Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

[Albert Einstein]

I’m not trying to call anyone out on mediocrity of the mind here. I’ve just been thinking about how easy it is to pursue mediocrity if we don’t ask what’s possible. If we don’t open the door to other possibilities.

I came upon that Einstein quote when I was looking for articles about the connection between mental illness and genius. I was looking for such information after my partner pointed me to this article in the Independent: “You don’t have to be bipolar to be a genius — but it helps.” The article is about a big study that showed people with top grades in school were four times more likely to develop bipolar disorder than people with average grades. They note that the link was strongest among people who studied literature or music.

The article includes this quote:

Men have called me mad, but the question is not yet settled whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence…

[Edgar Allan Poe]

All this got me thinking about the things we dismiss or reject because they don’t fit inside our perception of how things work. Maybe we dismiss someone as “living on another planet” because their ideas seem to have no grounding whatsoever in the reality we know. Or maybe we dismiss someone as being “over-the-top” because their views seem so extreme in contrast with those we normally encounter. We dismiss, we reject, but do we stop to think: what if it’s possible? What if they see something I don’t see?

Most revolutionaries are probably pretty bad at getting in quality family time. Some of the most admirable entrepreneurs took an idea that sounded ridiculous to most of their peers, and they worked “unreasonably” hard to make it happen. “Crazy people” see things we don’t see. And maybe the Things We Don’t See are immensely valuable and eye-opening, rather than delusional.

Generally, different makes people uncomfortable. If you’re striving for a challenging goal, people will probably feel uncomfortable about it. Maybe they’ll try to play it down in case of failure — trying to protect you. Or maybe they’ll dismiss it, waiting for you to wind yourself back down into the realm of acceptable goals — “get a real job” and all that.

Yesterday I was sitting on my motorbike at a big intersection, waiting for the light to turn green. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman wearing a jumble of bright colors and mysterious bags, standing on the grass. When I looked over, she broke into a goofy smile and motioned urgently at something to her left. Seeing nothing of particular interest, despite her frenzied gestures, I dismissed her as crazy. The light turned green, and I drove ahead; but I felt slightly unsettled. What did she want me to see? What would she have told me if I had gone to speak with her?

Who knows, but it’s just a thought.

photo by ImageEditor

I recently read Brian Swimme’s article, “The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos.” In it, he describes how past societies made a point to celebrate the mysteries and wonder of the universe, as a way of exploring the meaning of our existence. In contrast, he explains, modern society has pushed such questions of meaning under the umbrella of religion, and thrust the mysteries of the universe under the umbrella of science. As you can see, that leaves a pretty big gap — our search for meaning becomes disconnected from the wonders of the universe. Swimme then goes on to connect these circumstances with the culture of advertising that now shapes our youth — but that can be a whole new discussion for another time.

As an undergraduate, I took an astronomy course to fulfill one of my science requirements. One day in class, we were discussing a recent school shooting that had happened elsewhere in the U.S.; the professor was too distraught to hold a normal lecture. A student raised his hand and told the professor that, by teaching us that we all come from stardust, the professor was stripping us of all meaning. The student concluded that when we study these things instead of focusing on religion, it’s no surprise that school shootings and such violence are so common.

I was stunned.

The professor responded (very diplomatically, I might add), that in fact his intentions were quite the opposite. “When I teach about the workings of our universe, when I teach that we come of the same stuff stars are made of, I want you to share my profound awe of the universe — of our existence.” The professor had been trying to rebuild that gap between our search for meaning and the wonders of the universe.

In the past few years, I’ve picked up some natural history and science books to read at home. Carl Sagan’s The Dragons of Eden and Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, for example. I find it beautiful to read about the patterns and processes that shape the world we see, the things we touch, and even the things we imagine. Patterns that sometimes seem impossibly simple, and other times, incredibly complex. I love the things we can’t quite fathom, and the things that make impeccable sense.

This disconnect between our human existence and the wonders of the natural universe scares me a bit. I have to remind myself at times to take a few steps back. It’s not just about spending more time in the great outdoors — to consider even that we are all made of potions, with different proportions of elements, molecules, hormones, chemicals, and that somehow out of that heady mix there emerges spirit. That with all the differences existing among humans, there are connections and shared ingredients that are unquestionably strong.

What I love most about these things is that the more I learn the “answers,” the humbler and more exhilarated I become with life.

a temple in Chiang Dao, Thailand

I had a dentist appointment today for my yearly cleaning. I went to a new dentist, and I went with pretty neutral expectations — after all, despite having never had a cavity, I’ve never found a dental cleaning to be a particularly uplifting experience (although I quite enjoyed getting a little plastic doohickey out of the “treasure chest” at my childhood dentist).

So, I walked into the dentist room with my neutral expectations, and from the very first moment, the dentist was really nice. I felt like I knew her already. She made me laugh when she was asking me “background” questions (and I mean genuinely laugh, not laughing-awkwardly-because-my-dentist-made-a-lame-dental-joke kinda laughing). She told me what she was going to do, and she told me what she expected. AND she didn’t make me feel guilty when I admitted to not flossing. When she asked me a question during the cleaning, she politely took the tools out of my mouth to give me the dignity of responding without grunting and drooling.

Now, not one of these things is particularly earth-shattering. In fact, they simply reflect the qualities of being nice and being polite — qualities, incidentally, which sound so bo-ring. But when we’re communicating with people (as we often do), it’s risky to underestimate the importance of delivery. Our initial chit-chat set the tone for the entire tooth-cleaning process, and made it that much easier for me to think it was the best dental cleaning I’d ever had.

You may have the best intentions in the world, but if your communication style is off, a lot of people will simply switch off. You might be excused if what you have to say is exceedingly funny or completely brilliant, but if you don’t make people feel good — whether that’s inspired, excited, warm and fuzzy, or loved — you just won’t stick.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

(Maya Angelou says it best).

If the dentist was able to turn my neutral mood into a happy one, I think the possibilities are quite open with this one.

photo by Aunt Owwee

As a birthday present, I’m creating a website for my mom (a.k.a Mama Lisa). She’s really excited to have an online home, but unsure of what she wants that home to look like. A living room for close friends to hang out? A study that reveals all her projects and ideas? An art gallery?

This got me thinking about how we build our online platforms. I’m still working on my own, as my inspirations keep evolving. So to help out my mom and myself and anyone interested, I’ve created a little tour through a few online homes I quite like to visit.

I love to visit Matt Blair at Elsewise Media. In his own words, the blog:

…includes exercises that explore our senses and broaden our aesthetic perspective, short essays about my sources of inspiration over the years, quotes about the creative process, the occasional book review, articles that explore the life cycle of ideas, and my still-evolving thoughts on topics such as what we gain from thinking of creativity in terms of agriculture.

He also has an online scrapbook — a collection of the words, images, and ideas that fuel him. Matt’s sites are a constantly growing reflection of his ideas.

Gwen Bell gives us a lovely, intimate reflection of her life and her thoughts. Her blog is honest and welcoming, which inevitably bolsters her position as a consultant/speaker on using social web tools. In this way, her site seems to effortlessly mesh her life and work together into one engaging online home.

Betsey Merkel uses her online platform as a hub that links to all her online spaces — what she has written and said, what she has created, who she has worked with, and where she connects. It’s a map of her online presence, and surely a map of what she does offline as well.

Jeb Dickerson has some cool twists on his blog. A photo gallery that you can use to send e-cards (or actual postcards!). An archive of his older posts, tucked into a tab called “Chapter 1.”

Richard Reeve also makes great use of photos at Catskill Cottage Seed. Alongside his blog, he has some beautiful photo journals. (Incidentally, Jeb has worked wonders on blog design for both Richard and me — he’s responsible for the changes that keep popping up in my design here!).

Amy Sample Ward uses her site for blogging about her work (and passion) with nonprofits and online community-building — and the blog itself serves as a dynamic community of people who want to learn from each other. To complement her blog, she also offers presentations she has made, her publications, and an insight into what she’s reading. Her blog works wonderfully as a really friendly resource+community for anyone who intersects with her line of work.

Marianne Slevin‘s online home is the Secret Gallery’s blog. Here, she shows the paintings she is working on, her thoughts on the process, and the things on her mind. Looking through it makes you feel that you’re watching her work unfold; such thoughtful writing, such lovely photos of her work.

Jump into the comments and let me know about other people using their sites in funky ways…!

When’s the last time you tried to peer into your unconscious mind?

In my thesis on the surrealism movements in France and Latin America, I cited and explained a passage in which the “father of surrealism,” André Breton, concisely expressed the movement’s fundamental motivation:

“Je crois à la résolution future de ces deux états, en apparence si contradictoires, que sont la rêve et la réalité, en une sorte de réalité absolue, de surréalité, si l’on peut ainsi dire”(24)

[“I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality, if one may so speak” (14)]. – André Breton,  Manifeste du surréalisme [Manifesto of Surrealism]

The concept of vision being inevitably tainted by the present context – specifically, the mark of society – is precisely the limitation that the surrealists sought to overcome. Armed with poetry as their medium of choice, they struggled to discover the most potent formula for unleashing the unconscious, muted by the self and society, while striving for a surreality in which the conscious and unconscious minds possessed equal validity.*

I’m interested in loose translations of this concept in our own lives. Maybe you aren’t literally trying to give voice to your unconscious mind, but are there times when you’ve tried to see past your present context? Times when you’ve tried to shed the endless layers of memories and assumptions that shape your vision of today? These layers form who we are, but so does the process of peeling them away.

I’m striving to step out of my own context often, but it’s a constant process — I don’t think there’s an ending to be found. Sometimes we do need to be immersed in our own spaces, but it can be jarring — and important — to step out of those boxes. How does that translate in your life?

*If you can’t take the suspense and simply must see how the thesis ends, you can check it out by clicking here.

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I find it pretty tough to avoid the process of reflection at this time of year. As much as the transition into a new year may feel like an arbitrary measure of time, the urge to reflect upon the past and envision a future seems to seep in from all sides. The holidays have a dual effect of making me excited to spend big nights out with people I love, while also making me crave solitude.

I’ve indulged both wishes this year; festive nights of food and drink, followed by gentle days savoring books and thoughts. Today I will begin some reflective writing and extreme journaling. As I eased into this space of introspection, I thought of a horoscope I had recently read. Last year, my New Year’s Eve post was fueled by a horoscope as well, and Richard Reeve expressed exactly why the images and metaphors of horoscopes might appeal to me:

I think having archetypal images like this to inspire the energies that often lie dormant within us is an excellent way to engage with our path.

As Richard suggests so eloquently, such images and symbols work wonderfully to awake what simmers within us. This week, my end-of-year horoscope evoked a theme that had already taken deep root in my thoughts. Speaking of the influence of Saturn, Rob Brezsny writes:

My experience is that the ringed planet provides the greatest gift imaginable: motivation to become the person you were born to be. It steers you away from pursuing goals that aren’t in alignment with your soul’s code. It pressures you to give up vain fantasies that even if fulfilled wouldn’t make you happy.

I have been thinking a lot about focus, and this text fed right into those thoughts. I am trying to move into a practice of greater focus, both in my daily actions and my broader pursuits. Part of this translates into re-cultivating little habits that I’ve neglected in recent months, but much of it translates into questioning myself (constructively) consistently and writing more often. Although I’m quite open to perpetual movement and change, it can be easy to go for stretches of time without questioning whether I should keep moving forward — but what about turning left? Veering softly to the right? It’s important to me to have a stronger sense of my own pulse, to make sure everything I do is deeply thoughtful and intentional. Although writing can lead to dwelling on the past or future, it can also be a beautiful, flowing record of the present. Amid my motivation and broad pursuits, I hope to be fully present. And so, as I reflect upon the past and envision a future, I will put my strongest energy into being fully conscious of my present.

What about you? Where are you finding yourself these days?

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First glance, enchanted forest?

Second glance, rubber plantation.

Third glance?

Do you remember the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami?

I have spent the past 10 days in Meulaboh, a small town in the Indonesian province of Aceh. Five years post-tsunami, I’ve come here to work on a multimedia project with my boyfriend, James, who came here as a photojournalist one week after the 2004 tsunami. Meulaboh was devastated by the tsunami — an estimated 40,000 people were killed, in a town with less than 150,000 (these numbers are rough, as it is difficult to find firm figures).

We’ve come here to visit a few people James met and photographed one week post-tsunami, and then again in late 2005. We have spent time speaking with them, interviewing them, and photographing them in the hopes of understanding how life moves forward after losing so much — family, friends, houses, jobs. What changes in daily life? What changes in your heart?

We’ve also documented Meulaboh as a town. I find that physically, the town seems to reflect the community’s progress in attempting to heal, or recover to a certain degree. The streets are alive with coffee shops, motorbikes, wandering goats, and kids riding bikes. Many small houses and shops have been rebuilt. But the skeletons of half-destroyed houses remain here and there, and much of the land near the ocean is no longer suitable for housing. The people are friendly and open, but the memories of the tsunami remain close to the surface.

There are scenes like this:

(Meulaboh fashion show)

…and scenes like this:

The contrasts are telling, but I think they are also inevitable.

I will let you all know when the audio-visual slideshow is completed, so you can hear and see the stories.

photo by Orin Zebest

I wrote the post below one week ago, but the delay in publishing is due to limited internet and a laptop that refuses to turn on…

I am sprawled across a bed inside a bungalow, with rain pummeling the roof until about 12 seconds ago. It is now silent, though the blue-black sky still flashes here and there.

Like the rain patterns, I have ebbed and flowed continuously over the past two months — between calm content, floods of exhilaration, and the crush of overwhelm. I am immersed in working on an oral history book project, focused on people’s life stories in the context of a regional social justice issue. This involves extensive interviews, the sort that last three to five hours. I have fallen in love with the interview process, as I’ve described in a previous post — the unfolding of a narrative, the challenging questions it raises for both the interviewee and me. It is intense, and I feel my body filling up — not only with these stories of hardship and persecution, but also with the delicate dynamics remembered and recounted in the interviews. I wish I could say my mind is only engaged in the stories, but there are decidedly less exciting aspects of the project, such as budgeting and logistics, which create a perpetual stream of to-dos. Hence, the risk of overwhelm.

I feel caught in an awkward position; one in which I feel that these stories have become part of my reality, yet I am also well aware that I have the luxury of slipping back into my privileged lifestyle (mobility, education, relative economic security) at will. This highlights a question that is always lingering somewhere in my mind (and on this blog): what defines our realities?

Oral history raises this question in my mind in a broad sense, as it focuses so deeply on individual experience and memory. I believe this is what makes oral history most powerful, and most vulnerable — it is, after all, our subjectivity that makes us most human. Oral history is an accessible medium for sharing our humanness, because once we are telling stories, it is what is evoked that becomes most important — not facts and dates.

Although I sometimes fear that I idealize the power of stories, I can comfort myself in remembering that I’m not pushing anything new here; rather, I’m adding my voice to centuries of belief in the art of storytelling. Although hearing the life story of an ex-child soldier in Sudan would undoubtedly give life to the vast differences in your experiences, I believe that the space created by storytelling also allows a unique connection to arise. It is not only our differences that define this space, but also the shared inherent subjectivity that defines us all.

But to what extent are we capable of setting aside our own contexts in order to fully absorb that of another person? While doing these oral history interviews, my colleagues and I are supposedly approaching the interviewees with no agenda, allowing them to dictate the direction of the story completely. And though that is what happens to a certain degree, there is the ever-present bottom line, which is that everyone is aware that we are doing these interviews for a book centered on human rights issues. We are doing these interviews for a book whose chapters will eventually have to fit the Western style of linear narrative.

No matter how hard we try in any interaction, there will always be invisible — or not so invisible — barriers to complete comprehension. Not only culture to culture, but person to person. Will you ever understand exactly how your brother felt after losing his job? Do you even fully understand why the ocean makes you feel overwhelmed? But again, isn’t this not-knowing simply the beauty and the difficulty of subjectivity — of the diversity of humanity? If I’ll never ever fully comprehend myself, and if my own realities will always be entwined with those of others, I believe in remaining constantly open to the beautiful tangle of humanness…

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this stream of thoughts I’ve laid out for you…

A few weeks ago, I was looking up a farm in upstate NY where a friend works. As I searched the internet, the first relevant reference to that farm finally popped up. It was an article about a raid on the farm to arrest undocumented immigrants. I scrolled down to view the comments, and was shocked by the hatred poured out on the page. Hatred for immigrants  — both with papers and without — was expressed nakedly and often with vulgarity. But why was I shocked?

My friend at the farm is an immigrant. A documented immigrant who is too focused on creating new lives for his family to complain about the prejudice he encounters. I want these very human stories to play a large role in immigration debates. I want to challenge xenophobia. But after reading those comments, I realized you can’t fight intelligently unless you know who you’re fighting against.

If all the news and information I read fits nicely with my socio-political leanings, then how do I know what to bring to the other side?

I’m curious; when’s the last time you read news and thoughts from the other side? What if we tried to understand the roots of those views instead of indulging our initial ugh… where could we go with that? Would we ever blur the line between us and the elusive other?

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