Where's the revolution?

Well, I had decided that I was going to quit with the blog and try reconnecting with my writing self with the traditional pen to paper. After all it has been over a year since I bought a new journal and was able to add a full one to my growing collection for over a decade's worth of pages now. Of course then I begin getting all these comments from friends who are reading this silly crap so I suppose I will keep it going.

Everything is going pretty well. I am still feeling a little stuck but I'm getting used to the idea of my own company being enough.

So, I work at Peace Action. I guess this makes me a 'peacenik'. I am frustrated with the word peace. Seriously, it's the most jaded word I can think of. The very sound of it to my ears evokes all the wrong imagery and I know that it must do worse things for those who are much less progressive than I. When I think of peace I think of a white dove, a bunch of long-haired bare-footed young people with flowers in their hair, of large protests with people singing songs.
These images are not effective. As an activist I am incredibly frustrated by the labels I am given. My life has led me in a direction and caused me to fall in love with Africa. I am fated to always feel that I bear some responsibility there. I wound up working at Peace Action almost by accident but I am learning so much and am grateful for becoming intimate with the organization. Yet, I am ashamed to say that being a peace activist is almost the worst sort. I am regarded as a hippie, liberal, brainwashed, tree-hugger, an extremist. My father says that 'they've really got me'. They being those of the mindset that the United States is not the great nation that so many perceive her to be, or rather, blindly accept her as. Those who believe that there are many solutions to problems besides war and destruction. Believing that it is possible to exist without war is seen as idealist, impossible, silly. What about the lunacy of war? Why the universal acceptance of such barbaric, unnatural behavior as that?

I am not making myself very clear perhaps because this is such a big idea that I am trying to convey. The fact is that I am considered "very left wing" and "stubborn" by many people and this is something I disdain. The fact is that I am a humanitarian to the very core. I believe that 'peace' is not enough of a word to describe what it attempts to. Perhaps there simply isn't one word that can be so all inclusive. Peace is more than the absence of war. It is the existence of equality, security, justice.

Often during the course of the Bush regime we have been inundated with these messages of fear and national security and defense to protect our citizens from the terrorists who wait to pounce on us at the moment we let our guard down. What I don't hear is people making the intrinsic connection of terrorism to the world system that we have created which oppresses so many and benefits so few. What meaning do three thousand Americans working in the trade towers have to some men whose families and people have suffered so much more deeply from the policies imposed on them by the developed world? I am fully aware of how controversial that observation is and that is because so many people in this country have truly bought into the rhetoric they've been handed since childhood, the distorted history, the powerful notion of patriotism, and the unpopularness of being outside the box of accepting those things as they are.

I mean, it wasn't until recently that I became bold enough to express myself and my opinions about these kinds of things publicly. Still I face resistance from my own friends and family for caring about what matters. So, when I turn a conversation about the size of the rock on everyone's engagement rings into a discussion of how diamonds have no link to love and marriage and actually have caused a tremendous deal of suffering in Africa and Asia, I am seen as the downer. It is more 'cool' to be ignorant, to be immersed in the pop culture, to be unconcerned about politics and world affairs. And to participate in democracy... well who does that?! It's not as if we have control over anything, right?

I wish I could spend months just sitting and calling Americans all over the country and asking them what they thought about the world. They would all complain, at least most of them, about how things are going. Many of them would even claim it's hopeless and helpless. But, I would almost guarantee that the majority of them would have done nothing about it. They may be sitting and watching CNN and learning about the death of Heath Ledger and not even notice how long that has been consuming the network's attention, as well as their own.

I felt a few brief moments of grief when I read of Ledger's passing. He was, after all, a target for teenage girlhood infatuation and I do own 10 Things I Hate About You but he is also just one man. Only one man of many who died tragically on January 22. There are thirty American casualties in this month alone in the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars. Countless individuals in those two nations have also fallen victim to these unneeded wars. That's 30 faces that were fresh and young just like Ledger's; thirty people with tremendous potential if only their energies had been focused elsewhere.

There is a campaign against us. A campaign to keep us unaware. To change the definition of news and information. To change the definition of democracy. I know there are a lot of people out there who believe that it's quite naive to think that life without war is possible. I am not necessarily saying that it is. It definitely is not possible at this moment in time all over the world to have complete peace, but I don't see why it is not possible at some point in the future, and to some extent beginning now.

The thing is that war is the most primitive of our human behaviors. We try murderers as the utmost of criminals. Those who have taken the lives of innocents without provocation. We have evolved to that level of intelligence, where we possess enough of the things we need in a society to never have a need to kill someone for one's own survival. We have even come to a place where we begin to question the humanity of purposeful killing of those we deem as the worst of criminals. And yet, we still stand on battlefields possessing ever new technologies of how to kill people in all the worst ways. In battlefields those who kill the innocent are valiant warriors. But we are no longer fighting for survival. It is not a time for us or them. We can all exist here together, as long as we are willing to share.

So as war is allowed to keep happening and we remain oblivious to the tragedies of our world, tragedies that we share a role in creating, I grow more fearful for the fate of our species. We are determined to become more globalized, more connected, while at the same time trying harder and harder to protect ourselves from one another. Building defenses, weapons that could cause ultimate destruction, armies, and wars.

Where is the anger? Why isn't anyone making noise about the preposterousness of this world? Why should a few people sitting in $1,000 suits in closed-door meetings be deciding the fates of nations? Why are we ignoring our role?

When I was in college I thought many times how I wished so much to have been alive in the late 60s. To have seen how everyone came together for change. Hunter S. Thompson captured it best in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,

"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

I wanted so much to be a part of something like that. Yet, I recently watched the documentary 1968 and I began to change my mind. Martin Luther King Jr. had led a movement for civil rights and made strides, he then took a stance on the war in Vietnam and faced great resistance and animosity toward this 'switch' in his focus. However, he explained how his goals were always one and the same. The war in Vietnam was just an extension of American racism. Oppressing the weak and the poor. He made the decision that rather than pushing for civil rights he would sink to the roots of the problems, not just domestically, but with America relative to the world; he was going to take on structural violence. When he was shot that year the world cried. Then Bobby Kennedy was shot, the man who might have been nominated President and taken up MLK's mission. Thompson's wave not only rolled back, it rolled past where it had been to start with. Those who had valiantly sought to restructure the nation, challenging all that it was at that time, had been removed from the picture. The lifeblood and energy was sucked out of the movement and all shrunk back in shock and fear. Shrunk back so far that they are quiet even now. Perhaps it vacuumed out the hope when hope was all there really was.

Certainly they must be out there. Those same activists who fought for civil rights, an end to Vietnam, women's right to vote. Where are all those voices now? Where is the energy and the movement? Why is there no revolution?

Obama won in South Carolina today. I am glad of that. He brings me a shred of optimism. Yet, I am still in great fear of our destiny. I don't believe we can really survive another President like George Bush. I believe that without beginning to set forth in a new direction soon that the United States is going to swiftly tumble, in my own lifetime. There is a Chinese proverb which states: "If we do not soon change our direction we will surely end up where we are headed". I am glad to be a part of the pull to change that direction, but I am unhappy with the connotations it brings to my life. How do we make peace cool? How do we make it right? It truly is the only thing that makes sense.

Lost and not found

After five days of fasting I have had a lot of time to think about things in my life besides food, coffee, drinking, and socializing. It's been enlightening to see what an enormous role food plays in our lives. I have had a really tough time of it and I don't actually think it has to do with the lack of eating but with realizing that I used to eat to fill a void that I'm now just realizing exists. They say that being overweight is a symptom of a deeper problem and I now understand that. My problem is nothing tragic, it's simpleminded. I am ashamed that in my life, where I've gotten nearly everything I've ever wanted, that I can find things to feel miserable about. Yet, I feel it.

I feel a bitter loneliness. It's something I cannot repair it seems. I have so many friends, though many of them are very far away now. I have an incredibly loving family. I share my apartment with two other people, one of which is my brother but I feel so alone. I feel misunderstood by everyone and I don't feel any personal connections that I can rely on in California. I really do love it here completely but I'm sill not sure I didn't make a mistake. I left everyone I love.

I hate writing like this. There's no content. It's just bullshit whining. I just feel like ever since I came back home from Africa I have been a complete maniac. I can't make sense of any part of my life. I like my job but I don't love my job. I like my city but I am not overwhelmingly happy here because I cannot find people to enjoy it with. What fun is seeing and doing amazing things alone?

Anyways, ugh! I just feel like I'm in a rut. I'm just waiting. Waiting to put in my time at my job before I can move onto doing what I really want to be doing. What I'd love to be doing. Waiting to take my French oral again so I can actually get my degree and move on to grad school or the Peace Corps or another job. I have been so lazy lately it's like I don't know myself and I think it's because I'm just not entirely happy. Everyday there are so many things I mean to sit down and make myself do and I never do them. Literally, my bills are late, my room is a disaster- including a desk that it has taken me over a month to put together, my paperwork for my job is late, I haven't studied French in weeks. I don't know what's wrong with me. I have no motivation to do anything and yet I'm so stressed out by not doing it. It's like a catch 22. I feel almost overwhelmed by my passion to the point of being immobile. Does that even make sense? If it does it must sound pretty freaking stupid. I just wish I knew what was missing. I guess it'll be easier to get to the bottom of now that I'm actually looking to figure it out.

On a lighter note, I am quite enthusiastic to be working at Peace Action during such an enormous election year. I'm so happy to see George Bush leave office I can hardly stand it. It's amazing to think that he's been the President since I was 14 years old. Wow. I remember seeing him on Oprah then and wanting him to win the election because I thought he seemed nicer than the other guy. HA! How naive and stupid I was. I mean, I really didn't know anything about politics! Now I know that something positive has got to be in store for this country and for all the world when he is no longer in a position of power.

Barack Obama was on The Daily Show tonight and I am absolutely crazy about him. He's getting a lot of slack for not clearly stating his position, and I hate to buy into the guy that all the young people are buying into because then he just seems idealistic. But, I think we need an idealist to run the country for once. Someone who believes that you don't need to wish that things were some other way but believe that they can be so. I want to see someone who will finally make it so. Listening to Obama talk actually gives me butterflies. He's the kind of person that would get so many Americans involved in politics and the very fact that he is an African American shows such enormous progress for our nation that it's simply blissful. Tomorrow is the New Hampshire primary and I cannot wait to see the results. Obama has been strongly in the lead in today's polls and I'm betting that his appearance on the show tonight helped.

Anyway, I'm all over the place right now. It might very well be that I have not so much as chewed a piece of gum in five days. I am going to read and sleep and see if I feel more normal tomorrow.

Fasting slow

It's 2008 and I feel full. Like I've just eaten a satisfying meal. The truth is I have been fasting/cleansing since yesterday. I needed a fresh start. To feel like I went nakedly into a new year and a new time of my life. I am using the Neera master cleanse diet which is a combination of lemon juice, palm syrup, cayenne pepper and water. I need to reconnect with myself.

My Senior year of high school and freshman year of college were incredibly hard times for me. I'm not sure what sparked it, maybe just the idea of so much change and so many decisions to make, but my Senior year I became quite depressed. It's possible that I was merely experiencing what's completely normal to feel at such a strange time in life when your entire world is about to shift into one that's unfamiliar. I saw a doctor who asked me two questions, literally two, and then put me on 100 mg of Zoloft. I had friends that had been diagnosed as bipolar and were only taking 25 mg.

I consider that my lost year of life. I remember it in a fuzzy way, like I was under anesthesia. I turned into a zombie. Where before I was breaking down into hysterics over very little, I now was unable to have a truly emotional response to anything. I slept constantly and felt tired ever still. We returned to the doctor and he lowered the dosage, I believe to 50 mg, though I cannot remember now. I continued to respond the way I had before as I went off to college.

The first several months of college were even more tumultuous for me than had been the previous months. My brother had supposedly impregnated a woman from a bar the previous year and we had taken her in as if she was going to bore the child that would be our relation. He was born and I considered him my nephew for the first three months of his life. My mother in particular grew very close to him. After three months my brother decided to take a paternity test as his relations with Colin's mother were not spectacular. It turned out that he was not the father. The legitimate father was Colin's mother's ex-boyfriend and he immediately entered their life and took on that role. He and Colin's mother quickly became engaged and all seemed to be going well. Then a tragic thing happened. My mother called me with the news that Colin had been abused by his father and was in the hospital in critical condition with Shaken Baby Syndrome. It was the sort of thing you never think you'll actually have to witness. The story you read in the paper and say, "how sad, how terrible", but never the story you tell as your own.

On top of that atrocity my father entered into rehab for alcoholism for a 90 day period. Of course that was not a truly negative thing but his absence was noticeable.

The first month I was at school I met a boy that I dated and fell for, lost my virginity to, and within a week he was dating another girl. I was crushed. A few months later I came home from college for winter break and saw an ex-boyfriend from high school. We had been on bad terms but he said some nice things to me so I decided to forgive him and accept the idea that maybe he'd changed as I had. I went to his house for a get together, got so intoxicated that I blacked out completely and was sexually assaulted by him. Afterwards I felt disgusting and I blamed myself. It took years and a therapist's insistence of it to say that I had been assaulted. I had lost so much. My innocence, my naivety, all my ideas about sex, love, relationships. I still struggle with knowing how to respect myself emotionally and physically and what to accept from men. I still expect and demand much less than I deserve. Mostly I think it is out of fear.

Girl Interrupted is one of my favorite films. I think it expresses in magnificent beauty what I was feeling at that time. When I was undergoing all that hardship I considered suicide. I didn't know where I belonged. "I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. How you hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside."

The world seemed too big and distorted to me. I was different for giving a shit. Maybe even unpopular. I didn't want to see more or know more about the misery and ignorance, or feel the overwhelming helplessness. I wanted to just float away.

So, I am telling this sorted history of 4 years ago because it is important to how I feel lately. That zombie feeling of disconnectedness is alive in me again. Since I came home from Africa I have experienced it. I wonder if it is a long-term side effect of the medications I took during that year or if I have lost touch with something. During that time in my life I was religious, which was strange because I had questioned religion since I was very young. It only lasted a short time but when it ended it went completely. I still researched religions, took classes about them, and found them fascinating but I no longer practiced any form of one myself.

Now I'm looking to connect that disconnect with myself with the disconnect I've had with my spirituality. I always associated spirituality with religion but lately I have been reconsidering that concept. I heard a very intriguing person on the radio who talked about energies and eastern thought and made me very curious about ideas out there that I should be taking in. I do believe that we are all made up of energies and that we need to be really in tuned with the environment and the Earth and how that relates to ourselves. I believe that we are pulled in certain directions, not by a being but by a magnetic force. I also saw a report by two prominent doctors stating that prayer actually does have health benefits. Not that God is up there listening and granting people's wishes, but that the actual act of prayer releases things in our brains that help to generate good results for our well being.

I recently quit eating meat for a variety of reasons and I've been slowly coming into my own. I'm learning what is important to me and what I really believe in and becoming bolder in expressing it openly. I feel tremendous happiness. I've literally gotten nearly everything I've ever wanted and I'm only 22. I have my education, I have traveled and seen more of the world than many if not most people do in a lifetime, I live in a city that I love, and I have a great start in the career field that I most want to be in. My life is all I want it to be practically. Yet, there's something missing. Some contentment I'm lacking. Perhaps the happiness simply has no outlet or I don't know how to connect it to the actual everyday life I lead. Whatever it is, I feel the need to investigate spiritual possibilities for myself. New angles and ways of looking at life, people, relationships, and emotions. I want to be focused on my health more both physically and mentally and to do something about this awful room I've been living in.

I am also reading a book about money and what it means in our culture and how connected it is to our livelihoods. It's gotten me thinking about a lot of things. I am glad that my ideas of success from an early age were not related to wealth and materialism but I do have a lot of ideas about money that may not be right. For instance, I have had this overriding idea that money is simply bad, the root of all evil. My new job as a fundraiser for an organization using money for good is leading me to reconsider those concepts. Money certainly can be evil and unfortunately probably is more often than not, as it consumes so many people whole but at the same time it can be the root of good deeds in the world. It can finance the best of our intentions and values. It can represent and make alive the best of humanity, the core of our souls. It's tremendously powerful in its capacity to work both for and against us.

All these new ideas I've been thinking about have thus led me into this spiritual journey, which includes this fast I'm doing. I'm hoping to do it for at least 10 days as they claim that helps to reach the greatest depths of the cleanse and I hope that I will manage to keep up with writing about the entire paradigm shift I am undergoing as well. For now I must rest, however. Good night.