Break the looking glass

I often spend my time reminiscing about memories which have become glorified in my head. I can always find myself thinking back to "that summer" during school, when in reality "that summer" was just a long 3 months of pure endless boredom.

What psychologists call this is the "Good Old Days Syndrome". Keyword: Syndrome. This is a problem. (Read more at: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/turning-straw-gold/201308/good-old-days-syndrome)

Essentially, this "romanticism" is innate but not innocuous.

The greatest problem in looking backwards it that we tend to alleviate our troubles by pretending that the past was better and that we are facing a new kind of trouble never faced before. That becomes our basis for failing. For example, I might say that my parents didn't face school like I do now, and it was much easier for them without the cutting edge technology and brand new information that makes us cram more and more information into our heads (don't deny it, you've probably done the same thing). So we make the past seem better to make our problems seem worse. How does that make our lives better? It doesn't.

Unfortunately, it gets worse. When we start applying ideals to people, we make a false image of them in our head which they will never be able to fulfill. Gatsby (from yes, in fact,  The Great Gatsby), for instance, idealized Daisy (also a character fabricated by the acclaimed novelist Fitzgerald) as someone who was as perfect as a barbie doll (yes, the irony is real because barbie dolls are the last thing from perfect). Thus the "Fay" (full name: Daisy Fay) part of her name comes into play because her idealistic image is, like a fairy, not real. This idealism applies to modern life. When people tend to paint a picture of another in a way they feel describes them as real, they may in fact be setting themselves up for a reality crash when the latter's real character slaps the former across the face.

So remember this holiday season, when you look back on the memories you made in previous years:

Don't look back at this....

But look back at this....

"You’ll still have your stars"

I want something that is not material. Something that can't be bought and something that may not even bring me happiness. I want to "venture into the unknown" , "to add a new note" and cause the "universe [to] change" (The University of Chicago Campaign: Inquiry and Impact). However, most of America doesn't want this. They want cars, and entertainment, and money, and beach houses, as do many other average human beings. 

But what truly does the possession of such items bring to a person besides the momentary satisfaction of "I have it, and you dont!"? 

When dolls, and cars, and new toys melt away into oblivion, objects which cannot truly be touched still remain. Rex Walls, in the Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls, reaffirms this by claiming "[His kids] still have [their] stars" because they will never go away. 

Now that we've clarified that regular possessions are truly not worth our time, there is still the matter of human ignorance. 

Although "I'm in a more socially conscious form of my default-setting", "a huge percent of stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, as it turns out, totally wrong and deluded" (David Foster Wallace in his speech "This is Water"). As I start to rethink my opinions, I realize that there is always more to learn, more to explore rather than just obtain. By turning the head 5 degrees to the right, we could gain so much more knowledge than is available, but most of us are just too stubborn or too oblivious to move away from this. 

In fact, such obdurateness can be traced back to the 1920's in America. Consumerism, the promotion of goods in the interest of consumers, flourished in the "Roaring Twenties", causing many people to become rigid in their obsession of physical appurtenances. They became a useless camera, one that could not rotate to view images from different angles. Imagine what photos would be like if they could only be captured from one height, one distance, and one viewpoint. Any minute details that made the photo unique could have easily been missed. This unwavering structure which misses out the most significant details is what the society in the 1920's was like, and what the society is like today. 

For example, The Great Gatsby, by F.Scott Fitzgerald, exemplifies the theme of obsession of materialism in the 1920's, but also captures the stubbornness that continues today. Daisy, near the beginning of the novel, exclaims that "The best thing a girl can be in this world, [is] a beautiful little fool" because she has one picture of how women can obtain a perfect life, by embracing the personality of a fool and living life wildly. 

To Punctuate or Not To Punctuate

 As children, we've all been taught that breaking the rules, whether it be on the playground, or in the academic world (of punctuation for example), is almost sinful. By the time high school rolls around and we've begun to explore why society can be arrogant in setting a "default setting, hard-wired" (said by famous American novelist, David Foster Wallace) into our brains, us students start to question why we need to follow the rules in the first place. We've become so obsessed with the idea of "getting free of [our] natural, hard-wired default"(Wallace) that considering the original might actually be insane. And it probably is. The whole while, I've been teetering on the fine line of equilibrium and disequilibrium, containing the urge to break all the set down rules of punctuation. If great authors such as Shakespeare dare to break free of the standards and still manage to succeed from the wrath of the the punctuation police, then why can't the average commoner! Not to say that new rules should override the old, but to throw away the rules once and for all.

Punctuation, like society, can be hypocritical at times. The comma, for example, "feign [s] liberation with one hand" and "tighten [s] the leash with another" (Elizabeth Austen in "On Punctuation"). Thus Austen implies that the rules, while creating a sense of emotion and feeling of suspense, can also be applied to a critical manner, such as eliminating non-essential (or so it thinks) phrases from a sentence. Modern culture, in its constant state of motion, should adapt to a new era as it occurs. As it happens in this era, punctuation should be used "honestly and sparingly" (Lewis Thomas in "Notes on Punctuation) and only to "dwell in [the] possibility" (Emily Dickinson in "I dwell in Possibility" of furthering creativity. An avid representation of a "sparing" (Thomas) use of punctuation could be exemplified in the modern social media site, Twitter. Freelance writer, Amanda Cosco, claims that she has "seen some beautiful [tweets]" (Cosco in "How Twitter Can Make You a Better Writer") coming from a site that actively restricts punctuation. And although some may argue against Twitter, and the campaign for loosening the "dogma of the period" (Austen) due to the inevitable fact of its ability to convey crisp ideas, one must ponder on the more important works in literary history. They dare to break the "dogma", which led them to create a story which embodied a clear message without the use of punctuation. So the final question is: To conform or to be individualistic? It's all in the matter of human choice.

Just the photo of a man (Shakespeare) who escaped the rules...

Identity is all in perception

Upon debating with some of my fellow students, I have come to more questions than answers when it comes to the issue of what makes up a human identity. Truly, my belief is that identity is shaped by society's perception of a specific mannerism or stereotype attributed to a race. Because identity is what a person believes he or she is, in the physical and mental state, and can only be identified by pondering on what outside influences have shaped that person to be.

After some thinking, I concluded that once society begins its rampage on a victim, from the time of childbirth, that victim will begin to believe whatever they are told to be true, including what others perceive that child as.  Soon enough, the victim starts to define important characteristics such as beauty, humor, and morality and associate these qualities with others and not themselves.

For example, in a passage from The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison (the author) creates an admirable scenario in which she clearly highlights that the oppressed can in fact learn to oppress others by taking their own diffidence and forcing it onto a weaker object.

" 'They are ugly. They are weeds.' " (Morrison 50) says the victim.
This situation is ironic because the reader would expect the main character, Pecola, to be compassionate because society has perceived her to be ugly, but she instead is critical of "them" (them being dandelions) because she has determined what society's definition of beauty must be true.

This just shows that the hypocrisy of society can influence even the most victimized member. In the end, Morrison claims that the oppressed themselves can be the oppressor to those who are inferior, forcing an identity onto an individual who is vulnerable to injustice.

Repressed Memories

A psychodynamic psychologist would claim that people are driven by unconscious motives and desires. This in fact, despite the polemic nature of this point of view, is apparent in many instances of humanity.

Much of modern society protests against shunning people based on their nuanced behaviorism, but to their disdain, it happens more often than not. For example, in a normal class discussion of a widely recognized novel, The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, classmates seem to express a collective disgust for the character Geraldine. As the discussion progressed and some important insight was brought to light, I noticed that our "quick to make conclusion" attitude slowly faded away. However, most victims are not so lucky to receive this kind of clarity.
Geraldine's dilemma, marital rape, was the source of her psychological trauma, and the reason for her sour behavior that much of the readers failed to truly acknowledge.

A simple answer to Geraldine's attempt to explain herself would be, "Oh, we all have problems". Unfortunately, this is the case in many situations. Perhaps, to avoid herself the unnecessary pain that would inflict with such a response, she avoided sharing such obvious details that let everyone know that she was being raped. Or perhaps it was a repressed memory that was revealed to the public without true knowledge of the victim's feelings. In the end, the most logical conclusion would attest to the fact that this "marital rape" resulted in the passivity of her character.

In recent times, studies have shown that such psychological trauma would result in "social withdrawal" as stated in the article below.

http://wkzo.com/news/articles/2014/oct/24/for-kids-psychological-abuse-may-leave-the-deepest-scars/

Then as a result, psychological trauma is almost deemed as genetic, as usually the case seems to play out in a "you give what you get" kind of theme. To continue with Geraldine, the story points out that her son, Junior, turns out just as cold-hearted as her. Both with a minimal backstory, and both with the same amount of negative viewer misjudgment.