I ordinarily have to force myself to get my western civilization reading done. Today was no exception. History will never excite me as much as its art, or learning about how we think, or even how to account for depreciation of assets. Yet while trudging through the text today, I was reading about the Islamic infantry troops called Janissaries which consisted mostly of Christian boys that were recruited and raised to be Muslim and a part of elite military troops. Which probably has a lot to be said about it but that's not what caught my attention.
It was this line instead, "It was thought these troops would be extremely loyal to the sultan and the state because they owed their life and status to the sultan."
How did they know that this status was so valuable that they would sacrifice their life to it? Exactly how are powerful are the cultural standards that flood our vision and deafen our ears? Can they really convince us that there is some level we need to achieve and that it is worth every fiber of our being?
Yes. They can and they will because they are sneaky. No one hands you a slip of paper with rules and regulations for fitting in with this world. Its not just from the magazines and TV and billboards all though those are certainly deserving of the criticism they receive for creating impossible ideals. The thing is, those wouldn't exist if we didn't want them to. They only work because we respond to them. We want something to affirm us or deny us but either way give some stability of what is right.
It doesn't have to be a negative thing. We simply intrinsically gather information from the people and things around us to help us know what is valuable and true in this world. Look around yourself. What are your surroundings? Who is around you? They might not define you but they will create the definitions that you use to label yourself with.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Observation
People-watching, the nice word for staring absently at everyone around you, is incredibly interesting and telling. As much as I love to observe those who surround me, I also like to self-watch. I try to separate the me that is aware of my surroundings and motivations and internal thoughts from my actual actions. I pretend that I am someone else and observe what I do in given circumstances. It's a bit bizare but rather revealing.
Major Observation #1: My reactions to happinness and stress and sadness and anger in life are all exactly the same. When my emotions go to any extremes I generally isolate myself through headphones or location and scribble madly on a notebook or type wildly into this blog.
Major Observation #2: Even though I write just as much when I am experiencing negative emotions as the positive ones, I rarely share the more "downer" pieces. Mostly becaue I feel that my other writings aren't as good and the world has enough hurt without me adding to it. This being said, it isn't too hard to figure out when I'm having a splendid day (like today). It's a bit more tricky the other way around unless you belong to the small group of people that can read me with scary accuracy.
Minor Observation #3: I actually don't have a minor observation. Or another major one. I just felt that if I had major observations than I should have minor ones as well. For balance's sake.
Major Observation #1: My reactions to happinness and stress and sadness and anger in life are all exactly the same. When my emotions go to any extremes I generally isolate myself through headphones or location and scribble madly on a notebook or type wildly into this blog.
Major Observation #2: Even though I write just as much when I am experiencing negative emotions as the positive ones, I rarely share the more "downer" pieces. Mostly becaue I feel that my other writings aren't as good and the world has enough hurt without me adding to it. This being said, it isn't too hard to figure out when I'm having a splendid day (like today). It's a bit more tricky the other way around unless you belong to the small group of people that can read me with scary accuracy.
Minor Observation #3: I actually don't have a minor observation. Or another major one. I just felt that if I had major observations than I should have minor ones as well. For balance's sake.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Living Life Differently
She never was content with doing the same thing the same way more than once. After she mastered tying her shoes, she had to do it faster and then with her eyes closed. If she could do a trick on her scooter using her right foot, then it must be completed with the left. Anyone can walk through the house with in the daylight or with the lights on but not many people can master the steep stairs in pitch darkness. But she could.
The English language was far to straight-forward, she made up her own modes of communication. The inanimate objects that surround us must serve some higher purpose, she assigned them personalities and goals and gave life to a weary world.
This world could not contain her, logic and gravity had no claim on her soul. There were infinite lands to be explored and infinite ideas to be born.
This wasn't a hectic rush to break social norms but an intentional oblivion to society's restrictive ideas of how to live. This wasn't being an individual just for the sake of standing out in the crowd but forgetting that the crowd existed. This was forgetting that the wind tangled others' hair and that the sun warmed others' faces. This was forgetting that the map of life already had boundaries etched into it and a compass pointing everyone in the same direction. This was living life differently.
The English language was far to straight-forward, she made up her own modes of communication. The inanimate objects that surround us must serve some higher purpose, she assigned them personalities and goals and gave life to a weary world.
This world could not contain her, logic and gravity had no claim on her soul. There were infinite lands to be explored and infinite ideas to be born.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread
Cliches should be avoided like the plague. If placed in a paper, they will be the death of said assignment. Perhaps you are so unfortunate to have slipped one into conversation with a Cliche Catcher nearby. You know these people. As soon as you even start to say..."well, you know, the apple doesn't..."
BAM!! They'll interrupt you. Every time. With the one cliche that evidently is acceptable to use, because these Cliche Catchers will throw it in the middle of your sentence before that poor apple could even think about falling.
"That's so cliche!" the Cliche Catcher says (extra emphasis on the "so") Using common phrases and idioms is evidently no longer allowed. It's just so......so cliche. Avoid at all costs.
If you haven't picked up on the sarcastic undertones yet, I personally find cliches to be useful at times. An entire conversation of them might be annoying, but there is one that I find to be rather true.
"It's the small things in life that count" (or some derivative thereof). I'd like to take that one step further. If you stop enjoying and finding joy in the small things, eventually you will stop finding happiness in the big excitements as well. You keep looking for something bigger and bigger to satisfy this need for the interesting, the new, the exciting, the fun. The problem occurs because eventually there won't be anything bigger and bigger. What happens then?
Perhaps you stop the break-neck pace. Perhaps you slow down and listen to frosty leaves flitting through the branches of the tree with speckled bark. You begin to notice the adorable quirks of your best friends. You rediscover the joy of an old song or book. You enjoy life because you are living it.
BAM!! They'll interrupt you. Every time. With the one cliche that evidently is acceptable to use, because these Cliche Catchers will throw it in the middle of your sentence before that poor apple could even think about falling.
"That's so cliche!" the Cliche Catcher says (extra emphasis on the "so") Using common phrases and idioms is evidently no longer allowed. It's just so......so cliche. Avoid at all costs.
If you haven't picked up on the sarcastic undertones yet, I personally find cliches to be useful at times. An entire conversation of them might be annoying, but there is one that I find to be rather true.
"It's the small things in life that count" (or some derivative thereof). I'd like to take that one step further. If you stop enjoying and finding joy in the small things, eventually you will stop finding happiness in the big excitements as well. You keep looking for something bigger and bigger to satisfy this need for the interesting, the new, the exciting, the fun. The problem occurs because eventually there won't be anything bigger and bigger. What happens then?
Perhaps you stop the break-neck pace. Perhaps you slow down and listen to frosty leaves flitting through the branches of the tree with speckled bark. You begin to notice the adorable quirks of your best friends. You rediscover the joy of an old song or book. You enjoy life because you are living it.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Rising and Falling
I've been sitting in the Student Union for a while now. When I got here it was perfectly empty at first. It was perfect in quietness, perfect in solitude, perfect in loneliness to match my mood. Now, there are a few dozen people here from some robotics convention. It's still perfectly lonely but now that desolate feeling has been personified in the faces of people I don't recognize and never will.
I wrote once on how hard it was for me to connect with music. I'd like to retract that statement. As I'm sitting here, reviewing my notes on the Greek influence on Renaissance art, a familiar melody started playing though my headphones. Except it wasn't playing through my headphones, or in my ears, or even across my brain waves, but it started playing directly on my heart. It isn't even that great of a song yet all of a sudden I felt like smiling or crying or both (you might be correct in attributing this conflict of feeling in the fact that I've spent the last two days on a relatively deserted campus). Either way, I decided to write.
As soon as I felt the melody and notes on my heart, my brain turned into some sort of antiquated projector. Fuzzy black and white images started to come into focus. I'm sitting in my old bedroom before it was redone, staring at walls the color of a grape slushy and playing with little key chains and trinkets that unlocked my imagination to a world all my own. I'm sitting in the old Lumina mini-van with the worn upholstery and fabric falling from the roof, on my way to Florida listening to this CD and halfway between the conscious and dreamworld. Looking back, I think I spent most of my childhood in that transitory state where nothing was real enough to be boring and reality was augmented by an imagination that was always on in full force.
My heart is rising and falling to the beat of the violin and drum. Finally, I am moved.
Until next time,
Chloe
P.S. Although this post may insinuate that I am in some way not enjoying this weekend, that is completely false. If you didn't know this already, I don't consider lonliness and quiet and solitude to be negative things and my experiences with them these last few days have been minimal yet fulfilling.
I wrote once on how hard it was for me to connect with music. I'd like to retract that statement. As I'm sitting here, reviewing my notes on the Greek influence on Renaissance art, a familiar melody started playing though my headphones. Except it wasn't playing through my headphones, or in my ears, or even across my brain waves, but it started playing directly on my heart. It isn't even that great of a song yet all of a sudden I felt like smiling or crying or both (you might be correct in attributing this conflict of feeling in the fact that I've spent the last two days on a relatively deserted campus). Either way, I decided to write.
As soon as I felt the melody and notes on my heart, my brain turned into some sort of antiquated projector. Fuzzy black and white images started to come into focus. I'm sitting in my old bedroom before it was redone, staring at walls the color of a grape slushy and playing with little key chains and trinkets that unlocked my imagination to a world all my own. I'm sitting in the old Lumina mini-van with the worn upholstery and fabric falling from the roof, on my way to Florida listening to this CD and halfway between the conscious and dreamworld. Looking back, I think I spent most of my childhood in that transitory state where nothing was real enough to be boring and reality was augmented by an imagination that was always on in full force.My heart is rising and falling to the beat of the violin and drum. Finally, I am moved.
Until next time,
Chloe
P.S. Although this post may insinuate that I am in some way not enjoying this weekend, that is completely false. If you didn't know this already, I don't consider lonliness and quiet and solitude to be negative things and my experiences with them these last few days have been minimal yet fulfilling.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Sushi and Diamonds
I am the type of person who cannot be within eyesight of a sign, posting, notice, billboard, book, graphitti, pamphlet without reading it. I will read the same sign over and over just because it is there. So, when riding in the car, I pay attention to what's on the other side of the tinted glass.
We were just outside of Pittsburg and I saw a billboard that had a picture of a diamond being held by a pair of tweezers. I looked away for a second and on a closer look, I realized that I had mistaken what was truly a piece of round sushi and chopsticks for exquisite jewelry. An honest and harmless mistake.
While misidentifying images may be relatively harmless (with the minor exception of street signs while driving), when we begin to categorize and identify people based on first impressions we run serious risks.
It might have been said that first impressions are important. I'd like to add that they are wrong 95% of the time. If I can't tell a roll of sushi apart from a diamond, then I surely can't accurately assess someone within five minutes of knowing them. I shouldn't be assessing them at all. Just enjoying getting to know another story and friend. Yet it is far too easy to fall into a faulty first impression judgement.
I mislabeled the billboard advertisement because I looked at it too quickly. You can't possibly expect to know someone after a brief meeting, especially depending on the circumstance and opportunity for true conversation. I also got my diamonds and sushi confused because I had seen a billboard with tweezers and a diamond before. I wasn't expecting to see sushi, so I fit it into a mold that I already knew.
How many times do you meet someone and say, "You are just like my friend so and so!" Or at least think it. Except they aren't. Because they can't be. We are who we are, nothing more and nothing less. Squeezing people into cold metal molds is great if you want a bunch of friends that are exactly who you think they should be but nothing like who they really are.
I think it's time to get our eyes checked.
We were just outside of Pittsburg and I saw a billboard that had a picture of a diamond being held by a pair of tweezers. I looked away for a second and on a closer look, I realized that I had mistaken what was truly a piece of round sushi and chopsticks for exquisite jewelry. An honest and harmless mistake.
While misidentifying images may be relatively harmless (with the minor exception of street signs while driving), when we begin to categorize and identify people based on first impressions we run serious risks.
It might have been said that first impressions are important. I'd like to add that they are wrong 95% of the time. If I can't tell a roll of sushi apart from a diamond, then I surely can't accurately assess someone within five minutes of knowing them. I shouldn't be assessing them at all. Just enjoying getting to know another story and friend. Yet it is far too easy to fall into a faulty first impression judgement.
I mislabeled the billboard advertisement because I looked at it too quickly. You can't possibly expect to know someone after a brief meeting, especially depending on the circumstance and opportunity for true conversation. I also got my diamonds and sushi confused because I had seen a billboard with tweezers and a diamond before. I wasn't expecting to see sushi, so I fit it into a mold that I already knew.
How many times do you meet someone and say, "You are just like my friend so and so!" Or at least think it. Except they aren't. Because they can't be. We are who we are, nothing more and nothing less. Squeezing people into cold metal molds is great if you want a bunch of friends that are exactly who you think they should be but nothing like who they really are.
I think it's time to get our eyes checked.
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