Siddhartha and The Office

“Hi, my name is _______ and I’m a ___aholic.”  This is the notorious catchphrase of addiction therapy across the nation; similarly, another cornerstone of such behavior is hitting “rock bottom.” 

This low point doesn’t come in a package deal with addiction, however.  We all seem to have individual “rock bottoms.  But what is “rock bottom?” Siddhartha seems to *literally* reach his rock bottom when he reflects on himself and his lifestyle.  

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“In deep tiredness, he took his arm away from the trunk of the tree and turned a bit, in order to let himself fall straight down, in order to finally drown. With his eyes closed, he slipped towards death” (Hesse 81). 

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Ironically, what pulls Siddhartha from ultimate unfulfillment—death by drowning—was the river itself.  With all the means to kill him, the river transforms from a means of death to the means to enlightenment.  At this moment, Siddhartha’s future is a precarious one; what separates an attempted suicide from inspired understanding stems from his openness.  However sinful Siddhartha is, he is equally receptive to new experiences, to new thoughts.  He was then able to take in the sacred “Om.” 

Joesph Campbell says that a hero is someone who “has given his or her life to something bigger...[who] loses himself to a higher end” (151-152). What separates these heroes from everyone else is that they are able to take this “rock bottom,” this all-consuming heroic trial, as more than simply self-implicating.  Siddhartha was addicted to desire, and, at his lowest moment, he is thinking of himself.  Even when he begins to reemerge from the depths of hopelessness, he exhibits acute self-awareness that quiets any perception of the environment around him.

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“This moment, when the Om entered his consciousness: he became aware of himself in his misery and in his error” (81).  

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What comes next, though, is what Campbell claims is an integral part of any heroic transformation: to stop being absorbed in our constant efforts for self-preservation.  Siddhartha quickly changes his inward-looking perception to an outward-looking one, even after a truly intimate moment.  Suicide is personal, but Siddhartha’s awakening made its lessons universal.  By this train of thought, any one of us has the potential to reach hero-status, as long as we hold the ability to think on a universal level, even at what the most justifiably selfish moments: those following our “rock bottoms.” 

Now, these moments don’t have to be as extreme as those exhibited in Siddhartha.  In The Office, Jim and Dwight have an iconic feud—one that stems from self-absorption on both ends.  Jim torments Dwight for his amusement, and Dwight retaliates in attempts to gain alpha status.  

The rock bottom of their relationship was when a good-hearted snowball fight that got out of hand.  

However, their relationship improved with the reciprocal altruism of the two once-rivals.  Their heroic transformation led them to forge both a business partnership and one of the strongest friendships in the show.  

New Beginnings

New Year, New Me?
scroll to after the baby picture if you want to read the *juicy* part of the post

Clearly, there is NO "Brave New Elise" to gawk at; there is no drastic transformation to marvel over.  In fact, I might've reverted a few years to my former self; I'm eating poorly; I'm procrastinating both the things that bring me joy and the things that once held joy but now, only an impending due date; I'm watching Friends again (is this my 3rd time through the series? My 4th?); and I'm finally getting the recommended amount of sleep again.

One thing that has changed, though, is my blog. Over the course of this self-exploratory journey manifested in a web domain and clacking keyboard keys late at night, quite a few of my posts have diverged from my "Netflix" theme.  That's because, by tying myself to such creative restrictions, my theme topic—something I typically hold nothing but enamorment for—began to feel like more of a chore than a way of expressing myself.  So instead, I figured I'd make this blog about what it makes me love it so much: pushing myself to blur the lines between segregated topics, to learn more about myself and the world I interact with.  Because, in the end, my blog represents my intellectual curiosity. So why complicate things by garnishing it with gimmicks?

As I began to muse over how I wanted to reemerge in the blogger world, I thought about some of my recent experiences. I'm not going to lie...I even began to psychoanalyze myself before I realized that is a door I prefer to remain closed (or, at most, slightly ajar) for now.  Some of the discoveries I made were helpful in lending me understanding myself, though.

This is a girl.  She had so much to learn back then.  She's changed since then; the only thing that's remained over 16 years is her laugh.  You see, back then, she had all the love and affection in the world (or, at least her world: 653 Seabury).  As she grew up, she took two-hour road trips every Friday to see her brothers and father.  She saw chairs thrown through streaming tears.  She felt summertime auctions (where will be my home for the next year?).  She heard divorce threats.  She saw sunsets as she drove back on Sunday night to an empty house.  A house unlived, a house with the lights and heat turned off.  A thought struck her as she lugged her belongings—perpetually in a suitcase—up those thin steps, through that metal storm door (which was sometimes a wooden or garage one) into her rented home. In stark juxtaposition to all the noise she heard in her home, her house was quiet; it was tired.   

The House was a con man; he went under many aliases.  Meet 1609 Brentwood, 70 Cloveridge, 653 Seabury, 88 Main, and fragments of names she can barely remember: Elizabeth, 18, and Heightsborough.  He fooled her many times.  She kept trying to reach a larger square footage, or a better neighborhood, in hopes of making everything feel whole again.  But the truth was that the House could never be filled.  It would always have moving boxes in the basement, just in case. It would always have plastic wrap on its appliances.  Sometimes, slapping on a "just bought" sticker on the real estate sign was no more meaningful than signing a month-to-month lease.  Her time was borrowed, just like her eerily vacant House.  

Despite all of this, she fell in love with him anyways.  She believed that he would keep her safe for as long as she needed.  She would try to meet new people in her new school, wearing the newest trends, and became dependent on their approval.  She craved love.  She wanted to be noticed and was terrified of becoming forgotten. She never stayed in one place more than one consecutive year.  And no matter how much she hated it somewhere, she hated leaving even more.  

But what the hell did she know about love, anyway?  She's witnessed one peck and a handful of hugs between her resentful parents; she has heard raised voices as her brothers got in trouble with a girl once again; she had never been noticed before.  She was never really funny, or pretty, or smart.  That's what she told herself.  That's why she covered herself up with forced jokes and desperate attempts for attention.  She never really knew when—or if—any of it ever became real.  Maybe when it was when she finally lived in one place long enough to memorize the roads.  Maybe it was when she learned that there are other ways to lose touch with friends besides changing zip codes.  Or even still, maybe it was when she saw her mother continue to buy property after property, regardless of her employment status.  This is when she realized that overcompensating for her insecurities only worked to delude herself.  

As she walks down memory lane, all of this hurt resurfaces.  But she also feels triumphant.  Yes, this is my story.  These are my experiences; these are my words; this is my picture.  But these lessons, these desires to be loved, are ours.  

yygs-ase 2017

I'm taking a brief hiatus from the Netflix theme as I use this platform as a journal

YYGS was the greatest experience of my life.  It was laughs and games of Spyfall over the tables in Trumbell dining hall; it was stolen moments waiting in line and in lecture; it was sitting in the grass with Jorge and our family group; it was nervous conversation with Gustavo as we awaited our admissions interviews—and the rest of our lives; it was inside jokes with Grace and Ashley; it was learning of Douglas's sugar addiction; it was struggling to carry a 24 pack of water on the long trek from Walgreens to Branford college entryway C; it was laughing over gifs we found that were relevant to our presentation on the feasibility of CNS prosthetics; it was a whole new world jammed into two short weeks.

I'll admit that on the first day, I hated it.  I felt like such a social misfit.  As the days went on, I found my social niche(s).  Everyone I talked to, I wanted to—yearned to, even—hear more about.  The genuine interest I saw everyone have in learning, in doing great things, in changing the world....it's unlike anything I've ever understood at home.

Not to mention the incredible cultural diversification.  YYGS is truly a GLOBAL program.  All around the world, people go through disparate and glaring hardships just to earn an education, yet, the commonplace issues I face on a daily basis—not enough sleep, college apps, friend issues—persisted as common threads between us (threads that reach from Germany, to China, to Brazil, to Canada, to the US, to Egypt, etc).

The program as a whole, not to be cliche, was truly life-changing, and overall, inspirational.  I arrived with my goal being to find direction in my life, and along the way, I found myself some lifelong friends. I realized that the latter is probably the best (and the most important) thing that's ever happened to me.

How to Take a Walk down Memory Lane (HIMYM)

This week, I scoured my camera roll in hopes of finding campaign gold for my NHS video.  Between thousands of pictures and hundreds of videos, I realized that the most photogenic moments aren't always caught on camera.  The moments that represent the little things—a high five, a hand up, cheering on a teammate, the creation of that legendary inside joke—find refuge in memories.  In taking pictures and documenting every little thing we do, not to mention our own faces as they change over time (forever chasing that coveted "glo up"), we make a spectacle of things that society views as important, but in reality, the moments that we truly cherish are kept private.  They are the memories we value the most—because we have no insurance policy backing them.

The moments we tell ourselves are important: a wedding, a graduation, a baby shower, that we painstakingly stage to seem "picture perfect" offer only "a semblance of knowledge" into emotion.  What happens behind the lens of the camera tell a real story; what happens in front of it stages a production. The freeze-frames taken today on DSLRs or iPhone 7s may rack up thousands of "likes," but are about as intangible as our ever-dwindling appreciation for life. 

 We're too focused on getting the lighting right on our picture of an aesthetic lunch to truly taste that panini we ordered; we follow our peers on Instagram before we learn their deepest fears and greatest ambitions; we filter out (literally) the imperfections of our life before we realize that we're unhappy.

Our incessant snapping of our lives has given us nothing but a disjointed image of existence.  Now, the sentiment of "life flashing before your eyes," is no longer considered a rare occurrence, present just on the windowsill between life and the grip of death, but rather a mainstreamed form of quasi-sentimentalism brought to us by the makers of Flipagram and Snapchat stories.  Only now, instead of signaling the end of life, these fleeting images signal the end of living.  

Public microagression& rejection (Parks& Rec)

Aggression lives under many identities: passive, blatant, physical, verbal, cyber, political, economic, hidden.  It also thrives in many homes; it festers in workplaces, businesses, schools, public, homes, on the global stage, and even in Hollywood.

Professor Sue clarified that microaggression, the "unconscious" usage of "racial epithets" to reinforce feelings of "superiority and inferiority," is just as prevalent as macroaggression, the only difference being that microaggression is harder to find since it is affixed behind a facade of cultural conformity.  In its more obvious form, aggression stems from nations butting heads like quarreling siblings.  When North Korea gets new, shiny, nuclear toys, so should America.  When Mexicans keep going into the US's room without permission, the only solution is to lock the door (or wall).

Aggression moves towards discreetness in the case of the Chinese one-child policy, which forces the growing population in while kicking girls out.  This misogynistic state of mind persists elsewhere: in the workforce.  When women take maternity leave, they are labeled as "weak" and are passed up for promotions.  When they cut their leaves short, they run the risk of insufficient childcare, as in most states, men are not granted leaves for newborn children (and women are subsequently expected to be the sole caregiver).

Or how about the fact that girls are expected—no, required—to wear a dress to our own school's graduation?  Of course, this dress shouldn't be too suggestive, as to avoid being a "distraction."  Remember ladies, we wear dresses to refine the keep-your-legs-closed mindset "proper" women have; if we are raped it must be because we failed ourselves.

How about the fact that there is nearly no representation of diversified culture in mainstream media? Or, when there is, it's done by white actors, white writers, and white producers?  Even worse, what about our alienization of Native Americans on our stadiums and baseball jerseys?  In doing this, we are literally putting them on the same level as animals: bluejays, seahawks, broncos, bears. Native American "Redskin" culture has been stomped out by modern culture for so long, it's no wonder that our divisible nation, with liberty and justice for some, is barely fazed by objections to derogatory mascots and oil pipelines. Americans may have gotten the whole "no taxation without representation" thing down, but I think we still have a while to go before we can get to "no representation without consultation."  

this reminded me of Sue's comments of the "no, where
are you really from" experiences all too familiar to
all people of color

Raising Smartphones (Raising Hope)

In 1969, the first message was sent between the Interface Message Processors at UCLA and Stanford University.  The internet was born.  The world—and how its people interacted with each other—became forever altered.  In a whirlwind of innovation, computers, microchips, cell phones, smartphones, laptops, WiFi, social media, sprung up like incessant Twitter notifications.  We became obsessed with complete strangers, checking in on them (for even trivial matters) more than we check in on our own families....

nice to see where journalism has gone in
recent years (how can you blame them, though,
when reputable print sources are being phased out
for digitized attention getters)

With the internet, great things happened: knowledge became streamlined and more efficient,  awareness for worthy causes have been able to come into the public eye, and companies have gotten their starts.  People have been given a voice, proliferating the melting pot (or proverbial group chat) of America. But that's not to say that the internet is perfect; in fact, it's far from it.  

Our world has spiraled down into a "cultural anomaly" state of dependence.  Kids are handed "smart"  devices before they learn to tie their shoes.  Our phones go everywhere with us—which is probably why they carry more bacteria than a public restroom's toilet seat.  When the internet goes blank, so do we.  To put it simply: the internet has killed communication.  

The internet has taught us how to live under 140 word limits and 10 second time constraints.  We like to rush through things, scrolling quickly while getting the most information possible—so much so that we tend to scroll past the people and world events in our lives, too.  In the darkness of 1 a.m. browsing, we're trained to be careless and impatient.  Reaching hundreds, thousands, or even millions of fellow internet dwellers at once, we've never been so alone.  

Or, even when we think we are alone, we might not be.  Webcams, public WiFi, online transactions, and dating websites are feeding grounds for cyber security threats and deception.  We allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security from behind a 13" screen and a backlit keyboard, thinking the "best action...is not to be worried" as strangers hack away at our safety.  

The digitization of our world has made us believers in a society without consequences.  Just hit "delete" and all mistakes will be erased. Or let them run viral.  After all, our culture seems to idolize poor behavior.  Take the "How Bow That" girl whose claim to fame came from an exiguous middle-school-dropout education and a violent streak.  

We've been confined to the radius of available network connection for nearly all of our lives, trapped under a net of virtual social obligations.  It's hard to realize how much we rely on the internet until we are faced with, say, a power outage or data overage charges; it's also hard to admit how many excuses we are willing to make for why we rely on it so much: "I'm bored," "I can't sleep,"  "I was curious about something," "I need it for ____".  In the end, the internet won't be going away anytime soon, but what might go in its place is even scarier: our humanity.  

Safe (shopping) spaces {Crazy Ex-Girlfriend}

I once read an article about how relationships are often defined by gift-giving, and the more expensive the gift, the more valuable the gift is considered (more so by the gift-giver rather than the gift-receiver).  With consumerism being such an integral part of our social development, it's no surprise that our national obsession lies not in the Redwood Forests, or Democratic freedom, or even our star spangled banner, but instead in the aisles of our nearest superstore and the swiping of our AmEx gold cards.  I mean, if you haven't struggled under the weight of twenty shopping bags, or left your family on Thanksgiving night to pounce on Black Friday markdowns, are you even American?

Even worse, our consumerist tendencies send a dangerous message simultaneously reminiscent of the pre-Rosa-Parks era and a 1950s household (fitting, since this seems to be when the modern "throw-away" culture began to emerge).  It's no secret that TV ads are geared towards "shopping crazed" and "spendthrifty" women—although most of the women I've met don't love shopping at all (especially shoe shopping... I have never met a woman who genuinely likes it), and in fact, think of it as stressful and tedious.  

If a woman asks to go shopping, it's usually for one of two reasons: she wants to transform a lonely task into a social endeavor, or she believes that she has to stay up to date with the latest trends or be left in the dust.  I, for one, am never one to object an opportunity to shop, but half an hour, sore feet, dozens of chaotic clothing racks, and countless styles sold out of my size later, I realize what a grave mistake I've made (and will most likely make again).  Somehow, the elation and full wallet I usually enter the mall with always manages to be exchanged with fatigue and subtle regret by the time I leave. 

And when advertisements do happen to be geared towards men, this happens: 

you have to give these marketing directors kudos for creativity, though; they
are somehow able to include women in ads for even the most unrelated products!!

 

Here's the real kicker: not only are the advertisements gender-segregated, but the stores themselves are.  In men's clothing sections, the flooring is darker than in the feminine section (I watched a video on this once, and ever since I haven't been able to un-notice it).  This is to promote a sense of "gruff" manliness,  the kind that gives a "man's man" his "display of power."  More than that, the wall color and light brightness in the dressing rooms both tend to fall on the darker end of the spectrum for the ultimate male shopping experience.  And, is that musk I smell? Or perhaps it's just the ambiance from the brown leather seating in the corner...

While male shopping experience may reinforce macho male stereotypes, the same is done for the female shopping experience.  Lighter and brighter colors work to impose the stigma that women are dainty—dare I say, "easy, breezy, beautiful"—and are meant to exploit the feminine instinct to buy. 

The retail giants of our world further amplify gender stereotypes by slapping "feminine colors," a heftier price tag, and a "for her" label on its products, expecting for women to buy into it:

 Simple as that, the frontiers of American consumerism create clear boundaries between men and women.  We as Americans love our separation; we like our societal groups like the food in our microwaveable TV dinners—to never touch, thanks to modern convenience and capitalism.  It seems as if we're telling the same old story, but in a new context: first we separated our rich and our poor, then our colored and white, and now our pink and blue.