Full of Baloney

Healing Through Feeling: Six Ways to Reclaim Your Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 05:22:00 +0000

Class is in! I'm really looking forward to teaching my workshop, Healing Through Feeling, in a couple of weeks. Below is a little preview of the class, 6 suggestions of how you can incorporate your feelings back into your life.

Everyone has an inner and an outer experience, but the world is so focused on external, material matters, it can seem like your internal state isn't significant. We aren't given the space to shout, laugh, cry, jump up and down, or even truly express how we feel. We know through our compulsions, addictions, failed relationships, and depressions that simply trying to suppress our negative feelings doesn't work. It takes effort, bravery, and curiousity to focus on your inner life, respect its truth, and apply difficult lessons. Through this effort, we become familiar with the fundamentally unique and precious contours of our hearts.

Want to get started but aren't sure how? Consider the ideas below.

Healing Through Feeling: Six Ways to Reclaim Your Heart

1. ADMIT IGNORANCE - We are always finding ways to suppress, deny, or avoid our feelings. Unfortunately, this cuts off access to some of the most beautiful and intrinsic aspects of ourselves. To start healing, we must admit that there is so much we haven't let ourselves feel.

2. EMBRACE YOUR INNER STATE - It's easy to get lost in the emotional whirlwind that is the external world. Bring more awareness to your internal state. Just for a minute each day, check in with your self and ask, what am I experiencing right now? Where could I locate my feeling in my body? How could I take a step towards that feeling?

3. USE YOUR SHADOW- Any time you feel controlled by negative thoughts or overreact to a particular situation, you are probably triggered. Take this as a sign that there is an avoided feeling wanting to be felt. Bring curiosity and tenderness to your heart in these moments. Don't be afraid of your shadow. Use it to find the source of your light.

4. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY- Don't let the dysfunction of others dictate your feelings. Empower yourself by taking ownership of your emotional state. When we accept our role in the way we feel, it's harder to be caught with others in negative emotional cycles. Take responsibility for treating yourself with the respect, forgiveness, patience, and love you deserve.

5. MAKE THE CHOICE - Desiring to heal and grow is only half the battle. To experience changes in our lives and in the lives of those around us, we must be willing to act in new and probably uncomfortable ways. True growth is always difficult. Commit to your best self and and know this can mean making tough choices.

6. SEEK INNER SUPPORT - When we don't believe we are loved or have support, feeling safe enough to be ourselves is impossible. Try opening up to the idea that there is love inside of you, a love that transcends the ways individuals have failed you and you have failed. Understand that your relationship to feeling this love is an ever evolving journey that is never perfect, never easy, and yet fosters the emergence of your deepest self.

The Space Between

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 20:24:00 +0000

In order to undergo a significant degree of personal change, you have to become comfortable with the idea of there being some kind of split inside of yourself. A split between the person you play out in the world in certain ways and the person that you fundamentally are. Until we become okay with the idea that there is separation there, change, growth, or healing is not possible. Without accepting some degree of separation, there is nothing you could change, grow, or heal into.

The process of learning about/struggling with the idea that there is a split between the behaviors and thoughts we engage in day in and day out and who we ‘really’ are, is what begins and in some ways ends the inward journey. It is natural to develop ideas about who we are, or in many cases, who we should be. But ultimately the point of the journey is not to discover and become the “real” you, but rather just to bring awareness to the fact that there is a split, to be present with that struggle and strive to be both courageous and tender with yourself as you become more conscious of it.

The problem with the idea that there is a distance between who you are presently and the ‘real’ you is it can be often be heard to mean that whatever you are now is bad, and you need to become the ‘real’ you in order to be good. This is one of the biggest difficulties I have come across in my one on one work with people, to present the idea that there could be more to their consciousness and experience, that they could grow and heal, without having that concept become another thing that makes them feel bad or good about themselves.

For, it is precisely this attachment to being a good person, doing the right thing, or to being a bad person, who can do nothing right, that causes the greatest separation from our real selves. And by real self, here, what I mean is the part of us that accepts we are loved simply because we exist. I understand this is a arbitrary definition and perhaps more relevant, I understand those words only have meaning to the extent that the truth of that statement has felt real to me. There have been moments where I have felt the enormity of the love that exists, the divine connection kind-of-love that persists within me despite everything, no matter how many times I want to pretend its not there, no matter how much cruelty and suffering and trauma and torture and just plain apathy that remains day in and day out and I can still feel that? I can still feel loved? It's huge. And overwhelming. It feels way more real than so much other stuff I think is so important. And then it’s gone.

A lot of people seem to purport that the vast majority of other human lives matter, that other humans should be treated with respect, and that they deserve love and compassion, not just because of what they achieve but simply because they are human. Even if this thought is only fleeting, it is a wonder that we even come to have these feelings at all, that when we see images of humans suffering around the world and we actually think, that’s not right.

I say it is a wonder because meanwhile, in our inner lives, we can think and act in the complete opposite way, believing instead that our value as human beings and whether we deserve compassion and love is dependent upon whether or not we do the ‘right’ thing. Or conversely, we believe that because we have done the ‘wrong’ thing, we are wrong to the core, and will never deserve any love or compassion again.

That we are fundamentally loved just for being is one of the core teachings of Jesus, and the ways that his message has been misinterpreted is a great illustration of the difficulty I’m talking about. Take the catch phrase of so many Christians: Jesus Loves You. Instead of interpreting that message to mean, “feeling loved just for being who you are is always possible, forgiveness and salvation are your birthright,” it is transformed into, “Unless you do everything that Jesus said and feel how he loves you, you’re a bad person who is doomed to hell,” which is why Christianity and so many other religions have become associated with guilt, judgment, and condemnation instead of the original message of love. Depending on our persuasion, ‘everything that Jesus said’ could be anything, ideas we have about politics, who our parents wanted us to be, what we thought was 'cool' because our friends did it, etc. Usually, we construct some amalgam of all of these things that has just enough individuality for us to believe they are the ‘real’ us. We live our lives in service to this idea and in doing so don’t have time to struggle with the deepest parts of ourselves.

The truth is, as humans, we crave the concreteness of believing there are good guys and there are bad guys, of being able to follow the rules. It helps to keep things from being so goddamn scary all the time, which they are, because we are these fragile little bodies that live on an unpredictable planet and the minute we are born we begin our short little path to death. We want to cling onto our ideas about what we think is right and what we think is wrong and then align ourselves to either side because it keeps us safe. It makes it much easier to predict what is going to happen next. We want to be given a checklist to follow so we won’t have to worry about what we are and why the hell we are living this precious human life in the first place.

This frame of mind is so automatic I’m not sure if it is even escapable. In fact, I know it isn’t. To make any kind of absolutism the goal (‘I will always love Jesus…’) is to be right back where we started. Of course we are always going to have judgments of ourselves and the world around us. At times, even, I think it may be necessary for us to have that kind of motivation in our lives, to do things just because we think they are the ‘right’ thing to do. To try to separate ourselves from all opinions and judgments would mean to strip away so much of our external reality it would no longer be recognizable.

So, then, we must modify the task: it is simply to understand that a split exists at all. That there is a place in you that knows, deep down, that you are loved unconditionally, and even when that place seems impossible or ridiculous or heinous or offensive, it’s still there. That it is available to us to feel, to let the experience heal us, and ultimately to struggle with throughout our lives. A struggle to bring awareness to that space in you and let it expand and contract until you can feel its movement every second of every day, the difference between a moment where you accept this love/pain/fear/passion that is your soul and a moment when you turn away. A struggle to accept that this gap exists and still have love and compassion for yourself and others.

And once we believe we have won, that it is over, that we are everything we were ever suppose to be, it is actually the precise moment when we should try to find the gap again, take a finer tooth comb to the endless string of seemingly meaningless moments that compose the bulk of our lives. By embracing this contrast and existing in the split, we actually reach the core of what we are, these growing bursting ever-changing beings that thrive in the contradictions between what our brains can understand and what our hearts can feel. It is in contradictions that truth thrives, and thus, by diving deeply into the space between, we gain the opportunity to be whole.

We Must Love Ourselves...In Relationship

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 22:15:00 +0000

Every single individual on this planet has a way of experiencing and expressing love in a way that is entirely unique to them. Through focused work and practice, as we learn to experience love for ourselves, we in turn can begin to feel love for everything around us. This is perhaps exampled best by the human ability to love other humans.

The attempt to be in a loving partnership with another, to truly support them in their personal path to self-love and self-actualization, to stand in the truth of who they really are and do everything you can to show compassion, acceptance, tenderness, and fierceness for that person is one of the most incredible experiences we get to have as human beings. It also one of the most painful, challenging, confusing, and irrational experiences we can have as human beings.

Trying to find the ‘right person’, or just trying to navigate how to have a sustained, healthy, loving relationship with someone else is one of the biggest mysteries of life. What it means for you to be with the ‘right’ person could never be defined by an external source. But it is essential that the lessons of self-love be applied for loving relationships to flourish. The most important thing to remember is that there is no one that can love you the exact way you deserve to be loved other than you.

There is limitless and divine and effortless love available for you to feel at all times but it will always be a personal struggle to allow this love to be felt. To feel this love is the responsibility of no one else except you. No one else can make you feel it. When we make it our partner’s job to make us feel lovable or loved, they will certainly fail, and eventually the relationship will fail. If we want our relationships to work, we must love ourselves.

The reality is, we will never be fully capable of loving someone else unless we love ourselves. If we don’t have love and acceptance for the way that we are, there’s no way we could feel that kind of love for our partners. Instead, we believe that they must fulfill some idea of ‘how our partners should be’. We select partners based on this narcissistic criteria, instead of choosing with our wild, irrational hearts. We expect them to dress a certain way, have a certain amount of money, a certain kind of job, and a certain way of interacting with others or a certain way of communicating with us. We think if we have partners that fulfill these expectations, we will feel loved and we will be lovable.

Of course, by demanding certain attributes of our partners, we fail to accept them for precisely who they are, and thus we fail to experience true love. Our partners, by the same token, may have the same expectations of us. In fact, many people remain quite satisfied in relationships like these because they reflect the shallow illusion that many equate with reality. These kinds of relationships do not demand vulnerability, or even true feeling, because they are built on the same elaborate mind game that convinces us if we act a certain way, or have a certain kind of job, etc, we will be someday feel fulfilled and satisfied.

In order to use relationship as a platform to deepen our experience of love, we must understand there is a distinction between our desire to love another and our actual ability to do so. We must come to see the failures and conflicts we’ve experienced in relationship as reflections not of some problem in the other person, or our error in choosing that person, but reflections of some failure we have had in deeply loving ourselves. If all of your break ups or conflicts with others are the other person’s fault, think again. Own your part. If you can’t figure out your part, ask someone you trust, and then, listen.

It’s not that the other person is always innocent. Rather, it’s that we can never truly know what a person is feeling or what motivates them, and we can never change them. We can only fully understand and control ourselves. Set the example and “be the bigger person”. Admit that you are flawed. Be vulnerable. Don’t do it for the other person, do it for yourself so you can grow. Admitting that you’ve done wrong and knowing that you are still ‘ok’ is one of the most powerful ways to love yourself. Admitting that you’ve done wrong and you are still truly and fundamentally lovable is even better.

“Loving” other people so that you feel loved or lovable doesn’t work. It has a nice outer covering, but it is actually manipulative. True loving is unconditional. We cannot love for any external motivation, not even if that motivation is to feel loved. To truly love others, you must love yourself, and acknowledge that no one can be loved better by you than they can be loved by themselves. If you allow others to be dependent upon your love instead of feeling love for themselves, you cripple and manipulate that person.

Despite deep experiences of love in romantic relationships, many people eventually fail at sustaining these experiences and the relationships fail in some way or another. Relationships can fail quietly over long periods of time, remaining intact to any outside observers but actually rotting from the inside out. Or they can fail in spectacularly dramatic, painful, and hurtful ways. However it happens, the occasion of a relationship where love is no longer being equally exchanged the way it once was is often very painful. Thus, it is a terrific learning experience and opportunity. It is not a reflection of some reality that you are not lovable or not capable of loving others appropriately. Instead, it can be understood as a chance to learn about the ways you can better love yourself.

For more information about the one on one work I do, visit my website, www.dreamitout.com

We Must Love Ourselves, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 00:38:00 +0000

If we want the world to be a better place, we must love ourselves. I’m not saying that this is the only thing that needs to be done. I’m not even necessarily saying it is the most important thing. I think there are emergency situations around this planet, like the suffering of the incarcerated in the United States, like the world’s oceans and coral reefs, like the abuse of women in India and around the world, like torture, like drones, that need attention right now. There is so much to be done I would never deign to weigh one issue over the other. All I know is if we want to make a real change, at some point we are going to have to dive in head first to one of the hardest tasks in life. We must love ourselves.

I know that in the midst of all the suffering of the world the call from some damn woo-woo hippie like myself to feel the love might sound annoying. But to me it’s only annoying if I try to make it sound easy. I’m not trying to make it sound easy. If all we had to do is wake up in the morning, look ourselves in the mirror and say, “You’re the best! I love you!” and then our problems would be solved well then why do we have so many damn problems then?

We must love ourselves, and it is not an easy task. Actually, it is really fucking hard. If you don’t think it is hard, then you probably aren’t really trying to do it. The task of falling in love, deeper and deeper, with yourself and what you are capable of as a human on this planet never truly ends. It hurts like hell, makes no sense, and it is both infinite and terrifying. Everyday I set out to succeed in this task and everyday I fail in infinite ways, in ways I am aware of and in ways I have no clue about.

Why must we love ourselves? Well for one thing, when we don’t, we live out an illusion, an illusion that has very real effects on the world around us. This illusion could be called narcissism. Some people think narcissism is loving yourself “too much”. But really it is a complete absence of self-love. Narcissism contends that the central task in your life is to be the person you “should” be, or to be some idea of a person you have created in your mind, instead of just accepting yourself as you are.

Instead of loving yourself for precisely who you are, whatever you are, no matter what you do or how you have been treated, narcissists spend their whole lives focused on living out some set of self-concepts they decided a long time ago was ‘who they are’. This identity is usually tied to a lot of external, societal standards of appearance, opinions, values, assertions, and judgments. These factors, taken as a whole, can usually dictate what kind of jobs the person should take, what kind of partners they should have, and how much money they should make. This identity can be more or less unusual, tied to individual experiences, where and how you were raised, what you were taught, but to whatever extent it involves you not being in a state of acceptance and love for who you are right now, it is narcissistic. It is not about loving yourself, but rather a state of being enslaved to some idea about who you are or who you should be.

When narcissists fail to achieve these standards they hate themselves, believe they are unworthy of love, and can act out negatively in a myriad of ways, mostly because they did not make the original commitment to truly love and accept themselves. When narcissists succeed in achieving these standards they feel pride, entitlement, perhaps some sense of satisfaction, but they still can not experience truly loving themselves in an unconditional way, because for them, love will always be conditional upon them succeeding to the standards they lay out for themselves.

Who we really are is so much more complicated and astounding and mysterious than any ideas we come up with about that person. It is not that we can’t know ourselves but rather the understanding that there is always more to know. To love ourselves is to understand we are living a life that is unfolding every moment in ways that we cannot imagine. To truly love ourselves is to understand that whatever we do, whatever has been done to us, whether we fail or whether we succeed, we are still, on a basic fundamental level, just because we are human beings on this earth, lovable.

Needless to say, it can be confusing. How do we know when we are really loving ourselves, or just trying to live up to some idea of who we should be? Well, one clue is that feeling love can be one of the hardest things in the world. It burns like cleaning out a wound with hydrogen peroxide. It is startling and uncomfortable and incredibly vulnerable. It has the power to make everything you’ve made so important and argued for and lost friends over and feel like a huge lie. It has the power to make all those times you walked away or chose the safer thing or stayed silent so incredibly painful. From the perspective of loving yourself, all the things you did when you didn’t look very ugly, and it takes enormous courage to face into that. Love has no limits, and thus humbly reminds us of our own.

For all of these reasons, and more, love feels almost exactly like pain. Really they are the same thing, seen in different ways. When we let ourselves feel our pain, we lose all of our defenses. We can no longer hide beneath the shells of our personalities and our ideas and our accomplishments and our assertions, because we are in pain, and thus we just are. And when we just are, we can feel love. The strain of the contradiction almost breaks our hearts but it is actually expanding them. This is the power of a good cry. This is why deep love brings tears to our eyes.

It’s good to keep in mind that there is illusory pain. A tip-off is that it has no energy, felt in the mind instead of in the body. Some names for it are self-hatred, nihilism, shame, embarrassment, guilt, anxiety and the like. It says you don’t matter, it says the world doesn’t matter, it says nothing matters. Or it says you will only matter if... you will only feel love if… It denies how difficult it is to feel love, it says there is something wrong with you because you don’t feel it. It says everything in your life is your responsibility, that it is all your fault. It denies how scary the truth is, that you have no real control over anything. It tells you that your individual version of true love, that version of love that you only let yourself fantasize about for brief moments long ago, is a total lie, that you will never get to have it. It convinces you by saying it is rational, realistic, practical. It gives you the illusion of control. It makes you doubt and judge everyone, because in thinking all of these things, you doubt and judge yourself. It is lonely, isolating, numbing, and persistent. It definitely sucks, but it is not the same as real pain.

Mostly because real pain doesn’t need a reason, doesn’t need to be explained, doesn’t need to be justified. It just needs to be felt. Pain is always the doorway to expanding our ability to feel love. This sounds like a contradiction, I know, and because it is a contradiction it is very difficult to explain. But just the mere fact that through enormous hardship and injustice and trauma individual humans still harbor the capacity to feel love for themselves and others demonstrates to me the enormity of what’s possible. It is in understanding that even in the darkest corner of our hearts there is still a way feel loved that we come to feel it in an even more visceral and intense way. It is this increased vitality feeling of purpose and joy that being loved by another person can give us that we always have the opportunity to give to ourselves.

We must love ourselves. It is a challenge and it is a responsibility and a journey. But most of all, it is the most thrilling ride possible in life.

Stay tuned for Part 2, Loving Ourselves Through Relationship

Acknowledgments to my teachers at North of Eden, especially Marc Bregman. To learn more about the psychological/spiritual work I do, you can visit my website, www.dreamitout.com

My Archetypal Dreamwork Website

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 20:47:00 +0000

Hello all, when I'm not failing to update this blog, I have a practice where I work with clients one-on-one doing Archetypal Dreamwork. If you'd like to learn more about this work, please visit my website,

www.DreamItOut.com

Every Interaction Is A Social Interaction

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 00:02:00 +0000

What if we considered every interaction with another human being a social one? I was just thinking about how weird it is that the definition of my “social life” is purely the individuals that I choose to interact with, when and where I choose to do so.

This is how most people define social life, but it’s pretty arbitrary. What if we thought of social life as the parts of our lives when we are around others, period?

Considered this way, my usual confidence in the robustness of my social life falls flat. I realize for most of my day, I pretty consciously ignore people. I live in New Orleans, and my travels have shown me that there is perhaps no other city that can boast the same level of friendliness to strangers. It’s hard to take a walk without someone looking you in the eye and asking you about your day. I love this about my city and try to adopt the practice as much as I can, but even in a place that embraces neighborly interaction, I still fall short. I may say hi, how are you, I may even ask you about your garden or your dog or your work, but can I actually say you are my friend?

Not to mention when I have something that I need to get done, and a timeline to complete it in. Then, just about all of my effort at some kind of social exchange can fall to the wayside as my world closes in upon the task that needs to get done. Any external attempts by others to engage me socially I will very consciously thwart.

Day in and day out, I am not really looking to make friends except in circumstances that I have deemed acceptable times and places where friends can be made. If you are introduced to me by someone I already trust, perhaps we’ll connect and maybe after repeated meetings become friends. If I am near you at a party or a bar and we have a conversation that I feel comfortable with, maybe I will be friendly towards you if I see you again. Maybe if your work or some other activity you do is related to mine there is more of a chance that I’ll make an effort to connect with you. But maybe not.

I think I started realizing the narrowness of my own social life after spending weeks at Occupy NOLA last year. Suddenly I was in a diverse environment that spanned the spectrum of privileged organizers like me to people without homes who lived under the CCC bridge, and the real kicker was--we were all suppose to reach some kind of consensus about what we wanted the place to be like. Even though 20% of people in my state don’t have a high school diploma, I didn’t actually know anyone personally who didn’t have one. Compared with the make up of the city, I realized the make up of my friend group was way off in terms of race, income level, and many other factors.

I figured out one reason I don’t have a lot of these folks in my social circles: it’s hard. It’s hard to have genuine interactions with people when societal structures have made it so you meet each other on unequal terms. When you have money and someone else doesn’t, it's easy for you to feel taken advantage of, or just feel guilty about your own privilege, or be condescending. When you don't have money and someone else does, it's easy to feel resentful, disdainful, or just plain uncomfortable. When you’re educated and someone else isn’t, it takes effort honestly listen and respect the other person's ideas as equal to your own. Roles reversed, it's easy to feel intimidated and like your ideas don't matter. When you’re from a privileged group and someone else has to deal with the daily reality of racism or discrimination, it’s easy for both parties to get offended, angry, and feel diminished as individuals.

Beyond the social, it's just plain scary to trust people that are different than us. It isn't a pretty thing about humans, but it's true. Fear motivates so much of the disconnection we feel amongst ourselves. It is scary and vulnerable to trust.

So that’s probably why most people hang out with other people that are mostly like them. It’s a lot easier. It makes it easier to not worry about the social problems that surround us, it makes it easier to feel like there’s a big fat difference between people like you and everyone else. It makes it easier to feel confirmed and safe. It provides an atmosphere where you can feel confirmed in your own opinions, judgments, and ideas about how the world is and how you fit in it. Often these are the very ideas that form the bedrock of our own identities, and to be in social situations that challenge them are extremely uncomfortable.

At the same time, for many people the bedrock of their identities is the social lives they have cultivated. We come to understand who we are through our connections with other people. But if we expand the definition of social life to include all of our interactions with other people, how often are we judgmental, dismissive, impatient, or downright abrasive? How often do we deny others the benefit of the doubt, how often do we refrain from showing kindness when we have the opportunity to do so? How often do we just straight up ignore the humanity of people around us because of our need to complete daily tasks or just because we don't feel up to it?

If every interaction is a social interaction, how great are our social lives, really? And thus, what kind of people are we?

New Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 01:55:00 +0000

Hi everyone!

I've decided to start a new blog that focuses on the dreamwork that I have been practicing over the past few years. I hope you'll join me over there at the new site. This has been a great blog for me over the years. Thank you for reading and being so supportive of me.

It is called ZapalaSpeaks.

http://zapalaspeaks.wordpress.com/

A Rare Poem

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 00:13:00 +0000

I wrote this at the retreat I went to last week. Hadn't written a poem since sophomore year of college. Felt great!

Black Eyed Meadow

Can you call something blind that was never meant to see?
Flowers are like that, deaf to the bees and the thunder
to my sighs, my breath.
There's no time for the flowers.

No waiting, no regrets, no tomorrow.
Death comes each day when the sun sets.
Why can't I have faith like that?
Simple petals waiting in eternity
for the sun to shine again.

Can you call something blind if it was never meant to see?
I can be like that, deaf to the cries of agony
echoing across the generations.

I can only watch, the tears crowd my Eye.
Yesterday pulls, tomorrow strains, right now explodes
into a thousand beams---except the one that hurts the most.

I can only barely hear you, time is so deafening.
A whisper of a promise, I can only just feel.

My soul waits with the flowers in the meadow.

What it is like when I am not writing.

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 08:48:00 +0000

I think one reason I named this blog Full of Baloney because I wanted to to be clear with everyone--I don't really know what I am talking about.

That was the way I wanted to present myself--don't worry, everyone else, I won't stomp on anyone's toes. I don't really mean what I say. This was because I was afraid.

I feel like I am very slowly becoming aware of the intense fear that is almost always present in my entire body. It burns beneath my stomach, threatening to take over at any moment. It has the threat of flame and its aftermath, extinction. Where does fear ever end?

At first, it feels like never. The fear feels infinite. So then what is the point of feeling it? So I just try to avoid it, as much as I can, just go on with my life.

Little did I know, that I was carrying this fear in everything that I was doing, all the time, regardless. We have no choice over which emotions we feel. We just have choice over how we interpret them, contextualize them, attach them to a 'story' about who we are, rationalize them, ignore them, project them on to other people, etc. The best thing we can do is just to experience them, as raw as possible. I don't want to make that sound too simplistic, though. It is extremely challenging.

This is why I often do the same destructive things to myself over and over--this can be repetitively seeking out abusive dynamics, all shades of addictions, or just preventing myself from my own inner desires. When you are caught by fear, you just want anything that has a predictable outcome, that is highly controllable. In moments I know that these behaviors don't make me feel good, but I can't stop them because then the feelings just come floating in, pervasive. It is a difficult trap, but the opening is knowing that not only am I avoiding the difficult feelings, but I have prevented myself from so many of the positive ones as well.

Avoiding fear, for me, has lead to a paralyzing, frustrating numbness that pervades my life. One of the hardest parts is that I know this and yet it is still there, ever present, lurking.

Writing has always been such a challenge, because I am someone who wants to please people and had been quite willing to sacrifice my own desires in order to do so. But it is quite impossible to both please everyone and be true to your own voice. I have a ways to go in this department, but if nothing else I no longer want to claim that I don't 'really' believe in what I am writing. I don't want to hedge my bet in any way. This is me, trying to be as real as I know how to be. I will fail. There are so many things I haven't figured out yet, I know I'll write stuff that will look so ridiculous to a future me. But I have to embrace my own transformation if I want to change.

There have been so many twisted excuses that have prevented me from writing. There's no point to writing, it's not something I need to be doing, I don't have a clear enough idea of what I want to write about, I am just trying to write for some imagined fame or fortune, if I don't do it perfectly the first time, every time, there is no point. I will think of anything to stop myself. This is what it is like all the time when I am not writing, just a circular, hysterical anxiety. Excuses that go through my mind, pulsing, intense, seemingly air tight, logical, sensible, correct, and yet, somehow, I have stayed up long enough to write this piece, and will publish it. There is this incredible energy that is released when I do what I am afraid of.

Raging Pelican Article

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:15:00 +0000

Here's my Raging Pelican article: http://ragingpelican.com/radical-hopes-radical-challenges/

Occupy Wall Street

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:26:00 +0000

There are many problems facing our world today. Our economic system is no longer functioning. Our environment is being systematically destroyed. Our government is dishonest and dysfunctional. Our world is ravaged by curable diseases, famines and wars. Adults and children are diagnosed with mental illnesses at an ever increasing rate.

Perhaps one of the most shocking aspects of all of the statements above is how easily one can get the average person to agree with them. The question then turns---so how can we solve these problems? In order to solve problems, you must accurately and precisely determine their cause. And you must be willing to follow that cause wherever it may lead you--even when it means doubting the systems you hold so dear.

How bad do things have to get before we ask ourselves--why do we have all of these problems? At what point should we be forced to consider it is the larger system which puts these things in motion that is the cause, and all of the current issues are just symptoms? Just as taking off the top leaves of a weed is pointless if you leave the root, attempting to solve individual problems is ultimately useless if we don't address their causes.

I believe it is the systems we have in place that cause these problems. Systems that are rooted in unjustified hierarchies that disempower individuals and create inequalities.

Of course, stating that 'the system' is the issue has its own problems. For one, the systems are so vast it is difficult to pinpoint where one begins and another ends. But I think that is just an issue of definition, and could be accomplished through time. But there is another large problem: it is terrifying. These systems are the foundation for how we understand ourselves and interpret our world. To change them would be to shake every individual to their core.

Because suggesting a change in systems is so difficult and terrifying to people, I do not believe that such a change could or should occur by destroying the systems we have in place. The only thing that makes sense to me is the old IWW idea---to build a new world in the shell of the old.

And thus, the occupy wall street protests.

Almost everything you read about the Occupy Wall Street protests criticizes their lack of organization. Bemoans the fact that they don't have a clear mission. Wishes a more broad based coalition was there.

I feel like everyone is missing the point. I'm very glad that the protests aren't the normal, top down organized events where individuals march in protest with a single demand. After all, when is the last time we saw a protest like this actually accomplish its goals?

The black bloc protests in Seattle in the 90's resulted in the continuation of the WTO. The large scale protests of the RNC in New York did nothing to cease Bush's 8 year reign as president. The hundreds of thousands of people who marched on Washington against the Iraq and Afghani wars did nothing to cease the armies from fighting. And what about Troy Davis? Today he is dead.

People from my generation have not lived to see traditional protests work. That is why Occupy Wall Street is exciting. Its backbone is general assemblies, where individuals are allowed to speak freely and suggest actions to the group. Group actions are not taken until all voices have been heard and a consensus has been reached.

Occupy Wall Street does not have a single demand because it recognizes the futility in that when the overall system is the problem. Further, it recognizes that there is something deeply wrong in dictating to people what the demands should be. To proclaim a single demand without the tiring, endless, tedious work of actually listening to those who are present and coming to consensus of what to do would be a waste of time. It would just perpetuate and reflect the same behaviors that have brought our country and our world to the state it is in today--non-justified authority making decisions for others and thus disempowering their voice.

So to me, the protests are not really protests. They are, in the purest sense, demonstrations. They demonstrate to the world that you can accomplish goals (Occupying Wall Street) using horizontal organizational principles and through non-hierarchical means. They demonstrate to those that have already been trying to create new systems--of food production and distribution through collective farms and food not bombs, of education through free schools or democratic schools and collective libraries, of health care through radical collectives and free clinics, of production through democratically controlled businesses, of community by creating spaces where individuals feel respected and loved and where each voice has a chance to be heard--that they are not alone.

What is their demand? A process, as was explained in this video. The protest is demanding that a new process be put in place, a new way of organizing ourselves, that denies unjustified hierarchies and seeks equal empowerment and liberation for all.

The protests provide a space for the creation of a new world to occur. They are not attempting to dictate what that world should look like--and that is exactly why you should join them. They are giving every interested individual the chance to say what a new world could look like.

The protests are an invitation. What is holding you back? Do you believe the systems are the problem? Are you will to experiment to find what the new system might be like? Occupy wall street.

Occupy together.

How Bad Are Things? Why Do You Care?

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 15:54:00 +0000

One of the challenges of being young: it's impossible to have a sense of perspective.

Things seem very bad in our country and around the world today. Millions are starving in Somalia. We are entering the 6th mass extinction event of species on earth. The most recent recession has put millions of people around the world out of work or in jobs that are below their education and skill level. Natural Disasters continue to wreak havoc on ill prepared states.

Closer to home, we are dependent on fossil fuels for our everyday life and yet know that they will eventually run out. Cities around our country sit mostly empty or neglected, vestiges of a manufacturing economy and a manufactured real estate boom that is long gone and will probably never come back. In culture, our most lofty aspirations are limited to becoming rich or being famous, preferably both. Being beautiful is another important goal. Children and adults are being pumped with psychiatric drugs at astounding rates as the incidents of mental illness continue to rise. The bewilderment and loss felt in the face of unemployment, debt and foreclosure plays out in vitriolic terms in our political sphere, where the public has completely lost all faith in its 'representation'.

But at 24, my worldly consciousness is just a baby. Are things worse now than they were ten years ago? Twenty? Are we headed towards imminent doom or have we always been, and I've just started paying attention?

I've asked these questions with more than a few of my friends over the past months. It's hard to answer. You can look to history for help, but it can only go so far. You can know the facts of what life was like then, but can you really know the feelings? Did people feel the same amount, same quality of uncertainty we do today, or was it of a totally different nature?

I'm not going to try and answer it. Mostly, I'm interested in why people ask. If we could definitively answer yes, things are much worse now than they have ever been, what would that change? What would you do differently?

I suppose everyone has different answers. I did believe for a while that the world was sinking, currently and rapidly, and because of this I must forgo any 'normal' course of life and seek the revolution where ever it is formed. I felt like things were going to happen, and I had to be a part of them. It was a motivating urgency--but it was also alienating. After all, if an individual didn't happen to share my conviction that the world was going to end, and soon, then why would they join me?

Now, I don't think that whether things are particularly worse or better at a given moment in the outside world should effect what you do with your own self. I've come to think that people ask this because there's something in them that they feel is wrong, not outside. The events of the outside world have to have a certain independence from what you believe is right for your individual life. This is the only way we can shield ourselves from being the Nazi sympathizers in Germany, slave owners in North Carolina, segregationists in Alabama.

My boyfriend and I have recently decided that we'd like to live off the land in the most sustainable way possible (a term that will only acquire its definition through experience). Of course this type of homesteading is most certainly a trend. It seems to be in direct response to the ambient, enveloping consumerism of the dominant culture and acute disconnection from nature and the tasks that comprise staying alive.

But it is also timeless. A way that people have lived for hundreds of years. While I believe that the world would be better off if everyone lived more sustainably, I can't deny that perhaps one day they'll invent a way of collecting solar energy that is as cheap and efficient as oil. I have to live the way I want to live for myself, not as a statement, not as a demand, not in service to an image.

So if you find yourself asking, are things worse now than they used to be?, maybe you can ask instead, if they are, what would difference would it make to me?

Amy Goodman and Jon Stewart should join forces

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 19:31:00 +0000

I think Amy Goodman and Jon Stewart should join forces to create a youth led movement for accountable and democratic news media.

Why?

1. Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" last Halloween was basically a huge waste. Somewhere around 200,000 young people showed up from around the country, displaying their creativity, intelligence, and passion for all America to see---but why? It was a perfect rally for the hipster generation---all the material accoutrement of the revolutionary events our parents marched in to create real change during the 60's--but no real content, except to mock and/or laugh. But Jon did prove that if he wanted to, he could get the younger generation to show up. And that's not nothing.

2. Later, when Rachel Maddow interviewed Jon Stewart, he seemed to suggest that the rally's purpose was to send a message to the media, not the right wing. He even says the 'real' fight going on in America isn't between Democrats and Republicans, but between corruption and not. And yet, he never went far enough to say what causes the myriad of problems that we find in the media.

3. Amy Goodman represents everything that Jon Stewart seems to want out of the media, under his definition that it is the media's job to shine light on corruption. She has an incredible record of seeking out the stories in our country and around the world that the people in power don't want anyone to hear. And yet beyond the war crimes, the corporate exploitation, the government crackdowns on activists, the corrupted judicial system and our crumbling environment--Amy Goodman's real cause is independent media. As she explained in the heart wrenching 2006 documentary "Independent Intervention", there is no chance for our democracy, and the world's population, without a robust independent media.

4. In Jon Stewart's most recent interview with Chris Wallace, he seems to be even closer to acknowledging publicly what really ails the news media, as he admitted that the bias of places like the New York Times and CNN isn't a liberal agenda but towards "sensationalism and laziness"(clearly caused by profit motives). Stewart seems truly pained by this, it's obvious throughout his interviews and on his show that he deeply feels there is a problem with media today.

5. Amy Goodman has no problem at all stating what the problem is, as found in the "About" section of Democracy Now!: "But the last two decades have seen unprecedented corporate media consolidation. The U.S. media was already fairly homogeneous in the early 1980s: some fifty media conglomerates dominated all media outlets, including television, radio, newspapers, magazines, music, publishing and film. In the year 2000, just six corporations dominated the U.S. media."

6. Jon Stewart is incredibly funny.

7. Amy Goodman is so dead serious.

Is this not a match made in heaven? Our generation is desperate for a cause, and here, two of the biggest heroes in the media--one with a proven track record of inspiring his audience to action, the other with a the kind of experience and integrity that all journalists should aspire to. Jon needs to make the connection between the corporate monopoly on the media and the problems in the media today. (These points are made brilliantly and methodically in Robert McChesney's book "The Problem of the Media".) And Amy Goodman needs someone who can strike an emotional chord without alienating people with her penetrating honesty and intensity.

I don't know how exactly this union should start---maybe Amy could come on the Daily Show? Or Jon to Democracy Now? Maybe Jon could mention Amy's existence to his viewers? I can't really imagine it. I just want them to come together.

If you could pick two of your heroes to join forces who would they be?

The Danger of Almost-Truth

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 23:49:00 +0000

I recently watched Brene Brown's TED talk entitled "the power of vulnerability". She details the pervasive feelings of shame, guilt, perfectionism and comfort-seeking that she has recognized through her research within society. Symptoms of these epidemics include the most indebted, obese, drug addicted and psychiatric drugged adult population in American history. I haven't yet been able to connect the teachings from the Archetypal Dream therapy that I engage in to any popular psychologist. Her talk was the closest thing I've gotten to that yet.

In it, she explains the connection between shame and perfectionism. She argues that people should 'lean in' to difficult feelings of shame, pain, and fear in order to really experience joy and gratitude. She talks about how the key to accessing these feelings is to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and to embrace ourselves as we are. In a lot of ways, these insights connect well to many of the conclusions I've drawn from the Dreamwork.

But there is also something about doing dreamwork that makes one skeptical. It is the ego that wants a quick fix, that wants to feel immediately enlightened by someone's words, immediately convinced to follow a certain life's path. It's something deeper that realizes we have been tricked by an 'easy' truth before.

It was all over for me and Brown when I got to her website and noticed that one of her pages included a "Favorites" page. Yes, the emotional guru herself, who recommends the book "Can't Buy Me Love: How Advertising Changes You" as a book that changed her life, has a whole page dedicated to some of her favorite things--mostly books, but also cameras, kitchen accessories, which she admits that she gets commission on. Don't worry--the commission she makes goes back to the reader in the form of 'giveaways' on the blog. Brown promotes her blog by promoting products and using that money to lure people into reading the blog.

Why does this matter? Well, for one thing, at this point, any product promotion whatsoever makes me suspicious of that person as a source of information, no matter what the circumstances. I know that sounds harsh and radical. But advertising, at this stage, is such a perversion of its originally intended purpose--(was SHOCKED today to see that one popular advertising company's slogan was "loyalty beyond reason", bragging about the fact that they manipulate people's desire to the point where they will buy the product even when it is not reasonable to do so)--and its success has contributed to so many terrible things--environmental catastrophe, human exploitation, wars, disease and mental illness within society---that I don't feel like treading lightly around it any longer.

In fact, I think it is precisely this type of advertising philosophy that has shown corporations how to transform individuals, creative, unique, and flawed individuals into a society of people who only know how to consume and chase after ways to make themselves more like everybody else.

Brown hints at this explanation from time to time, criticizing reality television, telling people not to watch it. But she doesn't take the necessary step to wake people up to the real problem. Brown never asks, as far as I can tell, where is all this shame coming from? Why are people so obsessed with success and recognition at the expense of their own joy?

These aren't easy questions. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they have societal answers, cultural answers, and thus political and economic answers. It's not enough for Brown to just tell us what the problem is, and recommend that we stop feeling that way. In fact, this is dangerous. Because it lures those with an intellectual interest in with an accurate diagnosis of the problem. But it does not go the necessary extra step of trying to analyze why things came to be this way. This allows intellectual interest to be pacified without that person having to go much deeper into the role they play in this society that makes people feel, a lot of the time, terrible.

This is also the problem I have with Jon Stewart. He so accurately pinpoints, hilariously, what is wrong with the media today. But he never so much as breathes a word of suggestion that the problems of this media have something to do with the fact that 6 multi billion dollar corporations own the vast majority of media outlets in the nation. This is dangerous. Because it makes people feel that by listening to Jon Stewart, they are doing something to combat the problems of corporate media. But Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! and the Prometheus Radio Project are actual examples of what this fight looks like. Why won't Jon Stewart trumpet their causes, if he is so concerned with media corruption?

In the same way, Brene Brown is dangerous. Because she is diagnosing a very real problem in american society---that the adult population of America is shameful, addicted and self medicating. But she is not explaining how we got there. I believe it is because these explanations would be so uncomfortable to many well educated, upper middle class to upper class people whose livelihoods are deeply intertwined with the laws that make capitalism function---recognition by others is essential, winning feels good, having power makes you free, your value is dependent upon what you can produce. So uncomfortable, that people would not buy Brene Brown's books, they would not attend her lectures. And this would make her feel unrecognized, like a loser, powerless, pointless and all on down the chain. So she settles for the almost-truth, and nothing really changes.

The Limits of a Paradigm: Sam Harris

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 00:54:00 +0000

I've been meaning to write about Sam Harris for a while. This is because I think that if he just had one slight change in his thinking, his ideas would make a lot more sense. I say this because I believe science is in desperate need of a paradigm shift, in the sense that Kuhn talks about in "Theory of Scientific Revolutions" (great historian/philosopher of science). Currently science is in a materialist paradigm. What is real is defined by the ability for humans to think logically about a phenomenon. Empirical observations and the scientific truths that follow are the only kind of truths that individuals or society can really think or do anything about, so it is the only meaningful aspect of reality. This is what the scientific paradigm purports. Of course the average person does not necessarily think this way. But this does not mean that the paradigm does not effect society as a whole. The beliefs of scientists shape the direction of our thinking--they define aspects of what it means to be human, they lead the development of our new technologies, and they serve as the first lens with which we interpret the material world. And don't get me wrong--there have been amazing strides in improving the well being and equal treatment of humans within this paradigm. But now we are at the paradigm's limits, as illustrated by Sam Harris's dilemma.

Here's what Mr. Harris is grappling with, in my view: He is fully committed to the materialist paradigm. This has lead him to many drastic conclusions about religion, namely that it is a useless, and at times harmful conglomeration of myths and beliefs that need to be done away with. But then he is faced with the question of morality. After all, many people cite religion as the source of their moral compass. So when he is campaigning against religion, some in his opposition respond by saying that religion dictates morality--without it, people would be amoral. So, Sam Harris has written a book to explain that no, science can be and *should* be the source of morality.

But here is where Harris comes up against the issue of his paradigm. Harris claims that "values are facts about the well being of conscious creatures". Thus, we can reach logical, objective conclusions about what is a moral act by determining whether the act "increases well-being". He then imagines there being a 'moral landscape' where there are peaks and valleys in terms of behaviors that increase well being more or less. With this structure in place, scientists can then make objective claims about moral behavior. Thus, we can objectively say that killing a woman because she was raped is amoral.

Well duh. After reading countless articles and speeches that Sam Harris has made about this book "The Moral Landscape", I couldn't find anything in his moral theory that makes it significantly different from Utilitarianism. The idea that in a given situation, people should commit the act that will have the best consequences for the most people has been around for at least 200 years. The twist, it seems, is that to Harris, we can investigate empirically what increases human 'well-being' and then prescribe those things as moral acts.

So if this idea has already been around, why hasn't it caught on already? Why do we need people like Sam Harris to remind us of it's virtues?

Well for one, it's very difficult to define 'well-being' or any other word you'd like to replace it with. Take a minute just to think about your closest friends, and the huge range of activities they like to participate in, ways they like to relate to people and ambitions that they have in life, and you'll begin to have a picture of why constructing a general sense of 'well being' (that goes beyond meeting one's basic survival needs) is a monumental, if not impossible task.

But there is a missing piece of information here. Because cognitive scientists and neuroscientists have been studying moral judgments for quite a while now. Instead of trying to determine what morality should be, however, they have been attempting to study how people do behave morally. Jonathan Haidt has been one of the central investigators. And what have they found?

That moral decision making is committed on the basis of emotional reactions, not 'rational' decision making. So here is the real difficulty of science trying to make moral prescriptions. Because science has shown us that we do NOT reason our way into our moral decision making. So a process like the one Sam Harris describes has been proven by science to not be the way people actually act.

So on the one hand, Sam Harris is interested in winning his argument against religion by constructing a moral basis that is completely objective. By doing this, he wants to prove his paradigm. Not only that, but I think Harris is genuinely disturbed by the proliferation of moral relativism that has followed from the scientific paradigm that we are currently in. But the scientific paradigm includes a belief that empirical observations and the scientific truths that follow are the only kind of truths that individuals can really think or do anything about. This makes them the only meaningful aspect of reality, and thus the only source for objectivity---the only things that are 'true'." And religion contends that there are moral truths that can not be understood in the scientific method of finding truth. This conflicts with the current scientific paradigm. So Sam Harris, being a good scientist, feels compelled to remedy this aberration within the paradigm.

But on the other hand, the scientific method/paradigm itself, in studying individual moral behavior, has proven that people do not think rationally, or scientifically, about how to behave morally. More often than not, the motivation for moral behavior is emotional, not 'reasonable'. So why wouldn't Sam Harris, who so firmly believes in the reality of this paradigm, not construct a 'scientific' moral system that somehow appeals to people's emotions? One that causes them to shift the way they feel about other people and encourages them to act for the well-being of conscious creatures. After all, this would be the method that is scientifically proven to get people to behave morally--and isn't that the purpose of creating any moral system?

Of course, Sam Harris can't do that--because what would that look like, if not religion. So, in this way, Sam Harris is stuck within his own paradigm. He can only suggest a moral system that his own paradigm has proven would be ineffective. Without it, if one believes in the scientific paradigm one can very easily conclude a moral relativity that Sam Harris and many others find very disturbing. But what if he could shift his paradigm, just a little bit?

So instead of trying to find objective morality empirically and then using that as a tool for moral decision making, why don't we accept the idea that there may be objective, non-rational truths that can not be quantified, but can only be experienced. And experiencing and living these truths will make you a more moral person. And let's also agree that there are thousands upon thousands of people out there who claim they know these truths--priests, rabbis, monks, nuns, cult-leaders, healers, psychics, self-help gurus--who actually don't. And that these people should be found, and outed for what they actually are--fakers. (And I have reason to believe this could be done in a scientific fashion). But let's also suggest that perhaps there are people out there who have experienced those truths, and have honestly useful methods for other people to experience those truths that could benefit other people. And that some of these people might be related to religious sects, but this does not necessarily mean their truths are automatically discounted.

If the paradigm could shift to accept the existence of a relevant reality that cannot be discovered scientifically, perhaps Sam Harris' quandary could be solved. I believe that there are many discrepancies like this that we are currently butting heads with and a shift in this direction could be very positive for humanity's quest for truth.

How do you know what you want?

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:04:00 +0000

Making decisions in life is difficult. With even the simplest choices, I find myself tearing through the given options, imagining distant consequences that create entire lives I have to choose to lead or not. In this way, everything can be seen as life-altering, and thus paralyzing. To me, what makes it so difficult is that I actually want two conflicting things. I have strong values in life that conflict with each other, and make me consider different options.

But let's define the soul as: the a priori subjective belief that you are a unique, individual, unified perspective. So accepting the objectivity of yourself. You cannot observe yourself. You can not perceive yourself. You are yourself. But "I" thinks it can perceive itself. It is the I that explains to 'you' who you are and what you can or can't do, the I that tells other people the same, the I that narrates your experiences. But you, the soul, the perspective, have your experiences. It is often the I that makes the decisions about who you should or shouldn't date, what you should or shouldn't do, where you should or shouldn't live. But you can also act.

So what does this mean for decision making, the suggestion that there is a real you, a you that is separate from most of your conscious thoughts? Before the idea of a 'real' you, the conflicting values that lead to indecision seem to be of equal weight. The introduction of a 'real' you implies that one value is wrong (not the 'real' you) and another value is right (the 'real' you). So now decision making is not a gamble. It is a real tangible something. We must investigate this 'you' and find out what he or she wants, and then do that thing.

Of course, investigation of this you, as the I should know by now, is fundamentally impossible. Only you can know you. The I can only know what lays outside of you. So we can not rationally determine or describe who we are. We can only experience who we are.

It is my assertion here that most decision making is gambling--and people rarely do what the soul 'them' actually wants. This is again because the I has no way of knowing what you want. It can only look outside of you and construct an identity that the I wants. But this will always feel empty, because the soul or 'real' part of you who perceives and has feelings and experiences is not getting what it wants. Some people, because of the stress and doubt that difficult decisions cause them, choose to completely ignore their conflicting feelings, and become increasingly attached to the I that has been constructed. Others, because of the sadness felt when you think what you want is impossible or out of the question for you never make any decisions. (because of the I's convictions--you are of course meant to do exactly what you are meant to do).

My definition of the soul may be hard to swallow. But instead of wondering whether it is objectively true (something that would be impossible) think instead about the consequences of believing it is true.When you are conflicted about a decision, just imagine that you are a unified consciousness. That there is indeed, something that you actually feel--not just think--that you want.

As a young person, when I try this exercise, I often come up with the feeling of: "I don't know". This may seem like a stopping point, or a loop. You can't decide what to do, so you feel that you don't know what to do. Duh. But it is actually an invitation. Having the real and deep experience of not knowing, of ignorance, turns quickly into curiosity. It the spark of real passion and investigation.

I suggest these things not only as a way to determine what you want in life. I suggest them because people's inability to have accurate ideas about what the 'real' them wants is actually extremely damaging to the outside, material world and other individuals in it. A central desire for most people in American consumerist culture is to make money, and then more of it. Another strong desire that most people express is to be 'successful', which I think roughly means be recognized by their relevant peers to have more value than the average person. And yet, it's not difficult to see that both of these 'desires' have immediate detrimental effects on the environment as well as our fellow humans. We have ravaged the earth with our insatiable need to consume material goods, as advertising agencies have convinced us that only their products will make us feel good enough. And we operate daily under the conviction that some people are just better, and of more worth, than others, and it is our purpose to prove our individual power to others.

But I am for better or worse completely convinced that at the end of the day individuals are good and want to do what is good. And yet, most people claim to have these desires, that are very damaging for things outside of them. Some might then conclude that people are actually at the core not good. But I instead suggest that these desires aren't actually real. Even if you feel them strongly, what about the other desires that you have, buried deep, that can sometimes conflict? How about your desire for the people around you to be happy? For you to feel and trust real love around you? For there to be less suffering around you? Your desire to relax and enjoy the inherent beauty in artful creation or natural evolution? Your desire to no longer strive, no longer want? To just be?

A world where these desires could be met could be created. But it would first require a shift in our beliefs about what we actually want. What world do we want to live in? What are we doing to achieve that world, instead of striving to make our place in this world we can agree is not ideal? Which aspect of our desires would we like to be real? The choice is ours to make.

How do you know when you are acting freely?

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:09:00 +0000

I've been thinking lately about what defines a free act. Societal definitions do not seem to help. As a child, I was told that "with freedom, comes responsibility". This implied to me that free acts were often paired with negative consequences. As we grow up, our freedoms are granted to us only if we act responsibly and prove to our parents, our schools, our society in general that we have earned it. As I've grown up, I've realized how strange this sense of societal freedom really is.

After all, it's not actually the case that the more responsibly we act the more freedom we gain in society. Instead, it is those who exploit the most and take responsibility for the least (i.e. huge corporations) that have the most freedom, as measured by monetary power, to enact their desires upon the world. In a recent study cited by Timothy Noah in his excellent Slate series "The United States of Inequality", USA, along with Italy and Great Britain, have become one of the least upwardly mobile rich countries in the world. It seems that we are increasingly granted the 'freedom' to live up to the expectations that are set up for us simply by where and under what financial circumstances we were born into. Any hopes to deviate from this given 'freedom' becomes tied to the able-ness of our bodies, the sharpness of our minds, the beauty of our faces, and still, somehow, courageously, the will of our souls.

Yes. Despite the ever-increasing infringements upon individual will and desire, the constant and relentless bombardment of advertisements convincing us of what we want, the barrage of 'news' media that perpetuates stereotypes and incites fear, despite the wave of brain scientists and psychologists that attempt to explain and predict as many of our behaviors as they can, our childhoods where we are taught to conform or be punished, and the psychiatric drugs that encourage us to not investigate our feelings of depression and loneliness---almost everyone I have ever encountered still firmly believes that they have free will. That, on some level, they are in charge of the decisions they make and the directions they go. That they cannot be predicted.

It's very difficult to identify something that almost every individual agrees upon. That's why I'm so curious to find a path to freedom, to know when I am acting freely, and to chase after those experiences. So where to begin. In a way the answer comes easily: When am I free? When I'm doing what I want to do. When I am doing whatever I want.

Again, this definition was like a dead end. Who is this unified I? How will I know her when I see her, when I hear her? So much of my consciousness is a continuing conversation, a voice from the observer, voices of girls I used to be, girls I think I should be, voices I know to be damaging, hurtful, or wasteful. Which one is I? Which one knows what I want?

Perhaps this struggle is not familiar to many, I know for a long time I was mostly unaware of it. As the dreamwork continues to awaken me to the feelings I work so hard to repress, though, I come to see that it wasn't that I knew what I wanted, but rather that I knew how I wanted seem. That I was making my decisions based on the part of me that thinks, that observes and reacts, not the aspect of myself that feels, that perceives and creates.

So if knowing what you want is confusing, how do you know if you are acting freely? I'm temped to respond that one knows they are free because they feel it. Of course this is vague, and confusing. There are plenty of things I do because they make me 'feel' good, things that I do because I feel 'free' to do so--vegging out in front of the tv, eating too much, drinking too much, sleeping in, buying gossip magazines, blowing off friends, spending money I don't have, skipping activities I know I'll enjoy-- and yet they always seems to result in the opposite emotion, a feeling that I am stuck in a monotonous life, unable to make any real positive changes. It is only after I do the things that took effort to accomplish--making a new friend, going for a bike ride, learning about a topic I didn't know about before, trying new activities, pushing myself in my work, writing, reading--that I begin to feel that kind of elation that one can only recognize as freedom---a lifting of the veil, hints to the areas of needed growth, the chance to become something you were not before.

So I've come to a suggestion. It's only a small change from my childhood definition. Instead of thinking of responsibility a tiresome after effect of freedom, I think freedom should be an effect of taking responsibility. It is the act of taking responsibility itself that sets you free. It frees you from the oppression of others making decisions for you, and ensures that you are mindful of the ways that you are oppressing others (both relationships being a type of enslavement). Being responsible and educating yourself about what you consume will free you from crimes of corporate america. Taking responsibility for your own happiness will motivate you to make the difficult changes that are often necessary for positive growth. Taking responsibility for your actions, your every action, will require the patience and thoughtful consideration that is necessary for you to begin to really see all the possibilities and open you to ways of thinking you had not considered before.

Freedom is such a complicated term, there are certainly many of its aspects that aren't encompassed by my definition here. But I do think it's a very workable personal definition, a way of steering the boat. How can I take more responsibility in my life? What effects am I having that I am ignoring? What parts of myself do I blame on others? How can I feel free?

I AM A PROUD HIPSTER

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:02:00 +0000

...but hipsters seem to be on their way out. I first came to the realization after a 2 hour long gaze at LATFH (look at that fucking hipster) back in September. Because being a hipster has now become identifiable, being a hipster is against the hipster ethos. Those who are desperate to establish an identity that lies outside of the mainstream are going to have to turn somewhere else. So, then, where are the hipsters going to go? What's coming up next? I guess I want to make a suggestion. It might take me a minute to get there but bear with me.

I recently watched a documentary series that was broadcasted by the BBC called "Century of Self". If you've ever wanted to understand the 20th century through the lens of the psychological theories that dominated the times and its connection to consumerism, capitalism and democracy, this is the documentary for you. It's amazing. In Century of Self, the writer/director Adam Curtis explains how the beatnik/hippie desire for free internal self-expression became fulfilled by corporations and consumerism. The ego was coaxed away from the individuals duty to society and into the idea that the individual duty is to be oneself, Jerry Rubin perhaps being the best example. It is through marketing and the relentless engine of capitalism that we have become an individualistic society of sub-cultures, a vast array of lifestyles that we can choose from to express ourselves, buy the goods for, and be accepted by, all by a click of a button (as long as we are signed up for 1-click shopping on Amazon.com).

Of course, these 'choices' are empty once they have been externally produced and marketed to us. After all, corporations do not accept us for who we are in ourselves. Instead advertising must insist that there is something wrong with who we are, something missing, something that will only be restored by whatever product they are peddling. Marketing preys on our insecurities, and it is only through the perpetuation of our insecurities that the overconsumption necessary to maintain our economy can exist. Seen in this light, the hipster is something of an implosion of consumerism. The successful hipster is a viral insecurity creating machine, perhaps their most unifying attribute being their ability to disdain, disapprove, dismiss and anyone around them that has not been able to appropriately signify their individualism. As such, they perpetuate feelings of insecurity that fuel consumerist behavior, while at the same time condemning the conformist tendencies of any consumerist society. So, on one hand, hipster-dom is a corporations wet dream: the consumer who is constantly and ferociously determined to find and purchase the goods that will define them to others as themselves--no matter how obscure or useless that good is. On the other, their commitment to individuality and free expression are values with teeth, and hearkens back to the legacy of other powerful, anti-materialist social movements throughout history.

This is only the way to define the hipster in economic terms--hardly the only way to look at it. Another, perhaps more important lens is that of the hipster psychology. A primary attribute of hipsters is their pervasive lack of definition, and refusal to associate with their obvious group. An aspiring hipster at times myself, I know that hipsters like it that way. They joined the movement so that they would not be a member of any movement. Groups lead to conformity, a fakeness and inauthenticity that is inherently uncool. They wanted to be hipsters to show everyone else around them that they could be exactly themselves, with no affiliation to any particular group. And so, their movement has no advocates. I admire and emulate in a lot of ways individualism that is attempted through the hipster ethos. Through them, anything can be 'cool': homosexuals, sexual experimenters, the hula hoopers, the crisp organic farmers from Vermont, the biracial, the broken family, the anti-social, the trendy, the OCD, the depressed, the drug addicted, the intellectuals, the country bumpkins, the obscure, the old, the very very young. The voracious pace at which music, books, art, clubs, bars, restaurants, themes, trends, travel destinations, charities, objects and clothes are discovered and then discarded as they are popularized demonstrates the desperation to create an individual identity. I think think this goal is worthy. Unfortunately, any successful expression of individuality becomes eclipsed once the society identifies such a person as 'cool'. Then, the individual expression becomes motivated by societal acceptance, which is where, I think, the hipster was born.

And so, my prayer for the progression of hipsterdom: that individuals will decide to be themselves for themselves, not for the group. That hipsters will believe in themselves as the powerful arbiters of cultural, societal and political change that they could be, if only they stopped caring whether it was cool or not. That it will do away with irony in order to better achieve what I think was its broader goal: free self-expression and individualism. That it won't succumb to the quick fixes that consumerist culture provide to be accepted, but instead be committed to the difficult, frightening and staggering work of trying to be precisely who you are in a society full of messages and opinions and demands explaining how you should be.

In the "new" hipsters search for individual expression, they should not dismiss or disdain others, but embrace them. For, the more you learn to embrace other's differences in a non judgmental way, the easier it is for you to embrace yourself. Cool could actually become a dirty word, meaning someone who was too concerned with other's acceptance of them to worry about what they actually cared about.

I hope there is some way for this to be a non-ironic goal. After all, it does not take much looking around to realize that our earth is increasingly and increasingly getting fucked up. That's certainly not ironic, it's reality. But I also firmly believe that individuals united in a movement can be arbiters for a new order, and be catalysts for real change. And personally, I believe that movement already exists, in hipster-ness. It just needs a little self-confidence, a big lack of irony, and the courage to stand up for what it believes in, no matter if its cool or not. I also think Lady Gaga is the leader of this movement, and a leading proponent of its philosophy. But that's for a different post :).

Getting Over Yourself

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:03:00 +0000

I think one of the hardest thing to do in life is get over yourself, the more I think about all the different things this phrase could mean.

For a long time, I considered it a way to explain what haughty or stuck up people ought to do. Get over themselves. Realize that they are like every body else. If you were self-involved, I thought, you should get over yourself. Open up your eyes and realize what is actually important, relevant, etc.

For the past five years, until March, I had not been in a committed relationship. During this single period, all of my most nagging insecurities, about my weight, my attractiveness level, my craziness, my ability to achieve my goals were externalized on to this future person, my boyfriend. This imaginary man would know the exact ways to act and the exact things to say that would reassure me I was perfect and beautiful and lovable, and would soar me into a lifetime of success.

Then, in March, I started dating my boyfriend. And he didn't say or do any of those things. One night I pressed him for about an hour about my attractiveness and his first reaction was just, "Is this one of those weird girl things?". He did not even nibble at any of my bait, just wondered why in the world his girlfriend, who he would obviously choose because he thought she was attractive, would not think so. He tried his best to reassure me, but I realized that there was nothing he could say that would. The words, the actions, the feeling that I had been waiting for was never going to come from some outside source. After all, I will never see myself from anyone else's perspective but my own. Nor should I. If I did I would no longer be myself. And so, I realized that these insecurities were something that I had to get over myself. If I wanted to feel the way I had fantasized about, I would have to learn how to forgive myself, how to support myself, and how to be myself without waiting for any external validation from others.

In many ways this process has been very difficult. It seemed obvious to me that insecurities are obstacles that you place in front of your growth. But what has surprised me is what else they stand in the way of: your deeper, more subconscious fears. Yes I am insecure about my attractiveness: but even scarier, if I just felt beautiful because I am a woman, and all women are beautiful (as this guy said...or Eve Ensler here) . Then, beauty would no longer be a goal I would have to attain, clothing I could wear or a diet I could go on to feel reassured, superior to others. So then what would fulfill me? What would validate me? Yes I am insecure about people liking me: but even scarier, if I no longer cared what people think? Then who would I be? How would I act? What would I care about? Yes I am insecure that I'm not living up to my 'potential', not treading the path to success that was laid out for me in the Ivy League: but even scarier, to realize I don't even know what I would consider actual success without these society-imposed measures? That I basically need to start from scratch to determine what is actually important to me, this time as myself, not as a reflection of what I think others want me to be.

And thus, to what I see as the last meaning of this phrase. Realizing that 'yourself' in getting over yourself, isn't actually you at all. It's someone you have constructed out of others interpretations, someone that strives to meet expectations, paints convenient, safe narratives about your past and your future, helps you to cling to your bitterness, to make assumptions about who's better and who's worse, about what's important and what's not, all along pushing down farther and farther who you actually are.

So, onward to get over my self. It becomes more and more frightening the more successful I am. But I'm beginning to see that it is not the fear itself but our reactions to it, our avoidance of it, that prevents us from change, hardens us, and makes us hateful. Being uncomfortable does not always mean something is wrong. It could simply mean that you are beginning to grow.

**Many thanks to Marc Bregman, without whom I never would have gotten where I am right now**

The United States Social Forum

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:11:00 +0000

Last week I attended the United States Social Forum, which was a week long summit of 15,000 progressive individuals from around our country and around the world. 'Progressive' in the broadest sense possible: the term as appropriated by many who associate with the democratic party was not intended, rather individuals who are committed, in some substantial way, to social/political/economic change.

It was inspiring to say the least. One of the first shockers was the absolute diversity of participants. I have never been in a group of individuals with such diversity of interests, socio-economic class, hometowns, ages, skills, educational background, ethnic background and political opinion (besides general 'left'). In one workshop, I sat and listened to representatives from the Nigerian River Delta decry the exploitation of their environment. In a discussion afterwards, a middle aged Colombian woman argued with an older white sociologist from the University of Kansas who had been researching the relationship between native governments and the World Bank. A young gay rights activist from California mediated as me and a girl from Eunice, LA tried to make the connection between Nigeria and BP spill. In another, where an extremely passionate man from Move To Amend explained that a law that is 'legally' instituted that gives corporations the same rights as people contradicts democracy and is thus illegal by nature. An 80-year-old man, clearly hard of hearing, raised his hand to say, "Thanks so much for telling me about this issue! I had no idea there were people out there trying to amend the constitution". An 80 year old discovering new causes, new ways to look at the problems at hand and figure out one's place? To say inspiring hardly does it justice.

As the conference went on, the energy among the participants was palpable. Everyone there was doing something, wanting something, imagining something, pleading, arguing, debating, listening, participating, rejecting. It's not to say that everyone was doing the right thing, but just to have so many people fully engaged with this whirlwind of life: it demanded that you consider your role. Where do I fit into this society where this person is oppressed, that person is suffering, exploitation is here and here and here, communities are falling apart, individuals are fighting for their rights, artists are putting their images to the cause, photographers, dancers, puppeteers? Most people there, I would say, were already set into their cause/purpose, had been fighting the good fight for something for a while already, so it's not to say that everyone was having this experience. But I do think that even for those deeply entrenched in their cause the sheer variety and conviction of participants in a variety of causes would make anyone stop and think for a second: why my cause, now? Why not something else? How can we collaborate? In what ways are we fighting the same fight?

I kept thinking over and over about some talk that I thought was glaringly missing from the discourse: what about all of those upper to middle class Americans who are not overtly complicit in oppression or destruction or exploitation and yet do nothing to fight against it in their societies? There is a common parlance among these activists about 'waking up', realizing the contradictions within ones society and becoming increasingly willing to do something about them. But where was all the discussion about how to get everyone else to wake up, about what to do with the overwhelming sense of helplessness, pointlessness and eventual apathy that can result from a full investigation to how truly wretched so many aspects of our world actually are?

Being interested in psychology, and someone who in many ways has just recently 'woken up', and in many ways is not fully awake yet, I thought about this a lot. I think I'll write about this more as time goes on, but like so many things, the questions have lead me back to myself. I must do what I am meant to do. I must fight, and fight hard, against the constant bombardment of messages, images, expectations, second-guessing and fear that I have within myself that prevents me from being myself. Until I have made progress in this fight, all my external battles will be for naught. As was a quote by Archbishop Oscar Romero in one of the official USSF t-shirts sold by Liberation Ink,

"We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well"

Women are Crazy vs. Men are Assholes

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 19:20:00 +0000

I'm sorry I've been so lacking in posts. There are a million excuses I can think of but being in lalalala new boyfriend land is probably the main one. But on the upside, I've been thinking tons!! about love and men and women and relationships and I'm looking forward to writing about them.

First, on the subject of "women are crazy" vs. "men are assholes". During my single life, I had many conversations with my girlfriends about how guys are assholes. They just don't get things, don't respond to situations appropriately, lack emotional response.

As I started to hang out with my boyfriend and his friends, though, I started to hear more and more that girls are 'crazy'. I think this is the equivalent feeling among a lot of guys, similar to the consensus among women that men are assholes. This equivalence got me thinking.

To be a true feminist, and thus to expect fully equal treatment between men and women, one must do the hard work of examining your own biases towards the opposite sex. So if I disagree that women are crazy, then I have to figure out what is causing me to believe that men are assholes, generally, and how that relates to the feeling that women are crazy.

Here's what I came up with. Women and men have a differing tendency of reaction and action, the former being a purely internal process and the latter being a purely external process. (Of course all of these are sweeping generalities and say nothing of the specific). So, given a situation, women are more likely to react to it, where men are more likely to act on it. Thus, women spend more time considering, pondering, investigating the details and the emotional consequences of certain actions or observations they have made. Men on the other hand are less likely to consider how they are reacting to the situation and more likely to just do something about it, or ignore it (which is actually, in many cases, a quite forceful action). As such, women are perceived by men as 'crazy', since they are likely to make perceptions or observations about a situation that a man doesn't. And men are seen as 'assholes' because they act on the situation without taking into account these perceptions and observations that feel obvious to the women.

I think it's nice to frame these generalizations this way because I think thought of in this way both sides have work to do. And perhaps this is one of the great benefits of being in a relationship. For women could learn from men how to act on their feelings and men could learn from women how to put their feelings into action.

Of course the words men and women here are somewhat useless, as I think in any relationship, be it heterosexual, homosexual, etc, it's not necessarily the gender that determines who's more or less assertive, more or less emotional. This is just a way to frame the conversation of one kind of division you might find in a relationship, and how learning to respect the other's skill is the first step in learning how to incorporate that skill into yourself.

Gift Flow

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:01:00 +0000

Some friends of mine from Yale have started an amazing new site: GiftFlow.org. The idea is a 'gift economy': instead of money, people trade or give away goods and services. No money is needed.

Have you ever heard that money is the root of all evil? I had, but hadn't really thought about it. But like so many cliches that I assumed were not true because so many people said them so often: (the truth must be some sacred unreachable unknowable thing, right?...) it turns out that it is absolutely true. We have abstracted all value from goods and services by placing 'monetary' value on things. Most of us already have the inclination that money is a corrupting force: after all, that's why we pay teachers and social workers and non-profit workers absolute shit, because we have the feeling that if you are 'working for the money' then your motivations are in the wrong place.

And what about all the people that dedicate their lives to making as much money as possible? Could it be that it is not actually a fulfilling occupation? Money eradicates the need of people to try and discover what they, as an individual, could offer of value into the economy and instead plugs them into to 'money-making' careers that have nothing to do with their individuality. Not to mention the whole marketing, advertising and promotional section of our economy, which basically just uses psychological tricks on people so that low-quality goods are shown to be 'worth' more money for superficial reasons.

Money ruins all kinds of things, and it's a force to be fought against, not just a reality we have to accept. I'm not arguing that without a monetary system we could have gotten to where we are in terms of technological advancement, etc. But we are certainly at a point now where we can afford to back away from our addiction to money, and see where it takes us. So GiftFlow.org is a good place to start.

If you are interested in the site and want to show your support, please click here.

Heidi Montag and The Hills

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Sun, 09 May 2010 00:29:00 +0000

I just watched an episode of the Hills that was so disturbing. In case you have been living under a rug/have a healthy relationship to the dribble that passes as reality television these days (as in you avoid it at all costs), Heidi Montag, a character/'real person' on MTV's signature semi-reality shows had 10 plastic surgeries done, effectively turning her into a Barbie.

It's not that plastic surgery on a reality show surprises me--but rather what happened afterwards, when Heidi visited her mom. The reality show went with Heidi on her trip, and captured perhaps the most real moment that has ever been on the show. Here's my interpretation, in quotes:

Mom: Why do you think you have to look like everyone else?

Heidi: I was never going to be happy with the way I looked until I fit exactly into the Hollywood-definition of beautiful

Mom: But you were so beautiful and confident before you went to LA and all this "STUFF" happened.

Heidi: Are you saying that I don't look good? (crying)

Mom: (crying) I don't want to say that you don't look good, since what's done is done, but I just feel so sad that you went through "THIS"

Heidi: (crying) You have no idea what I have been through. You don't know how hard "IT" is for me.

So what is 'this' 'stuff' or 'it'? Obvious to anyone with half a brain, being on the show the Hills. I don't think Heidi is innocent, she has certainly done whatever she could to get her piece of the spotlight and that isn't MTV's fault. And yet, I really do think there is something wrong with a television show basically recording as a girl gets manipulated by an insane man (Spencer) and gets an insane amount of plastic surgery, all while pretending the show itself has nothing to do with the decisions she is making. Why is it okay for 'reality' television to basically ruin individuals lives and then keep recording as if the shit show had nothing to do with them?

I guess what I'm wondering is where do we draw the line. Can we let people consent to anything? What would people say if they created an AIDS reality show, where they could infect individuals with the virus and then record what happened to them? That seems wrong--since it's a physical harm. But what the fuck. If as you are recording someone they develop a mental illness and ruin their life because of the attention you are putting on them, it's just okay to keep going? Jon and Kate plus 8 are another great example of this. I shudder to think how those kids are going to turn out now. And the show was on THE LEARNING CHANNEL.

We have a bias against mental suffering, probably because we are still somewhat conditioned to believe that mental illness is self-caused and can be self-cured. Which is true in a sense, but there is no denying that being brought into the media spotlight causes mental and emotional problems, which are then exploited further and promoted by the show, which continues the cycle until it escalates to situations like Heidi and Spencers. This is wrong, and television producers should be held accountable.

Palm Reading for the Senior Nearing Graduation

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:14:00 +0000

You have very deep and varied lines. This indicates a passionate nature, you tend to absorb yourself completely in whatever activity is currently on your mind, and you can’t let it go until you fully explored every part you were interested in. You have a way of pushing a situation until it goes deeper than most people are comfortable with. But you get along with most people, who appreciate the intensity you can bring to a situation.

Your life line is the curved line that goes around your thumb. Yours is very deeply entrenched with your head line, indicating that you are deeply connected with your family/your home, may still be providing a lot of support to you or you may be involved in supporting them still. This connection has brought you some uncertainty at the start of your life but as you mature you are starting to see yourself as your own person, separate from your origins. Eventually this conflict will come to the large fork at the end of your life, and after a period of deep misgivings you will successfully forge a balance between connection to home and independence.

Your head line is the short line that goes across the middle of your palm. Yours is crossed right in the middle by your fate line and is somewhat short, indicating that there is a moment in your life in which you completely adopt a certain way of looking at things, and this new perspective will completely shape the rest of your career and mental life.

Your heart line is incredibly deep and wide, almost like a crack. This indicates that you tend to become completely absorbed by your emotions, almost to the point that you are not able to respond reasonably to them. You should be proud of yourself for your ability to feel things very viscerally, but learn not to wallow, which just leads to self-centered behavior.

Want me to read your palm? I will read your palm for $5.

Death Bear Video!

noreply@blogger.com (Kezia Kamenetz) — Sun, 02 May 2010 17:29:00 +0000

Woo! Death Bear made a video of us giving away our stuff! Featuring me Spencer Adam Mark and Anya!

Death Bear from Nusha Balyan on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/10448715