The Art of Discrimination

All of my journey and my striving to be better than I was yesterday was never really for me. It was and it wasn't. It was about love. All of my life because of what I am and being influenced by American ideologies about women specifically dark women, I've sought to be better than that description because I never wanted to find myself in a situation where I loved someone who wouldn't see me as being good enough to love. It has been my worst fear since the day I found out that I was not the kind of person who deserved love. For me that happened when I was very young the age being impressionable as I was told by many many people in positions of power that people who looked like me didn't deserve love. So I wanted to make sure that I was extraordinary in some way. I wanted to achieve and be able to say to the world I too deserve love do not deny me because of my race, my economic status, my gender. Identity politics as it were at its finest. It wasn't called that then. It was just the way the world was. I thought that if I could be something other than what was normally expected I could change that. I was naive.

I learned that the way I saw it isn't how discrimination works. Discrimination is about deciding things like this about people without considering who they are individually. Discrimination is about setting values to a human being that mostly dehumanize them by implying that they don't need or deserve the very basic needs for sustaining a human life where they can act in love, care and compassion for others. Its about determining that they do not deserve to have the same rights others enjoy. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized that. The trick of discrimination is it doesn't matter who I really am, what I fight for, what I care about. The person discriminating never cared enough to find out. Its the ultimate catch 22 because its like deciding that a box contains nothing but garbage because its wrapper is green and you've never actually opened a green wrapped package assuming its all garbage. How do you break through that haze of misinformation when the person who believes in it believes so fully that they refuse to even test it once.

In a lot of ways I believe that's what we are experiencing in a wide array of ways in this post election environment. We've had reputable news outlets determined as garbage. Whole populations of people determined as garbage. Ways of life and loving declared garbage. Its exhausting to live each day knowing that there are people within your vicinity in your grocery stores in your neighborhood that believe that some people and their lives are garbage. You can feel it in them. In the way they look at you. In how they search for the parts of you that confirm that you're the garbage they were told you are. They negate that any perceived faults are merely human ones that we all suffer and battle with. They usually judge you on a different scale not allowing even the slightest bit of error. The benefit of the doubt means nothing because you never deserved it. Its not that far of a step to be so entrenched in the idea that even the best possible people are muted and muddled because of your need to view them as garbage.

I have so much hurt in my soul and my spirit for us as people. We stare at each other from across a cavernous gulf that literally does not exist. Each side yelling the exact same thing each getting louder trying to be heard and never noticing that they are yelling the same thing. They are yelling "I'm human, I hurt I bleed I matter. I matter." 

A lot of these issues are sparking fresh for me as I write my next book which examines that very extreme juxtaposition between a creative minority female and a privileged rich white male.  I always found the seducing the millionaire books lacking because they ignore a very fundamental aspect of socialization which is social groupings. Its not easy to disengage from one social grouping and become fully accepted in another. Its even harder to pull off the love it takes to make the person perceived as less then seem worthy. Love can begin to bridge this gap but we are social and social circles greatly effect the way relationships are conducted maintained and thrive. I know its fiction, you say. Yes it is but if a fairytale has no hope of coming true then why tell it?

In confronting this I realized that there was only a few ways to dig deep enough that a true love could grow. So I did a terrible thing to my male lead. I showed him the absolute truth of his lifestyle. And now he's going to turn around and show my female lead the absolute truth of hers. Its not going to be an easy thing to write because all of my misgivings about beauty, protection and the state of trying to be a joyful carefree black girl in the south will be right at the surface. In many many ways I am her. Weird, artsy with strong headed opinions and a lack of fear that is utterly appalling if you care for this person. The male lead, the idea the person that I've been told all my life I have to find a way to matter to. The person I have to convince that I'm human and deserve love.

I've rarely gotten through my tougher scenes without needing to stop and weep. I feel like now more than ever its so important that I get this out. Lance the wound and let out the infection that has haunted me and crippled me for most of my life. Because you realize one day that you haven't spent your life trying to prove to 'him' that you're human and matter. You were never fighting the masses for your humanity. Discrimination and representation are much more insidious than that. Because some days you ask you really wonder am I really less than human? Is that why joy seems so far away so removed from my life. Are they right? Has God decided that people like me only deserve hell and scraps from the table of humanity like a dogs.  Did He just create us to suffer at the feet of those who will never treat us with the care and concern we have always given them? The problem in those questions is that you aren't looking for those answers from those other people.

The trick is that the arguments and the positions the situations are so compelling you start to think it must be true when you are beat with them everyday for hours on end in almost every encounter in almost every instance of life. You know in the deepest part of yourself that to deny the teachings is in its own way denying reality. Others who need to keep this as a reality beat it into the ground using repetition to control your pattern based brain to guide it to their designs. But then you learn and you grow and understand reality is not a static instance, the use of repetition is folly within itself as the proof that the narrative is incomplete and must be false.  Reality is ever changing, no single moment is identical to any other moment, sunrise sunset and it is ultimately a tool that shapes life.  Like any tool it can be used to the advantage of some and to the disadvantage of others.

When you reshape and re-purpose the tool you see where the trick really lied. It told you that you needed them to acknowledge that you were human and deserving of love when the first and finest principles of philosophy had already given you that power. I think therefore I am. When you unmask the wizard and pull back the curtain you see yourself staring right back at you. You've spent a life time trying to prove your humanity to yourself. That is the only person who needs to believe in your dignity, your grace, your humanity, your right to be loved as you are is you.

When you're newly freed you shed that reality and that world and you began your own alchemy.


Images:

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Time to Meet Nikki

Writing has taken a back seat to plotting and preparing to embark on a new direction with my writing. The idea is to move slowly from romance to a more sci-fi look and feel. The series I'm working on is a big one. Its very ambitious and will literally take years to finish. I think this story has been building in me from the very first time I wrote a poem as a young child. Everyone has something living in them and I am no different. Living in me is an epic tail that stars a rather grumpy and coarse female protagonist. Incidentally it will be quite a while I believe at least 6 books in before you get her. But I promise she is going to be worth the wait.  However right now I'm going to start writing her adventures in a short story format for a fellow author's blog. So I will keep all posted on when a Nikki story comes up on his blog. I most likely will not post them here I'll just make sure to post them as links on my twitter feed and Facebook page so they can be read and my author friend can get the exposure and content he is looking for.

In the meantime if you have not read any of my other books here is a listing as well as a loose schedule for the first set of books for the new series.

Always w/love,
Sue

NOTE: All books are only available in ebook formats

Make Mine a Heel 
Published  December 2010
Banner couldn't believe the words coming out of her editor's mouth. How was she supposed to report on something that was fake, and everyone knew it? The station should let her stick to what she was born to report. But oh no, her editor says she needs to go talk to the man that is currently the best at ‘pro rasslin'. So Banner countered with an ultimatum that would give her the opportunity of her dreams. Now all she has to do is figure out how to get Keith Daniels to play along.

All of which SHOULD be easy. Career choice aside, Keith is a smart, confident, athletically gifted male that radiates the kind of charisma that put the sun to shame. Okay, maybe he is also hot enough to melt ice caps. I mean if a girl likes that global warming thing. No matter what happened, her life would never be the same again.

Amazon. Barnes & Noble, Smashwords


Sandra's Social Book One of The W.A.R.M. Front Series
Published April 2011
Dr. Sandra Dalianas is a woman that almost has it all. She has a loving family, good friends, and a thriving feminist movement. Which she feels helps her deal with her historically lack luster love life. On a divergence from her normal path, Sandra meets a dark stranger that intrigues her more than any man ever has. Her gorgeous, arrogant, and disarmingly charming mystery man seems to be at the right place, always at the right time. Almost too right because her feminist shadow life unfortunately puts her in the wrong place at the wrong time. A fact she may live to regret. That is if she lives.

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords


Charlotte's Chance Book Two of The W.A.R.M. Front Series
Published January 2012
Charlotte Rhoades had to stand back, and watch her best friend flee for her life with a mystery man that no one even knew she was seeing. Like any good friend she does everything in her power to keep her best friend’s life from falling apart only to realize that the bad guys have mistaken her for her best friend. So she starts running in circles fast to try and throw them off of her trail without letting them know where Sandra is. And just when she thought she was caught, her assailants would disappear. In the mists of all of this political intrigue it took her a while to notice the man that had been following her for weeks now.

But she knew this man. It was Thomas Glendel, the golden-eyed friend of the man Sandra had left with. He was always there in the background never close enough to touch, but just close enough to affect her. Always right beyond her reach. The problem was that she desperately wanted to reach him.

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords


Perilous Flight
Published February 2013
Perilous Flight follows a 2 and half year odyssey of a woman’s path to self enlightenment. This multi-literary compilation mixes poetry, first person blogging, short stories, intimate letters, and journal entries detailing one woman’s descent into the most harrowing experience of her life. Through her eyes, love, respect, honor, and life are redefined in a world that seems lost to all except selfishness and avarice. With her recollections, her story telling, and brutal honesty she understands the things that are truly the most important aspects of living and being alive. Like Persephone, she travels to the underworld to see the true face of death then arises to the light of a new sun with the seeds of the future in her hands.

Amazon, Barnes & Noble. Smashwords

Blog in Review the Rundown

So I'm starting something new in case you haven't noticed. Its a year in review. I wanted to find the posts that got the most views and garnered the most attention.  Here they are the top 5:

# 5 Inseparable
Her first thought was his name and the pain doubled. This was a soul deep hurt that had survived and fed itself with his passions, ate his shattered dreams and drank of his broken heart. It fueled his nightmares, ignited his pessimism, and nurtured the hearth of his rage.. . 

#4 Unconditional Love, or What We Really Mean
So back to my new year's resolution. I told myself I was no longer going to stifle how I feel about anyone.  I in fact practiced this by sending very personal very gushing messages of love to my closest pals who in some way inspire me by doing nothing more than being who they are. The results were as I expected.  I got back some gushing replies and silence.  I knew who would do what. The gushers are just what they say they are.  The none gushers, the silent, were whelmed. You see all of these people feel as deeply as I do and I know what such a message would've done to me. I would've gushed back but first I would've needed to be silent.  And sometimes when you're silent you just are because "Wow look its a unicorn, how cool is that." Bask in the moment.

#3 Manpaper: The Originals
Now this latest version of manpaper is by no means all there is. Below are the originators.

#2 9 Days - A Novella of Mythic Proportions
But the very interesting thing is that underworld activities were shrouded. There have never been many tales of who Hades actually is. Yet the method of how he acquired his wife and subsequent equal queen of the Underworld is one of the most prolific stories surrounding what I believe is the often very misunderstood lord of needful things such as death and the dead.

Thus 9 days.

Think of 9 days as the mythological version of 9 and a half weeks. A sheltered lovely child, a lord of darkness and the unveiling of who they both truly are.

#1 Missing Love Stories
As a dark woman I've always taken those images with a grain of salt as I much preferred getting lost in a book as opposed to an unrealistic impersonation of who I was supposed to be. The irony is that you tell yourself it’s not that bad. You actually try to accept some of it as truth because the alternative is too much to bear, which is the evidence of others denying you and those like you the very basic staples of humanity.

I was Persephone this past Halloween

Well that has been my year and I hope to have more lovely profound flights of fancy and stunning realizations and always. . keep writing.

Have a LOVEly year,

Always w/love,
Sue

Transcendence

Lovely word and fascinating movie. All of us have ideas about what would make the world a better place. I do but I shape them more around what I can do to make the world a better place. I thought the most interesting thing about the movie was the ways it embodied the word.  A state of transcendence is described as the state of going beyond limits, exceeding confines, becoming more than what you were ever meant to be.  The movie was about life beyond death, and life beyond death reshaping life as it is irrevocably.

The irony about it is that the entire time the main character was trying to attain what they already had.  In many ways I think we as humans endeavor to do the same thing. We fight our confines just to attain what we already have. We all seek some form of liberation from our humanity. We limit who we interact with, who we allow ourselves to be seen as, we limit all things that push away from the downfalls of humanity. However it is the downfalls of humanity that spark the most vibrant and amazing aspects of being human.

Some of us do this by procreation. This belief that somehow creating new people will cement our transcendence. The irony is no one remembers the parents of a great human being. We rarely recognize the brilliance of a human when they are alive and demonstrating it. We often have other words for them. Anarchist, rebel, criminal.  It just depends on who is doing the naming in most situations.

Others do this through labor.  Work plain and simple. But the lure and the ultimate lie of this is that work has permanence. And in a way it does until someone else's work comes along to shatter it. In those situations all that can be done is to try and use work to facilitate well being.  When all is said and done legacy is a lie. Its a myth we tell ourselves to deal with what can be seen as an unfair lack of time bound in our human forms.

Its ironic that in many ways I believe our short lives are our only true gift. I believe the purity of who we can be and what we can accomplish are only possible because of the frailty of life. The things we fight for, live for, and die for define the sanctity of our existence. We move through this life this existence with hardly a clue as to what is needed or expected of us. We leave our callings to belonging and love.  We make connections and declaration based on tribal and regional affiliations. We find and discover things that bring us hope, beauty and joy. Some of us even deny ourselves the pleasure because of the fear of loss. Not ever understanding that the only thing lost is the moment.

We move through this space and seem not to understand that simple fact. We define what is important. We verify what brings us hope and joy. We dictate what love is and where it is spent. Now is the essence of humanity. Now is the world as it is. Now is the only truth.

What I always seek is to sing the song in every key.  Sometimes my notes are happy, sometimes my notes are sad. At times I wail and at times I moan.  From time to time I rise like the coming tide and crash like the coast ashore. I crest and hold for days, I swell and drop, I burrow and shriek, I cry in joy and in pain. Its in those notes in that phrase, in that bar, octet, reprise symphony is life. All that it can be, all that it shouldn't be all that it is and all that it is not. The point is not to control, regulate or build.  Those are distractions from your song. The point is to live and life can only be lived in one way now.

True transcendence is freedom from ideas that hobble, thoughts that condemn, habits that contain.  Transcendence is viewing hurt and pain as notes in the harmony of the concerto. Its viewing joy and happiness as the underlying melody that's always playing whether you hear it or not. Its in the rhythm of your beating heart. The lulling hum of your breathes.  The harmony of your flowing blood. The buzz of life singing around you.
 

The Bechdel Test and Romance Novels

The Bechdel test is a fascinating subject. It calls forth ideas about understanding the nature of the society we have created and what that means for all of us as a species. It highlights many of our social development faults.

Bechdel

The rules of the Bechdel Test for a piece of media are as follows:

1. It has to have at least two women in it

2. Who talk to each other

3. About something besides a man

The test identifies a few obvious trends in modern art and storytelling. It points to the idea that only male characters carry weight in these worlds. Often in many storytelling instances women have little to no autonomy due to their purpose being only to further the ends and identification of the male character and protagonist. While this is an interesting and expected trend in most media and art in general, the most interesting idea is that women themselves have been conditioned to some degree to expect less female autonomy in all stories, including those that play specifically to the female fantasy of love.

Romance to be very specific is usually a media that features love. The women are usually very good people but for some strange reason alone and out of fashion. Usually the author comments on looks, or on responsibilities that fall into traditional roles that are favorable for female characters.

The challenge of any fantasy is to make unbelievable instances take shape. Yet within the framework of believability. It’s called the suspension of disbelief in professional wrestling, magic shows and visual entertainment in general. This is a parody. Play act that facilitates a story about growth, love and passion.

This is exceedingly difficult to do when the author can’t even seem to identify the female characters in the story as people. It is unsurprising yet astounding in this day and age when that happens. I recall one of the complaints I’ve had about my female characters is that they are not likable. I casually and caustically explained after the critique was given to my female character without thought for the male who carried many of the same traits that she wasn’t supposed to be likable. She’s supposed to be human. She is to be accepted as she is, just as the male of the story is.

Ladies, let’s be honest, our romance heroes are not super romantic.  Most of them are grade A assholes that for some reason cannot get enough of the girl most unlikely to matter to them. We respect them because they are not embarrassed or ashamed of who they are. We call that an Alpha male in this genre and most readers would be hard pressed to enjoy a book that didn’t feature one. I find it daunting that every time I write a woman the same way, editors and agents find her ‘unlikable’. Because of course in the court of love and respectability politics you dare not propose love for a girl who is “gasp’ unlikable.

Taming

I think to Shakespeares’ Taming of the Shrew. Which in essence is a stage play from centuries ago completely about respectability politics and how they affect the acceptable level of aggression a female is allowed to have and still be able to have a successful relationship with a man. The play was written by a man and yet he seemed to grasp the idea of well if you want this much woman you need to be this much man and accept a true partner that many female authors abandon for canned preapproved agency drivel.

I could almost buy the argument that this is because I may have unintentionally excluded ‘feminine’ traits from them. I prefer to err on the side that by dent of being a woman whatever she does IS feminine. However this seems to be our impasse. Which is why this test is so important. If there is a definitive aspect of how I write a character that is considered a female thing when sex isn’t being discussed, then I’m writing all of my characters wrong.

Humanity goes beyond discernable genitalia. Humanity involves spirit, heart, essence, a fiber a soul. All of these attributes should be portrayed without a sex, because they are. These things are embodiments of the human condition. I will relent and say yes some characters will express these motivations and desires differently, but let me be clear, they will not or ever be along sexual divides. I consider it to be lazy writing.

Producing characters driven by clothes because they like to look pretty is lazy writing. I seek to create unique stories about unique people which I find to be the reality of the world. My characters are driven by the impression they seek to make in those clothes. The inherent comfort or discomfort of those clothes. The decisions are sometimes frivolous but are met equally by hard thought out and followed through on choices that have little to do with a male or female perspective and more to do with a basic human one.

Brave and Rightly So

The complexity of humanity is a daunting task to write about. It intimidates me every time I plot a major twist because in that moment the people I love can betray me. Every writer understands what I just wrote. It’s the complexity of humanity that makes these characters live beyond us, outside of us, desiring their own peaks and valleys. My characters, male or female, don’t want the easy answers. They don’t want the cop outs and the maybes. They want their tragedies and they want their triumphs. They want to be the lowest speck of humanity while being the brightest. No chromosomal switch turn at the last stages of development determines whether they want or need that more or less. Yes they come across individuals that don’t agree and they are pitied for what they choose to give up.

I see the Bechdel as more than just checking for equality. It’s a call to arms for artists to be the change they should want to see.

Tail End of Tomorrow

We arrive on the tail end of tomorrow
We stop to smell the roses, trying to drown our sorrow
The next day comes bringing hope and despair
Holding myths of forever, life without a care
O believe in the impossible, live by the inevitable
Tear away from the set and ignore status quo

Do you miss the boredom, miss the need
Do you crave the sickness, yearn to feed

The hate that rains on others yet passes some
The twist of the knife that is still to come
Depending on those that can’t depend on themselves or each other
Dropping life long friends because you’ve found a new lover

Density at mass is the best description
Failure at class, there is no redemption

Don’t pity me as you scoff because I’m not accepted
Instead feel my disgust in you, know I rejoice in being rejected
I can hear you laughing at me from your place in the vacuous void
I take it stone-faced and silent because I know it makes you paranoid
I’m not alone, regardless of what you may need to believe
Beside me stands a different sect awaiting the dawn of our eve

We arrive on the tail end of tomorrow
Waiting patiently for you to let go
The truth stands away from your lies
Every day it gets stronger as your view dies
O believe in the impossible, live by the inevitable
In the distance there is a reckoning that will destroy your fable

Happy Memorial Day

I know not a thing of war.

Not the smell the taste or the weight of it

I know not a thing about the pain and crime of it

I know not of the suffering inherent and given

Of living to serve and knowing what must be

Of following the dictations of those in power

Understanding that while their decisions may not be just

The people you fight for deserve this freedom

I know not of long lonely nights

Of cold unjust grace and the repetition of death

Of holding close your heart in the face of desolation

I know not of the loss of peace and quiet

Nothing of the lack of my own bed

Of knowing nothing put the outlying comfort of a foreign land

I know not a thing of family far and wide

Of each day being a gift and blessing as your eyes open

Of each night a thought to what could be

Being a humanitarian and a war bringer

A peacekeeper and a scion of death

I know nothing of such life altering decisions

I know nothing of coming home a changed person

Of leaving a post with a mix of joy and trepidation

Of preparing to meet those who condemn you

Of preparing to meet those who revere you

Of knowing the price you had to pay

So spoiled others can have life their way

I know nothing,

Not a thing

Can’t even imagine

The immensity of war

And humbly thank those who have made this so

It is a bittersweet holiday because it admits fallacies to the human condition that we may never truly ever get past.  It is a wonderful thing to think that this world can attain a true and plentiful peace that serves the needs of all and treats all equally.  The truth is that the world is too diverse in some ways for such unity.  And until we as human beings can learn to respect instead of condemn diversity there will always be a need for war.  What needs to change is not the desire to be just but the matters that we are just about and the methods by which we wage war.

In the meantime I will be grateful that everyday there are countless men and women who are willing to be the ambassadors to humanity using their own lives as a bargaining chips to show us the fallacy of our need for war and what compassion is.  Throughout history war has destroyed and those left behind have had to rebuild.  I take solace in the idea that there is nothing that our country destroys that we do not attempt to rebuild.  

Revenge . . The Dish Best Not Served

Television Show

I think as a culture we have a fascination with revenge.  We like the idea of the bad guy getting their just desserts. It’s a common theme in film, television, literature, and all forms of media.  Our stories are built on determining who is the good guy and who is the bad guy.  We like being able to assign blame and fault.  We like being right. And oh we love to see the outcome of such acts.  It's this subconscious verification that the universe does doll out the appropriate payment for certain actions.  Even though we know life isn't fair we are constantly seeking proof to the contrary.  So much so that we ourselves are willing to do the dirty work if the Universe seems stalled.

The only issue with this is that too often in our daily lives we can manufacture villains when there are not any.  We can seek someone who we feel deserves revenge when the only faults they truly have are being human. 

Being human is a tricky thing and what I feel provides most of the trouble.  We are in truth simple dumb beasts in a lot of ways.  We just so happen to also be very clever ones. We have encased ourselves into our environment in a way that makes it easy to forget that. Our ideas are shaped by our environment and culture.  We are easy to program through media and being constantly plugged in.

Brain Processing

Many studies have proven that being constantly inundated with specific patterns of thought and ideas has a lasting effect on how we view and deal with the world. Only with a lot of work can this be altered or even deterred.  Even so, exposure to any form of media for a long period of time has a lasting effect.

I think of how stories from the Bible have influenced the creation of our society and developed laws. From the creation of fairytales and how they have shaped thoughts and ideas about male and female relationships to how the voyeuristic nature of reality TV has created this subsection with this social media explosion we are currently in the middle of. We are constantly being influenced on how to think, what to think, and what to believe.

What terrifies me is how few people understand that in reality there is a very specific core group of individuals that get to decide what type of influences we get. Thus they are shaping the world in their image.  Slowly filling all of our minds with what they want humanity to be. What you see is what they want you to see, and how they want you to see it. In many ways the explosion of social media is the only thing that is breaking through the illusion cast by forms of organized media. However it is through this lens we can sometimes clearly see the effect of other forms of media on our thinking.

Social Media and the Brain

There are fascinating bodies of work being built based on social media sites and the things people feel comfortable expressing on them.  Clearly we see our culture and its concerns with discrimination, equality, and finance.   We live in a world where by a chance of bonding in a statement that is only 144 characters long a nobody can speak to a media icon. A world where 1000s of miles can vanish and you can have a face-to-face conversation through a machine. With our innovations however our basic make-up and what we need in a story or a plotline has not changed, just the way we deploy it.

But isn't this really the problem.  A lot of who we are as humans has not changed.  And now we can see ourselves clearly.  And even more impressive future generations will be able to catalogue some of our lives in intimate detail because we have become intimate with our communication methods and devices. We have not actually grown into our technology, it has grown despite us. And I believe it will inevitable force us to grow as we are creating a symbiotic union with technology.

Previous versions of humanity never had what we now have, a true reflection of the soul.  It began millennia ago with art, the need to create. It wobbled its first steps with the development of religion, absolute truths that we made ourselves believe so that we could learn to think. It matured in government, policy, and the creation of a ruling class. It manifest in social groupings, nationalities, our ability to separate used to extreme discretion. Its focus narrows in communities, chosen professions, supply and demand systems to fulfill our own wants and needs. And it completes the circle coming back to one and the reflection is finally clear, each moment documented and preserved by a system that unlike us will not forget our history.  Finally forcing us to not do the same.

I know what you're thinking, revenge is the topic. True but we can't delve into revenge until we understand perspective.  This plays a crucial role in determining what actions deserve to be avenged. Everyone has a point of no return action that takes mild mannered you and replaces it with bug ass nuts Batman. For most people it involves any hurt coming to loved ones whether on purpose or not.

The Question

The issue is that almost everything negates the thought that accidents are blame free. It negates that sometimes $#!& happens. While there are cases of obvious negligence, sometimes accidents just happen and yet we need to find fault. If not there wouldn't need to be so many lawyers on TV advertising their services for accidents. Clearly they can afford advertising it's a profitable business.  But why?  The need to assign blame, fault, and ultimately gain revenge.  The just desserts of the bad guy.  Because for humans bad things can't just happen. Someone has to make them happen.  And in a decent amount of cases this is true.  But not all of the time. Sometimes things are inexplicable and we should be damned glad that they are.

What is really gained?  A sense of satisfaction for setting right a wrong? What validation is the revenge seeker getting?  Well clearly how our society views this is at work.  We are social creatures, and the smug sense of knowing that you did 'the right thing' by the standards of others is sometimes too hard to resist, and is usually a good thing. 

The Crow

But the concept of revenge has usually been the deed of a villain not a hero. However our society has developed the anti-hero.  The concept that the bad guy can now be the good guy.  I believe this is a reflection of humanity coming to terms with itself. Now that our mirrors are so clear we can't be coerced to forget, and the little slips in history can't be covered like it was hundreds of years ago.  We have only been told noble stories of noble past deeds.  The truth is most likely closer to what we can now see.

The truth is, no one can be all good all of the time.  We all fall, we all are capable and sometimes unknowingly wrong someone.  But in a world where even accidents can be blamed on someone, you no longer have good guys.  You just have people making mistakes so tales of atonement become pressingly more popular. We can't be perfect, but the world still has to be fair.  You must pay your dues and gain atonement. Black and white is torn asunder and you are left with multi-tonal gray. 

Gray feels messy, unbalanced.  Shocking when the world used to be so stark.  It confuses you, it makes you uncomfortable.  The lines before were so very clear and now not at all. Eventually you realize black and white was too binding, gray is an excellent color. 

And Always

Gray accounts for mistakes, accidents, and well-intentioned mishaps.  It opens the door to no one being denied forgiveness or salvation. In gray is all of our hopes and dreams, true acceptance among each other. 

Gray doesn't really need revenge. Revenge is a residual response from those black and white days. Gray just needs solutions to existing problems.  You aren't being held accountable for anything but your own actions. And even those can be managed.  Give time a shot at it, amazing things happen in time. Because somewhere along the way of our journey to what we are now, time somehow managed to show us that.

Glorious Shades of Gray

And Always courtesy of http://www.leadliaison.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/use-marketing-automation-to-avoid-human-error.jpg

Brain Processing courtesy of http://www.disruptionmanifesto.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Slide7.jpg

Social Media and the Brain courtesy of http://johnbell.typepad.com/weblog/images/2008/09/04/pr_brain2.jpg

The Crow courtesy of http://www.dumage.com/img/fun/righteous-anti-heroes-in-movies/righteous-anti-heroes-in-movies01.jpg

Glorious Shades of Gray courtesy of http://www.seducingwithstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/shades-of-black-and-grey-1024x789.jpg

The Question courtesy of http://freetheanimal.com/images/2012/10/Screen-Shot-2012-10-28-at-1.02.14-PM.png