The Universe

During finals, my beautiful friend Jen and I stayed up until six in the morning writing papers. As we walked back to our dorm, we noticed how silent and peaceful the world was. Everything was dark and calm.

Simply still.

It was beautiful. Jen pointed out a major difference between night and day. During the day, even on a clear day, all you'll see upon looking up is earth's atmosphere. Despite its obvious beauty, that is all it is...an atmosphere: "an envelope" (Dictionary definition).

When the sun goes down, things change. Assuming the sky is clear, you are looking into the entire universe, not just our little pocket, our envelope of a world. There is so much more to experience, yet we choose to sleep during the most peaceful and beautiful hours.

I considered this idea for sometime the other night and I realized that it is a powerful metaphor.

Things are really quite safe during the day. We are inside of our busy little (and it truly is little) atmosphere, dealing with life and all of the "problems" that go along with it. Busy, busy, busy. The day is not still. I think that one of the most incredible moments of any given day is just before a tornado touches down (or threatens to do so)...absolutely everything is silent and still. It is the stillness that scares us. The same thing applies to the night.

But why?

We are afraid. Terrified, in fact. I can't blame or judge because I fall into the crowd on this one a lot of times. We are so scared of the things that scare us that we avoid them instead of facing them. Does the night not represent this?

I don't really have an answer or idea that has developed any further, but I thought it was interesting to consider.

People

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted. (You can thank finals for that.) I have been thinking about this blog though, and I have a few random thoughts to express.

-Why is "education" so important? Shouldn't we be more interested in expanding our minds and our lives emotionally and spiritually?
-Caffein is just as much a drug as anything else. Stop consuming it.
-Technology is WAY overrated.
-People should worry a lot less.
-Procrastination is bad. Real bad.
-Snow is pretty, but cold, cold, cold.
-When people are being really rude to you, it's usually because they are lacking in self-confidence. You've probably heard that for years, but it's the truth.
-I don't care what anyone says, I like Taylor Swift. I think that she is incredibly talented. Not to mention the fact that she is totally down-to-earth and grateful for what she has.
-Prayers work. No matter what your religion.
-Also, Buddha is really, really cool.

The last thing I have to say is that I think people should stop making gigantic assumptions about other people when they barely know them. It doesn't benefit anyone to do things like that.

If I don't post before, have a great holiday!

Tattoos and Hearts

I just got my second tattoo last night (I love it) and it made me think about wounds of various kinds. The idea that keeps coming to my mind is that not all wounds are bad.

An obvious example of this is a tattoo. It is pretty painful when it happens, it is inflicted by someone else because of your desire, and it injects you with a permanent scar that usually makes you bleed. Sound similar to anything else? A relationship, perhaps?

What's cool about both kinds of wounds is that despite all of the pain and scarring, they always turns into something beautiful.

I feel like this is a lesson that we all need to learn and apply to every aspect of our lives. I know it's one that I have been learning for my entire life, but it makes a lot more sense to me now.

(It says "om mani padme hum" - look it up - on the top

and "live so that you may live" on the bottom

with a design of four numbers in the middle

that my wonderful mother put together)

Orange Cotton

This is a poem that my classmate Kym Littlefield wrote for our black studies class. It is wonderfully written, but I wish I had a recording of him reading it because his presentation is incredible!

"Orange Cotton, Orange Cotton – picked out but never forgotten.

Produced by the slaves, Orange Cotton grew up tough. Orange Cotton, indirectly, is the topic we discuss.

There is no beaten path – we aren’t supposed to be doctors and lawyers. We are rappers and ballers. We don’t invest in the country’s welfare, the country invests welfare in us. We laugh loudly, wear flashy clothes, and start bad trends. We are the darkness of our country and our blackness can offer no light to anything worth while. But carry it well, because I can think of nothing heavier than this stigma. I can think of no bulk or boulder greater than that which lies on our back. And those stigmas that lie on are back are lies indeed.

With this great consummation that tortures our back and the fight we endure – we fight the same battles as those in mythology. Atlas would be proud – he’d call us his prodigy. We push this boulder uphill – Sisyphus seeks our methodology.

Specifically, it is no one’s fault – I think we were biologically predisposed. When we seek similarities, all the differences get exposed. For our own survival, we yearn – to cling for labels. Even when they prevent us from that which we are able.

It is the great flaw of man when our instincts make us vulnerable to extinction. And the way we seek distinction begins to blur our thinking and even distorts our depiction, subjectivity rendering our written history fiction. This is the story of the history of our past. Misprinted as fiction but we can illuminate it at last.

I have proof to counterprove. Many arguments from which to choose, but from my experience, the black truth has been abused. I wish you could feel what I feel when I imagine Orange Cotton. And the bitterness I taste because that awful fruit is rotten.

Our identities, black, white, asian, and other – no matter how subtle – aren’t small enough to fit in a SAT bubble.

It took less than a year at a private school to teach me that I was black, being black in public school couldn’t teach me all dat. Living in the hood, I was just a face in the crowd – one year later it was easy to point me out. And so the same truth exists, change and reality never kiss, but today I woke up different – I woke up with something missing. I had Orange Cotton on my mind, I pictured her growing up in the field. An undeveloped asset - far more than the crops she yields.

I have a white family, I’ve gone to white schools for thirteen years, I’ve lived in a white neighborhood for 5, but I know I have an accurate definition of what it means to be black.

It doesn’t mean I’m guilty, it doesn’t mean I’m the victim either. It doesn’t mean we’re all southern Baptists, although I’m a believer. It doesn’t mean I like watermelon, even though it’s my favorite fruit. It doesn’t mean I start fads, like when shoes were see-through. It doesn’t mean I’m “hood”, it doesn’t mean I like rap. Causality and correlation – none of that means being black. It means I am the ancestor of the American oppressed, and I choose to identify with them – may they peacefully rest.

Identity is self-prescribed and self diagnosed – you can seek your identity dose by dose.

Unspeakable things unspoken to be black in America means your dreams get broken. I remember the first time life taught me evil – when my white friend first taught me – I couldn’t be equal. I never wanted to stand out again, you made me dream of being average. No kid should dream this small. I don’t want my dreams – so you can have it.

You defined me, and I can’t let those labels limit me, so I tried to trace roots to bring strength back within me. Orange Cotton – no, that’s not the name of a crop, that’s the name of my humble hero – not to name drop. Slavery is so recent it’s only been six generations. If seven’s the number of completion – maybe our kids unite the nations.

But we, too, weigh on ourselves. Society’s gravity does apply pressure to us, but we give the pressure a mass to apply it to. When these stigmas disappear, we won’t have to go out of our way to avoid them.

I have told you all of what I know about Orange Cotton, but you don’t know the horrors I’ve imagined. The slave is whipped in the fields as she works tirelessly. The terms benefits or 9 to 5 apply not where hatred grows by the acre. Remorse isn’t a factor between slave and master. The horrors she saw and the darkness she lived in, gave me an idea of identity. My grandpa once told me, his grandmother was a slave – her name was Orange Cotton, and on my heart her name is engraved."