February 14, 2011 · 9:00 am

Verbing Valentine’s Day

This post was originally going to be a rant about everything about Valentine’s Day that makes me uncomfortable:

  • The rampant consumerism.
  • The assumption that the best way to woo someone is by buying stuff.
  • The cookie-cutter approach to what is of the most unique and personal aspects of each of our lives. No two romantic relationships are alike! What works for one person or couple may be worthless or even harmful advice for another.

Instead of talking about what is wrong with Valentine’s Day, though, I decided to list more meaningful ways to show affection to a significant other. (Last year I wrote a post about why I don’t celebrate Christmas. Many of the points made there also apply to Valentine’s Day for those interested in re-evaluating holiday traditions in general.)

My philosophy of love, so to speak, is pragmatic. I’m generally uninterested in traditional gender roles or grand gestures. Love is an action verb in my family of origin, not a monologue. With this in mind let’s begin….

Verbing Valentine’s Day

Accumulate small gestures. It’s easy to say, “I love you!” Paying attention to small details consistently over time takes more work but it also shows that you’re in tune with what your SO likes, needs or wants.

Say I’m Sorry, Thank You. Apologies and appreciation are the axle grease of life.

Show anger gently. How you act when you’re mad is a far more accurate representation of who you are as a human being than how you treat others while in a good mood. I’ve never known anyone in a conflict-free relationship! How disagreements play out when they do happen, though, is a good indication of how healthy the interactions are between you.

Keep certain things private. Some of my most uncomfortable conversations have been with friends who  complain about their SO in ways that they’d never attempt if he or she could hear what was being said. Yes, sometimes advice from a close, trusted friend can help you navigate a tricky situation but be careful about what is said and how you say it.

Offer to help. There’s nothing better than hearing this phrase when you have a time-consuming or difficult project coming.

No, nothing mentioned today can be bought last-minute at the drug store or ordered online. As someone who is allergic to most chocolates, wears all two pieces of the jewelry I own every day and has never figured out what to do with flowers or stuffed animals I don’t resonate with the romance memes of western culture.

Respond

What do you consider to be a romantic gesture? How do you show your SO how much you care about them?

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February 12, 2011 · 9:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: February 12, 2011

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, comics, poetry, short stories, quotes and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity. – Albert Camus

Faith. This poem reminds me of the stubbornly whimsical stuff I did while growing up.

We’re Not So Different, You and I. Everyone preaches being yourself (whether they actually mean it, though, is fodder for another blog post. 😉 ) This post is about the important of being the same.

A Confab With the Faithful. 20 Methodists and one Atheist meet at a skyscraper church to talk about religion, science, belief and doubt. This may sound like the opening to a joke. It isn’t. I do wish that you and I could have participated in the discussion, though. People who genuinely enjoy listening to and learning from other points of view don’t cross your path every day!

Feminist Friends. To quote The Princess Bride, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Ponies. This is one of the most creative sci-fi/horror stories I’ve ever read. Yes, the allegory is macabre but the author pushes these boundaries in order to shake us out of our complacency. It’s much easier to see the unhealthy aspects of other cultures than it is to notice our own.

A final thought on advice:

What have you been reading?

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February 10, 2011 · 9:00 am

Embrace the Shame

As far back as I can remember I’ve lived with one foot in imaginary places. Whenever the world around me quiets down enough for thoughts to form (and sometimes even when it doesn’t) I stitch together stories in my mind.

No two have ever been quite alike. If I don’t like the direction a story is headed I begin again from the first scene to create something better. I tell myself stories that are funny, sad, outlandish, as cliched as I could possibly make them and as unique as I dare. I tell stories as I go to sleep and pick them back up again while getting dressed or eating breakfast in the morning.

Sometimes as a kid I’d whisper the lines or scene I was working on to see if they sounded as good out in the open. It was something I was deeply ashamed of growing up, though. No one else I knew crafted stories like this or, if they did, they never talked to themselves while figuring out a particularly tricky plot point. At 11 or 12 I’d cycle through these feelings, promise to put away childish things and never do it again and then slide back into storytelling a day, week, month later. Life without story-telling was and is:

  • Eating the same meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the rest of your life.
  • A vocabulary of 100 words, 90 of which are about the weather.
  • Eternal February.

I assumed that other people had internal dialogues rarely if ever* and that there was something unhealthy about continuing to make up stories after puberty. Like an early bedtime or training wheels on a bike it only seemed appropriate for kids half my age and yet I had zero interest in what I thought I should be thinking about as an adolescent: clothing. makeup. boys. dating. calories.

*I’ve since learned this isn’t true!

It sounds nonsensical now but this bothered me for years. More than anything I wanted to blend in, to think the way other people thought. Being different wasn’t a perky slogan or a beat marched to with pride back then it was something to try to get rid of (or hide well) at the first opportunity.

I began to grow more comfortable in my own skin as I stopped worrying so much about the thoughts I thought were rolling around in the heads of everyone else. What mattered was this: I like telling stories and hashing them out has never hurt anyone.

If it’s weird, well, there are far more destructive things that I could be doing with my time.

Respond

Do you have any slightly eccentric habits or personality quirks that you’ve always felt a little ashamed of? How did you learn to resist the urge to compare your thoughts with how other people behave in public?

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February 7, 2011 · 9:00 am

Jeremy

How we form and what we do with our assumptions has been on my mind lately. This story illustrates one of the most interesting (and wrong!) assumptions I’ve ever made.

Soon after I moved up here six years ago Drew’s parents invited us over for dinner at the house they had lived in for nearly 25 years. Their kids had grown up there and it was the only home Drew’s youngest sister has ever know. Before we ate Drew took me on a tour of the place.

The Name on the Wall

The most interesting part of Drew’s tour was the room that had once been his bedroom. I couldn’t help but to notice that there was a name  on one of the walls there that didn’t seem to belong to anyone in the house:

Jeremy.

No one mentioned it and our tour continued. I wondered if there had once been a fifth sibling in his family. As a child and young adult I’d known too many families who had lost a child and every one responded to it differently. Some talked about their deceased family member(s) openly and with anyone who would listen, others I knew for years before hearing a word about that part of their history.

Later, in the privacy of our own home, I asked Drew about Jeremy. It was ok if he didn’t want to talk about it but I thought it was better to know about a potentially painful topic than guess whether something bad had happened or if it was something the family was comfortable discussing with an outsider.

Drew laughed and told me that the room had been decorated like that when they first moved in. It had nothing to do with their family.

I couldn’t decide whether to be relieved that Drew hadn’t lost a sibling after all or amused that over the past two and a half decades no one had decided to take those wall decals down.

Lessons learned:

  • Not everything in life has a complicated explanation.
  • Sometimes the truth is more mundane than fiction.
  • Redecorating isn’t as common as I had originally assumed.

What assumptions have you made recently?

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February 5, 2011 · 9:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: February 5, 2011

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, poetry, programs and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Municipal Gum. As much as I appreciate certain aspects of modern life (read: antibiotics, birth control, arts festivals, libraries, grocery stores) there’s also something just a little suffocating about it all. Especially in cities or suburbs. This is why I love this poem and why I’m looking forward to Jean Auel’s next book so much.

Liquid Dreams III. What would your dreams look like if their subject matter was catalogued and graphed? I’ve inserted information about many aspects of my life into spreadsheets before but had never thought to plot my dreams. Fair warning: I haven’t downloaded this program and cannot verify its safety or how well it works yet. Fascinating idea, though!

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. How the 3RS Can Help You with Washing Up. I wonder what other aspect of life could be simplified by this idea? Laundry seems to be an obvious choice. What else?

Control-B. A story about an elderly woman who can no longer talk due to a stroke and how she challenges the assumptions her personal aide makes about people who are disabled. Sometimes you have to (metaphorically) shake people out of their stereotypes.

30 Questions Guaranteed to Make You Think. I’ve answered all 30 questions (privately! 😉 )and strongly encourage you to do the same.

Love is Not Real Unless There is Freedom to Hate. This post may stretch your brain. I know that I had to read it more than once to understand what the author was saying. Instead of expecting ourselves to love everyone we should have a different term for engaging with people we don’t get along with than we use for the people we genuinely care about and love.

What have you been reading?

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February 3, 2011 · 9:00 am

Does Privilege Corrupt Us?

There is a short reading assignment for this post: Can Men Be Feminists?

To summarize the author’s points: (although I strongly recommend reading it for yourself. My understanding may differ from what you take away from it.)

  • Our world is saturated with racist, sexist, classist, heterosexist, etc. beliefs.
  • All of us have absorbed at least some of these assumptions.
  • One cannot escape his or her privilege. It affects too many aspects of life.

Because of this, she argues, men can never be feminists. The privileges that automatically come with belonging to the dominant group interfere with the fight against those privileges.

My Response

There is no denying that being born with certain characteristics gives certain groups of people often massive social, economic and other advantages over those who aren’t male, white, wealthy, able-bodied, cis-gendered, or straight.

There have even been times when the men in my life honestly doesn’t see what to me is obviously sexist behaviour or expectations.

I could fill this post with examples. Each one would point to the same conclusion, though: privilege allows us to only see what we want to see. People without that privilege aren’t able to do that any more than they can turn off the rest of their senses.

There are things as a white person that I know I’ll never truly get. I can read about it, I can confront people who say racist things, but I will never know what it is like to be the target of racism.

This doesn’t mean that we can’t fight against both the privilege and the oppression, though. In certain ways it is easier to fight against something that you know is in everyone. Rather than having one enemy and seeing it in solely us-vs.-them terms there is we.

We have a serious problem. We harbor certain stereotypes or assumptions. We need to unlearn some stuff. We need a plan.

We also need to listen. It is easy to fall back into often-unconscious interpersonal patterns. I think this is one of the most dangerous parts of fighting to end prejudice when you yourself are not part of the oppressed group. If it is going to work well then the people who ordinarily are not listened to should be leading it and those who are used to being followed should become followers.

“The first shall be last and the last shall be first…”

What do you think?

  • Is acting on or being given a privilege the same thing as being racist, sexist, classist, etc.?
  • How can our privileges be used for good?
  • Does who you are affect how you fight against injustice?

(Photo by Kurt Lowenstein.)

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January 31, 2011 · 9:00 am

The Dangers of Internet People

I started badgering my parents to sign up for internet service in the mid 1990s. In early 1999 they finally gave in. 😉 At the time there was a great deal of conversation about the dangers of the Internet. People worried that they’d be taken advantage of online through Internet People ™ who lied about who they really were or who were running scams. We were cautioned against meeting these folks or giving them too much personal information.

The Truth

What is insanely fascinating about this is that for many crimes – sexual assault and murder to name a few-  the average person is far more likely to be hurt by someone they know than a stranger. Embezzlement by definition happens within personal or professional relationships. Even 43% of identity thefts are thought to be committed by someone the victim knew.

These things happen in every community. No one is immune to becoming the victim of violence or theft. Yes, there are online scammers out there. Yes, caution is a good thing. From the statistics (and depending on the crime), though, we are as if not more likely to be harmed by people we know.

Question: Why is there so much focus on crimes committed by strangers? Shouldn’t there be as many, if not more, conversations about how to avoid or mitigate the harm done in person?

Internet People

When I first leapt online I was wary of sharing my real name or location. Pseudonyms and purposefully vague references to where I lived were the way to go.

A funny thing happened in the last decade-ish, though. Some of these Internet People ™ became longtime friends. When I’m frustrated, afraid, lonely, happy or need advice they’re only an email or phone call away. I’m as close to many of them as I am to those I see in person far more often.

In my experience the fear of online friendships often comes from the idea that there’s only one way to do it. Either you have local friends or you have Internet People ™ who live states, provinces, countries away. There seems to be little sense of how much gray area there is between the two or how the medium matters less than what we do for one another.

I wonder if part of this is a cultural or generational difference. People who grew up with BBSing or the Internet seem to be more comfortable with the social aspects than those who were introduced to it later. (There are many exceptions to this, of course! They’re  just general group trends I’ve noticed.)

These are my fragmented thoughts about the communities that are forming and have formed online. What do you see?

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January 29, 2011 · 9:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: January 29, 2011

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, videos, comic strips and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web. (The photo was taken by Andrew Dunn.)

The photo on the right isn’t related to any of the links this week but it does tickle my imagination. I can almost see the scales, feathers, fur and claws of otherworldly creatures in the creases of the clouds. What do you see in them?

The Economic Injustice of Plastic. A video about the link between environmental toxins and social justice.

Problematic Solution. On problems, solutions and how (not) to help other people make them meet.

Make Something of Yourself! This blog post best sums itself up in a one-sentence quote: “There is honor in every profession that serves the needs of society.” The Rambling Taoist has been publishing some fantastic posts on this topic over the last several days. If only more people agreed with him.

Miss Representation. A new documentary about how women are portrayed in the media has been nominated for a Sundance award. I’ve pared down recently on some tv shows that were consistently writing characters (regardless of gender) in some extremely stereotypical and offensive ways. This makes me want to cut out a few more shows that make me occasionally cringe.

What have you been reading?

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January 27, 2011 · 9:00 am

Just Try It

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people vehemently disapprove of an idea, worldview, activity or creative work without bothering to figure out what it is, exactly, that they’re opposing. Whether they disagree with something as substantial as universal healthcare or as minor as a children’s book the reactions are remarkably similar.

“That idea/worldview/story/song/activity is horrible!”

“What didn’t you like about it?”

“So-and-so says it’s horrible.”

“So, you’ve never actually tried it?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know that it’s something with which you so adamantly disagree?”

“So-and-so says it’s horrible!”

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

What I’m Not Saying

We don’t have to enjoy or agree with everything that crosses our paths. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having strong opinions or never wavering in one’s beliefs.

What I don’t understand, though, is why we are so afraid of listening to what was actually said instead of relying on conjecture from second or thirdhand information.

There are certain things that I’m (probably) never going to appreciate: brussels sprouts, fashion magazines, the Twilight series, organized sports, the vast majority of radio stations. In the case of the Twilight books I highly doubted that I’d like them but I read a few pages of the first book anyway. The writing style and story did nothing for this lifelong bookworm but that didn’t mean I was going to rely on other people’s opinions when making this decision.

They may be relying on misinformation or we may not have the same aesthetic tastes or political or religious hunches, after all.

But What About…

Yes, occasionally there will be activities or groups that are clearly not compatible with your ethical code or morality. I don’t expect anyone to violate those boundaries.

Sometimes it’s difficult to try it for yourself when that involves, say, moving to another country and experiencing their way of life. I’ve been extremely lucky to live in the US and Canada. There are so many misconceptions about both countries that I try my best to clear up when others make ignorant statements or spread outright lies. On the bright side this has taught me to listen to people who have actually lived through circumstances I once thought I could fully understand by reading about them.

There’s nothing wrong with trying something and discovering that it’s exactly the same as you had assumed it would be. Not everything in life will defy our expectations and that’s ok. What is important is that we know why our opinions or tastes differ and are working with accurate information.

The Bottom Line: listening to other points of view isn’t a threat to our own. It can’t strip away our beliefs or make them less valid or meaningful. If anything my principles have been strengthened by comparing them to other ways of seeing the world because it makes me think about the why behind what I believe.

Now if I could just learn to be less irritated by people who don’t do the same! 🙂

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January 24, 2011 · 9:00 am

Beyond Us and Them

I’ve been (re)reading a variety of blog posts and articles recently about how introverts and extroverts interact with one another. Some sites made lists of things extroverts should know about introverts or talked about how to best relate to a spouse, family member or workmate who was at the opposite end of the spectrum from your personality.

On one level this type of conversation makes sense. It can be difficult to effectively communicate with someone whose natural state of being is so different from your own. I’ve had my share of misunderstandings as a deep introvert with people who think I need to be brought out of my shell or that being quiet means there’s something wrong.

Many of these misunderstandings could be avoided with clear communication and good interpersonal boundaries, though. If I say that I or something else is X I mean it (let X stand for almost any adjective or adverb that would make sense in that sentence.) Unless proven otherwise I also assume that what others say honestly reflects their thoughts on the matter.

It is easy to create and sustain conflicts when people aren’t honest about where they’re coming from or what they want. It isn’t always easy to be honest about these things to tell the truth. The fear of the unknown can affect what we say or how we say it. Not everyone is going to understand where you’re coming from or why you do the things that you do. What makes sense to me may not seem as clear-cut to you.

There’s a simple explanation behind why this is so: you’re not everyone. That is, what you or I prefer, believe or find useful isn’t always going to be the same thing that other people prefer, believe or find useful. It’s easy to make this leap and while it at times can be helpful to do we’ve grown so accustomed to creating a tug-of-war out of our differences or the labels that fit us that they’re given too much power over our lives.

I’m tired of that. Instead let us:

  • Assume the best.
  • Ask questions.
  • Speak out about our experiences.
  • Listen to those who have drawn other conclusions.
  • Respect boundaries.
  • Think “we” instead of “us” and “them.”

Are you with me? 🙂

On an unrelated note, the next issue of my newsletter comes out on Wednesday. This edition contains updates on old posts, a link to a recent guest post and an opportunity for your story to appear here in the near future. Sign up for it in the box on the right-hand side of this page.

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