Change

Haven't blogged a lot lately. Been writing in a paper journal for my eyes only. It's appropriate given the changes I'm about to make that I would focus on myself. Going to a new town alone, not knowing anyone except my future coworkers... I need to be self-sufficient. But I feel the loss of the people I'll be leaving behind.

I have moved away from people in spirit, when the tension was too much for me. But moving away from people in flesh, and somehow avoiding the emotional estrangement that usually accompanies such things, is new for me. It's been easy to see how I try to lapse into animosity to try to make the pain less.

This change is something I need to do - probably the most important decision of my life. To have such an opportunity in times like these is priceless. And the sense that I'm truly desirable as an employee is completely new to me. To think that people wanted me to work for them sight unseen, only based on what my supervisors told them! It's a huge shift in my self-concept and it is going to take some time to get used to.

One thing that does make me very happy is that I was able to think about what was important to me in choosing a place to live, in choosing a social group to introduce myself to. My life is going to be completely different. But as it was told to me recently - as I think I may have just really heard for the first time - change always happens, and should be expected. Oddly enough, now that I've heard it, it doesn't seem like such a hard concept to embrace.

I don't know what I'll be saying in February, but at least for now - I'm looking forward to snow!

My worst fear

I've heard people talk about "their worst fear" for years, without ever understanding my own. It suddenly became clear to me yesterday. It's surprising how far back it goes - grade school?

I cannot stand being left out.

The most awful feeling I can experience is when I feel like I'm outside looking in. Not being involved in a group, not being accepted, not being part of a decision-making process... it's hard to describe what acute pain it is for me. What is funny is how many times I have willingly left groups of people, when I decided they thought too much like sheep, or I felt pressured not to be myself. But that's easier to deal with - the people turn into cardboard cutouts, and it does not feel like such a loss.

But give me a situation where there is a family, a close social circle, and I'm not involved - it's very unpleasant for me. I get to wondering what's defective in my personality, start to feel like a failure at life ... it's not pretty. What I haven't figured out is just exactly what I do that gets me not involved. It could be my personality, or it could be the personalities of the people forming the close social circles. Some groups of people are so inbred that they simply don't embrace new "members." Or sometimes they want such a huge amount of commitment that I'm inherently too independent and don't ever meld in. And sometimes there is a preexisting situation that I'm not a part of, like a living situation, and there is no way for me to be involved at the level of the people who are already there.

It is this last which I have found myself in repeatedly over the last few years. But I think there are ways for me to feel more involved, or less involved. It depends on the amount of "togetherness" embraced by the group. If the people are inherently individualistic, then I will tend to relate to them as individuals and I will not be weighed down by the "groupness" as much. But where common activities are present, things that people regularly do together that I'm not a part of, I can spin myself into oblivion pondering the ramifications.

I have gotten some of the best moral support of my life from individuals. But when I feel included in a group of people, it feels redeeming in a way that little else is. I don't know if it's a weakness or not. I tell myself it's good to be able to "go it alone." But I intensely dislike the feeling that I have to go it alone.

I'm not sure how to deal with the current situation, where I feel left out most of the time. I put it out of my mind, I focus on work (where I feel very much more included than I have at most other jobs) or I focus on the few close bonds I have that don't involve being involved in a social group. But deep down inside, life feels very lonely to me, and I feel like I am missing something critical to my happiness.

I cherish the people in the world that sincerely want me as part of their worlds, no matter how far away they are. But I feel I can count these people on one hand. I wish there were more.

Seeing myself

I am truly stunned. First I get my Master's Degree. Then I get a job with more and more responsibility, and get noticed for doing some math everyone else was afraid to do. Then I pass the first exam. So many people don't pass it the first time! Then I get a lead on a job, and a huge raise at my current job. Now I'm interviewing Monday with eight people for six hours.

I simply cannot make all of this jibe with the girl I felt I was five years ago, or ten years ago. None of this was in my field of possibilities. I know I need to start to see myself as someone who is capable of these things, since I do in fact seem capable. But changing a lifetime of seeing myself as a failure is a long process.

Maybe it's about to get a lot shorter.

Black and white

As I catch glimpses of Oprah in the crowd, her eyes clearly brimming with tears, I realize that it's not been politically correct for a long time to emphasize the difference between black and white. It's not been correct to point out the inequities that persist, because the country's taken all the official "equalizing" steps already. What could be left?

What was left was the absence of hope, and that is what I see corrected now, even from my white eyes that can hardly imagine what it is to grow up in a world where I would have to fight not to feel like a second class citizen.

I hope, for myself, that I can finally stop seeing the world in black and white, and finally perceive the shades of gray all around me. People. We're all just people.

Unsurprised

I'm sure the United States had a good reason for killing eight Syrian civilians. Besides, Syria's got no business wanting to take Golan Heights back from Israel. How dare anyone attempt to split God's designated land?

I have been wondering for weeks what military stunt might be pulled at the last minute, inspired by a desperate Republican party. McCain's real material advantage (since it's just too hard to spin the abortion issue as an imminent national threat) is his military "experience," and the only way left to galvanize a gullible American public right before the election is to present a situation requiring a war-monger's instincts.

Even if we have to pick a fight.

Capitalism

At the same time as I have been whining that the United States is becoming socialist, I'm in the middle of listening to Kinzer's audiobook "Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq." I'm nearly inclined at this point to say, "Capitalism is great in theory, but bad in practice." The examples of governments toppled, budding democracies quashed, visionary leaders imprisoned, dictators installed, and corporate interests defended at gunpoint are just too much for my sensibilities to bear. Can capitalism motivate without leading to the - yes, imperialistic - tendencies our country has demonstrated in its near-genocidal pursuit of growth and prosperity?

I have spent years being disgusted with the idea of collectivism, with the thought that those who do not work might be rewarded as well as those who do. Even as I say it now, the concept still repulses me. But pouring into a small country with guns because its native inhabitants decide they don't want to let a fruit company swallow up all their land, spinning the act as being in the name of "educating" or "enlightening" a "backward" population, and calling them communist, or saying their "souls" need to be saved, in order to make the operation more palatable to the American people - this is just too much for me to swallow.

I'm trying to imagine a childhood spent with this book, rather than the claptrap whitewash schoolbook publishers spew - with the knowledge of what my country has been willing to do in order to maintain for me this standard of living. Imagine not growing up with the vision of America as better, more noble, more principle-driven than other countries. Imagine knowing beyond any doubt that we aren't any different from any other society in history, when it comes to our willingness to lie to ourselves about true motivations.

I'm angry that I've been misled, and I'm also angry that what I saw as some sort of pure, unblemished drive for achievement and progress has been turned into a typical schoolyard bullying contest. I'm appalled that both guns and money are routinely used to extort the commodities our hungry nation has wanted for the last hundred years, at the expense of innocent lives.

I am grateful that I live in a place where books like this can be published and disseminated. And yes, I know that this happens in capitalist regimes where a bookstore is free to make a profit and doesn't have to answer to the central authorities as to what ideas are permissible. But I'm simply mortified with the way our country's exerted its will in the financial department. Present circumstances don't mollify me at all.

I don't have an easy answer for what system is best anymore. No system seems to work well when thugs are making the choices. Is there a way to be rid of thugs?

Irony meter breaks!

Riots as a result of a Palestinian man driving in Israel on Yom Kippur? Isn't it convenient to have a religion double as an ethnic identity, so that any time a religious act is questioned, the perpetrator gets to be called a racist? Given the world's inherent respect for religious behaviors and beliefs as completely outside the realm of critical analysis, almost anything can be whitewashed.

Day of Atonement? I hope it occurs to those people to atone for this.