I believe that people doing busy work at school and work instead of fulfilling their life purpose, and people pretending skin color, marrital status, and income are character traits are all part of a “C-O-N-spiracy” (like from In Living Color) against humanity meant to keep people from truly living.
The greatest accomplishment is freeing people, as our heroes helped do. Can you tell me a job field that actually does that for people in a lasting or profound way today?
People will say education, but does education really free people? I went to college to become a newspaper reporter, but I really wanted to be a writer. The way I needed to be freed was to believe in myself. I didn’t believe I could make a living as a writer unless I wrote for a magazine or newspaper.
I had only one teacher (a college professor) who told me she thought I was talented. Education is not worthy of the name unless it makes people feel good about themselves, like they can overcome any obstacle. That’s called freedom.
We actually kind of reward people in our culture for being unfree. I’m talking about how monogamy and being married are considered ways to be “good” people. Um, how about facing and fixing your own problems, such as being ashamed and insecure, thereby fixing your own little corner of the world? Think about what would happen if everyone did that: Freedom.
For me, facing my problem partly included doing what I loved: writing–and thinking a lot. I’ve felt freer of my mental illness (negative voices and haunting feelings) and more okay with myself as I’ve written and explored who I am.
As far as race goes, I just feel people wear their race as their character too often: by the way they dress, speak, and date people of the same race. I wear my race as my identity, to a certain extent. I feel very in touch with my struggle/experience as a black person, just as a white person might feel in touch with the struggle of being white. Yes, I believe there is such a thing. I believe anyone labeled “good” suffers inside just as much as anyone labeled “bad.” Humans are good and bad, and labels interfere with the freedom to be both.
I believe identifying with our experiences (because of our race, sex, income bracket, etc.) can encourage people to make the world better for others in similar situations.
Making the world better in a unique and neccessary way is less likely to happen when people hide things about themselves, thereby avoiding improving the human condition for others like them. (For example, if Abe Lincoln was really gay and hid it, he avoided improving the treatment of gay people.)
People may avoid their purpose and still feel like they’re doing something simply because they make money and live in a nice house. But they are using only a sliver of their power to make life grand, if they avoid facing all parts of who they are.
I say “conspiracy” because in any good story there’s always an antagonist. But the greatest enemy has to be within, and has to be covert to be doing such a good job in making everyone believe that what they want is unhavable: their dreams, peace and togetherness. Most religious people can tell you who the enemy is, by the way.
Other posts like this: Comfort Here and Do-Nothing Achievement, Going Nowhere
Filed under: Mental Illness | Tags: American culture, American values, dreams, food stamps, human value, money, success, suicide, the Matrix, work
When I first quit my job in July, it was weird. I didn’t know what I was doing. I would just wake up in the morning, and feel like I didn’t have to go. I felt caught up in a fantasy land/nightmare I could easily wake up from. I also felt sometimes like something was urging me to quit. One morning I woke and was staring at the ceiling when suddenly I felt presented with the idea that everything I wanted was waiting for me if I quit: a book by me; my soul mate; a cute, chubby baby.
At first, I had this idea that God (or nature if you’re an atheist), and real (real) life were on my side. I figured they supported me in my belief that human life is too valuable to squander “working for the weekend,” or being a “slave to the money/ then you die.” I thought I might be rewarded for believing in something more than the Matrix, where money is valued above all else.
That first couple of months, I thought I’d win some money or my rich (and miserable) soul mate (he’s a doctor/king in America) would help me out, and I’d never have to work a job I hated again. I guess I hoped more than believed. Some days I cried, and prayed for God to help me rewrite my story, the story of a person who’d quit a job. America had defined that person as an outcast and a loser: People were shocked when I told them I was quitting without having another job. Two months ago, a former co-worker asked me sarcastically, “Did you find the happiness you were looking for?”
Five months since I quit, I finally feel like I’m writing what will be my memoir about my fight to be Somebody, not just a stereotype/follower. And (frown) I’m lookin half-heartedly for jobs simply because it’s required for me get a deferment on my student loan payments, and possibly to get some other benefits I won’t name.
Then today I saw some comments on another Web site, in which people were complaining about others getting food stamps. And I’m like, wow: Money is everything to Americans, and people should apparently do any kind of work to avoid getting government help, maybe even prostitution–they wouldn’t care. Why? People act SO UGLY all for money, a man-made creation that defines success in America more than helping others or following your dreams.
The site required people to put their full names to comment and the people commenting wouldn’t even do that. Wow.
It’s irritating because their “human beings are nothing” attitude is sticking with me (I’m very impressionable), and I’m totally feeling like a piece of crap. This attitude people have makes life seem like it’s worth nothing. And that people aren’t worth helping, even temporarily, like they can’t turn their lives around. And they wonder why people kill themselves when their money runs out. We teach people that being broke is the end of someone’s value, practically spitting on people who use government help.
Of course, my situation’s different from someone who’s lost his job. But I feel the only reason I am where I am right now is because all my life I bought into America’s standards that put marriage, and race and money ahead of character in determining someone’s value. I’m rebelling against a society where human life is just about pushing a rock up a hill and getting a break after five days. I’m not okay with that. Sorry. Whatever consequences there are, are better than suicide. Whether you jump off a cliff, work another lowly job, or go to school to become a nurse only because they make lots of money, you’re doing one thing: Pushing yourself to do something, that deep down, you’re pleading with yourself not to do.
NOTE: This post was previously titled “America: Jump Damn It” because I was upset when I wrote it. I changed it because I felt the title was unfair.
Filed under: Human Potential | Tags: America, CBS, Charlize Theron, happiness, Harry Belafonte, mental illness, stereotypes, success, Sunday Morning
I was watching “Sunday Morning”on CBS this morning, and it bugged me that the interviewer asked both Charlize Theron and Harry Belafonte in separate interviews whether they were happy or grateful.
Of course, they both said yes. It’s more satisfying for me to hear it from people who are penniless, or physically disfigured, or chronically diseased. Satisfying because I might be finally hearing the truth that I believe we all know in our hearts (happiness is about more than looks, or money, or marriage), but rarely hear–anywhere.
It’s just an extremely stereotypical question and I felt both actors (and singer in Belafonte’s case) probably felt pressured to answer stereotypically for rich and famous people or risk sounding ungrateful. I could be wrong.
Yet, Charlize Theron said earlier in the interview that she was a very troubled person when she explained why she enjoyed playing troubled characters. In answering the question about feeling fortunate, Theron mentioned a charity she organized, saying she was more fortunate than the people she helps in her home country of South Africa. She also mentioned having great friends.
I just think it does more harm than good to reinforce the idea that being rich and famous is what makes people happy. This plays a big part in suicidal thinking, the idea that one doesn’t have or is unable to have the things that America says proves someone is capable, unbroken, things such as marriage, money, friends, or social acceptance.
I would love to see more ungrateful people, as I believe Americans have a bad case of settling-for-less-ism. How many times have you heard, “At least you have a job!” or So and So’s “Mr. Right…Now,” or, “It was just time to settle down,” as football player Chad Ocho Cino said (not verbatim) in explaining why he was getting married. Even these explanations are better than people pretending they enjoy their job or being married, when they don’t, which is what people do when I start saying they shouldn’t settle.
Yeah, it’s enough to drive someone crazy… And I am. I’m schizophrenic, and I think living in America had something to do with it. Almost nothing here is mentionable, and it makes it almost impossible to put your finger on a problem no one is willing to talk about. Sometimes I feel nothing here is real, except me and The Wizard of Oz. I hope that’s not true.
I wrote another version of this post but I went back and added tags and wordpress didn’t have time (I guess) to retrieve my post content so it came up with zero words once I hit update. I wasn’t into retyping this, so it’s not as long or, perhaps, as good as my first post. This sucks, WordPress, in case you’re listening.
Anyway, I liked Belafonte and Theron a lot from their interviews and wish there could be a less stereotypical world for them to live in. Stereotypical expectations, I believe, make people feel alone and misunderstood. Just because someone is rich and famous doesn’t mean he’s happy.
Filed under: Society | Tags: purpose, racial inequality, success, suicide, Tyler Clemente
I have been thinking lately that the greatest accomplishment people can make is to save lives.
One thing that inspired my ideas on saving life was a comment I made on Facebook Sunday about how insulting someone’s manhood is similar to insulting a black person’s race loyalty.
I kept thinking and thinking. Then I thought about me thinking about the comment I wrote. I’m so lame, I thought, for repeating the words of my FB comment in my mind over and over.
But the more I thought of the comment the more meaning I found in it. For one, men being manly and blacks being loyal to the black race were probably both at one time related to protecting people’s lives: Men protected their families, villages, or countries, and black people protected other blacks, including slaves historically.
Think of the term “Uncle Tom.” This is someone who was unafraid to be disloyal to other blacks, something that could’ve meant punishment, including death, for other slaves during slavery. Today people who deny their blackness (like maybe Tiger Woods) not only their blackness, but the responsibility of fixing the problem of racial inequality in America.
I focus on black people because I grew up black and being concerned about looking like I wanted to be white, i.e. seeming to disown my blackness. As a kid, I liked the t.v. show “Beverly Hills 90210,” liked wearing flesh-toned stockings layered with slouch socks like white girls did, went to a predominantly white high school, and, perhaps most damaging of all to my blackhood: I’ve always been attracted to white boys/men more often than black boys/men.
I’m still kind of hesitant to say that, especially because I watched a “Boondocks” cartoon a FB friend posted a couple days ago about an “Uncle Tom” figure, who drooled over white girls. I was laughing out loud at the cartoon in which the “Uncle Tom” figure repeatedly calls black people “nigger.” I stopped when the character starts talking about white girls and has to take a break to calm himself down because he gets so excited. (Frown.) It reminded me of the sensitive nature of my preference for white men.
A few days later, I saw an interracial couple at the gym, and I could feel their self-consciousness, especially the black guy’s. I was self-conscious, too, wanting to smile at them to let them know I was fine with them, but I didn’t want to be too involved in their business.
Later, I felt unsuccessful, and thought maybe I should be overt, and next time say something like, “You’re alright with me.” Afterall, it’s our jobs to save people’s lives, not sit passively by, trying not to be “overly involved.”
I feel one way I’m supposed to save lives is by making suicide less likely. When Tyler Clemente killed himself because his roommate taped him having sex I felt certainly I was meant to help him. I just hadn’t taken my place in the world in time.
I didn’t know how, exactly then. But I surely felt I didn’t want to be a part of the public that must have seemed intolerant of seeing someone have sex, or learning someone was gay. It’s life, people. Time to grow up.
Similarly, I felt like our team lost when med student Phillip Markoff (referred to as “The Craig’s List killer”) killed himself in prison. He was a casualty to traditional ideas of what makes a person valuable (money, marital status, race, etc.). I felt the same way when I heard in the news months ago about a Pennsylvania dad who killed his wife and son and them himself. The family was having financial problems.
I’ve considered suicide many times in life, and I believe that’s useful insight into how to save others. How might you save another person’s life, or spare them the hurt you’ve encountered in life? I do believe when you help others in the way you’ve needed help, you fulfill your purpose in this life.
Enlustered 