I think we often forget...

I think we often forget...

What rage we felt that day! We were not strangers, but brothers! Five minutes earlier the man walking next to you was unfamiliar, now, you are comrades.
The smoke was billowing, people were crying. Was it an accident? Was it an error? Was it even reality? Surely not. But then the second plane hit and every eye that saw it knew....this was deliberate. What sort of person could justify this unholy slaughter!?
People were running, rumors flew, and tempers flared. Through the smoke there was a sickening screech and a rumble that shook the sea. People screamed and watched in horror as the first tower fell. It was as if the earth swallowed the monster in one gulp. White dust covered every surface, and debris floated through the air. It was serene in a sickening sort of way.
There was a united sinking of hearts as those standing in the streets imagined all of the people trapped inside the buildings; injured, dying, or dead already.
"We should kill them! The people who did this, we should bomb them!" cried one man as disbelief turned to horror and rage.
The whole country watched as the second tower fell, and the whole country shook with fear. Was this the beginning of something much worse? Was the entire world under attack? Who was targeting the United States?
Above all, at that moment, every man, woman, and child in the United States of America were....UNITED.
We stood as one reckoning force, crying out in rage against this attack on our homeland. We bled with our brothers and sisters trapped in the rubble, and we supported the injured and weak. We put our differences aside, and stood up.....as AMERICANS!!

I think we often forget how that day felt to us.
Sometimes I listen to the debates I hear around me about the trending issues, and I wonder, is this really the most important thing? Pro life versus pro choice, who cares? How about pro mutual respect and support instead? Republican versus Democrats? Why do we have to fight over labels? Republicans and Democrats died side by side on September 11! I guarantee they weren't arguing over the correct method of regulating healthcare when the building collapsed under their feet.
I'm not saying these things aren't important. I'm just saying that I think we get caught up in the logistics so much, that we can't remember what really matters, running America for the American people!

We should be brothers and Americans first, and then the rest will come more naturally.

Sometimes I think we should sit all the politicians down before a big decision, and play ground zero footage from September 11 just for a little perspective. I believe the greatest shame would be for us to forget that day and what it meant to us.

Changes

Hey fellow bloggers and meager followers. I've made a recent change to my blog. If you'll notice, to the righthand side of the page (from a laptop or desktop web browser) there used to be a disclaimer informing you that all of the pictures on my blog are my property, do not steal, I have the copyright, yadda yadda.

But to be honest, this self imposed policy has been hampering the original reason I made the blog, for self-expression. Yes, I would very much like for people not to copy photos I've taken and use them as their own, that's rude. But let's be honest, google's little spiders run all over the Internet collecting whatever photos they want to. If I take a photo off of google's photos tab, there's no way I can be sure that the photo isn't copyrighted. It may have been used dozens of times all over the Internet.

The thoughts and ideas and words I write are the real reason I've made this blog, not to showcase my photography or to create a utopia where only things I've created exist.

So in conclusion, this policy is gone. I will be writing for self-expression, and I'll use whatever photos i want to use. I guess, the best way to express my new train of thought is this, if you don't want me to intentionally or accidentally plagiarize your photography, don't put it on the Internet in a way which makes it susceptible to right-clicking.

Homeless

I saw him a few weeks ago. He was standing in the median, holding a sign. His sign was fairly typical. Homeless, traveling, broke, hungry, family to support, etc. I didn't see his clothing too well, I was driving past fairly quickly. I did see his eyes though.
As I was driving past, he was walking across the on-ramp, back to a woman sitting on the other side. She too, was wearing tattered clothes, and she looked tired. For a split second, I glimpsed his face, crystal clear in my eyesight. There were tears in his eyes, pain in his dejected face. He wiped away a tear, dropped his gaze, and then he was gone. The light had turned green, and he became lost in my rear view mirror.

I couldn't get his face out of my head for the rest of the day. I've always been taught to be leery of people with signs. These roadside beggars have been classified as "alcoholics", "lazy", or "dangerous". But what about the people who really are down on their luck?

More than likely the reason that dejected face struck me so acutely is because....I've been there. Not begging on the side of the road, I have too much pride for that, but I've been down on my luck before. I've slept on the couch of someone who didn't want me there. I've looked for work in a town where there were no jobs. I've spent long days in libraries and Starbucks coffee shops. I've walked the sidewalk of a busy street with nowhere to go and no way to get there. I know how it feels.

And maybe that acute experience with failure is what made that face stick in my brain like a poisoned hook. It was a cold chill of the past, a bitter reminder of a time when life was cold, bleak, and heartless.

Today I drove through that same intersection, and although the face had changed, the story was the same. This time it was a young couple. They held signs, him standing, and she, sitting at his feet.
Thoughts raced around my head. What if they're just getting easy money? What if they aren't really down on their luck? What if they aren't really hungry, homeless, traveling, unemployed, or raising a family?
But this time, I reached into my pocket, pulled out that bill I was saving for a rainy day, and held it out with a smile.

Who cares what their reasons are? Sure, I can't verify their story or their intentions. All I know is that there was a time when I needed help, and a hand reached out the preverbal window for me. I had nothing, nowhere to go, nothing to cling to, and I can never describe how grateful I was for that assistance. Don't they deserve for someone to take that risk for them?

I do not own rights for this photo

Stereotypes: My Nemises

I'm extremely annoyed. Now, I don't usually begin posts this way so I'll explain.
There is something I covet in this world more than money or success or love of life itself. I jealously watch others who are lucky enough to have it and I boil inside. Occasionally I feel like I could actually leap out and grab it, but something always jerks me back and slaps my wrist.
This thing, that I covet so much is......short hair. I'm not talking about a pageboy-cute-pixie-girl haircut, I'm talking about a straight-up, hair generally about four inches long, extremely short boy-cut.

I really and truly hate having long hair. Occasionally I look in the mirror and like the long blond locks, but generally, I detest caring for long hair. I hate blow-drying it after showers, I hate fixing it so it looks like I enjoy having it, I hate dealing with it when it's humid and my hair decides to freak out like I rubbed a balloon over it and then I tried to curl it while simultaneously juggling chain saws. I HATE HAVING LONG HAIR!

However, even though I hate long hair more than I hate clowns, society says I need it. In our day-and-age short hair is allowed for boys, lesbians, and extremely feminine women. If you don't fall into one of these categories, it's not okay. I know this from experience, see in high-school, I was attempting to solve my abhorrence of long hair with an "inbetweener" cut.

That's me, on the left, in highschool. An inbetweener cut is long enough to classify as semi-pixi-cut, yet short enough so I didn't actually have to deal with long hair. As a general rule, I was a social outcast in highschool. Now I'm not blaming this completely on the hair, after all, I matured much more slowly than I'd like to admit, however, I do believe the hair contributed.
Once I started college, grew my hair out, (and matured....a lot) I have worked my way up the social ladder. Nowdays, when I actually take the time to fix my hair, (which is about 2% of the time, the rest of the time it's either straightened or pony-tailed) I get tons of compliments. I have even expressed my lust for a boy-cut to a few of my closer friends, and they are skeptical that I would be able to "pull it off".

See, the problem is that I don't fit into any of the three acceptable boy-cut categories.

1) Boy

Clearly, this is the most obvious way to qualify for short hair......actually being a boy. And obviously I do not fit into this category. 

2) Lesbian

This is another category of people that are allowed to have extremely short haircuts. I, like any teen growing up in the 2000's had to, at one time or another, decide where I stood along the gay/not gay line. I never had any lesbian doubts to begin with, so I also do not qualify for this category of short-hair.

3) Extremely "Feminine/Attractive" or "Famous" Female

Short hair on straight women becomes socially acceptable when:

a) the woman is excessively feminine. As long as the woman is feminine enough (clothes, jewelry, makeup, a boyfriend never hurts) the short hair is considered an accessory and doesn't drag her towards the ambiguous "I can't tell if she's gay or not" line. 

b) The woman is extremely attractive. I'm talking about the kind of attractive that stands out in a crowd and causes car accidents. If a girl is that attractive, it doesn't matter what she does or how she wears her hair, it just ceases to matter. 

c) The woman is famous. Let's face it, celebrities get a free pass. If you're a movie star or singer ect, you can do anything you want to do because society already loves you.  

What a nightmare!!! Social stereotypes are worse than politics! In summary, I'm not a boy, I'm not a lesbian, and I'm not famous, excessively feminine, or extremely attractive. I'm not saying that I'm ugly, I'm just saying that I'm no Kiera Knightly! 

It's awful! I can not successfully pull off a boy-cut without repercussions! If, at some point, I decide that I don't care what people think and I go ahead and rid myself of my labor-intensive locks, I will be stepping into a dangerous area. This area is called, I am cool/original or self-confident enough to defy social conventions altogether! And honestly, I'm not sure if I have that kind of courage.

Someday, my friends, I hope that we can get past these social conventions far enough for people like me, who hate petty guidelines, to live happy, successful, fulfilled lives without sacrificing hair-happiness to get it.

UPDATE:

After linking this page to my Facebook wall I received a large number of comments and emails from friends who felt the same way I did, or who recommended I go ahead with cutting my hair. Because of this, on September 20 I cut my hair. I have also added a new category of woman to the list of women who can "pull off" short hair: 

Author

Feminist: A women who believes in equal rights for men and women, and finds predominately male-established social rules regarding women to be confining and arbitrary.

The Conductor

He stands up slowly. The spotlight dwarfs him, making him a solitary silhouette in a world of darkness. Each bow is frozen in the air, poised above the strings. The spotlight softens and widens, revealing the pit of musicians. Violins, violas, and cellos helplessly lie at the mercy of the hands that hold them. They thirst for guidance. They long for gentle love to coax a melody, sweet and pure, out of their willing souls. The potential for beauty reverberates sharply around the massive room like an electrical shock. Suspense is thick, blinking away sweat and fear, the musicians wait for their cue.

Once again the silhouette commands attention. Time slows to a crawl. The spotlight forces the lone figure to trust that his music will appear in the air, in the darkness. He is alone in the great hall. Caging him into the solitary scene, the spotlight beats him into submission. Running down his back, he feels a single bead of sweat defying his strict orders of courage. Yet, even with his feelings of impending doom, the master of the melody raises his hands with an ease that comes with repetition. The great event is mere seconds away. One………….Two…………….Three……………Four; the hands gain courage with each beat.

The deafening first note raises the hair on the back of every neck. Like a jet passing through the barrier of sound, the colossal sonic boom seems to echo through the hall even after it has been chased away by the next measure. The violins harmonize with perfect pitch. Each violin appears to be playing itself. Musicians have faded away; the instruments take over and form a dictatorship. No pitch unless it is perfect pitch, no note unless it is the perfect note. The sorrow of each chime is humiliating and humbling. Like sweet honey, the violins pick up the melody effortlessly. Swelling and fading, swelling and fading, the violins waltz this dance to the death.

The violas take control of the undertones. The violins may be dominating the tsunami, but the violas kill the survivors in the rip tide. Swift and deadly, the violas grasp the hearts of the audience and torture them into falling in love. Rosin wafts through the air at each abrupt collision of string and bow. The staccato is hypnotizing. Clashes of blue and yellow explode against the black horizon. Melting into one, the violins bow to the violas, enticing them to join the fatal waltz. Each note is unique, a moment in time caged and presented like a bouquet. Each stanza bursts into the present, and then fades quickly into the past without a second chance at perfection. Antagonizing each other in this melodious tug-of-war, the violins and violas support this frail balance called music. 

The cellos suddenly swoop into the fiasco like a powerful explosion. Flirting with the melody, the cellos sway in and out of the way, laying the foundation with pride and bold strength. Accepting the role with grandeur, the cellos pick up the evolving sculpture and mold it into the spherical reflection of beauty it was always fated to become. The low current of the cellos moves effortlessly among the light pattering sunbeams that the violins are scattering throughout the great room.

All of this the silhouette anticipates and prepares. He stands, introverted by the massive floodlight, preparing each trill, catching each note. Caught up in his enjoyment, he not only hears, but he lives the music. No longer is he singled out in the auditorium. Instead, the entire world is engulfed into his light, and his dream. He moves with the music. Directing with enthusiasm, he gives the cellos their courage, the violas their majesty, and the violins their energy. He whispers loving words into the darkness. He swells with the crescendos, he floats with the pianissimos, and he antagonizes the fortissimos. This lone figure, he is one with the beauty.

As the last note fades into silence, there is nothing but empty air. The standing ovation is overdue, but it does not appear. His eyes open slowly; a single tear rolls down his cheek and hits the stage with a resounding crash. The music is over, the finale has been dealt.

They watch him from the door.

“A madman,” they mutter, “a raving lunatic.” The nurses shake their heads as they pass his room. Medication is the answer, some of them hypothesize. The doctors discuss solemnly, “If we just get the right combination of drugs, maybe we can pull him out of his crazy fantasy world and back into reality.” One by one they wander away. As they leave, the ragged conductor sinks down onto the floor. He feels the cold concrete underneath him, and he sighs. The lights start to go out one by one, it’s time for bed. As the last light flickers and fades away, a small voice breaks the silence. Quietly, with only the darkness as his witness, “I’m not crazy, I’m the only one who’s alive……I’m the only one.”

Realist versus Pessimist

I've always strongly associated myself with the title of "realist".
Clinging to the strong, sensible sound it portrays, I've mentioned time and time again that I am, have always been, and will always be, a realist.
I often say, "I see the good in good situations, and I see the bad in bad situations. I don't sugar coat things and I don't blacken the good things in life. I'm right in the center, seeing things exactly the way they are."

However, while I've been saying I'm a realist, I've also been saying that I am a cynic and a philosopher at heart. Both of these things are realities that I can not deny.
Recently I've been wondering, can I truly be a cynic and a realist at the same time? These things seem contradictory.
As I've been examining this more closely, I've come to the conclusion that, even though I don't like the way it sounds, I am more closely associated with pessimistic qualities than those of a realist.
I guess I'm a realist who leans towards pessimism. I see the good things in life, but I don't trust their validity and I don't expect them to last. When I'm enjoying the pleasant things in life, there's a little part of me that I have to ignore.
I guess this pessimistic tendency of mine is something often seen in people who have to deal with depression as I do.
My acquired ability to ignore my pessimistic feelings is a very positive skill.
If I were to listen to my cynical/pessimistic side all the time I would never be able to enjoy positive things.
These pessimistic shades through which I view the world have been a permanent part of my life for as long as I can remember. It's easy to see how a person who is constantly ignoring the silver lining and expecting tornados could develop a sense of despair or hopelessness.

My cynical side looks at love and sees future heartbreak, it looks at my health and vigor and dreads old age, it looks at my successes and weighs them against my failures constantly. My pessimistic side looks at friendship and sees only that everyone leaves. It looks at the joy of owning pets at whispers how foolish it is to love an animal who only lives for a decade or so.

These are the whispers of anger, fear, and despair that I hear every day.
However, as I've grown older, my pessimism has quieted into the background. I've learned objectivity, and fostered a sense of perspective that has smoothed my once rocky terrain of emotions into a horizon of hills and occasional boulders.

I'm sure many a psychiatrist would read this blog entry and comment dryly about the wonders of modern medicine. "Just look at how the vast world of anti-depressants has benefited this once-troubled child and turned her into a level headed young adult!"
Perhaps the wonders of modern medicine did have a part in my emotional development, but I believe there is a lot to be said for self-searching. Meditating on the realities of life, learning how and why you react the way you do, and above all else, embracing your personality, learning how to live with your flaws, and giving yourself the benefit of forgiving and forgetting your own mistakes.

I guess in the long run I inherited some of my pessimism, but I also found a lot of wisdom along the way.

Colorful World

Red, orange, green, pink, blue, purple, yellow, our world is full of vibrant colors. They exist everywhere, brightening our lives in ways we often take for granted.
I've been pondering colors lately.
In their most basic form, colors are a result of the visible light color spectrum. Light hits an object, and various wavelengths of light are absorbed and reflected resulting in the color we perceive.

Color is, therefore, a perception. This conclusion poses a few interesting questions. If color is the product of wavelengths of light, does color even exist in the dark?
Some would argue that the color of a lemon exists even in the dark because darkness is temporary. Every time there is darkness, light is close behind. I disagree. Night is a period of time just like day, one could argue that light is temporary.

In the dark, colors are not perceived. If I stand in the middle of my yard in the dark and I pick up a piece of grass, it doesn't matter how strongly my logic tells me that grass is green, I will not be able to perceive that color unless I take it into some form of light.
Because of this, physics tells us that in the dark, grass is both colorless and every color at the same time.
Without light to help us perceive the color of grass, the color does not exist. Then I have to ask myself, if color is a perception that can be perceived at one moment, then be non-existent the next, is color real?

If I have a five dollar bill that appears and disappears when in different atmospheres, I would be skeptical about its solidity, its existence even.

Not only is color a perception, but it also is the product of the anatomical and physiological makeup of our eyes and brain. Adding further to the shaky existence of color, some people are colorblind. Something about the makeup or function of their eyes causes them to not perceive certain colors. If I look at a green leaf and someone else looks at it and sees no color, does the color exist or not exist?
Also, we have a very limited understanding of how animals see colors. Perhaps a yellow lemon is not a yellow lemon to them. Perhaps to some specific animal, lemons are blue. Who am I to argue that my perception is more accurate or more correct than another person or animal's perception?If three different beings perceive a lemon in three completely different ways, can I really argue to the reality and validity of my perception. Can I claim that color exists and is concrete if it can vary in such extreme ways. After all, each person/animal's perception of a lemon's color is just as valid and accurate as the other person or animal.

Whatever the reality of color happens to be, when I look outside on a gorgeous fall day and I see the colorful leaves, the fresh blue sky, the fluffy white clouds, the flutter and song of a bird passing by, I smile. Accident or purposeful creation, real or non-existent, color is a blessing I take for granted every day.