writings and ramblings

• Psychology Lab: Tough Emotional Dilemma [Essay]
• Serious Little Things [Fiction]
• On Objectivity in Sociological Research [Essay]
• The Worm from Outer Space [Second-Grade Chapter Book]
• On Lingering Gender Inequalities [Essay]
• First Entry for Dossier

Writing.

The question was something like this: Should a murderer with a propensity towards criminality (inherited and taught) be convicted of crimes (murder and other less important things) given his background? I am recording my answer for reference in the future.

There is a fundamental, however unstated, contract between the individual and the society in which they reside. This allows for some semblance of stability within the society, and facilitates peace and cooperation between humans, who not only require the presence of others to form fundamental opinions of the world but could not feasibly sustain themselves in permanent isolation.

Levels of freedom vary from one community to another; however one principle must be upheld for the sake of any and every member, namely, that one person’s liberties cannot come at the expense of another’s, which would upset any attempts at equality. I am sure you will agree that taking the life of another human being restricts the liberties of the person who ends up dead.

Our Declaration of Independence provides for three basic liberties in its famous preamble. Life is the first liberty allowed all human beings.

It is difficult to attempt to disseminate equality when all lives—not to mention the circumstances that come with these lives—are far from identical. You may see that this young man has had to struggle with a propensity to criminality in more than one setting. Crime has been his example. Are we then to leave this crime unpunished for the sake of this individual, and let hundreds be inexorably taught by this instance that such behavior is tolerable, even rationalized?

This young man has not had it easy. He is, however, responsible for his actions. There are a wide array of circumstances that make life difficult for each of us, but we cannot accommodate these at the expense of the lives of others.

What does it even mean to take a life? The person is gone forever, never to think or feel or appreciate again. As we can only perceive the world, we cannot firmly conclude there is any more to it than perception. If this is indeed so, an entire world has been lost with each stolen life.

In a different scenario I might argue that a propensity for criminality should merit at least a consideration of leniency from the law. However, as multiple individuals have been utterly deprived of the chance to pursue happiness in a very real and permanent way, I believe leniency would be a direct violation of their rights. I therefore suggest that this individual be subjected to the due process of law, regardless of his background, as a similar tragedy may be brought forth, whether by this individual or another who merely notices the leniency of the courts, if this travesty is dismissed.

Serious Little Things

by Say

When Finn was born, the soothsayer of Dundalk[1] came to his father’s house to predict what would become of the baby in his lifetime, as was custom for sons of important noblemen. The soothsayer[2] foresaw Finn to be a great and strong warrior who would save his people, with one weakness which would be his undoing. Perhaps that is why his father stole him away from his mother’s gentle protection before he could even walk, to rear him in the dense woods north of the city. There Finn ate berries until his stomach burned, so as he grew he learned to eat bark and hurl stones to deck[3] hares and other animals which he ate raw. His father kept to himself the secrets of an easier life, teaching Finn to talk in rough, guttural spurts which were neither fastidious nor womanish (for women of the time and place were considered symbols of frailty). Finn learned practically everything on his own, loping about in the most uncivilized manner, learning nothing of civilization, fear, or weakness. His father watched him from the tops of trees during the day and shackled him to the fencepost of a small dwelling (erected solely for his father’s use) during the night hours. His father grew old, however, and Finn was soon left without a companion, if his father could have been called that. With no one to chain him down at night, Finn took to wandering away from the dwelling, going farther and farther each time until he reached the edge of the forest. There he sat until daybreak when the sun scorched his face and made his lips blister. He was just over twelve when he traveled down through the foothills to Dundalk, his place of origin.

            The people of the city did not recognize him, and his face and his eyes burned red and then brown under the alien sun, which may have been the seed of the whispers that he was from hell. He tried to speak as others did but his tongue was thick and clumsy from misuse. The poke[4] was welcoming, with its cold cells and damp stones to sleep on, and he licked the bitter water from the walls to ease his cracked lips and throat. Eventually, however, he grew bored and lonely and his stomach roared (for gnawing on the bones of a previous inmate was dissatisfying at best), so he built a mound of bones and dirt at the bottom of the cell and wedged one of his hands into a large gap between two slabs of rock. He hoisted himself up in this manner until he reached the top, and removed the heavy iron grate covering the mouth of the cell with his teeth. The poke was guarded by no more than a cross over a doorway to an empty barracks, so Finn found his way once again into the fiery sunlight.

            There had been whispers of his father since he had quitted the city in a sudden and mysterious way. Therefore the people of Dundalk, being somewhat the antithesis of imbeciles, deduced that this could be the baby Finn which his notorious father had whisked away years ago. Most were gathered in the town hall, from which radiated various food smells which drew Finn’s curiosity. His entry caused a good deal of commotion and the people took time to right themselves, but eventually he was called forth in a most civilized way (to which he did not respond) until a particularly bright young man by the name of Sean thought to have his mother look upon him and decide if he was her son. All the people present agreed and sent Sean to fetch the old widow who looked upon her son and embraced him with love, to which he replied by speaking her name (in a most intuitive moment, for he had not laid eyes on her in years). The people gathered then proceeded to blame Finn’s father for the numerous atrocities he had committed in life and for turning his son into a heathen, while Finn looked around in bewilderment. Things were generally good then for a while, and Finn farmed because he was considered unfit for other work due to his lack of speech and, perhaps in common mind, intelligence, though he was very strong and did well tending to corn and potatoes. He grew accustomed to sunlight and learned most of the ways of civilization, though he was as reluctant as ever to talk. He understood a lot of what people said, and got along nicely uttering words such as ‘yes’ and ‘understand.’ By the end of his adolescence he was the burliest man in the village, not to mention a head taller than the next tallest grown man. People still whispered and called him obtuse or a giant, but he was quick to smile warmly, which was most disarming.

            The arrival of another giant changed life from that out, for this one had no name and no place and was larger than Finn by two heads and wider by two feet with a row of sharp filed teeth and hard, claw-like hands. The people of Dundalk were frightened considerably, especially since the new giant talked not at all and ate livestock raw. Women screamed that the new giant would eat their children and posed a threat to every person in Dundalk. Fires burned in thatching and were attributed to the giant, though he was usually nowhere to be seen. Another meeting was called at the town center, and the people were quite uneasy and anxious for a solution. Eventually Finn was nominated to go with two other men of his choice to annihilate the giant in whatever way possible, sometime after dusk when the giant had gone back to his home on the coast. Finn selected a strong man he had sown potatoes with and Sean, who had come to be a friend of his, and the three men set out that very night. Prior to their departure, however, an old but well respected crone with no teeth pulled Finn aside and croaked that the giant had a mother, and to be careful. Finn knew his mother by her name, what his father had called her, and was unfamiliar with the word ‘mother.’ Finn nodded his head because it always produced encouraging smiles, and left in ignorance.

            Sean set one end of a heavy branch on fire to light the way east for the coast is not far from Dundalk. They followed the heavy steps in the moist earth until the soil became rocky and they were at the lip of a cascade. Here Sean doused the branch so they wouldn’t be seen. As they waited for their eyes to adjust, William, the farmer, gasped as his neck was twisted back by the giant, who was guarding his lair. The giant staggered away and climbed down to a cave below the falls. Sean would not follow, and Finn understood that the task was his. He leapt from boulder to boulder around the cascade until he could easily slide behind the sheets of water from the side. There was a spluttering fire inside the cave which shed some small light on the giant’s face. It launched itself at Finn and they grappled fiercely. Then, running behind the giant, Finn took a handful of embers from the fire in his calloused hands and flung them in the giant’s eyes. Blinded, the giant stumbled, and Finn locked his arms around the giant’s neck and choked him. Finn uttered a short Christian prayer he had been taught by Sean over the giant’s body, sorrowful and shocked as any person is when they have just killed for the first time. The blood ran from the giant’s eyes to the back of the cave where its mother had slept. She smelt her son’s blood and stalked up behind Finn, who was crouching to lift the giant’s body. She threw him from her home and he dashed his head on a rock and lay still. His spirit mingled with those who had come before him and they were sad that he had died so young. His father came to him then, and asked him how he could have a weakness when he was the strongest man in the Midlands[5]. He replied, “My father, you did not teach me how to speak, and I died because I did not understand the words of an old woman.”

Sociological research seems the ultimate paradox – neutrality is impossible to maintain when it is you and yours who are supposed to be the subject of chilly, impersonal scientific research. However, continually seeking positive reinforcement of one’s own peerless philosophy could not frankly be called research. So where is the happy medium? Could sociological objectivity ever be attained? Should it even be attempted?

Chapter book: due may 13th ‘98!
The worm from outer space chapter one

by sarah

This morning I was eating my cereal as usual. Suddenly, I spied a worm! He was swimming in my milk. he was also doing backflips. I actually wasn’t sure it was a boy. Maybe it was a girl worm. They don’t have distincshuns in space. My mom asked me what was he doing in my cereal. I said, he had seen me eating my cereal and wanted to et some too, so he jumped in. Then my mom asked me where the worm was from. I didn’t know, so I said, hey worm, where are you from? and he said outer space. He was also bright red and tasted like honey. I actually didn’t eat him though. Eating worms makes you puke and have diarea.

The worm from outer space chapter two

by Sarah

first he ate a

big borito

then he ate a

little cheeto

then he ate a

little boogre

and he said it

tastes like sugar

then he went home

to the lake

where he met a

rattlesnake

who had reely

been a piper

but she wore to

stinky diper.

Connell’s article "Change among the Gatekeepers” effectively debunks the common assumption that inequality, specifically gender-based inequality, has a clear and viable solution. This article reinforced the often understated idea that men play an important role in the leveling of gender stereotypes. Connell conjectures that masculinity is culturally imposed, illuminating gender as a basic identity, and therefore an extremely delicate subject.

This article provided me with a considerable amount of edification – I was not previously aware that there was such extensive worldwide research occurring on the topic of male identity. This sparked an idea in my brain that the traditional, stereotypical male identity lends itself to domination, and therefore cannot exist harmoniously with gender equality. So, while females may think that gender struggles are finally waning, internal conflicts for men are just beginning. In the development of equality as a norm, male identities must be redefined.

The author repeatedly referred to the male gender as “men and boys,” which I found interesting. I believe this was to drive home the point that the concept of masculinity is instilled at a young age, and therefore intrinsic. This hearkens to the sociological concept of perception: to obtain a truly objective point of view, we must ignore what we have previously assumed, which is incredibly difficult and requires large-scale commitment as well as individual commitment. This led to another idea – as the article stated, many less affluent families are being “forced [into] renegotiation of the meanings of masculinity.” It seems that a rather broad theme in sociological inquiry is the discovery that there is a purpose to every system, no matter how corrupt. This sentence made me wonder if there are unspoken benefits of more traditional gender roles, and how the [relatively] sudden dismantling of gender shackles could perhaps have negative side effects. This is not to say that attempts at gender-equality should be abandoned, only that there could be repercussions if the effects of confounding variables are not considered.

This article presents the rather fresh point of view that women, when denied civil rights, must naturally be focused [rather exclusively] on the female portion of the population while attempting to attain equality for themselves and their children. In doing so, the interests of men may be put on the back burner. This article forced me to redefine one of my most basic [and, I thought, one of my most correct] beliefs about humanity – I used to think equality was paramount. Now I realize that true equality is a paradox – it cannot be achieved through true equality, as differences in groups must be considered. For example: ‘all children should receive an equal amount of schooling in our country’ sounds like a really solid statement. But then you take into account the recent influx of immigrants from Latin America, and realize that this is not enough. For people who do not speak English, rudimentary education would be nearly impossible without something extra. Likewise, men and women could not reasonably be expected to compete physically, as men have a significant influx in the production of testosterone during puberty, enabling them to lay down muscle mass far more easily. Therefore, to provide equality of opportunity, there must often be a difference in the opportunity provided.

This article provided me with a new perspective of balance between genders. It would be far too easy to negate the efforts of one gender by focusing too intently on the other. To strive towards a semblance of true equality, we would have to take an unbiased look at the differences between males and females in nature, and carefully adjust our social and political norms accordingly. Equality between humans is far more complex than the mathematical concept of “equal;” we can agree that neither men nor women are more important, but they are also not the same.

Works Cited:

Connell, R. W. "Change among the Gatekeepers: Men, Masculinities, and Gender Equality in the Global Arena." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30 (2005). University of Chicago. University of Chicago Press.

Intellectual growth and emotional maturity are practically inseparable, as each one aids peerlessly in the development of the other. Therefore many people who—and intangibles which – have facilitated my growth as a conscious member of society have more notably assisted me in developing myself as a human being.

                It has always gone that I feel more strongly than I think. Therefore I have done many ludicrous things that I could not endeavor to explain; blurting things many a time that I regret, forgetting people that should have entered my thoughts on countless occasions, and putting a stopper in my own success, to name a few. In my development from a shy yet hyperactive child to a reflective, cognizant, and enthusiastic college student, the people willing to offer assistance and the inspirations have been innumerable. Pieces of my journey have been tedious, amazing, treacherous, disgusting, and beautiful. The “self” I have created is actually a mosaic of people and concepts, each comprising a portion of their selector that is “I.”

I will start with Mother, Mama. The wearisome story I hear time after time that a person has become their parents is a part of me too, as the largest single portion of my “self” is my Mama. She is human and has very many flaws, and as her daughter I see them all in full color. All in all though, she is a good person; by this I mean that she truly makes an effort to contribute everything that she can to the world even when there is nobody to attest to her successes. Also, she loves people very deeply, which I have come to recognize as part of my personality as well. She thinks that loving is enough, but I could not disagree more. Knowing that you are loved or (dare I say?) thinking that you are loved is very important when personal perception is the only insight we have into the minds of those around us. I have learned this from her, as I finally know, somehow for sure, that she loves me very dearly; despite appearances of prevalent anguish in our relationship. I think a great deal can be learned from love, but love has not helped me with everything.

                Chris offered a different sort of worldview than my mother did – dually that being upfront is beneficial, and that emotions are not appropriate for the workplace. He was the first real boss I ever had, aside from mothers for whom I was “the neighborhood babysitter,” so naturally I absorbed every word he said with wide eyes, nodding interminable agreement. I have not yet successfully applied this concept to my actual life, but I do think that even the most honest emotions can be inappropriate when they are replaced so readily by cool, indifferent facts. Having a passionate adoration for humanity and pursuing a career as a nurse, I think it is important to realize that grieving for strangers will not often be welcome in the eyes of those close to them. Though I do think that it was rather nice for Chris to phrase his request to his employees the way he did; he did not say that we should not have emotions, only that we should not show them. This helped me to appreciate Mr. Peters’ generosity in what may have seemed to be a rude awakening.

                Language is one of my two most innate abilities, and I have been an avid reader since before literature was part of my grade’s curriculum. In retrospect I think it is fitting that it was one of my English teachers in high school who taught me my most valuable lesson – there is no shortcut to understanding. Mr. Peters put personality into his work without sacrificing his intellectual prowess… he was known throughout the school as the best teacher, and the toughest. Nothing got by him, he knew Shakespeare, Greek mythology, and the Bible by heart; you had to actually do the work to get an “A” in his class. I became fairly skilled at writing at an early age, and thus proceeded to command words into perfectly scoring essays about which (to my eternal shame) I truly knew nothing. I was shocked when Mr. Peters gave me a failing grade on my first paper, noting at the bottom that I’d written a beautiful essay, but I had not read the book. He continued to grade the work that I did, rather than my intelligence, which helped me to create for myself a valuable work ethic. When I signed up for English my senior year, I requested that he be my teacher again, to reinforce my somewhat-more-than-sophomoric idea that I should not expect what I have not worked for. The second time he taught me, I realized that this idea has an important flip side: you should always expect what you have worked for. He taught all of his students how to write an AP essay that would demand the grade they had earned, effectively rendering obsolete any apologetic excuses for failure that, he repeated, should never be used. I have found since then that it is important to differentiate between apology and humility.

                Simultaneously, as I went through high school, I was guided gently by the mother of one of my close friends. Mrs. Irick could always sense when I was down, and she would talk to me for a long time about eventualities she had detected in her life, which was brimming with a rather unique balance of thought and action. Each devoid of the other is foolish in a sense. Action without thought leads to many hotheaded and hasty decisions, while thought without action is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which Hamlet spends the last months of his life avoiding what he feels obligated to do; he wastes his precious time wallowing in despair. Mrs. Irick found that the delicate balance between thought and action could be attained by living passionately but pausing often to reflect. She also taught me that caring never goes unappreciated, even if I never did tell her that she was warmer to me (by twenty degrees) than my own mother.

In a way, every life is shaped by death. My friend Karl, who is finishing a dual major in philosophy and psychology, phrased grief well. He told me that to grieve is to realize how much someone meant to you in the first place, which I find is dreadfully accurate. In one sense, the deaths of those who are dear to us teach us that a complete termination of human potential is inevitable and possible at any instant. Contemplating the fragility of those we love eventually leads to awareness of our own vulnerability. In this way, our own deaths shape our lives as well, because I think people live differently based on their attitudes towards death. I personally believe that my life will slip away whether I make good use of my time or not; which is a thought I have come to gradually in the past year. I have plans to attempt to give the world as much goodness as it has given me before I die, and I hope that I will have the opportunity to do so. I feel like life is an awfully high price to pay for such knowledge. (The two people I mourn for most deeply are still too tender to mention as “gone” in a piece of formal writing.) On the other hand, I think death is partially responsible for the beauty of life. Death is the subtle motivation behind every risk, for with endless time I doubt humans would be under any stress to live.

I have an overarching sense that life is too short to worry. In the long run, there are very few things worth getting worked up about, and those things invariably fall outside our personal spheres of influence. I nevertheless worry about everyone I know, but at least I do so with the knowledge that I am not doing anything productive. My Uncle Les tells me about Vietnam sometimes. Many of his closest friends were those people who he lived through war with. I doubt anyone who has not been to war can imagine well what it is like. He has kept contact with a few people across the country, across the years. He told me that after war, very little seems worth suffering for. There are things people suffer for that are not grades or promotions or logistics; things that are not details. He has also told me indirectly that we are all blessed more than we know, and that happiness and success are independent of one another. I do not have a good name for this mindset which I have begun to adopt, but I will call it mental clarity. By clarity I mean that it is very easy to be temporarily satisfied by life when I am saturated in details, but it takes a greater vision, as well as a clearer mind, to attempt to view life in its entirety.

Pacifism is a philosophy around which I attempt (sometimes failing miserably) to shape my interactions. There are several definitions of pacifism floating around, but I hold to one that protests any action that would deny another entity the potential for happiness. This is less constraining than it might seem, as a hindrance to happiness is not the same as the prevention of it. However, I do additionally feel that war, torture, ignorance, and other forms of preventable pain are something to rage against, and, when given the chance, to refuse to engage in.

There are two vaguer concepts that affect my mental processes as well; these are innocence and suffering. They are quite contradictory in some ways, as a huge part of suffering for me has been disillusionment, which is what naïveté, or its euphemistic innocence, is not. These are concepts I have gleaned from literature, especially writings and teachings on Buddhism tempered with J.D. Salinger’s destructively passionate (albeit mostly fictional) stories. I find both concepts tied inexorably to knowledge on a linear scale. I think that understanding is a form of suffering, and innocence is a tantalizing copout. In other words, loss of innocence, one of the classic plights of literature, is a terrible, necessary part of maturation. Suffering is a fundamental component of being alive.

I want to understand, I need to give back to the world (and to people especially) and I plan to do so whilst continually redefining my “self” in the process. I do not expect life to be an easy trip, and frankly I would feel extremely unfulfilled if it turned out to be. I do have concrete plans though, despite life’s volatility.

As far as schooling goes, I will do as well as I can without sacrificing the things I enjoy; these are mainly spending time with others, playing music, and playing music with others, as well as biking for hours when I am sad. I will graduate with decent, average grades after four years, and if all goes well I will have an education that is superb, despite my middling grades. This is quite possible even if it seems contradictory, as learning requires attention and interest, while grades often involve hard work and sometimes superfluous details. I will not fail a single class, though. If ever I encounter a class that troubles me, I will be diligent with my homework, even if I find it tedious.

As an addendum to my previous statement, I do not have a flippant attitude towards education. I find learning refreshing and pertinent, as the things we learn in class have daily applications which entrance me. If I had nine lives, I would devote at least three of them solely to learning absolutely everything I could.

Following graduation, I will go into the Peace Corps in Haiti for two years. The French I know will probably not help much, but I am quick at learning languages, and as my mother’s family is Cajun, their French is similar to Creole. I have heard of developments in health care there, and am excited that I could potentially do good in one of the poorest countries in the world. I hope to gain an understanding of happiness among people who have nothing, as I have always had everything I really needed. I understand that Haiti can be dangerous, but if I die I will die knowing I have given something back to this beautiful planet. I plan on living, though.

After Peace Corps, I will work until I have paid off my loans, and then go back to school with the goal of becoming a nurse practitioner. I will also minor in Spanish, since I speak it adequately but have hardly ever read or written it. It will most certainly be applicable, as Spanish is our country’s second language! Once I am done with that, I will settle down and perhaps get married, confident in my salary if ever I need to raise my children solely. Additionally, I like extremely warm climates very much, so I will probably live in the dry, sparkling Arizona or in one of the colorful houses in New Mexico under that huge sky. Maybe I will live in one of the lush valleys of California, or maybe I will live everywhere! The places I have mentioned have all experienced a tremendous influx of immigrants from Latin America in the past few decades, and (having minored in Spanish) I would be able to provide an N.P.’s medical attention in their own language if the need arose.

I really want to have kids, as I am always a little jealous of the mothers I babysit for: I have never disliked a child I babysat. Children make me very happy, but if I do not become involved in a lasting relationship (which is unlikely, since I love people deeply and am willing to give everything I have to those I love) or if I cannot have children, then I plan on seeing the world. I do not think that I could give my children the attention they deserved if I was visiting Egypt and Hong Kong and Pakistan in my spare time, but if I do not have children then I will try and spend several weeks in another country whenever I possibly can. It is very important to me that, while I am doing this, I live like each country’s native inhabitants (or as nearly like them as possible). I have never been outside the United States, but I like that people live so differently everywhere around the world and yet all the different approaches to life work out; there is this incredible beauty everywhere.

All in all, I think life will be over in a heartbeat. Nursing is perfect, it does not take too long to get a degree, and yet I can help doctors work effectively to keep people functioning so that they can enjoy life. I want to help out, but I also want to learn how to make extremely spicy food, play my guitar on the streets of Mexico and Canada, roll around with whomever on a blanket under the stars by some elementary school in my hometown, harvest fresh asparagus by the railroad tracks, and write about everything! I want to sing with everyone I meet, to teach my clumsy feet to dance, to listen to poetry in Spanish and French, to invent some of the things I think of, to finish my book about a guy named Steuben, to swim across the Atlantic, and to cry with joy when the cold Himalayan air stings my sunburned face.