#and if you recognize that morality is nebulous and ever changing

[rayclubs]

Ever since watching Live Action One Piece, I can't stop thinking about how good the writing is in the actual show, so I'm going to seriously analyze it for my own fun and pleasure.

OP is kind of notorious for being nonsensical, whimsical, goofy and not particularly loaded with themes and heavy-to-grasp concepts, so a lot of people think of its arcs as mere sequences of events without an underlying thematic structure. This is what the Live Action gets wrong, but to the original show's credit, the formula is so intricately woven that you can't easily define it like in other serialized media. It's also a bit more... Nebulous? Okay, I can explain.

At least four of the earliest arcs follow the same formula. I'm sure it applies to later arcs too but they get longer and things become muddled down the line - not in a bad way, the core concepts still apply, just differently, so I'm only going to talk about the first four important ones. The formula is this:

The main character, Luffy, is introduced to another character who, in one way or another, displays a character flaw that prevents them from achieving their goals and dreams.

They encounter a foe who displays the exact same flaw in a different way.

Luffy confronts the foe on moral grounds and demonstrates a virtue that overcomes and overpowers the villain, leasing him to victory.

The newly introduced character, inspired by Luffy's example, experiences a change of perspective, which helps them overcome their own flaw and take a step towards their goal.

If you're thinking that sounds about right, then holy shit, our wavelengths. If, more likely, you're thinking "this is kinda far-fetched", then oh boy do I got proof of concept for you.

It's incredible how clear and well-executed the parallels between heroes and villains are. Like, okay, listen, here's Zoro's arc.

The villain, Axe-Hand Morgan, is a self-assured, self-centered tyrant who treats his comrades and subordinates as expendable tools and has no loyalties except to his own greatness.

Zoro isn't a tyrant, he's kind-hearted and has a strong moral compass, but he is still flawed: like Morgan, he doesn't have any loyalties except to himself. He's self-assured as hell. We learn later that he used to have mercenary friends but they went their own separate way at some point, and when they meet again, Zoro shows no clear loyalty to them - he's kind-hearted, so, of course, he cares, but he was never bound by their alliance and obviously considered the three of them to be drawn together by coincidence.

And to be clear, in the world of One Piece that is a flaw. Most characters swear allegiance to factions - pirate crews, marines, revolutionaries, other groups - and draw strength from them. Villages and towns are shown to survive hardships through unity and companionship.

Even Zoro's ultimate goal, the person he swore to defeat in mortal combat - Mihawk - although he appears solitary and not "bound" to a crew or a cause, we learn later that he is affiliated with the government. But that's a bit off-track.

While trying to save Zoro from execusion by Morgan, Luffy demonstrates a stubborn determination to work together. As soon as he recognizes that an injustice has been done to Zoro, he works not to solve the problem by himself, but to help Zoro deal with it. While another character tries to free Zoro from captivity directly - literally untie the ropes that are holding him - Luffy hands him his swords first.

Notably, Zoro is the only main character who defeats the main villain of his arc, all others are defeated by Luffy. I say "notably" because Zoro specifically is ony able to achieve this through cooperation with Luffy.

As the show goes on, Zoro's loyalty quickly becomes one of his core traits.

That's just one of them, so let's do Usopp's arc next.

The villain, Kuro, is a pirate captain who gave up his name and title. He is trying to turn away from who he is, remake himself into someone new through deception and trickery.

Usopp is doing the exact same thing, albeit in a decidedly more innocent way. He lies about his heroic feats and achivements, about his strength and the size of his crew, about practically everything. His lies aren't a flaw per se, as he never stops lying in the future. It's not his cowardice, that doesn't change much either. It's his conflict with himself. He's a pirate but he isn't. Pirates are coming but they aren't. He's proud of his heritage but he doesn't really get to be proud all that much until Luffy comes along.

Luffy defeats Kuro by being a better pirate, or by being better at being a pirate, or by being a pirate at all. Luffy has simple, clear-cut views and ambitions, he knows what kind of person he is and what kind of person he's trying to be, and he lives by it. That's the virtue.

As Usopp says his goodbyes before leaving his village, he gathers his little "crew" of kids together and makes them state their ambitions - one wants to be a writer, another dreams of owning a bar, etcetera - this is him imparting a lesson he just learned himself, on knowing who you want to become and living to be that person.

Usopp's best friend Kaya, inspired by him, resolves to become a doctor.

All this is also a showcase of Usopp's legacy, but don't get me started on legacy in One Piece, we'll be here for an hour.

So there we go. Let's do Sanji's arc next, it's way easier than Usopp's 3D chess pirate-gender.

The villain of the arc, Don Krieg, engages in malicious dishonesty to secure advantage in battles because he doesn't believe himself to be prepared enough for the journey he's undertaking.

Sanji is exactly the same but without the trickery. He justifies his inaction with the vague concept of being indebted to his mentor, even though his mentor considers the debt fully paid and sincerely wants him to live his own life.

Luffy defeats Don Krieg via stubbornness, bravery, endurance and ingenuity. It's similar to his other fights and not emphasized enough, which is probably why it's always been one of the more boring parts to me personally, though it's still wonderfully executed.

More importantly, Luffy reduses Sanji's mentor's journal, stating he wants to have his own adventure, not follow in someone else's footsteps. This is almost word-for-word the lesson Sanji needs to learn. Get out of there and do your best, you're ready, you'll never be more ready than you already are.

And finally, Nami's arc.

The villain, Arlong, believes himself to be inherently superior to those around him. If he recruits help, it's out of convenience, not necessity. If he forms bonds, they're business, not camaraderie. He does care for his fellow fishmen but that has more to do with the extended fishmen backstory and politics than anything so I won't touch on it.

Nami is equally flawed by hubris. She thinks she's better, more competent, more capable than the people around her, she has that complex you get when you don't have any friends in high school and end up doing all the group projects by yourself.

While fighting Arlong, Luffy makes a point out of stating and showing his own reliance on his own crew, and even lists off the skills they excel at that he himself doesn't possess. It's very on the nose but still awesome to watch.

He then absolutely fucking wrecks Nami's old prison-slash-workshop, demonstrating symbolically that, while her skill is great and important, it's not the main reason he values her as a crewmate and friend.

Nami gets over her hubris, begins to rely on others as allies more than assets, and relaxes a little about her paranoid hypercompetence. Good for her.

Okay so hopefully this convinced you. This was also going to be the part where I go on a long tangent about why Live Action One Piece fails on so many levels but then I realized I'd need a whole separate post for that, so I'm just gonna state the main point and leave it at that.

Netflix screenwriters seemed to have watched One Piece (roughly up to episode 130) and decided the arcs did not have any thematic uniting element even though they clearly did, as per above. They proceeded to rework the plot to introduce what they thought would work as unifying elements (introducing Baroque Works early, having Coby in every episode, cutting out Don Krieg and replacing him with Arlong) which inadvertently undermined the story structure and ruined the show.

Anyway, there's more. One of the earlier arcs is Buggy's arc which follows a different format. It doesn't see any new additions to the crew but it does see Luffy's worldview challenged by an outside force. This is an early example of a Luffy arc. Other examples include Loguetown, Jaya/Skypiea, and Foxy's arc (regrettably). Also Marinford and the events prior but that's, like, self-evident, I think. This story format borrows from classic romance literature and is way more straightforward. Buggy being an early example of it in the show, while being a comedic element himself, also introduces a lot of these story concepts. His journey could also be considered somewhat parallel to Luffy's, but that's a bit of a stretch, to be honest.

I completely forgot how I was going to end this analysis but hopefully reading it was worthwhile anyway. Live Action One Piece sucks. Cheers!

[stellarscripts]

Statement from a different transcriber:

We started making the at-the-time unofficial Stellar Firma transcripts in April 2019 as a fan endeavor. Obviously, none of us expected they would ever be official, or even recognized by Rusty Quill. I was there from the start, but I am not the founder of the group nor the person who did the bulk of the work by any means.

In September 2020, we, along with a group of other fans of Rusty Quill, formed a discord server where we talked to Autumn (and emailed with Anil) questions about the transcript situation, and other accessibility concerns, such as closed captions on YouTube.

Rusty Quill approached the Stellar Firma team later that month asking to purchase our transcripts from us (and declining to purchase the existing TMA or RQG transcripts, for what it's worth).

It’s hard to argue the nebulous idea of "they should be investing in accessibility more” without providing clear steps and goals. I get it; they are investing as we speak. I am so thankful for all that they're doing, even if I do personally believe it could be expedited. Any progress is still progress, and I don't want to undersell how ecstatic I was when they came to us with the offer to buy our transcripts. I remember thinking “holy shit, this shows that Rusty Quill cares about this.”

I still believe that; obviously they care, or they wouldn’t have come to us in the first place, and obviously a company with a lot of disabled employees understands that accessibility is important. I'm not claiming that they don't, or besmirching their moral character, that's a ridiculous point to argue and would have us going in circles for days.

What is not hard to argue is this: they already paid us the money, we already gave them the transcripts, and said transcripts are not available through any of their channels.

If the issue with RQG transcripts is time and/or money, that is not the issue here: we already put in the time, and they already put in the money. The transcripts exist, and are ready to post. They have been since December 2020, when we finished our second round of checks for accuracy (though I understand that they would want to check it themselves, just to be safe).

This is not comparable to RQG, where they still need to invest time and money into working through the backlog. The backlog has been worked through, and the time and money has been invested, and… well, and nothing. 

And if your question is “well, this is something that’s easy to fix, they already paid you your money, so why aren’t you shutting up,” my response is because it's such a simple solution (throw up a temporary Google Drive while you get Sharepoint running, etc) it stings all the more to me that nothing has been done, that I have to link people my personal Google Drive when I recommend Stellar Firma to them, that when they ask if there's transcripts I have to include a “yes, and I helped make them, but...” addendum. 

When we completed the transfer in February, Anil said "I'm happy to confirm receipt and that they have been completed to our satisfaction." Now, in June, that is still all we have.

Rusty Quill obviously cares and obviously is trying, and I get from my own experience transcribing that something like complete transcripts for Rusty Quill Gaming is going to take a really long time.

But that doesn't change the fact that they have the Stellar Firma transcripts for seasons 1 and 2, formatted to their specifications, completed (in their own words) to their satisfaction, and they are, months later, still not being shared with the people who need them by the company who legally owns them; instead, those who need them are relying on fans who have no legal claim to them to maintain legally-questionable archives.

That’s the issue I have. That’s what I am currently fighting for. I want the money Rusty Quill invested (not to mention the time they’ve dedicated) to go to a good use. I want what we’ve done and what they’ve done to help people. That’s it.

(And, with no disrespect to Jessica’s reasoning for their decision to stop hosting them herself, all of the transcripts we made are available as .PDFs here. I am okay continuing to host them until Rusty Quill does. I may not own them anymore, but anyone who needs them is welcome to them. All I personally want is for people to have them, and to enjoy the show like I did.)

[harperhug]

In case the article gets paywalled:

What Good Is 'Raising Awareness?'

Just being educated about diseases isn't enough to make people healthier.

In 2010, a strange meme spread across Facebook. People’s feeds were suddenly filled with one-word statuses saying the name of a color, nothing more. And most of these posts were from women.

The women had received messages from their Facebook friends that were some variation on this, according to The Washington Post: "Some fun is going on ... just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of breast cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before people wonder why all the girls have a color in their status. Haha."

Oh, okay. It was for breast cancer awareness. Except, no, wait—how? The Susan G. Komen Foundation had nothing to do with it, though it did get them some Facebook fans, according to the Post story. It wasn’t clear at all who started it. There was no fundraising component to the campaign. And the posts weren’t informative at all. In fact, their whole point was to be mysterious. Maybe people asked their friends what they meant by just posting “beige” or “green lace” and then they had a meaningful conversation about breast-cancer screenings and risk factors, but I’d guess that happened rarely, if at all.

This incident is just one example of the nebulous phenomenon of “raising awareness” for diseases. Days, weeks, months are dedicated to the awareness of different health conditions, often without a clear definition of what “awareness” means, or what, exactly, is supposed to come of it.

Recommended Reading

According to a commentary published this month in the American Journal of Public Health, the United States has almost 200 official “health awareness days.” (The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lists all national health observances on its website.) And that’s not counting all the unofficial ones, sponsored by organizations.

The paper was an attempt to begin to investigate whether awareness days actually improve people’s health. Jonathan Purtle, an assistant professor at Drexel University’s School of Public Health, teamed up with Leah Roman, a public-health consultant, to see whether awareness could even be quantified.

“We both kind of anecdotally observed that there seem to be more [awareness days] than ever,” Purtle says. “In public health, and in medicine, we’re putting more and more emphasis on evidence-based practices. Everything should be informed by science in some way. We asked ourselves, has anybody ever evaluated these things, do we know if they’re effective at all?”

The answer: Not many people have, and we really don’t.

Awareness days do seem to be on the rise, by at least a couple measures—the researchers found that more than 145 bills including the words “awareness day” have been introduced in U.S. Congress since 2005, a huge leap compared with previous years. Articles that reference "awareness day"  in the PubMed database have followed a similar, but less extreme, upward trajectory.

Trends in Attention to Awareness Days in U.S. Congress and Health Science Literature

But most of the articles Purtle and Roman found in their search (which was just preliminary, not a systematic metareview) were editorials or commentaries announcing or discussing awareness days. Only five studies empirically evaluated the effects of an awareness day, “but the designs weren’t that rigorous,” Purtle says. The best one, according to Purtle, found that on “No Smoking Day” in the U.K., five times more people called a quit smoking hotline than the daily average. “But that was about it,” Purtle says.

So evidence really is lacking on what good these awareness days do.

Liz Feld, president of the nonprofit advocacy organization Autism Speaks, says she has seen results from World Autism Awareness Day, which was April 2, and Autism Awareness Month, which goes on for all of April. The organization has raised more than $10 million so far in April, more than 50,000 people registered on Autism Speaks’ website, and more than 18,000 buildings around the world illuminated with blue lights on April 2 as part of the “Light it Up Blue” campaign. A spokesperson also told me that “Light it Up Blue” was a trending topic on Facebook and Twitter on April 2.

The money is something concrete that came out of the awareness month, but what about the rest?

“One-third of people who live with autism are nonverbal,” Feld says. “The power of a global blue-light movement is very strong. On that day, that is the collective voice of the autism community. That’s a show of power. The blue lights are really a voice.”

Here, "awareness" seems to mean sending a message, getting attention, and getting people to talk about the issue, at the very least on social media. During the week of the most recent World AIDS Day, December 1, 2014, AIDS.gov got the most engagement and new followers of the entire year, Miguel Gomez, the director of AIDS.gov, told me in an email. Perhaps not coincidentally, the organization’s HIV Testing and Care Service Locator got nearly triple its average traffic on December 1.

Social-media activism gets a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, some of it less so. (There's even a somewhat pejorative term for it: slacktivism.) On one hand, it’s an easy way to reach a lot of people, and it often amplifies the voices of the marginalized. On the other hand, changing your profile picture for an awareness day (something Autism Speaks asked people to do for Light It Up Blue) might just be the smallest possible unit of support for a cause. If not backed up by money or deed, it’s little more than lip service. But lip service is not nothing—if enough people do it, it could help shift cultural norms, as Melanie Tannenbaum wrote in Scientific American, about people supporting marriage equality by making equals signs their profile pictures.

“Based on everything that we know about our brains and their bafflingly strong desires to fit in with the crowd, the best way to convince people that they should care about an issue and get involved in its advocacy isn’t to tell people what they should do—it’s to tell them what other people actually do,” Tannenbaum writes. “And you know what will accomplish that? That’s right. Everyone on Facebook making their opinions on the issue immediately, graphically, demonstrably obvious.”

With a controversial issue like marriage equality, enough equals signs on Facebook pages could send the message that this is a common cause to support, and just maybe, gather more support, in a snowball-rolling-down-a-hill sort of way. The thing is, though, that with diseases, everybody’s pretty much already on the same side. There aren’t pro-cancer people who need convincing to come around.

“The question I would ask Autism Speaks or someone who's doing some sort of initiative like ‘Make your picture blue,’ is how they think that will trickle down into some sort of positive outcome for people with autism,” Purtle says.

So I asked.

“First of all, anyone who takes the time to change their picture, they feel invested, like they’re part of something,” Feld says. “That’s the culture we live in now. It’s a way for them to participate. It creates a sense of a community, it really goes back to that. People like to be part of something, look at the ALS ice-bucket challenge. They wanted to be part of something that was bigger than themselves. It’s free, it makes you happy, it makes you feel like you're doing something.”

But Feld recognizes that this isn’t enough.

“You’ve got to follow it up with something else,” she says. “What comes with raising awareness is a responsibility to do something about what you’re aware of. I always say to people, ‘April 2nd is great but what happens April 3rd?’”

When so much is vying for people’s attention, especially online, including the couple hundred other awareness days, even if you get people to listen, how do you get them to do more than just post a status?

There is a sociological theory called narcotizing dysfunction, which proposes that the more people learn about an issue from the media, the less likely they are to do something about it. Purtle and Roman posit that this might be an unintended effect of awareness days, that people might “conflate being knowledgeable about a health issue with taking action to address it.” It’s not enough to just say “this is a problem, and we need to do something about it.” There are a lot of problems in the world that need doing something about.

So in addition to awareness-raising, to try to get people to do something, Autism Speaks fundraises and asks people to sign petitions. “[When we try] to get corporate sponsors, I always tell people here, you can’t just go pitch this as a moral imperative,” Feld says. “There are a lot of moral imperatives. An effective awareness day has got to give people a window into what a real person who's living with autism is going through. My goal is for people to see the face of someone with autism on Autism Awareness Day, so that they carry that with them on April 3rd, April 4th, April 5th.”

Awareness days wouldn’t be so popular if there weren’t an appetite to address health problems. “People want to do something, which is good,” Purtle says. What he worries is that awareness campaigns’ focus on the individual—what you need to know, what you can do—could reinforce existing troublesome ideas about the origins of health, especially with conditions like obesity and heart disease, where lifestyle is a big risk factor.

A lot of people believe, he says, that “it’s really people’s choices that determine their health outcomes and if they’re unhealthy it's either: 1. They made bad choices, or 2. They’re just unlucky and have some genetic thing. These awareness [days] seem to be reinforcing that if you’re aware of the health issue, it’s a good step, and it might be even sufficient to address the health issue. That really flies in the face of the complexity of the various forces that influence a person’s health and a population’s health.”

Those forces include environmental, societal, and economic factors—things that can’t be fixed with knowledge alone. “I think if more people understood that, perhaps we’d see awareness days looking a little bit different,” Purtle says. A better awareness day, he thinks, would spread information about the prevalence of a condition and its risk factors, as well as policy changes that could lessen disparities or help people living with the condition.

“Neither Leah nor I think awareness days are necessarily a bad thing, nor is awareness a bad thing,” Purtle says. “Awareness can be a first step toward changing behavior, but in my opinion, more importantly it would be a first step to positively address the policies that impact a population's health.”

[mei-be]

My therapy homework assignment this week was to make a list of my core strengths, what made me resilient; and then identify where the came from, and how I did it. Knowing me, I expected this to turn into a mumbling, halfhearted, nebulous, exercise of self deprecation. So, I am going to try to identify my strengths without focusing on my deficits.

1. Vibrant

I think it’s worth mentioning that the very first strength that came to mind was this. I am vibrant. Strangely enough, if I were to describe myself to a stranger, vibrant wouldn’t be my first choice. I would probably go with weirdo, nerdy, awkward, which are gray-colored words. But when I look at myself as a whole, I see a coat of many technicolors. Deep slashes of pigment, pattern, depth. I am fueled by a vicious energy, to do, to learn, to create. It makes me unsettled, unstable, but it also makes me deeply interested and interesting. When I think about where this strength comes from, I actually see that its interconnected with other core strengths. Curiousity, creativity and imagination. I would say curiousity is probably my best quality. I am furiously curious. It’s a degree that surpasses interest, it more than stimulates me, it moves me. I remember being a young child, bursting with wonder and questions about the world. I would hum with frustration, at not being able to ask questions and have them answered in a satisfying way. I told myself that if a child ever asked me a question, I would answer it as completely and thoroughly as I could. I often wonder what would happen if technology and the internet had been as widely present back then as it is now. Yes, my curiousity would have been sated, but will I have lost the desperation? Also, the important skill of trying to work a problem out in your own brain; with incomplete information, imperfect rationale and all. I am grateful for the internet and smart phones every single hour in every single day, but I am equally grateful for the information struggle that preceded it.

2. Endurance

The ability to endure a difficult process without giving way. Yes, this is me, no question. It comes from necessity, pure and simple. I was an abused child at home, a bullied and friendless child at school, with no support and no resources. In this situation, you have no choice but to endure. If your abuser (s) were involved enough, you didn’t even have the opportunity to kill yourself. It was just a matter of using your imagination and creativity to stand your life until enough time passed you by. Hmmm. Time. Maybe that should be a listed strength. The ability to endure the passage of time. It’s a pretty passive trait, you just hold onto your breaking heart, and try not to get killed or die.

3. Self Sufficiency and Resourcefulness

When you grow up very deprived, with no importance put on material things, or any care about anything other than your most basic needs for biological survival, you develop a certain set of skills. You learn to make it, take it, or not want it anymore. Ideally, you can create the things you want through your own means, or at least, a facsimile of the thing. As an adult, this can generally be done, even if it ends up taking a lot of energy and time. As a small child with limited resources, the likelihood is much less. But you have no choice, and so you try. Most of your attempts are garbage, but you try anyways. Once in a great while, you succeed, and from this you gain experience, knowledge, an equity. If there’s no way to make it, you take it. You steal, you borrow, you try to find an open source. You don’t want to break the law, you don’t want to hurt others, but you want this thing, and you have no choice. Your morality changes, becomes more ambiguous, more fluid. When the other children are learning the golden rule, and how to share; you are learning that there are more colors than black and white, and how far you are willing to go to reach your goal. This changes you, this strengthens you. Maybe you learn that the direct route to your goal isn’t the only way. Maybe the trade off to this linear path is hard work. You can reach your goal, but you have to slog through a lot of mud to get there. It isn’t all neat and nicely packaged for you. You were never taught this, so you’re learning as you go, stubbing your toe on obstacles. But you are gaining experience, you are having a hellish time and that is shaping who you are, and it’s amazing. Finally, if you couldn’t make it , and you couldn’t find a way to take it, then your only other option is to convince yourself that you don’t want it. You’ve learned, you’ve grown, you’ve struggled, but you’ve failed. And now it’s time to change your mind. You have no choice, but you can do this one thing. Convince yourself you don’t need this thing, in fact, you never wanted it that badly to begin with. Life goes on, time helps you onward.

4. The wild card, the weird shit, the superpowers

When you grow up in crisis, when your developing child brain is bathed in the fear-chemicals of your overstimulated sympathetic nervous system, weird shit happens. You’re a bit different than everyone else; you can’t do the things they can, but you can do things they can’t. You’re hyper vigilant, you see everything in your environment but yourself. You can recognize someone from a city block away by staring at the back of their head and recognizing their walk. You can just look at someone and know how they are feeling, like reading a roadmap to their mental health. You’re not psychic, you don’t know the specifics, but it’s like everyone puts out a sound, a certain tone and pitch, and when things aren’t going well, you can hear that sound shift, lower in pitch, or even volume. You’re a social chameleon, you can get along with anyone, doing anything. You are perfectly isolated, with layers of PPE between you and real human connection. It’s so finely crafted that no one knows that you are surrounded by friends and totally alone. You could live with these people for years, and still be a total stranger. They think they know you. They don’t. You’ve made sure of that. You are never boring. It’s impossible for you. You have no choice.

[sage-nebula]

For the autumn asks : Pumpkin, Cinnamon, Crow.

Crow:  Which school subject do you wish you had an aptitude for?

Math.

Truth be told, it’s less that I even wish I had an aptitude for it, per se, and more that I wish that it was possible for me at all. I can do basic math, and I memorized my multiplication tables because I wasn’t allowed to eat until I could recite them, but I still don’t know how to do long division (does that count as basic?), and I have a diagnosed learning disability as it pertains to mathematics. It’s difficult for me to gauge distances, time management is a real struggle, and all of this goes back to the fact that my brain is wired in such a way that holding numbers in my head and understanding mathematical concepts is nigh impossible. I had to have my math general education credit waived during my undergrad because I tried to get it four separate times, in different courses, and just could not pass with a grade high enough in a course that qualified to get the credit. I gave myself stomach ulcers to get a C in Basic Math, only to have that not count. When I took College Algebra, I would understand the lesson all right when I was in the class, but when I’d try to do my homework at home, I’d have to re-teach myself the material using the book. Ten problems would take me two or three hours to complete, and you can’t use the book on the exams, so I was basically screwed. How I ever managed to get through math in K-12 is a wonder, but the fact that I did fail geometry junior year and had to attend summer school for it isn’t a surprise at all, in retrospect.

All of that said, not only do I wish that I didn’t have a learning disability because of the sheer Hell it put me through, but I also wish that I had mathematical ability because a lot of the fields I’m interested in require it. Anything pertaining to space exploration or travel is barred to me, because the sciences that go into that field are math-heavy. Computer programming not only requires some mathematical ability, but programming itself is heavily rooted in a type of reasoning that leans heavily into the mathematical portion of one’s brain. It’s something that my brain just cannot process, no matter how much I would love to learn (and believe me, I would love to learn, and I have tried to learn, but it’s like there’s a block there I just can’t get past). My brain just will not hold or process those numbers.

So when I say “I hate math,” it’s not so much that I hate math itself as much as it is that I hate all of the time I spent crying because I felt like I was too stupid to do understand simple math problems. I hate the stomach ulcers I gave myself in university, and the emotional breakdowns I had because I thought I wouldn’t be able to graduate with my creative writing degree because I couldn’t pass a math course. I hate the fact that there are so many beautiful parts to math, such as the fact that it’s the universal language that everyone theoretically should be able to understand and learn, but that I can’t because my brain simply won’t process it. And to be honest, I hate people when talk about how, oh, yeah, math is frustrating, but they can at least still learn it, their brains can still at least process it if they try, whereas I can’t. It’s not just that I don’t want to, or that it’s a bit hard but I can do it, it’s that I have tried, and tried, and tried for hours straight, to the point of making myself physically sick, and I cannot. 

So I don’t hate math. I hate my learning disability which has made math cause me actual, physical pain, and has barred me from subjects I otherwise have vested interest in (and has made some things, like science, insanely difficult). I really wish math and I could be friends. I really, really do.

Cinnamon:  If you had to live in a time period different than the present, which would you choose and where?

THE FUTURE!

It’s hard to be more specific than that, because I’m not sure what the future holds. But whatever it holds, I’d like to think it’s better than the present, and it can’t be worse than the past. Honestly, so many people want to travel backwards in time, and I just---why? What is appealing about the past? Technology is worse the farther back you go. If you go back far enough, there is no indoor plumbing, and showers might not be commonplace. Public transportion is worse. Like . . . the past holds nothing of value. We can learn from the past, absolutely, but why would anyone want to live there? It’s gross and inconvenient. Let’s leave the past in the past where it belongs, and look instead to the future.

Think of how many incredible things the future could have. Technology could be so advanced and commonplace that universal translation devices might be $30 at most. Language barriers would be a thing of the past---we could all communicate. What if we have teleportation machines as a means of public transportation? What if we have luggage and bags that are Bags of Holding, that are their own personal, pocket dimensions that can store anything? There are so many cool inventions that are in the process of being made, and this is all technology that will make our lives better. New medicines, vaccines, and antibiotics are being discovered on the daily. Our space exploration programs are discovering new planets, and are discovering new things about known planets that could, potentially, get us off this wretched planet and into space one day. The future is where it’s at. The future has to be better than this. Or even if it doesn’t have to be, I hope it is, and we know for a fact that the past is not, so that needs to just be discarded and swept away.

I want the future to be better. And if you ask me if I prefer the future or the past, I’m going to pick the future every time. Get me a world of tech and innovation, where everyone can live freely and happily, where we’re actively striving to make each day better than the one before it. That’s the world I dream of. That’s the one I want.

Pumpkin:  Do you think that humans are inherently good or bad?

That’s a complicated question, and . . . I think it depends on the individual.

I think the word “inherently” is the main rub here. What does that mean, precisely? I think it dials down to the nature vs. nurture argument. Are we who we are when we’re born? Or are we who we are based on the environment we’re raised in, and how we’re raised within that environment? In other words, does the tabula rasa theory hold water, or not? And I think that it’s a little bit of both. I do think there are some innate qualities that we, as individuals, have, and would have no matter what. The fact that even infants can be different in terms of temperament and demeanor (e.g. I was apparently very, very quiet as a baby and didn’t cry much at all, but my older sister was apparently much fussier and more high maintenance) shows as much. Some people are bound to be more naturally determined, or more naturally shy, than others, regardless of the environment they grow up in. Some people simply are. But I also think it’s undeniable that our environments do shape us. Things like ethics, morals, virtues---these are things we’re taught to believe. And it isn’t just that. I’ve talked before about how I have C-PTSD thanks to my life expereinces, and C-PTSD is something that shapes how you behave, and how you view and interact with the world. It shapes you as you grow. I’m not sure who I would be if I didn’t have C-PTSD affecting how I see and interact with the world, and though I’ve attended therapy in an effort to recover (and though I’ve been practicing things like CBT to try and help myself heal), that doesn’t change the fact that my life experiences did shape me as a person, even though C-PTSD manifested in my psyche. (And to give an idea of how much C-PTSD affects a person, it’s sometimes recognized as a personality disorder, and can sometimes resemble BPD. So, yeah . . . it really does shape how someone develops.) How we’re raised does affect who we are as people. Our environment does shape us. So while I do think there are certain parts of our personalities that are innate, I also think that our environment plays a part in that as well. It’s not nature or nurture. It’s nature and nurture.

So to get back to the original question, what does that mean in terms of being good or bad? Well, first we must remember that “good” and “bad” are subjective. While there are some things that we as a society can generally agree upon as being good or bad (e.g. it’s good to be generous and charitable, it’s bad to murder), even then there are often qualifiers that vary from person to person. Is it wrong and bad to take a life no matter the circumstances? Or is it justified if it’s in the defense of yourself or others, or punishment for especially heinous crimes? Is it always wrong to steal, or is it justified if it’s to feed your family? Things like that---questions like that all come down to subjective beliefs and ideals. It’s why, to use a fandom example, Gryffindors are not always heroic. Gryffindors are driven by the question of Right or Wrong, but what is Right and what is Wrong varies from Gryffindor to Gryffindor. Even if a Gryffindor maintains that their ideal of Right is objectively Right, in the end it is still subjective. It’s something you feel in your gut, in your heart. There is no one answer that everyone in the world will agere with, even if many do.

So at the heart of it, what we’re dealing with is subjectivity, and even then we’re dealing with subjectivity in a nebulous area where it’s difficult to ascertain what is inherently true of an individual. Does it still count as inherent if some of their worse behaviors or beliefs are a result of the environment they were raised in? Does it count as inherent if they could potentially be swayed from these things? It’s difficult to say, and I feel that everyone would have a different take on it.

As for me . . .

At the end of the day, I think that trying to make blanket statements about humanity like this one way or the other is a mistake. As I’ve said, it depends on the individual. Yes, I do believe that there are some people---some human beings---who are simply evil. I know that people rail against this idea. You have people who try to appear “enlightened” in fandom maintaining that characters who are simply evil and awful are unrealistic, because everyone has some tragic backstory to explain their actions, or some shade of grey that makes them better, and you also have people who try to be enlightened in a different sense pointing out how all heinous people have loved ones and soft interests, and therefore it’s wrong to label people as monsters. I think that both of those so-called “enlightened” opinions are wrong. Even if someone has a tragic backstory, or even if they have some reason that they believe justifies their actions, there are some heinous actions that simply cannot be excused or sympathized with, regardless of the reason. And even if those heinous people have loved ones, that doesn’t matter. Being nice to your significant other doesn’t excuse the dozen children you raped and murdered. Liking dogs doesn’t change the fact that you believe in the systemic slaughter of millions. And even going away from extremes like that, there are people in this world who simply enjoy causing others pain. Dolores Umbridge is a horrible, horrible person. She is, at her core, evil, even if she doesn’t commit acts that are as outright heinous as, say, Voldemort (at least on the surface, because let’s not forget her willing service when the Ministry was sending muggleborns off to Azkaban for the crime of “stealing” magic). And she’s such a reviled villain in the fandom because of her realism, because for as many heinous and awful things as she does, we’ve still encountered people like her in real life who enjoy making life difficult and painful for others. People like Umbridge, who have no redeeming qualities on the surface (aside from maybe liking cats) exist. There are people like that. There are people who like to see others suffer, who are selfish, malicious, wretched people. We have political leaders in our history---in the world’s history, from pretty much every country---who have passionately believed in the horrid things they did. Practically every country on this earth has a bloody history because, at some point in time, heinous people believed that they were justified in their atrocities. And yes, I do believe that those people, however justified they felt they were, were evil. There is a saying that crops up again and again in JRPGs, and that saying is, “If there is evil in this world, it lurks in the hearts of men.” And I believe that’s a saying for a reason. I think it’s true. I think there are people out there who are, at the heart of it, evil, regardless of how justified they believe they are.

But on the flipside, there are people who are good, too. There are people who dedicate their lives to charity, to saving others, to protecting those who can’t protect themselves. Just as there are people who are, for whatever reason, evil, there are people who are good, too. The history of the world is bloody, but when atrocities happen there are those who oppose them, and those who oppose the atrocities are good. Those who gain true joy and fulfillment from helping, rather than hurting, others are good. Those people exist, too.

Again, I don’t like making blanket statement about humanity. I do think that visions of the future where everyone shares everything out of the goodness of their hearts are idealistic and unrealistic. But I also think that visions of the future where everything is bleak, and everyone hates everyone else are pessimistic and unrealistic. It all comes down to the individual. It’s our actions, and how we feel about those actions, that ultimately defines who we are. I do think there are some people that are just evil. But I also think there are some people that are just good. And I think that there are a lot of people who waver between the two, who simply are, who are doing their best, the best they can.

It’s a really complicated question, but that’s where I’m at with it right now.

[medjaichieftain]

Silence Watches The Mummy and The Mummy Returns – Musings, Headcanons, Criticisms, & Observations About Ardeth, Horus, and the Medjai - [Part 1 of 2]

This is going to be… such a random hodgepodge of stuff, heh. I’m going to number them just to give this big wall of text some structure, but they’re not in any specific order. And by all means message me or comment somehow on anything you read here. I would love to discuss any one of these things! =)

[1.] What are the Medjai, really? Medjai means “bodyguards”, I think. If you listen to Imhotep at the beginning of the first movie, right before Anck-su-namun takes her life, he says something that is translated into the “Pharoah’s bodyguards,” and he definitely says “Medjai.” In the second movie, Nefertiri calls for her father’s bodyguards to help him, and she also called them “Medjai.” Back to the first movie, Ardeth describes the Medjai as “we, the Medjai, the descendants of Pharoahs’ sacred bodyguards.” I always took this to mean blood descendants, but I think I was wrong. I think they are occupational descendants, not bloodline descendants. The reason for this is because the Medjai are also described as being this secret society of warriors (except for the one dude who was managing the library, probably so that the rest of them would have a decent informational contact). They appear to be all men, in scouting/hunting parties, out on the sands, keeping watch over stuff, right? How do they get more Medjai, then, heh? Do you ever see any kids? Or even any women? I think that in the world of The Mummy, there are tribes of nomadic desert people who call the Sahara home who actually live in family units, and then there are the Medjai, who I think come from all those other tribes. The curator of the library in the first movie says that they are “sworn from manhood to protect,” which to me means that it is a choice and that they don’t become Medjai until they come of age. So I think the Medjai are not a family society in and of themselves, so much as they are comprised from warriors of many different tribes in a given region who take an oath to essentially give up their family lives to take on this immense religious and moral duty. That is not to say they never visit their families at all, but I think it is more an occupational vow and not one passed down through bloodlines. This is further confirmed for me by Rick supposedly being a Medjai in the second movie, because… I’m sorry but his pasty White ass probably does not have any Egyptian blood in him, haha, so it’s more likely that he is not a descendant of any Pharoah’s bodyguards. But… neither did he choose to enter the Medjai at manhood, so Rick kinda confuses me. He said he got the tattoo at an orphanage, and didn’t even know what it was. That… doesn’t seem to fit with how the rest of the Medjai function. How can you be a warrior for a god you don’t believe in when you don’t even know that you are one in the first place? Which brings me to the pronunciation of the word “me-djai.” It changes, heh. By the second half of the second movie, everybody (including Ardeth) is saying “mah-djai” instead of “meh-djai.” As in, magi? As in… a group of wise men who know a lot of shit that you should pay attention to? I wonder if this was meant to be a play on words that further illustrates the roles that the Medjai played in society or whether the actors all just got lazy in pronouncing the damn word, heh. I’m thinking the latter, but eh… food for thought.

[2.] We never actually ever see Ardeth’s Medjai tattoo on his wrist, the one that would match Rick’s. He wears a leather bracelet that covers it up, and actually, so did Rick in the first movie. Since the Medjai are supposed to be a secret society, it makes sense, but then in that case I wonder why they would cover the wrist tattoo but then put tattoos on his face and the backs of his hands. Not very secret anymore, is it?

[3.] As much as I love Ardeth, his character does annoy me a little bit in that he is an obvious plot device. In the beginning of the first movie, the Medjai are seen as scoundrels, villains, and evildoers. They attack without warning, they’re savage, they have scars, and they’re older looking men. We are not privy to any of their names and we can’t see all of their faces clearly. Even the music that introduces their presence is sinister and ominous in nature. We are taught at first to see them as villains, and this annoys me because it is totally based on the social concept of “The Other.” This nebulous, not clearly defined, nameless, faceless, “other” person that you cannot feel anything for or identify with or even consider a human being because they are “other” than you. It is unfortunately the basis for a whole lot of religious, ethnic, and cultural stereotyping and prejudice. It is not until we meet Ardeth, who is coincidentally the only Medjai given more than a couple innocuous lines, a much younger guy, devoid of scars that we can see, a seriously good looking dude, amazing hair, haha… that the Medjai suddenly have a face and a meaning. From then on they’re good, noble saviors, warriors for god, and protectors against evil. I’m not saying don’t view them that way, I’m just annoyed that they are portrayed as 100% evil at the start and then 100% good later on. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Maybe their cause is good, but they do kill innocent people for it and their methods can be cruel and violent. Necessarily so? You decide? But still… why must they be either black or white morally speaking? They are somewhere in between and they should have been ortrayed that way from the start. Instead, they start out as blanks, as “Others” to us until we’re shown a pretty one and then suddenly we care, heh. That urks me a lot, which is why I go out of my way to notice background Medjai in both movies and wonder at their lives and deaths. I would have appreciated the fleshing out of at least one other Medjai besides Ardeth. It is a shame that neither movie ever bothered to do that.

[4.] I have been thinking about Ardeth’s alignment, that is, his moral compass. Ardeth is not 100% Good in terms of alignment. He is Lawful Neutral with Neutral Good tendencies. He is willing to kill innocent people to protect hundreds of thousands of other lives. He admits this himself verbally when Evie asks him and the head librarian guy if their actions warrant killing innocent people. Any Medjai is prepared to do just that. Their cause is to protect the greater good, not to save individual lives. That’s where the Lawful Neutral comes in. However, he has Neutral Good tendencies. What this means is that… sometimes… Ardeth is willing to go against his code and/or act in favor of Good. So maybe here and there, he does decide to go the distance to save one or two lives (he threw himself at the mummies at the end of the first movie to allow Rick and Jonathan time to get the Book of Amun Ra and escape), and maybe sometimes he will choose to go against his vows to the Medjai in favor of a personal commitment (choosing to stay with Rick, Evie, and Jonathan to help them find Alex in the second movie instead of going off on his own to let the other chieftains know of their location after Horus is shot down). He also gave the Americans and Rick’s group in the first movie time to leave their camp when it was attacked, saying he would shed no more blood, but they had one day to leave. He should never have allowed them that day if he was adhering strictly to his duties as a Medjai, but his Good tendencies wanted to spare lives.

[5.] So I have come to the conclusion that Ardeth wears “high heels” because he rides a horse, heh. I’ve gotten a bunch of comments on his wearing high heels and wtf is up with that, haha, and I think it’s because he needs the heels to grip the stirrups of his horse. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. XD

[6.] Okay but like… why didn’t the Medjai just move the Book of the Dead somewhere people wouldn’t find it instead of constantly fending off people who came to Hamunaptra looking for it? Without it, no one can wake Imhotep, right? So… relocate it out in the middle of the freaking desert somewhere where the Medjai know where it is but no one else does, and guard it. If everyone thinks/knows it’s at Hamunaptra, put the damn thing somewhere else? Why didn’t they just do that? Because there would’ve been no movie, that’s why, haha.

[7.] The other Medjai who died in the beginning of the first movie… did Ardeth know them? It is likely that he did, since he was the regional chieftain. So he would know and command all Medjai in that area. Otherwise, he wouldn’t even be in the story because this wouldn’t be his region, heh. So… did Ardeth send those men there to attack the boat in the beginning of the first movie, and if so, did he and his other men mourn the fact that they did not return? He certainly knew the ones who initially attacked Hamunaptra, because he was right there fighting with them. What was the conversation like after they left that night… with only half the men they came with? The bodies of the men were just left there, and not another word was said about them. Do they have some sort of agreement that bodies aren’t recovered due to time, danger, or resource constraints? If so, what do they bring back, if anything, to the families of these men? How are they honored/recognized for their dedication and sacrifice? I’m sure Ardeth would say/do something to honor them. And then how does losing so many men on a regular basis affect him emotionally? It really makes me wonder.

[8.] So for those who didn’t know this, Ardeth was supposed to die at the end of the first movie. The scene where his gun jams while Rick and Jonathan are trying to excavate the Book of Amun Ra and he has his iconic line, “Save the girl. Kill the creature,” and then he throws himself at all the mummies in the corridor? Yeah, he was supposed to die then. But apparently test audiences liked Ardeth so much and were so upset that he died that they actually changed the ending to include him… and then gave him a much bigger part in The Mummy Returns. (Thank you test audiences, omg, haha.) That’s why he’s just kindof gone for the whole final battle at the end of the first movie and then scares the shit out of Jonathan at the very end sitting on his camel, heh. But it makes me wonder… The Pharaoh’s bodyguards at the end of the first movie were, by definition, also Medjai. If the makers of the movie had decided sooner that Ardeth should live and he had been involved in that battle, would those undead Medjai still have gone after him, or would they recognize him as one of their own? I really wonder about that… and about why the Medjai mummies would be helping Imhotep…? That made no sense…? Like what all was in what Jonathan read that told them hey, forget your duties in life and go help the guy who killed your pharaoh?

[9.] What’s the deal with Ardeth and Lock-Nah? They knew each other by sight and they knew their full names. And the  very slight head cant Ardeth gives when saying his name gives me a “(sigh) here we go again with this guy” vibe. Lock-Nah too was smiling like “hey… this guy I love to pick on!” And it seemed like that kind of relationship to me, like… Ardeth has probably tried numerous times to foil the cult of Imhotep over the years and this guy Lock-Nah probably pushed back, screwed him over, and generally engaged in bombastic fuck you-ery to the point of Ardeth just being sick and tired of him. And from Lock-Nah’s point of view, he thinks he’s better than Ardeth in every possible way and enjoys watching him fail. The way he watches Ardeth fight the other cult members in Evie’s house toward the beginning of the second movie with this amused condescension, and then makes the comment, “Not bad… for a Medjai,” is indicative of his perceived superiority over Ardeth. He says “Medjai” like he’s saying “scum of the earth” or something, heh. He has no respect for Ardeth as a person, for the Medjai as a society, or for the morality for which both stand. What makes me think that their relationship is more than just soldier-of-virtue vs. immoral villain is Ardeth’s emotion whenever he fights him. And I’m not saying he cries or makes comments or even shows a range of emotions on his face, it’s just that he looks… to not have the same level of concentration on his face as when he’s fighting Anubis’ army, for example. He’s serious then, focused, confident. With Lock-Nah, there’s a sense of “if I don’t keep on my toes and pay attention I’m going to die.” Maybe Ardeth perceived Lock-Nah to be a better fighter than him, skill-wise. Or maybe there was more to their relationship that we didn’t get to know. By the time he faces him in the jungle of Ahm-Shere, he’s comin’ at him yelling out this battle cry and just going for it. Whereas in the beginning of the movie he seems uncertain of himself, by the time he gets to that duel at the end, there’s a savagery that comes from Ardeth that is just rare to see. The next time you see it, pay attention to the death strokes Ardeth makes, the last two strokes with his sword. Maybe I’m reading into stuff (which I love to do) but he seems ragged, emotional, and just a bit angry like, “stay down, asshole.” It makes me think that Lock-Nah did something to Ardeth or to his life or family or screwed up some mission that was really important in the past… and things got a bit personal between them. Some have said that he’s avenging Horus but he never saw Lock-Nah fire the shot that killed him, so I don’t think that’s what it is. Unless he just assumed? I guess we’ll never know. I love too how when Lock-Nah finally does fall, he has this look on his face like, “Huh. Shit. Wouldja look at that. Bastard finally killed me.” Haha. Damn straight.

[10.] Ardeth gets wounded twice (in Evie’s house and on the bus) in the second movie and never tends to the wounds at all. We never see these wounds again, and in all honesty it doesn’t even look like his clothes are torn. This is just like the exhaustion and dehydration issue. As a writer, I have to keep track of all my characters’ wounds and how those wounds would impair the characters. So it irks me in movies when I see a character sustain a wound that then just disappears by the next scene. Ardeth should have been hurting from those slashes and claw wounds. At the very least, his clothes should have remained torn and he should have had a bandage on the wounds.

[11.] Do all tribes of the Medjai shop at the same clothing store? They all wore the same exactly tunics and sashes. I understand wearing the same basic fabrics and styles, but if these were regional chieftains or commanders of larger tribes, they should be from all over the Sahara and possible even from near other cities and towns. I don’t think they would all have the same outfit from all those different tribes. When all the commanders were lined up they looked like carbon copies of each other. There should have been a bit more variation in color at least if not style and fabric and accessories in their outfits.

[objectofalldesire]

The Folly of Communication

Every exchange of information happens in layers. The most basic possible communication, binary, has only one layer with two states: on or off. But something as little as modulating the time between the switching of states can add another layer, in this case, morse code. Continue along this path and you will eventually reach the 8 layers of the OCI Protocol that govern the bits carrying this information to your eyes presently.

Human communication works in a similar yet much more complex way. Generally it goes thus; You have a thought in your head that you want to express in some way, usually with the intent of placing it in someone else`s head. This idea is formed in the mind from the abstract, then molded through thinking from all the different parts of the mind and then codified into whatever language will be used to express the idea. Once properly formatted the idea, now turned into a message, is performed by the emitting party, passes through the environment between the parts of the exchange and then received and processed by each recipient, who then mold it with thought to draw a conclusion that is compatible with their though structures.

There are many layers in this model of communication. Each layer adds an additional degree of subjectivity. The psychology of either party might distort the message, the environment might degrade it, codification might be inaccurate and muddle interpretation, etc. Most everyone accepts this basic fact. Humans seldom understand each other, and it takes a lot of effort to do so.

If this fact is widely acknowledged, why is it that most of our culture and philosophy place great value in social vinculation, which relies on trust, which is frequently measured by how easily ideas are conveyed? Shouldn`t social vinculation be treated as a necessary evil in face of the apparent permanent misunderstanding? Why is trust measured, at least in part, by the ability to overcome this apparent fundamental human problem with those that are closest to you?

The tempting easy answer lies in the chimp brain we carry around. Humanity relies on society to survive - which we tend to forget now that most of it`s benefits are delivered impersonally (it`s not like you have to interact with the workers that build your roads), turning exile into a very dangerous situation to be avoided at all costs. This is how social pain was installed into the brain, and the reason why we seek out human contact even if it is toxic to us, and why it is so hard to produce self-worth without external validation of some kind.

That should solve the problem, right? The answer is neurological, natural selection has given us a need we can never fill to prevent us from leaving each other and it worked so fucking well that we went to the moon. But if that was indeed the case then the logical conclusion would be absolute emotional fakery. No need for sociopathy, retain your intact, healthy, definitely not repressed emotions and simply refrain from sharing them in detail, maintaining every interaction civil and friendly. If there is no way to properly communicate, then there is no need to do so at all. This can only work on either supremely balanced or incredibly damaged individuals that can keep strong emotions such as anger or temporary depression at bay. This is also the approach that ruled western society from the death of romanticism to the rise of the Hippies.

There are major problems with the fakery approach, not the least of which is the massive amounts of energy it requires to keep up, the psychological toll it produces and the catastrophic effects of the defensive structure untimely collapsing. Basically, its easy to go postal. What then? Most people will point to our endlessly expanding capacity for language and, primarily, logic. In this modern world with more and more educated people, it should be easier than ever to explain in logical, rational terms your beliefs and answer any questions or issues the recipient may have until a shared understanding is reached. This shifts the burden of subjectivity, and places both parties under the same subjective umbrella, allowing them to share an opinion while retaining ideological differences.

The most attentive of readers will have begun to caught on to the central problem I want to shed a light on. This shared subjectivity relies on compromise from at least one of the parties, as otherwise there would be no conflict to begin with. Furthermore, this shared conclusion must necessarily take place exclusively in the language plain, as ideas must be codified to be transmitted and cannot escape the need for a delivery mechanism. If you add to this the fact that humans can and are heavily incentivized to emit fake signals not directly related to actual ideas inside the mind for their personal benefit (in layman`s: lying), then the most likely conclusion is that this shared subjectivity is not shared at all. Instead, a verbal totem is produced, that shows which part each side has agreed to pretend to compromise on. The internal interpretation and meaning of this totem to each party can be, and it usually is, widely different.

What does this mean for social interaction? It means there is actually very little of it. This is the Misunderstandment Paradox: As humans cannot be transparent with their thought and are incentivized to avoid differences of thought with their group, it must be assumed they are dishonest agents, which implies that any conversation or argument with the purpose of dispelling a misunderstanding will teach each party what the other recognizes as off or alien and show them how they must act to elicit reactions that are socially beneficial to themselves. This means that any moment of connection, bonding, trust, creation, discussion, or any other group process is not different in any way from processes that are not shared, and it is impossible to verify how much information has actually been transmitted and in what way. What`s worse is that this is exponential, as agreed upon shared definitions are built on and used to present other, possibly dissonant, more complex definitions. Following this trend to its logical conclusion, any matrix of definitions is completely subjective and thus no different than a replacement of  the definition matrix (read: ideology or paradigm) with subjective, of-the-moment interpretations, at least at a “real”, logical, abstract, within-the-mind level. The only true development arguments can provide is through the creation of dialectical structures that trap within them certain interpretations of meaning, and are thus not questioned and incorporated as part of “reality” and not in the nebulous reaches of thought.

This process is reversible. If the Misunderstandment Paradox can advance dialectical structures without actually changing the structures these represent, then it can be assumed that the structures each individual was born into are as arbitrary and subjective as the ones the individual will create and pass on through their lives. This inevitably leads to a statement that is familiar to many: Reality does not exist. We perceive what we process, and how we process is purely subjective along with externally invisible and immutable. It is a bit more disconcerting to imagine that every piece of language ever heard is nothing but a slight nudge in the direction of the sender`s interpretation, which relies more on the characteristics of the recipient than the original idea or intent. It would mean that the sum of human history is nothing more than a continued delusion, that every explanation of events is produced afterwards instead of previously existing as their cause. It would vastly change the relationship between language and humanity.

It also makes conversation pointless.

This is where I stand. For a long time I tried the fakery approach, to generally positive effect. It had a great toll on my psychology at the time, though, and my desire to escape that pain lead me to tear down the painted walls I had set up. This, besides looking like a radical and sudden personality change from the outside, left me wide open and vulnerable, up for grabs, basic human psychology kicked in and most of what I valued in life was ripped from me, destroyed, or disfigured beyond recognition. So I put up walls once again, with little doors to prevent suffocating again. But that didn`t help. It isolated me from new relationships and gave old ones the space to turn toxic. Then I came to the conclusion I have just presented. Now I`m not sure what to do. I don`t genuinely think all communication is pointless or completely arbitrary, otherwise there would be no point of writing this essay, I just think there truly is no way to prove that an idea has traveled from your brain to someone else`s. It seems like the best way forward is to lay out your points as clearly as possible, attempt to understand fully and honestly the other party`s views, and accept that there might be no actual information exchange.

Regarding walls, my solution has been to remove the doors. For anyone to come in they must scale the wall, that is, they must understand through their own internal processes, at a logical, abstract level, the ways that I function and what I see as morality. If they have scaled that wall there is no misunderstandment paradox to muddle its significance, i.e. it was not forced or otherwise telegraphed by sappy emotional conversations or self identifying statements. In case the other party does not manage to climb the wall, simply climb it yourself, leaving the valuable pieces of yourself hidden behind and putting yourself out into the world honestly, with no fakery. Maybe this will work. Maybe it won`t. It holds no relevance to the rest of this text.

There is still great use in dialectical and language structures. There is still great use in learning how to perceive reality from others. There is still great use in putting the effort in to share through conversation your ideas. What is important is to keep in mind that all these are mere approximations, that seek only to guide the recipient in the proper direction, and can only work accompanied by action, internal or external. Hopefully, and a bit ironically, the presentation of communication as an eternal misunderstanding will lead to an easier understanding of opposing opinions and, particularly, seemingly irrational actions.

That`s it for this pretentious word vomit. I feel much better now.

[venus-and-bluebells]

So I haven't exactly been vocal about this, but for the past few years I've really been struggling with identity, religion, and culture (and colonialism and checking privilege), and I think I ought to share my thoughts; hopefully they will help somebody else who feels similarly, but if nothing else, maybe sharing this all will make me feel a little better.

So, my family is very, VERY culturally detached from our origins. My dad's side of the family got kicked out of Scotland for siding with the British in the Jacobite rebellion, though I'm not sure how the huge Irish bit and tiny Welsh bit of the family got to America. In any case, everybody ended up over there. On my mom's side, pretty much the same, except a few generations ago some of her distant Jewish relatives from Germany booked it before WWII started. They took refuge in America and assimilated really quickly, and also abandoned Judaism, I guess out of (understandable) fear. Growing up, my dad maintained a little bit of grasp on our Celtic heritage, but not enough that I can say that's my culture or anything. My relatives are definitely very classic white redneck/suburban folk with seemingly no culture. From this and also weird myths and lies in the family about this one lady way back in mom's side of the family who maybe had an affair with an unspecified native dude (I don't even know what nation he was from, but all my gross racist relatives get really excited about this guy because they think it gives them a pass to be racist), my feelings about heritage have always been dubious. On the one hand, I recognize that obsession with it is dumb and often dangerous, as it doesn't exactly make a person. But on the other hand, not having a real cultural identity is really painful, on an existential level (and I don't count white suburbia as a cultural identity; it tends to define itself in antithesis to other identities). It's led to a lot of confusion in my life. Also, when I was a dumb middle schooler whose parents parroted racist bullshit and I didn't know any better, I thought the one native dude waaay back on our mom's side of the family made us native somehow (? Idk I was stupid). I'm honestly still angry I was lied to in that manner; not only do lies white people tell about indigenous heritage tend to harm indigenous folks (and also often stem from racist ideas about blood), but my parents should have known better. They were and are adults, and they should've known how racist shit like that hurts people.

Next, religion. I went to a Methodist church growing up, which (aside from nebulous Celtic heritage) was basically my cultural identity. I don't remember really believing in Christianity that much, but I always loved the rituals, art, mythology, and history behind it all (and in many ways I still do, despite not being Christian and disagreeing with a lot of aspects of that faith on a fundamental level). It really, REALLY hurt when my church kicked my dad out for being trans, even if I wasn't directly kicked out. What sucks even more is they fired the pastor for supporting her (Pastor Ted Pecot. Honestly, he was one of the best people I met in my childhood, and he was actually a good pastor and student of theology. He didn't preach that Christianity was the only way; he learned a lot from Buddhists, Wiccans, and various sects of Judaism, especially after marrying a Jewish woman. He was also just a really nice dude, and encouraged me to learn how to play music even though most of the people at church who knew how to play music insisted on only teaching my brother because girls shouldn't know how to play music or something). Seriously, they fired him for wanting to keep my dad in the congregation as she transitioned. That broke my heart, because Fortuna (the town where the church was) was apparently the place he considered home, and he had to move away to find work. But anyway. After leaving Christianity, I researched with my mom about our old Jewish relatives, because I was interested in Jewish theology. Unfortunately, I didn't get very far. I still think Judaism is a really wonderful religion (and as for theology, it's one of my favourite organised religions), but it just didn't seem like a fit for me insofar as actual beliefs. I found out about neopaganism and Wicca soon afterwards, and began doing neopagan stuff loosely based on Wicca.

Now for the past few years, while the path I've been on hasn't felt dangerous, it's certainly not felt right, either. Much like Judaism, it hasn't felt like a spiritual fit. It's been causing me a lot of existential pain over the last few years. In researching paganism, I've been looking at druidism recently, and that seems to be more the thing I was trying to get to through nebulous neopaganism. But also, not having a group of people of my beliefs around me has been very isolating. Since I don't have much of a culture, and I don't have people to be spiritual around, it feels like I have no history. I've been trying to combat this through learning about my family history and the histories of the places I come from, but there's only so much you can do alone. I've also been grappling with the question of whether I should stay in America; yes, I was born here, and it would absolutely break my heart to leave Humboldt behind. But in learning the Yurok language and learning more local history, it's added onto the feeling I had when I began to feel like I lack an identity: the idea that I should move back to where my family is actually from. Because that seems to be the best way to reconnect: to actually go back, to know the land my people comes from, to speak with the people who never left and learn what it means to have that history. But in being a child of colonizers, it's weird because I also have an attachment to this stolen land. It's all I've ever known. Hopefully going to the UK and Ireland in a few years clears my head, but ultimately the decision I'm reaching is I should probably live there for a year or two before I make a permanent decision.

But the main thing I want other people, ESPECIALLY other young white people to know, is that this is a necessary process, you NEED to figure out what it means to be part of a bit of history, and you need to do your best to learn about others. If you're a child of colonizers, I think it's your moral duty to not only learn all you can about the people you've hurt from them IF they permit, but you also need to do everything you can to help them heal, because on their land in their history, the one your family disrupted, they are more important and they take priority. Apologize for your wrongs and then HELP. If you think the best way for you to do that is to protest with them or move away or maybe both, do what you think is right for them and you. Also, know your views on heritage and stuff will likely change; mine sure have, and they probably will again and I'll look back on this post and cringe because I won't think it's adequate or it's too forgiving of colonizers. Who knows. But the most important thing I think young white people should remember is this: you have to find a way to reclaim your identity without falling prey to the lies of racists, colonizers, and facists. In this day and age, it's hard, because those seem to be the folks most focused on white identities. But you still have a heritage, a history, and an identity. You come from somewhere. You should figure out how to celebrate that in a way that brings positivity to the world, not pain.

Anyway.