My two brothers and I were all born in the month of April. Stuart, being the oldest, has had to experience everything first. And in seeing and being out there before either of us, it seems like like comes out him hardest. Ian is probably the most clever of the three. He has a way of looking at the world that let's him handle things- he's the funniest of us. My mother worried when we were growing up, about the effects divorce and broken family life would have on us. She worried that we would suffer from depression. She came from a large family, and her parents created a home for them, especially my grandfather. I can see why she was afraid for us; I can see a little bit of how she must have known things should have been different.
She wanted to hide us away from the world, just long enough. Long enough so we wouldn't have to run up against it before we were ready. Part of growing up in a fractured family is that you have to see and hear things before you are ready. You have to witness anger and resentment, before you know fully the sentiments that transcend those emotions. You have to see your parents fight, and scream, and weep before you can understand what would possess them to act that way.
My brothers and I have always been independent, or at least we have always sought independence. We get it from our parents, my father worked to create his livelihood without an inheritance or help from his own father, and my mother traveled across the world to work and to start a family. Mom could only hold us for so long, she thinks as soon as we turned twelve or maybe fourteen, that was when we were already fighting to be on out on our own. I had thought it was later. When I went to college, I felt like I was starting a new life. My things were then my things, and they were packed into my car. I had a room.
The world is upon us now, the three of us. It's turning and changing us. My brother's divorce, and his daughter, Amira. The house and the war. Ian's job flying, and my studying, and sitting here, and feeling sadness every once in awhile. It's all here now, and it's been there for years but it takes some time to see it.
I used to think if I could just make the right choices, life would go smoothly. Some things couldn't be helped, but if I continued to finish my work, and make it through the day, and be a faithful friend things would fall into place. Things just had to be done well. Now as I go on I'm realizing the world is so complex, and the guidelines are growing thin and far apart. We run the course of our lives, trying to give ourselves the best shot- cutting away at the worst possibilities, we insure that we have a job, and a home, and comfort in relationships. But at some time we have to acknowledge the unknown in the world. We just can't know what will come, and it's a fearful thing. We guard as much as we can, but we can only grasp and hold on to so much.
In my brothers I see many things. I see the home we grew up in, the woods we used to run through. So much of our lives is bound up amongst us. As I grow older I realize that they are what I want keep with me as the world changes. As it swells and fades.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
The last few days I have been considering the idea of insanity. My old room mate was telling me that his neighbor is suffering from some mental disease, something like schizophrenia. He believes that he is being possessed by a demon, and had expressed this to James on one occasion. He was also consulting with priests as to how he could be exorcised. The following evening he had an episode, and was taken by ambulance to a psychiatric ward.
It is a frightful thing to witness someone lose their sanity. Even hearing third hand accounts can be disturbing. On one hand this this is caused by a historical notion of mental derangement, namely that of demonic possession. It's not merely that someone has lost touch with reality through some dysfunction or imbalance in their brain chemistry, but rather that their will has been subordinated to the devil. They now pose the possibility of great harm to us and themselves, imbued with a demonic power. For me, the idea of their radical unpredictability is a dreadful thing. It would be strange to think that in all our interactions we are in the process of predicting what others around us will do next- we enjoy a certain amount of passivity to the world. But to be cognizant of the fact that someone near you has possibly lost touch with all intellectual and social norms would be unsettling to say the least. At the same time, it is more than their simply losing the possibility of social contract. In some way they lose touch with part of their human soul.
At this point, I've used broad strokes to frame the idea of insanity. The current perspective could include a range of illnesses from Alzheimer's to bi-polar disorder to those who are in a blind rage after experiencing great loss. I have not distinguished between the legal, medical, and social aspects of such a condition. These reasons makes this sort of inspection largely unfruitful. I am talking about a topic I have a woeful inadequacy to handle. However, I want to get at a common notion of the idea. That is a loss of the self. It could be argued that someone undergoing the throes of mental aberration still have "themself", but I can't help but thinking such violence done to they way one thinks radically reshapes the psyche. The reason I am willing to engage this topic, is because I want to elicit the idea that we should have a reverence for the suffering of such a violence.
Today, we often cannot help but mock those we think are mentally ill. This woman who projects her derangement with an obsession for children, and gives birth to eight children she is wholly incapable of raising is the target of great maligning in the news. People can't wait to take a shot at her. We've developed a great sense of distrust and suspicion regarding these manners, no doubt in part because of our awareness of how insanity pleas are abused in the courts. We see people faking dementia as a way of absconding themselves from responsibility. However, given the circumstance when we confront someone who legitimately suffers such an affliction, it seems to require a great reordering of the way we think if we are to display the appropriate sympathy. You can't lure someone out of irrationality with syllogistic reasoning, and this is even more so when it is involuntary. Our actions must be characterized by an emotive touch, a sensitivity to the part of human soul the insane still has direct contact with- namely the sensitive part.
Going over this entry I'm afraid the looseness of what I have written obscures my intention. Rather than become overly apologetic, I will re-synthesize my thought. When those of us around us encounter such an experience, when they lose grips with the intellectual part of their soul, we should direct our care of them in such a way as to exhibit reverence for their loss. However, temporary it may or not be, I think if we come to terms with the evil (natural or moral) suffered, we are obligated to mourn more than the forfeiture of our personal comfort.
It is a frightful thing to witness someone lose their sanity. Even hearing third hand accounts can be disturbing. On one hand this this is caused by a historical notion of mental derangement, namely that of demonic possession. It's not merely that someone has lost touch with reality through some dysfunction or imbalance in their brain chemistry, but rather that their will has been subordinated to the devil. They now pose the possibility of great harm to us and themselves, imbued with a demonic power. For me, the idea of their radical unpredictability is a dreadful thing. It would be strange to think that in all our interactions we are in the process of predicting what others around us will do next- we enjoy a certain amount of passivity to the world. But to be cognizant of the fact that someone near you has possibly lost touch with all intellectual and social norms would be unsettling to say the least. At the same time, it is more than their simply losing the possibility of social contract. In some way they lose touch with part of their human soul.
At this point, I've used broad strokes to frame the idea of insanity. The current perspective could include a range of illnesses from Alzheimer's to bi-polar disorder to those who are in a blind rage after experiencing great loss. I have not distinguished between the legal, medical, and social aspects of such a condition. These reasons makes this sort of inspection largely unfruitful. I am talking about a topic I have a woeful inadequacy to handle. However, I want to get at a common notion of the idea. That is a loss of the self. It could be argued that someone undergoing the throes of mental aberration still have "themself", but I can't help but thinking such violence done to they way one thinks radically reshapes the psyche. The reason I am willing to engage this topic, is because I want to elicit the idea that we should have a reverence for the suffering of such a violence.
Today, we often cannot help but mock those we think are mentally ill. This woman who projects her derangement with an obsession for children, and gives birth to eight children she is wholly incapable of raising is the target of great maligning in the news. People can't wait to take a shot at her. We've developed a great sense of distrust and suspicion regarding these manners, no doubt in part because of our awareness of how insanity pleas are abused in the courts. We see people faking dementia as a way of absconding themselves from responsibility. However, given the circumstance when we confront someone who legitimately suffers such an affliction, it seems to require a great reordering of the way we think if we are to display the appropriate sympathy. You can't lure someone out of irrationality with syllogistic reasoning, and this is even more so when it is involuntary. Our actions must be characterized by an emotive touch, a sensitivity to the part of human soul the insane still has direct contact with- namely the sensitive part.
Going over this entry I'm afraid the looseness of what I have written obscures my intention. Rather than become overly apologetic, I will re-synthesize my thought. When those of us around us encounter such an experience, when they lose grips with the intellectual part of their soul, we should direct our care of them in such a way as to exhibit reverence for their loss. However, temporary it may or not be, I think if we come to terms with the evil (natural or moral) suffered, we are obligated to mourn more than the forfeiture of our personal comfort.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
It's been wicked cold in Los Angeles lately. It must be anomaly that the temperature is dropping down to the low 40's; it certainly is the coldest since I moved here a year and 1/2 ago. The other day I purchased some fried chicken from the KFC on Lincoln. I noticed when I was in the elevator that the bag had a KFC seal of approval for food safety. The idea seemed odd to me, the label was more advertisement than health notice. In this day, that sort of thing has become a selling point, rather than something granted. I had food poisoning, by that night. That sort of illness is much easier to deal with when you can stay at home all day.
The time spent indoors from the rain, cold, and illness has given me insight on the effects of sedentary life. I've become resistant to cabin fever. That is, I can spend a series of days without any physical activity, and yet not become restless. However, when I am at my apartment I only reside in a few places. Primarily that is in my chair at the computer, which at the most was meant for maybe 30 minutes of seating a day. It's a wooden dinner table chair, and really it would be more fitting for breakfast. My elbows and my finger joints start to swell from typing too much, it's a mess.
One thing I enjoy about this room is that immediately to left from my desk is a large window. Unfortunately, it's covered by vertical blinds that do a poor job at nearly all the tasks we expect of blinds. It's sort of comical how poorly they keep light out and insulate. The real treasure is behind those blinds. The view is something less than magnificent; outside is the fabricated apartment complex garden albeit with a more liberal distribution of trees. It's just enough of a view to take a look to clear my mind for a moment, and then to go back to work. I'd love an ocean view, perhaps one of those captain's cabin views out the rear of a spanish galleon. I'd never get anything done.
The courtyard outside my window has had its share of events. I watched my room mate's dog, Forban, lose his ball off the balcony. The poor thing looked so despondent. I couldn't find it below. During the Fall, at dusk, birds will land suddenly. The complex surrounding the courtyard offers some protection, and this area lacks any sort of wooded areas, so this is probably the best place for them to sleep. The sound of their wings fluttering is surprisingly audible. It's as if they spent the entire toiling with the wind, and they are just collapsing into their resting grounds. There is also a sweet aroma. I'd like to think it's floral, but it's sweet enough to make me think it's rust or some byproduct from the irrigation system. Really it smells like my mother's sweat.
I'm washing a thermal blanket for tonight. It was dusty when I pulled it out of my closet. It's the blue hospital blanket the nurses gave me when I broke my collar bone playing football. Someday I'll probably lose it, but it's quite a thought to think of my daughter wrapped up in it.
The time spent indoors from the rain, cold, and illness has given me insight on the effects of sedentary life. I've become resistant to cabin fever. That is, I can spend a series of days without any physical activity, and yet not become restless. However, when I am at my apartment I only reside in a few places. Primarily that is in my chair at the computer, which at the most was meant for maybe 30 minutes of seating a day. It's a wooden dinner table chair, and really it would be more fitting for breakfast. My elbows and my finger joints start to swell from typing too much, it's a mess.
One thing I enjoy about this room is that immediately to left from my desk is a large window. Unfortunately, it's covered by vertical blinds that do a poor job at nearly all the tasks we expect of blinds. It's sort of comical how poorly they keep light out and insulate. The real treasure is behind those blinds. The view is something less than magnificent; outside is the fabricated apartment complex garden albeit with a more liberal distribution of trees. It's just enough of a view to take a look to clear my mind for a moment, and then to go back to work. I'd love an ocean view, perhaps one of those captain's cabin views out the rear of a spanish galleon. I'd never get anything done.
The courtyard outside my window has had its share of events. I watched my room mate's dog, Forban, lose his ball off the balcony. The poor thing looked so despondent. I couldn't find it below. During the Fall, at dusk, birds will land suddenly. The complex surrounding the courtyard offers some protection, and this area lacks any sort of wooded areas, so this is probably the best place for them to sleep. The sound of their wings fluttering is surprisingly audible. It's as if they spent the entire toiling with the wind, and they are just collapsing into their resting grounds. There is also a sweet aroma. I'd like to think it's floral, but it's sweet enough to make me think it's rust or some byproduct from the irrigation system. Really it smells like my mother's sweat.
I'm washing a thermal blanket for tonight. It was dusty when I pulled it out of my closet. It's the blue hospital blanket the nurses gave me when I broke my collar bone playing football. Someday I'll probably lose it, but it's quite a thought to think of my daughter wrapped up in it.
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