so bear with me.)
After last night’s Democratic National Convention speech, Michelle Obama’s gotten a big spotlight around the world for bringing a topic up that we don’t often treat with the respect it deserves — love.
Her speech last night played on the heartstrings about the idea of love. Love for a parent, for a family member, for those who sacrifice, for heroes, for idols. Love. Love for each other.
It’s an emotion we all feel, or it can be replaced by its antitheses — hate, anger, sorrow.
For a few minutes, though, Michelle Obama talked about this love idea. This thing that, once upon a time, we’d maybe feel for those around us. We’d fight for it. We’d protect it.
Love. This many-hallowed thing of ages long forgotten. The one emotion that probably transcends every culture, and even every species.
I watched an episode of PBS’ Nature last week in which a mama grizzly was frantically running all over an Alaskan wilderness reserve searching for her cub. After a few minutes’ footage of this heartbreaking search by a mother for a child, she found it, and the joy was indescribable.
Love is a product of biology, not humanity.
So we like to think we’re all about love as a society. We’re pumping out music about it, movies that claim to be about love, and we exalt things like marriage and parenthood because they’re based, in theory, upon love too.
But we’re kidding ourselves.
We’re not about love.
If it bleeds, it leads. Be scared. Be very, very scared. Long for yesterday. Blame someone. It wasn’t me. Don’t trust anyone. Lock your doors. Don’t talk to strangers. Keep outsiders out. Money talks.
In the media today is this evil, awful loop of distrust, fear, hate, and judgment that keeps spinning and spinning and spinning.
Oh, I’m sorry, did I say “in the media”? I meant spinning, period.
I’m on the internet. I see the rhetoric playing out in reality. I see the lies slung, the hate bounced, the judgment passing. By people, not media.
If you think all our problems are born in the media, you got another think coming. They’re just the mirror in front of us.
I wish it were easier to see the beginning of it all. People say Hard Copy was the beginning of the journalistic decline, but Ayn Rand wrote a whole book around the concept of bad journalism and what it says about us. See that “evil” book The Fountainhead for her look at Ellsworth Tooey and pandering to the masses. That’s seven decades ago.
Did debased journalism begin, then society crowd around it like a mass of hungry onlookers at an accident scene? Or have we always been that shitty?
We obsess over celebrities. Oh, they’re famous and pretty and rich, so therefore they’re wonderful. Quick, cut them down with gossip and mockery!
Like children building with blocks, when it comes to societal successes, we look for the quickest way to disassemble that which we just built up.
Yet we’re better than that.
This same awful race who lives and breathes the TMZ religion and who conceived the inequities which plague class divisions the world over is the same race that has done everything from putting a man on the moon to discovering penicillin.
When we’re not confronted with imminent threat, we forget that we’re all in this together. We lunge at each other and bring words and weapons to spar with.
I recall Bush saying “You’re either with us, or you’re against us” and suddenly it seems we’re all living life in much that way.
In the hours after 9-11 occurred, for one brief, eerily shining moment, nearly the whole world was united in a feeling of love and empathy. I don’t think Americans realize that. The whole world felt the pain of that horrible, horrible day, and I think anywhere you were, this wave of despondency hit because we realized we’d just seen the worst that humanity had to offer.
And from that place, in the dust of the hours in the days that followed, this overwhelming feeling of love and community came out of it, because everyone needed to feel together for a while. We needed to feel like we were more than just hatred.
That’s what I remember of those days. This inexplicable juxtaposition of feeling the most hate I’d ever felt, the most anger I’d ever known, and at the very same time feeling this outpouring of love and empathy I only wish I could carry with me every day.
While we are both these things, we are more often the worst of ourselves.
Last night, Michelle Obama reminded us of some of the things that are the best of who we are, who we could be. She reminded us of those who are great who walk through the door of opportunity then hold it open so that others may also experience greatness.
But this isn’t who we are now. Not often. Not anymore.
Instead of achieving greatness by surrounding ourselves with greatness, we’re often looking for ways to tear down others. We look for failings. We protect ourselves and attack everyone who isn’t like us.
We’re the Youtube generation. Everybody point and laugh.
We have been better than this before. We can be better than this now.
I’ve found myself so often watching this year’s election process down south and feeling rather brokenhearted. I am so saddened by who we have become. I’m tired of divisiveness. I hate the blame game. But this disease keeps spreading. We glom onto hate and fear like leaches sucking a bloated carcass.
Maybe it’s because everyone’s so financially stretched and the future seems bleak. Maybe everyone’s so tired of the struggle to keep our heads afloat that we see others as a threat to our security. Maybe we’re tired of being so aware of our personal failings that we need to spotlight others’.
I don’t know.
That’s who we are, six days a week, on a public level. Maybe at home with our families and our closest friends, we’re better people. In fact, I know most of us are.
But when it comes to being inclusive in society, when it comes to thinking big-picture about our nations and our places in the world, that’s where our humanity evaporates and many of us slide into a place we shouldn’t respect ourselves for in the morning.
And for a brief little while last night, a great speaker reminded us that we’ve been more. In times like the Great Depression, we were motivated by love for others, a belief of being in it together, and an aspiration of communal greatness.
We have had our moments of being something amazing.
Unfortunately, electing a guy into an office and telling him to fix everything, and then going on with life as usual for four years isn’t how amazing happens. Amazing happens when we all remember we’re a part of something bigger. It’s when we all give back with volunteering, generosity of spirit, by helping our fellow man, and looking for the best in every situation.
That’s how greatness happens.
And for a time, I’ll be hoping people are reminded of that for the remaining weeks in this American election.
We need to remember we can be great.
And then we need to become it.
Love is a very good place to start that quest.
Tag Archives: mentality
I Resolve Not To Make Resolutions. Or Do I?
It’s a New Year! Time for a new YOU! Rah-rah-rah! Buy this, do that, be this! Go, go, go! Team awesome, here we come! Resolutions for EVERYONE!
HURRAY!
Holy shit. Are you ready to punch someone yet? You could include it in your exercise accounting. “Punched out Bob. 15 calories.”
I’m not paying attention to any of it because I don’t have the time to be awesome this month. I have the time to be “pretty good.” Maybe “above average.” Awesome’s a bit of a reach for me. Ask me in June.
However, there’s a big year ahead of me. I’m working up to Awesome.
As of this morning, I’ve survived one week without butter or margarine. This has meant I’ve eaten less bread. And because I’ve had less bread, I’ve had less cheese. It’s this whole crazy domino effect thing. Have I lost weight? Who fucking knows?
I’ll tell you what I know — my pants didn’t fit last week. I mean, collectively.
This week, things are better. And they fit again.
Still, I know what I should feel like and look like, and right now I’m not it. But I also know I need to stay sane. I’m moving in a few weeks, I have to respect my back injury and proceed cautiously, and I’m packing as much as I can on a slow-and-steady basis. Gotta tell ya: I feel it in every single muscle and I know I’m already getting fitter. I’m not sure piling on the gym-bunny visits would be smart thinking right now. More walking, sure, less butter, better bending/lifting form, and I’m doing all that.
And that’s a great start. No butter, and a zillion squats and hefted boxes, that’s a good start.
The last time I started a “diet” with a month of no butter, I lost 18 pounds in the first 5 weeks, and went on to lose 65, because I added something new to my changes monthly and had a constantly-growing mentality about the new lifestyle.
I want to have a good start on Doing New Things For a Better Me now, and not wait until I’ve moved to be smarter.
There’s only two goals I have this year; if you break it all down to its simplest terms, there’s two. One is, Be Better. The second is, Be Honest.
There are a lot of areas in my life that need improvement. To “be better” gives me a wide berth of where to go, what to do. If I improve one thing, great. There’s something else that can get tweaked. As far as being honest goes, I’ve been unhappy in Vancouver for a couple of years now and wasn’t being honest with myself about it. My life got away from me as a result. That’s what happens when you lie to yourself daily — whether it’s about a job, home, or your life.
I want to be more aware of the moment, more open about truths, and live that way. It’s better for writing, it’s better for communication and relationships.
So, honesty and betterment, in all their forms, are the goals for my year.
Oh, come on. There’s more, right?
Now, there’re a lot of things I want to do with my life this year, and I’ll be writing those goals out for myself — from weight goals and health ambitions, to money aspirations, writing benchmarks, and more — but you don’t need to know what my plans are there.
I don’t believe in that. I think as much as we can get help and support from others by way of sharing our “goals,” we can get shat upon as well.
Self-belief isn’t some unalterable force in my life. My confidence is often akin to a leaf in the wind. It goes where it blows. I don’t need people’s doubts, questions, or concerns clouding my horizon. And I can’t be finding my strength in their support or my sense of self in some fan club who rallies around me.
One way or the other, it’s on me, right?
It’s not a bad thing, it’s just the way it goes.
I commented on The Twitter last night that I think I’m finding my mojo, and that’s sort of what I was talking about. For a long time, I’ve been feeling sort of uncomfortable in my own skin. I didn’t feel like I had control over my life or my own actions. It was just… unright. I was unright. Maybe even wrong.
A week into 2012, and that feeling’s largely dissipating. Sometimes life just needs A Decision. Once you make the choice and go all-in, it’s amazing how much it can transform your mentality.
Of course, the fact that I’m taking my vitamins and eating better and getting a lot of physical work in the way of moving, well, THAT couldn’t be helping my mentality at ALL, right?
It’s that Domino Effect, I guess. Positive change is coming, so I’ve put other positive changes into play, and thus the Snowballing Of Awesome has begun.
Be better. It’s a start. Next month, I’ll have a new normal in my betterness, then I’ll have to be even betterer.
The best thing about having “Be Better” as the resolution is that it gives a bit of a softer focus on goals met/not. If you fall short, but you’ve still done more and been better than before, well, you met the “real” resolution. We need a kinder, gentler marker to measure against sometimes.
I hope your year is off to a similarly promising and exciting start. We could all use a little “up” in our lives, I suspect.
Happy New Year, and happy Monday, then.
RANT: On the Rag with The Goddesses
Okay, I’m into the whole love-yoself-sistah feminist self-worship thing and all that, to an extent.
This sort of thing blows my mind. Personally, if I was 12 or 13, and I had a granola-chomping mother who was foisting this “love your period, love your womanhood” crap down my throat, I’d spontaneously combust.
I hate when people take something that’s really inconvenient and annoying and try to exalt some greatness into it. Sure, having a period is a reminder that we’re female and a conscious realization of our ability to create and bear life. Nice, fabulous, wonderful. Will that get the stains out of my bedsheets, too, or is that just a lovely little inconcrete and essentially useless euphemistic piece of bullshit?
Oh, I say it’s the latter. These people are right up there with the fucking naive twits who think a bird shitting on you means good luck. People will tell themselves anything if it means pocketing the cash for another therapy session.
Fuck, man. All I need to remind me that I am woman, ergo I fucking rock, are my tits. That I have a twat is just bonus, okay? My whole fucking body tells me I am woman, ergo I roar. I don’t need to pull a South Park, bleed for seven days, and miraculously stump the odds by living just to know that I’ve got the DNA freebie strand, okay? My period is the bane of my existence. I fucking hate it. I wish I never had to bleed again. I’m presently in the middle of trying to suppress my period for three months at a time, but the three months has been split into six weeks thanks to an unwanted period this week.
Now, a bloody tangent. So, I’m, you know, there on my throne, unwrapping the first of a new pack of pads, and the Always “Wings” adhesive cover tab has “Have a happy period” written all across the fucking thing.
Happy? You want me to be happy about cramps, bloating, irritability, alcohol sensitivity, and the constant risk of staining undergarments, clothing, and sheets for the better part of a week? Yeah, sure, okay, and while we’re at it, you want me to be thrilled about losing my paycheck, crashing my car, and finding my husband in bed with his secretary? Fuck right off.
Goddamned marketers.
But back to the initial topic: I’d like to send a big fuck you out to all the women who try to make me feel guilty about the fact that I think having menses is the absolutely worst part about being female. It doesn’t mean I hate my femininity, it means I hate mood swings and pain and messes and feeling unclean. How is that wrong? Fucking sanctimonious crap is what that is. Get off your high horse and join the rest of us on this little plane we like to call “Reality.”
Putting My Foot Down On You, Dr. Scholl
I’m interviewing at an ad agency or two tomorrow. No, I won’t be doing any of the ad copy work or anything, more of a save-the-sanity support office worker, since I excel at that. But advertising is something I’ve always been very, very interested in.
Remember the movie Crazy People, from years back? Daryll Hannah and Dudley Moore? “Jaguar: For men who like handjobs from beautiful women.” Or, “Volvo: They’re boxy, but they’re safe.”
It was a comedy about truth in advertising that emerges when an ad-copy writer has a breakdown and is sent to an insane asylum. He decides to stop lying to the public and tells the truth. He enlists the help of his fellow nuthausers and they reinvent advertising. (My favourite was the Sony one, where the shortness of Japanese assembly-line folks meant better quality control as they were hovered closer to the microchip boards than the tall, gangly American counterparts who were so tall they couldn’t see the fine melds and such. Heh.)
Every year, I go and I see the film of The World’s Best Commercials for that year. I love good advertising.
But I fucking hate bad ads.
Case in point: Dr. Scholl’s for Her.
There’s this new open-toe gel shoe pad made for stilettos and the like, by Dr. Scholl’s. For some fucking reason, there’s this chick in a skin-tight micro tube dress, wearing strapless stilettos (that magically stay on) as her legs dangle off one side of a bareback horse, and she lies back over the hump of this horse, prostrated.
Because I do that in my stilettos every fucking day. And other things I do in my stiletto, apparently, include walking my dog on a reinforcing dike in the ocean, playing tennis, and more.
Who the fuck is this ad for? Who’s the guy smoking crack who seems to think THIS is what’s gonna sell these shoe pads to a woman?
How about having a real situation? Oh, I don’t know… maybe an intelligent woman with spring in her step as she delivers a brilliant closing statement in a law court case? Maybe you have a group of men, all sweating and nervous, desperately awaiting a job interview in a crowded, awkward office, as this sexy chick who holds all their fates in her hands strides towards them, with a I-Own-Your-Ass, And-You-Know-You-Want-Mine look on her face?
I’m surprised they didn’t just get to the point and have some chick in clear pumps spinning her way down a pole, since apparently we’re all just whores who use our bodies for advancement in life.
How about we move the fuck away from more of this objectifying, lame-ass look at chicks today, and into the realm where women really are becoming powerbrokers? Remember, sexy and smart don’t have to be oil and water.
They’re only oil and water because the media doesn’t want us to forget that it’s our asses that count, not the grey matter in our heads.
I, for one, will never, ever buy another Dr. Scholl’s product. This ad pisses me off THAT much. I’m sick and tired of seeing women whose bodies you can bounce quarters of, with brains the size of the quarter, as being the ideal that I’m supposed to somehow strive for.
My ass is copious. As is my intellect. How about selling to me, you assholes?
(If you’re looking for an update on my employment woes, I’ve been keeping that shit over on the other blog. It’s been one hell of a week for me, emotionally, and keeping it together’s one of the hardest challenges I’ve ever faced. I’m scared as hell, but I’m proud as hell of how I’ve been dealing. I’ll be glad when it’s over. I hope that’s soon. I’ve earned the reprieve. If I know anything, I know that.)