Today some friends of mine were making music, and, being the mix of odd, poetic, and philosophical that I am, I was sitting there dancing in my seat, enjoying it, and wondering why people love music so much: all at once.
We had also just eaten a glorious meal so I was thinking about food too. I had just met this new person and I was trying to make conversation with him so we started talking about food and music. Being the weirdo that I am I asked him if he liked food and music and he was just like "Of course I do, everyone does." But it got me to thinking: Why is this basically true?
What would life be like if you ate to stay alive? What if you just researched the most healthy diet and then ate that all the time instead of eating what you are in the mood for in the moment or what you just always enjoy? What if you never listened to music? What if you only owned animals for practical reasons (food sources/ transportation/ mouse killers/ security guards etc.) but not for bonding purposes, and what if you also only had friends for practical reasons? What if your friendships were like: I'll help you, and you'll help me but we will never just enjoy one another's company? What if you never did fun activities to rest, and merely had naps for the practical purpose of re-energizing yourself, but not to actually enjoy your down time?
Does this life sound nice to anyone at all? I really doubt it, BUT WHY? After all it is a very practical life. It's efficient. You could be healthy, live long, and be energized to do good practical work to make the world better in a practical way. So why does it sound like such a sad life?
Maybe it only sounds sad to me. As much as I am an analytical person sometimes, I'm also extremely emotional. I feel everything so deeply, that's actually why I think so much, because everything matters to me so I want so desperately to understand it. It's caused problems for me because most people I know are either extremely analytical or extremely emotional and many have trouble understanding both aspects of me. But, for me, life is something to be enjoyed and to be enjoyed deeply. These little things are layers of loveliness and little graces that make me happy.
I have often heard people tell me that it isn't wise to base decisions or beliefs in emotions because emotions are fleeting and changing. When I'm sad I've also been told that I need to accept life's tough situations and some how rise above my negative emotions. This never made sense to me because I feel like happiness is just so wonderful I wouldn't want to live without it, and to me it is intrinsically linked to negative emotions. Now I'm not saying we need bad times to appreciate good times. That idea gets flaunted a lot, but wouldn't you still enjoy chocolate ice cream even if you had never tasted broccoli? To quote Judith Guest I guess what I'm trying to say is "People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile." Maybe I only feel this way because I suck at rising above the negative times. To me it seems that if we don't allow ourselves to feel deeply the pain and anger of life it will be very difficult to deeply experience joy, peace, and love. I could be wrong. Maybe it is possible to feel peace in the bad times: to just carry on and not give into the pain without actually numbing yourself to the point of not feeling the joy, but if that is possible I am not there yet.
If this wasn't the case though, if we needed to feel the bad deeply to enjoy the good greatly, would you rather be fully emotional or fully analytic? Would you rather just be practical and think about things without feeling them? Would you rather just not be affected emotionally and not revel in enjoyment?
I guess all I'm trying to do is ask why do emotions always get such a bad rap when they are so beautiful, and why is being emotional seen as a bad thing when very few/none of us would really want to live an emotionless life????
I don't understand.
Sunday, 31 March 2013
Tuesday, 26 March 2013
How Do We Disagree?
Tolerance, Free Speech, disagreeing, respect, disrespect, rude offended.
I feel as though we have made things way more complicated than they need to be.
Here's the thing, I travel in a wide variety of circles. I know people who believe a whole bunch of different things and I'm friends with all of them.
I'm talking about religious, political, artistic, and lifestyle beliefs.
It gets crazy complicated when I try to add myself into the equation. I've been struggling for a very long time to figure out what I believe while also listening to the wide variety of conflicting beliefs of my dear, dear friends.
But I don't think it has to be this complicated.
I always see myself as being on the same 'team' as the people I 'discuss' with. I don't think of these as fights where I am on an opposing team trying to get the other person to agree with me. I think of us as both trying to find truth and to understand each other better. Maybe I'll change my mind, or maybe they will, or maybe we will realise that we are both part right and part wrong and we will both change our mind, or maybe neither of us will change our mind, maybe we will continue to disagree, but maybe we will understand each other better.
What I've been doing since high school, in order to keep people from feeling like I'm fighting against them, is saying "this is what I believe but I could be wrong."
I get in a lot of trouble from people who agree with me for always qualifying what I say with "I could be wrong." People tell me that I can't really believe what I say I believe if I'm not presenting it to others as the truth. They say if I care about my beliefs and find they have impacted my life in a good way then I should be sharing them with the people I love.
The people who disagree with me love when I say "this is just what I believe." They usually end up saying "hey man you believe what you believe I'll believe what I believe thanks for not shoving your beliefs down my throat."
Sometimes it almost gets to the place where it's like oh hey you believe what you believe I'll believe what I want to believe and we're all right. This is problematic on a critical thinking and philosophical level.
The truth may be more complex than we think it is. It MIGHT be a complicated conglomeration of bits and pieces of things that different people believe BUT I don't think it can simultaneously be two fully contradictory things.
So we are stuck with one truth, but we can not all seem to agree what it is and some people don't even think they know what it is.
It can be hard if you don't know what to believe because everyone tries to convince you and you try to be open to all of their ideas but you are never free to go figure out what you believe because you get stuck inside a tug of war.
However, all of this is also confusing for people who know what they believe as well. They want to be able to be confident because they are, they want to share what they think will help others, but they need to understand that not everyone agrees and they need to not disrespect those who disagree with them.
I think we all need to learn how to disagree better.
Why can't we just be like "this is what I believe is true and this is why I think I'm right and you are wrong, now please explain your view." then listen and if you still disagree why can't we just be like "Oh, well I still disagree but that's really interesting thanks for sharing and also for listening." Why is there so much pressure to agree with everyone or to disagree but then suggest that we might both be right. Why can't we just straight up disagree but still be respectful? Why do people get offended when someone disagrees with them? It isn't offensive to me if you say you disagree with me, it is only offensive if you hurt me in any way for believing what I believe or attempt to force me to agree with you.
Why is this all so complicated?
I feel as though we have made things way more complicated than they need to be.
Here's the thing, I travel in a wide variety of circles. I know people who believe a whole bunch of different things and I'm friends with all of them.
I'm talking about religious, political, artistic, and lifestyle beliefs.
It gets crazy complicated when I try to add myself into the equation. I've been struggling for a very long time to figure out what I believe while also listening to the wide variety of conflicting beliefs of my dear, dear friends.
But I don't think it has to be this complicated.
I always see myself as being on the same 'team' as the people I 'discuss' with. I don't think of these as fights where I am on an opposing team trying to get the other person to agree with me. I think of us as both trying to find truth and to understand each other better. Maybe I'll change my mind, or maybe they will, or maybe we will realise that we are both part right and part wrong and we will both change our mind, or maybe neither of us will change our mind, maybe we will continue to disagree, but maybe we will understand each other better.
What I've been doing since high school, in order to keep people from feeling like I'm fighting against them, is saying "this is what I believe but I could be wrong."
I get in a lot of trouble from people who agree with me for always qualifying what I say with "I could be wrong." People tell me that I can't really believe what I say I believe if I'm not presenting it to others as the truth. They say if I care about my beliefs and find they have impacted my life in a good way then I should be sharing them with the people I love.
The people who disagree with me love when I say "this is just what I believe." They usually end up saying "hey man you believe what you believe I'll believe what I believe thanks for not shoving your beliefs down my throat."
Sometimes it almost gets to the place where it's like oh hey you believe what you believe I'll believe what I want to believe and we're all right. This is problematic on a critical thinking and philosophical level.
The truth may be more complex than we think it is. It MIGHT be a complicated conglomeration of bits and pieces of things that different people believe BUT I don't think it can simultaneously be two fully contradictory things.
So we are stuck with one truth, but we can not all seem to agree what it is and some people don't even think they know what it is.
It can be hard if you don't know what to believe because everyone tries to convince you and you try to be open to all of their ideas but you are never free to go figure out what you believe because you get stuck inside a tug of war.
However, all of this is also confusing for people who know what they believe as well. They want to be able to be confident because they are, they want to share what they think will help others, but they need to understand that not everyone agrees and they need to not disrespect those who disagree with them.
I think we all need to learn how to disagree better.
Why can't we just be like "this is what I believe is true and this is why I think I'm right and you are wrong, now please explain your view." then listen and if you still disagree why can't we just be like "Oh, well I still disagree but that's really interesting thanks for sharing and also for listening." Why is there so much pressure to agree with everyone or to disagree but then suggest that we might both be right. Why can't we just straight up disagree but still be respectful? Why do people get offended when someone disagrees with them? It isn't offensive to me if you say you disagree with me, it is only offensive if you hurt me in any way for believing what I believe or attempt to force me to agree with you.
Why is this all so complicated?
Tuesday, 12 March 2013
In Progress List of Reasons I'm Still Happy I Came
Sometimes I get so stressed out with school. In these times I trick myself into believing its been three dark years of nothing but stress that won't even get me a job in the end. It's times like this when I need a list of all the poetic parts of my university experience that have made it worthwhile.
I guess I'm sharing this to inspire you to remind yourself of the poetic aspects of your own life!
1.Intense conversations on the bridge about death with almost strangers.
2.I met my kindred spirit. We have gone from strangers on the stairs, to being unable to separate in the link, sliding down the bannister, spontaneous picnics, long hikes around campus, studying on the river steps, to sleepovers, weekly lunches or dinners, barefoot pasta picnics, walks that end at black honey, and always being there for the other when needed. However, so many things still haven't changed. We still cry together, and "Let Saturday go," and have late night life talks in each other's bedroom like homework doesn't exist.
3.A Beautiful church community.
4.Making other fascinating and fabulous friends.
5. Learning how to grow up and the importance of interdependence.
6. Learning what I believe, and growing in my understanding of the things I already believed.
7. Learning how to disagree in a good way.
8. Learning about the past and the present.
9. Learning to write more clearly.
10. Going to one sweet folk concert.
11.Discovering Food Not Bombs and talking about Jesus with stranger's while doing dishes with them in somebody else's kitchen.
12.River walking with Cheryl.
13. An abundance of poetic coffee shops.
14. Islands.
15.Summer time adventures in places I never would have heard of if I didn't come here and meet the people I did.
16. Amazing opportunities working and volunteering with children!
17. Literacy advocacy!
18. A class that became family who I cried with, had amazing conversations, played board games, went to the zoo, had picnics, or campfires, and went hiking in the woods.
19. One of the most poetic winter vacations ever. (Making art out of plates broken by laughter, scary ski lifts, and snow shoeing).
20. Getting to literally be a clown!
21. Learning how to canoe.
22. Coolest hillside view ever.
23.A variety of introspective classes that let me draw pictures, journal, reflect on my own experiences and beliefs, and even write, read and listen to poetry.
24. Paint-a-thon for charity.
I guess I'm sharing this to inspire you to remind yourself of the poetic aspects of your own life!
1.Intense conversations on the bridge about death with almost strangers.
2.I met my kindred spirit. We have gone from strangers on the stairs, to being unable to separate in the link, sliding down the bannister, spontaneous picnics, long hikes around campus, studying on the river steps, to sleepovers, weekly lunches or dinners, barefoot pasta picnics, walks that end at black honey, and always being there for the other when needed. However, so many things still haven't changed. We still cry together, and "Let Saturday go," and have late night life talks in each other's bedroom like homework doesn't exist.
3.A Beautiful church community.
4.Making other fascinating and fabulous friends.
5. Learning how to grow up and the importance of interdependence.
6. Learning what I believe, and growing in my understanding of the things I already believed.
7. Learning how to disagree in a good way.
8. Learning about the past and the present.
9. Learning to write more clearly.
10. Going to one sweet folk concert.
11.Discovering Food Not Bombs and talking about Jesus with stranger's while doing dishes with them in somebody else's kitchen.
12.River walking with Cheryl.
13. An abundance of poetic coffee shops.
14. Islands.
15.Summer time adventures in places I never would have heard of if I didn't come here and meet the people I did.
16. Amazing opportunities working and volunteering with children!
17. Literacy advocacy!
18. A class that became family who I cried with, had amazing conversations, played board games, went to the zoo, had picnics, or campfires, and went hiking in the woods.
19. One of the most poetic winter vacations ever. (Making art out of plates broken by laughter, scary ski lifts, and snow shoeing).
20. Getting to literally be a clown!
21. Learning how to canoe.
22. Coolest hillside view ever.
23.A variety of introspective classes that let me draw pictures, journal, reflect on my own experiences and beliefs, and even write, read and listen to poetry.
24. Paint-a-thon for charity.
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