This is a piece I wrote last year for my English class. I had planned to put my old essays online in a single pack since the beginning of the semester, but I haven't had time to do it yet. However, some recent happenings forced me to go ahead and publish this apart from the rest, to present some ideas in preparation for the next three planned entries: FUCK THIS SHIT! (The Abridged Edition), FUCK THIS SHIT! (The Lovingly Edition), and Love, Part II (inspired and dedicated to Ana Takamura). It has been revised and slightly modified for the benefit of whoever hasn't read either Melba Pattillo Beals's Warriors Don't Cry or Russell Baker's Growing Up. Alas, enough with the comments, sit back and enjoy the ride
Amadeus Malca
ENG 209-2
Prof. Andrea Kevech
“The Liberation of the I”
Due date: 10/15/2007
Revised on: 3/22/2008
The Liberation of the I
I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever.
-Albert Einstein
In our search to find and define ourselves, we human beings look into various places in an effort to understand why we are the way we are. Looking back in our personal history, we find various explanations for the way we act and think. However, usually, sometimes even on purpose, we overlook the most important factor in deciding how we react to the world; which is, of course, ourselves.
During the course of our lives we will formulate various reasons to explain why we act the way we do. Generated to justify ourselves, those reasons are reflections of what we might think of as the biggest shocks in our lives and the constants in our surroundings that push out one way or another every day.
From traumatic events to states of pure bliss, the shocks represent breaking points in our lives. They are moments where we are forced to acknowledge something about the world that we may or may not have considered before, and will not necessarily like, thus having to change our personal attitude to define a reaction to that aspect of the world. According to the Chaos Theory, those changes, no matter how small they are, will reverberate throughout our entire life.
One example of such a moment would be the moment Russell Baker recalls in his short story “Becoming a Writer”, when he realized that he was a good writer. Near the end of his senior year, Baker was forced to write a story for his composition class - a class he had considered utterly boring and got to loath (along with the activity of writing anything) with a passion during high school. For days he didn’t write anything, waiting for the appropriate kind of narration he thought his teacher would like (at least, enough to get him a C and out of the writing circle for the rest of his life). At the end, after going around the task for days, he almost accidentally wrote a piece about a spaghetti war he had had with his family one particular evening. He liked the piece, but he didn’t think it would get him anywhere in class: It was almost absurd thinking that the old geezer that was his teacher would find anything amusing about people throwing food around. However, he ran out of time, so he had to turn it in. The surprise came when the teacher not only loved his story, but loved it enough to read it in front of the rest of the class, which considered it hilarious. Suddenly thrown into a situation he had never considered, his literary work considered good not only by his teacher but by his peers, the shock forced him to change his attitude about writing. Eventually, this activity, which he used to hate, became his way of life.
On the other hand, being not as straightforward and prominent, the constants have a more complicated model. Even though they might be infinitely more important than shocks (after all, they are both the underlying fabric and moving canvas on which the rest of our lives rest), they could go unnoticed for years. Their work can only be fully appreciated, in hindsight, after the whole picture is complete.
Indulge me while I teach you some social astrophysics. Try to imagine the gravitational pull of a planet in the way of a wandering asteroid. As the asteroid passes through the influence area of the planet, its trajectory will be affected due to the effects of gravity, changing dramatically as it gets closer to the planet. Then, one of three things will happen. Either the asteroid collides with the planet, it becomes trapped in orbit, or, its speed boosted by a gravitational slingshot effect, it speeds past the planet with a turbocharged pace. Of course, as gravity works pulling things closer together, the trajectory of the planet will also be affected, significantly if the asteroid is big enough.
Human beings behave that way too. We, fleshy asteroids and dwarf planets, significantly and dynamically change the behaviour of the people we cross, just as they change our own behaviour when they present a new idea, attitude, or (and!) belief, interacting with ours in a way that induces, little by little, a change. Society itself is like a fully fledged planet, able to influence quickly and powerfully whoever enters its realm – but at the same time, its foundations risk being shattered if hit by someone fast enough at the right moment. However, as with anything human, size is not a measure of power. Angels and serial killers tend to be exceptionally powerful influences embodied in personal packages, even if they don’t ever induce shocks.
The most common example of this kind of interaction is the family unit. The influence of a family, of mother and father figures, moulds beliefs, general traits, and ways of dealing with the world. This will later on be reinforced – or rejected – by society, the most explicit environmental constant. Let’s see a specific example. In Warriors Don’t Cry, Melba Patillo Beals talks about a very big and powerful force that tried to break her: the pro-segregation people of Little Rock, both white and black, who wanted to prevent her and other eight black students from joining the all-white student body of Central High School. They tried everything, from simple social rejection to direct murder attempts, to dissuade her from going to Central High. This force was countered by an even more massive (and, at the same time, gentle) force: her grandmother India. Spread through the entire book, India’s teachings and advice, even her punishments, affected Melba as she working desperately and lovingly with every Psalm, with every word, to keep her granddaughter together and provide her the strength of character to navigate what she knew was going to be the most important chapter of her life. Here we have a huge planet, a society that didn’t know better, and a small but incredibly powerful pulsar, both trying to apply their forces on the path of asteroid Melba for better or worse. And asteroid Melba slingshot between these forces into territories unknown; her own trajectory modifying, forever, the way that universe was.
Now we have the concepts of the two types of circumstances that change someone’s life: shocks and environmental constants. Once we grow up and develop the abilities of introspection, cause and effect analysis, and rationalization, we can look back on our lives and select some of those circumstances as the things that defined who we are, for better or worse. And, as with anything that happened in the past, this is something unchangeable; we are nothing but the product of these circumstances and our attitudes to them.
But, are we really only that?
It’s really easy to say that we are the product of our circumstances to wash our hands if the product is negative. Normally, if we do something positive, we take the credit, no problem. But if the product is negative, nope, we were made to do it. We make up excuses, blaming our upbringing for the things we do. In other words, nothing is ever our fault. Things just happen to be the product of the influences of our lives. And if things just happen to be the product of the influences in our lives, we cannot be held responsible if our beliefs, attitudes, and ideas hurt other people as a by product. Human nature works this way to provide us a psychological get out of jail free card, should we ever need it.
However, once we rationalize the reasons for something, obviously there is an understanding of the reasons and an understanding of the reaction. And with the understanding of the cause and the effects, suddenly the effects are no longer knee-jerk reflexes to specific but undefined stimuli.
They became conscious responses to known situations.
They became choices.
Albert Einstein once said what I consider the ultimate testament to both human resolve and human rejection of responsibility: “Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.”
The same applies for hate. The same applies for everything we do.
No one can make you feel love, and no one can make you feel hate. No one can make you believe in one thing or another. Even though there are many different influences that teach you how you are supposed to react to the world in general, in the end, the only person who decides what you do and think and feel, and therefore the ultimate influence over you, is yourself, armed with your learning and reasoning.
The beauty of this is that you don’t even have to have a rationalized reason or deep understanding of your inner workings to have a choice. Just by being yourself, and hanging around with yourself long enough, you’ll know that if something happens, you’ll react this way, or that way, or any other way. Just by being yourself and knowing that, you give yourself the chance to change that way.
And that’s why, ultimately, what defines who you are is yourself.
It doesn’t matter what you were taught. What you learnt to hold true and what you learnt to hate. What you were told was supposed to be normal and what is to be avoided. Once you are capable of rational thinking, you are capable of rationally tinkering with your very own system of beliefs and basic truths.
Basically, you’re capable of rebuilding yourself.
Imagine a new you, no longer bound by the chains of your past thoughts and actions.
The only problem is that doing this, by the nature of the act, is hard, and people normally choose the path of least resistance. Why take all the effort if what you have already is good enough? If it works, don’t break it.
People are adverse to change. We naturally tend to have a comfort zone, a psychological place where we can take refuge from the unknowns of the rest of the universe; a cherished place we know intimately. The problem with change is that it brings unknowns to your zone, and that contradicts with its very purpose. People can be so afraid of change that they will actively go and fight against it, even if it is a good change. A textbook example for this is the counter point to Grandma India: the people of Little Rock who had closed their minds to change so hard they were actively and violently, almost murderously, opposing it.
Unfortunately, this adversity to change is a psychological Catch-22: Let’s say X is a requirement for Y, but, for some reason, X cannot happen unless Y happens first; therefore, nothing ever happens. From a starting point of adversity to change, you have to change first to want to change and because of that desire be able to change in the first place.
But perhaps the most important factor of all is that, if people accept that their actions are a product of their own reasoning, they would have to answer for them. And responsibility is a burden too heavy for many to carry in this society that is progressively becoming addicted to letting someone else take charge of things.
Most unfortunately, people are too worried about covering their metaphorical backsides to realize that what they are denying is the key to their own liberation. Each time you’re given a choice, you’re given also a clean piece of paper in the shape of actions for you to write exactly what you want to be. Whatever you write on that piece of paper will say to the world what you will be. If you choose to take control, to make a change, instead of repeating whatever you have been taught, you’re letting the essence of yourself surface from the sea of preconceptions in your life. Don’t choose what others would choose. Choose what you would choose. Standing with the murder weapon in hand, whether you decide to use it or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you do what rings true to you.
This decision is the fuel for the engine which allows us to move the asteroid “Me” through space at our own will.
Just look at Melba Beals. She made a choice when she decided to go to Central High. No one did it for her; she alone filled out the forms and secretly turned them in. Secretly, because she knew if her family ever found out she was thinking about it they would forbid her from doing it. She even made a choice against the wishes of her family, against the wishes of her community, because what she believed was best was not what they had conformed to believe. She believed in change, and fought to within an inch of her life for that change, taking on an entire society. And she made it. Like an asteroid crashing as fast as light, shattering the continental crust of a planet, her choice moved not only her life, but the entire society she lived in. Even though the consequences of her choice took away her innocence, she never regretted it. Because it rang true to her.
Of course, if what rings true to you also happens to ring true to other people, that’s fine too.
There is no way to ignore it. Children might get away with it; they are still learning. Teens might get away with it; their brains are literally blinking off and on with the clash of hormones in their system. Adults, intelligent adults, reasonable adults, logical and experienced adults, free adults, independent adults, have to agree that their actions are only and completely acts of their own volition, carefully chosen. And as a choice, their choice, the only person that can answer for it, the only person who ultimately defines the rules for oneself is, after all, oneself. No excuses.
