can we love anyone?

So, everyone who knows me, knows that I am a bit of a TV junky. I have my tried and true favourites that I simply can't miss (ALIAS, LOST), my faves that I can watch in re-runs for the rest of my life and still not get tired of them (Seinfeld, Sex and the City), more recent complete mind-numbing obsessions with deep, slightly ridiculous emotional ties to characters (Six Feet Under), and even a couple of guilty pleasures, mostly reality-based (Rock Star INXS, Canadian Idol (I have been known to vote), Survivor). Since I have been unemployed, I have been discovering all sorts of new television programs that have captivated my attention. One of these has been Starting Over. It's a reality show that situates several women in the same house where they begin self-help projects in order to overcome emotional and psychological dilemmas. I know what you're all thinking, Jenn's cracked up, but it's really good! I was skeptical at first, but once I started watching I was hooked: I wanted to know what steps were next for these women, how they were progressing, and whether they would be able to truly change their lives. I also enjoy watching because I can find bits of myself in a lot of the women I watch, and I like to see what self-help exercises they are encouraged to do, so I can see if that is something I, too, could learn from.

So, I was watching this for most of the summer, and this one woman in particular, Layne, was really striking home with me. She was looking for the "perfect man"… Mr. Right. She had a very stringent set of criteria by which she would measure men she met to help her determine whether she would be interested in continuing to spend time with them. The list was quite extensive, and involved physical, spiritual, emotional and psychological criteria. Two things stuck in my mind from watching her work through the issues she had surrounding men: One was the idea that she wanted to "be married", but she didn't have a specific target for that desire in the form of an actual person. The other was the idea that you could really fall in love with just about anyone, as long as you choose to love that person.

The wanting to be married thing is really pervasive for women. Most women will say that they would like to "be married one day", and idealize the notion of marriage – what it will be like, look like, feel like, to be married IN GENERAL…. not to one person in particular, but to be the wife of a faceless non-entity. The role of "wife" seems to be one that can easily be imagined by many women without the benefit of an actual husband!

I admit this is a concept that I have fallen prey to. I still have romanticized notions about marriage, and what it would be like to be married…. to someone, someone I obviously haven't met yet. I can picture in my mind's eye what it would be like to be in that scene, to know that I am a wife. Of course, the romanticized version does not include any of the unfortunate circumstances many women find themselves in today: domestic abuse, spousal rape, emotional neglect and abuse, marital infidelity, finding out terrible things about your husband (porn addictions, alcohol or drug abuse, gambling addictions, pedophilia, homosexuality, eg.). No, the romanticized version always has me smiling, happy to be a "wife", secure in knowing that someone has promised to love me forever.

As I have examined this mental picture of social conditioning, I have come to see how silly it is to want to be in an intimate relationship without actually having someone in mind to be a partner. I think it's one thing to want to marry the person you love, the person you have been with for some time, etc. But to just plain want to be married? doesn't make much sense. So, this is something I am working through on my own: I now am reframing my conceptions concerning marriage, so that I now believe that I don't know whether or not I want to be married, because I have not met someone appropriate to whom I would like to be married. It is also forcing me to reframe marriage and the role of "wife" that has been socially constructed for me, and most women, from an early age. I know that I want to be me; just me, in all the various roles I may inhabit in life. If one day, I become someone's wife, I will not cease to be me and start to become "wife", but I will be a "wife" in whatever way is most authentic for me.

The second idea, that a person can fall in love with most anyone, is much more difficult for me to grasp. I too, like Layne, have ideas of the "perfect man". I too have an extensive list of qualities I think would be important for the person I fall in love with to possess. I have thought of this as a good idea: having standards is a good thing! There's not point in "settling" for someone who has qualities that drive you nuts, or that just don't jive with your sense of the good life. However, there is a conflict of underlying concepts here: waht about the idea that LOVE is something that happens to you, that it is a force outside of you, something magical and mysterious, something that you "fall" into, a force stronger than you, that "you can't help who you love"? The notion of fate, I suppose: soul mates who must be fated to meet, whose destiny is written in the stars. I would argue that this conception of love is widely accepted by most people. This whole idea of having a list of qualities is in direct conflict with this notion of love as an uncontrollable force: either you can choose who you love, or you cannot. It seems quite clear to me that it IS possible to choose the recipient of one's love; people make these sorts of choices all the time. This takes the power away from love, in a way, and puts it in our hands.

 

If you take away this idea, that love is a force outside of you, then you are left with the only other possiblity: that love is actually inside of you. And if it is inside of you, and has been all this time, then it is not sensible to be waiting for love to find you. All that is constructed on the concept of love being something that happens to you crumbles when you look at love in a different way. If love is inside me, then I already have it; it's just a matter of expressing it. And really, is there a wrong way to express love? (Aside from stalking….) if we begin to think of LOVE as a VERB, an active word rather than a passive noun, a thing, then LOVE takes on a whole new meaning. Since I have LOVE, it is inside of me, it is only a matter of CHOOSING to express it to someone in an active way. And really, this opens up the door of potentiality for anyone to be the recipient of my love, so long as I choose it.

This is still a concept I am working with, this idea that I could potentially LOVE anyone. I'm still working with this notion in light of particular preferences I have for specific qualities in people. But it is an enlightening idea… could I really love anyone?

Read Full Post »

limitations

I saw an old friend the other day. We met several years ago, and despite various circumstances, we always stayed in touch. We always used to have great talks, good discussions. He is one person who sees the world in a similar way to the way I see do, and so our chats always end up on the same note, the same page, or in a similar way. He had been away in a foreign country for a long time, and we hadn't seen each other in quite a while, so we had lots to catch up on. What we mainly talked about was how we felt we had changed in response to things that had happened in our lives during that span of time. It was fun to find out we had both learned similar lessons, and had both changed in similar ways.

 

One thing that kept coming up in our chat was the way we had overcome various limitations that we felt had constrained us in the past, how patterns of behaviour keep on cropping up, and how difficult it sometimes could be to succumb to the old ways of thinking or doing things. For him, he was able to sustain some major changes while he was away from his friends and family, and he was very pleased about that. Now that he is back home, certain pressures to conform to the old idea of who he was and how he acted are coming up all the time. I found this was true for me, as well, when I came back home from only a few short months of living away. I had made changes that I was happy with, and when I returned, it was very easy to revert back to old habits. For example, both of us, when we lived away from home, were very active and fit. When we came back, we stopped working out. Why? Because when we lived here, we were not active and fit, and so it's easy to revert back to the old familiar life.

 

The main thing we agreed on in regard to limitations was that most often, nobody hold us back but us. If you think of something that you have "always wanted to do", but haven't yet done, 9 times out of 10, the reason you haven't done it is because you haven't allowed yourself. It's not that somebody else is preventing you from doing that thing – it's you! So, then, the question becomes: do you truly want it? If you haven't allowed yourself to accomplish that thing, why not? Do you really want it, truly? Or are you perhaps afraid of what will happen if you actually do it?

 

I have discovered a limitation of my own, or rather, I have rediscovered a limitation that I have always had. I enrolled in a class this year that I thought would be difficult but interesting: philosophy of biology. Difficult, because I do not have an affinity for science, and I didn't study even the basics of any science in high school, which was 11 years ago. Interesting, mainly because of the philosophy of Darwin. Anyway, I went to my first class the other day, and I was completely overwhelmed. It was a two hour lecture, which didn't help, but I felt like I couldn't keep up at all. My head hurt by the end of the lecture. I went home dejected. I started the readings for next week. By the third sentence, my mind was wandering and I had that headache again. I was disappointed in myself. When I signed up, I really felt as though I could do it; I could take this course and do well, and learn a lot and enjoy it. After the first day, I realized that was a pipe dream. There was no way I was going to be able to write knowledgeably about biology – NO WAY! So, this seemed to me to be a natural limitation. But, it's not, really. I could, if I so chose, study really hard, read additional text books, talk to people who know lots about biology, get extra help from the prof or TA, study with a partner, etc. However, I am making the decision not to do that, because it just isn't that important to me. I dropped the class and transferred into one I know I will do well in – philosophy of language.

 

I hold myself back in all sorts of ways. I prevent myself from being as creative and artistic as I think I could be, and want to be. Nobody is stopping me from playing piano everyday, or painting, or writing stories. Just me. I prevent myself from being as active and fit as I want to be. Nobody keeps me from working out, or doing yoga, or going running, or lifting weights. Just me. I prevent myself from doing all sorts of things that I would love to do, like travel, buy a home, be debt-free, learn a language. I just don't do it! But I am slowly getting there, breaking down the limitations I have set up for myself. After all, I always wanted to study philosophy, and look at me now! It just requires the right amount of energy and dedication, and I know I will be able to do all the things I want to do in life, one limitation at a time.

Read Full Post »

epiphanies and defining myself

I started back to school at the end of last week. Because I am now taking the bus to Halifax daily rather than driving, I arrived about 20 minutes early for my first class (which is good, because usually when I drive, I leave too late and sort of think my car is magic and will get me there much faster than it really does, so I end up late for class most times). Since I was early, I decided to take a few minutes to myself, to get centred for the day. I found a nice little spot outside, and I began to think. It ended up being an epiphanous moment. Here's what I came up with:

It's kind of neat to discover myself here, now. If someone had asked a few years ago what I would expect to be doing at this point in my life, I would have given the usual answers: married, maybe kids, settled into a career, house, etc. I wouldn't have thought I would be single and unattached, or that I wouldn't have the slightest interest in motherhood. I wouldn't have guessed I would have made poor financial decisions that would have left me struggling to pay bills. I wouldn't have guessed I would be unemployed. I wouldn't have guessed I would be on the brink of leaving a 10 year long career. I wouldn't have guessed I would still be living in the same city. I wouldn't have guessed that I would have started and sold a moderately successful business. I wouldn't have thought I would be a student again, and loving the depth of insight it would bring me. It's so interesting to see the people who have come in and out of my life, and how those who have remained constant have also changed and developed. It's neat to find how my moral and religious beliefs have changed. I wouldn't have guessed that my life would follow a path that would turn back on itself.

It's interesting that I have never pushed myself in certain directions, either physically or intellectually. I am ruled more by my emotions that by my reason, despite being capable of reason and intellectual pursuits. Things happen in my mind mostly as a result of how things make me feel. I find this fascinating. If I had never experienced professional boredom, I may not have been led to return to school. If I had not been emotionally affected by world events such as 9/11 and the war on Iraq, I may not have been led to the political beliefs I hold. If I had not been negatively emotionally impacted by my former business partner, I might have stayed, and still be a business owner. If I had not been emotionally impacted by my experiences in the baptist church, I might still believe in god. My thought processes are almost entirely in response to or based on how I feel about things going on around me. How fascinating!

I am finding my own way, and in my own time. I am who I am, and I do what feels right to me. I am not to be rushed in this life. No one can push me or coerce me into being or doing certain things. Things happen within me in their own time. To truly learn the lessons I am presented with, to internalize them, they must be natural processes – natural to ME.

I'm more and more like my astrological sign all the time: the crab. Just like a crab, I need time and space to come out of my shell. Just like a crab, if you poke at me I will hide, and if you poke at me persistently enough, I'll snap off your fingers with my pinchers! Just like a crab, I am soft and tender under my shell, but you have to be willing to break through it to get to the good stuff. Just like a crab, I hide in the sand until trouble blows over. Just like a crab, I carry my home on my back and can be at home anywhere in the world. Just like a crab, I sidestep around obstacles in the most interesting ways. Just like a crab, I am a delicacy – if you can catch me!

I love the process I am undergoing, of learning more and more about who I am. Sometimes this involves finding out how others view me; sometimes it's more about finding new things about myself, on my own. Sometimes it's all about admitting things about myself, to myself and others. Sometimes, it's about finding things out about the world in which I live, and what hurts me and what makes me happy about that world. I am finding my way, each day, in my own way, in my own time. And that feels wonderful!

Read Full Post »

does luck exist?

I wonder if there is such a thing as "luck". Do things just happen to us? Do things happen as a result of what we put out there in the world? Or do things happen according to arbitrary rules of what we have come to know as luck? Does the philosophical/religious idea of karma come into play with our ideas of luck? Do we get what we deserve, or do we get what we get according to chance?

 

I know two people, brother and sister. They are about as different as can be; the brother is moody, a bit dark, irresponsible, cynical, arrogant and immature. The sister is very even-keeled, bright and cheerful, very responsible, always gives the benefit of the doubt, modest, mature. The sister is the single most lucky person I know. She wins every contest she enters, finds money, and generally has an easy time of life. The brother has incredibly terrible luck – he has had more car accidents than anyone I know, most of which were not caused by him, and has a difficult time in most of his dealings. Although it is clear that the brother doesn't make good choices, and doesn't treat others as well as he could, which would lead to him having a more difficult time in life, I can't explain the sister's good luck as easily. She does make good choices, choices that allow her steadiness and constancy in her life. She usually thinks things through carefully before she does anything. But yet, it seems that even her mistakes turn out well, good things happen in her life that she did not plan, and people respond to her with good humour and warmth no matter what the circumstance. How is it that this is the case?

 

I do lean towards an idea of karma, that one good turn deserves another, and that the energy one puts out in the world comes back eventually. I have no proof of this, but my moral system is one of merit, and I like to think that we are responsible for what we do in life, good or bad. In this system, good deeds are rewarded in some way, and bad deeds punished. (That said, I also believe in second chances and redemption.) If I do something bad to someone else, I deserve to have something bad happen to me in return. Likewise, if I am a good person, I do not deserve to have bad things happen in my life. However, this is not always the case. I like to think I am a good person, kind and generous, helpful to others, conscientious and caring. But I've had a whole lot of bad things happen over the past three years or so that have made life more difficult and unpleasant. Have I done anything to deserve these things that have taken place? No. But yet, they have happened. Do I have bad luck? Or another possibility: are these things lessons that must be learned?

 

I'd like to open this up for comment. What do you guys think? Is there such a thing as luck? Or do we merely earn our desserts?

Read Full Post »

fairy tales

I was watching a popular TV talk show today (the one hosted by the most famous black woman in the world) and she had a celebrity guest on (the only daughter of an insanely popular, dead male musician, perhaps the most beloved rock and roll singer of all time whose former home is now a tourist attraction). This guest was asked about her brief marriage to an also very famous musician who I believe is a child molester, and whose music I have boycotted for several years based on that belief. The question posed to this woman, who has her father's droopy eyes and curling lip, was "Do you think he loved you?" She didn't know how to answer that, and so the question was rephrased: "Do you think he loved you as much as he knew how?" It was THAT question that really got me thinking.

 

I think that love is a fairy tale. Society has spent many years, and many millions of dollars in movie production, crafting a mythical ideal of what love should be, how it should taste and smell and look and talk. We are conditioned to believe that love means your whole life stops, and you never have another thought that doesn't include the other person, the object of your affection; we are supposed to fall in love and not be able to breathe, think straight, or spend another night alone. Life is supposed to be blissful, and nothing bad ever really happens as long as you still have that person in your life. I think that is a load of crap. I'm not sure that anyone can ever reach this ideal.

 

We are all changing, all the time. We learn new things and develop our minds, go through deeply influential experiences, and we change as a result. When you take two people who are in a relationship, you have two people who are changing all the time, not necessarily at the same rate, and not necessarily in the same direction. Perhaps some of these changes are shared, but some most definitely are not. The idea of commitment to one person for the whole rest of your life is something not to be done lightly. Don't get me wrong, I think it can be done and I think it can work, but I also think that is rare. I have two friends who I think are a great example of this; they have decided on a conscious level to stay together and keep loving each other, and by making it a priority in their lives, I have complete faith that their relationship will endure.

 

Back to the question that started this whole inner dialogue: "Do you think he loved you as much as he knew how?" It's a question that I hear a lot when relationships end and we sit, dissecting the relationship into fragments, trying to find the exact moment when things went awry. The answer this famous daughter gave was yes. She thought the pedophile did indeed love her as much as he could at the time they were married. (Me, I'm not so sure, but hey, I wasn't there.) The reason this question awoke this thought process in me is because I'm not sure that any more can really be asked of a person. I think most people who are in romantic relationships (and by this I mean relatively traditional relationships, not these modern friends-with-benefits relationships) love the person they are with ONLY as much as (or less than) they can, as much as they know how. Certainly people hold back and give less than they could in many circumstances, and do horrible things to one another and use one another and hurt one another. But how can you ask someone to love you MORE than they are able? I think the questions to ask are: "Did he love you in the same way you loved him?" and "Was the way in which he loved you enough for you?"

 

I have spent a lot of time dissecting a particular relationship I had that ended some time ago. I am absolutely certain that he loved me as much as he was able. I have no doubt of that in my mind whatsoever. I also know that he did not love me in the same way I loved him. I loved him more. For years, I tried to push him into loving me MORE, so things were even. But, he couldn't. He already loved me as much as he could. And so, the way he loved me was not enough for me. We both knew it. And so it could not survive.

 

I think this is the way it is in relationships. People love each other as much as they can, and hopefully, it will be equal enough, or it will be good enough, for both of them. I don't think it works to ask more of someone. I think it makes things harder. In some cases, it makes things impossible. Despite all of this, I am still a romantic at heart. I guess I just have a different idea of what that means than most people.

Read Full Post »

body/mind

I have always felt that my mind was the most important thing about my identity. Perhaps it comes from a childhood spent primarily within my own imagination. Perhaps it comes from an upbringing that did not focus on physicality, but on intellectual development. I was never gifted with talent for sports, but I was always smart. I was just terrible at most sports: I couldn't run very fast or very far, I couldn't kick very hard, I couldn't jump very high, I couldn't hit any ball that came my way. I was in swimming, and I did well at that. But that was all!

 

My family was never very physically affectionate; hugs and kisses were not part of day to day life, and I don't think I was a very cuddly child. As I grew, I wasn't happy with my body; I was always the tallest kid in my classes, and I hated it, so I slouched to make myself shorter. I was also a child who was always a bit chubby, and it took a long time for that baby fat to dissipate. When puberty hit, because my skin is so light and my hair is so dark, I hated the hair on my legs and under my arms because it was so obvious. I was always told that I was a pretty child, but I never really believed it. In many ways, I learned to work with what I had, hide what I didn't like, and to focus on other things, not physical, but intellectual. I learned to develop my mind and my personality instead of my body. I was never very "in tune" with my body, working hard to the point of ignoring pain and fatigue, not recognizing signs of illness, and not nourishing myself properly. I ignored and denied my body.

 

The one thing I could count on was my mind. I was always able to grasp things quickly as a child, and redeliver information on tests very well. I could memorize things and remember things very quickly. Not all subjects came easily at all times, and I realize now that the learning environment for each subject needed to be supportive and stimulating for me to be able to learn effectively, but for the most part, I excelled academically. As a result of this ease of mental process and the difficulty of physical process, I came to focus more on my intellect, and look at my mind as separate from my body. I came to believe that my body was only a shell, only a carrier for my mind and my spirit, that it was unimportant and inconsequential. This view has been extremely useful to me. I have been able to put myself in other people's shoes, to feel compassion for others. I have been able to connect with other people on this basis, and it has fueled my absolute belief in equality because I was able to see everyone else as more than their bodies, as beings with unique minds and souls and identities with hopes and dreams and goals.

 

It is only recently that I have begun to respect and cherish my own embodiment. Without my body, there would be no mind. I still feel that my mind is most important and valuable to me, but I have come to see my body as an important part of who I am. In fact, when I look back at my childhood, I have come to see that perhaps my unsuccessful attempts at sports were not only lack of talent. I was good at swimming, I had good lungs and endurance, so there's not reason to think that I wouldn't be good at running if I developed that. I had terrible eyesight as a child which I ignored until grade 7, so no wonder I couldn't hit or catch any sorts of sporting balls – I couldn't see them until they were on top of me!

 

So, finally, I am beginning to make peace with my body, and accept it as a vital part of who I am. It is how people recognize me, it is how I am able to transport my mind from place to place, I use it to make my living, and I need my body to keep my mind active. I have come to see my body as integral to my identity, and now I am making efforts to take better care of my body. My hope is that as I work towards better health and fitness, it will help my mental and intellectual development, and that I will really love taking care of my body and enjoy doing things I couldn't do before. As I exercise and tune my body, I am also finding mental clarity.

Read Full Post »

what I believe…

Lately, I've been considering my beliefs. I thought to myself the other day, "I don't believe in anything," but that's not quite true. I do believe in lots of things. I realize that, to be more accurate, I don't have a specific belief in one particular religion or philosophy. In this discussion, to be clear, if something has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, one cannot BELIEVE in it; it simply IS SO. One cannot BELIEVE in a FACT. (I don't believe the earth is round, I know that it is so.) A belief involves faith, without evidence. A belief in a thing could easily be countered by another belief in its exact opposite – and neither thing can be shown to be true.

As a philosophy student, I am constantly forced to examine difficult issues, some moral, some psychological, some metaphysical. One might think this would lead to a firm set of beliefs. One would, however, be wrong. I find it difficult sometimes, after examining all the arguments involved in an issue, to come down firmly and clearly on one side or the other (or the other). Sometimes I find it easy to decide on a position, based on beliefs that I already hold and have stood up against other issues with some consistency.

I have come to see that most of the beliefs I have are based on one of two things: evidence, or logic. For example, I believe in the existence of "aleins". I believe that there are extra-terrestrial beings out there somewhere. Why do I hold this opinion? No conclusive evidence exists to support this idea, but in my mind, it is simply logical that somewhere else in our bigger-than-we-can-imagine universe, there is at least one other planet on which there is some form of life. Just makes sense to me.

There are other intangible things in which I believe – moral principles. I believe in freedom, equality and justice. I believe in honesty, respect, responsibility and compassion. I believe it is best to live one's life according to these principles, among others. I believe it is wrong to judge other people, and I believe it is wrong to do things to deliberately hurt others. There are also certain theories I ascribe to, such as forms of pacifism and utlitarianism. These beliefs help to form my opinions on several issues, such as the american "war on terror", the property rights of First Nations people, same-sex marriage, and abortion. (Bad, bad, evil idea, terrible abuse of power that has not been amended by any stretch of the imagination, so obvious it seems silly that people argue about it, and every woman has a right to have the option to choose it, respectively.)

This could be referred to as a set of beliefs, linguistically, but they do not quite fit my definition. There is evidence that the world operates better under moral rules such as freedom, equality, justice, honesty, respect, responsibility and compassion. Our laws certainly reflect these ideas, and more people seem happier and have better qualities of life when these ideas are upheld. So, to me, these principles come a bit closer to fact than to belief, although I'm sure some do not live their lives according to these principles and will disagree. At best, they are values, principles to which I firmly ascribe that give me a moral framework for moving about in the world. However, none of these values make it any easier for me to decide on major, metaphysical questions, such as what happens when we die. This is where I have difficulty. Nobody can conclusively tell me what it is like after death, if consciousness continues, if there is a spiritual "place" that our "souls" go to reside. There is no evidence. There is only belief.

So, this is where I have trouble. I was raised in the christian baptist religion, but it fights with my sense of logic – lots of things just don't make sense to me, and these things are not exclusive to baptist faith, but run common throughout all christian theology. For that same reason, I cannot ascribe to other major religions, such as judaism or islam. The theory of reincarnation makes sense to me, but yet I cannot put my foot firmly down on it, and so I cannot ascribe to either buddhism or hinduism, nor any other religion that uses reincarnation heavily in its moral theory. The idea of one all-powerful god does not appeal to me, and neither does the idea of several gods.

And so, I remain unsure and undevoted. It is the one area of my life in which I feel at odds, and no amount of reading or research into other theological schools seems to help. The religious idea I can come closest to ascribing to is classical Taoism, but lots of forms of Taoism do not make sense to me either. In any case, it is a struggle for me that has been going on most of my life, despite any activity in christianity in which I have participated. I don't feel I am any closer to answers, but I do feel that it is something that needs resolution. I am not sure about the existence of "soul", but if I have one, I'd like it to be at peace with this before death comes knocking.

Read Full Post »

what do you do?

We live in a modern age, or rather, a post-modern age. We live in an age of creation, innovation, and technology. We live in an age of multi-tasking. We live in an age where money talks and nothing else can be heard, where time is money and money means time – more time to do what we really find fulfilling. We live in an age of exuberant consumerism, of "retail therapy", where purchasing "stuff" can make things seem better when we are having a bad day.

All of this amounts to workaholism. Everyone has it, like a contagious disease that spreads easily through the television and computer screens, through wireless connetions and the water we drink. We are bombarded with beautiful things, everywhere we turn, and we must have them. We must have them if Joe and Sally have them, and ours must be better and faster and more beautiful. This means we must work hard to get these beautiful things, and to be able to maintain them. But too often, the work does not satisfy the soul. Perhaps we believe the thing we would truly be fulfilled by would not be a feasible and lucrative career option. Perhaps we believe what fulfills us can't possibly be met in a job. Perhaps we don't believe in ourselves enough to follow our hearts to fulfillment. In any case, many of us stay tied to careers and jobs because we have a lot invested in them: years of education that would be lost, years of clawing up the ladder, years of kissing the boss' ass, years of membership in a society or union, years we have sacrificed things we enjoy to work overtime in order to advance more quickly, years we have spent honing our skills. Years. We think we can pay them forward: we work our asses off so that in a few years' time, we can take an extra week of vacation, or we will finally be able to take that parental leave without financial hardship, or be able to buy that home, or be able to call the shots. Years.

It reminds me of that opening line of that terrible afternoon soap opera: "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives". Time pushes us forward. If we think of the years we "invest" in unsatisfying careers in terms of years of enjoyment lost, things look quite different. Every year we spend doing something that is not emotionally or spiritually fulfilling, is a year lost to us, that we could have been spending doing the things that make us happy: travelling, learning, making art, playing sports, playing music, writing, doing yoga every morning, baking, gardening, hiking, raising children, making love.

In an age that defines us by our jobs, it is my suggestion that we stop spending 8-14 hours of each day in a place where we do things that do not fulfill us, and that we stop defining ourselves by our job title. I challenge myself and everyone who might read this to answer in a different way the next time someone asks "What do you do?" Answer by telling them what it is that you do that makes your heart sing and your spirit dance. Refuse to be limited by your job. Tell them you go to art galleries and museums and reflect on what speaks to you. Tell them you tuck your kids in each night and read them a story. Tell them you kayak and surf. Tell them you bake the best chocolate chip cookies they have ever tasted. Tell them you go to bars and dance to live music. Tell them you make jewellery. Tell them you run and do 300 crunches a day. Tell them you read voraciously. Tell them you write poetry. Tell them you review movies. Tell them you make children laugh.

We have allowed our jobs to control our lives for too long. We spend too much time at it every day not to be fulfilled by our work, just so we can go to the store and buy more stuff that sits in our home while we sit at our office; stuff that will never fill the void or make us happy. Next time someone asks you what you do, answer that you dance by moonlight around campfires to music your friend makes on his guitar – or something equally joyful that makes your spirit sing!

Read Full Post »

Time Rebellion

Today I started my day an hour earlier. I am amazed at how much more time this seems to give me. I was up and out of the house before 9 today (I had an appointment), and now it is 11 and I feel as though I've been up for hours and hours! So I have decided that I am going to get up earlier all the time now. I feel like I could get so much more stuff done.

 

Time is a valuable thing, often wasted and squandered as though there would always be more to come. Time is kind of a mind-boggler for me. I have trouble thinking in terms of infinities. Time is also an invention, and so that is kind of weird as well, because it is and it isn't… it's something that is there, but someone actually named it, claimed it, put a purpose to it. It's hard to think about life without time, because we are always so structured around it: what time I will be at a certain place, what time I will leave, how much time it takes me to get from my home to the place I have promised to be. How old I am. (29 and 2 weeks) How fast the seasons go by. How fast the years go by. Time is inescapable and irreversible; you can't get it back once it's gone.

 

So how can I be more mindful of my time? I have always kind of liked not wearing a watch, not caring what time it was, and going by my own rhythm. Ignoring time. Doing what feels right, when it feels right, rather than when someone wants me to. But, rather acutely lately, I am feeling time. It is pressing on me, catching up to me. It is whispering to me, taunting me. Soon, I will have more things that must be crammed into the same amount of hours in each day, each week. Not as much free time, time to spend just as I like, being leisurely and savouring the minutes that pass. Soon I will have to account for every minute, with few to spare.

 

I am fairly good at organizing my time if need be. I can stick to a schedule quite well. But then the irrepressible urge to rebel takes over. I can't explain the reasons for the rebellion that overtakes my life sometimes. Chalk it up to my controlled childhood. I dislike being confined into a role, into a set of restrictions. I dislike being told what to do, how to do it and when it must be done. And so, the rebellion begins. It starts small and grows, rather quickly, until the whole day that I had planned to do X, Y and Z becomes a day in which part of X was done and I watched old movies on TV and made a big batch of cookies and cleaned my closet.

 

I think this might be a turning point. Although I don't want to be controlled by time, eventually, it will win. Time always wins. So I have to think in terms of working with time, so that I can have more control over the time that I have been given, and so that I can be more efficient and enjoy more of the time I have that is free, that is mine and that I have not sold to a business or promised to an institution. My time IS valuable, and so I must start treating it as such.

 

Time, bring it on. I can handle the passing of each moment, the ticking of the clock.

Read Full Post »

gender and sexuality

One of the things that most intrigued me in my feminism course was the role of gender and sexuality in society. I wrote my paper about it, in fact. Here's an excerpt (edited for more pleasurable reading):

 

Society, that of North America in particular, seems bent on excluding some people according to deeply ingrained rules that do not follow the reality of human diversity in regards to sex and sexuality. Gender is a socially constructed dichotomous concept, based on sex classification and sexuality. Sex classification and sexuality, however, are false dichotomies, which do not adequately represent the full range of human biology and experience. It is necessary to dissolve these dichotomies in order to allow all people to participate fully in society without the requirement of moulding oneself to what is, for some, an impossible model. Since gender is based on sex classification and sexuality, it will be shown to be an inadequate and limiting social construct that requires at best amendment, if not complete deconstruction.The term “gender” is used to refer to the social roles, characteristics, and behaviours that outwardly express whether a person is biologically female or male. “Man” and “woman” fall under the umbrella of gender. “Sex” refers to the biological, physical sex characteristics that a person possesses, including chromosomes and sex organs, which dictate whether a person is a female, male, or hermaphrodite. “Sexuality” refers to the feelings of sexual attraction a person feels toward another person. “Dichotomy” is used to describe systems that acknowledge only two options and place those options at opposing ends of the spectrum.

Sex classification involves examining a person’s body to determine what biological and physical characteristics are present, and naming the person as male or female based on the presence of particular chromosomes, internal sex organs and external genitalia. There are two legally recognized categories of sex classification – male and female. However, in approximately 4% of live births, there is some uncertainty involved as to the person’s sex due to the presence of ambiguous genitalia. The uncertainty arises from the dichotomy involved with sex classification; intersexuals do not fit into either of the categories female or male and their sex is seen as a medical abnormality. Intersexual people are usually “treated” or “managed” with a combination of surgery and hormonal treatment to force them into the current sex classification system. This powerful adherence to the idea of only two biological sexes forces intersexuals – or more commonly, the parents of intersexual infants – to choose: either assimilation or marginalization.

Sexuality also involves a dichotomy within our society, based largely on sex classification. There is widespread recognition of heterosexuality and homosexuality, with marginal consideration to bisexuality (I say marginal, because bisexuality is largely both invisible and misunderstood; more on this later). Homosexuals are defined as having feelings of sexual attraction toward members of the “same” sex category as the one to which they belong. Heterosexuals are defined as having feelings of sexual attraction toward members of the “opposite” sex category as the one to which they belong. (Even these definitions reinforce the dichotomy of sex classification; I cannot discuss sexuality without referring to “same” or “opposite” sex.) However, this dichotomy is also problematic because it ignores the existence of bisexuals.Bisexual people are attracted to both sexes, which is largely misunderstood; bisexuals tend to be defined by their current romantic relationship – if it is a relationship with a person of the “opposite” sex, the bisexual is seen as heterosexual, and vice versa. Because of this invisibility, bisexuality as a category of sexuality is not recognized on a large social scale. There is also the notion of compulsory heterosexuality, a social construct that wrongly presumes all people to be heterosexual, implying all others are deviant from this “norm”. Compulsory heterosexuality, in addition to presuming everyone is heterosexual, subtly presumes that a person can only be attracted to one sex category. This clearly does not leave room for bisexuality, both marginalizing bisexual people and reinforcing a sexuality dichotomy, which, in turn, reinforces the sex classification dichotomy.

Gender is a way of outwardly identifying to which biological sex category a person belongs. Gender is primarily concerned with placing people into one of two categories, which correspond to one of two sex classifications: gender names male humans as men, and female humans as women. Gender has requirements: men and women must behave in certain ways and exhibit specific characteristics, many of which are placed in opposition to each other whether or not the terms are linguistic antonyms (i.e. men are considered to be rational, while women are considered emotional, though the two terms are not mutually exclusive: it is possible to be both rational and emotional). On this view, gender is a dichotomous system governing social behaviour based on and reinforcing a classification of two sexes, male and female.

Gender involves a restrictive set of expectations that does not allow for either biological sex differences from male and female or deviations from the outward identification of the sex category to which a person belongs. We do this by way of a wide array of behaviours in which people engage in order to clearly exhibit their biological sex category: by proclaiming one’s biological sex to others, by way of physical, social, and behavioural cues (which are gender-related rather than sex-related), and also by reading the cues provided and identifying the biological sex of another, then demonstrating the correct assimilation of the information provided by acting and reacting to that person in specific ways. The socially ascribed behaviours suitable for dealing with a person are based not only on the sex of the person who is doing the announcing, but also on the sex of the person who is receiving that announcement; if I were a man, I would be expected to act toward a woman in a much different way than I am expected to as a woman.

 

These social practices have a double meaning: on the one hand, they display to others the gender-specific, “correct” way to approach an interaction; on the other hand, they are a way of keeping tabs on who inspires one's sexual feelings. This is a manifestation of our society’s demand for a universal sexuality – heterosexuality. Thus, gender is based not solely upon sex classification, but also upon sexuality; the ways in which a person acts is meant to denote not only his/her biological sex, but also his/her sexual preference, and the presumption is of heterosexuality.So, then, gender is a social construction, built on the dichotomies of sex classification and sexuality. However, the dichotomy of sex classification falsely ignores the existence of intersexuals, and the dichotomy of sexuality largely ignores the existence of bisexuals. Gender, then, is a discriminatory social practice that is oppressive for those who do not fit into the narrow dichotomies of sex classification and sexuality, as well as for all those who do not wish to behave in the ways gender ascribes.

If this is truly a society committed to equality of all individuals, inclusion of all sexes and sexualities is necessary. I believe the first step is to officially and legally recognize intersexuals and bisexuals as legitimate categories of sex and sexuality. This will allow intersexual and bisexual people to be exactly who they are, without having to conceal their true identities and mould themselves (literally and figuratively) to fit into narrow socially constructed conceptions. If the dichotomies of sex classification and sexuality are deconstructed, gender will surely follow: when the foundation is removed, the structure cannot stand. The process will undoubtedly be slow and will experience resistance, but I believe gender deconstruction is one necessary piece of fully realizing the concept of equality.

(Although this piece has been heavily edited, including specific quotes and references, I want to acknowledge the inspiration drawn from the work of Marilyn Frye, Karin Baker, and Anne Fausto-Sterling.)

Read Full Post »