Insignificance is Significant

The ecosystem works in a smallest to largest fashion. That is, even the tiniest of organisms contribute to the survival of those who make a considerable difference. And with each little item adding to its own power by simply surviving, the world appears to be a beautiful place.

Here's a video to prove it:

In any case, even a small being's struggle is significant, as the beauty of it (not saying that something dying is beautiful) can be embodied in the tender balance between life and death.

For example, Virginia Woolf brings the anecdotal story, "The Death of The Moth", to life by recounting her experience of watching a moth experience its short lifetime and fall away into death. She continuously juxtaposes its "hybrid...pathetic" nature with the "pleasant" environment to show its insignificance, yet praises it by calling it a "tiny bead of pure light". Thus, she connects this being with humanity and presents it as a beacon of each individual's own life.  She claims that even its own search for more than just a "third corner and... a fourth" in his life applies to our own to find something more than the insignificance of our own lives. However, she implies that despite any figure's insignificance, or even significance, we all end up with the same fate, the inability to escape death. Then, who can prove that what is insignificant is truly insignificant at all?

A Shield of Humor

To mask pain, the human race will attempt a great amount of techniques. One, for example, is the soothing ritual of loosing oneself in music. However, a universal stress reliever is one we all know: humor. Humor has psychological effects, says Psych Central, and "laughter has been shown to reduce stress, boost the immune system and enhance brain chemistry through the release of serotonin and endorphins" (http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/03/02/the-hidden-power-of-humor/)

Although it may provide some relief, humor can, unfortunately, also act like a double edged sword. Many times people will act satirical or use dark humor to cover up their own faults or repress painful feelings. Take for example, a child who is being teased by his or her friends. To show them that the degrading comments don't affect him or her, they may proceed to laugh it off, or even make fun of themselves. This behavior may lead to a bitter mentality, where the individual could become self-degrading or misanthropic. 

A plethora of writers, including Sherman Alexie use cynical humor to mask pain from their childhood memories. For example, Alexie mocks his birth by calling himself a "mixed drink" born out of his "father's whiskey sperm" and "mother's vodka egg". While this alcohol reference provides an almost ridiculous humor to the situation, Alexie is using to cover up the drunkenness and disillusion of his parent's marriage and how they created him out of an act of stupidity rather than love. 

"Oh, are you disabled?"..."Not really...I'm just more Enabled than you are."

The other day, I heard a story from someone I know that made me very upset at the health care professionals in America today.

A man was sitting in the doctors office for his checkup and suddenly experienced a bout of severe pain.

This man, who rarely showed signs of pain despite it being there, screamed for help. When the nurses came to attend to him, they acted calmly and told him to "be quiet" and "stop disturbing the other patients". And as he was losing consciousness, one even proceeded to tell him "to stop being a drama queen". Later, as he recounted the tale, he sympathized for those nurses, who had spent their day working a long 12 hour shift in the hospital. But when I heard it? I had no sympathy. From what I had learned, accepting a job like that meant that one should be willing to work twelve, thirteen hour shifts and still remain respectful towards their patients. This just skims the insanity of the the mistreatment of struggling people in America. As if they aren't going through enough internally, the society we live in makes it a point to further their issues to feel better about their own.

But really, the only way to alter the way society considers the handicapped is that the definition of disability should be changed as a whole. Disability should really refer to any person with a hardship in their life. That's everybody, right? This hardship is not what defines the person; in fact, it only lasts for a period of time. For any average human, a disability in their everyday life can be resolved with a matter of perseverance and hope. And for handicapped people, whether it be psychological or physiological, the same rules apply. Even though their condition may persist for their entire life, if they persist in their efforts to overcome it, they can choose to set it aside and move on with their life.

People with disabilities have one fairly large claim: they are not defined by their disability. As famous author Nancy Mairs states, "I'm not, for example, Ms. MS, a walking, talking, embodiment of a chronic incurable degenerative disease". And this is true. The way society perceives these people is completely our own fault. We digress in the news about our previous errors: mistreatment of African Americans, Native Americans, gays, lesbians, transsexuals. But one that rarely comes up are the people who have quietly suffered, the disabled.

So when they observe the media, they might be slightly offended at their oblivious behavior. However, one good aspect does come out of not monopolizing their disabilities on the internet. As The Disabled World states, they become more aware of themselves and their " disability helps to define their values".

For more information: http://www.disabled-world.com/disability/social-aspects.php

You are never Beneath A Dream

Representative Heuristics, making judgements based off of preexisting prototypes and stereotypes, can be a hindrance when considering my dreams. Perhaps when one realizes that "being a female doctor is not yet accepted by society" (http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/mar/21/women-workplace-everyday-sexism), she might give up her dreams entirely. And on top of that, money is a huge problem. Consider the ever increasing costs of college, and then think of all the rash decisions your family may have made to increase their chances on the economical leave l. For example, you might have a brother who is convinced that a liquor store is the way to go, or a dad who wants to invest in a new business venture that you are 99% positive is going to be risky and unstable. Many men, not all but many, in our ever existing society believe that their dreams are better than ours. With all the feminism rights protests, one would think that they might find our dreams equally as important, but I have found that our dreams are inferior to theirs, which I find as illogical and impractical."I always thought [being a doctor] was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know –" (A raisin in the sun), so I couldnt understand why my dreams to become something concrete were being obstructed by someone with abstract and complicated ones.

 Suddenly, I was plagued with this terrible feeling that the world was truly not worth saving anyways. If all I my dreams consisted of trying to increase the health of someone who wanted to obstruct my dreams, then the world was truly a twisted place. I was ready to give up my dreams,  when I was doused with a refreshing change. Doctoring, I learned, is something bold and beautiful and its a challenge that will prove quite fruitful. If us women never truly can prove to the world that what we do is worth its time, then society will forever be stuck in a unjust cycle of inequality.

" '[Life] isn't a circle--it is simply a long line--as in geometry, you know, one that reaches into infinity. And because we cannot see the end--we also cannot see how it changes. And it is very odd by those who see the changes--who dream, who will not give up--are called idealists...and those who see only the circle we call them the "realists"!' " (A Raisin in the Sun)
To succeed, women should look beyond the circle of reality.

Pink Elephants + Elephants in the room= A whole mess

Today, society avoids the elephants in the room by a various means of escape. Silence, aversion, and distraction can be used to beat around the bush, but the one elephant we can't ignore is the "pink elephant". Pink elephants, according to Meriam Webster, are visual hallucinations that occur from a state of psychological and physical drunkenness. This inner battle of mental disillusion can let the elephant out of its cage,  or the "cat" out of the bag. As proven in F. Scott Fitzgerald's story, A Diamond as Big as the Ritz, drunkenness doesn't just refer to a state of alcoholism, but also to a greed or obsession with something, in this case money, that can impair one's judgement. The main character, John T. Unger, falls under the spell of a very rich family, failing to recognize their empty rhetoric as anything other than luxurious and eloquent. As the story progresses, the audience realizes, this "fairytale" doesn't really begin with a "Once upon a time"; unfortunately, it was more like "back in hell, an evil man with an obsession for money was born...". Braddock Washington, the man in the family (and from hell), uses a series of cruel lies to cover up his paradoxical treasure: a diamond so big that its useless to the economical market. Clearly, he thought he was Moses, because he tries so hard to become a "God" using his "princelike" status (if you know anything about Moses, that would ultimately summarize him: a prince turned God). At the end of the story, the real "Moses", or "God", pays his retribution towards Washington, ultimately turning him back into the place he was born and destined to be. And now, everyone can agree that the "pink elephants" that release an elephant into the room can definitely lead to a karmatic disaster.

Now look at the largest diamond in the world, the Cullinan Diamond. Not so attractive anymore is it?

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.