Look closer, part 4 – Not being a thing means not being a symbol

I’ve done a very bad thing. The worst thing is, it’s one of those bad things that is very hard to describe and sounds silly and trivial when I describe it, but it is really bad. Even though I think/hope that my victim may not have noticed, or may not have realised how bad/silly my motives were (should I tell her? She has a right to know the truth, to be apologised to, to have me attempt to make it up to her. On the other hand, ignorance is bliss and telling her might just give her a huge pile of stress and not actually help her. )

I wanted someone to like me. I wanted someone to approve of me. I wanted someone to say I’m cool, I’m right, I’m interesting, I’m good, I’m decent, I’m on the side of the angels. I wanted someone to trust me and to say to other people “You can trust sanabituranima. She’s ok.”

None of that would have been bad if I’d wanted it for the right reasons. But I wanted it because this person liking me would be a gate for me. Because if this person called me a friend, then I would win trust from others. So I was using this person. As a gate. As a thing.

I could write five hundred pages of mealy-mouthed reasons why it wasn’tr really my fault that I used this person as a gate to being liked instead of looking for real reciprocity, but the fact is it is not ok. It was my own decision to use this person as a thing. No ifs, no buts, no greys, no excuses. That quote again (everyone must be SO sick of it by now!)

“There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

So I fawned over this person in the way a 12-year-old fawns over a teacher they have a crush on.

But that wasn’t the wrost thing.

The worst thing was that I used this person, not just as a gate, but as a “proof” of my own “goodness”. (A better way to prove one’s own goodness is to not use people.) Specifically, that if this person liked me, it would be “proof” that I wasn’t racist. (Using a person of colour as a symbol, an object to “prove” stuff and make me feel good about myself is a super-racist thing to do as well as a general not-very-nice thing to do.)

And you know what? You know who else I screwed over? Me. Not that I’m the important person here – the victim is always the important person when someone has been cruel. But this person is an awesome person and I just missed out on that because I was so busy seeing her as a gate and as a little gold sticker on my “Nice White Person Who isn’t Racist” sticker chart. So I used someone and I didn’t even get anything out of it. Not that it would have been justified if I had got something out of it, but sins which aren’t even enjoyable are the silliest sins ever.

So, yeah. I’m sorry, and sorry means I won’t do that again.

Look closely at your motives. I intend to, from now on.

Kyrie eleison.

Explanation

This explains it so much better than the DSM IV:

Depression for me is an absence – an all-consuming, gaping hole, the powerfully physical presence of permanent nothing. Depression is insatiable emptiness. Depression is not.

The symptoms of depression are much easier to describe than the nature of depression itself, and so are sometimes mistaken for it. The exhaustion, the effort involved in the smallest task, the inability to concentrate, the constant thoughts of suicide – these are symptoms of a greater something (nothing) that cannot be expressed. Which isn’t to say such symptoms don’t need addressing; addressing them may be all one can do.

Look closer, part 3 -I don’t know

I do NOT know what it’s like to work 14-hour days in the feilds as a child(or at all).

I do NOT know what it’s like to be instituationalised against my will.

I do NOT know what it’s like to have lived my entire life in hospital.

Guess what? It’s not my job to guess what it’s like.

And it’s certainly not my job to pretend I know what it’s like.

And it’s certaily not ANYBODY’S job to decide that they know what it’s like, based on cursory knowledge, and they can tell other people’s stories for them instead of letting them tell their own stories.

And most of all, it is nobody’s job to make decisions on the value of other people’s freedom and lives based on guesses.

But still people keep on guessing.

I still keep on guessing.

People guess that poor brown children do not dream.

People guessed that Barry Baker’s life wasn’t worth saving.

People guess that some people should be denied freedom for “their own good”.

Right now, doctors and judges make guesses about whether a one-year-old boy wants to live. They get to decide the value of his life, his body.

People are not things. People have stories and lives. You cannot guess what it is to be someone else. You cannot know their pain. You cannot know their joy.

Sin is treating people as things.

Treating people as things is sin.

Have the courage to really look at people. To really listen to their stories. To be confronted by the terrifying, beautiful reality that people are people. That they aren’t things you can throw away when they need “too much” care. That they aren’t things you can use to gether your berries – or to further your film-making career.

Lord, teach me to listen.

Kyrie eleison.

How *dare* they?

From The Guardian (H/T Ruth):

A father whose son was born with a rare neuromuscular condition will go to the high court tomorrow in an attempt to stop a hospital withdrawing the support that keeps the child alive.

Doctors treating the one-year-old say the boy’s quality of life is so poor that it would not be in his best interests to save him. They are reportedly being supported in their action by the baby’s mother, who is separated from his father.

The child, known for legal reasons as Baby RB, was born with congenital myasthenic syndrome (CMS), a muscle condition that severely limits movement and the ability to breathe independently. He has been in hospital since birth.

If the hospital succeeds in its application, it will be the first time a British court has gone against the wishes of a parent and ruled that life support can be discontinued or withdrawn from a child who does not have brain damage.

Lawyers for the father say that the child’s brain is not affected by the condition, arguing that he can see, hear and feel, and recognise his parents. He is also apparently able to play with toys.

The father will try to convince the court that his son has a good quality of life by submitting video footage showing the boy engaging with his parents and playing with his toys.

How dare anybody, ever, decide that another person’s life has no value?

It’s not like this is assisted suicide. Whilst I disagree with assisted suicide, I can kinda understand saying to someone “You have decided your own life has no value, so I support your decision to end it.”

But they are deciding for this person, this child that his life has no worth.

Yes, it is a shame he has to live in hospital. Yes, he has a short life-expectancy. Yes, he can’t do stuff some other children do.

No, I have no idea what it feels like to be him.

But that’s just it – people are just assuming that this little boy cannot experience joy. They have no idea what he does or does not experience because THEY ARE NOT HIM.* And they won’t even give him the benefit of the doubt. The benefit of LIFE.

It just beggars belief. I feel physically sick.

Kyrie eleison.

*Not that the value of life is measured purely by pleasure.

Getting High

I went walking in Langdale on Saturday. It was beautiful. My legs still hurt but it was worth it.

So many anecdotes that there’s no point trying to type them all, but walking together is so bonding.

It was maybe less “worth it” for the walking group who got stuck on the mountain and had to be rescued by the emergency services, though.

Everyone was ok. That’s the main thing.

And God was there, the whole time. You can see why people talk of God on Hgh. You climb the hills, you look to the sky, and he feels so there. Even Especially when your hips scream at you and your calf muscles are melting. Even Especially when you are convinced that your fellow walkers are about to die of hypothermia.

But also when you have so much space, so much wind rushing into your lungs,so much freedom, so much beauty.

A hill, photograhed from the bottom. It is a patchwork of almost-red dead bracken and green grass. Most of the hill is in shadow, but there is sunlight just breaking over the top.

A herd of black-and-grey mottled sheep (don't know the proper breed name) running up the hill. They obviously felt camera-shy, but I was too quick for them!

A mist-shrouded valley. One of my fellow-walkers was a Geography finalist who told me how it was carved by glaciers. The more I look at the world, the more interesting it gets.

It's not just big sweeping views that are beautiful. This rock is speckled all over with moss, lichen, weathering. It's beautiful.

Glory be to the Most High!

O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
² Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
³When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
⁴what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals^* that you care for them?
⁵Yet you have made them a little lower than God,^*
and crowned them with glory and honour.
⁶You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
⁷all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
⁸the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
⁹O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Half-full. Half-empty.

I always used to be annoyed by the “glass half-full/ glass half-empty” anology. Saying a glass is half full is an implicit acknowledgement that it’s also half empty and vice-versa.

However, Ican implicitly acknowledge two things and only focus on one.

I spoke to a friend I haven’t talked to in a while just now. I told him a half-truth (which is obviously also a half-lie.)

Sanabituranima says:

I’m happy here.

Friend says:

So why the happiness? If it’s not too inane a question.

Sanabituranima says:
Because…
I actually like Classics. And people. And God.
And occassionally even myself.
Friend says:
For good?
Sanabituranima says:
I don’t know. But when I’m reading/talking to people/ praying, I don’t feel like I’m trying to prove I’m not shit.
I feel like I’m doing it because it’s worth doing.

Half the time, I do feel that way.

If I get fifty per cen in my exams, it will be a pass – a low pass, but a pass.

In fact, forty per cent is the minimum requirement for a pass.

Seventy-five per cent is a first.

I wonder how many people, even those without mental illness labels, like themselves seventy-five per cent of the time.

Firsts are pretty rare.

(I have actually done stuff worth talking about this weekend, but don’t have the energy to write it all up now.)

News on the Goldstone Report From Jewish Voices For Peace

Frankly, I’ve had enough of the lies and distortions surrounding the UN Goldstone Report. I’ve had enough of the maneuvering by Israel, the US, and other countries in order to dismiss the report and its authors and bury it altogether.

If you are as dismayed as I am, sign at SupportGoldstone.org, and we’ll let key Israeli officials, members of Congress, and Goldstone himself know how many of you support the report.

What we need, instead of the smear campaigns, is discussion of the report’s substance: the use of phosphorus that literally burned people alive (I saw the terrible impact with my own eyes on a recent trip to Gaza); or the use of metal darts called flechettes that twist when they enter the body; or the long term impacts of contaminated land and water.

Early next week the report heads to the floor of the US Congress and the UN General Assembly, and we’re expecting continued pressure to have this important document roundly dismissed.

The continued attacks on the Goldstone Report prevent accountability for the civilian victims before, during and after the attack on Gaza — both Palestinians and Israelis — and shred the rule of law.

That’s why we are asking you to say: I support the Goldstone Report. Once you sign, we’ll tell you how to easily and quickly lobby Congress and your UN Ambassador in the next few days.

 

The truth is that the Goldstone Report is a well-researched, fair-minded report. It accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the attack on Gaza, and it calls on Israel and Hamas to conduct credible, independent investigations or face the International Criminal Court.

I support the Goldstone Report.

Israel decided not to cooperate with the investigation and now claims that the report and its results are biased. Worse yet, Israel claims that the report negates its right to defend its population, when in reality, all the report does is insist that such a defense take place within the bounds of international law.

The United States and other countries are repeating the same lines, and have exerted great diplomatic pressure to kill the report.

The US Congress is getting ready to pass a resolution next week calling on President Obama to do everything he can to bury the Goldstone Report. The UN General Assembly will vote on it. Israel might launch its own investigation, if it is pressured enough to do so. And if it does, our task will be to ensure that the investigation is comprehensive, impartial, and aimed towards addressing, punishing and preventing future human rights abused – and not at changing the laws of war such that another blatant assault on civilian life and property as the Gaza war will ever become acceptable under international law.

Please join us in supporting the Goldstone Report now.

Thanks,
Cecilie Surasky
Jewish Voice for Peace

WHY?

If you want to lose faith in humanity, read the comments on any online newspaper article. TRIGGER WARNING

I am a flanimal

A glonk does absolutely nothing and dies.

A sanabituranima does absolutely nothing, blogs about it, and dies.

Don’t be a glonk. Help someone who needs it.

Feel happy. That’s an order.

Panel one - a stick figure sitting in front of the computer says to himself "I could restructructure the program's flow - or use one little 'goto'." Panel 2: Stick figure still sits at the compuiter and says to himself "How bad can it be?" and types gotomain_sub3 and waits for his code to compile. Panel 3: He sits and waits. Panel 4: A veloceraptor (sp?) eats him.

 At least two unhappy people of my acquaintance will enjoy this.

When I say “will enjoy this”, that’s not a hope, it’s an order.

I EXPRESSLY FORBID YOU TO BE SAD, OK?