Simulated Household

Running as fast as my untied shoelaces would take me, I raced the four blocks that separated me from a dinner time curfew. With the pounding echo of the concrete beneath my tiny feet and the opposing wind fighting to slow me down, my dreams of getting home on time were quickly evaporating with every step. As I sprinted closer to my street, I could hear the laughter of rowdy boys coming from the clearing behind the house at the end of the block. It was the kind of house that you only heard about in storybooks, with broken shutters hanging on by a single rusty nail and the exterior walls taking on the image of a kaleidoscope made out of chipped and weather altered paint. I imagined the boys chasing one another with plastic guns, taking on an unscripted ownership of the made-up role each one of them had decided to inhabit that day. I imagined them screaming the kind of obscene words that would get any young kid into trouble. I imagined the complete inverse of what I was running from.

Behind me I left a world of pre-approved make-believe, were the parental endorsements of perfection, domesticity, and etiquette were uplifted to a higher standard than individual thought. I left a hung-up heap of princess dresses that held the power to turn any well-behaved little girl into a jealous and devious woman of intention. I left a put away pile of Barbie dolls that were never allowed to wear the same outfit for more than a moment and yet forced to act out the exact same script day after day. I left the credence that imagination was encouraged, but only if it followed the unwritten, pre-ascribed rules of pretend.

The crunching sound that the dead grass of my front lawn and my pristine tennis shoes made when they finally reached a place of conversation brought me back to reality as the front door to my house came into direct view. As I rushed into the house, I got the same sensation I always got when I came home; the sensation that I could run forever and never hit a back wall; like the inverse of a shoebox diorama, where the front image of our house was what was projected outwards and the rest of our house was what hung in that perfect, exposed, and unchangeable moment. I often think, as an adult looking back, that my distaste for make-believe stemmed from the reality that I lived make-believe. I lived in a fortress of outer walls that sheltered our simulated household from the rest of the neighborhood, providing us the cover of paragon under the disguise of shutters and siding.

Our interior walls serviced only as a way to divide our vast space into functionality, allowing every room to find its autonomous purpose. Our kitchen had perfectly matched dishes and utensils and a spotless and unmarked refrigerator that never held pictures or spelling tests. Our living room had a couch that was always perfectly fluffed; a bookshelf that held novels no one ever read; a television that operated purely as a visual means of diversion; and framed pictures that connected to nothing but the monetary subtraction from a bank account. We each had our individual rooms, but our rooms could have been placed beyond the structure of our walls and they would have functioned just the same; as a socially acceptable way to avoid, deflect, and/or hide from one another.

Dinner was ready when I threw my backpack into the hallway and sat down at the table. My mother was ceremoniously washing pots in the sink, her eyes completely glazed over, clearly retreated into her own mental conversation. My father was sitting at a side desk, Bibles and Lexicons spread out one on top of another and a highlighter in hand, clearly trying to puzzle together the plagiarized and unoriginal thoughts he had written on his piece of paper. My little brother was already seated at the dining room table, his legs and fingertips bouncing about, clearly ready to get the ritual over with so that he could go back to his Transformers and Power Rangers.

As my mother brought food over to the table, my father stood behind her chair, in the same manner that an adult stands behind a child while walking through a buffet line; pretending to be helpful, but, in actuality, just assuring that they don’t fuck anything up. This habitual gesture never stemmed from a place of support or chivalry, but rather from the repressed realization that this was the best he could offer her, as if pushing her chair in every night made up for the fact that he didn’t know how to love her.

It was at our dining room table that I learned how to fantasize; tuning everything out, I removed all of the internal protocols of acceptable daydreams for a little girl my age and for that ½ hour, I forced myself to believe that anything was possible. I fantasized about being a boy; in my limited perspective, being a boy meant dreaming without limitation; it meant thinking without boundaries. Boys got to dream about changing the scenery, while girls had to dream about changing who they were; girls had to become someone else, whereas boys got to go somewhere else. I fantasized about being a missionary in Africa; in my idealistic perspective, going to Africa meant being free of structure and obligation, and getting the opportunity to be something without having to be something for someone else.

Every evening, after dishes had been cleared and nightly routines started in their processes, we ceased to exist as a family. We retreated to our own corners of the house, but being under the same roof didn’t make us any closer than if we had retreated to our own corners of the world. We lived out separated portraits of an ideal family, but that’s all that we were; alienated pictures that held no connection to one another. We were the perfect family of pretend.

The Quest for Uncertainty

"The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning; uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers." - Enrich Fromm

Early one Thursday morning, nearly four-and-a-half years ago, I was in a Rite Aid buying toothpaste. As I made my way from the aisles of oral care up to the front registers, my eyes happened upon a pretty blond scrutinizing nail polish colors. It was early and all I wanted was to properly brush my teeth before getting ambushed by the need-to-be-caffeinated business men I was about to encounter at work, when something odd occurred. Usually, when happening upon strange women I'd think something like "nice shoes;" that morning I thought something like "those nice shoes would look good on the floor of my bedroom." Interesting, I thought.

Three days later I was perusing the freezer aisle of a Trader Joe's when the woman next to me reached sideways to grab a bag of vegetable samosas. Her crowded basket swung in the same direction and collided with the glass barrier of the open-top freezer, the bag of frozen stuffed pastries slipped from her hands, and everything feel to the floor. I reached down to aid in the collection of the fallen groceries and thought "Yep! Definitely a lesbian!"

It took me no more than 72 hours to go from pseudo-default-heterosexuality to absolute-alacritous-homosexuality. One day I was deciding between Crest and Colgate and before the weekend was over, my entire life's outlook was different. For me, I became aware of my first gay thought, I offered myself the compassion to allow that thought to present itself again (and it did!), and I came to an undoubtable crossroad; I could a) ignore the thoughts and rationalize them into some form of insecurity or b) I could embrace them, stand up for myself, and accept the homosexual perspective as good. SPOILER ALERT: I choose B. This isn't to say that I took my sapphic-realizations lightly, but that when such an indubitable crossroad presented itself, I merely decided to choose the path that lead to naked women.

There's nothing safe about accepting the non-conventional, non-normative sexual outlook, but I did so because it was true for who I was and it sounded like a lot more fun to embrace it than to hide from it. (i.e. pretending to be a heterosexual sounded exhausting.) It might not fit social convention, and it certainly didn't fit the conventions of the people closest to me at the time, but it was me and that was good enough.

I am having the. most. difficult. time. accepting this ideal when it comes to a career path. I have values. I have dreams. I have goals. None of which fit into the "Prix Fixe menu" of the professions available. My personality doesn't match up to some career aptitude test and the realization of that is completely paralyzing for me. I want to write, but I don't want to be a glorified advertiser or grammar inspector. I want to stand up for justice and freedom, but I don't want to sit in courtrooms debating monotony and triviality. I want to be something that matters, but I don't want to sell myself out to get there. It seems reasonable to assume that I could make my own way in the world outside of the dogmatic notions of a career path, but I am having an inexplicably hard time settling into the uncertainty of that.

It's as Henri Fredric Amiel once said: "uncertainty is the refuge of hope."

Casual Impotence

"It is known that Whistler [the famous British painter] when asked how long it took him to paint one of his "nocturnes" answered: "All of my life." With the same rigor he could have said that all of the centuries that preceded the moment when he painted were necessary. From that correct application of the law of causality it follows that the slightest event presupposes the inconceivable universe and, conversely, that the universe needs even the slightest of events." -Jorge Luis Borges

There is a premise in the theory of ethics that asserts that there are some actions that an individual takes that have no extended relevance in the world; that there are some things you do that have no impact. In other words, what you do doesn't matter. Philosophers refer to this theory as 'causal impotence'; situations in which the cause of something produces nothing except sterility. For instance, it has been argued that utility-based vegetarianism, while nice and all, is essentially ineffectual. Peter Singer, the leading philosopher on animal liberation, once wrote, "All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals." Many people have attached this ideal to the reasoning and rhetoric of vegetarianism, arguing that the compassion-motivated ideology of vegetarianism is essential to ceasing animal suffering. However, many people have also attacked this ideal by arguing that the sole abstinence of eating meat is impotent to a solution. (There is a solid argument to be made that the industry surrounding animal products isn't nearly sensitive enough to be swayed solely by an individual's choice to renounce meat, but does that mean that the individual's choice produces absolutely no results in the world?) This is, in essence, the debate around causal impotence. Can you perform (motivated) actions without any form of consequence?

How you answer the above question depends, I think, upon your personal worldview. Do you view the world vertically or horizontally? Do you think of the world like a time-line, where events are related, yet not reliant, upon one another? (The horizontal worldview isn't completely without a reliance factor though; it can (does) apply the analogy of dominoes, but I don't find that analogy particularly productive, mostly because it exudes feelings of predetermination that I find vapid. Once a domino falls, the entire set of dominoes is destined to fall as well. Where's the free will in that?) -OR- do you think of the world as a giant game of Jenga, where events are entirely reliant upon the previous events and entirely effect the subsequent ones? In a Jenga world-view, you are certainly free to make whatever move you choose, but that move directly effects any future moves. Everything builds upon everything else and there isn't anything that doesn't have some sort of power.

There are people that go through life certain that they are causally impotent; that what they do doesn't have an impact on the people around them. People that make choices and are then shocked when future events begin presenting themselves. (I'm this way about food: I eat cookies and am shocked when my pants no longer fit.)

I have recently come to the epiphany that my father is this way about our once-was relationship. He's the one that choose not to stand up for me as a kid. He's the one that kicked me out because I stood up for myself and voiced my perspective. He's the one that choose not to respect what I had to say. And when he came waltzing back into my life as if nothing had happened, he acted shocked and hurt that I wasn't eternally grateful for a second chance?! He's the one that decided that I wasn't good enough and there is nothing impotent about that.

I do not find the argument for causal impotence compelling. I believe that for every action there is an equal and necessary reaction. In the case of utility-based vegetarianism, I take the perspective that, if nothing else, the extension of compassion does good for our world. Abstaining from animal products might not have an immediate response in the food industry, but I refuse to believe that valuing compassion or striving to reduce suffering in the world (whatever form of suffering that might be) doesn't make some kind of difference. Actions aren't impotent. What you do matters. When people reject who you are or what you stand for, it's not unreasonable to move on with your life and its not unreasonable to refuse to cater to their shock when the residual events begin presenting themselves.

There's a place for forgiveness, of course, but at what point do I get to forgive and then forget without everyone jumping down my throat.