3 posts tagged “challenge”

I'll be the first person to admit that I use my blog for purely selfish, cathartic reasons.  Sometimes I use it to hold myself accountable (if I say it outloud, I'll do it).  Sometimes I use it to celebrate something wonderful in my life, first and second.  Sometimes I use it to work through issues that are bugging the hell out of me, or simply beyond my grasp.  This posting is the latter.

Tonight my youngest son was attacked.  I'm struggling with this for a lot of reasons, including the obvious ones like not being able to protect your children from things no matter how well you think you've prepared them.  I've got another monkey on my back tonight because my son was -where- he was -when- he was because of me.

He called this evening to ask if he could stay at a friend's house much later than planned and if I would then come and pick him up.  On asking a few questions I found that he'd not been entirely honest with me this morning when he went there.  He rode his bike to the other side of town, requiring that he cross a number of our city's most dangerous intersections, and he's lost his bike helmut.  My rule was no more arse on the bike until the noggin' is covered, but he rode in spite of this.  He went both where he was told not to, and how.  I was angry when he called because I felt manipulated, and the car wouldn't be home until much later in the evening, so I told him no I wasn't able to pick him up and that he could not stay any longer, and to come home straight away before it got dark.  I also told him to expect to sit down and have a talk with me when he arrived home.  My last words to him were "please be safe!".  He hung up.  I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, but it was in worrying that he might have an accident on the way home and that he wasn't wearing a helmut.  For almost an hour I sat fretting, feeling guilty as hell that I'd put him back out there on that bike to come home.

When he walked through the door, I nearly passed out.  He was covered with cuts and scratches, had a black eye, stomach stripped raw like sandpaper, head hanging down and walking with a limp.  He'd not been hit by a car.  He'd been jumped.  Because he knew I was angry he took a shortcut home -- one where there wasn't a lot of heavy traffic, but it was one of the roughest sections of town.  As he crossed the bike path on the train tracks to go into the park, two boys jumped him and beat the living hell out of him.  They yanked him off the bike, got him down on the ground and started kicking him repeatedly in the stomach, face and head.

As we sat talking to the police, it was all I could do to keep from falling apart.  He was someplace he shouldn't have been because I was angry, and he was more afraid of getting into trouble than he was of going through a dangerous section of town.  That almost killed me.  I don't lay hands on my kids, but they do know when I am angry because of that "mum tone of voice".  I'm lousy with discipline -- often too soft -- but my kids know when I am seriously disappointed in them and they hate it.

So what the heck does this have to do with tolerance and acceptance?

It's been hours since the police left and in that time a recurring theme has presented itself again and again, first in one of the questions asked by the police: "do you want to press charges?".  Why did I feel guilty about that?  Later when my son was safely in bed and sleeping, I turned on the tv to watch West Wing to try to settle myself down.  Two separate storylines wove back and forth, both underscoring age old conflicts between both countries and peoples because of labels, dogma and just plain stubborn human nature.  At the end of the show, I snapped the tele off and picked up the "Developments" magazine that arrived today.  The first thing I opened to?  An article dealing with those same age-old conflicts between cultures and people, and the seemingly insurmountable nature of quelling them.  A glaring fact in the particular issue dealt with by this article?  That one of the main reasons there was so little impetus to change was the almost "inexhaustible supply of slaves".

Of course, this lead me back here, thinking about the very emotional conversation we've been having as we've planted our elbows in this virtual kitchen table.  I've been sitting and thinking for some time on this.  There are a handful of things I keep coming back to again and again.  Conflict happens for a host of reasons, but there are some that are well within our control to change right now:

1)  We can choose to listen actively and without judgement to our peers.  In meetings I often catch myself "tuning out" the person speaking, waiting for them to hurry up and finish so it can be my turn to speak and I can present my own point of view.  I'm not really listening at all, and I'm certainly not interested in being swayed to their point of view.  In joining a discourse if our goal is merely to hammer other people over the head with our own position and spin, we're already in trouble.  Taking the time to share our thinking, especially when it's emotionally charged, should include a commitment to find some level of mutal understanding, whether we agree with each other or not.

2) We can choose to put issues in the center of the table, not people.  I'm the first to admit I've had a good rollick coming to the rescue of a friend or two who'd been bashed by the fashionistas on various blogs.  I was full of righteous indignation, and on some level felt justified in doing a reverse character assassination on people I felt desperately deserved it.  Regardless of motive, when attacks become personal, they are damaging, rob us of our integrity and make it almost impossible to get beyond position and spin.  One of the hardest things for me to choose when I arrived in Second Life was "acceptance", not "tolerance", and there is a difference.  About 5 years ago a friend of mine gave me a sound kick in the arse for not groking that.  Tolerance implies that we are merely "putting up with" people who are not the same as we are, or who have a different point of view.  Acceptance means celebrating that we can have different beliefs and opinions and still have common values and common ground.  Working to find those things provides an awesome foundation to build on.

3) We can choose to practice non-violent communication.  This is not an intrinsic part of my nature when someone messes with my kids!  Nor is it an easy thing to practice when someone shares an emotional point of view that just plain pissed me off.   A few years ago I met a woman who introduced me to the idea of this.  When I became profoundly ill again last year (one of the more unpleasant symptoms of my illness was not only depression but rages) I chose to actively seek out the principles of non-violent communications because I hated that my words were hurting the people I loved most.  Most recently a lovely woman introduced herself to me as a colleague not only here on Vox, but also as a Second Life citizen and someone from yet another online community that I care deeply about: omidyar.net, and she too teaches NVC.   I suppose it's not a coincidence but rather serendipity that keeps presenting the notion of "non-violent communications" in my way.

Not only does the net at large throw us into one massive bowl of raging diversity, it gives us places like Second Life where it is in our face in all it's glorious colours.  Gor, furries, gender-benders, age play, mafia, violence-based roleplay groups and a veritable buffet of issues-based rp that may or may not synch up with our personal values.  We can react in fear, shield ourselves with indignant epithets and absolutes, or we can choose to say "fuck it -- I'm going to open up and actively listen, and while I may not like everything I hear, I'm going to allow myself to expand the personal context that I have in which I relate to people".

Two things lingered when I sat quietly tonight and had to deal with the very mixed emotions I've had today, some because of the loaded language here in the slavery thread which at times makes it feel like a minefield, and some because of two young men who chose to hurt my son and the fact that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time because he was worrying about my being angry with him.  The first thing I kept thinking about was something that my brother said to me when my mum was dying a few years ago.  He tucked a little book about compassion into my hand and paraphrased one of the most important parts for me, and the thing I hung onto most was this:  the more anger we fill ourselves up with, the less room there is for the good stuff.  The second thing I keep thinking about tonight is this:  that whether or not we agree with the notion of slavery as part of active roleplay, the entire concept of freedom is based on the right to choose.

Yes, there are people who enforce their will on others.  Yes, there are people who are not well equipped to make healthy choices and will fall prey to people who will exploit them.  These things, however, are not the entire picture anymore than I am representative of all women in Second Life.  On the issue of slavery in roleplay, as I continue to see unfold more and more throughout the course of the very thoughtful discourse before this, there is also a healthy, informed choice made and exercised by smart, compassionate, healthy people who find in Second Life an outlet to explore an aspect of themselves they might not otherwise be able to choose.  This is not synonymous with sexual exploitation or lack of consent.  It's the right to choose.

I don't just tolerate it, I accept it, and I continue to want to learn more because of the immense respect I have for the people who have stepped forward to continue to talk.

How entrenched are we in pushing a personal agenda?  Do we have the will to ditch the position and spin long enough to actually listen to an uncomfortable point of view?  Is it possible to have an intelligent dialogue with a diverse group of people and not only -not- kill each other but learn something along the way?  Based on the "slavery" thread before this and how it seems to be unfolding, I'd say "hell yeah!"

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald had a nice way of summing up the challenge we have before us:

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, and still retain the abilility to function".

Not on the crazy train just yet ...

 

Whenever I'm about to reinvent myself in a significant way, I find myself reading a lot of Emerson.  Today I came across something he'd written that I'd not heard before, but I found it both provocative and essential:

     “I find that the Americans have no passions, they have appetites.”

        -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Being neither American nor inclined to want to be beaten with a large stick ~grins~, I'll simply say that this observation spoke to me personally.  It identifies one of my greatest internal conflicts: stickiness.

I have always considered myself to be a very passionate person.  Having said that, this nasty little poke with a stick from Emerson's 1800's brand of wisdom has me asking myself if I have the right to claim this label at all.  I do feel things fiercely and deeply, and that is wonderful fuel spurring me on when I go running headlong into the next thing that calls.  But there's the rub: so many things do call, and my ability/desire to stick with them is often my greatest challenge.

This is a problem if you look at it in almost any light: makes it tough to stay put, stick to a career, be happy with one person, or to ever really feel full or know the true sense of the word "enough".  Some people might call it OCPD, or ADD, or simply fickle or even selfish and irresponsible.  And yet I've managed to be successful in spite of it.  While I do look back and feel at times a sense of grief over recognizing this as a deficit in the traditional sense of a person's life, I am also deeply grateful for living in the place and time I do.  In the niche that I've managed to carve for myself it's served me well.  As a journalist, being constantly propelled by "the chase" is a delicious habit.  It keeps me hungry, curious, always running after the next story to share.  As an artist, it keeps me buoyant and colourful and constantly inspired.  God bless the internet and Second Life, for those two mediums have provided the most provocative and fertile playground for the two most intrinsic parts of my inner life as a breadwinner and insatiable consumer.

Where this is a challenge is in personal relationships.  There are people that I connect with in a very rich and heartfelt way, and yet no matter how much I enjoy their company, I rarely seek it.  I do tend to hold people at arm's length.  Even my closest friends and family know what a gigantic pain in the ass I can be when it comes to simple, normal things.  I hate talking on the phone.  I don't do well with a lot of small talk, and within minutes of reconnecting I am often restless and uncomfortable again.  A pretty boring, run-of-the-mill personality disorder I'm sure, but an inconvenient one when you really do care a great deal about the people that you have so much trouble wanting to connect with in a deeper way.

There are exceptions.  It's at odds with my bleeding heart, because at my core I remain a better world scout and always will be.  My partner Baron is also an anomaly in many ways, perhaps because he's so much like me and doesn't question or seem critical of the quirks.  But Emerson's observation does have me scratching my head and asking myself how much I may want or need to confront this particular issue if I really want to move forward in my life.

Do I really have passion, or merely appetites?  Constant, glorious, intense appetites, but appetites nonetheless.  It's not that I haven't found my niche.  In fact, I've found it again and again.  It's that in spite of the thrill of the chase, and often getting what I want, I still feel quite empty at the end of the day.

I know because of the few anomalies that do exist in my life that there is a great reward attached to cultivating a more mature and intimate relationship with the people and opportunities in my life, and in my gut I know that I do want to know what it feels like to say "this is enough" and finally mean it.

In those instances I've allowed myself to let it in, what I am gifted with is richer, deeper, simpler and more enduring happiness and peace of mind.

So, tonight I'll thank Emerson for poking me with a stick, and hope that I'll be wise enough to really listen and finally choose it for myself.

Back, exhausted and happy.  Two of my kids came along with me as I went out on the little quest that Baron challenged us all with today: to go out and shoot our cities with cameras that used film.  There's far too many things to even know where to start to tell the story of your city through your own eyes, so we consider today just the first installment of what we all agree will be many more adventures to come.

I took along the Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim, the Vivitar Focus Free PN2001 and the Minolta AF101R cameras that Baron was so kind to send along to me a few weeks ago.  I wasn't brave enough to try out the one that's really making me crazy: the old Kodak Tourist with bellows.  That requires a bit of thought on my part, or the arrival of some special film I've ordered to shoot with it.  I've been itching to get out and shoot, and it was the perfect sunny day.  I also took along the Canon Sureshot to see how much of a difference it makes in comparing the film results to a digital.  I have to say it felt like cheating to have it in my hands, but it allowed me to bring in a few early shots to share from my trek.

This was just a really fun outing.  My daughter and one of my sons came along, both with cameras of their own.  My son had a Viv that my dad gave him, and my daughter's seemed borked so we went and grabbed a handful of the junkiest dollar store cameras we could find in the spirit of the junk camera challenge B posed earlier.  We decided we weren't going to plan this out, but rather just start driving down toward the river front, and that if any of us noticed something that caught our fancy, we would simply get out and shoot.

 

We spent over an hour in a graveyard, getting down and laying in the dirt to get shots, and finding the most ironic things (for instance, a modern children's playground right in front of a very old mausoleum).  The thing that I found most fun was watching my kids find their own voices and express themselves in insanely creative ways.  My daughter picked up a Tim Horton's "roll up the rim to win" coffee cup someone had tossed on a grave, and when she threw it into the garbage can she cracked up saying "I wonder if they won" and then got even more curious about what was to be found in a graveyard garbage can.  So there we stood taking pics of it, with deadflowers and stray pieces of bricbrac and the losing cup, probably looking like complete dorks and loving every minute of it.

 

I'm sure people thought we were absolutely mad at what we did at times, but not one of us felt a pang of embarrassment and simply egged each other on.  At one point my son noticed another of these cups, alongside a Dr. Pepper can and a cigarette package, and decided to pierce them each on a spire of the old graveyard wrought iron fence with the mausoleum behind, taking a pic he's calling "Caffeine, Nicotine, Dead."  It was just a cool little family outing to get out and crawl around in the mud and go nuts for hours together, and we can't wait to do it again.

We ended up heading down the water front to shoot some of the sculptures in front of All Saints cathedral, and then the old rum runners grave -- the Detroit River.  It doesn't exactly sound romantic, but we're blessed with what I believe is now the longest natural (undeveloped) city waterfront in North America.  There's a beautiful sculpture garden, the Peace Fountain, and old Steam Engine called "The Spirit of Windsor" and an old Louisiana Riverboat across the way.  So many things down there that we want to go back and shoot another time.

We headed home around 6pm for some supper.  I cannot wait to process the film from the Viv and the Minolta to negatives so that I can scan them in and go wild.  At the moment, I pulled some of the pics from the digital.  We didn't haul it out and use it until the very end, so some of the best shots just aren't there, but at least it gives a tiny taste of some of the fun we had today, and a peek at my city, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

So, thanks, B, for a wonderful, wonderful day, and for spoiling me in a way that has opened the door to some really tantalizing new adventures!  This was an awesome way to get me back out again.

(And baby, I found a damned squirrel ... ~laughs~  He obviously knew how important it was for me to capture him, because he walked right up to me and sat on his hind legs and posed.  Got the token pigeon right behind him ~grins~)

Sue.