My Unconscious

The unconscious event I have chosen to focus on is a reoccurring dream that both my siblings and I have.  We started having these dreams around the same time my parents divorced.  In the dream, we are having a war.  The first dream we were at our home, yet it was torn apart to look like a bunker.  In this dream, my siblings and I are fighting with all our might, yet our parents are nowhere to be found.  We start to look for them, to have them protect us.  Once we find them, they are hiding like cowards.  As a result, they die in that dream.  The dreams following this one are always different but have a similar storyline.  We are fighting in this war against people that we cannot see.  Our “enemies” had faces once both of our parents started dating people of different ethnicities that seemed to clash with the ones that we were brought up with. It is always my siblings and I against these people of different ethnicities.  We are fighting but not getting anywhere.

After reading Jung, I started to realize this dream is about tradition.  Every ethnicity has a different tradition.  When my parents divorced, it felt as if every tradition they taught us as kids was disappearing.  All of the sudden thanksgiving we have the food of our parents new found lovers, not the ones we were raised with.  We started to rebel, voicing how we felt they were throwing our childhood and what they taught us away.  Of course my parents always take the side of their new boyfriend or girlfriend.  In the dream, when my siblings and I are fighting neither side is winning. This dream has taught me to accept the fact that things are not the same.  The traditions taught to me by my parents are not dead just because they choose not to be a part of them anymore.  Instead they live on through my siblings and I.  Rebelling and voicing our opinion on the matter will get us nowhere.  It will only cause a “war” within our family.

Your Camus

As I have grown up and learned more about responsibilities, I found that many Americans over look helping out their communities.  This is an aspect that I feel all Americans should be involved with.  We take the time to perfect every aspect of our lives but seem to over look the community aspect.  Being active within your community can bring you many positive things, so why do we choose to not help out? 

I feel there are many excuses as to why Americans are not more active in their community, the main one being that we just do not care.  We live in a very detached society.  I can see this just by walking around the city or riding on the muni.  Everyone sits staring at their phone or computer with their headphones in.  Most of the time people do not even realize the issues going on around them because of this.  We simply do not take the time to look outside of our little boxes to see what is going on around us.  This can cause us to become completely unaware of the negative aspects of our community.  When you do take the time to look around, you see what is wrong but do not take any action.  I feel this happens for two reasons; it does not affect us and/or we do not want to take the time to fix it. 

Many Americans, especially those living in cities, have a good source of income.  They have the money to live in a good neighborhood and take their children to good schools.  Although these people may or may not be aware of the issues outside of their good schools and homes, they seem to feel that it does not affect them nor do they wish to take the time to fix it.  Why spend your day off from work or school cleaning up a neighborhood.  Most Americans do not enjoy working to help others on their days off because they see that as their time to work on themselves.   This free time is called leisure.  Leisure was created for the middle class, those who are on the wealthier side, after World War II. This time was to be spent wandering the streets doing what ever you please.  No one sees this time as a moment to help out others. 

The choice most Americans make to not be active within their community can affect them on a personal level.  This day in age is a cold one.  Hearing stories from my parents’ time are very different from ours.  They knew everyone in their neighborhoods.  If they needed a cup of sugar or an emergency baby sitter, they had their neighbors to back them up.  Never have I grown up in a neighborhood where my family knew everyone.  We have become a very apathetic society; we choose to be cold and distant from those around us.  By creating this detachment from society, we are missing out on a local support group.  It is a proven fact that those with support groups around them live longer.  Our community should be a support group, outside our close-knit group of friends.  By knowing your neighborhood and those in it, we would find that we have people to watch our backs.  My boyfriend, for example, is new to his neighborhood.  He is a very friendly individual who wants to know his neighbors and create a support system in that sense.  The other day, a neighbor’s dog was in their front yard.  Since he takes the time to walk around his neighborhood, he knew this was out of the ordinary.  He went to the front door and informed the lady that her dog was out.  She was very thankful because, as he knew, the dog was not supposed to be out.  By him doing this, he started to make a support group.  This neighbor is friendly to him and now watches out for him as well.

  My boyfriend made a conscious effort to be aware of what is going on in his neighborhood.  By doing this he showed that if we became more aware of what was around us we would notice the negatives and positives.  The only way, I feel, we can stop this social disconnect is to become more aware.  We should take the time to get to know our neighborhoods and what goes on around them.  By doing this it will not only benefit ourselves but our community.  When I moved to the neighborhood I live in now, I made an effort to at least walk around and go into the stores near by to see who comes in and out of my community.  By doing this, I have noticed there is a gang of what looks like 13-16 year old boys.  They walk around vandalizing the muni and breaking into cars.  It makes me wonder why there are not any programs for these kids after school where they can have positive role models so they do not throw their lives away in a youth gang.  Sadly, changing a community has to be a personal choice.  We have to want to be more aware of what is going on and want to help change it.  

Exile and the Kingdom

The character from Camus “The Guest” that interested me the most was the teacher, Daru.  He was given a task that he does not want to do, yet does not have a choice.  Daru enjoys his quite life, although his country is in the mist of an on coming war and a famine.  Even with such hard times, Daru claims he feels “like a lord, with his whitewashed walls, his narrow couch, his unfinished shelves, his well and his weekly supplies of water and food” (p.69).  I like the fact that even in rough times, he sees the positive in it.  This is hard to see when in a situation like that.  This shows the good within him.

As always, when one becomes content with life, something happens to bring one to reality.  In this case Daru’s interruption is the arrival of a prisoner that he must take to jail.  Daru knows of what the Arab has done to deserve to go to jail but does not feel he needs to be the one to turn him in.  It is as if he is torn between what he is expected to do and what he wants to do. 

Even though he is upset about this predicament, he never treats the prisoner poorly.  Unlike Balducci, Daru lets the prisoner enjoy a meal and sleep on a bed.  This prisoner does not deserve to be trusted yet Daru does.  He leaves his weapon in the other room and even sleeps naked, which is a symbol of high vulnerability.  With these steps of trust, the prisoner shows respect for Daru by not running away with his newfound freedom.  When it comes time to turn the Arab in, Daru leads him about half way to the jail.  He then gives him food and directions to turn himself in.  This is what intrigued me the most, why does he not take the prisoner all the way?  He gives the Arab the choice, to do what he is supposed to do or to run.  When Daru first speaks with the prisoner alone at the schoolhouse, he asks him if he is sorry for what he had done.  The Arab gives no reply.  Maybe this was Daru’s way of testing the real answer, without pushing it. 

Daru was an interesting character because he showed kindness.  He was given a task by his country, which conflicted with how he felt.  Preferring not to get involved, he is left to take this man.  Instead of being rude to him he treats him as a guest.  This kindness leads the Arab to feel truly guilty, which results in turning himself in.  Daru is a good example of the saying kill with kindness.  By showing the Arab kindness, he convinced him to do the right things after doing something so wrong.

Art of Loving

I used to work at a coffee bar in a grocery store.  One day a lady got in line behind a co-worker I was ringing up. She seemed very impatient, to a point were she started to order before I was done with my co-worker.  I get her some coffee and still she is being rude to me.  Treating me as if I was an idiot and she was a queen.  After she was done, she went over to put cream in her coffee.  I start to help someone else. Once I was finished, I saw her reaching around the plexus-glass to steal some cups.  When she notices that I was watching, she demands I give her lids.  I politely tell her that next time she wants more cups she should ask because customers are not allowed behind the glass.  At this, she starts yelling at me about how she is a regular (yet I had never seen her in the whole year I worked there) and that the manager said she could do whatever she wanted.  She then proceeds to tell me that I am extremely rude and that she will be reporting me.  The lady storms off, leaving her keys because she was so focused on being rude to me.  I call someone over to take the keys to the lost and found.  Not even a minute later, she storms back in accusing me of stealing her keys. She is yelling at the top of her lungs, embarrassing me in front of customers.  Finally, when I get a word in, I tell her that they are where all the lost items belong, at the front desk.  

            This situation taught me to be patient not only with angry customer but also situations in which someone is emotionally lashing me.  The lady clearly came from a different background. Maybe she felt I was not treating her with the same respect that elders are treated in her country.  Whatever the cause, yelling back at her would have done nothing.  Instead I chose to stay calm and let her yell.  In the end she was the one that made a fool of her self.  This is something that is hard for me.  I am naturally an impatient person, after this situation I found my self not wanting to be like her.  She was rude and pushy for no reason.  I served her to the best of my abilities yet it was not good enough for her.  Had she come in with a better attitude she would not have forgotten her keys.  Later I found out that my manager had to ask her to not come back due to harassment of the workers.  

Changeling/Transmission 1

The song I seemed to connect with was track number four, Changeling/Transmission 1. For me music is something that helps me escape the world and bring me to another one.  Sometimes a place I am familiar with and other times it is an entirely different one.  In this case it brought me to a place I know all to well, a house party.  This song reminded me of being with friends, just hanging out, having a good time.  The song starts our mellow like your handling everything then it slowly seems to loose control or focus.  Parts of it are calm while other parts seem out of control.  Once I felt this way about the song, I started to see how it could relate to other parts of life.  It could relate to a bad day or just life in general. You have your highs and lows some parts are easier to handle than others.

The other reason I enjoyed this song was the break down at around five minutes and thirty seconds. I am not sure what instrument it is maybe a guitar with an effect or a keyboard, ultimately it does not matter it sounds amazing. It is a great way to end a song.

Over all I really enjoyed this CD.  It was very had for me to narrow down to one song to blog about.  Almost every song on this CD triggered something for me.  It is a brilliant piece of work and I cannot wait to share it with those who have not experienced it.

The Truth About My Cave

           One of the most life shaking experiences I have had was going through my parents divorce.  When I was in 9^th grade my parents sat my siblings, Mary and Max, down to tell us that they were selling our home and getting a divorce. At the time I felt like this was going to ruin me.  I had no idea that someday I would be able to look back on this negative experience and be thankful it happened. 

            Just like most divorces, you can always see it coming.  My parents knew about a year and half before they sat us down that this was coming, due to the fact they both started to act different.  They started trying to convince us that the other one was the sole reason as to why things were not perfect anymore. Being young, my siblings and I did not know what to think. We would hear all these awful things about my Father only to have him turn around and tell us horrible things about my Mother. We felt like we did not know the truth, it was like being stuck in a cave.  My parents kept my siblings and I in a cave chained to their lies.   The only things that kept us listening to them was the fact that we could not deal with what Plato would call our “shadow”.   In this sense our shadow was dealing with the fact that our parents were not to be trusted. 

            Our parents seemed to devote all of their time with us to talking crap on the other one.  For my 16^th birthday my Father was going to buy me a new car, when my Mother heard of this she ran out and bought me a car.  Although I am very thankful for the car and how faithful it has been to me, she bought the car with missing pieces.  This did not matter because she can forever say she bought it and that my Father did not.  They used my siblings and I to get back at one another.  This was hard to take since we were young and just wanted a normal family.

            Once we moved out of our house and the divorce was finalized, it took a second to get adjusted to everything.  My parents decided to have split custody, so my brother and I were forced to live out of a suitcase and sleep on couches.  After about a year of doing this I became very ill.  The doctor told my parents that moving back and forth would not be ideal for my health so I would need to pick a parent to live with full time.  Naturally our parents bombarded us with false accusations of the other one.  Finally my brother and I made a decision, one that still haunts me today, we decided to live with my Father. 

            Moving in with my Father was my light.  The truth of what happened between my parents slowly started to unravel.  I realized what it was like to basically be my Mother.  My father made us do everything!  He would come home everyday upset from work and would go off the deep end if there were one thing out of order in the house.  It was like walking on eggshells.  This was something I had never realized while growing up.  I suppose I noticed it because my Mother was not there for him to take his anger out on.  This is not to say that my Mother was innocent when it came to whom to blame for the divorce. She had her fair share of crazy antics that slowly drove my Father away, like I always tell them it takes two to sign divorce papers.

            When I finally saw what had happened between my parents, I felt I understood the divorce more.  I became more aware of how my parents acted and treated not only each other but also other people.  Seeing the truth behind my parents divorce has been a blessing, not only has it helped me get over what happened but it also helped me to understand people and situations in life.  It has given me a life skill.  Even more so than that it helped me become closer with my siblings and form an even stronger family bond with them.

            Although I have seen the light to my parents divorce and now understand what were lies and what were truths, I still seem to get sucked into the drama it still causes in the family.  I see why Plato talks about how the prisoner after seeing the light returns.  For me I return because it is my family.  If someone is hurting someone I love when they do not deserve it I stand up for them.  I feel that this is not a bad reason to return as long as I remember who tells the truth and who does not.  

Truth Can Fix

Recently I have had to cut a family member (we will call him Bruce) from my life whom I love dearly. Truth, or lack there of, was the reason why I had to do this.  As Thomas Fuller said “craft must have clothes, but truth loves to go naked.”  I lost Bruce in those many layers of clothing; he became so covered up I could not see him anymore.

Basically he took something without informing me.  Once I found out, I confronted him.  Instead of being honest and telling the truth, he made excuses.  He put layer upon layer of excuses over just being honest.  The quote by Fuller struck a cord with me because had Bruce gone naked instead of crafting lies the situation would have ended in a different matter.

 Now I feel as if he is unable to be trusted and to have him as a family member makes it more difficult.  Family members are supposed to love each other, which leads me to the next quote by Henry David Thoreau “ between whom there is hearty truth, there is love.”  Before confronting Bruce I thought to myself that if he truly cared and loved me he would admit to what he had done.  Instead I got what others told me I would receive, lies.  I believe in what Thoreau said because love is compassion for others, which I feel runs a parallel line with truth.  If you truly care for someone would, or better yet could, you lie to them? Of course not, it would only push them further away. 

Personally when I tell a lie I feel awful, sick almost.  It is hard to sleep because it is forever on my mind.  That is why I feel it is better to just tell the truth right away even if it is difficult and may hurt someone.  It will only get worse if you don’t.   In talking with my other family members I have heard that Bruce talks of this situation quite often because he cannot forget it.  Mark Twain puts it perfectly “if you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”