You Shouldn't Say "Should," Unless You Mean It!

People often ask me: What's my favorite word? I don't like this question and always have a difficult time answering. Words are my favorite. In a way, they must be; words are all we have to convey our world to any other, therefore I cherish these symbolic references like old friends. I can, however, answer the question: What's my least favorite word? The answer is "Should." I don't like the sound, the way it makes my mouth move, nor its connotations. Perhaps I dislike its connotations the most because they create emotion and reaction within when confronted with a "should." Think about it; Do you like when I say you should read my posts or you should vote for my candidate. I would naturally react the same way: with a trepid thoughts forewarning of unknown cognitive dissident trends revealing uncomfortable worldviews. To have such a solid, repetitive reaction to a word among many differing people holds that the word has been imbued with meaning from times past.

        

The etymology of "should" reveals a lot of the reasons why I dislike this word. Its sources in English stem back to the Old English world "Sceolde," the past participle of "Sceal," translated to "Shall." They both hold a strong sense of obligation in their meaning in Old English and were closely related to "Scyld" which means guilt and the Germanic world "Schuld" which means guilt and debt, pulling these definitions into the connotation of "should" whenever spoken or written in the 11th century. After all the language used during the 12th and 13th centuries had high religious conviction, binding the laymen to a socially normalizing culture by region as prescribed by the Church. As Old English progressed into Middle English after the 12th century, "Should" took on a future aspect in the encompassed action. For example: One should vote; meaning the individual has not yet voted and is obliged to take part in the action lest they be judged for the lack thereof. At this point in the history of the word "Should," "Sceolde" became related to the Middle English word "Shild," so much so that we now have a hard time detracting guilt, sin, crime, fault, and liability from "Should" today. One should not eat 'x' because 'y'; or one should believe 'x' because 'y'; where the statement 'y' has an intrinsic negativity closely associated (i.e. "One should not eat sugar because it triggers diabetes over long term use," where diabetes is bad).

        

Nowadays "Should" still encompasses a lot of these connotations, more so than "Shall." Where the latter has become more of an affirmation or action (i.e. "I shall go to the store."), the former is more of a directive laced with the aforementioned judgmental mentality. This is due to the close association of "Should" with philosophy in our time. In recent history this term has been closely linked with the ideology of right and wrong and morality. Now we see "Should" as prescriptive language asking the subject to question the immediate action at hand for its value in order to acknowledge another point of view as more correct (i.e. "You shouldn't cut onions that way; you should cut them this way"). The tone of guilt, sin, etc. may not be as strong in our language, but drawing morals into the discussion with current connotations of "should" echo the Old and Middle English linguistic trends. We know this because "Would," the second and third person predicate, does not hold the same connotative meaning of wrong doing, though it can be accusatory as in the derisive proclamation: "You would." Since the word has taken on a philosophical note it has also encouraged an authoritative aura, where the speaker/writer utilizing "should" knows best and is obliged to instruct the listener/ready of such knowledge. From my experience, those who use "should" in their speech often enjoy the dominating effect of the word. We can easily see this in our managers and they way they interact with their employees. Those who manage instead of lead often utilize "Should" where leaders open a conversation and preface ideas with "could you" or "what do you think about this" as alternatives to creating a change in their proletariats.

Then again, "Should" has its purpose in authority. One should (in fact) do a good job at work, if they don't consequences will come up. One should follow the law, because again consequences will arise. One should be healthy, share love, think less, etc. I can say these things wholeheartedly (even with my dislike of the word) because their prescription follows suit with my beliefs and larger understandings of the Verse. I take the philosophical stance, acknowledge the value of good and bad in actions and things, and draw conclusions that mirror those truths with which I assign my authority in saying this word in order to bring a balance and harmony into my world. When using language properly the full weight of the word can be harnessed. If we imagine a word highly overused (like love), we lose the power of the word. You can love a person, an animal; and a cup, or an idea, or a figment of imagination -- all just as much as you would like or admire or desire these same objects. Instead of using a more descriptive term we lump the idea into a larger term: Love. This is happening with "Should," where requests are disguised with knowledge, where authority covers insecurity, and when we can't accept other and attempt fixing it.

My experience with this word has colored my Verse. Living in America we're faced with a list of expectations in being a good and proper American. My generations were practically told that we should be straight, married, educated, hard working; that we should have a high credit score, go to church, save money; and by not adhering to these expectations we should expect scorn from our family, peers, and community. History books pointed to the righteous (those "shoulding" everywhere) always claiming victory, so why would we want to question these edicts? At the ripe age of 30, I've finally found footing to question these ideologies for myself and build a repertoire of "Should" in my life I can stand behind. That's all I ask of you now: look at when you say "Should" and begin to question if that's the right way to use it. Remember where this word has come from and what its use embodies in our language today. You may find when you start utilizing "Should" in the future people will listen more closely.

What Labels Mean in our World.

We are introduced to our world through sound in the beginning. Our mother's womb allows vibrations to penetrate the protective sack like nothing else can, save the nutrients she provides. From these vibrations we become acquainted with the outside; and when we're born sound is the first thing we experience clearly. Eventually our brains can grasp what is going on and the chaotic rhythm of life forms into manageable compartmentalized associations that help us cope with the myriad of options before us. Words enter our schematic of the universe and these words become labels for the intrinsic, mundane, specific, beloved, and desired. In fact, we would not be able to succeed, prosper, and potentially enjoy the societies in which we live without the basis of labeling quite literally everything; though a few intellectuals might enjoy discovering the unlabeled... so they can label it. As we grow and learn, experiencing the various modes of life on this precious planet we call Earth, certain connotations creep into language further coloring our Verse with little judgments that express our ideology, morals, and, most importantly, our Self.

The given designation we call a Name is the simplest, a priori transition into labels humans come across. It's usually the first thing to which a baby responds after many days/weeks of repetition and engagement. This name, however, does not give us our identity, but rather creates an Identity Space empty of the person. Because my name is Josh does not mean I josh people or am a josher by nature, though jovial and jocular utterances do engage my communities in laughter frequently enough; my identity is larger than one word or phrase or label. Life introduces us to many labels that we cannot choose: our gender, race, sexual orientation, age, etc. Over time humans discover what factors in life associate them with defining words: a job, a social group, fields of studies, and even relationships; and even these descriptions of the self are not guaranteed depending on region/state/country in which one might reside. Then there are the self-chosen labels that we identify with: religion, politics, and regional affiliations. We call ourselves Democrats or Republicans, invoking all the denoted and connoted meanings to these qualifiers. We set ourselves as this sect or another of Christianity and set boundaries that group others within that specific label. We believe region sets us apart from other humans because cultures differ between mountain, swamp, or island inhabitants. But these are all words created by humans to help us understand what we see, feel, taste, hear, and comprehend. What if it's all really just meaningless babble?

It can't be meaningless because you would not be building greater concepts through my words if meaning were absent. The image of a cup -- yep, that one that just popped into your head -- is brought forth because the word "Cup" has an undeniable meaning attached to it. Perhaps this is why we label ourselves like processed food. One serving of Josh comes with a healthy view of Pagan ideologies, a small dosage of fiscal conservatism, heavy portions of social progress, a coating of Green Party propaganda; injected with college education in Literature and Astro-Physics, music appreciation, culinary ingenuity, artistic ambitions; less than 2% moody, judgmental, irrational, conspiracy theorist, etc. Do not take if Close-Minded, Judgmental, Homophobic, Racist, etc. Would this mentality disrupt the abhorrence for the other in society, by putting forward all our identity ingredients for those to choose whether or not to engage? I think not, merely because this would give the judger an automatic right to judge based on the facts of your existence. Remember my warning: Do not take if [fill in the blank]. We already judge people based off labels. Doctors are seen as intelligent to some because the title Doctor comes with years of education. But we also question whether Doctors are educated thoroughly (they study pharmaceuticals and their effect on health, not a full degree in bodily health). We judge people based off age (too young, must be wet behind the ears), gender (women aren't as strong as men), "race," and ethnicity. This is so second nature by this point we can barely notice the difference between a simple label (i.e. cup) apart from the more intricately laced labels (i.e. gay).

In order to label something we have to distinguish its difference from other objects. Human nature till this point has been to analyze for "goodness," a property of inherent wealth corresponding with desire, necessity, or social status, and thus judge separate it from others by this designation. Our daily practice is to analyze driving patterns, nutritional information, and social morals, amongst other things. America is currently in the heat of a label war within its own borders: Republicans and Democrats vying for justice against a backlash against liberal ideology present under a conservative Democratic presidency. The labels have interfered with relationships, at least in my world. My conservative extended family through my partner voted for President-Elect Trump (a label that sours my mind, squelches my heart, and demeans some respect I might have assigned that role in our nation) and has repeatedly approached us with words of wisdom, consolation, and misunderstanding. They've labeled us as "inexperienced" politically (overlooking academic studies in Political Science and sitting on a Congressional Advisory Committee), as "whiny liberals," as "misinformed." Rather than looking beyond their own label as Republicans to see what comes with the package of a Trump presidency (support from terrorists groups like the KKK, Neo-Nazis, Extremist Christians) and correlating that with our reactions to such an election turn out. But even here I have labeled entire groups of people with the same mindset, which is absurd. These are, however, the regular thought patterns which stem from the simplest of labels which assigns us a sense of pride, segregating us in our own prejudices, unable to grow from the lack of connection.

Pride is what helps us feel comfortable in our own labels, and I don't mean to say we shouldn't be proud of who we are. We must be careful with our labels, with the words we choose to associate with our being. Words are power: they create feeling, memory, experience. When we start piling on meanings to words, expanding them to encompass a large survey rather than the individual, we lose the Truth. As Eckhart Tolle so elegantly states:

The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of misuse. By misuse, I mean that people who have never glimpsed the realm of the sacred, the vastness behind that word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or they argue against it, as if they knew what it is they are denying. This misuse gives rise to absurd beliefs, assertions, and egoic delusions, such as "My or our God is the only true God, and your God is false," or Nietzche's famous statement, "God is dead."

Before you label yourself, ensure you know what your labels really mean. And before you confront the ideology behind another label, make sure you know what it means for the labeled. This will help banish the confusion and misinterpretation of actions by individuals because our expectations of them won't be misguided by our own prejudice.

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Know your Labels. Know your Words. Know your Verse.

Essay Exam for Critical Thinking

[This is an essay exam for my critical thinking course. Enjoy reading, and go pick up A Gathering of Matter, A Matter of Gathering by Dawn Lundy Martin and read her poetry. It's really quite good, once you get past the odd forms of the poems.]

The Form in Between

Dawn Lundy Martin’s A Gathering of Matter, A Matter of Gathering is an intense book of poetry that sits between two distinct forms of poetry while still exemplifying characteristics of both. One form of poetry is language poetry, while the other is lyric poetry. These types of poetry utilize language in drastically different ways, one focusing on the actual use of language and the meaning forming from the language while the other focuses on the addressed emotion. Martin is able to bridge the difference and bring a unique harmony to the two forms.

Language poetry, according to the Academy of American Poets, acknowledges “that language dictates meaning […]. Language poetry also seeks to involve the reader in the text, placing importance on reader participation in the construction of meaning.” Martin plays with the language in her poetry very poignantly. One example of her expertise with language poetry is her poem “Butterflies Become.” The portion of this poem in brackets seems very heavy, yet innocuous at the same time. Each bracketed phrase, “[Fatwa] [Faucet of defiance] [From mesa] / [Desert stinge] [Vulva stiffening] [Sulfuric blunder] ….”, holds a very relevant emotion but does not explicitly derive that emotion for the audience (Martin 20). The language creates the emotion as we read through the poem. Not only are these emotions build through the language, the diction needs investigation for many people as well. As the audience learns what “[Fatwa]” means (a ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority) the following brackets change their meanings (Martin 20). Without the definition of such a word, the poem’s meaning would be less solid. The language of “Butterflies Become” creates the meaning, whereas the meaning is buried deeper and harder to find without examining the language directly.

The other aspect of Martin’s poetry is its lyricism. Lyric poetry, according to Types-Of-Poetry, is “a poem […] that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet. […] Lyric poetry addresses the reader directly, portraying his or her own feeling, state of mind, and perceptions.” All of Martin’s poetry attempts to portray an emotion through its message/meaning. However, Martin does not allow the narrative of the poems to obviously address the audience with pronouns of “you” and “I”. “The Symbolic Nature of Chaos” is a superb example of this. The poem itself is addressing a direct emotion or feeling but Martin doesn’t address herself or the narrator, much less the audience. She puts out the emotion “ … like a yelling and a tree” and allows the audience to sit in “… the darkness of this bereft body” without any explicit declaration of what is being read (Martin 3).

The best example of Martin’s duality of language and lyric poetry coalescing in one poem is her poem “After Drowning.” The diction used is baffling at times, skirting obvious meaning and burying it beneath the language used, but still suffuses a meaning, an emotion, a state of mind within the poem as it stretches across the pages. She also utilizes “I” within “After Drowning,” giving the distinction that there is a narrator expressing something, but it still takes a deeper reading and comprehension to bring that meaning to the surface.

Spontaneous Feelings Resisting Intelligence!

Martin creates poetry that both expresses a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” and “resist[s] the intelligence” of the audience. She writes poetry that feels infused with so much emotion, heavy meaning wrought from some very heartfelt place. I felt as though the poems were dark: dealing with the feelings of being an African American woman writing form a standpoint of having power and not being able to express it because of her sexuality. There are times of very heavy emotions shining through (“After the Death of a Young Poet”), and times when after reading the poem I sat dumfounded as to its intent (“Blackface Caricature in Thirteen”).  Most of Martin’s poems resist categorizing themselves into either just powerful emotions or simply resisting obvious understanding. “The Symbolic Nature of Chaos” is just such a poem. It holds such a vital feeling as it flows out nearly chaotically; it resists easy interpretation, and still holds the audience’s engagement because the feeling/emotion/meaning carry through the pages. In fact, her form on this poem really dives into both interpretations of poetic style expressed by Wordsworth and Stevens. Starting on page 4, Martin creates a very different form that both represents chaos (in the first portion on the page) and slips back into prose poetry to gather the audience back into comprehension. She does this several times with several poems, using form to instigate a feeling and break easily intelligible understandings.

Form Forming Formulations of Form

Martin plays with form all throughout A Gathering of Matter, a Matter of Gathering. Her first poem in the book, “Last Days”, automatically engages form. It presents a question and answer session where the answers do not necessarily answer the questions posed. However, the reader will intrinsically assume the answers relate back to the question just asked. This builds connections and meanings, even when these aspects are not explained in the poem language of the poem.  “Last Days” uses the form very well.

Another poem where form is very important is “The Symbolic Nature of Chaos.” With the title of this poem, we should expect the poem to resist the natural forms of poetry: structure, meter, rhyme, etc. None of the pages that this poem crosses look the same or are structured the same. This continual shifting of the form really do lend to the feel and meaning of “The Symbolic Nature of Chaos.” Adding to the chaotic form of this poem are the brackets, which make their first appearance in the book.

The third poem that utilizes form in a very distinct way is “Blackface Caricature in Thirteen.” It’s a list poem with thirteen points. As the poem is read, the audience believes that each point has a connection to what it means to be a blackface caricature. With this form, the reader tries to create a picture of what is being described. This poem, however, is more of a language poem and the meaning of the poem is created by the language used coupled with the structure. It is hard to draw a picture from this poem, but looking into the words creates a meaning much deeper than an easy, explicit poem.

And Within

One of the poems that struck me was “Violent Rooms” which seems to dance between the idea of having sex for the first time and rape. This poem relates to the book as a whole by addressing an important step in life that primarily women experience. Women in many areas in contemporary society are seen as an ‘other,’ or marginalized in society, much as being African American. Several of Martin’s other poems deal with being black, like “Blackface Caricature in Thirteen” and “Negrotizing in Five: or, How to Write a Black Poem.” Both of these poems work with ideas of a marginalized person as well. Not only do all of these poems share the subject of a marginalized person, either all the same gender (female) or simply all African American, but they also deal with juxtaposed emotions.

The Serious Face of Inspiration

The air was mischievous as we waited in mock silence for the presentation to begin. Boys sprinkled themselves far and wide, leaving space to conjure some semblance of individuality, separation, pride. Girls huddled together in sets of two or three, conversing in quiet tones about whether the snow was to fall or what Eula Biss was going to read from. Few people came in groups and laughed about their harrowing day at school where teachers raked their minds and marked wretched disillusionment on their souls. Conjured food beckoned to the hungry with a casual display of crackers, cheese, grapes and coffee. How very French of the organizers. Others didn’t notice as they vehemently grabbed for what morsels drew saliva from their gums. All the while, center stage remained untouched by a speaker.

I watched. I listened. I heard what the mass seemed incapable of touching. Perhaps it’s because this was my first time, my virginity palpable through my excitement, but there was a sense of relaxed tension filtered through my film of anticipation for Eula Biss to appear magically before us. I didn’t know what to expect, but I wanted to hear something profound, moving, influencing -- something extra-ordinary, sublime, and ignorable to shift me out of my delicate balance in life. I knew I was expecting too much of someone I didn’t know, had never seen or met, and probably would never see again after this night.

Finally, a man stood at the podium, that offset pillar of import fabricated of artificial wood and papery finish. His intro was poignant and made me feel closer to the room. Words echoed playfully, like childhood friends dancing in the rain of a bright, sunny day where the clouds mystically trickle miles away from their shadows. I couldn’t help but smile at his own fascination and unbelievable acceptance of the accomplishments of his long-time friend, Eula Biss. Part of me felt a dream open its eyes, peaking out at a tale unfolding, a history colored with possibility. I was captivated, as I had been the first time I read Catherine Asaro’s first novel, Primary Inversion. Here was a real person, a tangible entity to admire, to aspire to become, to engage in mental playgrounds because she is real.

Then Eula Biss took her spot, comfortably with an edge of nervousness. I can see in her shoulders the worry. I can feel her downcast eyes doubting whether her new audience would appreciate what she was about to read, about to share, about to express: intimate words drawn like piercings through cartilage and scar tissue in a blissful catharsis of passion. Words ushered forward thoughts of diligent introspection toward race, a subject I thought well out of her means and yet poignantly relevant in such a homogenized society. Though she spoke of essays and structured, researched, studied prose, her speech carried like poetry telling tales of carnivorous moments tearing down the safety locked within her mind --

And her point was made about fear and constructs; but I felt she missed a schema running through her language. All her experienced plagues, whether of another era or simply months ago with her neighbor on a beautiful summer day, centered around communication, played with the sense of language, juxtaposed images with words to invoke the necessary realization of race issues manufactured through our daily speech patterns. Perhaps she dives deeper into this possibility in other portions of her poetic essays, but it became startlingly clear when she equated lynching to telephone poles. Though her discourse throttled my perception, it drove into me the beauty of time well spent.

Time ticked on to a detrimental moment when the pages of her life closed and came to rest upon the podium. The aforementioned man rose and craned his neck toward the audience once more, declaring that Eula Biss would be accepting questions as time permitted. I had none for her, but the islands of patient awe divulged their timid inquiries with relish. That’s when her words of wisdom truly sank in. They weren’t about race, or her family, or her trials at becoming a published poet. She said, which had been echoed prior to this moment, “You have to take yourself seriously as a writer.”

My amazement crumpled my doubts. Something snapped in my head. Snow began to fall outside, unbeknown to the dimmed room. Moments before the reading, I was struggling through astrophysical equations of spacial relation between majestic gods and the illumination they provide for the nights and imagination. Moments before the reading, I was stressing about my physics homework and the supposedly simple concepts of Newtonian physics. Moments before the reading, I was pouring over calculus integrals determining the area of a graph as it spins around a certain axis bound by equations of meaningless relationships. I was taking myself so seriously... as an Astrophysicist.

But I’m a writer, and Eula Biss just told me a secret I had kept away from myself. I’m a writer. Now, I’m a serious writer, and seriously considering serious changes to ensure this serious realization won’t be wasted in moments of stressful attempts at a separate passion.

3 Article Synthesis Paper for English Comp Class

On The Outskirts of Society

When does the choice of another have detrimental outcomes to the innocent? When do uncontrollable circumstances take away every personal right? When can one go through the public educational system, receive a degree, and then be prevented from contributing to their society? The answer is simple and disheartening: when the individual is a child brought to America illegally. Immigration is a controversial political subject which neglects mentioning children of illegal immigrants despite the severity of the problem. The inability to pass any sort of comprehensive immigration reform is taking a toll on a large population in America which is just reaching adult-hood. Perhaps comprehensive immigration reform is not the answer needed immediately, but there exists a bill which has been forestalled that can help these innocent children earn citizenship legally. It is called the DREAM Act, and until it passes illegal children will suffer a life of fear, hardship, and inferiority. The social inequalities suffered by undocumented children must be addressed and solved through the passing of effective reformation bills in Congress.

To be illegal has always been referenced as a choice for the persons who hold the title. Child immigrants hold a special place in society due to this negative adjective associated with their status. This creates subjective intolerance which demeans the self-worth and aspirations the child may accrue while living in America. Unfortunately, the outcome of such denigration affects the society as a whole on many levels. Take, for instance, the complaint many Americans denote when arguing about illegal immigration which claims the illegal immigrants steal jobs away from natural born citizens. This very statement is causing a two-fold effect on children coming to America. The first is clearly engendering an attitude towards all illegal individuals that they should not be seeking out jobs that American’s desire. This then forces their search to mediocre work (in comparison to what ‘citizens’ should desire) and opens up opportunities in the janitorial, fast-food, and manual labor fields. As an assumption, Americans, who are instilled with the desire to always work upwards toward a better position in life, would never desire these types of work. The second effect directly influences many immigrant children to believe they cannot aspire to anything more than what their parents achieved: manual labor, fast-food work, and/or janitorial employment (as examples). As Thomas Faist points out, “Ethnicity is one of the markers that are often used to slot migrants into certain occupational niches . . . [which then creates] a basis of self-ethnicization [or self-engendering as a way of] typifying themselves as belonging to a particular group” (308). This very concept of self-engendering positions is not solely America’s downfall in social graces, but is a common practice in many Western civilizations.

Germany’s school system is possibly one of the most affective at determining a person’s place in society. This has also caused the German school system to be known as one of the worst systems in regard to immigrant children, and not specifically illegal immigrant children either (Entorf 642). At the age of ten, students are subjected to a test which determines which school a child will go to. The test is administered in German and spans a wide range of fields: science, mathematics, language comprehension, literature, etc. Now imagine immigrating (moving) to another country with your parents and shortly after arriving, having very little time to learn the language properly and assimilate to the educational standards of the school system, a test is given which will determine your place in society. Based on the test scores, the only option available is attending the school which prepares children for manual labor. Is this fair? Is it just to treat citizens who have legally immigrated to the host country in such a manner? Upon further reflection, is it right to even administer such a test to a child of manual labor parents, who were not given a highly advanced level of education because of a test they did poorly on when they were ten years old, who does not have the ability to learn advanced material from their caretakers? Understandably, Germany has a different view towards a life’s position than America does; for they take pride in the work they do as appose to feeling like there is something better to achieve. American standards would never allow this sort of system to affect its children, would it?

The answer is yes, America would and does allow such a test to exist, though few believe it is in existence. 1982 saw a distinct change in the attitude toward undocumented children in the Plyler v. Doe case which the Supreme Court ruled that “undocumented children are ‘persons’ under the Constitution and thus entitled to equal protection under the law according to the 14th amendment” (Gonzales 421). Furthermore, Justice Brennan declared that “while education is not a fundamental right, denying K-12 education to undocumented children amounted to creating a ‘lifetime of hardship’ and a permanent ‘underclass’ of individuals” (Gonzales 421). It was very clear that the Supreme Court saw the inequalities upheld by the denotation of a child as illegal in America, but the statute of the 14th Amendment, in essence, gives children of illegal immigrants the coveted rights of naturalized or native citizens. However, the provision only adheres to underage individuals, and when they turn eighteen the rights are demolished because of decisions made many years prior by their caretakers (Gonzales 421). The test then becomes about how well the child can hide his status from the institutions he wishes to attend. This is where the contradiction comes into play: a child who has been given rights and a free education through secondary schools is then thrust into society with a status that makes his very existence a federal crime.

The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act can solve this issue and amend the huge oxymoron the United States of America bestows upon an innocent group of people. As it stands, illegal immigrant children are said to have the highest drop out rate of any minority attending high schools in America. Much of the reason behind this is the lack of opportunity once they have graduated. It is better for them to find a job and work hard to secure a minimum standard of living to help support their family. Most of these children do not attempt to get their citizenship status to be legal. The DREAM Act will undoubtedly inspire these individuals by allowing children two options to obtain citizenship legally. One option means further schooling, allotting five years to earn a Bachelors and then enter the workforce. The other option is to go into the military for two years and then apply for citizenship once returning from active duty (“Welcome”). Both of these options allow an individual to prove their merit (Gonzales 421) and therefore strengthen many aspects of America. Such a bill needs to pass through Congress and be enforced immediately. Perhaps comprehensive immigration reform is not a solution feasible in the immediate climate, but the political leaders of a society which appreciates social advancement, equality and the American dream need to protect people whose choices were never considered when subjected to a life of hardship and social inequalities.

It is not enough to simply look at the social issues surrounding undocumented children. Action must be taken to stave off further social inequalities born from misconceptions surrounding this group of innocent individuals. Treating children of illegal immigrants as fugitives of the law or criminals is unfair to their circumstances. Furthermore, if these children decide to live in the United States of America after receiving a free education, it is imperative that they not impede any facet of American society. They should be allowed to contribute financially and socially with their taxes and votes. Government officials need to pass some sort of immigration reform and it is up to their constituents to push them to vote for reform; and if they cannot compromise on any sort of Comprehensive Immigration Reform then their focus must shift to the undocumented children of illegal immigrants. The DREAM Act is a short term solution to the complicated immigration issue.


Works Cited

Entorf, Horst, and Martina Lauk. "Peer Effects, Social Multipliers and Migrants at School: An International Comparison." Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies 34.4 (2008): 633-654. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 4 Oct. 2010.

Faist, Thomas. "Cultural Diversity and Social Inequalities." Social Research 77.1 (2010): 297-324. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 4 Oct. 2010.

Gonzales, Roberto. "On the Rights of Undocumented Children." Society 46.5 (2009): 419-422. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 4 Oct. 2010.

“Welcome to the DREAM Act Portal.” DREAM Act Portal. Web. 18 Oct. 2010.

Plain vs. Plane

It seems that most people have issues with "its" or "it's" or "there", "their", and "they're"; but my problem, as I'm sure many have noticed, is in the difference between "plain" and "plane." Thus, I shall discuss in detail in order to change my understanding and finally grasp the proper uses of those words. I want to make it clear, as well, that my issue isn't with the definitions plain = ordinary and plane = airplane, because I totally understand those. My issue is more more complex.

Plain: flat land, typically a field; also: the Great Plains

Plane: flat surface, typically a level board or table; also: "the cliff stood next to a plane of land."

Can you see my initial confusion? In essence, Plain is specific to land formations while Plane is general to all. So are they truly interchangeable or not? Further confusion. Obviously, when speaking it doesn't matter which one you're using because the meaning is implicit with the subject matter. My issue is substantial because I write science-fiction and fantasy. Let me further illuminate my dilemma:

Plain: Specific to land
Plane: a level of existence, a certain realm, a two dimensional coordinate system.

THUS

Plainswalker: derived to mean a Native American/Indian who walks across the Great Plains on a spiritual quest/journey of enlightenment and/or to commune with other planes.

Planeswalker: An inter-dimensional being who transcends other levels of existence or realms of existence. 

FURTHERMORE

A Planeswalker can walk from one plane to another; or from one plain to another. Visa-verca: A Plainswalker walks across the plains to connect with other planes; or transcends (mentally or spiritually) from this plane to communicate with other plains (speaking in terms of land).

Seeing this difference spelled out so definitively before me makes it seem entirely too simple, but my mind spins too quickly when writing or creating to care about the seemingly subtle difference. If I see (in my mind) a character sitting on a level surface (land or board) and he meditates to dissolve his energy/mind into an energy signal to translocate himself to a different place in order to communicate with someone standing, sitting, or working on a separate level surface (again, land or board), I don't decipher between plain and plane; though I'm sure there is a "more correct" use of the terms. This is something I am paying more attention to because I don't want you, my reader and critic, to be distracted by my diction. I just want you to see and feel what I'm writing about!

So here I stand, on a plane of concrete looking out over the small plain bordered by homes, wondering if i understand on which plane my mind plays as I wander to the final plane of existence. Will it be plains before my third eye, or mountains to traverse to freedom?

The Nameless Stranger

“Say Yes” by Tobias Wolff is a short story about a couple who encounter a discussion concerning interracial marriages. This discussion happens primarily in the kitchen as the husband and wife are cleaning up after dinner. Wolff writes this story in a limited omniscience narrative from the husband’s perspective about the topic at hand. It is very apparent that the husband loves and respects his wife, but very strongly disagrees with her stance. Eventually the discussion stops and Ann, the wife, sends her husband to bed after he apologizes. She has him turn off the lights and enters the room in the dark, and the husband is suddenly struck by an odd emotion. The husband feels there is “a stranger” in the house. One of the most peculiar things about “Say Yes” is that Wolff left the husband nameless, whereby instigating the audience’s notion of him as a stranger even though he is the main character.

The audience is first introduced to the husband in “Say Yes” very early in the story. He is portrayed as a “considerate husband” by his wife’s friends since he helps out with a lot of the house work. The evidence from the short story coincide with this analysis of his love for his wife, especially when he hurries off to find “alcohol, cotton, and a Band-Aid” to help Ann after she pricked her finger on something. Considering his verbal tone during the argument, the husband tries to stay calm and level headed, only losing his temper once when he says, “These are dirty,” and “[dumps] all the silverware back into the sink.” This incident is the first indicator of the husband’s change in the story.

The choice to leave the husband nameless leaves several interpretations to be had. The first of which is that the audience is suppose to remain distant from the husband even though the narrative is from his perspective. The audience sees Ann’s reactions to what her husband is saying, but they are never more than the interpretation the husband sees. This is made evident several times throughout the text, one of which is when the husband notices that Ann “was piling dishes on the drainboard [sic] at a terrific rate, just wiping at them with the cloth.” Instances like this don’t give the audience insight to what Ann is thinking or feeling; it’s just a visual queue for the husband to understand her reaction. Also, when the audience is given a glimpse of what the husband is thinking, the glimpse seems a little arrogant. Taken from the first paragraph, when the husband is talking about when his wife’s friends think of him as “a considerate husband,” he thinks, “I try.” When he comes back with the Band-Aid, the husband also thinks, “that [Ann should appreciate] how quickly he had come to her aid.” Both instances, though they are complimentary to the husband, are still self centered thoughts which make the audience distance themselves from him when reading closer.

Another reason for distancing the audience from the husband is to help demoralize his case against interracial marriages. The husband thinks too logically, hoping to keep emotions out of the discussion. However, Ann, brings the emotional side of love and circumstances and force the husband to reconsider. The husband pulls arguments like “they don’t come from the same culture,” “they even have their own language,” and “most of [the interracial] marriages break up.” Wolff is trying to have the audience dislike his arguments and possibly distrust the husband. By having the audience distance themselves from the husband Ann becomes the next character to sympathize with. Her argument in the discussion is of emotion, and she attempts to bring her husband into that mindset by saying, “But if we had met, and I’d been black?” This sort of hypothetical question is ambiguous and the husband falls into the trap his wife set for him. The husband knows that he is “cornered” because he admits he wouldn’t marry Ann if she were black because “[she] wouldn’t be [herself].” Throughout the discussion, the lack of the husband having a name depicts his groundless argument between husband and wife.

The major reason the husband remains nameless is to associate him with the “stranger” who appears at the end of the story. In a way, having the husband without a name allows the audience to step into his shoes more easily as well as distance themselves from him. This allows the audience to feel the shift he goes through while he cleans the kitchen. When his wife leaves the kitchen in anger, the husband continues to clean the kitchen until “the kitchen looked new, the way it looked when they were first shown the house” which reflects his won mind. This is a pivotal moment for the husband. It is safe to assume that this couple moved into the house right after they got married and have lived there ever since. When the husband thinks “In another thirty years or so they would both be dead,” this gives the audience a sense of how old this couple is. Assuming the life expectancy to be 85 or so, the couple would be in their 50’s and probably would have been married in their early 20’s. A 30 year relationship certainly would have changed their relationship quite a bit, dispelling a lot of the newness they felt for each other when they got married. The kitchen changed with them, and formed into a representation of their relationship because the husband noticed the sudden cleanliness that hadn’t existed since “they were first shown the house.”

Therefore, by having it so clean, he notices his own relationship has changed and become new because of the discussion they are having. It’s also strange because they aren’t agreeing on something he sees so logically, assuming its infallibility in the logic he brings. However, logic doesn’t hold up to emotion and the husband is forced to assess his own standing on the subject while he cleaned the kitchen by himself; while he cleaned his relationship by himself. The very next scene, when the husband steps outside, he feels “his throat [tighten] so that eh could hardly breath” and two things happen. He feels remorse for the loss and disappearance of the relationship he had with his wife to this point. However, he also feels the love he knows is there for his wife because “His face and neck began to tingle [and] warmth flooded his chest.”

This new love he experiences from the birth of a new chapter in their relationship is the stranger that exists in the house. The last few sentences describe this feeling for the audience very clearly:
“The room was silent. His heart pounded the way it had on their first night together, the way it still did when he woke at a noise in the darkness and waited to hear it again – the sound of someone moving through the house, a stranger.”
The husband is excited about this new love he feels, and this is the same excitement he felt when he first fell in love with Ann at least 30 years ago. However, he also fears this new love; fears where it will take them and if it will survive. This doubt is evident when he equates his feeling to the “noise in the darkness.” By the husband saying “The room was silent,” he’s saying two things. The first is that he doesn’t know where his new love is going while the second represents his wife’s silence in the matter. She hasn’t given any indication whether she feels this turn in their relationship.

Ultimately, the husband is the “stranger” because his feelings on interracial marriage are strange and different to what Ann believed her husband would think. Also, his sudden creation of a new chapter in the marriage and new love for his wife has befitted him with strangeness in a long marriage. The most obvious indicator of the stranger is the lack of a name for the husband in such an intimate setting and conversation.

Delivering Oblivion

“We can no longer afford to take that which was good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion. The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come to the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition. This is the reality in which we live. And this is why all efforts to escape from the grimness of the present into nostalgia for a still intact past, or into the anticipated oblivion of a better future, are vain.” (ix)
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, 1951

The above passage from Hannah Arendt’s preface to her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, points out the growing idealism of civilization to always present humanity as being always good as “vain.” Arendt claims it’s not enough to declare the “good in the past” as the roots to civilization and neglect the “bad” history and that by doing so the Western world found itself in two tragic world wars which decidedly transformed world mentality. One of the people whose writing was certainly influenced by the events that inspired Arendt was Samuel Beckett. His play Endgame is certainly seen to mirror this mentality in a very different fashion. This one act play revolving around a relationship between the two main characters, Hamm and Clov, goes nowhere more than back to the beginning. The way Endgame deals with the relationship of Hamm and Clov, and furthermore how they react and relate to their circumstances, mirrors Arendt’s message of ignorance of the past.

In the beginning of the play, Hamm and Clov discuss the time. Hamm begins by asking, “What time is it?” to which Clov responds very plainly, “The same as usual.” With a short intercourse regarding the view outside, which must appear quite bleak given the conversation, Hamm suddenly asks “Apart from that, how do you feel?” Clov, in a very poignant manner, responds with “I don’t complain.” This last statement by Clov relates to his reactions to the outside world which, in several interpretations, is either post-apocalyptic and barren or pre-civilization. Relating Endgame to Arendt’s passage possibly negates the pre-civilization interpretations, whereby focusing a relation to post-apocalyptic trends in theme. Having the time be “The same as usual,” as Clov describes, has both Hamm and Clov represent the people in society who disregard all of history and all possibilities for the future. Mirrored also in the statement “I don’t complain,” Clov is expressing a forced disinterest in the events that led to the post-apocalyptic world the pair find themselves in.

This world in Endgame is a culmination of events Arendt seems to predict in her passage. When she declares “or into the anticipated oblivion of a better future, are vain” Arendt must mean the dream of a post-apocalyptic world that humanity will survive and thrive from no matter what is ineffectual. Certainly such an aspiration, if groups in society indeed hoped for such an outcome in order to better humanity, would result in a collective mentality much like Hamm and Clov’s. Surface thoughts of the past buried beneath a lack of feelings about the circumstances that led to Endgame’s world result in a stagnation of progression; thus the cyclical nature of Endgame: the play of one act, never moving on and closing without resolution. Arendt should certainly have feared this outcome.

The audience of Endgame is introduced to Nagg with a sudden outcry for “Me pap!” repeated until the proper acknowledgment of the need and a donation to its source. “Me pap” is symbolic of several things in Endgame, the first of which is food. Nagg, who lives in a trashcan and who represents discarded waste in humanity, is calling for some source of nutrition that is easily consumed by the elderly. With Arendt’s influence on the interpretation, Nagg’s status as waste becomes symbolic of the disregarded past which society deems as “bad.” Therefore, the call for nutrition is suddenly a request for more history, more understanding, and an accurate retelling of events; but the placement of this need in a trashcan within the play indicates the detrimental course society is on. “Me pap” also indicates Nagg’s age. This is indicated with great force when Clov declares “If age but knew” upon Nagg’s exit from the scene. Clov is showing his greater comprehension for the events that transpired and his unwillingness to explain to the audience. This statement also shows how “age” in the symbolism of Nagg is the past being interpreted by the present, and Clov means that the present is being ignorant of the past by putting such a person in the trashcan. Nagg is obviously old because of his request for a pap, and if he is old he must know something of the past.

Nagg and Nell, the two elderly characters who live in the trashcans, represent the ability to see into the past. They reminisce several times in their short scene in the play. One of these times is about a lost tooth which Nagg claims “I had it yesterday” to which Nell mournfully laments “Ah yesterday!” These two are able to remember the past and freely discuss it like in the conversation about the wreck on their bicycle for two “in the Ardennes.” However important this ability is, Nagg and Nell are placed in the trashcans by society created by Hamm in his master role in the house. Hamm also attempts to ignore the two completely; and only engaging with Nagg later in the play out of necessity to quiet him. This interaction reflects Arendt’s second sentence: “The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come to the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition.” Hamm’s act of ignoring and disregarding Nagg and Nell’s intercourse about the past indicates the “subterranean stream” surfacing as a negligent feat in society. It also represents the younger generations and new politicians ignoring historians, and this deed is itself the downturn of dignity in “our tradition.”

Clov in Endgame seems to have the memories available from the past, but disregards them all the same out of a respect for his master. He is able to see how Hamm treats his parents in the trashcans, and is himself treated like a slave even with the predicament the four find themselves in. Clov’s very first statement is a short monologue where he says “Grain upon grain, one by one, and one day, suddenly, there’s a heap, a little heap, the impossible heap.” The obvious trope of sand in an hourglass forming the nonstop sequence of time until it overwhelms is the first impression this statement brings to mind. With Arendt’s affect on Clov’s line, the “Grain upon grain” which leads to “the impossible heap” represents the relentless course of civilization to the vain betterment of the past. Clov even expands on this premise when he says “All life long the same questions, the same answers”; whereby he’s clearly saying that humanity’s desire to answer the questions of the past with only the positive outlooks of events have brought about the same end. This line also hints at the cyclical nature of the play, and the relationships therein.

Furthermore, the post-apocalyptic interpretation of this text, paired with Arendt’s statement reveal a small society completely void of reflection of the past. This is the most atrocious outcome of what Arendt certainly must fear in the “anticipated oblivion.” Clov, whose power is undeniable since he serves a crippled, bleeding, and blind Hamm, must also know the unbelievable account by which they arrive in the house because he says, sadly, “No one that ever lived ever thought so crooked as we.” He knows that Hamm does not allow much memory to influence his daily life and thoughts. Hamm’s cares are about the world at present, whether something has changed from the immediate past to the present and how that will affect the immediate future. The only time Hamm allows a thought from the past to surface with any power is if the circumstance is consequently necessary. An instance of this is when Hamm demands that Clov “Go and get two bicycle-wheels.” Clov explains there are no more bicycles in the world, so therefore no bicycle wheels exist anymore. Hamm indulges in the memory of bicycles for mere moments until his thoughts move on a mere two lines later. Since Hamm is the authority figure in the house, and therefore the only society on Earth in a post-apocalyptic read of Endgame, his influence is what holds their society in stagnation. The fear of looking back into the past and seeing what might have created Hamm’s absolute authority is what Arendt’s preface is all about. Hamm is vain for neglecting all the realities of the past.

The final monologue given by Hamm at the end of the play contains the most relevant line to Arendt’s point. Hamm states, “Moments for nothing, now as always, time was never and time is over, reckoning closed and story ended.” Dissecting this immensely important line ties Endgame to Arendt’s preface. “Moments for nothing” carries the weight of history culminating in an apocalyptic world wrought with nothingness; and Hamm’s complete disregard for any historical significance in moments as representatives of memories is the action which instigates the nothingness they cannot leave. As Hamm progresses to “now as always,” he is clearly saying that since the actions of ignorance to the past are solid, which Arendt clearly says is “[usurping] the dignity of our tradition,” the present state of endlessness in nothingness will proceed until the end. He declares his own endgame; the point where the end is clear and the winner is known, but the steps must still be taken to that end regardless. The only end in sight for Hamm and the others is death without survival of humanity. Hamm continues this idea with “time is never and time is over,” but he also presents the idea that humanity is lost because he refuses to see history for its necessity. It may also be a hope for the renewal of possibility by negating the sense of time and declaring it over. The final portion of the phrase states “reckoning closed and story ended,” and this may also be Hamm’s vain attempt at overlooking the events that led to his circumstances. The reckoning brought the post-apocalyptic world to fruition, and that is over, as Hamm thinks it, and therefore that story is over as well. Previous civilization’s influence on his life cannot be since they do not exist anymore. Arendt explains this careless attitude and it’s folly in her opening sentence: “We can no longer afford to take that which was good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion.”

The heavily influential political climate in the early 1900’s shifted the collective mentality drastically. Arendt saw a need to accept the events of the past, both good and bad, and feed it into knowledge and education so humanity would not turn out like Beckett’s Endgame. We cannot submit to a need for happy thoughts and distinct morals that arrive from the ‘good’ historical interpretations. As many contemporary minds know, we learn from the past and strive to overcome the cyclical nature of certain circumstances by looking at the ‘bad’ in history. Hamm has forgotten this fact and believes simply that “Something is taking its course” and everything will be as it should. This fallacy is regrettable, and Arendt is pointing that out.

Spaghetti with Meatballs of Irony!

We walk from my house to his van; the family van, otherwise known as his man van thanks to my little input. "I like it because it has power," he jokes. "It's wicked fast." Nobody would guess it until he beat them on take-off from a stoplight. It really does look like a soccer mom's van, and that's part of Terry. He drives something that isn't exactly fitting of his facade, but fits his needs for his family. For instance: tonight he's wearing a leather jacket fit for either biking or flying an airplane, with a beanie and jeans and certainly a well cut shirt underneath the jacket. Yet he's driving a mini-van.

Settling into the passenger seat, Terry hands me a book: Illusions; The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach. "That's the book I was telling you about. Wanted to make sure I got it to you," he says as he buckles in and starts the car. I think the title is meaningful, and suddenly I'm struck with a deeper sense about Terry which had already been growing over the past month. Is he a 'Reluctant Messiah'? And if so, what is he trying to bring to his friends, his family, and most importantly his society?

First meeting Terry was quite a shock to my little world at work. He's a regular customer who typically sits at one table with his computer and up to seven books splayed around him. Half the time he wears a graphic t-shirt with a Japanese design or symbols. Arriving at eight in the morning, Terry can sit there until four in the afternoon working on either his online courses or his graphic design stuff. He has tried to explain what he does, and for the most part I understand that he's been working on a computer animated cartoon; specifically designing the space ship for the 'good guys' to fly in. However, his hobbies are creating new computer codes to enrich textiles and skins and writing novels. It's a little mind boggling what he does. He has been working on three different novels, the most recent of which is a collection of stories revealing parenting methods through the allusion of playing board games.

However, this isn't why we know Terry at work. Going to one Starbucks for nearly two and a half years allows for some friendships to grow with the Baristas. Not only this, but rumors arise and quick personalities are enforced which creates a facade that both sides of the counter have a hard time breaking through in such short encounters. Essentially, my first impression of Terry was the rumors that had been told me: immoral, childish, immature, lazy, etc. My coworkers were building a picture of the scum of the earth. The initial encounters with Terry were indeed supplementing this pretense. The jokes he tells are sexual in nature most of the time and in the two minutes o service provided at work, that's usually what we would hear.

But recent events drastically changed that view. Not two weeks ago, several of my employees were suspended pending further investigation of theft and alcohol consumption. Terry was moved by their plight and called me up, asking if I could be an angel and keep a secret. "Although... Angels can't keep secrets, so really I'm asking you to be my little devil." He giggled at the possible sexual reference he was making with me.

"Yeah, I can keep your secret. I'm good at secrets." Even as I said it, we both quietly recognized there was an essential flaw: once it's shared with another, it's no longer a secret.

He got a little somber; possibly serious is a better description, but somber holds that sadness he was experiencing for the trials my coworkers were going through. He said, "I want to give them each two weeks pay for the time they're missing. I want them to know someone's thinking about them... and you know; give them money to pay bills and stuff." Anonymity was Terry's goal in the process, making sure they didn't know who was donating such funds to their lives; he wanted to be an angel for my coworkers.

He pulls away from my house after flicking on the widnshield wipers to take away the innocent flecks of snow drifting down from the graying sky. The ten minute drive to Buca di Beppo experiences many little jokes.

"Shelly and Wil are going to be so jealous," he explains with little giggles about his wife and son. "I know I'm lucky though."

"Well, next time we'll have to invite them both too."

Terry asks in a childish way, "Do we have to?" We both laugh, as we pull up to the restaurant.

We walk in to find five people standing at the hostess station. "Just the two of you tonight?" the hostess asks, looking between Terry and myself in a knowing way.

"Yep," Terry responds for the both of us. "I see you guys are ready for us!" he declares to all five of them.

One of the guys, obviously the general manager, attempts to joke back and merely reveals his lack of enthusiasm at being so slow on a Sunday night. "Oh yeah, we're so excited..." Seeming oblivious to the manager's tone, Terry laughs and starts talking to the hostess leading us through the kitchen. There isn't a quiet moment in Buca di Beppo: chatter explodes from several tables throughout the restaurant and the music is just loud enough to compensate for the noise. The girl sits us down and leaves us to chat.

By the time Whitney, our waitress, arrives, Terry and I have gone off on another conversation already. We haven't even looked at the menu. "What can I get you guys to drink?"

"I'll have tea. Iced tea pleas," Terry orders without thinking, almost before she can finish asking the question. I order water.

"What what are you guys celebrating tonight?" the gentle sense of knowing revealing itself again. I can't help but think these employees assume we're on a date, which certainly tickles Terry to no relief.

He looks at me. "Oh, we're not celebrating." It appears to be the perfect opportunity to iron out my thesis on Terry.

I explain to Whitney that I'm writing an essay on Terry, who use to simple be one of my customers and has grown in my eyes. I say, "The reason I chose him is because he's a big ball of irony. He comes off as crass, joking about anything, but really he cares so much more than that."

"Meatballs of Irony!" Terry blurts out and starts laughing almost uncontrollably. I can't tell if Whitney is truly amused or not, but she smiles and softly giggles.

She looks at Terry and asks jokingly, "Is that a compliment?"

"Oh, everything's a compliment!" Liking the answer, she rushes away to fill our drink orders and give us time to look over the menu. Terry starts laughing almost immediately, very pleased with his internal monologue. "I'll take the spaghetti with meatballs of irony." I can't help laughing a little either. He flips through the pages of the menu and comes across a picture of two sausage links on a plate of sauteed bell peppers. "Perhaps we should share a couple of Italian sausages," he jokes, referencing our sexualities and obvious inability to do just quite the action. Quickly continuing his peruse through the menu brings him to the alcohol section. "Oh my! Menage A Trois! Cochron! Ha ha!" All the beverages seem to have some sexual connotation and he's off laughing again, creating a very relaxed, fun, and amusing atmosphere for the both of us. It's certainly a joy to be in his company.

"Oh, I'm so naive," he declares suddenly.

I look at him, his eyes filled with happiness. "No you're not," I tell him.

"Yes I am," he says immediately, suppressing laughter.

Very recently, Terry revealed to me something that came as a surprise to him. He realized he wasn't straight. This isn't to say he's gay, but Terry came to a realization that he could be sexually attracted to men. Some of this he attributes to my openness with my sexuality with whoever asks me about it as Terry did on multiple occasions. The rest he claims is because he's attracted to me and a few other guys he has run into.

Returning with a glass of ice water and iced tea, Whitney starts chatting with us again. Terry quickly discovers that she wants to become a teacher; having already graduated with a journalism degree, she wasn't finding a lot of good work with the economy being so depressed. One of Terry's other sides is revealed by his willingness to talk to the waitress. Diving in, he reveals how he was a computer technologies teacher at a high school. "I quit," he says at one point, "because I couldn't handle a job that had no accountability." A sense of pride and arrogance come through his statement. The conversation ensues as they talk about teaching and school. Terry is open; completely willing to talk about anything. His air of joking has dropped away.

Whitney finally takes our orders and leaves for the kitchen.

Somehow, through the conversation with Whitney, Terry and I begin talking about an old television show: Kung Fu. The way he talks about this show uncovers yet another facet of his personality which I already had a sense was present. He speaks about the lessons he learned through watching Kung Fu and how Master Kan educated his pupil. One of Terry's favorite episodes, he explains, is when Master Kan makes his pupil be the master for a day; whereby Master Kan serves his student instead of the student serving him.

"There were three lessons to this," Terry explains of Master Kan's actions. "The first was that it is a service for yourself to serve others. The second is to own your own shame that ends up being because of the obligation that arises from always serving or being served." He pauses, thinking really hard. "Sorry, I'm manifesting this myself," Terry blurts out as he tries to think of the last lesson. "The other one is to provide the opportunity to feel pride in providing the service for others and yourself.

"But there's a complication," he says very seriously, though his eyes are still lighthearted. "When you're the giver, that's easy. It's harder to receive..." He thinks about what he said, and suddenly his face explodes. "Wow!" he declares, hands on the sides of his head, hazel eyes wide with delight, inspiration illuminating his face in the darkened corner of the restaurant in which we sit. "I can't even... put words to what I just thought."

Whitney returns with our food and sets it before us. Terry has ordered the apple and Gorgonzola salad while I received the four pasta sampler platter. They both look wonderful: on abundant with greens, hinted with the purple of cranberries and white cheese sprinkled throughout, while the other dish is covered with off-white pastas smothered in red tomato sauce.

I sit there smiling, thinking to myself how deep his thought process goes even when talking so mildly with a friend. I'm sure he has deep conversations with many of his friends, once he's passed the first stage of joking and relationship building. With our suddenly deep conversation, he moves us on to fallacies. He explains how a fallacy is a logical argument that is flawed even when it sounds logical and reasonable.

"How do you spell 'fallacies'?" I ask him, holding my pen ready to take my next notes about our conversation.

"Umm... P-H-A-L-H-A-S... You didn't just write that down did you?" We laugh hysterically for a moment, our food before us getting colder as we enjoy our time together. We continue to talk about the creation of fallacies and I'm struck once more with the depth of understanding Terry has about the world around him.

I say at one point, "It'll all work out in the end... Wait, is that a fallacy?"

"uh-yeah," Terry responds and giggles, pleasure at my understanding of what he's describing. As we laugh, a little three year old boy walks up to an exit door right next to our table. The door is obviously rigged to make loud noises should anyone attempt to leave through it, alerting the fire department to a possible disaster and making many of the patrons of Buca di Beppo flee. Terry looks at the kid as he reaches up to push the red door handle and says very calmly and assertively, "You might regret pushing that."

The boy turns around and looks at Terry before scampering off again.

Suddenly, I remember a moent from a week ago; a Ki-Aikido lesson I went to with him. Aikido is a Japanese defense martial arts which teaches the individual how to use his Ki to reach out to opponents and relate with them. The way Terry talked to the three year old boy brought back an image of Terry working with his opponents in practice. Sitting on the side and observing the advanced session Terry partook in allowed for me to get a better appreciation for how a person's Ki interacted with others.

What I noticed was how they all stood. Being a defensive art form, everyone stood with their feet at odd angles: left foot typically behind the right foot and at almost a ninety degree angle, ready to shift to a better position to throw the opponent off balance. Terry, however, stood with both feet perpendicular, facing his opponent directly until they were engaging in the moves being practiced. I realized this during the lesson, and explained it to Terry that night. I told him how he stood differently from the others in the class. He had no idea he was doing that and made a loos promise to work on putting himself into a better prepared stance. However, when Terry spoke to the boy something clicked in my mind about how Terry extended his Ki to the world.

When he spoke to the boy, engaged Whitney in an intense conversation, or talked to me about his sexuality Terry didn't stand on guard. He doesn't put up his defenses and prepare to deflect or throw people off balance so they won't get to know him. I assumed his joking nature was a protective aspect in Terry's personality, but the jokes are used to help others lower their own defenses. He enjoys life and wants everyone else to do the same. The simplest way to do this is to make people laugh; to provide others with a moment of amusement and joy. It is a wise thing to do. Even though some of Terry's history may be suspect and some of his actions may seem immature and immoral, there is a deeper acumen when Terry regards his actions, the world, and the interactions of humanity. Maybe this is how he's teaching all of us: in small moments of gaiety with a friendly figure judged for living life how he wants.

Quiet Heroine (Short Profile Essay)

Her passion reads easily on her body: a smile bright with enthusiasm, eyes reminiscing as her cheeks bunch up and hands wave in reserved dramatic waves, her voice strained slightly as she rushes through a description foreign to words. “…and when I cook them, they’re gooey and soft and the chocolate just melts in your mouth. My chocolate chip cookies are amazing!” she exclaims. I can almost see her mouth watering. Having moved so quickly through her other specialties, tacos and pasta, she lingers on the cookies which she can’t have often because her stepmother is always on a diet. Her imagination is certainly vivid enough to taste her morsels even now, in a stark class room filled with chatter.

Ashley’s wearing what I assume to be her natural attire: light blue jeans and a green shirt with a Roxy design on her right shoulder. Her hair is pulled back, a remnant of her morning routine with ROTC (I think). She sits nearly proper; back with only the hint of a curve left from slouching in high school, one arm casually placed on the tabletop in between periods of writing, the other in her lap. The most intriguing thing about Ashley is her blue eyes.

They hide something, and it seems like sorrow or fear. Perhaps something more sinister like wisdom and experience, and Ashley certainly has plenty of experience to draw into her understanding of the world. Her mother abandoned her when she was born. Abandoned may be a harsh word to use, but Ashley had to struggle without a motherly figure in her life and fight for a cohesive picture of a family and what good parenting is. She certainly has this definition.

Working at the Bay in Broomfield, and other recreation center pools, Ashley has the opportunity to witness many different types of parenting. Ashley is a life guard and swimming instructor, things she truly enjoys because of the adrenaline rush. “I don’t usually make saves… I mean, it doesn’t happen often. But when I do, I jump in, grab the kid and pull them out and continue to watch my water,” she says nonchalantly. She claims, as she looks around in amusement, that the adrenaline rush of making a save has faded over time. However, her self pride comes out again: shoulders drawing back as she sits forward. Judging by the angle of her torso, she crossed her legs as she leaned forward to talk to me.

The talk of parenting becomes comical as she describes some of the mothers she watches neglect their children in the water. The women argue with their husbands, their other kids, and their friends, all the while their five year old is drowning in the pool right next to them. Most of the parents let their children disregard the rules and they run along the edge of the pool, tempting fate and the barrage of whistles echoing across the water. Still, the parents don’t pay attention; and this is how she sets her standards of parenting. “I know I won’t be like them,” she says, and certainly she thinks back to her mother.

But Ashley’s most outstanding quality is her strength to overcome her own faults. Drugs haunted her for years, though she wouldn’t have known it as a haunting during the thick of it. Just the memory of the experience darkens her voice, shadows her smile, and drops her shoulders ever so slightly. For being only nineteen, Ashley’s sense of her own actions is extremely mature. And once you realize what has happened in her past, in regards to her mother and her addiction to drugs, the mystery behind those blue eyes becomes strikingly apparent. She’s fighting a battle with an image of druggies.

Not only is she fighting this image within herself, but she’s pushing that battle out into the world at large. She loves to read fictions dealing with drug and substance abuse; topics she knows very well. Her studies, she informed me, are in psychology so she can use her experience in rehabilitation centers. This way, she can help kids escape this dark world full of unhealthy friends, abusive relationships, and harmful addictions. She can repaint the rosy cheeks onto the pale addicts, show them how to go about their paths, bring light to their darkened minds. Ashley is certainly easy to talk to. No question seems truly off limits and her conversation is open and free. In a way, her voice begs to be provoked and dives into the presented subjects.

Ashley is a quiet heroine. Her past is hidden away behind a mature exterior. A mind filled with history is available to understand, and she is taking the steps to utilize this wisdom for the betterment of others. Already she’s saving lives drowning in a world of neglect. The very presence of a girl, a women, like Ashley allows for a more careful society to be achieved; where conversation about our past lives can change the attitude of the future.

Packing up her bag, she continues to chat with me. She talks about her engagement with ROTC and how she enjoys the discipline; an odd contrast to what I know about her rebellion with her parents. However her past may have shaped Ashley, she certainly knows where she’s headed down a road abundant with people calling out for her help. She will dive in to their rescue when given the chance, I know this. And perhaps there will be chocolate chip cookies for a reward.