Category Archives: Social Science

American Dream

American Dream

Banks pepper us with plastic,
feed our indwelling greed —
we risk our well-being
to barter for glitter,
gorge on obsolescence.
Too many are willing
to forfeit the future,
surrender their power —
it’s just paper, they say —
in exchange for their fix,
allaying the craving
for more, yet more, and more.

—
Poem #11 for NaPoWriMo

This poem is built on the scaffold of Stephen Burt’s After Callimachus. I also found this of interest:

In “After Callimachus (4)” Burt invokes Eudemus, the Greek astronomer and mathematician, who pared back his life in order to avoid debt—which came with mortal penalty. … Burt is taking contemporary America to task (through showing parallels to our esteemed Athenian friends). … In (4) [he] raises his critical hackles by reminding Americans that in another time, debt came with the penalty of death, yet with Americans taking on more and more debt (and the Congress voting to raise the debt ceiling for the government again just this week), Burt is slyly pointing at what Kevin Phillips in his new book American Theocracy calls one of the three most clear and present dangers facing America today, American indebtedness.

—THE GREAT AMERICAN PINUP: STEPHEN BURT—PARALLEL PLAY

Poor Nineteen

Poor Nineteen

I did it because I could not sleep,
had not slept for several nights.

The air was cold as plate glass;
breathing, like death by garrote.
Clouds hissed and spat oblivion.

He lingered a few feet down the aisle
by the hair products. I did it because I was laid off
from my dead-end job.

I promised myself that I would only do it this once.
In a world where I had nothing, felt smothered.
The bleat of the register kept time to the whine of Muzak.
A clerk rang up my purchase: a can of mousse.
In my gut, a tingled warning; he materialized
a few feet from the door, sidled up to me, pressed
his hand on my arm:
“I believe you put something in your purse. Nytol.”

I did it because I was choking.

Snarky But He’s Got a Point

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

–Soren Kierkegaard

When I go work out at the gym, if it’s late afternoon, I am treated to televisions featuring Dr. Phil, Montel, etc. interviewing people about sordid things, or else a “Judge Judy” type of show demonstrating how people don’t handle conflicts well. I am simultaneously fascinated and appalled by these shows. Usually I listen to NPR on my Walkman, but sometimes I can’t help watching the show and reading the captions.

Another reason this quote captured my attention pertains to my viewing of Jarhead. In one part the troops are told that the media will be interviewing them, and their commander tells them explicitly what they may and may not say. One soldier asserts that this isn’t right, they’re being censored, that he signed up to defend a freedom he’s being denied. The response from his leader is (paraphrased): “When you joined the Marines, you gave up that right.” This was the first Gulf war in 1990-91. Even placing a call to a loved one in the states was difficult. How things have changed since the creation of email and blogging!

Alas

My brain churns with thoughts, but time and energy are limited. Here’s a stream-of-consciousness example of what’s on my mind these days (in no particular order):

  • The history of the Black Panther movement and the 60s culture (I went to an exhibition at the Yerba Buena galleries today).
  • Community and social capital, i.e., how technology reduces this in-person but presents new opportunities for community via the Internet.
  • Musing whether these changes in community signify the doom of humanity and wondering if I’m a cynical idealist or just a realist or if there’s a difference.
  • Netsquared and their mission to support non-profits in adopting new web technologies to further their missions.
  • Life and it’s meaning; death and what comes after (if anything).
  • What truth is.
  • The first anniversary of my father-in-law’s death on April 2.
  • How I’m ready for rain to stop and warm spring to arrive.
  • Exercises that grab me by the lapels from a book I recently bought called The Practice of Poetry.
  • Cursing the fact that dust bunnies reproduce and wondering if there’s a simpler form of birth control than housecleaning.
  • Thinking about some essays my father wrote and sent me about his life experiences, and how I’m learning tidbits I’d yearned to know for years.
  • Percolating an idea for a project I’m to make to give to my Artella Spring Sprite recipient.
  • Saturday’s HOBA TeamWorks project at RAFT.
  • How pleased I am that my cholesterol levels are really low and that my doctor wrote a personal note, “Good!!” on the results that were mailed to me.
  • Wishing I’d read the book Jarhead before watching the movie Jarhead, which I’ve rented and will watch this weekend.
  • Creativity and personality and what type of mini-workshop I want to design regarding this.
  • What I want for dinner.

What’s on your mind?

Food

Food

I want mother’s milk,
that good sour soup.
I want breasts singing like eggplants,
and a mouth above making kisses.
I want nipples like shy strawberries
for I need to suck the sky.
I need to bite also
as in a carrot stick.
I need arms that rock,
two clean clam shells singing ocean.
Further I need weeds to eat
for they are the spinach of the soul.
I am hungry and you give me
a dictionary to decipher.
I am a baby all wrapped up in its red howl
and you pour salt into my mouth.
Your nipples are stitched up like sutures
and although I suck
I suck air
and even the big fat sugar moves away.
Tell me! Tell me! Why is it?
I need food
and you walk away reading the paper.

–Anne Sexton

The Tribulation of a Bourgeoise

The curse of curiosity is that it causes one to spread attention too thinly. I’m feeling it. I’m feeling rag-tag, superficial, scattered. I want too much, want to do too many things, and wind up doing some of them some of the time and never become excellent at any. Which does the dilettante want to do today? Knit? Draw? Take photographs? Write poetry? Memoir? Read? Garden? Exercise? Homemake? Save the world? (Several years ago I had the harebrained idea that I wanted to re-learn to play the recorder. I’d learned in elementary school and was given a soprano recorder in high school. My sister gave me sheet music for Christmas in 2000. I didn’t pursue the goal.)

My appetite is too large. Notice how the list above doesn’t mention friends? I actually have none here, at least none I get together with or talk to on a consistent basis. For the short time I hosted the memoir writing group, I felt it was rich and rewarding. But then I got a job. (Oh, that’s rubbish; when I was unemployed I still wasted a lot of time and didn’t see a lot of people.) Keeping in touch with other friends in Austin, and with family, is more a theory than a fact. I also spend more time on the computer than is helpful. At 43Things (another time waster of mine), a search for the words “less time internet” brings up 10,468 goals, all of which mention something about using the internet less. (Well, I didn’t read them all, but after the first 50 I assumed this was true.) So I’m not special, I’m not alone. Now what?

I wish I only wanted to do one thing, at most two. I want to fall in love, monogamously and forever, with one art form or life goal. I wish I preferred making visual art only. Let’s narrow that down, even. I wish I wanted only to draw, to really learn the principles and practice it daily to become better at it. Instead I want to also make collage and paint. I rarely do any. Or I wish my passion was only for writing. But what kind of writing? I want to write memoir, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Becoming a good writer requires taking time to read, and especially to read works in the genre of choice. Becoming a good writer requires spending time actually writing. But again, what genre? I wish I could decide on whether to pursue non-profit work or to devote myself to developing a life coach practice. I wish I would commit to exercising regularly, making it as much a priority as eating.

My life is cluttered with unused art supplies, unread books and magazines, yarn, needles. It’s gotten so crowded that I feel stifled. My home is chock full of tchotchkes. I long for clean space, clean lines. I have a gym membership that isn’t used as often as I’d promised myself. Stacks of printed articles on creativity and philanthropy and notes of half-baked workshop ideas crowd my desk.

It is tempting to delude myself with the label of “Renaissance woman” and to conclude it’s just that I’m bursting with life and creativity, a modern-day female da Vinci. Hah! I suspect this widespread interest in too many things is one way I protect myself and avoid responsibility. But protect myself from what? Maybe it’s how I avoid being still, because being still brings me closer to the unknown, and the unknown terrifies me. Or maybe all this busy-ness is filling the void of being childless. Avoid what responsibility? The responsibility of becoming really good at something so that people start to expect and rely on my performance. I also surmise that my scattered approach is an expression of immaturity. If I choose A, this means I turn away from B. “But I don’t wanna!”

So today I stew in frustration and self-loathing (actually, it’s been simmering for quite awhile subconsciously). I know this is not productive. But this is what is. I hate this part of myself. It is a deeply ingrained character trait. I remember in my youth starting projects and not finishing them, and the dismay of my elders over this. Hell, I changed my college major five times! And my decision process for graduate school was agonizing. (Did I want a Master of Library Science, to become an ESL teacher, or become a pschotherapist? I wanted them all. And these days I daydream about earning a Master of Fine Arts degree.)

Do I yearn for fewer choices? (Be careful what you wish for, Kathryn.) No. Back in my twenties when absence of money restricted my options, my devotion to one craft or goal was an adaptation. I devoted myself to earning my B.A., because I knew it was the path out of clerical hell and a poor income. For a decade I satisfied the passion to write by maintaining a penpal relationship with a man. It was a journaling relationship; we each poured out our lives to the other, had discussions, even debates, via pen and paper. Between full-time work and school, there was not much time for extras. Writing has always been necessary. So I focused on that. I simply did not dream of exploring visual art, for example. Ah, but now, with a better standard of living, I have been able to afford to explore. No, I don’t wish for fewer choices. I wish for the fortitude, the strength of character, to choose a path and devote myself to it.

What to do?

Optimize Your Brain

The brain is a three-pound supercomputer. It is the command and control center running your life. It is involved in absolutely everything you do. Your brain determines how you think, how you feel, how you act, and how well you get along with other people. Your brain even determines the kind of person you are. It determines how thoughtful you are; how polite or how rude you are. It determines how well you think on your feet, and it is involved with how well you do at work and with your family. Your brain also influences your emotional well being and how well you do with the opposite sex.

Your brain is more complicated than any computer we can imagine. Did you know that you have one hundred billion nerve cells in your brain, and every nerve cell has many connections to other nerve cells? In fact, your brain has more connections in it than there are stars in the universe! Optimizing your brain’s function is essential to being the best you can be, whether at work, in leisure, or in your relationships.

–Dr. Daniel G. Amen

You can read his recommendations further at Seven Ways to Optimize Your Brain and Your Life.

Ask Why

I just finished watching the movie, Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room. It reveals a “lord of the flies” corporate culture in which the greediest, wiliest, least ethical people at the top used all their skill and power to rape a market and the people it serves, as well as their own employees. It’s an excellent movie, but it left me pretty angry and disgusted about the havoc they caused in so many lives. Of course, there was a lot of cooperation from accounting companies and banks that agreed to go along with whatever explanations Enron offered, because they gained as well.

Husband continued to watch the DVD extras, but I had to leave the room when I heard Ken Lay explain how his net worth had sunk from several hundred millions to “less than 25 million dollars.” Granted, he acknowledged other people in his company had suffered far worse, and he said it was tragic. But apparently he’s not so moved by their plight to actually accept culpability directly. The “tag line” to Enron’s ads was “ask why” — it seems this this was a question asked least often.

People who think money can do anything may very well be suspected of doing anything for money.

–Mary Pettibone Poole

Just Stillness

Still Still

The cats sleep. The furnace belches
dust and heat. A dying man tries

to breathe. Just a machine, your chest rising
and falling. Bleached leaves flap like wings.

The creek, still still, still solid. The hole
in the oak, abandoned. Frogs dream of life

beneath the ice. The hole longs to be filled.
The concrete angel on the patio sulks.

Last night I dreamed the farmer was reaping
snow, that his harvester was eating me

alive. Husked. Hulled. This morning light fails
to be described. A skein of geese unravels.

Boring, predictable. I glean the field for signs.
A crow ruins the silence. I breathe, ignore it.

–Laurel Dodge, La Chambre d’Ecoute

There is something stark, austere, beautiful, and reminiscent of Zen in this poem. I discovered Laurel’s blog last year. I read it often. (I also visit because I have a huge crush on her cat, Bob, who is featured frequently.) What I find compelling about Laurel is her willingness to dwell on the edge; she converses with death, loss, and grief in a way so intimate it makes me uncomfortable. That is why I visit her — because she explores places I don’t feel brave enough to pursue. Also because Bob is so gorgeous, and she captures his catness in all its variety.