"Grow a pair."
"Nut up."
"Have some balls, man."
"Don't be a pussy."
"What a vag."
Gendered slang is bothersome. But more than that, it's ironically inaccurate.
What happens when a man gets tapped in the nuts? He doubles over with a tummy ache, that's what.
What happens when a woman pushes a human out of her nethers? She gets some stitches, does some kegels, and snaps right back to normal.
Sorry boys. You know it's true.
Instead, I propose we change our gendered slang to more accurately reflect reality.
"Grow a vag."
"Pussy up."
"Do some kegels, bro."
"Don't be a testicle."
"What a nut-sack."
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
The world can be a real pile of shit... but shit is what makes flowers grow
The world can be a real pile of shit... but shit is what makes flowers grow. The horrific, ugly, awful things that happen in this world do not cancel out the beauty that also resides here.
I'm going to address the ever growing pile of shit first, but then we're going to talk about the flowers. Hang in there with me.
The shit:
Every time a mass shooting occurs (far more regularly than it should, obviously) I have felt the need to weigh in -- throw my two cents out there. It began as a calm and logical explanation of the need for some basic gun control. It morphed into lectures about media malpractice.
The most recent mass shooting (prior to the one in Orlando) left me psychologically and emotionally devastated. I cried for about an hour before I could pull myself together in any sort of way. Then I responded by putting a message of love out on social media when what I really felt was hopeless.
I'm a mother to two young girls, which is a frightening enough job without people running into effing elementary schools, movie theaters, churches, and night clubs wielding weapons of mass murder. I'm a teacher to adolescents, desperately seeking their place in this all too oft pile of shit world. We have several "lock down" drills every school year in which we hide silently in the dark from imaginary mass shooters. We don't always know they are drills beforehand. When that's the case, there is a thrill of fear rushing through us as we crouch in the darkness. No wonder so many of them seem to have little hope for their future. Look at what we are handing them. That is not okay. Let me repeat: IT IS NOT OKAY!!!
We cannot sit mildly by and allow our country and our global future to become completely covered in shit. We must get our hands dirty. We must plant seeds. We must cultivate love and we must cultivate logic. Otherwise we will merely have a shit pile full of strangling weeds, rather than one with nourishing food or beautiful flowers.
The media makes money off your fear. When some new shit happens, they sensationalize it. They plaster it before you. Everywhere you look is the face of someone who wants to kill you and your family and friends. They make you feel as though your world is more unstable and more frightening -- more full of boogey men than it has ever been before. They make you want to hide inside, keep your children closer than ever before, and lock out and shout at anyone who isn't your people. And they profit from it. When they can show that their ratings are up, that they are getting more clicks of the mouse, ad buyers pay them more money for advertising space. When something happens that we don't understand, that we fear, we are more likely to tune in and to read the end-of-the-world forecast.
Stop looking for the end-of-the-world forecast. They will hand it to you like a crystal ball showing you your worst fears. They will feed that fear so they can turn it into cash. And fear doesn't stay fear. It does one of three things. Below is a flow chart of the two most common transformations.
If you fall into one of these two camps, I urge you to consider the third response. With such a saturation of sensationalist media, consider the fact that we are looking at reality through a funhouse mirror, warping what we see. Consider the fact that we are actually living in the safest time in human history.
Most of the giant pile of shit we feel we are drowning in isn't rooted in one shitty thing that happened, or even a series of shitty things that have happened. It's rooted in the mass reaction we have to those events -- a mass reaction that corresponds directly with the flow chart above.
The words of the great Martin Luther King Jr., are no less profound or timely now than when he uttered them in the 1960s, so read them, please.
If you fall into the anger to hatred path, I urge you to look at these words:
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.
Hate multiplies hate,
violence multiplies violence,
and toughness multiplies toughness
in a descending spiral of destruction...
The chain reaction of evil --
hate begetting hate,
wars producing more wars --
must be broken,
or we shall be plunged
into the abyss of annihilation."
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Finally, the flowers:
I'm going to address the ever growing pile of shit first, but then we're going to talk about the flowers. Hang in there with me.
The shit:
Every time a mass shooting occurs (far more regularly than it should, obviously) I have felt the need to weigh in -- throw my two cents out there. It began as a calm and logical explanation of the need for some basic gun control. It morphed into lectures about media malpractice.
The most recent mass shooting (prior to the one in Orlando) left me psychologically and emotionally devastated. I cried for about an hour before I could pull myself together in any sort of way. Then I responded by putting a message of love out on social media when what I really felt was hopeless.
I'm a mother to two young girls, which is a frightening enough job without people running into effing elementary schools, movie theaters, churches, and night clubs wielding weapons of mass murder. I'm a teacher to adolescents, desperately seeking their place in this all too oft pile of shit world. We have several "lock down" drills every school year in which we hide silently in the dark from imaginary mass shooters. We don't always know they are drills beforehand. When that's the case, there is a thrill of fear rushing through us as we crouch in the darkness. No wonder so many of them seem to have little hope for their future. Look at what we are handing them. That is not okay. Let me repeat: IT IS NOT OKAY!!!
We cannot sit mildly by and allow our country and our global future to become completely covered in shit. We must get our hands dirty. We must plant seeds. We must cultivate love and we must cultivate logic. Otherwise we will merely have a shit pile full of strangling weeds, rather than one with nourishing food or beautiful flowers.
The media makes money off your fear. When some new shit happens, they sensationalize it. They plaster it before you. Everywhere you look is the face of someone who wants to kill you and your family and friends. They make you feel as though your world is more unstable and more frightening -- more full of boogey men than it has ever been before. They make you want to hide inside, keep your children closer than ever before, and lock out and shout at anyone who isn't your people. And they profit from it. When they can show that their ratings are up, that they are getting more clicks of the mouse, ad buyers pay them more money for advertising space. When something happens that we don't understand, that we fear, we are more likely to tune in and to read the end-of-the-world forecast.
Stop looking for the end-of-the-world forecast. They will hand it to you like a crystal ball showing you your worst fears. They will feed that fear so they can turn it into cash. And fear doesn't stay fear. It does one of three things. Below is a flow chart of the two most common transformations.
If you fall into one of these two camps, I urge you to consider the third response. With such a saturation of sensationalist media, consider the fact that we are looking at reality through a funhouse mirror, warping what we see. Consider the fact that we are actually living in the safest time in human history.
Most of the giant pile of shit we feel we are drowning in isn't rooted in one shitty thing that happened, or even a series of shitty things that have happened. It's rooted in the mass reaction we have to those events -- a mass reaction that corresponds directly with the flow chart above.
The words of the great Martin Luther King Jr., are no less profound or timely now than when he uttered them in the 1960s, so read them, please.
If you fall into the anger to hatred path, I urge you to look at these words:
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.
Hate multiplies hate,
violence multiplies violence,
and toughness multiplies toughness
in a descending spiral of destruction...
The chain reaction of evil --
hate begetting hate,
wars producing more wars --
must be broken,
or we shall be plunged
into the abyss of annihilation."
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
If you fall into the depression to hopelessness path, I urge you to look at these words:
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Mostly, though, I urge you to consider a third path, a path that turns a pile of shit into food for flowers.
"Nonviolence is the answer
to the crucial political and moral questions of our time:
the need for man to overcome oppression and violence
without resorting to oppression and violence.
Man must evolve for all human conflict
a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation.
The foundation of such a method is love."
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;
but one must take it because it is right."
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Nonviolence is the answer
to the crucial political and moral questions of our time:
the need for man to overcome oppression and violence
without resorting to oppression and violence.
Man must evolve for all human conflict
a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation.
The foundation of such a method is love."
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;
but one must take it because it is right."
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Finally, the flowers:
This world is irrevocably broken, and has been since sin entered into it. The best we can do is have faith and courage.
It requires both faith and courage to be kind in a cruel world. It requires both faith and courage to be kind in a frightening world. It requires faith and courage to be passionate, kind, and loving in a world that rejects those three states of being as naive and uncouth.
But here's the thing: kindness, once planted, grows flowers of love. It creates an unstoppable, unbreakable chain reaction. Rather than allowing anger or hopelessness to rule our interactions with others, we MUST grow kindness and love instead.
It's not easy. It's messy. It hurts when it is returned with spite. Not every seed we plant will come to fruition. But if we keep planting, and watering, and planting, and watering, we will see a bountiful return for our efforts.
Picture the people you love.
Picture the places you love.
Picture both the tangible and intangible things that you love.
Then get to work practicing pouring your love out on everyone the same way you do on your people, places, and things. Regardless of whether you know them. Regardless of whether you feel they deserve it. Regardless of whether they wouldn't let you merge on the freeway and then flipped you off. Regardless of whether you disagree with their lifestyle or political or religious beliefs. Regardless of whether you understand them. Regardless of whether you fear them.
Some people have never had real kindness or love, given without want of anything in return, modeled for them. Some people need to be taught. How can we teach them if we are hiding in our homes, clutching our loved ones close? We have to go out into the world and rain kindness and love down upon people, to nourish both their spirit and our own.
The only way to grow flowers is to plant seeds. Then your flowers will grow. Then someone else will see your flowers, pollenate them, and grow more elsewhere.
It's ironic that while the world has become infinitesimally small through globalization, we have chosen to isolate ourselves rather than to tightly embrace one another and welcome others into our hearts.
Please. Let go of fear, anger and hopelessness. Embrace love and kindness. Spread it everywhere you can. Plant some flowers on the shit heap.
With much love,
Your resident idealistic hippie
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