Book Thoughts: The Book Thief

I was reading a book the other day (not a surprise at all). I use ripped up Post-it notes as bookmarks pretty often. So, seeing one on my desk, I grabbed it to use. Then I noticed that it had writing on it. This was weird because I don't usually write on them.

It said: "I am sitting here in my bed, warm. I have water beside me and I've just finished reading the book in my lap. What gives me the right?". Reading that hit me really hard. I remember writing it. I had just finished reading The Book Thief (which I wholeheartedly recommend) and it had gotten to me.

So this is what I meant: Countless people throughout history have had terrible lives. They've had terrible things happen to them. They don't have enough food or clean water. They can't even think about sitting down and reading a book for entertainment. They don't have the money for the book or the time to read it. So what gives me the right?

The answer is nothing. Absolutely nothing gives me the right. Basically, life isn't fair. It's funny, no one tells you that life isn't fair when it's unfair in your favor. They only tell you that when it's the least helpful. You only hear that when you can very clearly see that for yourself.

The follow up questions would then be: What can I do about this? How can I make life a little more fair?

I don't think that the answer is wealth redistribution, or raising the minimum wage. I think that the government is attempting to treat the symptoms to no avail. The real problem starts with individuals. Other people having more means that I have to give up some of what I have. You know what? That is completely fine with me. But it's not fine with everyone, or even most people. I can't force others to change, and that's also fine. I'm just going to focus on what I can do to help others how I can.

If the government wants to do some real good, they should focus on making college education free for everyone and give people the skills they need to provide for themselves. Oh, and cut defense spending. But that's my own personal rant that doesn't really belong here.

The bookmark gave me the idea for Book Thoughts. Instead of writing book reviews, I'm going to start writing Book Thoughts blogs. Anyone can read a book; or a summary of one. I've heard the expression "Books belong to their readers." often. I both agree and disagree with this statement. However, I do think that multiple perspectives on books are interesting. I think that the way someone reads a book, or the thoughts that a book inspires in someone says a lot about them.

They shouldn't contain spoilers, although I will make sure to give a spoiler alert if they do. I would like to hear your recommendations, if you have any. Just keep in mind; I have upwards of 20 books that I've neglected reading so I might not get to them. If you have your own book thoughts on any of the books I post, feel free to post them in the comments. I would love to talk more about them. Happy reading!

Living in The Moment OR Personal Ramblings...

Growing up, adults were an enigma. To me, they seemed like solid, amorphous blob. Adults were almost all the same person to me. They were the “them” in the “us vs. them”. They were the ones that told us “No.” and “Eat your dinner” and “Be quiet” and that “The adults are talking”. The rift between us and them was clearly marked and maintained by both sides. The adults made sure to condescend, and the other kids made sure to call kids found conspiring with the adults teacher's pets and goody-two-shoes. 

The fact that, one day, I would be a “them” instead of an “us” never really occurred to me. Or rather, I wasn’t concerned about it. It was too far in the future. Life is long and once you’re an adult you’re basically dead. So why worry about it?

No, I’m 100% sure I never thought those exact things, but that was the underlying sentiment.

The thing about my life is that I set up moments. These moments always mean that my perspective will change. My turning points so far have been: going on a People to People trip, transferring to public school, losing my religion *guitar starts playing*, going to college early, driving, *redacted for personal reasons*, and turning 18. There are lots of smaller moments, but those are the big ones.

 I suppose that my moments are what people would call epiphanies. I don’t call them that because it’s a lame word.

But this is about my turning 18 moment. I knew that it would be a change for me in a your-life-will-never-be-the-same way. I didn't know how. It was when several looming truths all came together for me.

•       I've always had the thought that as I got older, life would continue to get better and more exciting. It was an empirically proven truth. I still want it to be true. However, I've also realized that life is more of a roller coaster than I would like it to be. Life doesn't get better and more exciting because we want it to. It gets better and more exciting because we make it happen.

•        People are boring. Maybe that’s why I like reading books so much. I can predict people’s secrets. They can be so painfully evident. I want the people you read about in books. The ones that you never know what they’ll say or do next. Or the ones that will do something embarrassing in public because they don’t care what anyone thinks of them. Where are the people that just live? Why can’t people just do things because they feel good? Why can’t people do things for the experience?

•       If you’re looking for some grand, ultimate meaning in your life, you’re probably not going to find it. You can’t live every day looking forward to the day when suddenly, your life matters. Some people just want to be a hero; whatever that means to them. Some people want to be remembered. I think we all want something, whether we admit it or not. But the meaning is in the little things, and the little things are the ones you’ll miss if you’re looking at tomorrow or yesterday instead.

•       Which brings me to yesterday. The past can be addictive. There are things there we will never have again: certain friends, loved ones, places, and memories. Remembering is not inherently bad, but when it becomes an obsession, or when you constantly feel the need to deny it, it becomes a problem.

•       Live your life today and make vague plans for tomorrow. That’s my goal. Do you really want to look  back in 5 years and remember obsessing over the past/future? I don’t.

       Living in the moment always gets a bad rap. I don’t know why. I think that living in the moment is potentially one of the most beautiful things you can do. It’s freedom. I think when people condemn “live in the moment” mindsets, they think of recklessness. People who live in the moment recklessly aren't living in the moment; they’re dying in the moment. There’s a good chance that they’re using it as an escape. Living in the moment just means enjoying where you’re at now. The future’s not here so I’m not going to concern myself with it too much.

I don’t know if I’m talking to you or myself anymore. I also don’t know what to make of all of this. I don’t think that I need to know right now and I don’t know that I need to make anything of it. Some things just are. 

Ads and Layout

I'm going to be blogging a lot more now that college is (almost) over. I should focus on studying hard for finals...but I'll probably just study a little and watch documentaries. Oops.

I've realized that I need to make some changes to my blog, and that's the real point of this post. If you don't have Adblock, you can see some incredibly ugly and poorly positioned advertisements on my blog right now.

I hate them. I think that they make the whole thing look desperate and cheap. They aren't even ads for useful things from what I've seen. So I'm either going to: 1. Take away most of them and heavily filter the content or 2. Take them down entirely.

I also was considering changing the overall layout. I love the color, but it screams winter to me.

So let me know in the comments, on Facebook, or wherever you can contact me what you think-- specifically about the overall design. Thanks!

Graveyard Meditations

A couple of days ago on my drive home from school I was struck with an overwhelming urge to be in a graveyard. So I made a detour and walked around alone, taking pictures. I cannot say exactly why I needed to do this but it felt right. It was a profoundly tranquil experience. I thought I'd share my trip and thoughts with whomsoever cares to read about them.

This was my initial view:

The first thing that really struck me were how many towers and oversized monuments there were. More importantly, why? I'm going to go ahead and state the obvious: these people are dead. We hardly know anything about their lives based on their gravestones. We know their names, when they lived, and maybe a few extra details about family. Yet these gravestones are here and they seem to scream their self importance. Were these more important people? Not in my mind they weren't. I do not like the idea of anyone being inherently more important than anyone else. Some say that death is the great equalizer but I'm not sure that it needs to be. Importance is, like many things, an illusion. 

I also looked closely a several markers. The growth on them is fascinating. The patterns, the discoloration of the stones, and the concept of life growing on a symbol of death were intriguing to me. 

Ms. Cora Belle's stone got my attention because her name is lovely. I thought she was worth a mention because I know a bit about the time in which she lived. She was born solidly within the Victorian Era. Which was British, but so influential as to affect America at the time as well. She then lived to age of 71, which was beyond the life expectancy of the time. She would have seen the Jazz Age in its entirety and the very beginning of the Great Depression with the stock market crash of October 1929. What did she think of the events around her? Growing up in a time where Victorian morality was in vogue, what did she think of the Jazz Age? Was she an old woman who clung to propriety and tradition, or was did she view the events with the gaze of modernity? Was she concerned about the stock market crash? Did she imagine how bad things would get? We don't know. We will probably never know because this is just a rock in the ground. And a rock meant to remind people of us often fails at even that. 

The internet and rapid development of technology will, I'm sure, have a huge impact on remembrance. Will there someday be sites with links to the old social media accounts of the dead? Will we scroll through their lives? Just because those sites exist, will anyone even care? Probably not any more than they do now. 

                                      

This made me laugh out loud. Why in the world would you make your grave marker a gigantic, uncomfortable bench? Did the family love him/her so much that they commissioned a large memorial? Did they just have money to blow? Did the person want attention brought to their grave based on originality points? Did they want people to reap some small enjoyment from their death by giving them a place to rest or meditate? I could not fathom what the true reason might be. I did sit on it. It made me feel uncomfortable in a couple of different ways.

This creeped me out because I first saw it out of the corner of my eye. And let's be honest, seeing a stray disembodied hand in a graveyard is creepy. There's probably not any significance to the fact that it is holding a rose. I would like to think there is though. Maybe it was chosen by a loved one. They wanted to "leave flowers" in a more permanent way. The rose will survive, not forever, but virtually so. The whole idea is so hopelessly beautiful and romantic it hurts. There's also the decidedly more pessimistic and cynical view that they would have chosen it to relieve them of their flower leaving duties. A kind of short cut. However, we will probably never know so we can imagine it however we want. We're all stories in the end, and that's part of the beauty of stories. 

I'll leave you with these last two pictures just because I find them peaceful. 

                                                 

This trip was highly meditative for me. I needed to think where no one would interrupt me with chatter. I thought a lot about death, as is expected on cemetery visits. I was struck by the impermanence of life and just how many people had lived. Our lives overlap and tangle but still: no one makes it out alive. We make a last ditch effort to be remembered. Some through flashy or unique stones. These attempts to survive are futile though, if no one is around to see them. Once the people who loved you most are gone, who else will see and care? It reminded me that I should live the life I have now. It's the only one I know that I have and I didn't buy the warranty. 

Existentialism

This is the moment of truth. I'm going to try and explain my existentialist thoughts. It's always been fairly difficult for me to do that. There's always been a level of confusion or miscommunication involved. I realized the reason for this in my Philosophy class last semester. It's because there is not a set definition of existentialism. Which is actually very fitting.

Existentialism is a somewhat broad topic. Some philosophers that have been described as existentialists would probably have rejected the title. They believe that "Existence precedes Essence" as opposed to the idea that "Essence precedes Existence". Woah, woah, woah. What? My first reaction to that was a blank stare. The height of lofty philosopher-speak.

"Essence precedes Existence" means that we are here for a purpose. It's a notion that's generally religious in nature, though it doesn't have to be. The purpose is often God or a higher power. God is the means and essence of our existence.

"Existence precedes Essence" is the idea that we infuse our own lives with meaning. We don't necessarily have a purpose. Therefore, we create purpose for ourselves. This sounds like a fairly secular idea, but again, it doesn't have to be. Soren Kierkegaard is a well known existentialist philosopher who attempted to synthesize Christianity and existentialist thought.

Have you ever sat back and been struck by the absurdity of the thought that we are a bunch of beings made up of cell configurations floating through space on what is essentially a big rock? I get that feeling a lot. In one of my classes the other day, my teacher was trying to make a point. She said "How many of you would fight over a big gold coin if I threw it in the center of the room?". Or something along those lines. I was so amused at that thought. You can make humans fight over a shiny piece of metal. I can honestly say that I wouldn't have been one of the people in that fight. I know that, had it been more than a hypothetical situation, many people would have. There's so much absurdity to it all. Which is, not coincidentally, another existentialist idea.

For me, existentialism is best represented through quotes. I used to be an avid viewer of the show Whose Line Is It Anyways. So after taking the philosophy class and realizing that the world is not black and white, but infinite shades of gray; I became fond of using the phrase "Everything's made up and the points don't matter." to describe life. Some more are:

• "I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted." -Jack Kerouac
• "I love life. And I do not believe that my life serves a purpose. I do not believe that my life has any meaning." -Michelle Lara Lin
• "People have played on words and pretended to believe that refusing to grant a meaning to life necessarily leads to declaring that it is not worth living. In truth, there is no necessary common measure between these two judgments." -Albert Camus
• "Do not search for the meaning of life around you; it is self defined. If you are given the chance to make a choice, would you surrender the opportunity to your surroundings? It is often incorrect and will be far worse than whatever you could create for yourself. Be your own deciding factor." -Lawrence Beall
• "We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing." -Charles Bukowski

There are many more brilliant quotes on existentialism and I encourage you to look them up. I think that my favorite of these is Albert Camus's. Too often people view existentialism as inherently negative. I've never had people assume I'm depressed so fast as when I start talking about it. I would be lying if I told you that these ideas have never made me feel lost in the world and deeply conflicted. Not anymore. It really is one of the most beautiful and freeing ideas in the world. You can do anything. Absolutely anything. You give yourself purpose and meaning and you have freedom to define yourself. It's the antithesis to predestination and sitting around moaning about how unfair everything is. When you realize that everything's made up and the points don't matter, you realize that you're free to make your own rules. It gives you confidence because you're not answering to other people and trying to live up to their expectations. You're doing you. 

Gender and Depression

I was doing a discussion forum for my abnormal psychology class and I got pretty into it. So I thought I'd share in case there's any interest. 

The original question: Are women compared to men more naturally inclined to be depressed? Explain your rationale.

My answer (beware: long):
I do not think that women are naturally more inclined to be depressed. Women are not more sensitive or fragile. We're all people with emotions that do not hinge on the basis of gender. I love people and I love getting to know them. In the process of getting to know people, you often begin to learn about their problems; either through observation or them telling you. My own personal experience with depression, in combination with talking to others, has made me realize just how widespread depression is. I was shocked to read that "Woman are about twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with major depressive disorder" (Nevid, Rathus, and Greene). On further reflection, this began to make sense. 

There is a difference I've seen in the way depression is handled. Most of the woman I know who have experienced-- or are still struggling with-- depression have gotten some form of help for it. The men I know are generally different. Some self-describe as depressed. Others have some concerning thoughts and views of life. I'm definitely not a psychologist but my own experience leads me to strongly suspect that depression is at play. They won't even admit it to themselves, let alone seek professional help. This makes me think that the key word in the text was 'diagnosed'. According to Addis and Mahalik, "Several studies have confirmed that men also seek psychiatric services, psychotherapy, and counseling less often than women" (Addis and Mahalik 6). Men cannot be diagnosed with depression if they do not seek help. 

The reasons men don't seem to ask for help as much seems largely societal. According to Simon Rice, "The expression of externalising depression symptoms is theorised to result from socialisation processes and associated conformity to masculine norms emphasising male autonomy, stoicism and invulnerability, where anger is the only negative emotion that men are socially permitted to exhibit" (Rice, Fallon, Aucote, and Moller-Leimkuhler 950). Males are not expected to show signs of weakness, even if they feel weak. This has very negative effects, as "In comparison to females, males are four times more likely to die by suicide" (Rice, Fallon, Aucote, and Moller-Leimkuhler 950). 

So men do not seek help as often as women and they have higher rates of suicide despite the fact that women are twice as likely to receive a depression diagnosis. It seems that diagnosis is not the most reliable indicator of depression, although it is the most commonly looked at. Of course it is! It's not right to go around telling people that they're depressed when they didn't ask for your help. Indeed, they cannot be accurately diagnosed if they don't ask for help. The statistical representation of people who are not receiving medical or psychiatric help for depression cannot, by definition, be known! There is correlation between gender and depression on several fronts. Woman may, in fact, be more depressed than men. It probably doesn't help that they're more often victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. However, until the proportion of men getting help for their depression is closer to the proportion of women getting help for their depression, diagnostic rates cannot be the standard for thinking that women are more inclined to be depressed. 

Works Cited

Addis, Michael E., and James R. Mahalik. "Men, Masculinity, and the Contexts of Help Seeking." American Psychologist 58.1 (2003): 5-14. Print. 

Nevid, Jeffrey S., Spencer A. Rathus, and Beverly Greene. Abnormal Psychology in a Changing World. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997. Print.

Rice, Simon M., Barry J. Fallon, Helen M. Aucote, and Anne Maria Moler-Leimkuhler. "Development and Preliminary Validation of the Male Depression Risk Scale: Furthering the Assessment of Depression in Men." Journal of Affective Disorders 151.3 (2013): 950-58. Print.

I Love You!

 I come into contact with dozens of people every day; hundreds or thousands if you count social media, which I do. People aren't any less real to me just because they’re behind a screen, revealed to me through a series of ones and zeros. I feel responsible for them all. I care about them all. I’m trying to think of the person I like least in the world right now. That’s a tough one for me, but guess what? I still want that person alive. I still want that person to have the potential for life and love and a job and a future and absolutely everything that people can ever experience.

Of all these people I see around me I know that at least one of them is currently going through the toughest time of their life. I see so many people struggling. I know that more than one is depressed, has anxiety, has an eating disorder, cuts themselves, or is struggling with their identity. I know that an overwhelming number of the people I encounter every day don’t feel good enough. Why does that matter to me, you ask? It matters to me because these facts destroy me. It matters to me because so many people are looking for someone to care about them and about what they’re going through. They think that nobody does. They think that the world simply doesn't have room for depressed people.

 I thought that! What else was I supposed to think? The world made me believe that. The people around me, well intentioned as they were, made me believe that. That’s not to say that they didn't care. They probably cared more than I’ll ever know. The fact of the matter is, they didn't know how to respond to me. Most hadn't experienced the specific things I had. Of the ones who had, most wanted to move on with their lives. They tried to help but it was obvious that they were tired of living in that dark, cold place in their minds. I absolutely cannot and never will blame them for that. I know how that feels now. I know how that feels, but I also remember all too well how the broken people feel. I remember wanting to pick up the pieces and not knowing how. I wanted someone to show me how. They eventually did, but not in the way that I originally expected. I took lessons from everyone I met. I liked how that girl smiled, as if she was trying to make friends with everyone. I liked how that boy failed at trying to help me every time, but that he kept trying. I liked that that girl from my school once told me to suck it up in what I think was probably the nicest way possible; I admired her strength. I loved how people I’d never met, nor will ever meet, treated depression and mental illness. I loved how willing they were to drop everything for a stranger having a bad day. Just to sit and talk.

I look at babies and behind the adorably chubby cheeks and dripping snot, I see overwhelmingly boundless potential. Every single baby is potential. I see people the same way. Adults are just babies who’ve narrowed down some of their options. I feel parental towards people I meet. I want the best for them. I want them to be happy and healthy and as carefree as possible. I want them to want that for themselves. I get disappointed with people sometimes because I see them making choices that will make them unhappy in the not too distant future. I don’t write them off; instead I hope for them. I think of how close we are, and what I can do to help them, and I do what I can.

Sometimes asking for help is the hardest thing to do. You don’t know who to ask and you think that maybe someone else needs it more. Well here’s something I discovered: If you think you might need help, you need help. Taking help from a friend or asking for advice won’t diminish some imagined supply of help and if the people who “need it more” want help, they can have it too! I guess, in the end, what I’m trying to say is that I’m here. I care. I’ll be a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen. I might not be able to be anyone’s saving grace or hero but I’m not trying to be. I’m here and I care and sometimes that’s what people really need more than anything else.