Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful

Samantha Brick of the Daily Mail says women hate her for being pretty.

I’m going to take a very unpopular position by mildly sympathazing. I emphasize mildly because I don’t believe that the only reason she is “losing friends” is because of her apparently stunning looks. It’s quite possible that she’s never been a bridesmaid or held on to friends for too long because she actually might just be a mean and awful person.

I think the issue that she may be trying to bring up that I think can apply to every single person in the world is objectification. She doesn’t lament being beautiful; she laments being objectified. The more “attractive” a person is, the more likely that person is to be objectified.

So what’s the problem with objectification? Root word: Object. Thing. But what does it matter if you’re getting attention anyway? It matters because it never feels nice to be grouped with a label, the way any product can be grouped into a category. When people are treated as objects, their humanity is minimalized.

Think for a second–just imagine it–that a beautiful, thin, young woman were to say “I’m depressed.” She goes on: “I hate myself.” Again: “I often don’t want to live.”

My safe assumption is the overwhelming majority of people would a) laugh b) become angry c) ignore her, because what’s to be miserable about when you’re thin and beautiful, right?

We’re all still human–everyone in this world deserves an equal amount of understanding and justice. This goes for everyone–no one should ever be objectified for anything. We don’t share identical DNA but we all share equal emotions. Regardless of how anyone looks, ever, everyone deserves the right to be listened to.

Passion.

So, Titanic came out this week in 3D. It was December 1997 when I first saw it in theaters–I was very little but I immediately deemed it my favorite movie of all time and fell madly in love with Leonardo DiCaprio. The weeks following my view of the movie included buying Leo books and magazines and Titanic books and clipping out newspaper reviews and ads of the film and relistening to the cassette tape (remember those?) of the soundtrack. I went to Finland that summer of 1998 and bought a “Leonardo” necklace. On September 1 (or thereabouts?) we picked up our pre-ordered two-tape VHS copy of the film and it’s safe to say I watched that movie over a hundred times from 1999-2001. I’m not joking. My viewing of it trickled down as we went deeper into the millenium but it gradually picked up and peaked when I received the 3-disc DVD collection as a gift for my 17th birthday.

Fourteen and a half years later after I saw the film for the time in theaters, I’m quite a different person. I’m an adult, for one. I’m a pending college graduate. I’ve traveled and have seen a lot of other movies but I sat there in the theater still positive of two things:Titanicis still my favorite movie of all time and I am still madly in love with Leonardo DiCaprio. I’m constantly swept up in the epicness of it all. It’s not just a film, but an absolute experience that still gets me and doesn’t ever let go (pun intended).

I don’t know if I would like Titanic if I saw it for the first time today–it’s ridden in cliches and the dialogue is God-awful. (“They’ve got you trapped Rose, and you’re gonna die if you don’t break free, maybe not right away because you’re strong but–sooner or later that fire that I love about you Rose. That fire’s gonna burn out.”) But the acting is absolutely wonderful–the stars’ chemistry and presence save the screenplay. Titanic has what Avatar didn’t have (I hatedAvatar, ugh)–fantastic, commanding actors in the leads that could probably read the phone book together and still be amazing.

I’ll stop gushing now about Leo and Kate. I may just be trying to justify my nearly-unhealthy obsession with this film but as I watched it in theaters again, I thought about me seeing it for the first time, and me being so excited over getting the VHS and rewatching it and rewatching it because it was probably my most favorite thing that I owned. I’d never been moved by something before Titanic–I was seven after all. Seeing it made me be kind of in awe of films. And by learning how fulfilled I could feel through film, I found a genuine and healthy escape for myself.

I wasn’t always very happy when I was little and it seems ironic that I could gain happiness from such a sad film but I don’t think it was the content that granted me that joy–it was the beauty of that entire production. It was that sweeping love story on screen. It was the music and Jack’s heroism and everything any melodrama would have. It was knowing that it was possible for someone somewhere to do all of that on film. That was exciting.

I thinkTitanicwas the first thing I was truly passionate about. That in itself will always make it memorable to me, and undoubtedly my favorite for all time.

Meditation and Food.

It’s the Baha’i 19-Day Fast. It works essentially like the better-known Ramadan–we fast from sunrise to sunset. The main differences between the Baha’i Fast and Ramadan is that the former is always from March 2 to the first day of Spring and the ages of fasting are fixed at 15-70, with exceptions of course for the ill, pregnant, nursing, etc.

A lot of people don’t understand it. They sympathize with my “suffering.” haha–I’m not suffering. I’m actually quite happy and joyful, really. I haven’t felt this spark of joy in a while. While I’m half-asleep when I wake up at 6 AM to eat breakfast, it’s become my favorite part of the day. When you wake up so early, it feels like you’re the only one awake in the entire world–I embrace that as I eat my oatmeal or yogurt or peanut butter sandwich, all with lots and lots of fresh fruit.

I call the Fast a 19-Day meditation. It’s amazing how much we mindlessly eat. It’s amazing how much of our life is centered around what we’re going to eat next and when. For the light hours, I’m forced to concentrate on something else–work, writing, or just me. What I’m doing with my life, why I’m here, why I think at all, why I have this consciousness, why I live the way I do, or why I’m so sad sometimes. The questions deepen my spirituality, deepen me, and suddenly I feel connected to everything else.

As for the “suffering”–of course I’m hungry. But seriously, depriving myself of food and water for 12 hours is such a miniscule, arbitrary, surface-touching, aspect of suffering. If anything, I’m humbled: I become so weak just in the brief, temporary absence of food. I realize my weakness but at the same time, I’m energized with a rich sense of awareness and clear consciousness.

Now in a less enlightening, spiritual, tone–I’m a vegetarian. I’ve been one for the past four years. No beef, no pork, no poultry, no fish for four years. Giving up meat is easily one of the best decisions I’ve ever made for myself. I bring this up because I can’t tell you enough how often I’ve gotten, “THAT’S why you’re so thin” and “You’re fasting and you’re a vegetarian? Do you eat enough?”

I don’t understand. Is “meat” our idea of real food? Of significant, filling food? “It has protein,” they say. Wonderful. So do eggs, nuts, beans, yogurt, and a million other things. Even vegans just have to slather some peanut butter on a piece of bread and grab a handful of trail mix and they’re good to go. I recently got a blood test done and I am so proud to say my protein levels are not just average; they’re above average. My iron level is perfect, my B-12 level is perfect, my cholesterol dropped, and I have very low triglycerides. I’m healthy, healthy, healthy.

I’m not thin because I’m a vegetarian; I’m thin because I know how to eat. (You can be a veg on French fries and soda. You will not be thin.) But far more importantly than just being thin, I’m very healthy.  I’ve had back and forth battles with food in the past, but I’ve reached a mutual understanding with the thing that nourishes me. I eat whatever I want to eat–cake, cookies, donuts, pizza, Chinese, French fries, lots of brie cheese, but I don’t eat the junk every day (save for maybe cookies after dinner…hehe).  My daily food is all about lots and lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grains and oatmeal.

If anything, I group my eating habits with my self-understanding and spirituality. I’m a vegetarian because in the Western world–a world of grocery stores, cookbooks, nutrition info and vitamins–eating meat is not a necessity. When you factor in the awareness that the  meat industry is cruel, harmful to the environment and wasteful, “it tastes good” isn’t really a solid reason anymore.

Being a successful vegetarian is about having a constant clear consciousness of the world we live in. While this post sounded preachy, I don’t really talk about any of this unless someone asks. A lot of people respect me for it and a lot of people tell me they can’t do the same. I tell them, “I’m no different. If I can do it, you can do it.”

That idea, “If I can, you can” unites Baha’is during the Fast as well. We all become aware of our limits and our abilities. When we realize how powerful we still are in the face of of physical weakness, we truly begin to grow as a community and as a people. I think that unity inspires others–least I’ve felt it has. If I can inspire others, I’m happy.

Why We Have to Read and Write

I’ve touched upon me being a writing tutor at my school. If I could even begin to tell you how many kids have come to me and said they would never use analytical writing in their lives…

My discovery: A huge chunk of not just people I’ve worked with but people in general have no idea what they’re reading. And I mean that honestly, they have no idea what they’re reading. It reminds me of how I was in France, staring at the plaques in the Louvre with my eyebrow raised because French could as well have been hieroglyphics to me.

I’m not even talking Shakespeare or Milton or Chaucer or Nabokov even. I’m talking basic articles. I’m talking a contemporary stage play and an opinion piece on a technology-dependent culture. It’s shocking to me really–what’s so blatant and straightforward and honest is interpreted as something so far off the radar for someone else.

This is our language. This is how we communicate. Communication is how we build relationships and societies and governments and an entire world. It’s how we live our lives. Learning how to argue effectively, how to express yourself effectively, is how you live an honest, well-understood, and healthy mental life.

As a person who has been in other countries where I’ve felt confused and frustrated over not being understood–I can’t imagine what that would be like in my own country.

“I know what I want to say but I can’t put what I want to say on paper. I can’t put what I want to say into words,” they say.

This is a problem. It’s not something that can be brushed off as, “I’m not good at writing.” It’s the exact equivalent of, “I’m not good at speaking my language.” Not knowing how to speak your language well means there will always be something you’re missing out on, just because you can’t understand it or you can’t express it.

I want a world of unity. I want a world of understanding and peace. So I teach people to write and I want every single person in the world to read and write. The more we do it, the more we get it and the better speakers of this amazing language we become.

Fun Fact: The English language has the largest vocabulary of any single language in the world with approximately 250,000 distinct words. No other language comes close.

English is the world’s most commonly published language.

English is the most common second language adopted by non-native speakers.

In essence, a huge vocabulary? World’s most commonly published language? It’s a writer’s dream.

Speak it well. Please.

 

Why We Doubt Shakespeare

A rather brilliant professor once said in a lecture,

“The only reason anyone doubts Shakespeare is that no one wants to believe that a country boy who came from nothing could be a genius.”

I’ve noticed this tendency among people–when we hear of someone being great, many of us quickly doubt it. We label the great as “overrated” immediately–we begin to criticize and question their abilities. This holds true for everything, from the lead in the high-school play to the Ivy League student, all the way to the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and even to the 17-time-Oscar-nominated actress.

Maybe these people are overrated; maybe their abilities should be held to question and maybe they could be frauds. But, it’s an injustice to purposely seek out the flaws of those who are considered to be brilliant.Instead of being humbled by a person’s gifts and talents, we ostracize them. Instead of seeking to learn and grow from another’s accomplishments, we brush them aside and tell ourselves that we “can outdo them.” It becomes a competition instead of a learning experience. It  becomes a life full of bitterness, resentment, and prejudice instead of one of reflection, education, and friendship.

I aim to listen with open ears, see with open eyes, feel with an open heart and be a student of the gifted and of the geniuses. If ever I be filled with doubt, I aim to read and learn and understand. I want to be brilliant too, but I can only learn from those who have already accomplished perfection.

Dear Shakespeare,

You’re my man.

What We Hear

I read this quote last night:

“Grant, O my God, that I may not be reckoned among those whose ears are deaf, whose eyes are blind, whose tongues are speechless and whose hearts have failed to comprehend.” It’s from a prayer by the Bab.

What got me about is the emotion of those few beginning words–”Grant, O my God”–it suggests a seeking for wish-fulfillment. I often wish from what I’m desperate for. The extremity of the language (“deaf” “blind” “speechless”) suggests passion. A passionate plea then to God, begging to remain open-minded and knowledgeable, tolerant and understanding.

I can’t think of a better thing to pray for.

I’m taking a World War 2 class. I’m really enjoying it so far–I don’t know what it is about the Second World War that’s always intrigued me. I think it’s the emotion I get from it–the idea that such sadness and destruction could happen in a place I love so much.  Recognizing how “real” that war was by just imagining that it could have happened to me if I’d studied abroad in 1940 instead of 2011. The experience of utter devastation brings one down to a level of utter reality. There is no glory in the genocide of millions. There is no fame in the destruction of your hometown. There’s no triumph or stardom or power in the loss of your very livelihood. The stories of seeing war first hand have traveled down the generations in Europeans–my grandmother can remember looking out her window and being horrified at the sight of Soviet POWs, who were wearing only t-shirts in the freezing Finland winter, being lined up and taken to be held captive in her elementary school-turned POW camp. My grandfather talks of hearing the bombs outside as he hid under his desk in school only to go home and realize they had to leave because Karelia suddenly wasn’t Finland anymore.

There’s an awful picture that gives me the chills of Hitler walking surrounded by tanks–right in front of the Eiffel Tower. I cringe when I see it and I get the same awful feeling when I see the photos of smoke rising above the Tower Bridge in London. The emotions from those photos are reminiscent of the awful sickness I feel when I look at photos of 9/11. We’re gravely disturbed by images of war in England, France, United States–but seemingly nonchalant and even satisifed of prospects of war and even images of it in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.

I don’t get it. Are the Iraqis, Afghans, Iranians less human than the British, French or Americans?

It’s only what we hear that gives us these feelings–war is okay here, but not there. With all the bias surrounding us in the media and even in the classroom it’s so easy to get lost in them. So I pray,

“Grant O my God, that I may not be reckoned among those whose ears are deaf, whose eyes are blind, whose tongues are speechless and whose hearts have failed to comprehend.”

It’s my passionate plea.

 

Hatred.

I want to write about rape.

I want to write about rape because it’s the most blatant example of genuine hatred that’s permeating through our entire society. To counter every misconception–your average rapist isn’t the man hiding in the shadows behind the dumpster at midnight waiting to pounce on a victim. He’s not the dirty-looking, drifter who stalks women. He’s a boyfriend. He’s a husband. He could be handsome and entitled–successful. Whatever he is, all rapists share something in common: A belief that it’s his right to be sexually satisfied by the woman he chooses, regardless of her opinion. His wants trump hers because he is better and he is stronger.

Deliberately taking advantage of people physically weaker than you and honestly believing that it’s your right to take advantage of those weaker than you is hatred. Sexual violence is driven by absolute hatred.

To consider for a second that misogyny has disappeared from Western society is to ignore the fact that nearly 200,000 rapes occur each year, less than 20% of which are even reported. Women are the victim 91% of the time.

The average rapist probably doesn’t even know that he’s a rapist. He is still convinced it was his right. He did nothing wrong. She was asking for it. She was his girlfriend, his wife after all.

I should probably start writing more about being an English major, a poor college student and a writer. But then again I figure, being a writer is all about observation. Hemingway said, “A writer without a sense of justice and of injustice would be better off editing a yearbook of a school for exceptional children than ever writing novels.”

I see 80% of rapists never being exposed for what they are as one of the biggest injustices in our society. It sickens me to know that such scum walk among us–most of whom still, probably don’t know what they did was wrong.

How could they honestly not know what they did was wrong?