Pins and needles

[SPOILER ALERT]

I watched an episode (4) of House, M.D.: Season Five today in which an adopted Chinese girl sets out in search of her birth parents, and ends up gravely ill.

In the end, it is discovered that her parents placed pins into her brain in an attempted murder, because China had a one-child policy, and the parents wanted a boy.

When her adoptive parents hear the diagnosis, they request that she not be told that her parents attempted to kill her because they didn't want her. They understand her to be emotionally fragile and fear that she may react badly, especially as she had history of alcoholism and smoking. However, the doctor explains that the pins pierce through specific areas of her brain, including her addiction centre (I'm guessing the VTA / some part of her mesolimbic system).

"She may not be as fragile as you think," the doctor says.

"We know our daughter," they respond.

He says, "It's not her fault, she's not who you think she is."

[/SPOILER ALERT]

How much of how we behave is really comprehensible to the people around us? It's so easy to look at someone who's a drug addict, or who's got problems stealing, or with violence, and to say, "I'm not like that. How can they go about ruining their life like that..." It's so easy to judge others, and delineate them as different from ourselves.

But do we really understand exactly what's going on in their lives, in their minds? How much of what they think and do is really of their own volition? If you were placed in that situation, with that brain chemistry, can you say with conviction that you would choose to not be a druggie?

In fact, when you stop and thinking about it, how much of what we think is in our conscious control? That girl had physical, metal pins in her head that affected her and caused her to behave differently than what is biologically considered to be normal. But we have pins too. Maybe they don't seem to be there in a literal sense, but our genes code for our neurocircuitry, and much of our behaviour is learnt and imprinted on us by our environments. Although it may be slippery slope to say that free will does not exist, perhaps it is a less evenly free playing field than we imagine it to be for the other person.

It seems strange to think it, but I think what Sara Crewe, a privileged heiress, says about Becky, a poor servant girl in the same boarding school, about sums it up:

"Why," she said, "we are just the same--I am only a little girl like you. It's just an accident that I am not you, and you are not me!"

- A Little Princess, Chapter 5, Frances Hodgson Burnett

It is a scary thought, perhaps. Especially when we pause to consider that we are not so very different from the people we disdain or dislike, as much as we would like to believe it. In reality, there is perhaps little besides God's grace, or "accident", that separates one person's personality or fortune from another.

But ultimately, I think these thoughts point us in quite a refreshing direction in attempting to relate to other people: understanding, respect and love. Even of the less than loveable.

Caught dancing en arabesque, first and last

Today I was talking with a friend and it got me revisiting Carla Bruni, who IMHO, has the sexiest voice ever, when she sings in French (don't even get me started on L'excessive). I've been almost reluctant to listen to her English songs for fear of ruining her impossibly sexy appeal. But I had iTunes on shuffle, and realised that the song titles, and the lyrics were oddly familiar...

Googling worked wonders to discover that...she was singing some of my favourite poets! Serendipity ftw!

At Last the Secret is Out

W.H. Auden

At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
the delicius story is ripe to tell to the intimate friend;
over the tea-cups and into the square the tongues has its desire;
still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh
there is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddently singing, high up in the convent wall,
the scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
the croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
there is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

Those Dancing Days Are Gone

W.B. Yeats

Come, let me sing into your ear;
Those dancing days are gone,
All that silk and satin gear;
Crouch upon a stone,
Wrapping that foul body up
In as foul a rag:
I carry the sun in a golden cup.
The moon in a silver bag.

Curse as you may I sing it through;
What matter if the knave
That the most could pleasure you,
The children that he gave,
Are somewhere sleeping like a top
Under a marble flag?
I carry the sun in a golden cup.
The moon in a silver bag.

I thought it out this very day.
Noon upon the clock,
A man may put pretence away
Who leans upon a stick,
May sing, and sing until he drop,
Whether to maid or hag:
I carry the sun in a golden cup,
The moon in a silver bag.

Vocal displacement

Old man in young boy.


Black woman in white woman.

  

Just another blog post

It's been so long since I wrote one of those update-people-about-your-life kind of posts that I thought I would.

So anyways, I guess if you haven't talked to me in a long time, and want to know what's going on in the life of this nose on an ever-sideways-enlarging-stick...

1. I just enrolled in my first-ever extra-faculty course, called Reading Performance. Performance studies is an exciting field of study which explores mind-bending issues like 'Is all the world really a stage?' and 'What isn't a performance?' 
2. I can now dance again!
3. But most life-changing of all (yes, even more so than my ability to dance again), my church organised a week-long camp called Mid-Year Conference.

They do this every year, but this year, since I had no excuse for not going, I ended up going. Despite my initially blasé attitude, it turned out to be meaningful for me as it helped me to sort out various life struggles and drastically change my attitudes towards life and relationships.

The first one was the issue of managing time and talents. It's quite a big question in my mind, as I always wonder if I'm making the best use of what I have, especially given the fact that I waste a lot of time. It's also an issue in the sense that for me, blind ambition was not exactly discouraged, although I was always told to keep a grip on reality. The more I go through life and think about things though, the more an existentialist crisis seems to grip me - the Ecclesiastic 'everything is meaningless' sort of mentality.

However, one of the electives I attended in the camp, about spiritual gifts, radically changed my mindset. As opposed to mystical gifts, what one might expect, the speaker emphasized that everything in our lives, from our state of marriage, to the people in our lives, to our administrative abilities - all is a gift from God. As such, we should use these gifts to glorify Him and to edify, or build up, the church, which is really just a term for the fellowship that can be shared in Christ. The speaker drove the point home for me by giving the example of someone who spends all his time honing his ability, and asked us rhetorically if it was really the best use of his time.

As someone who struggles with people interaction at times, I tend to prefer to escape into some task - be it reading a book, or watching a movie, or dancing, rather than spending time meaningfully with others. Yet what he said made sense. I am beginning to see that there are opportunities for me to be using my life to build up the church. Most of the time, all that's really required from me is time, and a willingness, rather than any special ability.

The second issue is that of relating to boys. Being an only child, and then spending most of my pubescent life in a girls' school, I had no significant interaction with the male gender until junior college (two years pre-university education). Then, I was suddenly thrown into the deep end, as I happened to land myself in a boys' school.

As a result, I decided that I could treat guys exactly in the way I treated girls. Chat late into the night, invite each other to do stuff together, and joke around. I always figured as long as I didn't lead a guy on physically, or bat my eyelashes, I could be there for my guy friends the same way I could for my girl ones.

But over the last few years, I was grappling with the fact that the relational stance I was taking was not one that always agreed with society's notions of propriety. While I had always scoffed at gaining the good opinion's of others (at least outwardly), the fact that my church seemed to take a very traditional view of gender roles, and my experiences interacting with members of its congregation, made me suspect that I could be in the wrong.

MYC got me thinking about it again in the context of fulfilling my place or role in the church - part of that role is being a woman. Reading a couple of good books also gave me some perspective. One of them helped me to see that a component of my desire to be so buddy-buddy with guys was a type of self-centered, approval-seeking behaviour - wanting to show that this girls'-school girl could be accepted by boys too.

The other book was Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control, by Elisabeth Elliot. It's a very readable book that I'd highly recommend. Basically, it's a narrative of the love story between Elisabeth and Jim Elliot, a missionary. But in the telling of it, she stops to discuss her views on various important issues in boy-girl relationships, and her clarity and godly perspective really won me over.

Mostly though, her humanity - her vulnerabilities, her doubts, her waverings - were what made the book a good one for me. I could tell that although she was a strong, godly woman, she was just like me in the humanity of her struggles, and that made me sympathetic, and more ready to accept her point of view.

It's quite hard to pinpoint exactly what she says that really changed my mind, but I think a key questions she asks is:

Is it fitting? Is it in accord with the pattern in my life that I'd like to follow? Does it harmonize with my best understanding of God's plan? What is it that brings God's men and God's women together with delicacy and grace? Do I want to walk, here as in all the areas of my life, by faith, or will I take things into my own hands?

After talking to my bible study leader about the matter, I realised that a married person's point of view is a definite vantage point in some ways. Although I cannot see myself as having the (really rather doubtful) gift of marriage, I can see how my relationships may discomfit my friends' future spouses, just as how my mother's male best friend made my own dad a bit jealous. Seen in that light, it does seem to be a kind of consideration to keep a greater distance.

Despite this though, putting thought into action remains a challenge. But as a Christian, knowing that the Holy Spirit is dwelling in me, encourages me to put to death the flesh, and fix myself on 'whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things' (Philippians 4:8).

On coping with sa-stammering

The other day a proz- s- saic^
friend mused:
I wish I could write music or poetry.
I didn't know what to say because
I'm always lost for words -
groping for them
in the greyish p- m- m-uddle
from which the right word can never be extricated
by my clumsy tongue

(instead some subpar subs-
titute stutters its way through my pharynx
unsuccessfully conveying
the glistening clarity I see/think/feel
in my head

mixing orders of
words up by the time they translate to

spoke- o- on tongue)

How do you convey the simultaneity of graphic thought
ad verbatim?
The words that delineate in a mental landscape
transmute not to linear argument.

Which is why I so admire Rhet-t-
-oric which seems to work
with the smooth efficacy of a Butler
redeeming you to his point of view.

While my words are some kind of Scarlett
lett-er -lett-ing on my stupidity instead.

Oh my silly friend
the silence of my prosaic grin
is saying only this:

If I could say in it prose,
I would not need prosody.

^Prozac is an antidepressant drug that was once widely prescribed for depression, particularly in the USA. It can also be used for the treatment of OCD, panic disorder, bulimia and PMS. In certain rare cases, it is also used for ADHD, and Asperger's.

Appearances

We're told that appearances don't matter. We shouldn't be fussed about them - that's vanity.

The thing is, all we can see of other people is their appearance. Even when you say you know someone really well, all you can really say is that you've seen their various appearances over either a long period of time or in varied circumstances, such that it gives the semblance of knowing them well.

We don't, and we can't present anything less than an appearance, to well, anyone.

Except perhaps God.

More than words

Research has suggested that between 60 and 70 percent of all meaning is derived from nonverbal behavior.

- Engleberg, Isa N., p133, 2006

Oh won't you sink with me
into the possibility
of this.

Fall into magnetic gravity
and let its nascent beauty
be defined.

Let's go slow and luxuriate
in this moment, moments, moments(!)
more -- before they evanesce.

Let's go slow as we explore
how I can express
the thousand ways you warm my soul
in the eloquence of wordlessness.

I want my l-

"I want my lung. Dr Altman, I'm big. Too big. I don't fit in airplane seats and as Jeff is always telling me, my feelings don't always fit the situation. If my food is overcooked at a restaurant, I get enraged. I want to kill the waiter. But I don't. ...I spend my days making myself smaller, more acceptable. And that's okay, because at night, when I go onstage, I get to experience the world the way I feel it. Indescribable rage, and unbearable sadness, and huge passion. At night, on stage, I get to kill the waiter and dance on his grave . And if I can’t do that, if all I have is left is a life of making myself smaller, then I don’t want to live. I don’t."

- Singer with lung mesothelioma, Grey's Anatomy Season 6, Ep 12

Is it wrong that I can identify with that sentiment? A little too much.

A little bit of bliss, a little bit of pain

From the movie Whip It, which, along with Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Juno and 500 Days of Summer, represents a growing genre of Indie-type movie which I am just beginning to get acquainted with, and just beginning to love.

Tea(escapes

Will you take my hand and step in

to the past with me through

an open door

an open window

into sepia-ed tones (warm, worn hardwood

of faded stars gone by

into another land

into another time where

the whole world seems to fade away...

except you and me and yesterday -

Lets sip on cups of tea and swirl

the cinnamon crème-d foam

and watch it luxuriate

into perfect globs of effervescent

conversational catalysts

and let the warmth slide into us (undiminished.

although it's chilly out, we are

in oblivion) Music interjects

in scratchy tones

in soothing, dulcet croons -

the familiarity of it all permeating,

reminiscing, pondering,

communicating.

Will you sit and while away

the time with me As Time Goes

By, relieving

moments that tide you over, refreshing

you for another time (which we forget for now, and

put aside for then) -

in a fold in time's fabric), we

shall share a laugh again

while the Monroes and Hepburns and Presleys

look on benevolently, while you

warm the cockles of my heart. : )