The Perfect Human

the man of the hour

Both "The Diamond as Big as The Ritz" and The Great Gatsby focus on materialism destroying people, but what is also apparent is that each story also has the perfect person. One single character that embodies the perfect human, free from materialis
m and someone that avoids the almost certain destruction that awaits him. Faced with exposure to a greedy life, each person is disgusted by the lifestyle. John and Nick (respectively) resist the temptation to be greedy, and end up with the greatest reward that they could ask for-their lives.

In "The Diamond as Big as The Ritz," the Washington family is the epitome of greed. In order to not pay taxes on their immense wealth, they kidnap, bribe, cheat, murder, and even go to war with the government. In the end, John, the only one that seems to be disgusted with the thought of how wrong the family acts, is the one that escapes. He even manages to help a few members of the family escape because they're willing to change (regardless of their reasons to be so).

In The Great Gatsby although Gatsby dies, Daisy too loses herself in terms of the fact that she becomes trapped in a relationship with a man that cheats on her. After the entire ordeal is over, Nick is the only one who is left reflecting on his summer in New York. He is still generally pure in terms of morals, and this is demonstrated when he rids himself of the curse of materialism.

materialism in its simplest form

"On the white steps [of Gatsby's house] an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it, drawing my shoe raspingly along the stone" (Fitzgerald 188).

The obscene word is literally a curse word. This could symbolize the curse of a greedy lifestyle, and how it eventually kills you. Since Nick lives above that, he is able to wipe away the curse and continue his life.

Just something interesting I thought of talking about instead of the negative theme!

Lyrics of the week: "10 bucks says you don't have it in you to conquer fear and quit believing what they tell you to. You are careening shamelessly into oblivion, where you will live alone with your chemicals and gin" from Dutch Courage by The Spill Canvas.

The Greatest (Section of) Gatsby

So... this week's assignment (among the boatload of other assignments *insert annoyed emoji shaking its head at the American school system*) was to write about my favorite passage in The Great Gatsby but be warned: I'm about to manipulate the heck out of this. Of course, I will talk about my favorite passage, because it's for the grade. Everything is for the grade. (Sorry, I'm just really heated about homework right now.) But then I will connect it to something else.

My favorite passage (How long is a passage? Mine is so short.) is a part where Jordan and Nick are talking at one of Gatsby's parties:

Jordan Baker in the new movie because.... just look at her

"Anyhow, he gives large parties," said Jordan, changing he subject with an urban distaste for the concrete. "And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy" (Fitzgerald 54).

Yep. There you have it folks. That's my entire passage. Why? Because in a book full of disillusion, disconnect, and disregard, this is the one passage that speaks the full on truth. It is so dang (I'm censoring myself) true. Large parties are intimate. Everyone is so wrapped up in small situations that it isn't hard to really feel alone with somebody else. In small parties, everyone is hyperaware of what the next person is doing. Or how they're feeling. Or how much they're drinking. Or who they're talking about. It's just straight up annoying.

the best joke about being all up
in your business

I, too, experienced this. I am current
ly experiencing this. In eighth grade I thought I wanted to go to IA. So I shadowed there and quickly learned that since IA is such a small school, word got around quickly. From my ONE DAY shadowing there, I successfully got half of the now-senior class to hate me and I got random friend requests from boys I didn't know. People actually told other people that they hated me and the only way I can describe my feelings to this day is "?????"

But not that I hate IA or anything. Some of my best friends go there. It just wasn't the right place for me. Everything was too public. Despite my sassy demeanor, I actually prefer to be under the radar. Here at Troy High, my life is pretty much as private as I want it to be. I have a group of close friends, but nobody really knows anything about my personal drama unless I choose to share it with them.

Troy High is a large party. Much more intimate in terms of who I let in.

And now, that brings us to my point of manipulation. Here I leave you with my all-time favorite Fitzgerald quote about intimacy, from his book The Beautiful and Damned.

"The growth of intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humor. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third-before long the best lines cancel out-and the secret is exposed at last; the planes of the pictures have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture. We must be satisfied with hoping that such fatuous accounts of ourselves as we make to our wives and children and business associates are accepted as true" (90).

Sorry for such a long post but that is my favorite book and my favorite quote from it. No way was I going to talk about Fitzgerald and leave that out.

Lyrics of the week: "Some love was made for the lights. Some kiss your cheek in goodnight..." from Slow It Down by The Lumineers. Such a beautiful song, which references intimate and public love.

Fooling Around

Fool's Gold, a way for ignorance
to breed happiness if believed
to be gold

Daisy once said, "I hope she'll be a fool-that's the best thing a girl can be in this world..." (Fitzgerald 21). How inexplicably sad. As a child or even a teenager, you hear people say "ignorance is bliss!" I think the worst part about growing up is realizing that it's true.

How wonderful it must feel to be a fool! To be unaware of the sadness that surrounds you. To be blissful in your ignorance. Once you see the world for the way that it is-flawed-you can never go back to being the fool that you once were. That's why Daisy explains that it is best for her daughter to be a fool. Foolish people believe in love at first sight, and money, and eternal happiness, and things that make life seem better than it is.

A Fool, whose job it is
to be happy

In essence, we all are foolish in some way. Anything that really draws away from the truth of the world is an act of foolishness. Sitcoms, comedies, dramas, entertainment in general. A way to escape the world and submerge ourselves in make believe. It really is foolish.

Not to mention the incessant need to own things and use things and throw them away. The way that people turn a blind eye to things they would rather not acknowledge is another way of acting foolish.

Fools believe in perpetual good. They would believe lies meant to make them feel better such as, "I'm not cheating on you, I love you!" or "No, nothing bad happened today." Completely wrapped up in their own world, they would be able to cocoon themselves in some strange version of reality, but perhaps that is what makes them happy.

a (cute) wise old owl

I guess the really horrible thing is to be wise. To be wise is to have lived through pain. Yes, the wise have learned from it, but it begs the question, wouldn't it be better to not have lived through the pain at all?

Lyrics of the week: "Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can't help falling in love with you" from Can't Help Falling In Love by Elvis.

Because love at first sight is probably the most foolish of all kind.

The Guiltiest Hand

a cute little stick man carrying his not
so cute guilt

Remember how in elementary and middle school, when we were learning about bullying, they said if you didn't stand up to the bully you were just as bad as one? As any normally-functioning human, it was because you had a sense of guilt. Did you really want to be the reason a poor kid gets beat up?

They say that guilt is one of the heaviest things a soul can carry. That it stays with you always. Voltaire once said, "Every man is guilty of the good he did not do."


Even I still catch myself feeling guilty about things that nobody probably remembers or cares about. Like not inviting some friends to a party, saying something that stung in an argument, or even that one time I made my brother cry in Chicago when we were little. Guilt is like this little book you carry with you, adding new names and events to it each day. But the book never runs out of pages. It just gets thicker and heavier and you still have to carry it every day.

the cause of my Chicago-based guilt

To me, I think that is what The Bluest Eye came from. Although yes, I know it is a fictional story, Morrison is definitely living with some kind of guilt about not changing the world for the better. "It's too late. At least on the edge of my town... It's much, much, much too late" (Morrison 206).

If we are guilty of the good we have not done, then there is a lot to be guilty about. Look at the world around us. It's being torn apart by terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and just mean people in general. So with this book, Morrison forces us to take a look at ourselves. Is it too late? Can we still right our wrongs? Or must we carry this guilt forever?

Looking back on the novel, I think Morrison used it as a medium to not only ease her sense of guilt, but to bring us into touch with our own.

Lyrics of the week: "Do I divide and fall apart? Cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark... And at the gates does Thomas ask to see my hands?" from Jesus Christ by Brand New.

Race and Religion

I write this with heavy eyes, and a heavy heart. After watching the news today I was completely disappointed in the world. The Paris terrorist attacks were nothing like the way that I wanted my Friday night to go. But after a bit of a personal discussion (the details will not be revealed) with my new BFF who gets weirdly philosophical past 11:30 (his bedtime), I came to see a connection between the conflict of race in The Bluest Eye and religion in India.

Now I would go back and just discuss the effect of racism in the past but I kind of already did that. (See here if you missed it and are slightly curious). So I decided to take it back to my homeland. Back when those Brits ruled us over for spices I cannot seem to find in their food (sorry, but seriously I went to Scotland and the only thing on their fish was salt). (I just realized salt can be used as a pun and now I'm laughing alone in my room at 2 a.m.). Anyway, so once India gained its independence, the British-apparently knowing best how to govern people-decided to split the country up based on religion.

A Train From Punjab During
The Partition

See that would have been all fine and dandy, if it weren't for the fact that IT RUINED INDIA. Before the Par
tition, Muslims and Hindus may have gotten into a few fights, but it is nothing compared to what has happened since August of 1947. Every Hindu living in now-Pakistan was required by law to move to current day India, and vice versa. As is imaginable, this was met with some resistance and anger, but the anger lives on today. The same disgust I feel with the racism in Toni Morrison's novel is what I feel when I think about the divide between Hindus and Muslims. Each side carries its own stories, however I can only represent those of a Hindu's.

Both of my grandparents were born into wealthy families, but that was before they were forced to move. In fear of being killed, they left everything behind and travelled to India. Here, they were poor. They had nothing. And when my father and aunt were born, they could only afford to live in a small shack that was meant as a servant's quarters. In Pakistan, Muslims would sometimes find Hindus and kill them. The same went for Hindus in India, they killed Muslims out of pure... (I cannot find a word to justify this violence, because no justification exists.)

In some instances, there was only a little bit of road between the two paths in the Partition. People crossed these paths only to kill.

The Gandhi Movie

There was a great man living during the Partition, his name may sound familiar. Gandhi? Have you heard of him? Well whether you have or haven't I would say you should watch the British-made film "Gandhi" because it makes even the strongest men in my family cry. Here's a clip. (Fun fact: my grandma met Gandhi on his salt march!)

The divide between Muslims and Hindus still survives to this day. Sometimes people are burned alive for their religion, or shunned, or even considered as off-limits to date or marry. It seems quite like the racism that is present in Morrison's novel. The effects of it last to the present, as do the effects of the Partition. In both instances, violence is always apparent. Whether it be the beating of slaves, or the murder of children in India, there is no excuse for this blackness on the history books of the world.

A Riot During The Partition

Both the racism and the divides between Muslims and Hindus have both been carried to America. And here, if you look closely, you will find them "festering" (Morrison 34) in a wound that should have been disinfected long ago.

I, myself, cannot understand why people can't just get along. I know it is harder than it seems, but it is the one thing that I want most in this world. At least I wish we could get over race and religion, which would probably solve almost every problem in the world. Race and religion do not determine a person's character.

This probably should be a lot more emotional, but for now I am tired and thinking about all of the bad parts of the world are making my soul feel heavy.

"How are we going to change the world if all we do is distance ourselves more?" -Amun Mehta, texted at 12:03 a.m. (That's right, the aforementioned new BFF. See Ms. Valentino? I don't hate him! We get along!)

Lyrics of the week: "So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten... mother I lost it, all of the fear of the Lord I was given" from Upward Over the Mountain by Iron & Wine.

Because all of the goodness instilled by the Lord was lost in both of these atrocious cycles of hatred. And may there be a sunrise where it is all gone.

Beauty is The Eyes of The Powerful

Blue(ish) vs. Brown eyes

The idea of beauty is different everywhere, and can even change over time, but the general concept of beautiful and ugly remain set in stone for the most part. "All things in her are flux and anticipation. But her blackness is static and dread" (Morrison 47).

Beauty is reflective of those that are in power. In the novel, white beauty is because of white power. This is true of many different situations. During times of racism and opposition to Civil Rights, those in power were those with European features. Hence the preference of white skin to black skin, blue eyes to brown eyes, and
dirty to clean.

an actual picture I took on
my last trip to India

Right now, I'm watching an Indian movie and all I can think about is the similarity. In India, they literally market products to make skin look whiter. Everybody wants that same kind of beauty. So much so, that people even use only light skinned people in advertisements, especially those that deal with something such as a matrimonial.

relationship goals!!!

The fact that beauty is a social construct based on power presents itself in many cases. As mentioned before, America and India. Both which had European ideals in power, India with the British Rule. Not only this, but in times such as with war, the "ideal woman" would probably be considered as a little bit fat right now. This is because during war rations, those in power could still eat, were ric

Marilyn

h enough to still eat, and so had bigger waists. Perhaps this was why Marilyn Monroe was revered with hips of 35 inches while Taylor Swift has hips of 33.

Mauritania is such a poor country that their people send their daughter to fat camp. The more they eat, they better chance they have of getting married. Food is scarce so fat is good. And not only fat, but obesity. Read about it here.

Beauty is different in a lot of geographical areas, but it always comes from those in power.


Lyrics of the week: "Cause I'd be lost forever if you slipped away, blue eyes you're the reason for my change" from Blue Eyes by Timmy Curran.

Barbies Are Worse Than Junior Year

Read my title. Read it again. Good. Now read it again.

When I was little, Barbies were basically my life. My older cousin had a small laundry basket FULL of them and once she outgrew them, they became mine. Of course, I had to add to the collection. Obsessions are fleeting but intense for me. I added more and more to my Barbie collection and played
with them whenever I was bored. Soon after that, I moved on to Polly Pockets and the rest of the kinds of toys that little girls are obsessed with.

Each toy in itself was different. Perhaps the eyes were slanted at another angle, the nose just a little bit sharper, or the skin a little bit darker. But looking back at it now, they all had the same underlying tone: beauty.

Beauty is something that I have struggled with for many years.

Just as I become comfortable in my own skin, something comes along to change my views. I always want my legs to be a little bit longer or my stomach a little bit flatter. I always find something to
dislike about myself. It sounds twisted, but I'm not alone. In fact (as we learned in psych) a study had once shown that 99% of women had something about themselves that they would want to change.

If Barbie were real

That's disgusting. It's just like in The Bluest Eyes. Toni Morrison says that beauty is "something one could do" (11.) There is no concrete definition for beauty, perhaps because it is different from person to person, but also because it is-in my opinion-unachievable.

Barbie's standards are literally unachievable. She sets this standard for little girls of a kind of beauty that is too hard to meet. She sets children up for failure and low self esteem. Look at this post of the most beautiful women. Most of them look like real life Barbies. Even if we don't carry a picture of a Barbie around as inspiration, the same kind of looks that she embodies show up in the people that we idolize.

That is why Barbie is worse than junior year. Junior year, no offense. but you suck. Barbie suck more. Junior year is something that you need to go through. But me? I could have gone through life fine if I wasn't kind of conditioned by society to strive to be a variation of Barbie.

Barbie is so useless. On top of necessary stress (most of which can even be argued against as unnecessary), she adds stress to the fact that everyone has to strive to become someone else's version of beautiful. This version of someone else has even been so deeply ingrained in everyone that they believe it to be their own sense of beauty.

A "Real" Barbie

Where is the Barbie with a layer of fat on her stomach? Where is the Barbie with the hairy arms? Where is the Barbie with her thighs touching? Where is the Barbie that is supposed to make me feel good about myself? Because all I see is something that will only cause me to pick apart myself.

Everyone and everything has beauty in them, but we're all being controlled by a 11.5 inches of cheap plastic.

Lyrics of the week: "I'm a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world" from Barbie Girl by Aqua. 

The Kids Aren't Alright

So... It's Maus week 2. I feel like there may be a general sense of dismay due to the fact that everyone has to come up with ANOTHER Holocaust-based blog post. But contrary to what I am pretending the popular belief is, I am just teeming with opinion (hard to believe, I know).

childhood comics = gold

So the thing is that earlier this week we talked about why comics were the appropriate medium for Spiegelman and all that jazz. (...All that jazz? Did I really just say that? What's wrong with me? The sleep deprivation must be getting to me...) My very good friend, Shreya Subramanian, even said that it was to help readers distance themselves from the horror of the Holocaust. She reasoned that comics are associated with the innocence and happiness of childhood. While I agree with her reasoning, it got me thinking (rather, rethinking). What if Art Spiegelman didn't mean to distance readers from the horror, but actually immerse them in it? The entire book is kind of a detailing his immense struggle to understand the concept of the Holocaust, so maybe he is trying to put the readers in that same situation.

Archie Andrews and his friends

For me, comics are associated with childhood and happiness and innocence all of the way. I grew up
with 2 older cousins always by my side, both extremely infatuated with the adventures of Archie Andrews and his friends. Jughead, Hotdog, Moose, Midge, Veronica, Betty, Reggie, and the rest of the gang. My cousins had a huge bookcase just full of Archie comics waiting for my little fingers to grab them and dive in. In fact, Archies were such a huge part of my childhood that when I'm feeling too stressed to function, I pick up an Archies and transport myself to Riverdale. I've always considered books to be something magical, waiting to take me away to some place new.

So that's what my mind went to. The fact that books took it somewhere else. The entire time I was reading Maus I was trying to picture myself walking the streets of Poland with Vladek. But I just couldn't do it. Because it was a comic, supposed to be childish and pleasant. It was so hard to imagine myself younger (when I used to read Archies so often I talked about them like I lived them) reading this secondhand account of a horrible history. Then my mind got going... and that is when this idea took place in my head.

What if the reason that Art Spiegelman decided to write Maus as a comic was to remind readers of childhood? It would remind them fully, constantly, perpetually, that the children of the Holocaust had no childhood. The innocence that the general public associated with comics was gone. The children of the Holocaust had their innocence stolen. Blackened even... like the ink on the pages. Throughout the story, the mice are shown as shaded in when they connect to their horrible and scarring past. The borders that the readers touch, the only part of the book that they feel (literally) is that white innocence. The entirety of the piece is to emphasize that we will never connect to the same amount of pain that the victims of the Holocaust did. We, the distanced audience, are reading this story on a medium that takes us back to childhood, while those children in the story never even had one.

It's 2 am and my brain is working quickly so try to keep up.

In Tae Kwon Do, we learn the symbols of each belt color. White symbolizes purity and innocence, which is what Art and the audience really embody. Unable to go back to the past, they live an innocent and sheltered life. Black, the color of the ink and the history, symbolizes maturity. The only thing the readers have is their innocence, and the one thing the mice in the story have is that maturity that was forced upon them.

the Criminal Minds cast

It's quite like the kind of feeling I get when I watch Criminal Minds and there is a kid involved. It's the best TV show. If you don't watch it I would highly recommend it, unless you have a problem with violence. A lot of the episodes in one way or another incorporate children. I think most people end the show feeling happy. Yay! They caught the bad guy! He's going to jail! They did it! They made the world a better place! But not me. I'm always stuck at the end. What happened to those children? Did the trauma of their abduction impact them later on in life? Did the knowledge that their father or mother was a murderer push them to act in violent ways too? Did they develop emotional problems? Psychological ones? Could they sleep at night? Were they always afraid of repeating their trauma? Just like Art Spiegelman's mice, the children in the show lose their innocence at a young age. They no longer regard the world as a perpetually happy place.

These questions and many more run through my mind almost every single time there is a child on the TV show. Where is their innocence? What about the Jewish kids under Hitler? Where is their innocence? Even little Richieu was victim to this horror. "He got killed... he was only five or six" (Spiegelman 15). Not only did the Holocaust steal his innocence, happiness, and childhood-it stole his life too.

Maybe this makes no sense, maybe this makes a lot of sense, but when I look at the comic, all I can think about is childhood. And all I can think about is how the children in the story and in real life never had one.

Lyrics of the week: "If you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones. Cause most of our feelings, they are dead, and they are gone... well I've lost it all, I'm just a silhouette. I'm a lifeless face you'll soon forget." from Youth by Daughter.

The Past Is Tomorrow

In Kung Fu Panda, Master Oogway spits some truth when he says "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why they call it a present." My mom liked that quote so much that she dramatically reenacts it if my brother or I appear to be stressed about "a mystery" as it is called. She tells us that today is a gift that we will only experience once. Time after time growing up I've heard someone tell me "Don't worry about it! The past is in the past!" or "It's water under the bridge!" or "Let sleeping dogs lie!" or "Let bygones bygones!" In fact, just last week I used those words in my blog post. But is the past really in the past? It seems to me like people carry it everywhere they go. Isn't the simple act of learning just carrying the past with you? You are your past. Everything you do in the future is determined by the past.

page 115 - Volume 2

Everybody knows about PTSD... which is kind of like carrying your past with you (to the extreme). Only everybody carries their past don't they? It is intertwined with our future. You cannot have one without the other. This summer my friends and I were driving up north, discussing the issue of the past and present (lol don't judge us for our choice of entertainment), and we wondered if there was such a thing as free will. Isn't every choice we make predetermined by our past? For example, lets pretend I visit a mall one day and then revisit a week after. There are two stores I can go to, but I only have time to visit one. Last week, store A had a nice sales associate and store B had a sales associate that muttered some choice words under her breath as she glared and charged my debit card. It would make sense for me to be inclined to visit store A again instead of store B. Right there, my past influenced my future. No true free will, just carrying the past with me.

In volume 2, page 115 of Maus, photographs of Vladek's past cover the panels. If you look towards the bottom, there is no page number. All of the photographs and Vladek's emotions make me feel as if this page was meant to symbolize his past. However... it begs the question: what page is it? That's the funny thing. There is no one page that symbolizes Vladek's past. It is everywhere in the book. Similar to the fact that Vladek's past is not confined to a single page, nobody's past is confined to a certain part of their life. The past is everywhere around us. It is (literally) our past, present, and future.

Vladek's exposure to extreme trauma amplified his connection to his past, but in essence, he is like the end of a spectrum for the general population. People may not realize it, but they can relate to him more than they know. Vladek's past is with him constantly in his present, similarly we all carry our past to our present. Otherwise we would basically be acting like newborn babies all day. If this is true, the past and the present blend together. It can be difficult to pinpoint exactly where your past and present are. Can you tell where your past and present begin and end?


Lyrics of the week: "It's just a story though, is it a story though? I can't tell if it happened cause it feels impossible. Don't know whether it was real or a dream, imagination playing tricks on me." from Murakami by Made in Heights. I can't tell whether my past is my present, my future, or both. 

Verma's Theory of Feminist Relativity

Bell Hooks once said that feminism is "a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression" (Hooks 1). With such a simple sentence, she harnesses the power behind the belief in feminism. It amazes me that anyone could disagree or not support it. After all, it doesn't say that it is a movement towards equality for women, a movement to end exploitation of women, or a movement to end female oppression. It's implied that true feminists do what they do because they care about all genders. It just blows my mind that there are people who don't think that inequality is an issue in today's society.

The word "feminist" itself has a bad connotation. People see what they consider to be ugly women. They think feminists are fat and aggressive and selfish and anti-male. Let me share a particularly rude post I found on the internet:

It astounds me that anti-feminists choose to ignore those feminists that look like this:

Or (the most attractive in my opinion): 

Like... everybody say a silent thanks right now for attractive men that are politically aware. 

Women with acid burns on their faces.

However, all of this does not go to say that I agree with every aspect of feminism. Do I agree that rape is an issue? Yes. In my own opinion, there is no way that you can spin this rape to say that the woman had it coming. She was dragged off of a bus and raped by 6 men, who also used a metal rod that was used so violently it damaged her intestines. Oh my god. It makes me physically sick. That being said, I think some feminists are picky about what they fight for. I can understand not fighting for something that you disagree with, but if you are going to fight for something, fight for it so that everyone can gain whatever right you are trying to make yours. Do it once and do it right. The part that I disagree with is the fact that people ignore the crazy problems around the world. Right now, feminists in America are concerned with being able to walk around without shaving their legs and having people accept it. I can imagine the replies. Don't you think physical appearances should be accepted? Shouldn't people be comfortable in their own skin? Yes, I do. People should be accepted. But I don't agree with the idea that being forced to shave your legs as a societal norm is the biggest issue around. Where are the masses of feminists fighting to end acid being publicly thrown on women in Pakistan? Read this harrowing story. I would rather have women with shaved legs than those with caustic burns on their face.

The problem is that the loyalty to the movement is relative. The less of an effect it has on someone, the less likely it will be for that person to change the problem. That is my theory of feminist relativity.

Feminism is a complicated movement, but in the end, I believe that it's a good one.

Lyrics of the day: "Oh mother dear we're not the fortunate ones, and girls they wanna have fun!" from Girls Just Want To Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper (which is literally the best song to dance to and it talks about girls living life the way that they want to).

Do The Just Believe in Justice?

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison" (Thoreau 1023). First of all, let me state a few things. First off, I love my country. Don't get me wrong. Despite the issues that I have with it, I love it. Does that mean I think it's perfect? Absolutely not. Will I voice my opinions about ways to improve it? You can bet your favorite pair of socks that I will. (Sorry, my feet are cold. A pair of warm and fuzzy socks is practically screaming my name.) This brings my to my second point. I try my best to respect the opinions of someone else, which proves to be difficult when I strongly agree to them. However, the problem with opinions arises when people try to force theirs on me. That being said, this is me stating mine, and not forcing it upon you. If you expect me to respect your opinions, I expect you to respect mine.

Thoreau's line about just men belonging in prison really struck me. He goes on to talk about how people are locked up in prison when they have already been locked out of their rights because of the law. This made me think about the recent riots in America. Oh yes. We're talking Ferguson, Baltimore, the works. 

The Baltimore Riots

The thing about the whole riot situation is that, yes, in the end, I believe the violence is wrong. But the sick thing is that the violence is needed to gain the attention of the media. Nobody pays attention to save lives. People only care about the story. I would show you a video but I'm not sure if swear words are allowed so.. 

The Ferguson Riots

Riots are horrible. Violence is horrible. But just because of some riots, the entire protesting movement was undermined. Peaceful protesters trying to change the way the country worked were pulled off of the street and thrown into jail, some even without an order to clear the streets. There is this hacking group called Anonymous. They're crazy. They released this video about the Ferguson riots. Kind of scary but kind of cool. 

I think the biggest problem in America is purposeful ignorance. Rather than address problems and fix them, some people choose to pretend like the problems don't even exist. Then, when somebody addresses them, they're tossed in jail for breaking a social taboo like demanding equality. Scary to think of, right? Those people who just want justice are the ones being deemed unjust. So what kind of twisted version of justice do they think everyone else is seeing? Do they even think we have a sense of justice?

I went to an art festival this weekend in Grand Rapids (hence my late posting) and I saw this one piece that made my heart ache. 

The piece I had mentioned

"If the young are not initiated into the village, they will burn it down just to feel its warmth." Wow. It gives me shivers down my back every time. They will burn it down just to feel its warmth. Is that what the rioters are doing? Are they so separated from normal society-not by choice-that they must burn down the city to feel warmth? Maybe. I don't know. I'm not one of them.

But what I do know is that I urge you to take a look at the world around you. If you insist everyone is equal, take an example from our school. Last year the sophomore homecoming ballot did not include a single white person on it, and going on social media, I swear it was like we declared intent for genocide or something. People were angry... why? I don't understand... what is so horrendous about being a good human being and letting people have the same opportunities as you do? Whatever. The past is the past, so lets work together to make a greater future.

Lyrics of the week: "Take these thoughts, and if they come back 'round just burn the whole place down." From Take These Thoughts by Chris and Thomas. It kind of embodies what I would feel if I were rioting for something that I believed in. "All I want is all that you possess and all I want is all that I can't get..." (to me) seems like the protesters' want for equality in the law.

To me, it seems like the Civil Rights movement never ended. It's been a constant struggle put on the back burner. Thanks for reading this crazy rant. 

America the Great, let's make you greater. 

I Switched My Stereotype

Around a week ago, one of my friends told me that someone thought that I was "pretty for an Indian." Numerous times I had been told that I was a "cool Indian." But compared to what? I guess not fitting the stereotype that was set for me was an occasion to be celebrated. The funny thing is, I fit that stereotype to the T. Identity is fluid. I've maintained high grades my whole life, worked to be in advanced classes, suck at sports, my house smells like spices (which is great by the way), sometimes I eat curry (it's good, come to my house if you wanna try some real Indian food), my grandparents live in a rural part of India, and my parents have Indian accents. 

When people make fun of them for having accents, it makes me angry because they have no idea the struggles they went through to make it this far in life. Do you know what the Partition was? (Definitely NOT the Beyonce song.) My grandparents were forced to move from Pakistan to India, leaving everything behind and living with the fear of being murdered every night. My father grew up in poverty, living in a small house with a tin roof that leaked. My mother's parents were murdered when a midnight robbery went wrong. My grandparents fought the robbers like a lion, and died protecting their children. Yeah their accent might be funny, but have you any idea the stories of struggles that are behind it?

But the thing that gets me the most is that I know deep down a tiny part of me has been taught to be ashamed of my culture. I feel happy when someone says, "You're ______ for an Indian." It's embarrassing to know that for some reason I've been trained to look down at people who fit the stereotype of a cultural outsider. For some strange reason I look down on the people that are just like who I am. No matter how hard I try, people will see me as my skin color first. They see that skin tone and assume I fit the stereotype of an Indian, before allowing me to prove that I merely fit another one.

Acceptance!

When I was little, diversity had been ingrained in me. In first grade I sat down in Mrs. Dospil's class and learned that it was one of the Core Democratic Values of America. Diversity! It was everywhere! Everybody got along and accepted each others' differences! I was part of the Melting Pot of America! Only now, I realize it's more like a machine. See, I came into society proud to decorate my arms with Mendhi. I think I stopped in third grade, sick of the teasing and questions. It's only okay to do it now because society thinks that it's "cool." I never dared to wear a Bindi to anywhere that wasn't explicitly an Indian function. But now I see people wearing them to raves because they apparently look cool. How come when they do it now it's cool, but when 6 year old Rohini did it, she was a "fobby" freak? Eventually, through teasing and trial and error, I figured out how to blend right into the background. I learned how to wear makeup, pick my outfits, and tailor my physical appearance. I even changed the way that I pronounced some words. Sometimes I catch myself making fun of the way that my parents talk and it makes me sick.

 The strange thing about the whole situation is that I didn't abandon a stereotype-I merely chose another. The definition of a stereotype is "a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing." By becoming everyone else's version of normal, I've just made myself at home as another oversimplified image. I'm a stereotype in a stereotype... meta-stereotype. Since I've grown up, I've watched people around me (myself included) change who they are and how they act just to fit in. The Melting Pot I live in is more like a machine to me because it takes in many different people, but they all come out looking the same. Almost everyone is a carbon copy of the next (or at least wants to be), and those who are not? They end up being ostracized. It makes me cringe to think that I had to change the way I looked in order to be happy in my social environment. 

Just the same way that Victor tried to change Thomas in Smoke Signals, everyone decided to change me into someone who is cool and pretty "for an Indian." The irony that was depicted in Smoke Signals is the same irony that I feel I relate to right now. I'm supposed to be proud of breaking free from my stereotype when I've just trapped myself in another. It's like if a prisoner took a spoon and dug a hole in the ground. When he came up on the other side, he found himself in the next cell, but all of the other prisoners cheered for him. I can imagine them yelling, "Great! You did it!" Great! I did it! Someone saw me as attractive but kudos to me for doing it while I'm Indian!

But hey, if you think of the word "Indian" and picture this: 

Well, that's okay! That's me! Kind of. I'm a mix of the two stereotypes. I still dance around my house listening to Bollywood music. I LOVE Bollywood movies. I still like to get dressed up in Indian clothes. I still study in my room and learn because I like it. I still won't be able to play sports for my life. And guess what I want to be when I grow up? A doctor! The only difference is that I'm doing these things because I want to do them. It's not my stereotype, it's me. I'm also someone that likes to go to rock concerts, wear a hoodie, hang out with my friends, and eat burgers. So... who am I? I have changed myself from a stereotypical Indian into some weird stereotype of normal.

All this talk about physical appearances made me think of a song! (I know. The surprise.) It reminds me of Mrs. Potato Head by Melanie Martinez. She sings, "No one will love you if you're unattractive. Oh Mrs. Potato Head tell me, is it true that pain is beauty? Does a new face come with a warranty? Will a pretty face make it better?"

I still don't know the answer to that question. Does it?

The Fear We Carry

A motif that is widely displayed in The Things They Carried is fear. One of the most obvious fears when going into war, or even realizing that you've been drafted, is the fear of dying. I used one of my favorite quotes about death and the fear of death as my first picture. When I think about the fear of death, I think about how people never want to let go of the things that they love, the people that they love, or the things that they want to do. I think the scariest thing about death is that people don't understand how closely intertwined life and death are. Without the other, one cannot exist. Life is only beautiful because death makes your time with life finite. 

The second picture that I have is a personal fear of mine, which I believe is very common. It is the fear of the future. So much is expected out of my friends and I... sometimes I'm afraid of what will happen if I don't live up to the expectations. It stresses me out just to think about taking the ACT, SAT, AP tests, and balancing good grades this year. On top of all of that, even if I score well, there's no knowing for sure where I'll go in life. I'm afraid of losing the people that I'm close to now, and living on my own, and having a job, and having to pay bills. The future is so frightening because it's impossible for me to fathom what it holds.

The next image is a GIF of Rapunzel from Tangled. It looks like she is afraid of the dark, but I think that the scariest thing about the dark is the fact that you don't know what it holds. It's the fear of the unknown. In the dark, you're never sure what (or who) is lurking in the shadows. Admittedly, I become well acquainted with this fear every time I watch a horror movie. The fear can also be related to war though, because when soldiers first enter war, they don't know what kinds of horrors it holds-in the dark or otherwise. Whether it be sounds in the mountains, the enemy in the bushes, or the pure violence of war, something is always biding its time. Pablo Picasso once said, "Everything you can imagine is real." What if you're imagining something horrible pacing back and forth in the dark? That's the thing about the unknown. You can never be sure if it isn't.

Another obvious fear in the book is the fear of appearing as a coward. All of the soldiers wear a mask of bravery, terrified to let anyone else know how scared they are on the inside. This is the same fear that makes us do things when someone says "I triple dog dare you!" Courage the Cowardly Dog is supposed to be brave (or at least that can be assumed by looking at his name), but he turns out to be afraid of everything. It made me think that he might be our deepest sense of fears personified and made into a cartoon. We all appear brave on the surface but just below something makes us feel nervous. Our self-confidence is superficial. We have a perpetual need to bury that fear underneath a facade of bravery. 

The last picture of the polar bear is supposed to show fear of embarrassment. This fear is what holds us back from trying new things. It's what holds me back from singing in front of people. It's also what pushes people from saying "no" to things. The group of soldiers are afraid to be anything less than fearless, because to show their true emotions would mean certain embarrassment. Fear both holds us back and pushes us out of our comfort zone. Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese monk who advocated for peace during the war. Perhaps that is what makes his remark on fear so meaningful: "Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones." When FDR said that the only thing we should fear is fear itself, is that true? Or would it be healthier just to acknowledge our fears in hopes that we can move on, and live in the moment?

Fear reminds me of a couple lines from the song "Cue The Sun!" by Daphne Loves Derby. "If I find my way through the darkest of days will I laugh about the things that kept me awake? If my greatest fear paints itself so crystal clear, will I run away or will I hide?"