January 19, 2007 was the day my sister died. I remember being woken up at some time past midnight by my father. He told me that my sister was gone and that he would talk to me tomorrow. I don't think I've ever heard my dad cry the way he did as he got off the phone with me. I think I took some time to cry before calling Tony and giving him the news. He was shocked, which surprised me. We talked for a little while about the visit I had planned to make that very next day. We had planned to go to the NAIAS in Detroit that weekend. I ended up going, which was a very good decision I think. It was good to be around my friend during that time.
During the next couple of days I had a couple of mild crying spells, but was pretty composed for the most part. The funeral was on the 27th in Dade City, FL. At the wake I had my biggest cry, although it wasn't until we were leaving that things really hit me. That I wouldn't be able to talk to my sister again and that she was gone. My dad, who never cried after that phone call, gave me a hug as I sobbed. The funeral was nice. My step uncle, a very charismatic and, I think, good person, was the master of ceremonies. There were a lot of sad people as my sister was the type of person everyone in the family loved. Terrell, my sister's husband, was composed during the funeral, but not so composed when my sister was buried. He and my step sister, Elvera, cried in each others arms for a good ten minutes after my sister was in the ground. It was sad, very sad. My nephews cried, but I was surprised at how well they handled things. I was very proud of them and thought that they are going to be my kind of people.
Since my sister's passing my brother-in-law hasn't handled things the way most of us in the family would want. He's terrible at keeping in touch and doesn't answer the phone. He's had two relationships since my sister's death; the latest one, which is going on now, involves the woman staying at the house. Of course my father is particularly upset, but I've tried to lobby for Terrell. He never struck me as the type of person who does so well by himself, and I believe my sister was his rock. I imagine she took care of many of the day to day things, as most women who have families do. More so than anything, I believe Terrell is tremendously sad and probably depressed. Even though my sister was in a vegetative state after suffering a seizure he still had hope that she would make a full recovery. My adviser made the comment that Terrell probably feels abandoned, and I think that's very possible. I'm not mad at Terrell, mainly because I think I understand him. I do wish he were a little more communicative, but people grieve differently. I'm concerned about the boys, my sister's sons and will write them letters. I'm not sure what I'm going to say yet. I probably won't ever be sure though, I wasn't sure what I was going to write when I sat down to do this blog.
Time has definitely moved swiftly over this last year. A lot has happened since January 19, 2007. I miss my sister every time I think about her. She was most certainly one of my favorite people. I don't have any regrets about our relationship. I do sometimes wish she was here so I could talk to her in the way we used to. She will forever be missed, Alicia Hamm, my sis, my friend.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Selfishness
So I've started reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. This book was recommended to me by my best friend who has read it before. I'm always up for reading something Tony recommends so this was a no brainer. It's a long book, something like 1100 pages, which is nice because it's going to take a while. I like books that take a while, it gives you time to observe changes within yourself as you read. The book starts off a bit slow and I found it sort of confusing keeping all of the characters straight. I also tried to think of how what I was reading would fall into what I think I know about the story. I don't like that I've done this and have since stopped, because it took away from the story. One of the things I always do in situations I know I will be involved with for more than a moment is try to layout a map of what will come. I believe I do this because I'm uncomfortable with myself in new situations, which really means I'm somewhat uncomfortable with myself in general. It's one of my self-destructive characteristics that I've been working on as of late.
Anyway, my first impressions of the story are simply this: what a fantastic book this will be.
There are certain books that depict the nature of humans that I wish to be true and Atlas Shrugged is one such book. Like many artists, Ayn Rand is on the extreme side of her vision of what people should be, so I take her views and ideas with a grain of salt. However, her insight into human nature is thus far quite acurrate and refreshing. I've read about half of another one of her works The Virtues of Selfiness and had to stop because she referrenced Atlas Shrugged too much. Her ideas on selfishness are somewhat like this: people who do not act in principle for their own interests are not realizing their potential and the alternative is quite destructive and dangerous. I love this idea because it challenges me and also polarizes humanity; I love to feel different from most and believe in many ways I am, especially in my thinking. Moreover, and I'll get to my personal insights on Rand's ideas in a minute, I believe her message is very needed as humanity is failing at life and is need of a new perspective. Now, selfishness does not mean that acting in one's own interests involves constantly being at odds with the interests and welfares of others, it simply means that a person's own interests must not be whimsically cast aside for the interests of others. People who aren't thinking clearly will say being selfish is inherently bad, but it isn't. We humans are social and must live with the wills of others. Moreover, we rely and depend on each other to maintain a level of civility and order on a day to day basis. Inevitably, our own personal interests must factor in what it takes to maintain our social environment at a level we find acceptable. Stupid individuals who don't consider this are the ones most people call selfish, those people who say to hell with you people over there I'm going to do what I want. The destructive part of that statement is the "to hell with people over there" not the "I'm going to do what I want" part. What a person wants is to do what the want, but in the context of a human reality. Most rulers of the world, past and present, haven't realized the negatives of the first statement and are forced to deal with the consequences. This is the case because most, if not all, of humanity is very short sighted in their visions of how they want things to be. Couple that with the fact that humanity has gotten lazier brained as the decades passed and you've got a situation where generally stupid people have tremendous power and don't care about the consequences of their actions.
I find it interesting that Rand bashes altruism in Atlas Shrugged. It's been difficult wrapping my mind around the logic of her point, but I think it's a good one. I've always had a problem with the idea of altruism, mainly because I could never see how someone could explain its existence without referencing some personal benefit to th altruist. Personally, I don't think there is such a thing. Rand believes the idea of altruism has the potential to destroy people and nations. Ah, I think I get it now! Sacrifice is the name of the game for altruism to work. One must forego their own interests (be unselfish) for the good of others or the group. If people are always doing so, and willingly, then people are always acting for the greater good. Unfortunately, sacrifice is not always the best thing, especially when a person's own interests benefit others. Rand chooses to illustrate this by highlighting the frustrations of uniquely talented people and their conflicts with societal values. The problem with 'unselfishness' is when it becomes morally good to sacrifice oneself. When this happens not doing so, no matter the circumstances, becomes evil, and if enough people think something is evil then things can get ugly quickly. One of the problems with the way people think, or not think, is that they do not consider circumstances. Everyone wants a cookie-cutter way of thinking, of approaching problems, of dealing with their brains. They want to know what to do in every given situation so that they don't have to worry themselves with the details of the situation. Thinking it is always good to sacrifice yourself for someone else is a bad thing. The yielding of one's self is the yielding of one's judgment and potentially one's principles.
One thing that's bothered me about myself is my inability to make tough decisions (or what I think are tough decisions). I find it hard mainly because I am considering how the people around me are going to be affected. I believe my caring for other people is one of my strengths, but the cost is my slow decision making process. What I've gotten from the book so far is a challenge to recenter my perspective when it comes to tough decisions. Being selfish requires a level of honesty that's not present when you are centered on the desires of others. In my case, my desires are often in conflict with what I perceive the other person wants from me. Being more selfish helps to better evaluate my desires as I have to first consider what it is I want. Fuck, I sound like I've just had a session with Dr. Phil.
What I've also realized is that I make a lot of apologies for my thoughts and behaviors. These are mostly little thoughts and behaviors, things someone would say are somewhat unique to my personality; the creative me. Society will ask a person to apologize for being different, but I didn't really realize that that request went as deep as my thoughts until I started reading this book. So much of what is normal, acceptable thoughts are constantly being entrained in us on a day to day basis. I've been far to receptive to this not so subtle requests. It's liberating to realize this and challenging to resist, but essential to practice. Why should I do things this way? Why should I think of things that way? Wonderful questions!
The last thing I'll speak on is my purpose in this life. I'm not sure what that is, actually, I have no idea what that is. At least I've not yet come up with an idea that gets me going. I don't like the world I live in by any means. Things are fundamentally wrong with humanity at the moment and I'm not sure if I have a place here. Most would agree that things are messed up, but would argue that they've always been that way and probably won't change. I hate to here this as it represents how messed up things truly are for people. People who believe this simply try to find a place in this world where they can be happy. I don't believe things have always been this fucked up, but maybe I've been romanticized by people like Daniel Quinn. Regardless of where or not things have been this screwy I refuse t believe the will probably always be this way. I have to feel like I am contributing to the change in humanity I want to happen. I realize that my lifetime is probably too short to see this change, but that's truly irrelevant to me. At the moment I'm sort of waiting around for this current system to collapse, something I think will happen within a few generations from now; maybe my great grands' time. I've been told that this is just lazy, and part of that is true. It wouldn't be lazy if I was actively searching for my niche, which I'm not doing as actively as I should. I know this because I'm not ready to quite my complaining about society. I wonder what I'll want to be/do.
Anyway, my first impressions of the story are simply this: what a fantastic book this will be.
There are certain books that depict the nature of humans that I wish to be true and Atlas Shrugged is one such book. Like many artists, Ayn Rand is on the extreme side of her vision of what people should be, so I take her views and ideas with a grain of salt. However, her insight into human nature is thus far quite acurrate and refreshing. I've read about half of another one of her works The Virtues of Selfiness and had to stop because she referrenced Atlas Shrugged too much. Her ideas on selfishness are somewhat like this: people who do not act in principle for their own interests are not realizing their potential and the alternative is quite destructive and dangerous. I love this idea because it challenges me and also polarizes humanity; I love to feel different from most and believe in many ways I am, especially in my thinking. Moreover, and I'll get to my personal insights on Rand's ideas in a minute, I believe her message is very needed as humanity is failing at life and is need of a new perspective. Now, selfishness does not mean that acting in one's own interests involves constantly being at odds with the interests and welfares of others, it simply means that a person's own interests must not be whimsically cast aside for the interests of others. People who aren't thinking clearly will say being selfish is inherently bad, but it isn't. We humans are social and must live with the wills of others. Moreover, we rely and depend on each other to maintain a level of civility and order on a day to day basis. Inevitably, our own personal interests must factor in what it takes to maintain our social environment at a level we find acceptable. Stupid individuals who don't consider this are the ones most people call selfish, those people who say to hell with you people over there I'm going to do what I want. The destructive part of that statement is the "to hell with people over there" not the "I'm going to do what I want" part. What a person wants is to do what the want, but in the context of a human reality. Most rulers of the world, past and present, haven't realized the negatives of the first statement and are forced to deal with the consequences. This is the case because most, if not all, of humanity is very short sighted in their visions of how they want things to be. Couple that with the fact that humanity has gotten lazier brained as the decades passed and you've got a situation where generally stupid people have tremendous power and don't care about the consequences of their actions.
I find it interesting that Rand bashes altruism in Atlas Shrugged. It's been difficult wrapping my mind around the logic of her point, but I think it's a good one. I've always had a problem with the idea of altruism, mainly because I could never see how someone could explain its existence without referencing some personal benefit to th altruist. Personally, I don't think there is such a thing. Rand believes the idea of altruism has the potential to destroy people and nations. Ah, I think I get it now! Sacrifice is the name of the game for altruism to work. One must forego their own interests (be unselfish) for the good of others or the group. If people are always doing so, and willingly, then people are always acting for the greater good. Unfortunately, sacrifice is not always the best thing, especially when a person's own interests benefit others. Rand chooses to illustrate this by highlighting the frustrations of uniquely talented people and their conflicts with societal values. The problem with 'unselfishness' is when it becomes morally good to sacrifice oneself. When this happens not doing so, no matter the circumstances, becomes evil, and if enough people think something is evil then things can get ugly quickly. One of the problems with the way people think, or not think, is that they do not consider circumstances. Everyone wants a cookie-cutter way of thinking, of approaching problems, of dealing with their brains. They want to know what to do in every given situation so that they don't have to worry themselves with the details of the situation. Thinking it is always good to sacrifice yourself for someone else is a bad thing. The yielding of one's self is the yielding of one's judgment and potentially one's principles.
One thing that's bothered me about myself is my inability to make tough decisions (or what I think are tough decisions). I find it hard mainly because I am considering how the people around me are going to be affected. I believe my caring for other people is one of my strengths, but the cost is my slow decision making process. What I've gotten from the book so far is a challenge to recenter my perspective when it comes to tough decisions. Being selfish requires a level of honesty that's not present when you are centered on the desires of others. In my case, my desires are often in conflict with what I perceive the other person wants from me. Being more selfish helps to better evaluate my desires as I have to first consider what it is I want. Fuck, I sound like I've just had a session with Dr. Phil.
What I've also realized is that I make a lot of apologies for my thoughts and behaviors. These are mostly little thoughts and behaviors, things someone would say are somewhat unique to my personality; the creative me. Society will ask a person to apologize for being different, but I didn't really realize that that request went as deep as my thoughts until I started reading this book. So much of what is normal, acceptable thoughts are constantly being entrained in us on a day to day basis. I've been far to receptive to this not so subtle requests. It's liberating to realize this and challenging to resist, but essential to practice. Why should I do things this way? Why should I think of things that way? Wonderful questions!
The last thing I'll speak on is my purpose in this life. I'm not sure what that is, actually, I have no idea what that is. At least I've not yet come up with an idea that gets me going. I don't like the world I live in by any means. Things are fundamentally wrong with humanity at the moment and I'm not sure if I have a place here. Most would agree that things are messed up, but would argue that they've always been that way and probably won't change. I hate to here this as it represents how messed up things truly are for people. People who believe this simply try to find a place in this world where they can be happy. I don't believe things have always been this fucked up, but maybe I've been romanticized by people like Daniel Quinn. Regardless of where or not things have been this screwy I refuse t believe the will probably always be this way. I have to feel like I am contributing to the change in humanity I want to happen. I realize that my lifetime is probably too short to see this change, but that's truly irrelevant to me. At the moment I'm sort of waiting around for this current system to collapse, something I think will happen within a few generations from now; maybe my great grands' time. I've been told that this is just lazy, and part of that is true. It wouldn't be lazy if I was actively searching for my niche, which I'm not doing as actively as I should. I know this because I'm not ready to quite my complaining about society. I wonder what I'll want to be/do.
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