Ramblings about Life

I've decided to revive this old dead blog. Last time I decided to revive it I explained why I don't write more, and wrote about depression and the fear of failure. I don't want to repeat myself, and I'm going to try not to, but I'm also going to talk a bit about my life, about where my life is going, and how that factors into things like this. Mostly I'd like to talk about insecurity.

A couple years ago I was accepted to seminary despite failing Greek about a million times. Shortly afterwards I also decided that I wasn't going to go to Seminary. This left the question of what I was going to do. So I worked. I'd been working as an Educational Assistant for a couple years, and so I kept doing that. As I did so I decided that I probably could do the teacher's job, and so I applied to Education Programs at various universities, and then promptly got rejected from most of them. Last Spring was the most depressed I've been in years. I had very little motivation, or energy to do anything. I was gloomy, and probably not the best company. Long story short, I got into King's and my life had a direction again. I feel considerably less depressed. It's nice.

I want to talk about that feeling of being an impostor though. It was a feeling I often had in university. It's a feeling I often have now. The feeling that I'm here because I tricked someone into letting me in, and that before long they're going to figure it out and ask me to leave. I'm not sure where it comes from, but it's hard to shake.

When I was in high school I had a Physio Therapist who visited periodically to work with me in the gym. I hated it. I was always worried that everyone would find out and make fun of me, or that they would think that I was a freak. That I would be found out. One day she informed me that she was going to be coming with me on our bowling field trip. I informed her that that wouldn't be happening, and in the end I won. High School is hard enough without having an adult come with you to help you bowl.

I try to be open about these things now, because I think it's good to be open about our differences. It's not an easy thing to be open about. There is a desire to try to be the same as everyone else that is hard to shake. As a child I fought to be the same as everyone else, and I'm glad I did. A lot of aspects of that are still leftover. I had speech therapy for nine years, and because of that I would repeat what I had said under my breath after I said it in order to practice speaking better. If you listen closely you will notice that I often still mumble to myself after talking.

The thing is that I'm pretty sure that these feelings of being an impostor are probably a lot more common than I think. A lot of us think that deep down we're not like everyone else, and so we're worried that we'll be found out.

When I was a child I failed swimming lessons, and was told it was because my arms were floppy. So I started swimming daily. A different time my gym teacher almost failed me, so I started going to the gym at times when I knew no one would be there in order to practice on my own over and over.

When I failed Greek the first time I did work hard. Later it became harder and harder to work hard at it. I would stare at the letters and just feel panic. Once I was sitting in class and felt like the walls were closing in, and so I left and sat in the corner of the library until I calmed down.

The anxiety is there for a lot of things. As I got older I thought social situations would get easier. Sometimes they are, other times I stand silently around people wishing that I could think of something to say.

I think our society has enough of a Social Darwinist philosophy embedded in it that it is hard to shake the idea that we need to be talented and special in order to belong.We need to prove to ourselves and others that we belong and that we should get to belong. You can see this in movies; if there is a person with a disability we make sure that we demonstrate that they are really good at something else.

I find myself often thinking of the Beatitudes from Matthew 5:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

There is nothing there saying that the most capable or most amazing or most successful will be blessed.

Many of us question whether we should belong even when we seem to have been accepted. I wish I could convince myself that my presence isn't an irritant; That I add something of worth to the places I go. I think it doesn't really matter if I do or not though. We need to stop judging what people add or what good they do. We need to accept people for who they are, and love them. I do more damage to myself and others wondering if I belong than I would if I just got over it. It's easy to say that I'll get over something, it's slightly harder to do it.

The world seems to be getting more divided and more angry all the time. We spread messages of hate and fear, and separate ourselves from each-other more and more.

In school I have to think a lot about what kind of teacher I would be. And it's hard because there's a lot to keep in mind. I want to be the teacher who fights for the unwanted child. Who helps the child who is outcast. I want to be the teacher that cares, but who doesn't? Does anyone go into teaching saying "I just want to help the really smart kids"? Maybe. People can be jerks.

I think I failed Greek repeatably for many reasons, but one of them was because I decided I couldn't do it. The difference between my attitude towards Greek and my attitude towards swimming is that as a child I never really thought I couldn't do it. Failure was never an option to me, and I probably need to regain some of the "I think I can" attitude.

I really want to end this with something wise, but I don't know if I feel wise at the moment.

I'm going to end this by saying that I hope this made sense, and that it wasn't too whiny. I don't want to be the person who always talks about how hard they find their life to be. I want to be the person that people feel comfortable coming to. I don't want to be the person constantly worried that people think he's annoying. I want to be the person who people think won't judge them. It's hard. I'm working at it.

Maybe everyone feels like a fake at times. Maybe we can all be fakes together.

One Star: A Culture of Negativity

What I have often noticed about myself is that I do not always understand the reasons for the things I do. I have recently taken up reviewing every book I read and posting those reviews on goodreads. At the time I only did this because I felt like it, but over time I realized the reasons I kept reviewing books. The first reason is that by keeping track of every book I read I am actually forced to finish every book I read (or at least most of them). I usually have a terrible habit of getting distracted and stopping to read books before I am done. The second reason was that by taking the time to review a book I actually force myself to think about the book, and to consider both the good and bad aspects of it. This actually forces me to consider the themes contained in the book, but also to consider whether a book I hated had good qualities.

Often through this reviewing process I will be forced to change the star rating I had expected to give the book. Goodreads works on the regular five star scale with one star being labelled as "hated it", and five stars as "loved it". I reviewed a book recently and had every intention of giving it two stars but by the time I was done I realized that it was a three star book (and the reverse has happened as well). I have also recently started to read other people's reviews on goodreads and I have noticed something that I think is very unfortunate. People seem to rate books one or five stars more than any other amount. I noticed this phenomenon at first when I was reading a one star review that only really said positive things about the book. So I did the only logical thing a person could do in this situation; I looked at the reviewer's account and proceeded to read all of their reviews. The reviewer had given every single thing they reviewed either one star or five stars, meaning that if they liked a book they would give it five stars and if they didn't they would give it one. Then I noticed that this is an incredibly common trend on goodreads, chapters, imdb, and any site where people can rate things. I have dubbed this the "one star/five star phenomenon" because naming things is clearly my strength.

What I think is happening with these reviews is that people see something in a book that they do not like and therefore invalidates the rest of the work. So lets say that I were to read a book and I loved the first four hundred pages of that book, but then I got to page four hundred and one and hated the events that took place on that page. This should lead me to lowering my rating of this book because I would not give a book five stars if I hated the conclusion. But I would be crazy to think that that should mean that the book is only worth one star since I really did enjoy four hundred pages of that four hundred and one page book. So why is it that so many people will let a flaw absolutely destroy an entire work for them? I think it comes from that lack of objectivity that lets them give a book that they thought had obvious flaws five stars, but it also comes from a judgemental attitude that I think will inevitably permeate to other aspects of life.  If I start a book loving it, but don't love the ending then I may feel betrayed or even angry towards that book. My initial impressions were clearly deceptions from that nefarious author! I would possibly get so mad that I would want that book to be punished for deceiving me so, or even to cut that book out of my life entirely. Or maybe I meet a book and I don't like that book already but I read it anyway and as I read it I look for anything that will confirm my pre-established hatred of this book. In either case I then angrily go onto the internet and give it one star, and then I write a bunch of good stuff about it so people will see how silly I am. I am not saying it is wrong to give a book one or five stars, but I am saying that you are ridiculous if you only give books one or five stars.

I think its become fairly obvious at this juncture that I am suggesting that the way we treat books is the same way we treat people. Our attitudes often extend to all parts of our lives and what is the prevalent attitude of people on the internet?  Blogs and Vlogs both seem to commonly be dedicated to pointing out why things suck, comments sections are notorious for being abusive, angry places dedicated to trashing whatever is being commented on, and facebook conversations devolve into ad homonyms incredibly quickly. I think that we look at people as walking merchandise that we are dying to review and give that dreaded one star to. I'm not saying everyone on the internet is angry and mean but I do think it has become a culture that views judgement and superiority as the chief virtues and compassion and understanding as outdated sentiments. I am sure that the people who act this way are probably a minority and that they themselves may have many positive qualities that just do not become apparent in this medium, but I am concerned about a world where we get so angry over media that we don't like. I am also concerned about how we treat those who disagree with us. Chiefly, I am concerned that we will be willing to view people as wretched simply because we didn't like one aspect of them.