I haven't written in a really long time. Apparently my mind doesn't function the way it used to. Or maybe most of my patience is used up in child-rearing and I have little left over for writing. I won't speak for anyone else but raising a child has certainly knocked the wind out of me. Or maybe raising MY SON is just a tad difficult than usual. Or maybe I'm just special.
So much swirls in my mind, so much I feel so strongly about, but when it comes to putting it to paper (or an online blog) it all comes out a mess. I can't organize my thoughts. It takes too long to make it look pretty for anyone else to read... or for myself to read for that matter. I have 11 "random Thoughts" sitting still in draft form. Often, I run out of time and what i began to write about isn't relevant any more.
When you raise a child you begin to look at the world very differently. Wonder and amazement go up a few notches, but so does fear. I've often thought about what I want my son to believe about life and the world we live in. I have found over the past couple of years I have become increasingly disheartened. The world has become a darker place than before but more than that, I have had to give up on my daydream world as I seek to prepare my son for the path he will walk ahead. I don't want him prancing around in a plush make-believe world and then fall hard to the ground when reality strikes. He doesn't live in the same world I did when I was little. I can't provide him the luxury of spinning protective cotton-candy wall around him, because reality is already hounding him. And my poor baby is barely 4.
I have given up on fairytales. I still believe in love, and I believe it can last forever, but I know that sooner or later loved ones will inevitably say or do something to hurt one another. I have found love to be more of a tragedy than a fairytale. Despite all we do for love, some will still walk away, and despite how many times they walk away, some of us will incorrigibly, incessantly and profoundly love them. Love raises the worst of the masochists and worst of the villains.
Trust... oh the sham of it! I wish the word didn't exist and we'd all live life with a lot less pain.
The world doesn't want to help, it wants to watch a spectacle. Is there a wonder reality shows are doing so well? No one has your best interest at heart... or anyone else's for that matter. Maybe your parents, but I think the newer generation of parents are increasingly self-absorbed and seek to feed there own interests and they might do so at the expense of their children. Doctors, scientists and psychologists us us as science experiments. They use us to observe the implications of their products and theories and to possibly draw up newer ones. It isn't about helping humanity any more. This isn't about improving the quality of life. It is about the art of science itself. It is how religion becomes more about the rituals than faith itself. The world has lost sight of its goal and gotten lost in the woodworks. Sort of like Wall-E. So mechanical and lost... The whole world has gone autisitic.
Ironic. April is autism awareness month. Talk shows, celebrities, magazines debate over possible causes but few consider the real problem... no one wants to help. Parents, caregivers, teachers, doctors, psychologists are more than ready to give or accept a label, but rather than looking for solutions, they mark it like a death sentence. 1 in 150 children are currently diagnosed with Autism spectrum disorders (ASD). And no one thinks maybe we're expecting too much of kids... maybe we need to let them grow on their own and nurture their strengths so they become healthy successful human beings. why are these kids diagnosed and then tossed aside as if there's nothing that can be done about them? Maybe because the world as a whole has become so self-absorbed, so indifferent to emotion and feeling, so obsessively indulgent and fascinated with science and observation - like the autistic child who plays for hours watching the wheels of his toy car spin round and around, and with categorizing, like the same child lining up his toys in neat straight lines - to really care.
Look around you. If the collective communties of the world were observed as an individual entity, you'd see all the signs of ASD pervasive and prevalent throughout. And this world seeks to outcast these beautiful minds without giving them a chance. Without giving them hope.
I don't know what to teach my son for I don't know what to think myself. I was always a dreamer and a believer. I am lost now. Perhaps that's why I can barely write any more.
I am lost, and my son is depending on me to lead him through this. In my heart of hearts, I am hoping that his spirit, his will, his obstinacy and determination, and his evolving imagination will draw a path for me to follow and take us out of this fog.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
More of Felicity...
In order to add some flair to the Newsletter I make for the Spouse's Association of my husband's organization, I would sometimes have Felicity introduce my editorial notes on the first page and lead readers into what I hoped would be a pleasant reading experience. Below, find those glimpses of Felicity's world that appeared in the respective issues:
Spring (April-June) '05
"Sunlight peaked through dew-smitten branches of newborn leaves to plant a warm kiss on her cheek. A playful breeze tickled the wind chime above her and as Felicity brought herself to wakefulness, her lips took on a smile. The song of spring had come to melt her inhibitions and help her soar…"
Fall (October-December) '06
"The summer sun began its final descent towards the horizon, its gleaming sunrays leaving warm kisses as they slipped over the meadows and the tree tops. The leaves leapt to grasp that last bit of golden sunlight, turning shades of rust and copper. As the breeze sang its quiet goodbye and the stream let go of its gold shimmer, the sun gradually disappeared behind the purple hills, leaving the sky a canvas of pinks and reds.
She looked down to find one of her fallen beads with the reds, gold and rusts swirling within.
Just like that, she thought, autumn had come."
Winter (January-March) '07 - My last issue
"A gust of wind caught Felicity’s hair and sent her thick locks flying in all directions. It sent a rush of excitement through her and out poured a nice helping of brightly colored beads, some twirling on her hair tips before bouncing onto the grass below where they proceeded to roll around for a while. She stood there, at the edge of the forest, ready to step to the other side. Just then she heard the faint but familiar tinkle of a wind chime in the distance, and one of her squishy beads, swollen with emotion and memories crept down the side of her cheek. She took a deep breath, blew a kiss behind her and raced on to her new tomorrow. "
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Daydream
For a moment she stood there mesmerized by it's translucent rainbow of colors; the way they danced as she rolled it around in her palm, taking one shape, then slipping into another.
The world is so pretty in there, she thought.
She would see him through these lucid rainbows, she recalled. He would hold her hand so gently as he led her through the thickness of the forest, being ever so careful with her dreams in the little pouch he clutched in his hand, making sure not to spill them as they climbed over hills or climbed down a tree. The warm words he whispered swaddled her against the harsh breeze. All fear abandoned her and she walked, sometimes with her eyes closed, her vulnerability manifest...
And sometimes she would believe it all to be true.
The world is so pretty in there, she thought.
She would see him through these lucid rainbows, she recalled. He would hold her hand so gently as he led her through the thickness of the forest, being ever so careful with her dreams in the little pouch he clutched in his hand, making sure not to spill them as they climbed over hills or climbed down a tree. The warm words he whispered swaddled her against the harsh breeze. All fear abandoned her and she walked, sometimes with her eyes closed, her vulnerability manifest...
And sometimes she would believe it all to be true.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Lessons in Democracy, Part I: The Cartoon Controversy
WHEN DEMOCRACY GOES TOO FAR...
Someone managed to forward the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed (sw) to me and I thought, you know, if this had meant to depict their version of the average Muslim instead of the Prophet (SW) himself, the world would be a more peaceful place and some of those cartoons may actually have been quite funny. There's one where a stream of suicide bombers are walking up a cloud into heaven where a man bearing a turban and a beard yells "Stop! Stop! We've run out of virgins!" I thought that was pretty funny, except for the part that the man on top of the cloud is meant to be the Prophet Muhammed (SW). I laugh because I wonder if some of those who persist in their violent "jihad" and vow to die for the cause would want to continue if the lure of the 70 virgins was non existent. I laugh because I understand the absurdity of allegedly fighting for a religious cause not because they comprehend the resulting rewards and ultimate goodness of the act itself that will please God and thus lead them into a higher status in heaven with greater rewards; but because their small minds, warped by desires of the flesh, are seduced by a seemingly physically enticing reward that isn't meant to be as such and, in fact, cannot be, since we understand in religion that we will leave our bodies and thus all of it's desires behind in this world. If only Jyllands-Posten's journalists/illustrators had had the brains to respect the religious boundaries of the people they wished to freely comment on, they might have had better luck getting their perspective across. I'm all for democratic freedom, but there has to be a limit to how far a person can practice this democratic freedom. We wouldn't want to allow child pornography or pedophelia even if that's what the majority wanted (and if you have any of those "barely legal" or "catholic schoolgirl" fantasy-peddeling sites/magazines to go by, I'd say there probably is quite a silent majority out there for it), just as we wouldn't want to allow people to freely damage property during a protest. There is a point where freedom turns to anarchy. Civillization exists on rules, limitations, norms and regulations. If we can expect people to respect the boundaries of cultural norms, asking them to consider the religious limits of a group isn't too much.
... THEN GOES EVEN FURTHER
So here I am shaking my head at the idiots burning down the Danish and Norwegian embassies just about everywhere... and killing a few of their own, boycotting danish products without thinking of the innocent shopkeepers who are of their own who will suffer losses on products they can't sell or return, or the muslim workers who earn an honest living working in the danish factories, because, as our driver put it, "For the greater cause some people must be sacrificed."
So let me get this straight, a cartoon illustration of the Prophet Muhammed (SW) is an insult to him and our religion (Islam is interpretted to forbid any visual illustration of the Prophet Muhammed (sw) for fear they could lead to idolatory, although you can find numerous portrayals of the Prophet (SW) in medieval Afghan, Uzbek, Ottoman and especially Islamic Persian Art), but these violent acts of destruction and killing are not? Rather than try to purge the image that the Danes have illustrated, raging mad Muslims all over the world indulging in violent protests are doing a better job than the cartoons themselves of fuelling the negative perception that most non-muslims have of Islam, giving them all the reasons to defend their illustratios as a true depiction of the religion. Well done! Do they not realize that while they blame the Danes and other Europeans of going too far with freedom and democracy, they themselves have plunged right past the boundaries of freedom into the chaos of anarchy, and do they even see that they protest under the same umbrella of democratic freedom (even though most live in countries where personal freedom is a myth) that the Danes published their cartoons under? Most of all, how can they expect those who do not understand Islam to respect it or their Prophet when those who proclaim to be it's representatives can't respect their own religion or Prophet enough to realize the limits of protesting?
LESSON 1: Democracy and it's freedom comes with the burden of appreciating the dangers that lie at it's extremities. Without that burden, it is no more than politically endorsed anarchy.
Someone managed to forward the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed (sw) to me and I thought, you know, if this had meant to depict their version of the average Muslim instead of the Prophet (SW) himself, the world would be a more peaceful place and some of those cartoons may actually have been quite funny. There's one where a stream of suicide bombers are walking up a cloud into heaven where a man bearing a turban and a beard yells "Stop! Stop! We've run out of virgins!" I thought that was pretty funny, except for the part that the man on top of the cloud is meant to be the Prophet Muhammed (SW). I laugh because I wonder if some of those who persist in their violent "jihad" and vow to die for the cause would want to continue if the lure of the 70 virgins was non existent. I laugh because I understand the absurdity of allegedly fighting for a religious cause not because they comprehend the resulting rewards and ultimate goodness of the act itself that will please God and thus lead them into a higher status in heaven with greater rewards; but because their small minds, warped by desires of the flesh, are seduced by a seemingly physically enticing reward that isn't meant to be as such and, in fact, cannot be, since we understand in religion that we will leave our bodies and thus all of it's desires behind in this world. If only Jyllands-Posten's journalists/illustrators had had the brains to respect the religious boundaries of the people they wished to freely comment on, they might have had better luck getting their perspective across. I'm all for democratic freedom, but there has to be a limit to how far a person can practice this democratic freedom. We wouldn't want to allow child pornography or pedophelia even if that's what the majority wanted (and if you have any of those "barely legal" or "catholic schoolgirl" fantasy-peddeling sites/magazines to go by, I'd say there probably is quite a silent majority out there for it), just as we wouldn't want to allow people to freely damage property during a protest. There is a point where freedom turns to anarchy. Civillization exists on rules, limitations, norms and regulations. If we can expect people to respect the boundaries of cultural norms, asking them to consider the religious limits of a group isn't too much.
... THEN GOES EVEN FURTHER
So here I am shaking my head at the idiots burning down the Danish and Norwegian embassies just about everywhere... and killing a few of their own, boycotting danish products without thinking of the innocent shopkeepers who are of their own who will suffer losses on products they can't sell or return, or the muslim workers who earn an honest living working in the danish factories, because, as our driver put it, "For the greater cause some people must be sacrificed."
So let me get this straight, a cartoon illustration of the Prophet Muhammed (SW) is an insult to him and our religion (Islam is interpretted to forbid any visual illustration of the Prophet Muhammed (sw) for fear they could lead to idolatory, although you can find numerous portrayals of the Prophet (SW) in medieval Afghan, Uzbek, Ottoman and especially Islamic Persian Art), but these violent acts of destruction and killing are not? Rather than try to purge the image that the Danes have illustrated, raging mad Muslims all over the world indulging in violent protests are doing a better job than the cartoons themselves of fuelling the negative perception that most non-muslims have of Islam, giving them all the reasons to defend their illustratios as a true depiction of the religion. Well done! Do they not realize that while they blame the Danes and other Europeans of going too far with freedom and democracy, they themselves have plunged right past the boundaries of freedom into the chaos of anarchy, and do they even see that they protest under the same umbrella of democratic freedom (even though most live in countries where personal freedom is a myth) that the Danes published their cartoons under? Most of all, how can they expect those who do not understand Islam to respect it or their Prophet when those who proclaim to be it's representatives can't respect their own religion or Prophet enough to realize the limits of protesting?
LESSON 1: Democracy and it's freedom comes with the burden of appreciating the dangers that lie at it's extremities. Without that burden, it is no more than politically endorsed anarchy.
Monday, January 16, 2006
An excuse for a very long absence...
Wow, it's 2006 already!
It's been slightly over a year since my last entry. In my defense, I do have at least three entries waiting in the drafts room awaiting a conclusion. Things got so hectic last year that by the time I would return to complete my thoughts, I felt they weren't relavent any more. By summer I was busy becoming a Mommy to a wonderful baby boy and lately I'm running around trying to keep him from putting those beads that fall off of my head into his mouth! That's quite a task considering that thoughts of him consume most of my time.
I have been trying very hard not to become one of those ladies that just go on and on and on about their kids oblivious to anything else in the world. But I think I still come off giving the impression that I really have nothing else but baby to talk about, which is not true but I just don't have the time to write about much else. The few drool covered beads I'm able to salvage from the mouth of my little one go towards a quarterly newsletter that I put together for the Spouses Association for my husband's company. It's one of the few things that keeps me believing that having a child hasn't turned me into a dumb mommy whose vocabulary and thoughts have been reduced to baby babble.
One of my new year's resolution is to return to the blogging world and contribute further to the ocean of opinions already floating around on the web. It may mean nothing to anyone else. This was after all just meant to be a venting vualve for me to keep my mind jogging and my opinions flowing. My thoughts may not make a difference to anyone else, but to put them out there will enable me to disect, challenge, grow and strengthen my own values and beliefs... beliefs that I will pass on to my son. That's a good enough reason for me to come back.
It's been slightly over a year since my last entry. In my defense, I do have at least three entries waiting in the drafts room awaiting a conclusion. Things got so hectic last year that by the time I would return to complete my thoughts, I felt they weren't relavent any more. By summer I was busy becoming a Mommy to a wonderful baby boy and lately I'm running around trying to keep him from putting those beads that fall off of my head into his mouth! That's quite a task considering that thoughts of him consume most of my time.
I have been trying very hard not to become one of those ladies that just go on and on and on about their kids oblivious to anything else in the world. But I think I still come off giving the impression that I really have nothing else but baby to talk about, which is not true but I just don't have the time to write about much else. The few drool covered beads I'm able to salvage from the mouth of my little one go towards a quarterly newsletter that I put together for the Spouses Association for my husband's company. It's one of the few things that keeps me believing that having a child hasn't turned me into a dumb mommy whose vocabulary and thoughts have been reduced to baby babble.
One of my new year's resolution is to return to the blogging world and contribute further to the ocean of opinions already floating around on the web. It may mean nothing to anyone else. This was after all just meant to be a venting vualve for me to keep my mind jogging and my opinions flowing. My thoughts may not make a difference to anyone else, but to put them out there will enable me to disect, challenge, grow and strengthen my own values and beliefs... beliefs that I will pass on to my son. That's a good enough reason for me to come back.
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