Dear Mom and Dad

Over the past 18 years, we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well, but in the past couple of months I feel like we finally understand each other much better than in many previous years.

Sadly, I feel that even though I live with you and have spent more time with you than with anybody else on earth, we have a lot of trouble communicating. I have a lot of trouble putting my thoughts and feelings into words a lot of the time and I feel like you demand a lot of words from me, so things can get tense.

I said that the past couple months have been better, and they have, in my opinion. I speculate that college applications gave the three of us a common goal to work towards, and so we’ve bonded. I am grateful for these months of peace; I can’t forget the years of war.

Here, on the keyboard, where I feel anonymous, I can take some responsibility. I know that the fights and silent treatments were my fault. There are times where I wish I had been different, but then again I don’t. I have to say that I like the person that I have become, and without my mistakes, without the anorexia, without the drugs, without the lies, I don’t think that I would have become this person. So yes, I admit some fault, but in reality, with voices and faces and emotions and contact, I’m just not ready to take full responsibility. I know I’m not ready because when I think about having this conversation with you face to face I still want to blame you. I want to tell you that you created me. That life wasn’t my decision. That it’s not my fault that eating disorders fun in the family, or that you created such a stigma around underage drinking you made it sound appealing.

But I really don’t want to say any of those things. I don’t consciously want to blame you. And so for now, I’m staying quiet. Until I reach a point where I can truly and sincerely say that I am thankful and grateful for each and every opportunity you have ever given me, and that I cherish your attention, I will stay quiet. I don’t know when I will be ready.  I don’t know when I will reach that point. I hope it’s soon, but please be patient.

Thank you

Frankl-y Speaking

I have this other blog drafted, never published (the stranger meaning one), and I started it out by saying that "for me, life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer." Now, a month later and substantially wiser, I think that this statement is a bit too bold on my part. I still agree with some of it of course, especially the part about life being more than simply existing, but the accomplishment stuff is coming off as more grand than I see it as now. 

Now, I think that the achievements we strive for in life can be more softly stated. They need not be grand, overstated purposes, but anything, literally anything, that takes us from this moment to the next. 

Man's Search for Meaning is one of the best books I have ever read. Among other things, something that I really like about it is that Frankl takes care to show that his philosophy can be applied to anyone, in any circumstance. He edits himself to be more inclusive, clarifying that you don't need to have suffered to find meaning in life, but even if you have, you can still find meaning. Since his ideas are so inclusive, I extend it so say that everyone has the ability to live a life of meaning. 

Personally, I feel that my life has many meanings. My purposes range from simple pleasures such as dark chocolate and netflix, to more substantial things like dance, and finally to my biggest goal, to become an obstetric surgeon and work in Africa. While some of these may have a broader impact than others, I find that they are all important to me. 

Sadly, applying logotheraputic techniques to life is easier said than done. It can be very hard to remain optimistic in the wake of life's difficulties. Natural emotional reactions may seem disheartening, however there is really nothing like human resilience. History, both across the globe and in our recent memories, has shown me all of the things that people are capable of overcoming, and that knowledge alone is enough to inspire hope.

I love logotherapy's focus on the future. It is all about accepting the past, and moving forward. Recently in my own life a lot of my purpose has had to do with getting into college. While incomparable to life in a concentration camp, the sadness and emotional suffering that I felt when I received a rejection letter were very real. I allowed myself to mourn, and spent probably too much time wallowing. But since reading Man's Search for Meaning, I have been able to take steps to find new meanings in spite of my suffering. I'm not going to lie, it still hurts every once and a while, but knowing that I have the ability to actualize other goals in my life pushes me constantly forward. 

Thanksgiving Post

When people ask me how senior year is going my immediate response is always about teachers, work, and dance. And while those things are interesting, the truth is, I wouldn't be able to do any of it without my classmates, my friends. They help me so much, not just with grand gestures of companionship, but through all of the little, everyday things.

The first, most obvious, most persevering classmate that deserves my acknowledgment is Adina. Adina, you have been a better friend than I could ever hope for. For six years, you've showed me what it means to care about others. You've given me unending amounts of support, even when I seems like a lost cause. You don't judge me, at least not outwardly, but the few times that you did you were so convincing that I felt immediately motivated to change my actions. Most of my friends are friends of convenience, but not you. More often than not, our relationship has not been convenient. We've probably had a grand total of about 3 classes together, yet you always made time for me, and I will always make time for you. I am deeply thankful for everything that you are. You are more than a classmate, more than a friend.

Classmates are also important for creating uniting forces against unreasonable teachers. I will not name specific teachers, for that is disrespectful (not to mention its on the never deletable black hole we call the internet). But Izzy, you know who I'm talking about. And girl, you keep me sane. Without your voice of reason holding me down all year, I surely would have been driven crazy by now. I am so thankful to have you close by every day; you help me more than you know.

I am thankful for the classmates that tutor me. If you didn't know this, I am very bad at being wrong. When I don't understand something, I am hard pressed to admit it. But it does happen. And when it has, there have been a few select students who have been able help me understand things. They were able to accomplish either a) what the teacher has failed to communicate, or b) what my brain has failed to teach itself. I am so happy that these people exist because they show an obvious passion and creative way of thinking and communicating that inspire me as well as our other classmates.

Lone Travelers

It amuses me greatly that while this is the third class in which the teacher has shown Into the Wild, but I have yet to see the full movie. But that's ok, seeing a movie is somewhat less important to me than the things I was doing while not in class. :)

To me being alone when choosing what path to take in life is, if possibly nonessential, most definitely important. People have more influence over one another than they sometimes realize. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Yes. It surely is. But imitation is not self. A moment in which you discover that your actions mimic someone else's more than they do your own is the time when you must choose a new path. You must choose a path that is entirely you, and being alone is the best way to assure this.

I see the people that do travel alone as having a very pure form of confidence. I recently finished a book that was all about what confidence is and how it is displayed. Essentially I view being comfortable in your own skin, and being okay with being alone as the root of confidence. A journey into the wild-alone-is, among other things, a search for confidence. There are of course then the spiritually enlightening moments of knowledge that stem from this.

The thing is you don't have to actually be in the wilderness to be in the wild. What is wild is what is unfamiliar, untamed, uncontrolled. Simply by not letting others decide which path you take and not influencing what you do along this path is going into the wild. Traveling into the wild, the wild of a city, of a town, of a forest, or desert, is an opportunity to learn, and to gain confidence. Confidence to have peace of mind. To find om.

Still haven't Figured This Out Yet!

I still haven't figured this, or anything else out yet. And from here, it looks like there isn't much that any of us have figured out. Lets start at the beginning. Creation. Some people have figured out that there was a big bang, while others are still skeptical. But even those scientists don't know why life formed. What the hell is this vacuum that we exist in??? I haven't decided where I stand in the debate of some unseen force (a god?) giving things a higher purpose, or the existentialist view of uninhibited free will, that this here is all we get. There is no before, there is no after, there is no reason. What else haven't we figured out? We know that people have genes, and that our genetic codes have an influence on who we are, but we still don't know exactly how they do this. Are personality traits like confidence due 25% or 50% go genetic vs environmental factors? Nature vs nurture. Every single thing that we debate about! They show that we haven't figured out the universe. But, unlike the post prompt suggests, I disagree with the placement of a "yet" at the end of it. I don't believe that we ever will figure everything out. To figure everything out would be for our knowledge containing vessels to be full, and I do not believe that this is either desirable or possible. Not knowing things, not knowing if we have any purpose IS our purpose. Being able to search for some answers and have theories and debate our ideas is what gives us purpose. And so no, we weren't meant to be able to figure this out... ever.

How do I know what I know?

What I have to say in response to this question is just another form of the nature versus nurture debate. On one hand we have John Locke's idea of tabula rasa, where our mind is, at birth, a blank slate on which experience writes. To me this is a very logical idea. As someone who doesn't believe in a definitive god, it makes sense to think that we cannot inherently know anything. Instead, everything we know and think is a result of our life experiences. I can read and write because I went to school. Therefore I know things because I was taught them.

On the other hand is the very loud argument for innate knowledge. The best evidence that I can use to support this idea is IQ. Some people are naturally smarter than others. People with an ultra-high IQ seem to have a head start because they appear to inherently know more than the rest of us. But I've actually just started to see the flaw in this argument. What does IQ measure? Some studies day it measures our motivation to do well, but for the purposes of this argument I will use a different definition. I see intelligence tests as tests of pattern recognition and connection making. Those who are best at making connections score the highest. They are the most observant, the fastest thinkers, and the "smartest." So if people with high IQs are just more observant than the general population and can make more connections than us, they didn't start off already knowing more. They just had better tools to learn more.

By my own mis-shaped argument I would say that we know what we know by how fast and how well our brains can make connections between different pieces of knowledge, and that everything we know is learned.

The Garden State

The concept of the garden state appears to refer to the garden of eden, and to the quote from genesis stating that "the lord took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it." Dressing it and keeping it is what Candide is referring to when he says that "we must cultivate our garden" (p. 94), implying that at the end stage of the book, Candide and his companions have reached an Eden of sorts. If we are to go along with the myth that Eden is the closest thing to paradise, Candide has apparently found heaven on earth, also known as, the best of all possible worlds, proving that throughout the entire book, even having gone through many hardships, he never does shed Pangloss's philosophy.

I also think that it is important to note that even in their garden state, they are undeniably bored. According to the dervish on page 92, man is supposed to "Cultivate your land, drink, eat, sleep and [keep your mouth shut]." This does not give Candide the sense of higher purpose that he has been striving for, and the old woman even proclaims on page 91 that she thinks it might be better to "undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered" than "simply to sit here and do nothing." These views are important to me because I believe they portray the way that society tends to view "happiness." We see being happy as something primitive and simple. Those who are happy are somehow inferior? Like the story we read at the start of the year about the Omelas, people need suffering in order to be interesting.

So if the garden state is paradise and the best of all possible worlds, and in the best of all possible worlds we are happy, and happiness is "basic," and being board does not translate to happiness, the best of all possible worlds and the garden state cannot exist.