Je Suis Charlie

The world is abuzz with talk of Charlie Hebdo. Yesterday, 12 people were viciously murdered in Paris by gunmen (alleged Islamic extremists), the staff of a satirical magazine by the aforementioned name. Today, artists everywhere are speaking out in solidarity for freedom of speech and expression, for peace, and for the power of words and images, even in the face of violence and intolerance (maybe especially when our conflicts devolve to brute force). #charliehebdo on Instagram is filled primarily with two kinds of images: one reminding us to be peaceful with our neighbours, to not respond to violence with violence, whether in personal anecdotes about innocent Muslims being harassed on the streets by angry pedestrians or pictures of crowds gathered with candles and signs, and the other sort a direct response from artists around the world, their own drawings or pictures of their “weapons”: pencils, pens, paper, erasers, rulers, paintbrushes, cameras… the tools of free expression. Here’s an article that gathered some of the latter examples.

On the other end of the spectrum, as the internet blew up and the mad chatter began, amidst the chaos of articles and opinions and cartoons that suddenly began popping up everywhere, I found this piece from Al Jazeera: America journalist Arthur Goldhammer refreshingly clear-headed. I feel he makes an important point, both about the nature of Charlie Hebdo as a publication (and the intent of its creators), and about our tendency to “sacralize” things to the point where we forget what they really are, or were, to where we can’t see that it’s the very irreverent offensiveness of the magazine that made it valuable on the forefront of the fight for freedom of expression; I hope we don’t lose that side of the story, as we create our memorial.

Neil Gaiman wrote a blog some time back titled “Why Defend Freedom of Icky Speech”, which he reshared in response to the tragedy and resulting conversations. I’m sharing it with you, because I feel that the subject under discussion is at the heart of the Charlie Hebdo incident and all terrorism that targets non-combatants for ideas and their expression. If we really want to fight back, only a very, very small part of that can involve apprehension or punishment of the perpetrators of this individual act; instead, with equal fervor, we must go after that part of ourselves that wishes to censor other people because we find their words or behaviours distasteful, offensive, and undesirable – we must renew our determination to defend each other’s right to speak out, and not only our own. So today (and really, every day), in honour of those who died at Charlie Hebdo, I ask you to be kind to someone you disagree with.

I will leave you with this email I received yesterday afternoon from Michel Valentin, a good friend of mine who is a professor of French language and culture, himself from France before he came here to teach many years ago. As someone who was present for the beginning of the publication and the cultural context it was born in, I feel his words offer a perspective I never could on these events and the greater ramifications of the targeting of this particular journal.

Citizens, Friends, Colleagues,

            It is with extreme sadness that I learned today (US Mountain time) about the total annihilation in Paris of the editorial staff (10 persons) of Charlie Hebdo by what appears to be three ICEL/ISIS (?) terrorists.

The Charlie Hebdo satirical Magazine sprung out of the creative fervor and iconoclastic criticism of the students/workers movement during the cultural revolution of May 1968 (when we were young, idealist, and thought that we could change the world for the better).

It formed a significant part of the counter-culture of the time.

Controversial from the beginning, Charlie Hebdo editorial policy satirized (and took pot shots at ) all forms of power, violence, racism, exploitation, bigotry… , may they be political or religious. It lampooned what it perceived to be any forms of Catholic, Protestant, Jewish…, or Muslim extremism or obscurantism.

I have often used cartoons (and magazines covers) from different Charlie Hebdo magazines in the different French language and culture classes I taught.

This is extremely dolorous for us who experienced 1968. Whenever in France, or in a Francophone country, I always made the point of buying the weekly Charlie Hebdo as a complement to the Monde or Libération (official media). Charlie Hebdo was a fun, intelligent, youthful and energetic magazine. It was (and I hope that it will still be) a very progressive magazine always siding with the oppressed, the downtrodden, the poor, the little people… It made use of one of the oldest weapons known to humanity: satire, irony, mockery, lampooning, iconoclasm…

Charlie Hebdo was a cultural icon which disturbed, annoyed, and irritated all political parties and all fundamentalisms (some, obviously, more than others).

What is to be added or said?  It is an especially sad day.

In memoriam. Peace be with all.

Peace be with all.

The Business of Creativity

I consider myself a creative person – an artist, to use a broad term. I draw, spin, write (books, comics, papers, this blog), do calligraphy and Celtic knotwork, am working on learning tattooing, have tried my hand at various forms from crochet to sandblasting to stained glass (my first job). I am happiest when doing this sort of work; even my time as a pastry chef drew on much the same skillset. For many years now, I’ve been trying to figure out how to use my art to make a living – some way to make it sustainable, to network and market myself successfully enough to “quit my dayjob” and just Be An Artist, preferably doing work that is meaningful to me personally. It’s a tough gig, though. Some people have innate suitability; some people get the luck of timing and placement, others give over some (large or small) amount of creative control in exchange for patronage. Most, though, one way or another, have to figure it out through hard work and the messy process of navigating the learning curve through trial-and-error. I’ve looked into a fairly wide variety of options at this point; one resource I’ve found particularly helpful is the free course offered by Cory Huff of The Abundant Artist (theabundantartist.com), which discusses the growing necessity for artists to market their own work and offers multiple resources and sound advice on a plenitude of ways one might approach this process, based on the collective experience of contributing independent artists.

As the internet becomes an integral part of how our society functions and networks, an understanding of the technological and business aspects of “being an artist” (musician, author, performer, what-have-you) is becoming simply another aspect of what one is expected (required) to master for success (which I would define, at a minimum, as sustainability). The internet offers a much wider (potential) audience for virtually any artist, in some sense “leveling the playing field” – but as anyone who has tried to play the game can attest to, it’s not actually that simple. Success (in a professional sense) anywhere depends on accruing a certain level of popularity – i.e., a large enough client-base to sustain one’s expenses, whatever those may be (materials, rent, bills…). Many of the currently-available methods for doing this are internet-based. Crowd-funding sites like kickstarter.com, indiegogo.com, and gofundme.com have all provided ways for people with ideas to get support from people with resources (in this case, money) in order to see those things through – like a fan-based advance on your next project or business undertaking. Patreon.com is taking a rather different approach; instead of advance funding, Patreon functions much like an old patronage system, but on a more diffused scale: artists get a page to describe themselves/their work, presenting whatever they’re offering as a “product”, and then customers – website patrons – may browse through the collection and choose to endorse whomever/whatever they wish, in whatever amount they are comfortable with. Artists then receive payments from their patrons, through the website, in one of two ways: per “work” shared (a song, a comic page, a painting, a video, a new recipe) or per month, an option usually selected by those who put out high numbers of small works (daily comic strips, for example). In all of these crowd-funding examples, the more patrons/fans one gains, the closer one gets to being able to make this whole creativity skill sustainable/successful.

Amanda Palmer’s recent article in the Guardian raises some key points about this process that we, as a society, are still struggling to define. It is true that we seem to set a double-standard for artists – we want them to make prolific amounts of very creative things, the doing of which requires an immense amount of time, energy, and resources, yet we bristle at the idea of artists making art “for money” – shouldn’t they (we) just do it for sheer love, if it’s “real” art? While I agree that there is something sacred in being allowed to simply follow the muse – to take direction from no one but one’s inner voice, guided by a creative vision to produce something entirely from within the self – almost no one actually enjoys that kind of freedom in the real world, at least not all the time. I fervently believe that we must preserve opportunities and spaces for that kind of soul-full creation, but I also think we need to reconsider many of our publicly-embedded opinions about what art – and, by extension, artists – are worth to us. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been watching Downton Abbey recently, so I have class issues and societal shifts on the brain, but I can’t help feeling like much of our societal attitude toward artists stems from an earlier, and much more stratified, age. Anyone who took money for work of any kind was clearly no aristocrat, but art occupied a particular sphere, desirable to have and experience, yet not to participate in directly – outside the boundaries of the acceptable, as creative souls so often are. In fact, the more “worth” one had in society, the more one was expected to surround oneself with things like (very expensive) famous or striking pieces of art, and artists themselves might even be invited as occasional guests or treated as companions and favourites, but they still weren’t “in the family”, so to speak. To be a performer, in particular, was a low-class occupation, no matter how successful one became, how many admirers, how much money one accumulated throughout a public career. We – Western civilisation, in particular – have gone through such radical changes in the last century; it isn’t that everything is different, but enough things are changed or changing to make us conflicted, caught between past and future with no certainty which – if either – offers the better path. If it isn’t the way it used to be, then how is it, and what ought it become, and is that the same as what it is becoming?

In the synchronistic way life so often seems to go, over coffee today my grandparents mentioned a documentary they had recently watched about the “liking” phenomenon and its effect on kids growing up with things like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. One of the things that stood out to me in the conversation was the discussion of how much time is involved in keeping up with all of the social networking we’re expected to do, now, even (especially?) as kids/young adults – hours per day staring at a screen, responding to comments, answering messages, updating pages, sharing and reposting, all trying to garner a larger audience of “friends” to, in essence, want to pay attention to us – our lives, our work, our opinions. It is, truly, not only a personal but a professional skill, and like any, it is both an investment and a commitment, and sometimes an overwheming one, particularly for anyone already trying to keep up with the ever-evolving demands of living and working, to say nothing of younger persons, only just learning who they are and might be. Like society as a whole, individuals are influenced by their surroundings, and art creates doorways to the transcendant, the unexpected, the universally untranslatable needs and imaginings of the human soul; through all of this, we and society are growing and learning, changing and evolving, making choices about identity and values and methods.

As someone trying to navigate these murky and turbulent waters of internet marketing, social networking, and professional production myself, I find myself hoping we, as a society, as human beings, can remember to be compassionate and generous with each other. I hope we can overlook superficial flaws in favour of genuine inspiration and skill, that we can empower the gifted regardless of where we find them so that they in turn can give back to us. Most of all, I hope we can find it in our hearts, our words, and our actions to really value art – and the artists who give it to us – in a way that allows it to be a sustainable, abundant career choice. Art in its many forms engages all our senses, draws us out of ourselves, fosters empathy and connection. Clerks expect an hourly wage, and deserve one; so, too, servers, transportation workers, chefs, lawyers, librarians, teachers, yet we seem to have a strange blind spot when it comes to art. For one thing, the hundreds and thousands (this is not hyperbole) of hours invested in mastering one’s given skillset, be it dance or portraiture, clearly affect one’s value as an artist, but are difficult to measure; there are methods of certification to one degree or another in any field, but their relevance and reliability are not necessarily readily apparent to the potential client trying to make a decision about their investment, so how does one judge what a piece or performance is worth? How does an artist price something “fairly”? It’s not like a pair of shoes, which must be sold for roughly the same price regardless of the venue; the value of art is highly subjective.

So, I can’t tell you what it’s worth – but I can say, if it’s art, it’s a piece of someone’s soul. Sometimes they’re tiny pieces, little droplets of memory, a habit picked up that filled an available niche; sometimes they’re a cup overflowing and carrying us away, too. Either way, I hope we – every one of us – will take what opportunities we have to give back, as generously as we can, and keep the cycle unceasing. Together, let’s create the world in the image we want to see manifested, literally.

If you have thoughts, I’d love to hear them. Please feel free to share, discuss, and comment! Also, if you’re curious or feeling generous, here’s my own Patreon page: http://www.patreon.com/onegoldenapple. It’s fairly new still, and I’m not one of the lucky few (yet) who gets to make art my “day job”, so I don’t put out content as frequently as I’d like to, but with time, fortune, and the generosity and support of others who value what I offer, I hope to change both of these things.

For better and for worse

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a month to remember!

I already let you know about NaNoWriMo, and why I wasn’t writing more other things during November. That’s where it started. For the record, I won! 50k words (plus a few) in 30 days – the skeleton outline of an entire novel, just waiting to be fleshed out and filled in and primped and prettied until it’s ready for public presentation. (Every writer’s different, but I’m the kind who thinks editing is the fun part – where you get to just go into the world you’ve already created, with the story you’ve already more-or-less told, and tweak and poke and polish until it’s all just the way you imagine it.) I have to give a big round of thanks to all the friends and writing-buddies who have supported & encouraged me along the way, from helping me brainstorm about how a mermaid might make money to reading my raw prose without even complaining about the bits I skipped over as I went. (It’s nowhere near over – for anyone who’s volunteered as a beta-reader, the real work is only just about to begin.) Above all, I’m thankful for the unflagging support of my partner, who not only cheered me on but did her best to help me make room for my writing in our lives in a serious way, because it’s something I want to be more serious about than I have in the past. See, that’s the thing that really appeals to me about Nano as an idea, about the communal ritual that happens every November: it’s not actually about writing a set number of words. It’s about learning to be a writer, and how to make time for that in your life, because it’s a very slippery sort of work. It doesn’t look like you’re doing much, and it doesn’t pay off – assuming it ever does – right away, especially when you’re an unpublished would-be author with a lot of ideas and little experience. 50k words isn’t an insurmountable goal; if you’re going for a standard novel-length, it’s not even a complete book. But it’s enough to be a solid, expandable mass, something you can work with, and it’s just enough that it very nearly forces you into good habits; I’m not claiming any records for speed, but I spent over a hundred hours writing this month, and it felt really good. It motivated me to get up earlier, be more organised, make more intentional choices about how I was spending my time. I started with something I believed in, a solid seed, and nurtured it until as it grew, and grew, toward something that might even be fruitful.

About two-and-a-half weeks into the month, discipline holding, word-count climbing, my story beginning to manifest on the page, a little real-life excitement interjected itself into tidy routines. Suddenly – not just overnight, but instantaneously – the laws where I live changed. A decision was made sooner than anyone was expecting it to be, and a judgment that had been applied to other states was abruptly extended to mine, which meant that, all at once, I could get married. Nine years you wait, and you fight; you believe (sometimes only because you can’t bear not to), and you hope, and you promise each other. And as they pass, you think about your choices – get married somewhere else, even if it wouldn’t be recognised at home, even though the rights that go with the office evaporate like flashing steam when you cross the state line? Give up on marriage entirely – for you, or maybe just for anybody at all, an outdated practice; if marriage can’t keep up with the culture, maybe it’s had its day. But it’s all more complicated than any of those options, and none of them are really good ones. Marriage can be beautiful, and it is changing with the times, and sometimes it’s what changes the times. Nine years you wait, and then ten minutes pass, and the world has changed around you.

The only day this month when I didn’t write at all was Friday, November 21^st. Three days after the ban was lifted, I married the love of my life at the nearest courthouse. It was simple; it was chaotic; it was perfect. Our party was nervous but joyful; everyone we met was kind and helpful. The justice of the peace who presided over our vows volunteered when we had no appointment, and proceeded to thank us afterward for “helping to make legal history”. The outpouring of love from all our friends and family was astounding – for us, and for what we represent, as True Love Triumphant, a victory for our society and our culture, for all of us who are fighting to see Love prevail over Hatred in the grand battle of living.

As all of this has transpired, I’ve found myself struck by the synchronicity of having these two things coincide in one hectic, beautiful month. I didn’t give up on my novel; I made up the wordcount when I fell behind, and I met the deadline before breakfast on the final day. What’s more, I still want to work on it, which must be a good sign. And marriage should be like that – with room to live in the moment, to take chances and be spontaneous, but with an underlying habit of building it up daily, of thinking not only about how much fun it is right now but also looking ahead to see what you’re trying to help it become, the potential it has to grow beyond where it began. It is so easy to take for granted the person you love best, and to forget what being in love is really about, or why you picked this human being out of all the options on the planet.

So, I thought I’d share another TED-Talk with you: Esther Perel on “The secret to desire in a long-term relationship”. She discusses the way that long-term intimate relationships rely on a pair of contradictory expectations: the person must excite us, and they must also comfort us. They must be erotic, which works best with some element of surprise or anticipation, and yet they must also be familiar. This, of course, is part of what makes it so difficult to find one person who fulfills all your needs, but don’t despair! As the title suggests, and as many of us have discovered, there are plenty of ways to keep the old new, and better than ever.

Here’s to LOVE – may it fill your life and radiate from you into all those around you; may you give and receive it freely and as often as you have the opportunity; may it open your eyes to new experiences, and colour the world around you with memories.

Here’s one of mine: my grandpa sang this song to me when I was little (and still does, on occasion).

Love is something if you give it away (give it away, give it away)

Love is something if you give it away,

You end up having more.

It’s just like a magic penny: hold it tight, and you won’t have any!

Lend it, spend it, and you’ll have so many

They’ll roll all over the floor!

NaNoWriMo 2014 + Preview Chapter

Some of you may have heard of NaNoWriMo, and some of you may have been wondering why it was taking me so long to update this blog. For those who don’t know, it’s shorthand for National Novel Writing Month, and it’s the handle coined by the non-profit organization that brings writers together every November to write a novel – 50k words – in 30 days. The site (run by donations) offers community and support to those writers throughout the process, as well as during the rest of the year. They help people host local writing events, provide forums and support, and schedule a wide assortment of published authors to give feedback and encouragement to aspiring writers. It’s a fun, mad dash for a finish line that can provide much-needed motivation and inspiration.

For the first time ever, although I’ve often used November’s NaNoWriMo association as an excuse to work more on a given project, I’m having a serious go at it. This year, I’ve sacrified my excuses as an offering to my muse, and I’m writing a book. It’s an adaptation of the Little Mermaid, but while afficionados may recognize many elements, it’s not the story as you know it. This, of course, has taken a huge amount of my time recently, in addition to a recent new job, so I apologize for the scarcity of new posts.

In the meantime, please accept this excerpt from my project as a celebration of passing 20k words! I’m excited about how it’s going so far, although it’s still in the rough draft stage, of course. As always, I’d love to hear any feedback you have for me. ^.^ Hope you’re staying warm – it’s certainly chilly here in the north woods.

__________________

Chapter 2: The Storm

When she was here, it almost felt like time had stood still the way she wished for it to. Her father’s coat was worn and still too big for her; it hung loosely across her shoulders and down toward her fingertips, but his hat was snug against the rolled tangle of her hair where it was tucked as securely out of the wind as she could get it, and her feet – with a nice thick pair of woolen socks, or perhaps two – weren’t out of place in his old beat-up workboots. They’d gotten more beaten up over the years since he’d gone away, worn from the weight of memories she carried with them, but when she was here, with the water lapping the toes of those worn-out boots, and the breeze in her face teasing stray tendrils free despite her best efforts, here with the sound of the waves and her strings, she could almost convince herself that there was still a hint of his cologne on the collar. With thick soles keeping her feet dry, she could let the water swirl around her steps, giving and taking the sand beneath her with each wave so that if she closed her eyes she could almost believe she was on deck again, and then she’d put her fiddle to her shoulder and play a tune for those merry sailors of her childhood, here for her now only if she didn’t look at them directly or let herself be pulled back to the grief-logged present.

What a birthday, Caryad thought. It had been a disaster from the start, and the last thing she felt like celebrating was the further distancing of happier times. There had been dozens of people in and around her house all night, and knowing them all didn’t make the invasion any more welcome, it only meant an endless stream of time spent in forced polite conversation, usually with an uncomfortable focus on her own personal affairs – it was a celebration in her honour, after all, a young woman in her own right, now. To Caryad, though, all it meant was another semester looming ahead, far from home and family, and even less time to spend on the things she actually cared about, like her music and the fleet. To distract herself from the thought of it, she played, setting her bow to the strings and letting the notes dance out across the waves, high and low, fast, then slow, until the music wrapped around her like her battered coat, familiar and safe. She was sick of everything familiar, though, and the last thing she felt was safe, anymore; when her enthusiasm for jigs and reels ran dry, the music shifted, almost as if her hands had a will of their own, and she found herself playing those other songs, eerie and mournful, that she had heard sometimes drifting across the water late at night, songs at once familiar and strange that had haunted her dreams for years.

For a celebration, the day’s events had been rather lackluster. Ura was weary, but wide awake; she was ready to get away from the throng and think her own thoughts. Her sisters had all come, with their mothers, their beaus, their children if they had them, and her father had been there, magnificent and regal, moving amongst them all with stately grace. He had looked calm and composed; his grief had not shown in his bearing, but Ura had seen more of her father than she was accustomed to of late, staying in his home, and she was beginning to know a different side of him. Though everyone tried to speak of other things, the loss of Lleucu and Irael lay heavy over the gathering, and Ura’s birthday celebration had taken on the distinct tone of a wake. It wasn’t that she minded, exactly; what else were they to think of, just now? But she was glad when it was over, and they all trickled away back to their own homes, the cavern around her slowly growing empty and echoing as the guests reclaimed their lanterns and departed, bobbing bioluminescent spheres retreating into the gloom. In the gathering hall, Irttoor lingered, collecting the lamps that swayed from the ceiling in the gentle current. He moved with purpose, gliding in a slow arc along the strand that held them, plucking each one loose and adding it to the net at his hip. He had even managed to bring three lanterns glowing softly purple for her, an impressive feat. They clinked softly as they shifted against one another, and Irttoor was humming quietly to himself as he worked, dark bronze tail and smooth head gleaming in the many-coloured light.

Mared had disappeared early in the evening; no one saw much of her these days, and Ura hardly recognised the pale, somber stranger who had taken her sister’s place. It was as though half of Mared had died with Irael, leaving only enough to go through the mechanical motions of a daily routine. She and Ura hadn’t spoken much since it had happened; Ura felt like a chasm had opened between them overnight, and she didn’t know how to cross it. Mared didn’t even seem to care; she just kept to herself. Now, with the guests all departed, the only other occupant of the room was her father. Ura felt the weight of his presence as he approached, and turned to face him, drawing her kelpen shawl closer around her shoulders. Naima was, as ever, the image of authority: strong shoulders, proud bearing, gravely dignified gaze; his was the colouring of Kevalek, black eyes, bronze fins, a rippling green shawl clasped at his left shoulder with a bone brooch fashioned from the sleek skull of a serpentfish. Their eyes met, and she saw his concern for her, but she turned away again, strangling her sudden surge of emotion. She would only make him worry all the more if he saw her distress. He meant well, she knew, but he had his own grief, and there was nothing he could do to take hers away. Still, when he placed his hand on her shoulder, she leaned her head against his arm, putting her hands over his and clinging, just a little bit. There was a hole in her world that could never be filled or forgotten. They stayed for a long moment that way, each absorbed in their own thoughts; eventually, Ura lifted her head, and Naima dropped his hand away, retreating back to his own side of the mutually-defined boundary between them. “Goodnight, little one.” The divide gaped; Ura didn’t know how to cross this one anymore than the distance that separated her from Mared now. She felt numb, and slow. By the time she thought of anything else to say to him, he was already gone, heading for his own chamber.

She turned from her father’s departing figure to see Irttoor, a bare armslength away, all his lanterns safely stowed in a carry-basket with the net lashed on top, regarding her with his cool grey gaze. “Feel older yet?” he asked, breaking into a sudden grin.

“Definitely,” she answered, with a half-hearted laugh. “By the minute.”

He shook his head at her, and she let him enfold her with strong arms. She couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t been friends, but his hugs had only gotten better over the years as he grew into himself. At least with Irttoor, she didn’t have to pretend that she was handling any of this well; he never judged, and he never asked too many questions. It was nice, but after a few moments, she pulled away, her stomach knotted in an icy ball. Comfort felt hollow to her; nothing would change the loss. “I should rest,” she said, making a vague gesture of farewell and avoiding his eyes, which always saw too much, even if he kept his own counsel. “It’s been a long day. I… thanks. For everything. The lamps were beautiful, Irttoor.” She mustered a smile, genuine if fleeting. “Goodnight.”

He rubbed his thumb against her smooth temple in fond farewell, cupping the side of her face in his big palm. “Take it easy, Ura. Get some sleep. There’s always tomorrow.” He gave her another quick, one-armed hug, snagged the handles of his basket, and was off with a flick of his fine tail.

Just the the thought of tomorrow made Ura’s weariness crash down on her like a sudden weight. She knotted her shawl over one shoulder and under the other arm to leave her hands free, the thigh-length woven brown tunic she wore beneath it tailored to her form, but loose enough to let her move easily. Let her sisters have glamour, and her father the trappings of power; Ura was a practical soul, though she liked pretty things well enough. She glanced once more around the darkened hall, now merely an impression of planes and arches, and then she, too, left.

She had meant to go to her old sleeping-cavern, to spend the night in the shadow of her mother’s memory and be somehow closer to her, but that wasn’t where Ura found herself headed. Instead, each purposeful stroke of her tail drove her further out into open water as the last grey twilight died around her, and the watery world below became inky and opaque. A few lamps gleamed still in the bowels of Kevalek, but they soon vanished from view, and she was left suspended in a surreal pocket of emptiness, unable to mark any distance crossed but for the passage of moments and the movement of the water across her skin.

When she surfaced at last, the air was frigid against her face, and the stars sharp and clear above. She gasped, taking a moment to adjust to the way of breathing when out of the water, blinking clinging droplets from her eyelashes until the heavens came into focus. She drifted, moving her arms in lazy circles, leaning back as the waves cradled her shoulders. Two moons showed in the sky, one a vivid red sliver, the other pale, bright, and fat, casting their luminescent reflections on the face of the deep. She had never been to the Surface alone, before; the silence hung heavy around her, unbroken by her mother’s bright voice. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Ura began to sing, her voice thin and wavering, but growing stronger with each familiar note that wrapped around her like a phantom embrace.

She sang one song after another, closing her eyes to hear her mother’s remembered voice more clearly, starting with the ones she knew best and then working her way through whatever she could recall of the rest, suddenly terrified to forget, to lose pieces of the gift she had been given. Her voice, as it warmed up, was beautiful, rich and smooth, and still possessed of the pure tones of youth; high or low, she was magnificent, as the breeze bore her memorial tribute across the rolling waves of the bay, away toward the lights of distant Tangwenfel.

The motion of the water rocked the boat gently side-to-side as Caryad set the oars aside and let it drift in the current, being slowly drawn out toward the wide mouth of Tramawr Bay. She knew she shouldn’t have come out alone – it was dangerous – but in the moment, craving space so desperately, missing her da’s easy company and hearty laugh, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from dragging the boat down to the waterline and pushing off, finding a measure of freedom amidst the rolling waves. She lay back in the boat, picking out old stellar friends with her eyes: the Hounds, the Hare, the Young Widow at her Wheel, spinning her endless bright galactic skeins. Sudden tears blurred her vision; she let them fall as they would, not moving to wipe them away as they trickled down her temples and into her dark wiry curls. “Why did you leave me?” she asked the empty night, knowing it would have no answers for her. “Wasn’t what you had here worth staying for?” But she knew the answer to that, already; she was living the proof of it, and her da wasn’t coming back, no matter how she wished it. She sniffed, rubbing the heels of her hands across her cheeks, and sat up, leaning against the side of the boat and gazing down into the water mournfully. “I miss you,” she whispered to the broken reflection there, “all the time.”

There was no use wallowing in self-pity, however. She gathered the shreds of her dignity, although no one was watching but the distant stars, and tugged her da’s hat down farther on her brow, his coat heavy and warm around her; then she lifted her fiddle, and played the songs of the sea, the way she had learned to as a child making a place for herself in a crew of grown sailors. She had felt at home, then, in her world and in her own skin; she wondered, now, lanky and awkward and nearly-adult herself, if she would ever know that feeling again. The cosmos wheeled above, and the waters swirled below, and suspended between them she gave her heart to the music.

Her fingers grew cold after a time, and clumsy on the strings; she set her instrument back into its padded case and tucked her chilled hands inside her sleeves, chafing them for circulation. The hour was late; she had probably been missed, by now. She sighed, a welcome hollowness left where her earlier turmoil had churned in her gut, the edge of her restlessness worn away enough that she thought she could probably face the notion of sleeping through the night, now. The air against her cheeks was frosty; the silence around her held a crystalline quality, a purity only discoverable while most of the world slept. She laid her hands on the oars, preparing to turn for home, but paused, frozen, as a faint thread of sound made its way to her ears in the stillness: someone was singing, and though she knew the unmistakably haunting sound of a mermaid’s voice, she also knew the song, and the lure of curiosity was more than she could resist.

Oblivious to the cold, cradled by the ocean, Ura had saved her favourite song for last. It was the Ballad of the Seven Impossible Tasks, the story of how Angharad had won Gallchobar back again when his uncle had taken him captive in order to dissolve their union and destroy the peace of Tangwenfel. The prince’s uncle, who had been a man of great magical skill, had set his nephew at the heart of a spell with seven keys, each of which required Angharad to undertake a new quest before she could obtain her goal. They were separated for many years, but she persevered with great cunning and endured many hardships to unlock his prison, and in the end even the sorcery of Gallchobar’s uncle could not keep them apart. Ura had wondered, from the first time she heard the story, what it would be like to be in love like that with someone. Her own parents were hardly an example to go by; they had cared for one another deeply, but Lleucu had been more than content keeping her own ways and raising her daughters, with or without whatever company came her way from time to time, and Naima was hardly a man of singular attentions. What kind of force of emotion would it take to make someone pay that kind of price for love? What would she do, if it came to it, for the right someone? Was there a right someone? Her sister Yunedd, eldest of them all, had paired off with her beau years ago, and had eyes for no one else; was that the kind of love the stories talked about, or did it take more than that?

She sang the verses for each of Angharad’s trials, telling of each challenge and how she overcame it, but she trailed off at the end, before the lines that spoke of her reunion with Gallchobar at last, sudden sorrow stealing her breath. Reunion with loved ones seemed a cruel jest at the moment. A silent pause ensued, followed by her stifled sob; then, as if in a dream, a sound emerged from the fog that was beginning to spin silver strands across the moonlit night, high and bright. Frozen in place by sudden alarm intercepted by desperate curiosity, Ura listened as the unseen strings played the verses she had missed, bringing the song to its proper conclusion with a rippling flourish, her tail undulating slowly to keep her in place, yet prepared to dive below the surface at any moment, poised to flee. Humans were dangerous.

“Hello?” came the voice from the mist. “Is anyone there? I’m sorry if I startled you. I don’t mean any harm.” Ura didn’t answer, cloaked in the safety of the darkness, listening to the sound of human speech from a human tongue for the first time. She couldn’t tell if the voice was male or female, but it was lovely all the same, low and full. The silence stretched between them, broken only by the faint slap of the waves against the hull; then, once more, the melody rose from the invisible instrument. Ura’s breath caught, her heart feeling suddenly too full for her chest; the sound of it was inside her, moving through her, holding her spellbound. She had never heard anything like it, never felt anything like these pure notes that vibrated in her marrow and sang in her blood. The fog was rising; its tendrils wreathed around her head and throat, skimmed over the surface of the water and licked up the dark sides of the boat, now just barely visible as a shadowed silhouette, still many yards distant. She could just perceive the outline of a single form within it, limned by moonlight, bulky with the layers of clothing her grandmother had told her humans required to stay warm.

She couldn’t say what made her do it – the force of that music ringing through the bright stillness, or momentary madness brought on by grief, or perhaps just the sudden desperation for any way to go but back. She opened her mouth, and before she could let herself think about it any more, she picked up the thread of the song with the first verse as the melody circled round again, her voice high and pure in the starlight as ragged clouds crept across the moon. She sang of Angharad, and the impossible things she had done, while the sound of the strings soared and dipped around her. She was transfixed with wonder; here she was, making this thing of beauty, this moment of transcendence, with a human.

When the song came to its end, an uncertain silence fell once more between them, strangers still, each at odds with the tenets of their respective upbringings, yet unwilling to turn back. At length, a new note from the fiddle, a fresh verse; Ura listened twice before she realised she knew this one as well, or very nearly the same, and then they were off once more, their melodies gradually aligning as they compromised a note here or there, one variation to another unto consensus. They drifted gradually closer to each other as Ura began to relax her guard; the clouds had not relinquished the bold moon, and the fog was streaming away in ragged ribbons as the breeze picked up, brisk and biting. She didn’t know the third song the human played, nor the fourth, but the fifth was another old friend, all the more beloved for this sudden rediscovery in such unexpected circumstances. Minutes stretched to an hour, and more; the two strangers, caught in a spell of their own making, counted it not; neither did they take note of the choppiness of the waves nor the shroud that had drawn its grey veil across the sky. Dark clouds roiled above them, preparing to unleash the tempest.

A single flash of light, bright as day, split the night apart, followed shortly by the dreadful crack of thunder. Half-mad with sudden terror, Ura forgot her companion and their strange duet, diving down into the safety of the depths, her ears and eyes still dazzled and near-useless. She knew that storms on the Surface could be fearsome, of course, for she had seen how they stirred and lashed the water, but most of them passed with little or no impact on the world below. She had never imagined such light, such a sound, reverberating around her as though the entire world had shattered. Her skull was ringing with it yet.

Caryad gripped the oars with hands gone clumsy with the cold, cursing herself six ways of next week for stupidity. She had known better than to go out alone in the first place, but to pay so little attention to everything around her as to let such a storm as this creep up on her without even noticing until it was upon her was sheer, naïve idiocy. The wind pushed the high collar of her coat up against her cheek, making her eyes water with its bitter lashing; lightning prowled restlessly from cloud to cloud overhead, growling ominously the while. She pulled against the dragging mass of the water, pushing for speed, strong shoulders working to carry her back in range of the shore before it was too late.

It wasn’t enough. The waves grew rougher, swelling to valleys and crests that tossed her boat like a bit of bark from one to the next, spinning her this way and that until she couldn’t even tell which way was home. Darkness lay all around, sky and water indistinguishable except in the brief flashes that glistened off the inky face of the abyss. She fumbled for a rope and managed to lash it to the bench where she sat; she was halfway through looping it around herself in turn when the lightning flashed again. A black chasm gaped before her, streaked with seafoam; blindness returned, and the thunder crashed across the bay as Caryad’s boat tumbled, end over end, down the vertical slope to be swallowed by the deep in a single vast gulp. If she screamed, no one heard it in the rushing roar.

Cold wrapped around her like an iron glove, driving the air from her lungs in a great whoosh, squeezing her into a knot of arms and legs that wouldn’t work, heavy boots dragging her down like anchors clinging to her ankles. She kicked one free; the other stuck, too tightly laced, and she panicked, fighting against the pull of gravity, hoping desperately it would lead her to the surface, and air. The sea was not ready to relinquish its prize; she struggled in vain, her lungs on fire, her sinuses raw, as the blackness closed in. The rope was gone, and with it the boat, and any chance she’d had of making it back to shore alive.

As the ringing in her ears subsided, Ura lingered below, watching the distant flashes of light from the storm, remembering the all-encompassing voice of the thunder as it rolled over them. She shivered, recalling the way it had shaken her to the core, and hoped the stranger had returned home swiftly; the weather as it was now was nothing to be out wandering in. She, too, should turn for home; this outing had already been forbidden, and it was growing more dangerous. The water was restless, swelling and rolling, forcing her to retreat deeper to hold her position, the flickering lightning distant and surreal far, far above, a world away.

She felt the boat more than she saw it, coasting past her on a downward arc toward the floor of the bay. One splintered edge caught her shoulder in a rush of pain, the weight of it snagging her and carrying her along some way before she was peeled off by the rushing water. Disoriented, she clutched her bleeding arm, a new thought slowly worming its alarming way into her awareness past the pain: her human stranger was about to drown. Humans were not made to dwell in the depths; without the boat, her stranger was doomed. Heedless of danger and pain alike, she darted through the turbulent, rolling currents, hands outstretched in the murky darkness, groping blindly until her fingers found the curve of a worn collar, and curled into a fist, bunching the fabric and drawing the weight it held up, up, up to the churning, roiling surface of the sea where the stinging sleet sliced across her head and face. The stranger was unconscious, lolling limply against Ura’s frantic grip, but breathing shallowly. Ura wrapped her arms around the human (man or woman, she’d yet to determine) from behind and then turned on her back and began the journey toward land, one strong stroke of her tail at a time, as the chaotic night raged all around, stark and wild.

Education vs. Learning

In my last post I mentioned that I’d like to discuss education reform, so here goes: I’ll give you my thoughts, and if you feel like sharing yours, I’d love to hear them. If you aren’t already acquainted with some of the flaws in the “dominant culture of education”, I highly recommend these two talks by Ken Robinson: “Do schools kill creativity?” and “How to escape education’s Death Valley”. (If you like them, I recommend you watch any of the plethora of other presentations he’s given on related topics.) Robinson, I feel, really articulates the issue(s) clearly: public schooling is designed around a system which requires, in order to function as it stands, conformity and compliance. These things are at direct odds with what human beings need to flourish as creative individuals with unique potentials; thus, for far too many children, education becomes an ordeal to be endured, and by the end of it, we’re so grateful that it’s over that, according to the site statisticbrain.com, the percentage of U.S. high school graduates who will never read a book again is 33%; the number of college students who will never read another book after graduation is 42%. That’s a fairly high rate, don’t you think, for “never again”? So what is it about school that we’re so eager to escape? Well, anyone who’s been there can probably offer several suggestions, but social situations aside, what about the curriculum? Education exists to facilitate learning. Period. But is this really what it accomplishes? The problem with the dominant culture of education as it stands is that its purpose and its outcome are not the same thing. Too many people leave school behind hoping they’ll never need to learn anything again, and quite frankly, in this day and age, that’s pretty unlikely.

Too much of the curriculum most kids experience is passive: they go to an assigned place at an assigned time, and then they do a predetermined “activity”, which is usually not particularly active: reading two chapters of a book they didn’t pick, or filling out a page of multiplication tables, or writing an essay on what they like most about autumn. Are you bored yet? They are. Learning needs to be active, and it needs to be tied into the creative process. Really good teachers, the kind who change people’s lives forever, are typically not the ones who can stand up in front of a class and present accurate figures or make great notes on a board. Really good teachers are the ones who find a way to ask a question that makes you think a thought you’ve never had before, or consider an idea that never occurred to you until that moment; they show you your assumptions and limitations, and help you expand beyond them. Really good teachers don’t just teach you facts, because the fact about facts is that they really don’t matter all that much outside of very specific contexts, and many of them are not as set in stone as we think they are. What we believe we know, collectively as humans, is evolving all the time, so why isn’t education designed to reflect this? Why do we still go to class, and open a textbook that was probably written several years ago, and read trite little sections that make it seeem like we already know everything there is to know? By the time I was in 6^th grade or so, I certainly believed that, and it made me exponentially less interested in the whole process of learning. I didn’t just want to imbibe what other people had already figured out; I wanted new challenges, problems to solve, questions to answer that didn’t already have set answers. As it turns out, there are a lot more questions and a lot fewer set answers than I thought at the time, so why isn’t that what we’re teaching kids, instead? We’ve only just begun! If they’re supposed to be the future generations of astronauts and physicists and engineers and so on, then why are we bothering to cram their little heads full of problems that have already been solved, before they’re even interested in the subject at hand? The thing about humans is that we like to learn. We are creative, inherently; as Robinson puts it, “It comes with the kit.” All you have to do to get a kid to want to learn is to let them get excited about something new. That’s the first thing that education needs to do, but is inherently designed not to do. (How many children are diagnosed with AD(H)D because they’re too excitable and unruly in class? Every single one of my siblings and myself – that’s 5 kids altogether – received this diagnosis, and only one of us actually has the disorder in a mild form; the rest of us just had trouble sitting still for 8 hour blocks every day, often “studying” things we already knew and/or had no reason to be interested in.)

Once you have the interest factor, there are some tools we should be equipping kids with. Not facts – tools. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not discounting the fact-based disciplines, like math and science. They’re vitally important, and everyone should learn some. But that’s not what we ultimately need to succeed, in the world kids are growing up in now. What you need, more than facts, is self-confidence, creativity, empathy, and curiosity, and once you have those, you’re going to need a couple of practical skills in order to apply them effectively: the ability to engage in dialogue with others who differ from yourself, and the ability to engage actively in learning.

Creativity allows you to interact with the world around you and to think original thoughts – things nobody else told you to do or think; you just came up with them on your own, and fit them into the puzzle of your environment in order to somehow improve it or yourself; this kind of innovation is natural in humans, and if you don’t believe me, watch a 1-year-old explore their environment sometime, and see if they use the objects you’re familiar with for their expected purposes. Curiosity leads you to examine that environment and yourself in the first place, and then to ask the questions that drive learning (the “W6”: who, what, when, why, where, and how). Empathy endows you with the ability to interact with others whose experience differs from yours, and to comprehend ideas outside your own belief structure or knowledge base, and it is empathy that fundamentally enables dialogue. Empathy is also what creates collective identity; otherwise, the self is all that matters, and that leads to obvious and immediate conflict with the needs and interests of others. Last, but not at all least, self-confidence is vital to functioning as a creative individual. Those who lack it will not take risks, and those who will not take risks cannot learn, because learning involves trying something new, with a risk of getting it wrong. Too much of institutionalised learning focuses on right and wrong answers, instead of creating a safe environment for creative risks to be taken.

If you have these characteristics – creativity, curiosity, empathy, and self-confidence – then all you need are the tools that will enable you to make the most of them in the face of challenges and obstacles. The first tool you need, as mentioned above, is the ability to engage in dialogue. Dialogue is different from simple conversation; it implies a sharing back and forth between different viewpoints, which requires a willingness to entertain ideas you may not agree with as equally valid to your own. The structure of institutionalised education works directly against this; students learn that there are right and wrong answers, and the only thing they can offer that is valued is the predetermined correct answer. I can’t count the times I was given negative marks for thinking too much about something, in an attempt to give an original response, instead of simply parroting the answer I had been taught. This kind of interaction between students and teachers instills a belief in both sides that dialogue – true, open dialogue, that assumes the respect accorded an equal or peer – is impossible in this context. All of the “-isms” that we learn along the way, through social or familial interactions, through cultural mores, through the filters of our personal networks, (racism, sexism, genderism, classism, etc.) reinforce the idea that dialogue is an impossible task. Until we reverse this belief within ourselves, we will be unable to travel beyond the self-imposed boundaries of the worldview we construct around ourselves.

Finally, we must teach children how to learn. I don’t mean the basic brain activity – I mean all the resources and methods, the toolbox that equips us to function in a complex, perpetually changing world, and the choice to actively do so. I was homeschooled for some of my early education, and while I did many interesting projects and imbibed many useful facts during these periods, the best thing my parents ever did for me in this regard was to teach me how to teach myself things I didn’t already know. There are three basic methods. One is to use trial and error to figure it out yourself, but this has some obvious limitations, and in many cases, is more work than it’s really worth. There’s no use reinventing the wheel unless you’re trying to improve the original design; if you just want to know how it works, there are better ways. The remaining two take advantage of outside sources: you can use the academic method to research your topic, whether you prefer the internet or the library or your local bookstore, or you can get other people to impart their own knowledge to you directly. If you can master all three of these things, there is no challenge in the world you won’t be ready to tackle. That doesn’t mean every problem has a solution, or that you’ll be the one to figure it out if it does, but it gives you a starting place that is empowered, and a sense of personal responsibility in the equation. This is important, because ultimately, the only one who’s responsible for your education is you. Every school has different standards, and different teachers; every student’s experience will be different. The one thing that is universally true is that you will only remain as ignorant as you allow yourself to be, and with the tools of today’s world, there’s really no excuse for that. The power is in you – to seek, to learn, to create, to think, to try.

On that note, if you’re looking for some educational resources, here are a few of my favourites:

Khan Academy – a nonprofit educational organisation created “to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere” with thousands of resources, all free, including everything from video tutorials to practice sheets, on a wide variety of vital topics. The tagline on their website greets you with this declaration: “You only have to know one thing: You can learn anything.”

TED Talks – an ever-growing collection of presentations given by a vastly varied array of speakers from artists to economists to professors to musicians to spiritualists, on any topic they care to address. There are series on leadership, love, work and careers, human rights, technology, environmental issues – you name it, someone is talking about it, and some of the most insightful people from all over the world are doing it at TED. Presentations vary in length, so there’s something for any opportunity; get inspired, and then tell someone else!

YouTube – true, there are more videos about things that you’d never care to waste your time watching than you could count… but there are also scores of really useful things, everything from professional lectures recorded and put online to personal videos created by someone who just happens to be Really Good At Something, so they decided to share. Need to learn how to change that part on your car? Stumped for ideas for formal hairstyles? Stuck on a knitting project? Wondering what your favourite song sounds like in Yiddish? Despairing of ever understanding long division, or need suggestions for how to structure the plot of a novel? Look here for the spectrum of human diversity. True, you’ll catch some idiots in your sieve… but hey, they’d probably think whatever you’re looking up was pretty ridiculous, too.

That’s all for today, although there’s always more to be said. Now, go out and learn something! If you’re good at something, teach someone else! Share, explore, and connect. And if you’d like to join the discussion, feel free to do so below; I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

The Passionate Life

In an earlier entry, I talked a little about a conversation I had with my grandparents about the ways growing up – particularly that period from adolescent to functioning adult – has radically changed from their generation to mine. It came up in part because of the frustration that so many established adults feel, watching young people today flounder and struggle to figure it all out. Is Generation Y really just lazy and entitled? Yes, I think there are some who fit those qualifications, but a whole generation? Wow. This is where I was making my argument in that earlier entry (and in the conversation in question) that I think growing up has gotten more complicated. So if we’ve identified the problem, what’s the solution?

Well, first, I think there’s a huge need for education reform. I’ll talk about that another time; it’s something I feel strongly about. Right now, though, I want to talk about the kinds of choices that face someone who’s already gone through that system, someone standing on the threshold of their adult life, or already a few steps in, looking at it all and going, “What am I supposed to do with myself now? Where do I belong?” With a few rare exceptions – some people know what they want to be from age 2, and never waver – most of us, I think, find ourselves asking these kinds of questions at some point. This isn’t where the problem happens. The problem happens because there’s this void between what we feel fulfilled doing, and what we can get paid to do, and thus make a living at. Different people have proposed different answers to this; some people work a “practical” job, and save their passion for hobbies. Some people throw themselves at their passion and spend a lifetime struggling to sustain themselves. Some few people toss themselves in and actually learn how to swim. Some people burn themselves out quickly, and default to that “practical” job after a few years fighting the system.

This is the part where we, as a generation, can probably genuinely be accused of a sense of entitlement. We were told from day 1 that we could be whatever we wanted, that there was a place for us in the world, that we were all special – and we’ve committed the crime of believing it. Additionally, the choices you think are available when you’re 10 years old, or 15, are about 1% of the options you actually are going to have… if you know where to look, and how to ask. What’s worse, most of us don’t actually end up with the skills or background or experience we need to achieve those dreams we’ve been dreaming, whether that’s because of small schools that don’t offer art classes, or parents who couldn’t afford dance lessons, or having to get a job in high school to pay for your little brother’s school supplies so you never had time or energy left to practice that one thing you loved so much. Then, around 18, we’re turned loose on the world, and expected to suddenly know how it all works and where we belong so we can fit into society like perfect little cogs to keep the machine running… and this is the part where most of us fall by the wayside. Because all this time, we’ve been telling ourselves that we can succeed at something unique – that we’re needed somewhere, not just to flip a burger or clean a hotel room or run a till (and I mean absolutely no offense to anyone who does these things well and enjoys it), but to do the work no one else can do, to solve the problems no one else had the answer to, to pick up the pieces everyone else was happy to leave lying there until you saw a piece of art in it. We’re a creative, innovative generation. We don’t like the answer “no”, and while that can be frustrating for those around us, I don’t think it’s always a negative quality. If you let that make you act like a spoiled brat who wouldn’t know hard work if it bit you, that’s entitlement. If you let it make you invincible, and refuse to be limited by the lines other people before you drew in the sand, well, that’s the seed of how you change the world. But the real question is often, how do you know? How do you know if you’re good enough, if you love it enough, if it matters enough to justify not following conventional wisdom to a secure job and a secure life that seems, to most of my generation, almost as much of a myth as that dream we were chasing at age 5?

Eunice Hii gave a presentation entitled, “Don’t Just Follow Your Passion: A Talk for Generation Y”, wherein she discusses some of these issues from the perspective of a college graduate trying to decide where to go next. In it, she quotes theologian Frederick Buechner, who said, “Your vocation is where your passion meets the world’s greatest need.” I was struck by that sentiment when I listened to the clip, because it resonates with how I’ve tried to guide my own decision-making process. I think it isn’t hard for people to come up with something they’re reasonably good at, and even less difficult to come up with something they enjoy doing; as another speaker I listened to phrased it, “Do the work you can’t NOT do.” The question is, how do you translate this into an occupation, a way of life that will sustain you so that you can keep doing that same work? It’s a quandary, and a lot of people wind up giving up on it before they ever achieve that goal, because they’re missing that crucial element: they don’t feel needed. Now, if you happen to be one of those people whose passion falls within a set of predefined categories, you can just follow the system through to the end and pick your profession, from nursing to teaching to engineering. If you don’t fit in one of those predefined slots, however, you’re going to have to establish your own presence in the world, and that’s harder, because until you succeed independently, no one is going to take you seriously, and that – to someone who was told all their young life that they should dream big and think outside the box – feels crappy. It also probably means that whatever it is you want to be doing, it’s going to be awhile before you can make your living that way, which means all the extra challenges of working an unrelated, often thankless side job to pay the bills, or studying your secret passions on late-night weekend binges (if you don’t mind sacrificing any chance at a social life you may have had), etc., all while trying not to just burn yourself out to the point of apathy.

As someone who’s still struggling with these questions daily, I don’t claim to have it all figured out. Here’s what I know, from the perspective of my own life: Living is amazing. I want to do it for a really long time, and I don’t want to feel like I wasted that time. I don’t want to spend any more of it than I have to doing work I don’t believe in, or being a replaceable part in an assembly line society, no matter how much alleged “security” that will supposedly provide me with, which doesn’t in any way mean that I’m not willing to work long and hard. When I’m gone, I want to leave a hole, so people know that I was here, and maybe so that someone else is inspired to take up the banner and carry on with the work that I started. That means that whatever I do, it has to matter. It has to touch people, and have an effect on the world around me, whether it’s my art, or my writing, or the housework I do for the little old lady down the way who can’t bend over anymore; I don’t have to be Mother Theresa to be indispensable, and neither do you. The world is full of great needs, and we, as humans living in it, are full of all the beautiful, improbable skills and passions that can fill those needs… if we keep looking, and working, and networking, and building each other up, and never give up on those dreams. Entitlement ends in disappointment; no one is going to hand you these things on a silver platter, and none of it comes free. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there to be discovered, and it doesn’t mean you aren’t needed for all the unique things that set you apart. You may feel ordinary, but that’s an illusion. No one else is You. If there’s work that you take pride in doing, do that. If there’s a skill you have that drives you to keep doing it even though other people think it’s silly, do that. But don’t just do it – look around you, and find the ways to make the world better with the work you do.

Anybody can do this, and we have more resources than ever; it’s time we start really using them to lay a foundation for success. Is your true passion hula hooping? Great! Now find a charity that funds dance classes for little kids, and put on a fundraising performance. Have a great idea? Try Kickstarter, or GoFundMe. Have a skill that’s amazing, but no one in your immediate social circles wants to pay you for it? Make an account on Patreon, and connect with the people who will. Whatever you do, whoever you are, whatever your age and identity, I know this much is true of you:

You can change the world. You already have. You started the moment you came into existence, and even if you don’t feel important or noticed, you will be affecting people around you until long after your death, so you may as well do it with all the love and passion you have bottled up inside yourself.

It will start with a few people. You may not ever know them, or hear about it, but passion makes an impression. People remember. They think about it after the fact, and it becomes part of them. So tell your story. Live your passion. Make room for your dreams and the dreams of the people around you, and watch it change the shape of the world we live in.

93/93! If you’re reading this, you’re part of helping me live MY passion, so thank you a thousand times, and best of luck to you with yours! Feel free to comment; feedback always helps me grow and become a better writer, and a dialogue is always better than a monologue.

Navigating to Adulthood

I had an interesting conversation with my grandparents yesterday about the ways growing up has changed from their youth to mine, and even moreso as I watch my younger sisters and now the next generation of my family with my nieces and nephews all trying to successfully navigate the complex process of surviving adolescence and becoming stable, viable adults. Not only have societal expectations changed, in everything from pre-marital sexual relationships to dress codes to available career options, the whole way the game is played has been changing, due in large part to the internet and increasing globalisation of culture and information.

Now, I don’t really feel like “easier” or “harder” are helpful terms in this particular comparison. Growing up Then, as they pointed out, was a much more rigid process, and one’s choices were a lot more limited and predefined. In a lot of ways, this was oppressive and smothering for a lot of people. By contrast, my point was that I feel like growing up Now has become overly complex, and that makes it confusing for kids – and  young adults – to know which, of these myriad of choices, are the right ones to make: right for themselves, right for society, right for long-term success? As far as I’m concerned, the new openness of our society is all for the better, but it does also create its own set of problems and challenges. Even more than that, I feel like my generation, and kids growing up now, are caught in the struggle between the Old Way of Doing Things and the New. (This is always true; however, not every generation has to cope with the invention of the Internet.)

We were all raised with the stereotypes of the old expectations all around us – planes could expect to have stewardesses when I was younger, not the politely gender-neutral “flight attendants”; girls still get called “bossy” for wanting to have opinions on things that affect others, and women in my state make $.75 for every dollar earned by a male counterpart doing the same work; my parents (naturally) assumed that the proper course after high school for an intelligent teenager who wanted to go anywhere in life was to go straight to university and get a degree, which was then your ticket to a lifelong career in the comfortable middle class. All of these things are remnants of that old world, clinging for dear life, and they’re just a few random examples picked from thousands that surround us all the time. In the emerging New world order, these things are still being determined, and that’s part of what makes it difficult for young people to navigate successfully through all these challenges and choices. To take just one of the above examples, most my friends in college did not graduate, and to put that in perspective, I tended to be friends with the academic overachievers. Of those who did graduate, NONE of them are working in the field of their degree. Yes, you read that correctly. Of the people I know who have jobs that I would ever want to work, the majority have no degree, but are more highly-educated through mostly self-driven means and hands-on experience than their counterparts who make it successfully through the jury-rigged university system, which is increasingly becoming a way for our society to create and uplift athletes, not academics.

To be clear, this isn’t an attack on the university system. (I’ll save that discussion for another day!) The point that I’m making is, the choices aren’t as straightforward as they used to be. The argument that getting a degree would land you a better job used to be true. Now, it is at best potentially true: if you get that degree, you may stand a better chance of getting that job you apply for than the next fellow – but on the other hand, if that fellow has a degree too, then you’re just stuck holding a silly piece of paper, and a good portion of the jobless folks out there have a minimum of one degree to their name, if not several. So if getting a degree doesn’t guarantee you a better job, or even any way to make a living in the world at all, then is it worth it? Is it worth it because of the intrinsic value of knowledge? Is going to classes that you have to pay thousands of dollars each for worth the amount of knowledge gained, particularly in light of the hit-or-miss nature of professors and classes themselves, not all of which are created equal? How does that value hold up when you consider that most, if not all, of what you will learn in those classes that you are likely consigning yourself to decades of financial slavery for is available, often for free or minimal cost, on the internet… if you just know where to look? The cost of college in this country alone is prohibitive; just your textbooks for a single semester are likely to set you back a grand or more, and sell-back rates are ludicrous (as in, “I bought this textbook new for $326. It’s the latest edition, because that was required for my class, and it’s still in mint condition. They’ll buy it back from me at the end of the semester for $15, as long as I’m one of the first ten people to bring it in”). So is it worth it? Looking at it from the perspective of a young adult trying to make it in the world, I thought it was, and I got burned pretty badly, but this isn’t about me, or my specific experiences. The point I was making is, it’s not a simple choice for people growing up in the world today, and none of your other choices are going to be simple either. Find yourself falling in love with someone? Well, should you live with them? Sleep with them? Marry them first (how old-fashioned!)? If you get married, should you change your surname? Should you pick a new one, or hyphenate the two, just so you can make any potential offspring’s existence that much harder? Big ceremony, expensive religious wedding, no-frills courthouse union? It’s not just abstract, or a matter of preference; no one likes to be considered materialistic, but weddings are expensive, and if you don’t have rich relatives to foot the bill, that may be a pretty intimidating factor. On the other hand, if you skip the big party, do you also lose the opportunity to have your community come together and agree to support you, and help you get started? Is that even a realistic expectation anymore?

Or let’s take that age-old question adults love to ask kids: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And then you wait for your See-Spot-Run style answer: a fireman, a police officer, a teacher, an artist… Only, when those kids actually start having to make choices that are going to affect their chosen professional field, it turns out that See Spot Run left out 99.9% of the options you actually have, from emergency prep technician to glass bong artist to online analyst of fluffy kitten videos by day, aerial silk burlesque performer by night. So how do you even know where to start? How do you make the choices early enough in your life that will lay the groundwork you need later to be ready when the chance comes along to do that one unique thing that was made just for you, or the six dozen unique things your life is just long enough to cram in? I think that’s the real challenge facing today’s youth, and also the biggest question parents in this day and age have to be asking, because by raising kids with old-world expectations, and then turning them loose at 18 in a world that doesn’t play by those rules anymore even when it claims to, we’re just setting them up for failure and confusion. I think it’s time to re-examine how we look at the big things, like Education, because the industrial schooling model Does Not Work if what you’re aiming to produce is capable, intelligent, informed individuals ready to navigate the process of growing up and becoming an adult person with a solid identity. I think there is a desperate need to reshape the dialogue around this process so that there’s room to talk about what’s actually going on, and the challenges of living and thriving in a more open society. Whatever it is, it’s certainly not simple, and we can’t just keep losing young people in the cracks, and then acting as though “they should have known better”. The truth is, the game has changed, and right now, nobody knows the rules anymore. That means we had all better start paying more attention, and it means we need to focus more on equipping young adults with the tools and skills they need to make good choices, rather than trying to give them all the answers before they even encounter the questions. Change is part of living; what we need is to find ways to do it gracefully.

Shoot the Monkey!

This controversial study was brought to my attention recently by a good friend, who happens also to be a professor and consummate activist. In essence, the article addresses both the current study under proposal, and also the wider practice of animal research at the University of Wisconsin, which includes some 2,000 or so non-human primates among their laboratory specimens, about 1500 of whom are rhesus macacques (with brains the most similar to humans’). In the current study, researcher Dr. Ned Kalin has proposed to undertake an experiment involving 40 baby monkeys – half a control group, the other half to be taken from their mothers at birth, exposed to circumstances intended to cause fear and anxiety, and ultimately euthanised at the age of one year so that their brains may be harvested for molecular analysis. The stated purpose of this study is “to use state-of-the-art technology to examine the underlying neurobiology of anxiety and depression” which may in turn “lead to insights for treating struggling humans”. Kalin’s work builds upon that of his predecessor at the University of Wisconsin, Harry Harlow; if you pay any attention to this kind of thing, you’ve probably heard about Harlow’s sensory-deprivation studies with baby monkeys, to name just one of his infamous (and horrendously cruel) experiments, beginning in the 1930’s. While University officials insist that standards of animal rights have changed significantly since then, which is true, it can still hardly be argued that no harm is being done here and now. So how much benefit is enough? Or is it ever justified?

Are you still with me? I highly recommend you go read the entire article for yourself, but if you don’t have the stomach for it, don’t let your silence be taken for approval. My professor friend got together with one of his colleagues who, among other things, is a member of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and co-wrote an open letter to the local newspaper, which many colleagues and additional supporters (including yours truly) co-signed, challenging Dr. Kalin to a public debate on the subject, in order to at least bring public awareness of what is happening with their tax dollars and research budgets, within our own public universities. The paper declined to publish it on grounds that the language used seemed too difficult for their readership, and because it wasn’t strictly a local issue, but I found it very relevant, and I have faith that not everyone will walk away because it uses too academic a vocabulary. Dig in, friends. These are real-world issues happening right now in our own society. We have a right to know, and to be part of the conversation, but I encourage you not to be reactionary. Inform yourself. Share this information. Share the article above. Share this blog. Start a dialogue with people you know, and try to ask yourselves the really difficult questions. Just looking away because it’s too hard isn’t good enough, for us or for the animals we use to make our own lives “better”. 

Personally, I’m still hoping this debate will occur, because I think sometimes static words in print are too impersonal to convey to us the reality of the subject in question. It’s one of the most difficult topics to discuss reasonably in any company, much less mixed. In the meantime, I present you the letter they wrote, published here by permission of the original authors:

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Stop Dr. Kalin’s Horrifying Treatment of Monkeys.

Ironically, Peter Gabriel’s song “Shock the Monkey” illustrates what happens when the Sciences become disconnected from the Humanities (something now prevalent in contemporary academia). In conjunction with an out-of-control, world-wide profit-obsession, this fatal rupture produces the return of an aggravated positivism, or a “science without conscience” which is “but the ruin of the soul” (Rabelais).

Routinely, under Dr. Ned Kalin’s leadership, University of Wisconsin researchers (with approved university protocol!) maternally deprive infant primates, torture them, euthanize them, dissect their brains, hoping to use the collected data to treat traumatized children’s brains. Remember how biologists dissected Einstein’s brain to find physical clues of his genius? Of course they found little: more glial cells than in the “average” (?) brain, and a larger inferior parietal lobe! Their conclusion? Cells’ increase and parietal lobe augmentation equals genius. How simplistic. How insulting to our intelligence and Einstein’s memory (and hard work).

This type of brain-research is extremely problematic for believing that:

1. lab-animals’ behavior equals complex human behavior (forgetting the role of language in humans);
2. anxiety/depression leaves significant traces in the brain;
3. the discovery of anxiety/depression traces in brains can lead to cure for anxiety/depression in general;
4. a “normal looking” (!) brain equals normal/normative behavior;
5. These experiments and data benefit humanity;
6. animal torture is justified in the name of science.

Ideologically these beliefs are also suspect since their implied goal is to directly cure human anxiety and depression without touching/addressing the genuine, external causes: exploitation, poverty, abuse, stress… Kalin ingenuously says it all: “brain-damaged monkeys are less proned (sic) to fear/anxiety.” Isn’t his seemingly innocent reflection reminiscent of the logic behind the lobotomy-vogue in the 1940s/1950s? Doesn’t it also fit the ideology of a Social-Darwinism, tainted by eugenics and rallying cognitivism and evolutionary psychology to its reductionist cause? Obsessed with finding the roots of human dysfunction in nature (brain/genes-determined) and not in culture (socio-politically/economically-determined), this crude research believes the brain to be the origin and not the support of consciousness/emotions, and consequently feels justified in objectifying animals and men.

This one-way type of thinking gave us, among many other horrific “pseudo-scientific pearls”, the Auschwitz experiments, or the Tuskegee-syphilis-experiment. This empiricist logic reducing humans to lab-animals prevails in many Psychology and Biology research-centers; as if, at all costs, scientists tortured these “guinea-pigs” to make them “speak the truth” of the “human animal”. Even men do not escape this “instrumental rage”: a Montana judge acquired a machine to zap felons’ brains. Moreover this type of utilitarian thinking is the same as that which brutalizes prostitutes, women, workers, or the environment; all that is posited as “deviant”, weak, speechless, or powerless. This materialistic logic betrays a sadism and megalomania (scientists “playing God”) which indicts our global, supply-and-demand civilization. Now battery-farms exist where people “grow” primates to supply research-labs. Egged-on by mere survival, people in South-East Asia and Africa steal baby primates and sell them to scientists. This raw utilitarianism also spreads to people: desperate or amoral individuals are “harvesting” human organs for the global market.

Costing so far $5,100.000 and producing very little results, Dr. Kalin’s neurobiological “fear experiments” have run for years. Bizarrely dollars continue to pour in. This so-called brain-research has no genuine scientific usefulness and is ethically bankrupt (read Richard Adams Plague Dogs or watch Kubrick A Clockwork Orange). The decision is a “no-brainer”: the scientific farce and fraud (carved out of animal flesh) must stop. We hope the Montana University system has nothing to do with it.

In all fairness to Kalin, we propose an open, televised, public debate at the University of Wisconsin. This issue is important and needs much new discussion.

“Too much at stake
Ground beneath me shakes
And the news is breaking…

 Don’t you monkey with the monkey!”

Dr. Michel Valentin (UM Professor) & Dr. Kevin Boileau (Global Center for Advanced Studies Professor/Executive Director of EPIS–Existential Psychoanalytic Institute & Society).

Daniel Bradley (Gonzaga University). Christy Ann Brown. Lori Busch. Richard Freeman. Nazarita Goldhammer. Biodun Iginla (New-York). Clare Kelly. Anjuli King. Kim Lockhart (Minneapolis). Sarah McClain. Annie Sahlin (Santa-Fe). Maria Bustos, Linda Frey, Sean O’Brien, Kate Shanley (UM Professors).

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If you made it this far, my friends, thank you for not forgetting what it means to be human, even when that’s painful and difficult. And in case you’re one of those people who wonders about the little things, “Shoot the monkey!” (the title of this blog) was my great-grandmother’s favourite curse-phrase.

Under the Sea

During my year of silence, I started working on a project that holds a special place in my heart. I’ve always had a fascination with faerietales as a genre, and I particularly love the growing pool of new adaptations that take into consideration the ways human culture has been changing since the originals were first recorded, so I’ve worked on a number of them over the years myself. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to devote much serious time to writing, however; my focus was on other things, so these ideas mostly simmered in the back of my mind and accumulated as collections of notes and disconnected pieces of flash fiction, filed away for later use.

The one that really has dominated my attention, however, is the one I began during that voiceless year; today, I took my notes, and finally began writing the actual first draft; today, I wrote the first 2,000-and-some words. It has a new weight, and so far I’m feeling pretty good about it. Now I’ll come to the point of this post:

Remember the story of the Little(st) Mermaid? Maybe you watched the Disney version as a kid, maybe you even know the Hans Christian Anderson predecessor where it doesn’t work out so well for her. Maybe you ran across some other retelling of it somewhere. What’s your favourite adaptation, if you have one? More importantly, what do you think of this story?

Edmund Dulac, The Mermaid – The Prince

Personally, I find it simultaneously repulsive and fascinating, in any adaptation I’ve encountered. Like many older stories, it is riddled with problematically antiquated values and beliefs, which means that it fails to convey “sound advice” as to what is appropriate or expected behaviour; I find the traditional ending in particular unsatisfying to my contemporary mind, and even the Disney version does not dwell on the questionable virtue of the idea of teenagers finding True Love in the course of 3 giddy days. I also, however, am fascinated with the underlying themes that emerged when I began to consider it more carefully. The symbolism inherent in giving up one’s voice to find love could be dissected a number of different ways, most of them fairly readily apparent, yet still profound. Isn’t it so easy to lose our own identity in the excitement of falling in love with the Other? This experience became far more relevant to me when I took my vow of silence, and because my vow lasted a year and a day, I found myself inclined to change the original storyline, to try to create something it was easier for me to believe in, to give my mermaid a year to find her legs… and her love. I feel like there’s a lot to be explored in this story about forging connections with people who are very different from us, and how often that leads to the most passionate kind of love, the sort that changes the shape of the world until there’s room for it. I think it also has a lot to say about the way love leaves you permanently changed, whether or not it works out in the end.

There is also a clear theme of the challenges inherent for both child and parent(s) in the process of growing up, particularly when the child reaches that troublesome cusp of adulthood and has to begin making choices about their own future before anyone could ever possibly be ready for that responsibility.

Cardboard love stories, where only one character is really developed, and the lover remains an object filling a space, frustrate me. I wanted to know why the human would fall in love with the mermaid, too. In fact, I wanted to know a lot of whys! Why is there a crazy magic-wielding wish-granter lurking on the edge of merfolk society, and what does it mean that she chooses that route for gratification of her desires? Why don’t more people make that choice to solve their problems? What is it really like for her to be among humans? I could go on; I’ve thought about this story a lot over the last few years. Most of all, I wanted to explore the process of falling in love with someone who starts out a stranger, almost exactly the opposite of the way this story is traditionally told, and I wanted to develop the idea of communicating without words. Do any of you use established narratives like faerietales as springboards for your work? What kinds of questions do you ask that help you find the relevancy in older materials? Do you ever try things like switching the gender of your protagonist?

Here’s wishing you a productive and thought-provoking day…

On Identity

I’ve had a lot of reason to think about self-identity recently. At the open of this year, my partner and I made the decision to transplant ourselves from an extremely active urban community where we had lived for 10 years, essentially our entire adult lives (and my partner even longer), several hours north to a little cabin in the woods outside a tiny border town. There were a lot of reasons for this decision, revolving around things like family, and finances, and time, and also Will, that haunting question of “What is my ultimate raison d’être for existing as a human being in this life?” or, more familiarly, “Why am I here?” which is perhaps better expressed in this case as “What am I here to do?” A life is a limited span of time by its nature; what we can accomplish within the bounds of the one we’re currently experiencing is finite. That means that how we choose to spend our time really does matter, and where we spend it, and how much it allows us to do the things we’re best suited to do.

Recently, I was working on a piece of art and listening to TEDTalks (have to feed the brain to sustain the muse) and I ran across a few that I felt tied together thematically with some of the things I’ve been wrestling with myself, so I decided to share some of my thoughts here. The first one I came across was Zak Ebrahim giving a talk entitled, “I am the son of a terrorist. Here’s how I chose peace.” (http://www.ted.com/talks/zak_ebrahim_i_am_the_son_of_a_terrorist_here_s_how_i_chose_peace#t-23452) In it, he essentially argues that our experiences as children do not make us directly into the people we will become; it simply influences the choices that we will make, and sometimes that happens in entirely unexpected ways. He, for example, did not choose terrorism; he chose peace, and activism that speaks out about hatred and ignorance.

The next talk was by Andrew Solomon, “How the worst moments in our lives make us who we are,” (http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solomon_how_the_worst_moments_in_our_lives_make_us_who_we_are#t-17017) and I found the juxtaposition of these two ideas immediately striking. Solomon emphasises “forging meaning and building identity” as the core of this transformative process, which sounds to me like exactly what Zak Ebrahim had to do in order to take being raised by terrorists and indoctrinated into violent and hateful ideology and use that experience to become a peace activist. In another talk, Solomon also discusses the idea of “vertical vs. horizontal self-identity” – the way some of the pieces of ourselves are passed to us genetically and through the identities of our parents and other adults around us (vertical identity) while others are accumulated through common sympathies, through a process of experience creating peer culture (horizontal identity).

The third and final TEDTalk I would like to include in this discussion is by Thandie Newton, called “Embracing otherness, embracing myself”, (http://www.ted.com/talks/thandie_newton_embracing_otherness_embracing_myself) in which she shares her personal struggle to find self-identity in a world which rejected her “acceptableness” as a child, and how being left with no clear idea of “self” made her, eventually, open to understand and empathise with others more than she ever expected; in fact, by acting, and therefore embracing all of these “other selves”, she found connection with other people in ways she had never been able to achieve before. She talks about the way that “self-identity” is also self-created, and therefore under no one’s control but our own, and how that can either bring us together with other people or keep us apart. Sometimes, being able to set your “self” aside for a while can open your eyes to new truths.

All of this may seem like a lot of preamble, but it’s all pretty personally relevant to me. Figuring out who we are is no easy task, and figuring out what that means when we know it is even harder. So you’re an artist, great; now what are you going to make art about? So you’re a writer, but what is it that you, uniquely, are here to write about? Or how about, so you know who you are when you’re at home, comfortable in your own space, and no one else is watching; but how do you continue to be that same integrally genuine being in the face of judgment, censure, expectation, and cultural normativism? People are complicated, complex creatures, all the time. We are each a compilation of facts (physical traits, genetic influences) and experiences (cultural context, friends and family, personal discoveries) that act together to cause choices (stay or go, trust or don’t, run, speak, hide), and when you string all these things together, facts-effecting-experiences-causing-choices, THIS becomes a human being, and what we are in any given moment is inextricably bound up in what we were and what we are becoming, ever-dynamic, perpetually changing, yet also encapsulated within a single identity of Personhood. Nobody’s personal flowchart looks the same, even though lots of the pieces overlap and repeat.

For me, this is a new blog-space, and although some of the people who know me best have been encouraging me to start blogging more seriously for a long time, I’ve really been wrestling with myself about what I should write about here. A couple of years ago, I took a vow of silence and stopped speaking for an entire year, and part of the point of that exercise was to learn to listen to my own inner voice, so that when my turn came to speak up, I’d know what to say.

I don’t know that I’ve perfected the skill yet, but the time for silence is past… let’s start talking, and also never forget how to listen. Who are we? We are the human beings alive on this amazing planet right now, and we are defining the realities of our time. Never forget how powerful one voice can be, if enough people hear it.