Bounce

‘Bounce’ by Matthew Syed presents ponder worthy ideas that question whether innate talent actually exists. Syed contends that there is no such thing as talent – practiced skill masquerades as talent instead. He even has explanations for prodigies who appear to be complete savants. Success in complex tasks is apparently tantamount to the amount of time put into to practice, 10,000 hours, or ten years, being the magic number to achieve expertise.

But it’s not just 10,000 idle hours of repetition and benign experience. The time spent must be engaging, challenging and designed to produce progress. Let’s say you wanted to be the world’s fastest reader. Reading as fast as you can for 10,000 hours won’t cut it. Instead you would need to design drills and exercises, perhaps even employ a coach in order to reach the threshold of expertise and gain an actual ‘talent’ for it. In Syed’s view, talent is earned as opposed to being a natural gift. More of a gift you give to yourself. And there are no shortcuts.

Self doubt paralyses the process toward success. If you don’t believe, even to the point of occasional irrationality, that you can do it you are far less likely to succeed. In the book this is referred to as the placebo effect. One must visualize themselves at the pinnacle of the goal and know that they will get there in order to arrive. When seeming failure arises, ‘Bounce’ prescribes a new perception – looking at the failure as a point of learning and as evidence of attempted progress.

As much as I enjoyed the read, I still question the notion of talent as a myth. Syed debunks many ideas that support this, including the popular theory about black people being more proficient runners than people of other races. In the face of all the evidence in the book, I think I may be hard wired to accept the talent myth, as Syed says many of us are. I like to think that I have a few small talents, although mostly undeveloped, that come easily to me. However, when I look at this carefully I see that some of my perceived mini talents are the result of my choice to frequently visit these areas of my life. I have no talent for mathematics because I haven’t practiced. I have some talent for interior decorating because I have spent time honing it.

If Syed’s compelling theories are true, I have an even longer way to go than I thought. Sigh…

More to come on Syed

Working in General SUCKS!

It’s 3:00pm and do you know what that means? It means I have mentally checked out, although I am still here in body. My brain has stopped working, even though I am still at work. Why are we forced to work suck long hours anyway? I don’t think my boss is some kind of slave driver, but I do think that an 8-9 hour work day is some form of cruel and unjust punishment. No one actually stays productive through that whole time. In fact, I get less motivated to even try to stay productive the more hours I spend at a job.

I think I have memorized the sound of productive vs. unproductive key strokes on everyone’s computer now. The faster we type, the less worried about mistakes we are and that means internet social networking is afoot. Around this time, I tend to see more earphones and keyboard finger flurries than earlier in the day. I’m not too sure why we aren’t simply made to work 6 hours, why has 8 become the norm?

I would be willing to bet that businesses would find themselves more productive if we were simply working less hours. When something feels like a torture that is perhaps because it is. There is little question that this mode of work is unnatural, cubicle feeders and offices, solo desks. Still this is the way most of us work. I think we all dream, when we are young, of working in a different way. Children never fantasize about being a desk jockey for a company that they questionably care about. They dream of doing something engaging and fun that they are passionate about. As an adult, you get to take the dream and try to slot it into reality – a.k.a. – taking that dream and shoving it.

Of course I am simply not the most mature adult so I am still following my dream. It has been altered, I can’t be empress of the world, but I can try to find something that doesn’t suck my soul away through my asshole (insert image here of dirty withered soul after years of working feeder job).

When it really comes down to it I don’t think I want to work at all. I do it because I must. I need money to survive life, it trying to kill us after all. I need something to do each day so I don’t become overtly hedonistic and hasten my own death. There also a vague sense of needing purpose, but a job rarely fulfils this. For a select few it may, but most of don’t feel that we are saving or contributing to the world through toiling at retail or paperwork. We know better.

I think I need to work though. Leisure, even with an enormous budget, would eventually weigh on me. I might run out of things I wanted to do or see. A job provides that regimentation though it usually feels more like being in an army than a welcome diversion. I think we need the structure. Perhaps that is why the economy exists.

At any rate, tomorrow is the final day of my magazine internship. I will be sad to leave, but also relieved at having a break from the office routine. I would love to stay here, in Thailand, at this job for a long time. I love it in comparison to other jobs that I could do. In comparison to being empress of the world, I suppose it may be a distant second, but this is the best I have done at maintaining interest in a position since I began working, oh too long ago.

Don’t Make Assumptions

I always assume that everyone will find interest in the things I find interesting. To a certain extent, as a writer you have to. It’s useful to be even somewhat interested in what you are writing about, and if it did not peak your interest you wouldn’t write about it. So there is modicum of assumption that goes into the trial.

In writing this blog, I have found a variety of human interest and psychological topics that I, obviously, think are fascinating. It is entirely possible that another person looking at all this, if they even bother to get that far, will simply think, wtf?

At any rate it seems to be a valid practice for my mind. An exercise in writing – in getting shit off my chest… shit off my chest. Ew. Perhaps I’ll just call it venting.

I don’t mean for this blog to be a boring diary of my fabulous life but a soft diatribe on interesting observations of life within myself and others. Is this at all interesting? Or am I deluding myself into believeing that I have the insight to design this much content. Is this an application just for me, or is it a process to be shared?

Well, I guess the intention is to share, otherwise I’d just keep it in a file on my pc. But seriously, is anybody out there? Is anyone listening?

OMFG... you actually are expected to pay money to facebookfor credits for games. Getting virtual items, for virtual characters. Paying a game to waste your mind and your life... This is one of those 'what is the world coming to?' moments for me.

Facebook Zombie

I have finally joined the ranks of the facebook undead. I am building my war chest of friends, weapons to bolster my confidence when in need. It is a good way of keeping in touch with people. It’s an even better way of finding people you don’t talk to anymore and trying to figure out if your life is turning our better than theirs. Another treat for ones confidence. We facebookers, as I proudly label myself, are like zombies. A website cannot confer emotional connection, it cannot reach out and touch you no matter how evocative the wording or thumbnail is. There is something so unreal about the facebook friend connection.

One of the best things about facebook is the revival of high school cool. You can find so many different ways to rank and label a person, and let’s not belie the importance of the profile picture. I have been on only for a few days and have already changed mine several times. It’s important to get just the right picture to sum yourself up to an audience you barely know or have a connection with. If the profile picture is good enough, it can multi- task. It will help you to build new interesting friends that look better on html than they do in real life. It can help to reach out and slap people you went to high school with but haven’t seen in a long while, (or thought about for that matter), with your beauty and therein supposedly smashing life. Of course how good facebook pictures look exactly equates the value of your life and lifestyle. Lol

This is not to say that I do not like facebook. It has been enjoyable although a bit akward, making new ‘friends’ each day and using that as a means of measuring my self worth, in some vague fashion.

Something I really don’t like is the hour I just spent looking up people that I haven’t thought of in many years. I found one, looked at her friend list and suddenly remembered people that I haven’t spoken to or thought of for more than a decade. Looking at old boyfriends, people I disliked, old friends – all these long lost feelings came to me. Somehow I think that is perhaps the biggest problem with facebook. There is a reason these people are not in my life anymore and I don’t think about them. Even a far reaching analytical mind has trouble seeing the relevance in looking up a boyfriend who was previously unremembered and reapplying an emotion to a picture on a screen. We already have so much to digest. Flashing lights and chance encounters. Vital energy need not be spent hashing up the less important parts of ones past.

Facebook spends human energy like a rich sheik. It is amazing how many things one can do in the name of wasting time on the site. Judging and quantifying small tidbits from everyone elses online life. Online life… scary maybe? A random wall post from Janine. A news tidbit telling you what Bob7 is doing. Updates from bob 1-5….

It’s not just a confidence builder, however intangible and questionable that confidence may be, it is also a place where one can be rejected. I added so many people that I still like but have in truth forgotten. There are 2 that haven’t ignored or confirmed my friend request yet. I will check semi compulsively waiting in a quiet spot in the back of my mind for them to accept. Naturally, if they do not I will simply wonder what is wrong with me and why they don’t like me. An entire emotional scale that I would otherwise not be subject too. Fantastic facebook.

And how would one go about deleting a friend? Suppose they become offended and hurt and begin to slander you, unbeknownst to you, on other people’s walls. It is a virtual high school cafeteria for grownups. This is why I avoided it for so long.

But I have to admit, it is one of the most distracting websites I have seen. My brain is wired the way every other humans is, therein I am attracted to the cacophony of phony friends. I would love to be enlightened otherwise, but knowing better isn’t the same as doing better. I do want to keep in touch with a handful of the people I am acquiring in the chest.

I’m not too sure that a good quantity of workplace office type setting could survive without facebook. I am willing to bet a large amount that workplaces with IT blocked facebook sites sport more unhappy employees and have higher turn around rates. Only the very dedicated actually work all 40 hours of the week. Facebook is a major workplace respite, though its effect on productivity likely devastating.

I think because I am new to the site I am going through the sick fascination of looking at people I don’t like. It makes me cringe but I do get to judge them, all superior from beyond the screen.

Will anything come of this?

Be Here Now

It is amazing how art can lift the spirit. I watched Fierce Grace, the documentary about Baba Ram Dass after his stroke. It reminded me that I am human and this is my life that I am living. It is not a melodrama that is directed through a vague blog. It is a living breathing thing. It reminded me that my journey is my own and that if I need to know if I should turn left or right I need only ask myself. There is no answer to what I seek that lies outside of me. I know what is in my heart and I shouldn’t be afraid of it. I know what is in my soul. It isn’t just light and pretty images, there is darkness there too.

I will stumble and fall, but there is beauty in suffering, truth in loneliness. It seems the best artwork, and deepest human discovery come out of periods of difficulty in human life. This has been the hardest period of my life, the last year, and it has birthed an entirely new person. I am shedding my old self like a snake skin. In fact, what is old, or previous inherently cannot be here… it is gone. What I run from, it isn’t always so bad. It is ok to actually live my life instead of trying to distract myself from the reality of it because I am too scared of what the future might hold. It is ok to be here now.

I am going to get that book and read it. In spite of my sometimeish scepticism, there is something about this man, as many have felt that draws me. I don’t like some of the things he says, but I will still quiet and listen to them. I think it must be his conviction. It’s hypnotic. I am suddenly very curious to read a book that so many seem to have gotten so much out of. I would like to start it and take my time reading it.

Another thing I would like to do is stop expecting things and just try something. Instead of trying to map out the best path toward becoming a journalist, I think I will just write, edit, send out, explore and continue. I will blog, try new sources, tire temporarily, and then write more. I will simply keep on engaging in the art. That is the path. I have asked others and myself and I think the answer is to just do it. I will face rejection and dryspells, triumph and recognition. This is the course of life.

I may seem happy talking about suffering, but I just remembered that life isn’t about avoiding everything that frightens you. The things you are most scared of, or hesitant about can sometimes be the most important experiences.

I love the human psyche. I just wrote a blog about loneliness. This blog is also about loneliness but in an entirely different way. It is amazing how a small shift in perception can put a new spin on gray.

Message: I am here

Entitle ment

We have our entitlements. Things we think we deserve. Certain kinds of behaviour, or rules the rest of the world needs to follow because we believe that we fit somewhere into a hierarchy.

The white Americans that are here at the guest house understand the world racial hierarchy in their favour. I haven’t noticed this in reference to me, but have observed it while watching them interact with Thai people and culture.

One said, “I should buy a cheap hair straightener, the Thai girls look much better than I expected. I feel gross”

The other said “Me too, but that’s a waste of money. We’ll just wear hats and be cool because we are Americans.”

The guy chimed in “It doesn’t matter, the Thai guys will think your hot, because you are white.”

Then he looked at me and said, “well you too. Americans I mean.”

I am Canadian.

What they said may be true, thought there is much more to it than that. The fact that they know it though, makes it seem somewhat insidious. Though there is no heinous hierarchy they are imposing. We are all participating in it.

They walk in the idle of the road, like the sidewalks aren’t there for them. As though they can do whatever they please.

Many have come here unwilling to mesh. Unwilling to take Thai understanding and make it their own, though they intend to, and are, working here. They will not take a situation and adapt to it, but expect the situation to adapt to them. In their minds they have put themselves in a place of importance.

This just doesn’t happen only with Americans, or white people, or travellers. Most of the people I come into contact with assume that the standard they measure themselves against in their mind has something to do with how other view them as well.

A girl here, one that I like, has travelled to Thailand from America to teach monks. It shocks her that there are not more games or accessories for her to use in class. She is shocked that the lesson plans are boring. When I tell her that the roommate I had before taught monks and simply went to the market and bought supplies, she scoffs. “Why should I have to pay my own money to do that? It should be there!” She takes little or no notice of the fact that she is not a teacher, instead a child herself, and they are employing her volunteer desires. In a monastery that blindly accepts free help from wherever it comes, it doesn’t seem that surprising that they lack supplies. Perhaps she could trade in her Ed Hardy binder, to buy a game for the kids. Or even make a divergent lesson plan that isn’t boring. She feels that because she is new, and because she wants to enjoy herself, the school should have what she wants made available to her. She thinks she is entitled to things that don’t apply to her situation, only to the standard in her mind.

Part 2

There is a part of entitlement that assumes lack of consideration for others. It is a selfish action that can be fully understood only in the brain of the enactor. Sometimes, when waiting in line for things, you’ll notice that person who just walks up and plunks there business down on the counter before you. They may or may not be aware of you, but they never see you as being as much of a person as them. They view themselves as being entitled to your spot in line. As though whatever came ahead of you were there designation. True, the person could simply be busy, or just plain rude. But in either case, they are ignoring the fact that lines have designations of first, second and so on. Instead they are looking at the inner hierarchy that puts them in a standard ahead.

When this happens, I often end up thinking that it is a race, or age thing. But that is because I live in a country primarily inhabited by aging white baby boomers. I think this actually happens everywhere, and it isn’t a matter or race per say. There are many ways to choose to classify yourself amongst other humans in other setups of rank.

Perhaps the butter, thinks they are more important because they are rich. Or because they are beautiful. Or because they are pitiful. Whatever the case may be, it has everything to do with their perceptions of themselves much more than it has to do with you at all.

The reason that some of these entitlements endure, is because they are then enforced with other peoples behaviour. Not just the actions of the person at the top of the hierarchy, but also by the actions of the person at the bottom.

Part 3

I think that I am entitled to happiness because I have begun to turn my life into something more presentable. I have done away with the bad, so the bad stuff should do away with it’s connection to me right? Not quite. I notice that I become incensed easily when best laid plans fall to dust. It’s like I think the universe know owes me a smooth ride because I have cleaned up my act. Expectation and entitlement go hand in hand. Both are jokes in the face of life. (Though jokes can sometimes seem cruel when they are played on you)

Out with The Group

It’s amazing how incredibly alone on the journey I feel sometimes. Sitting in a room full of people that I don’t know and do care to know but I am ‘out’ with. I’m not sure why I gave into the fear of loneliness tonight. I know that I don’t like going out with the group from the guest house, but I did it anyway. I didn’t want to eat alone. But why… I invariably have a better time in this circumstance than I would have otherwise.

I was bored and I felt out of place. No peers in this group, just young kids searching for things I no longer seek. Discussing topics I no longer entertain. I was bored and somewhat displeased with myself for being so obvious about it. I think that because I felt like an outsider, I decided to try and make them feel insignificant. Like, the older wiser one is bored with you. And I was, but simply because I don’t identify, not something personal.

I saw a shaman today. I’m not really even sure why. I guess because I’ve been looking at spirituality recently, I thought it might be up my alley way. It wasn’t quite. I was just left gripping to information that I’m not quite sure how to use. Left wondering if she was real or if I just want it to be. She told me stuff that I already knew about myself, but hearing it from another person somehow made it real. I just need people to promise me that I will be a successful journalist, then I guess I’ll do it. All kind of silly really. All things I could do for myself. But, like James said ‘maybe it’s worth the 3000 baht if you start to look at yourself in a different way.’

They all went out for Thai massages. I know half of them don’t even want to go but feel the need to do what the group does. I am happy to get away from that, but loneliness is far more startling when in happens in a crowd. When you are not alone but mentally vacant from your company.

I sent a text out to a girl who doesn’t really know me and cares little about what I am feeling tonight. We spent some time together on the weekend so I decided to go out on a limb and text her that I was bored. Text her that I was laughing at my insistence on trying something I was almost 100% likely to not like. I sort of knew she wasn’t going to reply. Still, I decided to go out on a limb. As much I feels the pangs or rejection, of being ignored, because she did not reply, I like the part of me that will keep trying to build bridges and reach out to the people that I like. Amazingly, though diminished, this part of me isn’t all together gone.

It is at times like this I don’t wonder why that one questionable relationship that is there still exists. It is a soft and familiar cushion to fall on when the chair gets pulled out out. What does that mean?

Loneliness is a profound emotion. I run from and hide from it so often that it is a wonder I have any energy left at all. I try to distract myself from it and cover it with all that I do. But it is always there. Sometimes I call it independence. Sometimes I call it depression. I think I may even be confused enough, to sometimes call it happiness. I don’t think I am that different from anyone else in this sense, but I am acutely attuned to it. So aware of it.

Too much loneliness is a condition that creeps into your blood stream and spreads out into the energy that leaves your body. It becomes all you take in and all you exert. Like all emotions, it can be dangerous if you let it.

Music Soothes. So good for this mood. Once soundtrack

Elephant Masturbater

Collecting elephant semen is a very sticky business.

Manual Collection, as the questionably disturbing procedure is known, involves forceful stimulation of the elephant’s rectum and a small team of scientists. These guys deserve medal for species preservation.

The team from the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, (TECC), collects the semen for genetic and reproductive research. It’s not just a simple matter of employing a female elephant for eye candy and waiting on the result. To be used scientifically, the semen has to be collected and preserved in a controlled environment. It’s also a matter of ensuring elephant conservation through planned pregnancy. Elephants are not Casanovas, nor do they have a wild libido, so scientists have to intervene in the natural process.

Dr. Sittidet Maha from the TECC describes manual collection as “a hand massage in the anus of the elephant”. It’s more like a vigorous penetration of the elephant’s rectum, as a gloved human arm reaches in to stimulate the prostate – the whole arm. Dr. Maha thinks that the elephants don’t mind the intrusion because “it feels good for them when they ejaculate, so they like it”. It helps that the elephants are previously introduced to the process through regular examination and manual fecal removal when constipated. They may not get candy and roses before the deed is done, but at least they are trained to tolerate it.

The mission of the TECC collection team is to help fortify dwindling elephant numbers by giving them a hand, quite literally. The method currently in use was discovered quite by accident, when scientists were trying to help the elephants with constipation. While it may seem more logical – and less gross – to simply perform phallic masturbation on the elephant, this process has its issues. Elephant penis’ are very sensitive and can flail around uncontrollably if not handled correctly. At more than one metre long, this can actually be dangerous. Scientists have been known to end up knocked out or with black eyes for even trying to stimulate an elephant phallus.

Manual collection begins with soft and slow movements which increase in intensity during the procedure. The elephants aren’t drugged and they don’t get soft music, scientists in lingerie or a post-coital cigarette. Just cold – and likely odd-feeling – latex covered arms. In Dr. Maha’s experience “the process can take 10-15 mins or sometimes longer depending on the elephant”. The semen is then taken back to the lab for cryopreservation in liquid nitrogen at -196˚C.

The team at TECC collect the semen once per month and use it to research elephant genetics. When they are ready to inseminate a female elephant, they pick the male and female pair with the best physical characteristics to produce healthy babies, which helps ensure the population. Sperm is collected from bull elephants “18-30 years of age and not more”. Dr. Maha explains that “elephants are like humans this way. If we collect from old elephants, we don’t get good quality samples” so he seeks out the young pickings.

It’s a messy undertaking, but somebody has to do it. Dr. Maha picks trained veterinary scientists for his team because “some people think it is not clean to do this, that it is a very dirty job. Only a veterinarian can do this and not get upset.” Anyone but a dedicated veterinarian would surely experience some kind of traumatic flashback after regularly masturbating an elephant rectum with their arm. The people on his team care about elephants and the conservation of the species enough to simply look the other way and put science before human perception.

Other forms of elephant masturbation for semen collection are also used. Some scientists have had success with rectal electrostimulation which involves a rectal probe that is inserted into the elephant’s anus and a light shock treatment. A team in Washington has developed an artificial vagina and has trained elephants to use it as a means of collection. Surprisingly, the semen collected in this way shows lower motility, or performance output, than the method of collection used by Dr. Maha and his team. Manual rectal probing seems to be an elephant fetish.

The TECC impregnates only 3-4 female elephants per year due to the incredible length of their menstrual cycles, which can last up to 4 months. The gestation period is 22 months, which has to be annoyingly long for the females, but accounts for the few pregnancies per year that the TECC oversees. While it may seem distasteful to some, the work of Dr. Maha and his team is a valuable contribution to the elephant population and to Thailand itself.

Experiments in Independence

There are no restrictions beyond the ones that we give ourselves. So often when I feel that I cannot do something, it is me who is saying I can’t, not circumstance or the universe. If I say that I cannot wear pink because it looks badly on me, so it is. If I decide that I can wear whatever I want I can.

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Last night I decided to go for hotpot and ice-cream because I really felt like it. Initially, I was going to wait around until some other people arrived back at the hostel, but in truth, I didn’t really want to go with them anyway. It can be incredibly wearisome to have to wait on others, especially a large group, in order to make a decision. At 30 years old, I think it may just be safe to step beyond that. Besides, what is the point of taking a solo journey across to the other side of ones planet if time is to be spent pandering to the desires of a group of people I don’t even know? Something about that seems hopelessly dependent and pathetic. I’m almost certain that I would likely have ended up not having hot pot anyway. So many in the group seem to have come to Thailand to experiment with how much they can pay for boring North American food they can easily eat at home but will have here because they are unwilling to open their minds or palettes.

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So even though hotpot is usually a group kind of meal, I decided to go and have it alone. With my book in had of course.

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It was glorious! I ordered the ingredients I wanted and ate greedily all while noting that I got only a few casual looks from other attendees. They were far to focused on their delicious to care too deeply about my little meal. I took my time and savoured my soup reading bits of my book in between. I then sauntered, full and happy, over to the ice-cream shop for a tasty treat.

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It was such a small thing, but I felt stronger for it. After a month of occasionally moonlighting with the group, growing irritable, and then going on my own – I am flying solo the rest of this trip. I am meeting other solo travellers for the occasional respite, and experiencing what I want to experience, selfish in my concern for the needs of others in a group that is like a baby feeder program. What a refreshing feeling that leaves me feeling proud, oddly. It’s just food.

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It’s not like I haven’t done things here alone before. I have done quite a bit of solo trekking. But somehow I had built up a wall around going for hotpot on my own. I will now say on my own instead of alone. The connotation is so different. It was just me telling myself that this was somehow unacceptable. In actuality, it was a welcome change.

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I suspect that there is much more in my life that I unnecessarily say not to, making barriers for myself that don’t really exist. I see others doing it all the time. I guess I am not immune to the folly.

Racism within ones own race

Racism within ones own race might seem to be a nonsensical concept. Still, it exists as a quiet part of the perception of beauty in the black community. There is a hushed hierarchy that pits light skin against dark, the lighter being held in an esteemed place of admiration. Looking at popular entertainment, fair skinned black women dominate the media spotlight more often than their darker counterparts. Classically, this type of discrimination would be looked at as a marker of institutionalized racism. The blame would fall heavily on the shoulders of the prejudiced views held outside the black community that perpetuate it. However, this is an internalized prejudice shared by the very people it oppresses.

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Facebook has become a staple of youth socialization and identification. It’s rare to find a young person who isn’t heavily enmeshed in its use. It’s appalling to see the number of young black girls who have chosen to reference their light skin tone as part of their online moniker. Type ‘light skin’ into Facebook and you’ll see dozens of young black girls with names like ‘light&sexy1’, ‘lightbarbie’, or just plain ‘light skin- insert name here.’ Lurking under these playful names lives a fear of being identified as unattractive to others. A fear of not living up to the North American standard of beauty that endorses white women with long flowing hair as the ideal. Changing that standard requires pride in one’s race, not acquiescence to the standard rule. Agreeing with the stringent cannon is a form of participating in the discrimination. Prominent African- Americans like the Obama’s or Oprah provide an example to youth of what they can accomplish, but little has changed in reference to the aesthetic identity of the black woman. Lighter skin and longer hair are widely considered to be more desirable than darker skin and an afro.

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In 1940, African- American sociologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark published groundbreaking work from experiments and research they conducted on black youth. Their work figured prominently into the desegregation of schools at the time. Using identical dolls that differed only in their skin tone, they gauged young black children’s perceptions about their race and appearance. The findings were astonishing and at the same time heart breaking. Most of the black children only wanted to play with the white doll, referring to it as “good” and “pretty” while they perceived the black doll to be “bad” and “ugly.” When they were asked which doll was most like them, the majority of the children picked the white. At that time there was no identification between them and the doll coloured in their own tone because they didn’t want to feel negatively about themselves in the way they did about their race. Earlier this year ABC decided to reproduce portions of the experiment to ascertain the potential difference time and progress could make to the results. The male children passed with flying colours choosing both dolls as equally pretty. The girls however, mostly chose the white doll as prettier, though they identified themselves with the black doll. These girls identified with an idea that crushes self esteem.

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Young black women are not trying to discriminate against their own appearances but have instead unwittingly assimilated a powerful prejudiced perception. They are reaching toward what is considered beautiful without realizing the destructive nature of the belief. When it comes to beauty, discrimination is a long standing and acceptable form of judgement. Beauty standards are attuned to the notion of the ideal and easily exclude those who do not fit the bill. This stands whether a person is too fat, too old or too dark. The revered African- American beauties of today are not dark afrocentric representations of blackness, but often very fair, long haired beauties that resemble a Black Barbie doll. Black Barbie is usually a doll that exactly mimics the white version except for the colour of her skin. Her features, hair and body proportions do not represent the way black women look and instead depict a black counterpart that exactly matches the white doll. Recently Wal-Mart has come under heavy criticism for discounting the price of black Barbie dolls in comparison to the white due to a reported lack of sales. The differentiation between the two price points is another example of how beauty standards are perceived. The perception of beauty is based on how close to white the doll is.

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Ideas of beauty that define the enviable aesthetic are produced by popular media. Black women like Beyonce and Halle Berry are often in the spotlight and are well revered for their beauty and so-called exotic looks. However, most of the popular African-American beauties in our culture, like Beyonce, Halle and many others, are very fair and sport long Caucasian looking hair. These are the images that young black women look at when forming their ideas about beauty. As a marker of that, the majority of black women in North America choose to straighten and/or augment their hair with chemical relaxers and extensions in order to appear more acceptably beautiful. The practice of straightening and extending naturally textured black hair is a multi million dollar industry that profits greatly from the prejudice that produced it. The documentary Good Hair which came out in 2009 delves into this practice in an attempt to dissect this apparent wide spread confusion about beauty. ‘Good hair’ is considered to be long, straight, shiny and flowing, while bad hair is anything that reveals the natural texture often referred to as nappy. Many notable black celebrities appear in the film including actor Nia Long who describes the drive to make African-American hair appear more Caucasian as a ‘pressure’ from within the black community to attain a sought after look. Model Melyssa Ford confesses that from an early age “what I looked at as good hair was white hair.” Actor Vanessa Bell Calloway sums it up best saying “you look at the magazines and you want to be that girl.” The black girl in the magazines is rarely a dark skinned beauty sporting natural hair. Instead she is closer to a modified version of white influenced beauty utilized to fit outdated standards.

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Toni Morrison, a renowned black author, addresses this very confusion in her first published novel, The Bluest Eye. Set in the depression era, the lead character a young black girl named Pecola, wishes that she had the blue eyes of a little white girl in order to be received in the same manner. The novel abounds with reference to the racial divide between black and white and even features a light skinned black girl who is a friend of Pecola’s. The light skinned friend often receives the attention and praise which Pecola so desperately seeks. In many ways little has changed from the time of this depiction to now. Gillian, a 13 year old Toronto student who is a light skinned black girl, often feels a sense of envy from her darker friends who identify her as being ‘the pretty one’. Although all of her black friends take great pains to straighten their hair, only the darker ones also seek ways to lighten their skin. One of her friends actually saves her allowance money so she can regularly purchase bottles of a skin lightening cream available at the local drugstore. At 13 years old, these girls are attempting to change their genetics with a series of harsh chemicals designed to seriously alter the hair and even the skin tone. Little or no thought is devoted to the dangerous long term effects of using these chemicals. These processes are hazardous not only to the body but also to the mind. From a young age these girls are training themselves to believe that they need to change their appearance, no matter the cost, in order to be accepted and therein accept themselves.

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There is great room for change across the spectrum of black women’s self identity. Michelle Obama is proving a great role model for young black women and is especially interested in developmental initiatives for youth. Having a black family in the White House goes a long way to bolster the confidence of young black people who view the Obama’s as the embodiment of potential. Canada’s Governor General Michael Jean is also an exemplar of beauty and success for black women and even chooses to wear her naturally textured hair. Popular artists like India Arie and Erykah Badu also provide alternative images in African-American beauty that youth and women alike can look to as a recourse to the standard. Arie’s 2005 song ‘I am not my hair’ is a testament to the fact that some black women are looking at their perceptions about beauty with a more critical eye. There is even a new Barbie out called ‘So In Style Barbie’ that better represents the appearance of a black woman designed by African-American artist Stacey McBride-Irby. The dolls feature a closer depiction of black features to represent a more authentic and accurate image. It has only taken Mattel 50 years of Barbie doll production to approach getting it right.

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The black community’s identification with inferiority when looking at imposition of beauty standards is nothing new. It is however an issue that black women are only beginning to wake up to. In 2005, then teenager Kiri Davis made an eye-opening short documentary about how black girls perceive their appearances entitled A Girl Like Me. The award winning short shed further light on the need for change in regards to the perception that black women have of their beauty as limited. This is an issue that is being visited with increasing frequency and that shows there is hope. For the black women to overcome generations of set perception, the problem first has to be realized. It is a long process that begins from a point of awareness but it is happening. Perhaps in the not too distant future, black women will see and understand their beauty as a point of equality between them and every other race.

Watch Jane Run!

Elephant

Tigers!

More;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15073855@N03/

Frowns all around

Problems

Is it too much to ask for things to go smoothly through one simple passage of life? Even for a week, it would be an overwhelming shock and relief for things to float by on a smooth course. There are so many variables in life that fall outside our control. We can’t control other people’s actions, the natural flow of events or the weather. But wouldn’t it be a lovely treat if for just a few days there were no problems and stop signs flying up in our faces.

It is true that life would be boring if everything simply went free of Newton’s law. If everything we did fell into place in perfect course and flow without any waylays or difficulty. Yes, life is the journey, but what if for just a brief moment life was free of all the jagged edges. It would be like a break, a short vacation for the anxiety in our minds. This current rant is being given life from the person that supplied me incorrect information for my latest story. The fact that she is the head press relations officer for a major government outfit doesn’t seem to stop her from passing out random information as fact for copy release. It’s easy for me to blame myself for not double checking and making positive assumptions about my source. But is there no time that this can be done? If you ask the president when the country’s birthday is, is it so bad to expect a correct answer? This being only my second official story for this magazine, my clear reaction is to be incensed. In my mind I am envisioning an alley way sneak up involving a bat. In reality, I now get to run around trying to reformat a story which is due tomorrow though it was initially done days ago. The gods of ease are not smiling down at me, they are not in my corner. But it always seems this way. Especially when it really counts, we brace ourselves for the monkey wrench to add texture and dimension to an otherwise stable flow.

Some say that the key is personal temperament and peace of mind. It’s all about how you choose to perceive the bumps in the road and how you choose to navigate them. To me, I think this means that you should brain wash yourself into being a permanent version of Mr. Rogers, plastic smile always in place. But of course there is a point to this thinking. Instead of wanting to bash this ladies head into the sidewalk, I should just accept that a mistake has been made and move forward. But like most average humans, I rarely do what I should do and even less often what is good for me. Instead my blood pressure is rising leading to yet another angry rant filled with the violent images playing out in the back of me head. But for chrissake, can’t a girl get a break!?

I want to be a writer. I do not have famous parents, or perfect grammar. I didn’t take the best undergrad course, and I don’t live in a place with a rampant publishing scheme. Nor am I Sarah Palin, who seems to need no logical qualification for anything. I am a girl climbing an uphill battle in a life that seems to make a point of kicking against the pricks. My current prick is the P.R. secretary who is incredibly unlikely to get back to me in a timely fashion. In a developmental scheme, this is a hitch.

This reminds me of when I was on my way back from Florida and my luggage was lost. I really felt that I needed to return to my home after a three week stay in a facility, to at east a day of relaxation. Naturally, what I got was a three day search for my luggage fraught with tension and annoyance. As if to test me new found skills. A break would have been much preferred.

A few deep sighs and some melancholic music is doing the trick just now. It makes me feel like others are wallowing with me, experiencing the same wave of grief stricken irritation that has overtaken my day. Always better together, the world takes a selective sigh. I am not alone. Of course, in reality I am just one insignificant person who is trying to become even a touch more significant and is having a small and solvable problem.

The bigger problem is trying to turn my passion into a career without encountering so many roadblocks that I again, decide to give up and give in to the comfort of my couch. I would rather not let my frustrations get to the point that I end up asking why one too many times. That is the road to quitting and I have just begun.

I will again contact her with increasingly angry email and continue to wait for a reply. In the meantime I brace myself for the next major blow-up… though I think I may have already found it. I just lost a valuable page of my feature to extended content from a more experienced writers much better piece. Mine will be cut down to accommodate his and I will bolster myself later with about 5 drinks. I am smiling on the inside.

This is all a leaning experience. Perhaps I will crutch on a video game instead of 5 glasses of wine. lol

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Jealousy Lousy

Gives way to anger. I want to be a better writer. I want to be a better writer than. I want to be what I am not yet. I am tired of waiting to be better. I want to be better now.

My face always drops when I read his writing. It’s so much better than mine, I think. I’m not sure. He is just as self absorbed and immature as I am but with much more experience at it. I want my own flag that tells me I am good. So few of us actually garner assurance from ourselves. We take it from others and their assessment of our experience. Everyone seems to see me as a baby writer. But I am not a baby, I am 30 years old. I simply haven’t written enough (here cometh blog).

There is one shred of beauty in this sad self pitying diatribe. I can see myself improving. Creeping but with certainty.

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Ugly

When I close my eyes and look into my mind, (a constant and self absorbed tendancy), I see myself chocking and forcefully, painfully throwing up toxic black glue. A small necrolized chunk of my innards surrounded in acidic black tar like goo. That is what it inside of me today. The frustration, the anger, the fear, the doubt that I am facing over the future of my writing career is coming out of me today and I am spewing it with a force that scares me.

I want to smash my lap top. It’s odd because it is my tool. Full of work never backed up and half finished, lately I find that I am growing attached to my laptop, as though it were a person. I have this feeling that is experiencing the cringing frustration that is clearly beginning to eat at me. Sitting here at this intership and looking at the other writers, wondering if I will get there. Black hole sun.

I will channel this into energy. I won’t give up

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4.3

Expectations are the most unintelligent things in the world though they are inspired. I expected things from this trip and from myself. I am learning. I am enjoying. I am sad. I am happy. I am not so different as I am in the regular shingles of my life. What In should have expected was to experiment more. I am experimenting with myself and my limits for accepting myself.

I see how beautiful it is to get away from the judgement of what I am supposed to be, needed to be, in my everyday life. It’s gorgeous and comfy not having so many judgements to live up, (and down) to and from.

The Bender

Speaking on addiction, Ram Dass says that we only make it worse by bashing and punishing ourselves with shame after the act is over and that this only begets a cycle of negativity that ends with more bad behaviour. Well it’s the day after and I am trying not to punish myself anymore. Of course in the back of my mind all I can think is that I’ve been a very bad girl, which is all the more irritating because I am not a girl anymore. Sure, I am no longer running my life into the ground with daily ritualistic substance abuse, but I am still on shaky ground. Having shaky moments and shaky days. Nothing is solid, it’s all a fluid mess of my intentions and my desires. Still, I plan to push forward by refortifying my intentions and for the umpteenth time, attempting to stick to them. The more I observe others, the more I realize this is the human condition.

We all do things that are not good for us for temporal satisfaction. But is that really so bad when nothing is permanent, even life itself? While this reeks of a hippie theory laden excuse, there is some truth here. We as humans are unsure of every moment and are often unsure of our own motivations and even feelings. If something is clearly not good for you why continue doing it? If the result is bad does that not trump the experience? The answer is no, because we live our lives in the journey not the conclusion of our actions. Furthermore, we are animals and are not as intelligent and evolved as we would like to think. Defending chronic addiction isn’t the purpose of this exposition. That is a life ruiner, which I know from past experience. But it is a past experience that I am ever drifting to and from at this point. Although not a ritual addict, I tend to gravitate back to the short-term mind altering experiences of my past with an expectation of enjoyment. And I do enjoy myself, I let go and feel free and then become again trapped in the afterthought –The guilt and discomfort of having done something I previously labelled as wrong. I find myself totally unable to live by the rules of my own theories (this being why they are theories and not truths). Ram Dass would sigh.

I take great comfort in being with like kind. There are thousands of us and we can use each other to justify our potentially stupid behaviours. It eases my guilt to find older people grappling with the same woes as myself (makes me feel less stupid). But then I wonder, is there ever a point of acceptance? I would joy to find a place in which I do not hate myself the next day. That is the beauty of being part of a community of recreationally fun people that alternate between states of pleasure and self loathing. Anything worthwhile is better done together. The community can be co-workers or friends even family, anyone that will share in the bubble of negative self absorption created by a bender.

As I sit here at work, at my desk, I realize that I am actually proud of myself in a twisted way. I am in my own esteem for simply sitting at my desk today and not being crashed out on the floor. I am internally patting myself on the back and using this bolstering to remind myself that I am not a complete loser but a person who remains productive under fire. Real productivity would be accepting my behaviour, as I should be able to look at the last 10 years, note the trend and just work around it. Why must we as humans always want to kick against the pricks and change what is? While I don’t think we should accept our behaviours that are fatalistically destructive, there has to be an understanding of who we are within them. But we don’t operate that way, instead we idealize the image of what the perfect human should be, and go along with that. That human is invariably never bored, never fat and certainly, never drunk. With all the things we are held accountable to and for in our lives it would make sense to ease up when it came to our own inner diatribe. Instead, that is where the bashing is the worst. In dealing with ourselves, it is the instance in which we are most cruel and intolerant.

This goes far beyond the scope of the semi perpetual happy hour. It reaches into every idealization we make as humans. Even when we reach our goals and realize that what was coveted still hasn’t turned us into stars, we continue to set up these schemes of reaching for a sense of perfection in our own minds. In relation to beauty, women are experts at thinking this way. Women will look at others, and think that they look great, but are always able to find fault with themselves. Female self image is a scary thing when you examine it, having been pushed and prodded in every direction and finally reduced to a shade of what it should be. The picture of the perfect woman is unattainable, and usually contorted and airbrushed. Most women know very well that the pictures in magazines are little more than illustrations, so photo-shopped they barely speak to the human they are modeled after. This however, doesn’t stop most women for unwittingly and without wanting to, burying these images deep in the subconscious. It is the same for us all, we have ideas of what perfection is supposed to be and it’s based on standards we didn’t decide upon and barely believe in. This of course does not stop the average person from attempting to follow these standards.

Yes, I am trying to develop this theory right now as a way of alleviating my own guilt. This is what I do, I find ways to alleviate. Real strength is supposed to be facing up to your demons and fears and tackling them head on. The fact that so few of us do that makes me question that idealization as well. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to something better, something outside of the humanity that we know. But would it be so bad to tinge it with some realism as well?

Still, I must admit there is a place for the conscience. Without it, we would be little more than hedonistic wastes, fucking, killing and eating randomly. Humanity requires a semblance of structure in order to survive. Doing only what feels good with no admittance for consequence is likely a dangerous path. Still, there is no forgoing for the need of a bit of ease. It would be intelligent to exculpate ourselves from guilt and forge a balance between conscience and acknowledgement of who and what we are.

I liked this one

This is Buddha fasting

Link to other pics;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15073855@N03/

Stupid girl stay with me

I didn’t expect that I would be less alone. I didn’t expect that I would somehow be less lonely. I just thought that maybe I would handle it differently. I think now, that that is just as silly as the thought that it would be different. Of course it all seemed different for a bit. But then I went ahead and settled into the old me again. The same old me that is always there, not really an old me. I haven’t changed quite yet just my surroundings have. Nothing earth shattering has happened but my surprise at being the same.

I don’t like myself. I realize that. I’m not sure I can expect others to do so. There are so many things about myself I despise and am embarrassed about. With that present it makes it more difficult to navigate any new contacts. And I am crushingly blunt and honest. I’m not good at lying to myself and often don’t see the point in lying to others. This is often a mistake. If I would cover myself more less to dislike would be seen.

I’m not sure what it was within me that made me decide to come here. I know I wanted something much more than an internship. Either something I lost or something I needed to discover. I think deep down I thought I would be different here because it is such a new place. But ever so sadly it is still me. Except I can’t remember what I loved. Oops

I think that his decision to not like me back has reminded me of all the bad things in life. And it has reminded me that I don’t know what I want or why I do things. Somehow, it sucked all the light out. Somehow the darkness came here with me. I haven’t felt so unimportant in some time. And I cannot forget. I’m not sure I even want to. I have sold myself on a concept I don’t even understand.

Travel Thailand Time

It looks like downpour but the sun in just obscured…

I’ve been reading a lot about living in the now. Nothing like a 16 hour flight to help you do that. I have become acutely aware of my surroundings and my physicality while cramped in this small space. I can barely think, much less sit with the future or the past. All there is, is the now. And a subconscious desire to stretch. Finally, I can see the benefit and point of spending extra on first-class.

I took a few moments during this flight to draw out of my body and look at myself, twisted and pretzel trying to sleep. Kind of watching myself from the outside. I am flying across the ocean. I am flying across the world. I am flying from night to day. What did I leave behind? What part of me didn’t make the journey? The familiar is thousands of miles away, and I am left with the unknown. Notably, there are things that I am hoping to leave behind, things I don’t want to retrieve on my way back home in two months. And things I bet I will want to keep from this trip, tucked away safely inside of me… I am getting ahead of myself. I don’t need to worry about parasites for two months. I have been a bit afraid and tense all day. That is the adventure, accepting the unknown.

I love waterslides. I honestly think they are the most fun in the world. When I slide down a water slide there is noting but the joy and exhilaration of that moment. But I can’t ever seem to carry that forward. I cant seem to take that shaky clarity forward. I want this trip to be a waterslide. I want it to be a long experience of bliss. I don’t expect every moment to be awesome. I expect myself to take it all in as an exciting series of moments

Really, I should expect nothing and simply accept If I want it to be bliss. I just want it to be. How’s that?

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--I wrote an article this week about travelling. I am hoping to edit it and publish it at some point--

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Article I wrote about Travel

Travel is a form of escapism, a way to subvert routine reality and break out of the bubble like confines of life. While the motivations behind exotic travel can seem very personal differing from one traveller to the next, there is a common denominator in the desire to get away. Adventurous voyagers often feel suffocated within the construct of their environment and seek out new locales to explore new forms of personal self expression. Resort tourists are after relaxation and the pampered comfort of controlled exploration. Jet-setting flyers are looking for excitement and a way to connect with and learn about a new culture. Wayfaring expatriates try to fulfill a deeply rooted fantasy of a different kind of life. All of the above in one form or the other are seeking to vacation from their own minds; they are looking for a way to take a breather from the self.

When on vacation, we dress differently, try new things and go to new and foreign places. This is all in an attempt to change the reactions and perceptions that form our ideas about who we really are. Everyday life is filled with expectations and judgements about how to act, what to do and who to be. We are all well aware of the social and cultural norms that govern the people we have become. There is a specific way we are supposed to react or to present ourselves in any given situation. When we are at home in our environment we know all too well what those reactions and presentations are expected to be. Travelling allows for the opportunity to rediscover how we choose to package ourselves based on different cultural and social rules. It provides a way to escape from the otherwise routine yet random assortment of everyday thought. It’s easier to act out in a place where no one knows your name or your employers. Going to a new place can be like a rebirth, discovering ideas and making decisions all over again, as if for the first time. Long term travel is an opportunity to become more deeply immersed in a fresh way of perceiving the world and oneself, perhaps through an unseasoned eye. Simply transporting yourself from one place to the next isn’t a ticket to sudden enlightenment. Yet it can provide the opportunity to escape from the cultural filters that define the way knowledge is perceived. People don’t travel to find the self but to clear the baggage that obscures what is already there.

When we are children, everyday is a new journey experiencing many feelings and thoughts for the first time. Once we have lived for a while, very little seems new and often even less seems truly interesting. We feel that we have done it all, and that the outcomes have become predictable. We become bored soothsayers in our own lives, easily foretelling the routines and results that make up our daily lives. While we do entertain ourselves, little happens that has any possibility of forming new synaptic pathways in the brain. To most, vacation seems to be a temporary way out of this rut. For the expatriate however, those feelings of boredom are akin to a slow death. They view their environments as a part of a long suffering which robs them of the forgotten blissful feeling of childhood discovery. Here we speak about expatriates who have embraced withdrawal from their home environment, not the ones who are simply shoved or promoted elsewhere by their employers. Eager expats have a specific place they desire to go to and a specific set of ideals about that place. They want to extend the vacation indefinitely to match the fantasy they have in their minds about themselves. Weather they see themselves as exotic trekkers exploring some outback, or socialite city dwellers, they see them selves as someone other than the person they are in their current environment. Expats envision themselves as being trapped in places that can never adhere to their ideals in the same way a dream can. This is likely part of the reason that many expatriates fail, especially those from North America. Reality rarely lives up to or exceeds fantasy and when the honeymoon period is over expats often realize that their chosen place has many of the same problems as their former home. They begin to see, after a time, that they too have many of the same problems because they are the same person. Changing locales can shake up the ego, but it takes much more too fully root it up.

Before the industrial revolution, migration was a matter of necessity. Humans only moved around for reasons of safety, commerce or conquest. Technological changes of the mechanized age introduced the ability to vacation, an idea based in desire. It’s easy to simply point, click and arrange to go anywhere with comfortable and pleasing accommodation. Yet many humans still exhibit the same innate fight or flight desires that we did in times past. To satisfy the urge to explore and conquer, extreme adventure style holidays have become increasingly popular. People climb mountains, camping overnight on tiny ledges thousands of feet up. Groups trek through the wild in search of campgrounds and fresh water. Even arctic expeditions have become respites of fun and fodder. These tourists are looking for a different aspect of humanity that has become obsolete. They are investigating a temporary return to the survival of the fittest, the need to experience the world Viking style. In truth there are no undiscovered lands left, but buying real-estate simply cannot satisfy this kind of urge in the way extreme trekking can. Although there are no unmapped territories left to discover, there is always room to house new knowledge and experience in the mind. Modern life has become exceedingly simple and sedate. It can be absurdly refreshing to sample even a modicum of what it is like to use the physical body and the mind to survive. There is no question that it is more comfortable to sleep in a bed than on a desert floor, but the challenge of the desert can fend of the atrophy of the mind habitual life inspires.

Of course there are also those who don’t want travel. Not people who cannot afford the time or money to do so, but the people who aren’t happy to temporarily escape the idea of home. They are the people who exchange wanderlust with the desire to know exactly what’s coming up and use that knowing to gain a sense of comfort. They are the people who imagine that they understand what they need to know about the world, others and themselves and can learn that information at home if it be otherwise. They could well be right. It is possible to change the way you think and what you do without ever leaving your doorstep. It is possible to break away from the familiar even in a place you think you understand. It’s not inconceivable to be content looking into the same horizon each day. But most of us do not have the inner fortitude to change or to settle our minds about life by simply staying stationary. Dropping yourself in a completely new surrounding is a fairly easy way of changing a dim light bulb in the mind to brighten the outlook. A trip or even a permanent move won’t swap your brain out for a fresh model, but there is always a hope that the temporary change will inspire something to carry forward. Even a few fresh memories can help to move out the stale.

I’ve decided to take a short leave from my life; my own temporary disappearing act from the ordinary and mundane triviality that rules my everyday. After years spent dreaming of exotic cultures and new locales I’m finally heading to Thailand for two months. I will miss my partner, my friends and my family. I am missing the chance to complete two well needed summer school credits. I will sorely miss my dog. Hopefully, I will also miss the parts of me that I’m tired of living with, at least for a short while. When I imagine my getaway, (naturally a trip this long in the making is mired with sentimental fantasy), I imagine myself in flowy white tunics and sunhats fearlessly navigating Bangkok. I feel exhilarated and am impressed by my own adaptability and acquiescence. In the back of my mind I know I’ll be roasting away in wilted t-shirts and my even suffer a touch of culture shock. I expect the reality of the trip will land somewhere between my dream like ideal and my dread. Still, I would love to look in the mirror and see a different light in my eyes. For a brief moment, I am hoping to shed the construct of my self- image which I am becoming weary of preserving. Even if only for two months.