My thoughts on the ordination of women

My former roommate Andria has been getting deeply involved in the political sphere.  Pretty much every day my pinterest is flooded with her pins about equality and feminism and all sorts of good things.  She keeps a feminist blog.  She was recently featured as a guest blogger on youngmormonfeminist.org.  She was addressing the current debate about the ordination of women to the priesthood.  Here is the link to her post.  

As I was reading her ideas I came up with some of my own and I wanted to share them.  

Andria is firmly in favor of the ordination of women.  Her post systematically addresses each of the most common arguments against it.  First she addressed the claim "if God wanted women to have the priesthood then they would already have it."  I think she makes a valid point when she says that there have been very clear moments in the history of the saints where God has waited for us to ask before he has given us greater knowledge or light.  She says that perhaps God is waiting to grant women the priesthood, but he is waiting for us to be ready and to ask for that gift.  

As I said, I think she makes a fair point.  And I would look at Elder Holland's talk in this weekend's conference to confirm the principle of asking and questioning that I think many people often forget is fundamental to the LDS faith  (tangentially, just everyone please go and watch that talk again because it was one of the greatest talks I think I have ever heard).  But I think that there is a corollary that comes with that idea that Andria doesn't quite address.  As she says, sometimes the Lord is just waiting for us to be ready.  But...what if we aren't?  What then?  I think Andria would say that that is what the Ordain Women movement is all about.  Getting us ready so it can happen already.  And I can understand that.  But I think it is important to remember the balance--that is, no matter how ready you think the world and the church and the people are, if you truly believe that the Lord is in charge and that the Presidency are abiding by His wishes and it hasn't happened...well...then it isn't time.  I understand how defeatist that might sound.  I don't mean it that way.  All I mean is that, again as Elder Holland said, you have to keep perspective and remember what you do believe.  Don't abandon something you know to be good because it is not yet perfect.  I guess that is what I'm trying to say.  Don't get frustrated if things don't happen as quickly as you want.

Andria addresses men who dismiss the Priesthood as busy work and women who dismiss it as just another responsibility to add to their already maxed out schedules.  I'm slightly bemused at how she tells men who belittle the duties of the Priesthood that they deeply misunderstand the fundamental nature and significance of the authority they wield, whilst simultaneously telling women to calm down because it's not such a big deal in terms of the commitment required.  Be that as it may, I think I can respect at least the hesitancy of women on these grounds.  When I think about the possibility of adding priesthood duties to my life I literally think "awesome...another aspect of my life to feel guilty about for failing to maximize my potential..."  Perhaps it is petty of me to feel that way, but that is, unfortunately, the way I feel.  I don't think I'm "lame" for this.

And lastly, she addresses two points which I am going to combine.  She talks about the "men and women are different but equal" argument and the "men have the priesthood and women have motherhood".  Both of these are, to me at least, essentially rephrasings of the argument that men and women have different strengths and different roles to fill.  She asserts that if women are equal then they should be equally able to care for themselves or their families (or visiting teachees) if they do not happen to have a man handy to take care of the blessing and the household running--as many women do not.  She says that motherhood is not a true compliment to priesthood.  Fatherhood would be the true compliment of motherhood, and priestesshood of priesthood.  She very interestingly points out that motherhood is more a physical ability (no matter how nurturing a man might be and how rejecting of gender stereotypes...he simply cannot bake a miniature human within his lower abdomen; there is no oven there) and priesthood is a spiritual gift and discipline (a woman is absolutely capable of humbling herself and making herself in tune with the spirit).  I think that is a really fascinating distinction that I personally haven't really heard addressed before, and is definitely worth considering further.  

But this was my thought as I read her comments on these issues.  It was actually prompted by my dad and step-mom teasing me.  My dad texted asking me if I wanted the priesthood and I texted back absolutely; eventually we'd manage to excise men from the church entirely.  And I realized that that was actually an important thought.  

I'm going to go all historical on you now and take us all back to high school.  Do you guys remember Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education?  These were two of those landmark cases you learned about in your social studies class that shaped the history of America.  Specifically, Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education dealt with the philosophy of "separate but equal" during the time of segregation (were gonna go ahead and pretend that time is past, despite this slightly gratifying (they're forcing change!) and simultaneously vomit-inducing (they even had to have this fight in 2013????) story that recently came to my attention...I just can't get side-tracked by that issue just now).  Essentially, in Plessy the courts legitimized segregation, claiming that as long as everything was equal it was totes fine to keep them dark kids separate from them light kids.  This was in 1896.  60 ish years later, Brown overturned this legal precedent, famously asserting "'Separate but equal' is inherently unequal".  Integration painfully ensued.

Those words.  "Separate but equal is inherently unequal."  I think those words have sunk deep into the American psyche since 1954.  I think they have really been at the heart of the seemingly endless struggle for equality for all the people (all of them...women, gays, blacks, immigrants, whatever).  See, we look at something like Plessy v. Ferguson and we can see exactly how awful that decision was.  There was no equal.   "Separate but equal" meant "We get the nice stuff and you get the shitty reject stuff."  During the days of "separate but equal" everything was horrible.  During the days of "separate but equal is inherently unequal" things started to get better.  And we've spent the last 60 years drilling that into our minds.  If it is separate, distinct, or apart then there is an inequality there.

At the same time, however, somehow that idea has paradoxically been fused with a sort of obsession with personal independence.  Equality has come to mean that every person is able to do every thing for themselves.  If you are dependent on another human being that means that they hold power over you and must therefore consider themselves superior to you.  Sometimes, of course, this means opportunity if not actual ability--"I could definitely learn to be a mechanic if I wanted.  I simply choose to invest my time elsewhere and pay this fellow to mechanic for me."  You get the point though.  Everyone must know they have the option to do everything for themselves if they wanted to.

So when I joked with my dad that ultimately we feminists were going to get rid of all the menz in the church and get things done ourselves it suddenly occurred to me that maybe we should think about that.  The Ordain Women movement is, as Andria said, about granting women the ability to take care of their and their families' priesthood needs themselves.  Which is good, right?  Equality is being able to take care of yourself by yourself.  You don't have to depend on anyone else; no one else has power over you.

Except I can't help but think about the idea of a community of saints.  That is the ideal toward which we are working, isn't it?  A loving, close-knit community of saints who care about and serve each other.  That is the goal.  If we are all striving to become fully independent so that no one needs anyone else, somehow that just doesn't feel like a loving community to me.  So let me ask you this.  What if the reason that women don't hold the priesthood has absolutely nothing to do with their abilities or the lack thereof?  What if it is all about teaching us to come together?  What if the whole point is that you can't do it alone?  Even that single mother.  Maybe the gift she needs isn't that she can bless her children herself; rather it is that some brother in the ward has the opportunity to come serve her and strengthen the bond between them.  

It requires a fundamental shift in perspective to look at the "gender" rolls of the church in this way.  It is a shift from viewing male and female interaction as competitive and antagonistic to complimentary and constructive.  I can understand why such a shift may well be impossible for a lot of women.  I don't think I will ever become a true feminist (a fact which I am completely ok with) because I will never see the battle in every day life like they do.  And I'm glad that they do.  Their efforts have materially improved my life.  But I think that this is an idea worth considering.  "Separate but equal is inherently unequal" may or may not be the great truth we believe it to be, but I submit this: "different but equal" is not the same evil as "separate but equal".  As some banal YA book once said: a key and a lock look completely different to the point that if you knew nothing about them you might never believe that they were companions; indeed, each serves a completely separate purpose.  Yet neither can fulfill that purpose without the other.  Sometimes differences bring us together so that we can combine our strengths and abilities and become better than either of us were apart.  Better than we ever would have suspected had we insisted on doing everything alone.

It is important to understand that I don't have any sort of fundamental problem with the idea of women being ordained to the Priesthood.  I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of lobbying the leaders of the church to affect changes we think are necessary (aren't we supposed to believe that they're inspired?) but I appreciate the importance of having the debate.  If the first presidency ever comes out with an announcement that women are to be ordained to the priesthood I will not have a problem with that, though I understand many likely will.  But I wanted to share my thoughts on this topic because they feel true and important to me.  I hope they do so to you.

Some thoughts on the terrifying world known as dating

So.  Here's what's going on in my "love life" as they call it.  I met a guy.  He's a really nice guy, taller than me, attractive, clever, interesting, and I just like him.  Cool.  But now we enter the strange nether world that is gender dating dynamics (bonus! at BYU!).  See, I like this guy so my thought is "I should ask him out!"  You know, dates? That really awesome way you can spend some prearranged time with someone you think is cool to learn more about them and decide if you want to spend even more time together to the point where it isn't even prearranged anymore.  And they are learning about you and deciding the same things about you too.  Dates are cool!  Smooches might happen!

Pretty much every guy that I've ever discussed the issue with has come out strongly in favor of girls asking guys out.  They complain that girls have it easy, they don't have to deal with all that rejection and stress and pressure.  They just get to sit back and let all the boys come to them.  And then, of course, they hold all the power.  Who isn't familiar with "nice guy" syndrome?  It's become a very popular topic of conversation on the internet lately.  Nice Guys feel that women are just constantly shutting down perfectly decent dudes because they don't think they're attractive enough; they think they're "creepy" (a catchall word women have basically just turned into an excuse not to go out with a guy); they're just too dang picky; or my favorite...they guy is just too nice and secretly all women love douchbags.  In short, maybe if women started shouldering their fair share of the burden of asking out then they'd realize they need to start giving more guys a chance.

All of this adds up to a pretty clear vote in favor of me asking him out, right?  Oh but wait...

See, I've always been in favor of pretty blunt honesty.  The few times in my life that a bloke has really struck my fancy I generally have been pretty up front about it.  I'm not good at subtlety and I don't like when there's something everyone knows but no one is allowed to talk about.  So if I want to spend time with someone I have no problem being the one to do the asking.  I should be every man's dream girl, right?

But do you know what happens?  I invite a guy to watch a movie or grab dinner or whatever and he gets all kinds of awkward.  Suddenly I'm that freaky, over-aggressive girl who is socially awkward and a little stalker-ish.  Everyone knows one of those girls.  It's like Caleb said today when I asked him how he feels about the girl being the one to do the asking.  He said "I'm ok with it...as long as I like the girl."   Cause see, when guys say they want girls to ask them out, what they really mean is that they'd really like the girls they're interested in to ask them out.  When the girls they aren't interested in ask them out then suddenly it's "Whoa!  What is she doing?  Why is she asking me out?  I never gave her any reason to think I was interested in her.  Why is she forcing me choose between being a jerk and being polite?..."

The thing about that reaction...it's exactly the same thing that is going through a girl's mind when a guy she isn't interested in asks her out.  But what's funny is that guys don't have to deal with it nearly as often as women, so they a have a much poorer response.  It doesn't occur to them that it is possible for them decline politely and kindly.  Instead they freak out, get insanely awkward, and make the offending girl feel like a troll.  (Admittedly, some girls do this too...)

There is some merit to the idea that everyone should be willing to give nice people a chance.  You may not be initially attracted to someone, but I can attest to the fact that you can also find someone more attractive the more you get to know them.  But there's also both a book and a movie called "He's just not that into you"   for a reason.  Because the fact is, if you don't fancy someone you don't fancy them.  Don't be a Nice Guy (or a Nice Girl...they exist).  People are allowed to just not be into you and it is ok.

What I'm saying is this.  Guys, if you want girls to take some more initiative then maybe try to let go some of the stigma that get's associated with an assertive girl.  If she asks you out that doesn't mean she's "aggressive" or a stalker.  I mean, she might be, but the fact that she asked you out should not be the only evidence you have.  And this last bit applies to everyone.  Just calm down.  Asking someone on a date does not need to be such a big deal.  It doesn't mean anything at all besides the fact that someone thinks you're kind of cool and would like to get to know you better.  Which shouldn't be a bad thing.  It should be a compliment.

Some thoughts on a Saturday...

My friend Jenna posted this video today on a friend's wall

I have so many thoughts about this video.  So many.  And, as the good Humanities major that I am, I am sitting here writing all those thoughts down in a blog post.

First and foremost is just...dang.  It's straight up funny.  I mean, completely and unequivocally funny.  Go ahead and laugh and don't feel bad.

Next, this video brings back all my fascination with the human impulse to exhibitionism.  How many videos or pictures have you seen of someone doing something crazy simply for the sake of being seen?  So many I can't even begin to count.  What is it about human nature that so craves attention that it is willing to do bizarre things like dance around in front of people nearly naked to get it.  That almost diminishes it, though.  To say that some of these people are just seeking attention.  Sure, some truly are.  But others, like this gentleman here I think, or like Amanda Palmer in her street performing days, or like certainly many others...some of these people are seeking connection, or love, or truly just to make people happy.

I'm referring to just the beginning of her talk here, but please listen to all of it as it is wonderful

Or perhaps they simply want to express themselves and themselves is an exuberant, demonstrative person who simply cannot be contained in one single self but must bubble over in dance and song and action.  Whatever the reason, I am constantly fascinated by these impulses.  Trying to decipher those reasons, trying to understand why this expression, simply enjoying their moment...

Then I think about this specific man.  Regardless of his reason, he was brave enough to display his, shall we say "less than ideal", body quite fully.  In fact, it seems as though he makes rather a habit of doing so.  You could say that, for this specific gentleman, clearly it does not actually require courage to dance around in a speedo.  But I disagree.  Even if this man couldn't care less about parading his physique naked in public...that doesn't change the significance of the act.  It doesn't make him any less brave.  It remains inspiring to me.

This is where it comes back to me.  It's my blog so I'm allowed.  Anyway.  Remember how I've hinted a couple of times at a project I was thinking about for a while that didn't work out?  This project I was thinking about was to become a model for the art department for the drawing classes.  For those of you who don't know what that entails, it would boil down to me striking various poses in front of rooms full of strangers for a couple of hours at a time...wearing nothing but a bikini.  Anywhere but BYU it would be completely naked, but we gotta maintain our standards here at the Lord's university.  But the point is that I would be stripping myself down almost completely and exposing myself to people.  Nothing between them and all my imperfections, my fatness, my awkward shape and movement, and my blemishes.  I literally cannot think of any more socially terrifying activity.  It didn't happen in the end, not because I chickened out, but because I'm not taking enough credits this semester to qualify for a campus job.

I just have to remember that it's ok that I don't look like this.  This is
a profile picture for this model

I wasn't going to strip down just to satisfy my own exhibitionist impulses.  I don't really have many of those.  They got lost in some box with my mob mentality.  I thought it would be good for me.  I have a couple of friends who do this and they've told me a little about the experience.  The people drawing you are not evaluating your attractiveness or relative levels of physical fitness.  They're viewing you as an art.   They are de-personing you in the best possible way.  In the process of drawing your body simply becomes a thing, neither good nor bad, to be captured on paper.  And the end results can, and often are, beautiful.  Letting someone draw you and then looking at that drawing is a way for you to dissociate from your mental filter and see yourself through someone else's eyes.  Not to mention, you're standing there in front of them for several hours...I can think of no more effective means to metaphorically throw your body image and self-confidence into a lake and let it swim or drown.

Which leads to my last thought about that man.  Yes, we're getting back to the rotund dancing fellow in naught but a speedo.  Scroll back up and watch him again for a few minutes.  Look at how happy he is.  Feel the confidence that flows out of him.  You watch him for a while and suddenly....you forget that it's funny cause a fat guy is dancing naked.  Suddenly you're watching a happy, wonderful man be happy and wonderful.  His physicality is peripheral.  His enjoyment of the moment overwhelms our impulse to judge and in the end we love him, even think he's beautiful, because we see happiness and vitality rather than a contrived social construct of beauty or ugliness.  You don't care that he's "gross".  You don't care that he keeps missing the changes and doesn't know the moves.  How could you care?

This is the best lesson this video teaches me.  Simply be happy and be confident.  No one cares if you screw up while you're trying.  No one cares if you aren't perfect.  No one cares about any of those negative things. What they care about is that you're happy and you're sharing that happiness with everyone around you.  Because you are happy, they have become happy as well.  If you can give that to people then no matter what you look like you will be beautiful in their eyes.

So I shall endeavor to stop worrying and simply dance.

The distorting properties of the inner looking glass

Those of you who read my blog (all 3 of you) know I've sort of been on a little bit of a theme recently.  A self improvement theme.  If you missed them, here's the first and second post.  I'd like to continue on that theme today, but from a slightly different angle.  This post is about my mother.

I have been suffering recently from a lot of frustration with my mom.  It's not what you're thinking.  I'm not talking about your typical teen/young adult parental angst.  I haven't lived with my mom in years, I'm pretty much done with all that angst.  No, I'm talking about something else entirely.  My mom is brilliant, extremely gifted, and beautiful.  My frustration stems from her absolute inability to accept those facts.

Let's start with a description of my mom.  My mother is beautiful.  She has brown hair and brown eyes and a uniquely lovely face.  I have always felt like she looks like a real-life Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painting.  

something much like this painting by John Williams Watherhouse 

She has these beautiful delicate hands and long wrists that, odd as it may sound, have long been my great envy.  As for her abilities...

My mom was strong enough to separate from my dad when he abused their relationship.  She was strong enough to forgive him completely and take him back, and then to leave for good when he abused that relationship again (I respect her for every single one of those decisions).  My mom raised two very young children singlehandedly.  She worked incredibly hard at some very menial jobs at first and then essentially created the need for a completely new position at the local boys and girls club in New Mexico for herself.  She then packed us up and moved us up to Oregon ostensibly to help my great aunt who was, at that time, taking care of my great grandmother whilst also dealing with a newborn.  However a large part of her motivation was nothing but her faith in a prompting she received that she would meet her future husband in Oregon.  She did  meet the man she ended up marrying; she then committed to this man with significant and sometimes frightening baggage of his own.  She has remained committed to him for the last 18 years and poured herself into their relationship.  And in the last couple of years she took the entire weight of caring for her own mother throughout the progression of grandma's dementia with no help from any of her siblings.  

My mom is an excellent cook and baker.  She decided there was no reason to pay exorbitant prices for store-bought chocolates so she taught herself how to make her own hand-dipped gourmet chocolates.  Her children wanted absurd and impractical birthday cakes so she taught herself how to make them.  She created extravagant costumes and dress-up clothing for us purely through trial and error--she didn't have patterns or Pinterest to tell her how to make a crown or a scepter or an entire Native American costume complete with teepee.  She taught herself how to paint and draw and sing and play the guitar and piano.  She makes cards, and hand-made boxes, and face pins, and Ukranian easter eggs, and  so many more amazing things I can't even remember them all.  She writes songs and makes her own jewelry.  She has created a beautiful, calming space in our front and back yard.  She has recently started writing a story.

these are nothing compared to some of the ones my mom has made

I haven't even mentioned my mom's ability to empathize with people, her sincere concern for others, her commitment to her responsibilities, her ability to understand and help people, or her determination to put others before herself.  Truly, the list of my mom's achievements, abilities, and gifts is a long one.  

But do you know what she'd say if you asked her to list her own gifts?  She might say something about her proclivity for counselling (the vocation she's always dreamed of), but almost immediately she would start telling you about anything but her positive qualities.  She might tell you about her sister and how much greater Vicky is than her.  She might tell you about her husband or her kids.  Or she might start telling you about all her own failings and faults and flaws.  This is because she legitimately does not see all of those amazing things that I just told you about.

You might say my mother has anorexia of the mind.  Just like an anorexic girl looks in the mirror and sees an obese delusion rather than the slender (often even unhealthily so) reality, my mother looks at herself and rather than the capable, creative, beautiful reality she sees an ugly, incompetent, stupid, inadequate illusion.  

No matter how many times you tell the anorexic that she's crazy; she isn't fat; she has to eat something because she is quite literally wasting away...she will not listen.  She cannot.  She can see herself right there in the mirror and she can see how fat she is.  So it is with my mother.  No matter how many times I or my aunt Vicky, or everyone else in the world tells my mother that she is smart and talented and able; no matter how many times we tell her that she can do things; we tell her that she is hurting herself and those around her...she will not...she cannot believe us.  Can't she see for herself how untrue all of that is?  Can't she see how inadequate she is?  

I cannot remember a time when my mother was happy with herself--with her weight or her appearance.  And I have a remarkably good memory.  My entire life I've been listening to my mom say that she isn't smart enough for this or that; she's not skinny or young enough to wear that dress or those earrings; she's not talented enough to play that song.  She is never good enough.  Never.

It could be argued that what divides us from the "lesser" animals is self-awareness.  But, like so many things in this life, our great blessing and strength is also our great weakness.  There is no more vicious voice of criticism, judgement, and critique than the one inside your head.  Because you are aware of exactly how often you fall short of the mark.  Outsiders don't have the benefit of seeing our expectations, intentions, and goals alongside our actions like we do.  So they don't know just how often those actions are actually pathetic, half-assed failures.  At least, that is how it seems to us.  Because that mark you're falling short of?  It is self-imposed.  It is your mark, not the rest of the world's.

So when people tell my mom that she is wonderful she looks at her self and her life and her plans and she sees that they aren't what they're "supposed" to be so she says "it's all fine and good for them to say that...but they don't know what's really going on."  

How do I know this is what is going on inside her head?  Well, I suppose I don't for sure.  But I'm pretty confident.  Because she passed this right on to me.  

came from this guy's pretty awesome blog here

Kara came over last night to visit.  We had a really great talk, during one point of which she said to me "We've both turned out to be pretty great.  We're both confident, smart, capable women."  Do you want to know what my instant mental response was?  Something along the lines of "hell no I'm not confident!"  I am terrified all the time of every single thing!  I don't feel capable of dealing with things, I don't think I am particularly good at much.  I think I'm smart, but I'm constantly worried that I'm about to discover that that is not the case.  I assume people don't want me around or they don't like me.  I believe that the man I marry will have sacrificed being married to a woman he finds physically attractive to be married to one with "other qualities".  I am not exaggerating.  These are the constant refrains inside my head.  

Where did I start this?  I said I am frustrated with my mom.  

My mom has told me that she is convinced that her children hate her.  She thinks that my brother and I hate her.  Our mother.  And that is why I am frustrated with my mom.  Because her self-loathing and self-doubt are reaching crippling levels.  And there is nothing I can do to shatter that mental mirror that is showing her such a lie.  There is no way for me to communicate to her that that inner critic is lying.  That her children love her.  That she is brilliant.  That she is creative and capable.  All she can see and all she can hear are her own perceived inadequacies.  Every conversation, every interaction, is filtered through the distorting lens of her insecurities so that it inevitably comes out supporting her negative opinion of herself.

As I struggle through the process of conquering my own issues, dealing with my own self-doubt and self-loathing I keep looking at my mom's life and that is what keeps me motivated.  Even before I started this project I can see that I have been doing some of this.  I am trying desperately to not be my mother.  Not because I don't love her and not because I don't think that she is amazing...but because she does not believe she is.  And that is what I don't want to emulate.  

Yesterday I fell in love...

Yesterday morning I watched How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.  Incidentally one of the last tolerable Matthew McConaughey films ever made, unless you count Magic Mike, in which he simply plays himself.  In this movie you have savvy, cute, intelligent Andie Anderson (played by the queen of the decade Kate Hudson), a writer for the fastest growing women's magazine who wishes she could stop writing silly How To articles about getting skinny and avoiding tickets and could instead write something called "How to Bring Peace to Tajikistan".  Cause, you know, she's super smart!  And you have Ben Barry, an advertising agent trying to snatch a big diamonds account from two super slutty coworkers.  Andie tells her boss that her next article will be "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" where she'll start dating a guy and then drive him away using all the usual mistakes that most women make.  Ben makes a bet that he can make any woman fall in love with him in 10 days, and if he wins he'll get the big account.  The evil slutty coworkers pick Andie, who happens to be at the same "top watering hole for the young upwardly mobile", to be the lucky girl.  The rest of the movie is Andie bouncing between being her charming and delightful self and an insane, clingy, devil-spawn and Ben trying desperately to not shoot himself in the face as he tries to deal with her and also make her fall in love with him.  Hilarity ensues.

I still enjoy this movie on a very superficial level.  It's mildly funny to see all the things Andie does to drive Ben crazy.  But the entire time I am just thinking "this is absurd!  What is wrong with these people that they're actually doing this?  What is wrong with them???!!"  Why would you screw with someone like that?    And then why would you keep screwing with them when you started to actually like them as a person?  Not only that, but here are two young adults in very promising careers who have so few problems that the only way to create enough tension for a movie is to manufacture the world's stupidest work....assignments? bets? whatever... This is not my life.  I don't know whose life they're supposed to be portraying, but it is no one I know.  The whole thing left me with a distinct disgruntledness.  Who are the people that are supposed to identify with that movie?  This movie was made before my generation had quite grown up and faced reality.  It was made in a different time, in a different social atmosphere and it is no longer relevant to the world in which I live.

So I looked for something made very recently.  I wanted something contemporary and indie and real.  I found The Giant Mechanical Man.  I'd seen a trailer for it several months ago and remembered wanting to see it.  It stars Jenna Fischer (aka Pam from The Office) and Chris Messina (Danny from The Mindy Project or the husband in Julie and Julia) as two 20-30 somethings who are trying to figure their lives out.  Jenna plays Janice, who gets fired from her temp job, not for being unreliable, but simply for allowing her apathy for temp work to show.  Without a job she gets evicted and has to move in with her well-meaning but terribly insensitive sister who is constantly trying to "fix" her life for her.  To satisfy her sister, Janice takes a job selling concessions at the zoo (a job for which she is terribly overqualified, as the manager mentions when she hires her).  Tim is a street performer who dresses up as a giant mechanical man and wanders around the city.  He loves it, but when his girlfriend leaves him because she can't stand "the artist's struggle" any more, he decides he should try getting a "real" job, so he also gets a job at the zoo working sanitation.  The two quickly become friends.

I watched this movie first at work.  Then I came home and asked Matt if he would watch it with me.  I wanted to share it with someone.  He wrote his own review of the movie here, and I really like everything he said.  I sort of want to take up where he left off.  He talks about how this movie depicts real life in all of it's awkwardness.  People rarely talk to each other in perfectly turned phrases and bon mots.  They don't say the right thing.  Often a conversation is much more silence while two people try to think of something to say to the other that isn't completely stupid. This movie captures that in a really lovely way.  He also talks about how it is a movie about our generation and our problems.

This is what I wanted to talk about.  I have long been fascinated with the way movies reflect the cultural atmospheres in which they're made.  Where How to Lose a Guy reflected the optimism and the carefree feelings of pre-recession America, The Giant Mechanical Man reflects the bewilderment of my generation.  I don't have links to them right now, but I've read dozens of articles about my "lost" generation.  Articles about how people my age are waiting to get married, how we're losing the art of human interaction due to social media, how we aren't sure we are ready/able to be parents, and of course, how we are struggling to find something beyond "college work" that we could call a career.  We are supposed to be adults now, but we don't know how to do it and we're not sure we could even if we did know.  At one point Janice says "I feel like those people you were talking about, like I was just born into this life and I'm supposed to know what I'm doing.  Like I'm supposed to have it all figured out.  But I don't have it all figured out.  I just feel lost."  I feel like those words sum me up.  They sum up so many of my friends.  This movie is about feeling like everyone else somehow has it together, somehow has a plan, somehow knows the magical secret that you don't about how to be a successful human.  It's about wondering why you don't have that secret; what's wrong with you if you can't figure it out. But it is also about how to deal with that.

Tim invites Janice to go to a party with him.  It's a birthday party for some friend of his.  When it is time to blow out the candles on her cake, the friend stands up and gives a toast.  She thanks her friends and she thanks her man.  She says "It only takes just one person--just one person--to make you feel special, and valid, and like you belong in the world."  Later that night Tim is trying to explain to Janice why he likes her so much.  He tells her that she's real, and honest; he says "when I look at you...I can see you.  I can see you."

Yes, The Giant Mechanical Man is a love story.  But it's not a love story about two perky, adorable people saying perky, adorable things to each other and being oh so witty and oh so clever.  It's a love story for my time.  It's about two people who aren't sure what their life is supposed to be finding each other and telling each other that they understand.  Every time Tim and Janice talk Janice will try to explain her thoughts or her feelings to him.  She is not eloquent, she can't express herself clearly, but his response is always "I understand.  I get it."  She doesn't have to word it quite right because he's felt what she's trying to explain.  He knows it already.

There were so many other things that I loved about this movie.  I loved the colors.  I mean...I loved the colors.  They're rich and vivid and beautiful.  I think it is beautifully shot with some very interesting visuals.  I thought the music was fitting, it didn't feel overwhelming or blatantly manipulative.  So many things about this movie were perfect.  But the overwhelming feeling that is still lingering this morning--the thing that outshines all of the other wonderful aspects--was that this was a movie made for people like me.  It wasn't cloying or absurd or perky.  It was awkward in the realest sense.  It was sincere and unsure.  And it was honest.

Personal Progress...

I'm not gonna lie.  I kind of hated personal progress when I was a teenager.  It didn't seem important to me, the projects seemed like busy work, New Beginnings was an annoyance.  And yet, here I am at 26 struggling to take control of my life.....I'm trying to institute my own version of personal progress.  Howe humiliating.

I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about a better way to motivate myself to improve the things that need improving.  I said at the time that it was likely to be the first in a series of, um, (for lack of a better/less cliche phrase) self-makeover posts.  At the time I was thinking my next post would be a continuation of the "I'm great right here, right now" theme.  However, the project I was thinking about at the time isn't happening just now (don't worry, I'll talk about it later).  Instead, I've been thinking today about the "where I want to be" side of things.

Last night I did 10 sit ups.  Just 10.  And then I stopped.  And I am not joking when I tell you that my abs didn't even wait till morning to let me know that they were not excited about that idea even a little bit.

this is how my guts felt.

I texted Kara after I finished: "I just did 10 sit ups and then stopped.  Clearly I am not good at exercise."  She texted back enthusiastically "that's excellent!"  Bless her heart.

But here's the thing.  Between none sit ups and 10 sit ups.......10 sit ups is excellent, if only because it isn't none.  Because even if I only did 10 yesterday, maybe today I'll do 15.  Or maybe I'll just do 11?  But the point is that I'm doing something, and if I start small, well then there's plenty of room for improvement.

the one place we all know will always have room for improvement
also, this is from xkcd.com, in case you live under a rock...

Part of the reason that I never work out is because I think about the prospect and I think about how much work it's going to be and it literally drains me of every ounce of....of anything!  Of desire and energy and good intentions.  (at this point I would like to post the clip of Jim Gaffigan talking about going to the gym, but alas it does not appear to exist on youtube.  so instead I'll tell you to go to netflix and watch both of his specials because they're ridiculously funny, and pay special attention to the part about the gym).  Anyway, I think this is because I assume that if I work out it is going to have to be super maximum hardcore and intense and I'll have to spend so much time on it and it will make me want to kill myself.  As I explained to Kara, the evening we spent making and gorging on poorly executed yet nonetheless delicious and fattening candy, I have never yet experienced the so-called "runner's high".  That is to say--I don't appear to have a body that releases endorphins when I work out.  I get exactly nothing from the experience except exhaustion and misery.  I'm not hyperbolizing for rhetorical effect.  I feel like shit after I exercise, and all I want to do is die.

ah grumpy cat...you never fail me

But I realized last night that when you're as out of shape as I am.....well, maybe starting with 10 sit ups is a perfectly good idea.  In my defense, I want you all to imagine not just that you're doing normal sit-ups, but that you're doing them with a 10 to 15 pound weight sitting on your chest.  Not to mention, you have the abdominal muscles of a 3 year old with stomach flu.  But the point is that I realized that...I could stop at 10.  It was something, but I didn't have to keep going till I hated life and wanted someone to punch me in the face to distract me from how much I hated it.  And more importantly, I stopped before I became overwhelmed at the impossibility of doing this insanity to myself more than one random night in my life.

And one last thing....even if I don't do 10 sit ups tonight, or 15, or 11, or whatever...I will do them tomorrow and that's ok.  Or if I do them tonight, but not tomorrow, that's ok too.  If you fail on any given day all it means is...well, nothing.  Tomorrow is, as Scarlet O'Hara says, another day upon which any previous days have no bearing.  I won't get overwhelmed and I won't get discouraged.  It's funny how cliches are cliche for a reason.

Sometimes a little self-love is not a bad thing...

One of the key aspects of Mormonism (and probably most other religions, but I don't have firsthand knowledge) is the idea of repetition.  That is--you can never hear those "plain and simple truths" too many times, you can never read the scriptures too often, you can never study the gospel so much that you no longer have anything to gain from it.  Endless relief society lessons on visiting teaching and motherhood aside, I have found this idea to be, more or less, true.  Not simply at church, either, but in many other facets of life.  In fact, there is one particular idea that comes to me, epiphany-like, every couple of years.  It's like seeing fireworks; even though you've seen them before and, really, one firework is pretty much exactly the same as the next firework, every time you see them again it's like the first time.  They're beautiful and thrilling and dazzling no matter how many times you see them.  That's like this idea of mine.  Every time it bursts inside my head it is illuminating and inspiring like the first time I ever thought of it.  Even though it's clichéd and recycled.  It is simply this:

The most effective changes in your life come from self-love, not self-hate.  

So many times I have taken stock of my life and and I have looked on the results with loathing.  I have been so disappointed in myself.  I've seen my failings and my faults and I have asked myself why I have not yet fixed them.  I can't understand it.  I know what is wrong, I know what needs to be done to fix it, and yet the problems remain.  How pathetic must I be that I can't just fix the damn things already?  Over and over again I come to the same conclusion:  I must not hate my problems--my sins--enough to excise them from my life.  I must secretly like all these faults.  I must not want it badly enough...

 I must not be unhappy enough.

That's consistently where my thoughts end up.  So many times.  So I just hate myself a little more.  And it's a beautiful system, really, because it's so self-sustaining.  Now, not only can I hate myself for my imperfections, but I can also hate myself for, apparently, deep down not hating them and for lacking the discipline to change all these things I hate, which means that I can hate myself for choosing to be miserable....you can see it just keeps going...

But amidst all that disappointment and dislike, do you know what doesn't happen?  Any of those changes I wanted way back in the beginning.  I get so distracted and weighed down with hating myself that either I don't have the time or attention for actually fixing the problems, or I simply give up and accept that it's not worth the effort for someone as pathetic as me (and even if it was, it wouldn't work anyway).  You can see the problem here, I think.

Do you know when I have had success changing myself and my life?  Clearly it is not when I am depressed and full of self-loathing.  The times when I have had the most success effecting the changes I want to see in my life are the times when I love myself, and am proud of myself, and tell myself that I'm doing ok.  

The way it works in my head is that the more I hate myself, the less I am worth the effort of trying to improve--why suffer through all the work I know it will take for something I actually dislike?  But the happier I am with the current me right here and right now, the greater the value in investing in this self.  If that makes sense...

Which finally leads us to the here and now.  I honestly have no idea why it is happening, but I find myself in a place where I am consciously trying to cultivate that positive attitude about myself .  Usually this sort of positivity requires the kick-start of an extended and extreme happiness.  But I can't really say I've been extremely happy all that much recently.  Regardless, I have started trying to invest in myself.  Those initially minute investments have been enough--not enough to inspire greater investment, but enough to remind me of that ever-recurring epiphany.  Enough to inspire me to start loving myself so that I will then want to continue investing even more in myself.  

There is a lot more I want to write on this theme.  There are some specific experiences and challenges that are looming on the horizon that I want to discuss.  But in the interest of length (this is already too long) and time (it's my bedtime now...) I shall leave those for another post.  This is enough to be going on with for the time being...