Killing Creativity
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Sharing
ere I am, sitting at the learning and arts center’s front desk, being warmly reminded of home. There’s two hefty shopping bags packed to the brim with books… Packed to the point I’m surprised that one of the bags hasn’t burst. It’s wonderful to see a kind of donation to us like that; someone who donates their well read books is a far better person than someone who just leaves them sitting in a bookcase wasting away. Share them!
Being the insane book lover that I am, I fingered through them when I first came in, before even turning all of our lights on. I just couldn’t pass them by. The third book I came across was one I know, one I know so well because every child in the town I grew up in was forced to read it, know it and then consequently fall in love with it. It held this special meaning for all of us because it was about someone who grew up where we did, and made something great of it.
I debated not spilling to all of you the name of the book because then you would know where it is that I grew up and who knows about all you Internet people. One of you might be crazy! But, I doubt it, so here it is: The Courage of Sarah Noble.
Read it. Know it. Love it… And then pass it off to someone else because that is so what I would do if that donated copy belonged to me.
American Sex
I’ve never really understood how the United States as a country could be so proud of their support of sexual freedoms overseas, but have this overtly skewed idea of reproductive and sexual rights here. A majority of Americans oppose the sexual injustices against women in places such as the Middle East, but have yet to come to the realization that until as late as 1977, the state of North Carolina was allowing social workers to force or coerce citizens to become sterilized under the Eugenics Board of North Carolina.
Sterilization, when it comes down to it, is really just a form of cleansing. If social workers were only choosing those they saw as mentally ill, and socially deficient… Isn’t that just like cleaning out what someone might consider a grimy pool? Keep in mind; other states participated in eugenics practices too but upon being faced with the atrocities committed by Nazi’s in WWII, most disbanded the practice. North Carolina, however, ramped their program up.
It seems to me that we’re fighting so hard for the reproductive rights of others that we seem to have forgotten the rights of our own.
Numerically, North Carolina is solely responsible for the sterilization of an estimated 7,600 men, women and adolescents (Some under the age of ten years old.). Most of these people were denied a choice of whether or not to be sterilized, while some were lead to believe they were having simple appendectomies. Not, you know, having their right to produce children later in life snatched from them.
Who carries the right to decide whether or not a person should bear a child, or be a participant in procreating anyway? In the 1970’s for those living in North Carolina it was a social worker that held a person as young as ten years old to the following criteria: presence of epilepsy, various mental disabilities, social abilities, family’s current economic status and, of course, whether or not you had been raped because we all know rape victims are promiscuous. (I hope you’re hearing the sarcasm.)
Currently, the question is whether or not the victims of the board should receive a type of reparation. What the board did may have been highly unethical and a horrid violation of human rights but somehow, it was legal and even the Supreme Court won’t hear cases brought forth by those sterilized. So really, what can even be done? Maybe we’ll just continue to focus on genital mutilation in the Middle East because yeah, that seems a bit more worthwhile and easy to fight over.
Comfort
Because it was still early fall like temperatures, and I was taking a break from my studies yesterday afternoon, I visited a small town and found myself in one of my favorite shops. It’s this little poster shop that has a few different locations that I’ve been to, but this one has never failed to intrigue me with some product. Sometimes it’s something as simple as a Bill Clinton corkscrew, or a book of photographs of The Beatles. Today though, it was one of those Quotables magnets that are horribly overpriced for no good reason.
It was a quote from Neal Donald Walsch that read, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” It’s a bit like that Ferris Bueller quote, you know, the one where he’s standing in the shower being all philosophical. Except, this one seems a bit more reliable and a lot less… Sudsy.
I’m not sure why the magnet caught my eye, or why it has stuck with me nearly twenty-four hours later. Most people naturally do some things outside of their comfort zone, myself being included. In the last few months, I’ve done numerous things outside of my comfort zone, one of those things being flying on an airplane alone. Anyone who has flown with me before knows I can be a hand crusher during take off and fall in to a near severe panic at any feel of turbulence. Four flights on my own though, completely out of my zone of comfort… And I’m now a half-decent passenger and damn proud of it.
I didn’t purchase the magnet, mostly because I couldn’t fathom spending $5.00 on it when I could simply write the quote on a post-it and post it somewhere where I will be forced to read it. And, post-it of the quote has been sufficient enough of a reminder for me to test my barriers, get out of my comfort zone and start living, really living.
Curious
Gallery
Reader
I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading as of late, more than usual and the usual is generally a decent sum. I am a born and bred English major, so reading is something I just do. I’ll really read just about anything too, from books on economics to memoirs from real life pimps. Give me anything, anything with words between two covers and I will dive in willingly hoping it drowns me for days.
I tend to lose myself in books, as that drowning statement easily hints at. I find it soothing; to consume myself with the situations of a character and then to somehow work my way back from it, finding myself somewhere along the way. Not every book allows me that journey, but many do and I adore it deeply.
I used to visit the same used bookstore, Phoenix Books, every three months and buy up an arm full of novels, memoirs, poetry books and whatever else catches my fingers. I piled my findings in my closet, where clothes have been seemingly pushed out of by dozens of writers, and come back to them over the months to visit with and read them when I am tempted to.
Something happened to the book market recently though. Tangible books, like my used ones with their worn bindings and old, addicting scent are no longer hip… It’s all about the e-reader with its rechargeable battery, and its buttons. Mm, the e-reader, its got this modern thing to it that so many can’t resist.
I tried to resist the temptation of an e-reader for years, successfully. I found them impersonal and assumed reading on one would be unreasonably awkward. I saw Amazon’s release of the Kindle as a fatal mistake, and Barnes and Noble’s release of the Nook laughable. Then I held a Kindle in my own hands, and fell in love and at those first pangs of wanting, needing, loving a Kindle I thought: Crap.
Does reading from an e-reader make me any less of a book lover than I was before? I don’t buy many books where I can feel the weight of its pages in my hands, or feel the textures of the ink printed on the pages. Instead, I have moved on to a Kindle where the screen is hard and gray, and the words are printed in something known as e-ink technology. The books are a bit cheaper, but not more affordable as I made the mistake of connecting my debit card to my account through the lovely, but dreadful ‘One-click’ feature. I read more, just a bit more technologically advanced, but does that change the ‘book lover’ status? Either way, I’m addicted to the thing.
Faith
I bought a Bible two days ago, on a whim.
I wasn’t raised to be in anyway religious. I did attend Sunday school for a good amount of time when I was young and participated in a dismally attended youth group. But, the minute my parents made the decision of participating in our religious community my own… I decided it best to stay home and sleep in on Sunday mornings.
Much like I do now, I struggled to believe in a God when I was young. Sunday school and youth group couldn’t give me the answers I wanted to classic questions like, ‘How do you know God exists?’ Unlike the already made believers, I could not fathom having faith in such an ambiguous thing’s existence. Even more so, that those believers allowed their faith to consume and fulfill them both emotionally and spiritually was something I could not relate to.
Sometimes I wonder about that word ‘faith’. It takes an immense amount of that word to believe in some Godly figure. I have extremely religious friends, who have that faith and a relationship with their interpretation of God. Although we rarely discuss their faith because of my own personally shaky beliefs, I admire them deeply.
Even though I haven’t been able to find a belief in the Christian religion, I do find it interesting along with many other religions quite honestly. In a state of curiosity, I reread parts of Genesis online… It’s powerful stuff. One being creating an entire world complete with an ecosystem, animals and humans? Even if religion does come out to be some sick sham, Genesis still has an amazing thought to it; the thought that one being could create so much is inspiring.
When I think about it more thoroughly, every religion is based on some type of story and each of those stories is fantastically impressive. I ordered a Bible with this in mind, and bought the Qur’an with the same thought process… And the Bhagavad-Gita. I’ve decided that maybe my non-believing stance is simply a product of ignorance so maybe I should just get to reading some of the major religious texts.
My Bible comes tomorrow afternoon.
