I want to be a good writer so badly. And when I say this, I mean I want to be a good writer qua writing. Beyond just good sentence structure, I want to be concise, I want to write with clarity and poise. The thing is, I also value the poeticism of rarely spoken words. I want my words to have a lyricism that I never have to point out and for them to resonate, to appear bolded or italicized without me ever having to actually click those buttons.
I want to be able to speak like I write and have friends who will think it's completely ordinary. I want to stop feeling like I'm an endangered species - a dying breed.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Being Smart Is Out of Season and The Travesty That Ensues
The popular top 40 radio station in Toronto right now is running a commercial for a telephone company that begins with a mother telling the listener that her child isn't the smartest kid in the class, but instead he's "popular" and racks up a hefty cellphone bill. I didn't find out that the ad was for a cellphone company until the second time I heard it because when I heard it the first time, I burst into a long tirade of criticism after hearing the first few lines. Why can't her son be both? Why can't her son simultaneously be popular and the smartest kid in the class? Western media propagates the false notion that being smart and being sociable or well-liked are mutually exclusive, but why is that? Why is it unfashionable to be smart?
The other day I corrected my brother's pronunciation of the French word "croissant". I always pronounce it as I have been taught to in French class since the age of ten, the same French classes that my brother attended three years after me. He makes a disgusted face and replies, "Who says it like that? It sounds so pretentious." What is simply correct has suddenly become pretentious and there is now a negative connotation to being knowledgeable. My brother's attitude reflects those of so many of our peers who would rather blend in with the masses, despite knowing that the masses are wrong, than be correct. Somewhere along the road it became more socially acceptable to err because everyone else is, rather than be correct and stand above the masses. Popularity for all the right reasons now makes you popular in all the wrong ways.
The media, and perhaps even our personal lives, can produce several examples of those who are unerringly smart and also gratingly annoying because of it. We label these people as pompous, pretentious and arrogant - all adjectives with glaringly negative connotations. And in several cases the examples we produce may exhibit these traits in every way, but somehow these traits have started to become attached to those who are also just simply intelligent. It may very well be true that those who grow up receiving several accolades for their academic achievements develop proud personalities that make them intolerant of their less eloquent peers and intolerable in return. A segregated few may have been the start of a dangerous stereotype infiltrating legions of teenagers to come.
Turn on your television and you will find numerous teen dramas illustrating dumb blonde cheerleaders who run the social ladder and nerds who can write a million A+ papers before they can score a date. Even though several of these shows are actually telling stories of teenagers breaking these social barriers, it's damaging to future generations to even have these stereotypes articulated at all. Illustrating this social ladder for teenagers influences them in subtle ways. They might not go as far as imitating these characters, but they look for these characters around them. And when they're all doing that they all start categorizing; they all start judging.
Judgment is the root of the problem. The jocks who put more time into football practice after school than studying in the library are automatically assumed by the peers to be less smart than those who do the opposite. When in reality, those jocks could be spending less time studying because they have an easier time grasping the material and don't need to be while those who are cramming in the library really do. But because they possess easy markers of those stereotypes, the jocks are now labeled. Their peers aren't expecting them to be smart, they don't ask for more of them intellectually. Instead, they might be approached more often socially because they are interpreted as more likely to climb the social ladder and be popular. They are invited to more parties, perhaps find it harder to say no, spend even less time studying than they did before, let their grades drop and thus emanate the stereotype even more so. And when their grades drop it really doesn't matter too much, they have a network of friends and a buzzing social life with their equally struggling peers to compensate and thus the cycle continues. Pygmalion effect, anyone?
These stereotypes are damaging in ways that we can't even fully comprehend yet as it is a currently dominating trend. Teenagers, not unlike my own brother, are becoming afraid to be smart. Afraid to say what they know is correct because of that fear of being labeled and judged by their peers as "pretentious". It's an extremely unfortunate situation in that standing out in academics has become one of the few ways in which people don't want to stand out. The majority of teenagers think that they are special snowflakes with feelings and thoughts that no one else has stumbled upon, when in reality they all think in a hive mind. They shy away from actually thinking outside the box and discovering things scientifically and experimentally in ways that perhaps really no one else has ever done before. It's a very sad state of affairs.
No one should be scared of being knowledgeable or being right and correcting your peers. If you do it with humility and the intention to aid, it will come across. Intelligence comes with great power, not only academically, but socially as well. With intelligence comes the ability to network in larger circles, speak with greater confidence on several more topics and best of all the foresight to see and think beyond the stereotypes. The media needs to start promoting characters who are both smart and beloved, elevated for things beyond the stereotypical markers. Start writing characters who are intelligent and well-liked. Write about jocks who read Dostoyevsky in their spare time. Write about the prom queen who's on the chess team and takes a teammate as her date. But most importantly, write it as the norm.
Don't fear being smart. It doesn't have to be or mean anything more than simply being smart. Crave knowledge, desire improvement and aim to be better. We all strive for success and we all want to excel. There's no reason to be ashamed of the way you choose to fulfill your calling to the human condition.
The other day I corrected my brother's pronunciation of the French word "croissant". I always pronounce it as I have been taught to in French class since the age of ten, the same French classes that my brother attended three years after me. He makes a disgusted face and replies, "Who says it like that? It sounds so pretentious." What is simply correct has suddenly become pretentious and there is now a negative connotation to being knowledgeable. My brother's attitude reflects those of so many of our peers who would rather blend in with the masses, despite knowing that the masses are wrong, than be correct. Somewhere along the road it became more socially acceptable to err because everyone else is, rather than be correct and stand above the masses. Popularity for all the right reasons now makes you popular in all the wrong ways.
The media, and perhaps even our personal lives, can produce several examples of those who are unerringly smart and also gratingly annoying because of it. We label these people as pompous, pretentious and arrogant - all adjectives with glaringly negative connotations. And in several cases the examples we produce may exhibit these traits in every way, but somehow these traits have started to become attached to those who are also just simply intelligent. It may very well be true that those who grow up receiving several accolades for their academic achievements develop proud personalities that make them intolerant of their less eloquent peers and intolerable in return. A segregated few may have been the start of a dangerous stereotype infiltrating legions of teenagers to come.
Turn on your television and you will find numerous teen dramas illustrating dumb blonde cheerleaders who run the social ladder and nerds who can write a million A+ papers before they can score a date. Even though several of these shows are actually telling stories of teenagers breaking these social barriers, it's damaging to future generations to even have these stereotypes articulated at all. Illustrating this social ladder for teenagers influences them in subtle ways. They might not go as far as imitating these characters, but they look for these characters around them. And when they're all doing that they all start categorizing; they all start judging.
Judgment is the root of the problem. The jocks who put more time into football practice after school than studying in the library are automatically assumed by the peers to be less smart than those who do the opposite. When in reality, those jocks could be spending less time studying because they have an easier time grasping the material and don't need to be while those who are cramming in the library really do. But because they possess easy markers of those stereotypes, the jocks are now labeled. Their peers aren't expecting them to be smart, they don't ask for more of them intellectually. Instead, they might be approached more often socially because they are interpreted as more likely to climb the social ladder and be popular. They are invited to more parties, perhaps find it harder to say no, spend even less time studying than they did before, let their grades drop and thus emanate the stereotype even more so. And when their grades drop it really doesn't matter too much, they have a network of friends and a buzzing social life with their equally struggling peers to compensate and thus the cycle continues. Pygmalion effect, anyone?
These stereotypes are damaging in ways that we can't even fully comprehend yet as it is a currently dominating trend. Teenagers, not unlike my own brother, are becoming afraid to be smart. Afraid to say what they know is correct because of that fear of being labeled and judged by their peers as "pretentious". It's an extremely unfortunate situation in that standing out in academics has become one of the few ways in which people don't want to stand out. The majority of teenagers think that they are special snowflakes with feelings and thoughts that no one else has stumbled upon, when in reality they all think in a hive mind. They shy away from actually thinking outside the box and discovering things scientifically and experimentally in ways that perhaps really no one else has ever done before. It's a very sad state of affairs.
No one should be scared of being knowledgeable or being right and correcting your peers. If you do it with humility and the intention to aid, it will come across. Intelligence comes with great power, not only academically, but socially as well. With intelligence comes the ability to network in larger circles, speak with greater confidence on several more topics and best of all the foresight to see and think beyond the stereotypes. The media needs to start promoting characters who are both smart and beloved, elevated for things beyond the stereotypical markers. Start writing characters who are intelligent and well-liked. Write about jocks who read Dostoyevsky in their spare time. Write about the prom queen who's on the chess team and takes a teammate as her date. But most importantly, write it as the norm.
Don't fear being smart. It doesn't have to be or mean anything more than simply being smart. Crave knowledge, desire improvement and aim to be better. We all strive for success and we all want to excel. There's no reason to be ashamed of the way you choose to fulfill your calling to the human condition.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
lest I put it off, for I put it right for the impossible soul
I've never been a believer of fairy tales and happily ever afters, but I want to believe in soul mates. I don't, but I want to. I want to think that there's another being out there that holds the spirit with which mine finds peace. I don't want to just feel contentment. I want to feel a deep longing that is never sated, yet feeling complete at the same time.
My soul lives through times and dimensions beyond our basic comprehension, existing as both human and non-human alike. And it'll be searching, always looking in the back its mind for the one other being that will make it feel truly loved beyond words can describe. Sometimes it'll find it, and they'll be happy. Truly happy and so fortunate that the stars aligned in their favour. Sometimes they won't be happy. Sometimes things just won't work out because perhaps they'll realize too late or never at all. And maybe sometimes they won't find each other at all. But they'll make the best of it, patiently await until the next world and the next lifetime in which they can try again to fill the last dormant corner of their souls. A true homecoming.
My soul lives through times and dimensions beyond our basic comprehension, existing as both human and non-human alike. And it'll be searching, always looking in the back its mind for the one other being that will make it feel truly loved beyond words can describe. Sometimes it'll find it, and they'll be happy. Truly happy and so fortunate that the stars aligned in their favour. Sometimes they won't be happy. Sometimes things just won't work out because perhaps they'll realize too late or never at all. And maybe sometimes they won't find each other at all. But they'll make the best of it, patiently await until the next world and the next lifetime in which they can try again to fill the last dormant corner of their souls. A true homecoming.
Monday, June 13, 2011
re: critics of Dianna Agron and her “LIKES GIRLS” shirt OR What I Think It Means to Be An Ally
The majority of my dash all day has been mostly supportive of Dianna wearing the “LIKES GIRLS” shirt and her explanation of why she did that. But I’ve come across a few posts that have made me realize this view obviously isn’t held by everyone. I’ve seen quite a few posts saying that Dianna’s actions were actually hurtful to her proposed cause in that someone who identifies as an “ally” of the LGBT community shouldn’t purport to understand what that community is going through because they actually can’t know exactly what they are going through. Critics of Dianna’s actions, while mostly acknowledging that she does have good intentions, refer to the fact that she doesn’t understand what it feels like to be a lesbian because, as a person of privilege, she can take that shirt off at the end of the day.
While I understand the point of view of the critics, and what they are saying has merit, I still don’t really see how what Dianna did can constitute anything less than good. I understand that Dianna doing something that insinuated that she was a lesbian when she is not can be seen as belittling those who actually are lesbians - I fully understand this. It’s the exact reason that while as I may find myself physically attracted to a female celebrity from time to time or am completely open to the possibility of one day being sexually attracted to a woman (despite never having been to this date), I would still never identify myself as a bisexual because I feel that my doing so would reduce what it actually means to be someone who identifies by that label.
What I gather from Dianna’s Tumblr entry, however, seems to show very clearly that what she did was by no means her trying to relate her own experiences of being marginalized to that of a lesbian’s. Yes, she does talk about marginalization of many types, referring to not only prejudice faced by the LGBT community, but the prejudice that many people face at large. And while the marginalization that Dianna and similar allies of the LGBT community have faced can never be the same (please read “never be the same”, not better or worse) than that faced by the LGBT community, it is by no means a bad way to get people to start thinking about a basic way that those who are not allies can begin becoming one. Yes, an ally can never fully comprehend what it’s like. But how can any of us be allies without first being sympathetic? And how can any of us be sympathetic without first attempting empathy? Dianna’s pointing it out for us.
I will very obviously never know exactly what it’s like to be a member of the LGBT community. I cannot even begin to fathom the fears many members of that community face when coming out to their family and friends, when deciding whether to hide their sexual orientation for fear of opportunity loss or ridicule. I cannot begin to imagine what it’s like to be singled out and labeled for something that feels so natural, yet be told is so wrong. I accept this. But in order to be any kind of help at all in bringing equality for the LGBT community, and for a cause that I am as passionate about as Dianna, I had to begin by reaching into myself to find what I feel are the most basic tenants of humanity and see those qualities in everyone else. Striving for equality begins with being able to relate and find that when someone marginalizes you, you would feel as awful about yourself as I do about myself when someone marginalizes me.
Although it could be inferred from Dianna’s words that the prejudices faced by the LGBT community are relatable to an extent, as allies we obviously understand that the degree to which we are marginalized is not the same. It is due to this understanding that we are allies. I choose to be an ally because I see the disparity in the ways in which my heterosexual label affords me privileges that those identifying with a homosexual, bisexual, transgender or pansexual label don’t have. It is because I see these disparities that I work towards gaining equality for the LGBT community and consider myself an ally. It begins with being able to understand, and being able to understand doesn’t mean a full understanding of what it is to be a member of the community. I would never imply that (and neither does Dianna). It begins with the very primitive grasp of the notion that I wouldn’t want to be ridiculed for my sexual orientation or any label that I identify with, and no one else would either.
Yes, Dianna can take that shirt off at the end of the day. But she never intended for people to think that her donning a shirt saying “LIKES GIRLS” meant she was coming out as a lesbian. She clearly says that she did it as a celebration of being able to do something like this, exercising her right to wear a shirt like that and not be persecuted for it as someone may have been decades ago or even today in another part of the world. Dianna’s shirt is a celebration of the fact that we have begun to (please read “begun to”, not completely) remove the stigma of proclaiming affection for members of the same sex and/or gender. By wearing that shirt, she’s not belittling what it means to be a lesbian. She’s simply saying that she likes girls and even though it’s not the same way that a lesbian likes girls, she can very obviously understand why a lesbian would like girls that way. And that’s a message I will proudly attest to as an ally.
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