This page consists of two parts: About me: General, which is just me ranting so you can get to know me, and also there's a section titled "My Social Dimensions" where you can read about my social conditioning.
About me: General
I'm taking a women's study course to better my understanding of women in society, and I've gotten more than I bargained for, because what I found was a hornet's nest of real problems with society and real wisdom on the selfhood to boot. I already learned something in the textbook that I will carry with me forever, that real meaning in life comes from combining sensation and emotion, and that sensation without emotion... Well, I only just learned about it, I need to meditate.
I meditate, I observe, I introspect, I imagine, and I concentrate. That's what I was taught the path to wisdom is - that's the path of wisdom according to mystical christianity. It says, "find out for yourself, use your heart and mind."
So I'm a mystical christian. (urgh... The "C" word), and I like carving magic wands out of freshly cut saplings. I actually developed magic wand carving as a form of therapy for myself. When I came down with bipolar disorder, which is a mood disorder, basically, you're not a healthy person, you don't have the healthy emotional habits of normal people. To make a long story short, one of my many maladjustments is my anger problem. Carving magic wands of all things caused me to put a bridle on our own anger - I found out quickly that careless, angry carving was a good way to cut yourself. So it became therapy, and I learned to modulate how I felt in a very fine tuned way, because I had to, or else, I would cut myself. Not only that, you can use them to cast magic spells (and I have hundreds), take me as seriously as you like on that remark.
I am good at math and concepts and maybe not as good at feeling and emotion. It's great for me to be learning about women because I feel that women are good at emotion - why is that? Maybe cultural conditioning - but let's say I know my own (men) and we're more like emotional bowling balls than emotional butterflys, if you get my drift. Maybe I'm projecting? Uh-oh, (backspace, backspace...)
I have a very open mind that narrows at the bottom, sort of like loch ness. The monster - well, mother nature is always lurking in our psyche's, and sometimes she will come out to teach you a lesson. As the years passed since my first attack at age 20, whenever I have become sick or had an episode of my bipolar disorder, I have begun to dream of the grizzly bear. One time, I was in a crate getting washed down a storm drain and a grizzly bear was attacking the crate. That was when I was going through a hard time with mental and emotional issues.
Recently, however, the bear came to me in a dream and was no longer a great scary beast, it was small and emaciated. I shot it with a gun, and I have not dreampt of it since. I am currently on one third of a dose of antipsychotics and one third of a dose of mood stabilizers than I was on a year ago. But what do dreams mean? We all live a double life, one here, one in the dream world, the one in the dream world is just harder to quantify. I think it consists of the realm of personal meaning between you and the Goddess (God/Allaha/Asparagus). Did I mention I'm a joker?
I love humor, I'm practically obsessed, there is always a portion of myself that makes everything around me into a joke, and it brings me joy, although it can be distracting, and if I don't keep it to myself I can sometimes put my foot in my mouth. Like there's this penguin and he stops his car at a service station and gets some icecream... Oh nevermind.
So I'm not liked by all, but I am certainly loved by many. I'm big into philosophy, and psychology, I love figuring out how people think, why we experience what we do. Basically I want to know everything and someday unite the planet with good, clear ideas. Somebody's got to. My heart and brain are greased and good to go, professor, please open hinged lid and pour fuel now.
My Social Dimensions
I am part native American and have multi-national European descent. I am a white upper-class male heterosexual, the most privileged group in America
Growing up, I was ostracized because I had bad acne. I was treated generally badly and called derogatory names. So I have an understanding of what it means to be treated according to an external variable – like sexuality or race, but for me, it was acne. And I was the outsider. Just having people look at me was painful, because I knew my face was mutated. I suffered a lot of sexual / emotional rejection from women that started because of my physical ailment… I was shy and insecure – and no woman wants a shy and insecure boyfriend, with acne on top of that. I was viewed as less than because my face was ugly.
Because of my acne, my skin is scarred and uneven. As a result I cannot shave with a razor, I use an electric shaver that gives me a perpetual 5-o’clock shadow. not clean shaven and with zits, I am viewed by society as unclean and/or unhygienic and/or uncaring, when in fact I bathe daily and the acne is largely a genetic problem.
As an upper-class white male heterosexual I have not suffered at the hands of the patriarchy, indeed, I have been mostly ignorant of it until I started women’s studies class the spring of 2012. Now I see, I have avoided massive amounts of social degradation and even trouble with the government just by being born the “right color and sexual orientation.” I could probably run for president and I would “fit the bill”. Ironically my finances can make me a target for crime in low-income areas. I have a nice car, and a lot of people in low-income areas ask about it, and I generally tell them I won it at a raffle. It makes you different even if you don’t want to be.
As a mystical Christian, I had to face my own brother telling me my religion was a cult. It doesn’t matter if my religion matches Daoism, Buddhism, or Toltec wisdom in it’s mystical studies.. If I tell people I am Christian, I get lumped into a group of people who are largely characterized by their appearance in the media – a wealthy patriarchy that condones the sexual abuse of children. So I get lumped in with those people. A lot of the time’s I just say “I’m Buddhist” because people respect Buddhism as a mystical tradition, while mystical Christianity is not a well known spiritual study.
So I get to hide and/or feel guilty about the particular spiritual path I’ve chosen because it’s popular image is pretty bad. I mean, I too have “an attitude about Christians” and when I learn someone is a Christian, the first thing I think is that they are probably narrow-minded. Christianity is my secret, while cross cultural mysticism is important to me, and also creates my public face.
So what I’m faced with is that largely Christianity is a fragmented and dogmatic system with little room for the individual, and that people assume all kinds of strange things about you and what you should believe if you call yourself by the “C” word. So I call myself a Zen Buddhist, because well, I can chop wood and carry water all day long, and no one has any stereotypes about Zen Buddhists, except perhaps, an image of a person meditating and sitting on a pillow.
I am tall. As a tall person, my height advantages me to higher pay than other males, and also probably more promotions at work. I am disadvantaged in society in general however, because most public systems are oriented towards a person 5’10”. I do not fit in airplane seats, in buses, in cars. I have to check every piece of clothing for “sleeve length” because my arms are exceptionally long. All across society and in every area of life do we find ourselves trying to “fit” into images of human beings that often were made for or by someone else.
Growing up, I was made fun of a lot for mismatched clothes and non-fitting clothes, I was also smart and good with a computer, and wore plaid, I was labeled as a “nerd” and treated as such. I took this to my core for a long time, I thought of myself as a nerd, but eventually this idea disappeared from my identity. I no longer wear mismatched clothes. I am confident with a computer but don’t spend all my time with them. I am intelligent and logical and was once shy, but I have better developed my emotional side and become an extravert. It is a blessing that I have overcome stereotypes at all, considering I wear glasses and have acne and even program computers for fun. But I am not a “nerd” because no single person is ever fully representative of a stereotype – stereotypes are distorted or limited images, and as I’ve shown, they can be used to afford privilege or degrade a person.
So to conclude this tirade, we all are privileged and sometimes oppressed by stereotypes related to the groups we are a member of. As a member of a women’s studies course, I am currently increasing my awareness of participation in groups and stereotypes. These thoughts should be a starting place for me to understand how I have been shaped by the forces at work on individuals in our society.
No comments:
Post a Comment