Matter Over Mind: The Battle Will Never End

A funny thing happened yesterday.  I closed my eyes to blink, and when I opened them, I had gained ten pounds.  I worked the Weight Watchers program for three months and lost 14 pounds.  Fourteen pounds!  And I felt successful, proud, confident, healthy, and beautiful.  And then I stopped.  I knew I was no longer eating 1200 calories a day, but it just didn’t seem possible to gain the weight I’d lost.  It was hard work to get rid of those pesky pounds.  I’d sacrificed!  I’d said no!  I’d eaten many more leafy greens than I’d thought possible!  

I got too confident.  That’s what happened.  It’s like there is some force out there waiting for all of us to say, “Okay, I’m good where I am.  I don’t need any more self-improvement.”  And then this force comes along and hits us over the head with the reality hammer as if to say, “Oh yeah? Ha!  Get back to work!” 

It seems that just the day before, I felt so satisfied with my NBW (new body weight) and content to leave thoughts of my IBW (ideal body weight) where they belonged—in the past with my high school memories.  How could it be that without any warning my body had morphed yet again into something I don’t recognize, something I don’t want to have to claim as my own?  It seemed that overnight, the weight crept back into my body as I slept soundly, innocent to the invasion.  But I know the reality.  I stopped writing down everything I ate.  I stopped measuring my food.  I stopped thinking I needed to be a control freak hiding from food because I wanted to be a normal person again.  And over the course of about two months, the weight found me. 

                The truth is, I’ve battled with my weight, and the body image that goes along with it, since I was 12.  That’s when I started to get fat.  Actually, that’s when I started to be un-starved.  That’s when I was removed from an abusive foster home and placed with the people I now call my parents, the two most generous, loving, kind people I know.  So that’s when my entire life began to change for the better.  However, I still had to survive the strange bodily alterations of pre-pubescence and the angst of adolescence.   

                Anyone who’s ever gone without food due to homelessness or abuse will understand this perfectly, and everyone can probably imagine this to some degree—when you are denied food and then you no longer have to worry about when or where you will get your next meal, you will still worry about when or where you will get your next meal.  To put things simply, when there was food, I ate it.  As much as I could.  Just because I could.  Because it was in front of my face or on my plate or in the cupboard.  And I never learned how to stop.  I never felt full until after I stood up, walked away from the table, and felt the guilt of gluttony burning in my mind.  But more importantly, I ate because I was free.  So I came home from school and ate my way through a bag of Chips Ahoy before dinner.  And I rushed through a plate full of food without feeling my stomach’s response.  I thought about food constantly.  What was I going to eat for breakfast? At breaktime?  Why wouldn’t lunch come sooner to answer the growling in my stomach?  And I wanted more of everything immediately.  One scoop of ice cream could never be enough.  A small soda wouldn’t cut it.  My mind was always in preemptive mode, always knowing what my heart felt—that I was hungry.

                On some level, food became my therapy.  I was eating my emotions and my inability to deal with my childhood.  I didn’t realize this when I was a teenager, but looking back, I know that food was something I could control (or so I thought), something that I physically held in my hands, and eating it was my choice, and having that control empowered me.  Ironically, overeating is ultimately a weakness, illness masked by the delusion of control. 

                When I’ve shared my battles with overeating and wanting to lose weight, people have responded in the typical fashion: “You’re not fat,” “You’re crazy!” “People would love to look like you!”  What these comments do is invalidate my feelings of powerlessness.  Each person’s body is an individual journey.  Our bodies carry us through the sufferings of our lives, and they should be praised as such.  However, we must also be realistic about our relationships with our bodies.  It is not someone else’s job to make me feel good about my body.  It is my responsibility to be my own parent, to treat my body with respect.  That means I need to see my body as deserving of good food, moderate exercise, kind words, and a lot less pressure than I put on it to be better than it is.

                Women have it tough.  We live in a world that loves the beautiful and thin and shuns the ugly and fat.  And as we age, it becomes even harder to sustain that outer layer of beauty that passing eyes will either accept or avoid.  Isn’t it enough that we are smart and productive and kind?  Yes.  And no. 

But I’m tired of feeling like I’m not good enough, not thin enough.  And you know what I’ve realized?  I’m the only one who thinks this.  I’m obsessed with whether I look fat or whether I lost a pound or gained three.  Who cares?  Nobody.  Everybody else is obsessed with how fat they are

                As I round the corner of forty, and my body rounds itself out a little more every time I blink, I hope I can remember to keep some perspective.  Calories are like a runaway train.  They get away from you when you aren’t paying attention, rip through the hillside, destroying villages and laying waste to everything in their path.  And before you know it all you can do is sit down, glued to the television, anticipating the horror as some journalist regrettably reports the tragedy that has unfolded. 

Studies show that some bodies like to hold on to fat more than others.  I was given the gift of this glorious fat gene.  And I got my grandmother’s bright blue eyes and her child-bearing hips.  I wish I’d known when I was twelve that once I allowed my body to create fat cells, my body would always have more of a propensity to fill those fat cells up again.  But would it really have made a difference?  Psychology usually wins over science in the mind of a troubled girl.   It’s a difficult thing to have your mind at war with your body.  I see myself in a body that’s 20 pounds lighter, firmer, tighter.  But my body wants to be where it is. 

What is twenty pounds, anyway, but 8% of my body weight pressing on my heart, pushing on my knees, pulling on my ego?  What good is a stomach if you can’t rest your soda can on it when you’re watching TV?  What good is Weight Watchers if I stay at my goal weight?  Mustn’t I always be striving for something…better?  They say that stress creates cortisol, which makes you fat.  If we’re always stressing about being fat, aren’t we just making ourselves fatter?  Maybe if we thought less about what we weigh and thought more about eating to live instead of living to eat, we would take the guesswork out of staying healthy.  Maybe it’s a simple as “Listen to your body, and be good to it.”

I know it’s not fair that your friend Betty Bones can eat her weight in Oreos and never gain a pound while you are gaining ten pounds right now just thinking about those delicious chocolaty lard treats.  I know it’s not right that Skinny Sally never exercises and her size 2 clothing hangs freely over her shapely form while you Zumba for an hour a day, followed by Pilates and a 2-mile hike, only to wake up the next day bloated and convinced you either have to stay home or go to work naked because none of your size 14 clothes fit.  Life is not fair.  We are all different and complex and broken and beautiful.  And we each have a unique path.  And some of us just need to work a little harder at weight management.  Once we stop comparing ourselves to others and once we stop demanding that our bodies be what we want them to be instead of what they want to be, we might find some semblance of peace, some tiny morsel of contentment.   We must be confident in our own skin, own and love our bodies unconditionally.  We are who we are, not what we eat.  Thank God for that, because I don’t have any clothes shaped like miniature peanut butter cups. 

In the Age of Dragons

Sometimes when the fights begin,

I think I’ll let the dragons win,

But then again, perhaps I won’t,

Because they’re dragons, and I don’t.

                                       --A.A. Milne

I just watched a brief video about a young man who was beaten by a group of basketball jersey-wearing thugs. On a busy street in NYC.  In broad daylight.  Did this man steal a woman’s purse?  Did he attack a child?  Did he wave a weapon in the air?  Had he just robbed a bank?  What did he do to deserve such brutality?  He must have done something horrible, something unspeakable, something that required others to step in lest he wreak more havoc on this otherwise still, calm, beautiful day.  This is not a world in which unjust things happen; this is not a world in which hate triumphs over love.  Wait, I’m thinking of a dream I once had.  Yes, we do see random acts of kindness, unexpected friendship, and color-blind love.  Everywhere I look, I might see something that will capture my heart and work towards restoring my faith in humanity.  But I’m not stupid.  Or new.  Or naïve.  Unfortunately, I know I am just as likely to witness cruelty or intolerance. 

           The handsome young man with the bright-blue eyes in the video?  Yeah, he was holding his boyfriend’s hand. 

           How can we have come so far in so many ways and yet be so barbaric?  How can any form of mutual, respectful, innocent love trigger such hatred in anybody?  I’ll never fully understand how, but I think I know why.

            Edmund Burke has said that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  From this, we are to understand that even though evil may win many battles, evil can never truly be the victor as long as good people fight for what is right.  In the video I watched, the young man speaks of two others who were beaten by the same crew the next day.  The group of criminals can been seen on video footage walking calmly, almost as if they could be on their way to a basketball game or the movies or anywhere…and not on their way from the scene of a vicious hate crime. 

             Sadly, when the victim opened his eyes and sat up, he saw a crowd of people.  Nobody stood up for him.  Nobody helped him.  I imagine a colorful mob of people similar to that in Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn elbowing each other to get a better view of the tragedy.  They are as much responsible as the perpetrators themselves.  Since when did it become acceptable to snap photos of a grim scene rather than actively help another human in need?  Ironically, people know it’s wrong, or base, or weak to do this, yet this is what many keep doing.

             So to this young man who made the video, I say, thank you—not for being a victim so that those who see your bloodied photos can feel their humanity in their guts, and not for being gay so that we can all press on in the hope of a more loving, unified future, but for being courageous enough to speak out and post this video.  The men who attacked you are monsters, for sure.  But like termites or cockroaches, where there is one, there are hundreds, maybe thousands more.  The path to acceptance is tough, and the journey is long.  Those cowards may have knocked you down and shed your blood, but your reaction shows that they have not beaten you in this filthy war of hatred and intolerance.  You continue to fight the dragons because you must, and I admire you for it—for everything you are. 

            Awareness can spread like fire in this age of social media.  Let’s hope it can burn ignorance to the ground one small mind at a time.

Pop Culture Props

Lately, I've been interested in this idea of "my new and improved life."  I'm not teaching anymore, not getting up at 6:00 every morning, after a thirty-minute fight with the snooze button, not sleeping in the shower, not panicking on the freeway as I pass accidents in progress or slam on my brakes in a sudden reflexive jerk because the driver in front of me has tapped theirs for some unknown reason.  My daily life is better, if only because of the relief of not having to march a million miles a minute to the routine I had adopted.  And yes, I am less stressed without the workload that comes with teaching.
However, there are many pleasures of teaching and working that I miss.  One thing I've noticed, among many others, is the fact that not being a teacher is causing me to act more my age.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I still like to stay up late, go out and have a drink or four, drive to L.A. for a mid-week concert, and wear clothes that have caused my husband to say things like, "Your clothes don't seem like the clothes of a forty-year-old."  The fact that I still enjoy all of these things, does not mean I recover from them like I used to.  Still, except for the sound of gravel in my knees as I walk, and the subsequent pain that follows whenever I, say, run, or jump, or stand from a seated position, I feel pretty young.  I definitely do not feel like I'm rounding the dreaded corner of forty in less than a month.  If only the way I feel could somehow alter the reality of my situation.  Now, I'm all for growing old gracefully, and being the best you can be in the body you've got, and all that motivational self-love stuff; it was just so much easier to espouse those ideas when trying to comfort someone else.  Now that I have to apply these rules to myself, it's a little more difficult.  So, I try not to think about it.

What I have been thinking about is pop-culture.  I've been feeling an emptiness in my soul--a wide, dark hole in my mind.  I used to secretly pride myself in my knowledge of the Jersey Shore cast's latest antics, the new controversial music video of the moment, the can-you-believe-thats and the oh my goshes of TMZ.  I used to know who Justin Bieber was, and Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, and Vanessa Hudgens, and all of the other up-and-comings, and I used to know what they were wearing, where they were going, what they were doing, and who they were doing it with.  And I used to kind of give a shit.  And it was all for the sake of my students.

It used to mean something to someone if I knew who Amanda Bynes was when I had a student on the first day of school try to trick me into believing that was her name.  Because I watched America's Next Top Model, and so did many of my students, we could talk about how wrong the judges were for voting off this girl or that.  And when I had a male student who dreamed of being on America's Next Top Model, the the show became a catalyst for his trust in me as he shared his struggles with being a transgendered individual.  I still watch America's Next Top Model, but that's beside the point.  The point is, there is no one keeping me on my toes, no one who thinks it's cool if I know the lyrics to their favorite song, no one who might care if I care to be in their world and understand their language.  Teaching kept me in the loop, and it kept me young.  There is an argument out there that being interested in pop-culture is a vapid, meaningless pursuit.  Certainly, there are far more important issues on which to focus than Kim and Kanye's dim-witted decision to name their baby North.  But when you're standing before a group of teenagers and what they want most in life besides money and women and cars is to connect with others, it gives you a little more credibility as a real person.  I was more than an authority, more than some lady who knew nothing about them, more than a robot who shut down at night and slept in the classroom closet.  I became someone who could actually speak to them.  I became someone who might have had something in common with them.  Or at least that's how I felt.

When I first started teaching, I was twenty-two years old, and I cared too much about being liked.  I thought that if my students liked me, everything would be perfect.  They would all listen to me with ears perked up, backs straight, and hands neatly folded on their desks.  I thought they would easily grasp everything I said and taught.  I was certain they all would complete every assignment and earn A's on their assignments.  I thought that if I cared, they would care.  I was truly idealistic and stupid!  I didn't know what hit me.  My days alternated between those that brought tears and those that brought hope.  I hated and I loved my job.  But I was not really connecting with my students yet because I was still walking on glass.  I lacked confidence, experience, and wisdom.  And I lacked the most important thing of all: the knowledge that for students to succeed in school, they must first and foremost respect the teacher.  Being liked comes later, if at all.  Over time, I cut my teeth on their variety, their angst, their mob mentality, and their vulnerability.

I realized later in my career that many of my students probably didn't like me.  But once I shifted my focus from being liked to being effective, the rest seemed to follow.  And it mattered that I could bring in examples dealing with pop-culture because it was a language that almost all of my students could understand.  Now that teaching is gone from my life, and my students with it, much of pop-culture has made a graceful exit as well.  I miss it because I long for what it represented--a means through which to connect with others, a mode of trivial communication that almost always led to laughter and often to critical thinking. 

It's impossible to keep up with all of the shows and tabloids, and as I get older, I find myself less and less interested, which makes me and my knees feel older.  I could spend my time reading pages and pages of heartbreaking truths such as the chemical massacre in Syria.  But I'm too sensitive.  My husband shares what he reads with me, and it keeps the sadness to a minimum.  I am aware of the world, but I'd much rather laugh or get lost in the silly lives of celebrities.  I want my down time to be mindless.  I don't want to ponder the misfortunes of the planet or the ramifications of war.  I don't want to see children dying in the streets, even if I know they are.  I want to be somewhat blind.  Ignorance is bliss, yes?  And what I don't know won't hurt me?  Or is knowledge power?  I'm not suggesting that we all turn to pop-culture as a means to deny the cold, hard truth. I think balance is the answer.   So for now, I will go back to watching Project Runway.  As it turns out, the fashion world can be pretty cruel, but nobody dies--unless you count the suicide of Alexander McQueen.

I guess what I'm realizing is that there's a part of me that needs a little bit of reality TV, a little bit of pop-culture, a little bit of relevance.  It's the kind of stuff that I don't feel bad about, and if I had a group of students this year, we'd probably be working on a persuasive essay right now.  We are not Congress, so I think we'd delve into the power of advertisements and what they're really trying to sell. Maybe we can discuss Syria after we've played with puppies and eaten a bunch of candy.  Aren't you more likely to have power over whether or not you buy Axe Body Spray than whether or not America goes to war?

I'm not saying that current events aren't important.  I'm just trying to say that most of us would like to see some rainbows and butterflies before we can begin to contemplate death.

Que Sera, Sera?

American author Joseph Campbell said, "Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls."  I am a believer in the universe.  It seems that once I open a figurative door for myself, the universe opens others that I may be interested in walking through.  Is life just one big game of Deal or No Deal in which some “other” presents us with opportunities that we can choose to accept or renounce in lieu of potentially bigger, better prizes? 

I find this idea fascinating for a couple of reasons.  First, if we can somehow choose to believe that the universe cares about us at all, we might be so inclined to give the universe credit for the good things that come into our lives.  If we find ourselves suddenly happy after a period of sadness, free and fortuitous after a time of distress, content after a time of dissatisfaction...we are then likely to thank God or Jesus or Jehovah or Shiva or Buddha or whichever divine over-soul in which we have invested our faith.  Conversely, if we find ourselves down and out, or miserable, we are quick to announce that we are unlucky or that the universe is not on our side. 

Second, while it seems to be true that once we begin to actively participate in our own lives and take steps in the direction of some goal, opportunities arise where there seemed to be none.  Is it true that those opportunities were not there before?  And then, magically, once we initiated something on our own, “Abracadabra!” that opportunity just appeared?  And now there is the perfect job opportunity on the Internet?  The Writer’s Workshop only 20 minutes away instead of all the others that kept popping up that were over an hour away?  The other temporary job opportunity that ends just before the perfect one will begin?  Or can things like this be chalked up to timing and receptiveness?  Maybe we just weren’t looking in the right places.

And if it is true that the universe opens doors for us once we begin to open doors for ourselves, how can it also be true that "when one door closes, another one opens"?  Are we just apt to believe the proverb of the day?  Or is there really something to this idea that once we stop acting like we are lazy, helpless, unproductive couch potatoes, the universe starts to notice that we might have something important to offer and like a good mentor, he says, “Hey, now!  That’s the spirit!  Now that I see you aren’t about to rot away, I’m willing to help you get back on your feet!  Is the universe interested in the tough-love parenting style? 

As much as I’d like to believe that the universe is in my corner, wiping the blood off my brow and pushing me back into the ring after I’ve gotten myself up from a devastating blow, I have a hard time believing that we have no control over our destinies.  At times, it may seem like the universe has us tied to invisible marionette strings by which it controls and directs us.  Why do some people seem to have it all together while others suffer one misfortune after another? 

Determinism is the belief that everything that happens is a result of something else that has already happened.  To follow this philosophy is to adhere to the idea that we are what we are, which was determined by our genetic makeup, and that we are literally puppets on strings, dancing only to the predetermined choreography over which we have no control.  The one saving grace of this ideology is the thought that we can take care of ourselves and do our best to be healthy.  We can eat well, exercise, and work with what we've got, or, as my grandfather says, "play the hand we're dealt."  And doesn't this make sense!  Each of us has entered this world through no choice of his own.  We were given a unique and specific DNA.  We were given "free will."  And we suffer or prosper according to the choices we make.  But wait.  What about the five-year old girl who dies from cancer?  Did she make “bad” choices?  Or the child in Africa who was born with AIDS? Or the hungry?  The destitute?  The mentally impoverished? The mentally ill?  The addicts who are in too deep to ever swim on their own despite renewed attitudes and recent changes toward progress?  These individuals can only do their best within their means, but they do not have control of their lives.  They are not truly masters of their lives any more than an infant is the master of the house.   Is the universe their master?  Did "God" deal them a bad hand, and if so, is that it?  Some are just unlucky? 

In true Fatalistic philosophy, the Universe does not care one iota about us.  Without any education about such philosophy, many readily accept whatever will be, will be.  Que sera, sera.  Ultimately, we know that life on a grander scale is out of our control.  Still, many of us are perpetually concerned with ourselves and our place in the universe.  We ponder the meaning of life.  Any one of us might be seen standing under the vast, starry sky, face upward, asking, "What about me?  What is my place in this world?  What does it all mean?"  And the universe will simply sparkle in all its natural awe and glory, failing to notice, failing to respond, failing to offer even a morsel of clear advice.  Yet everywhere, we choose to see signs that tell us what we should do.  Is this the universe speaking through allegory and vague interpretive possibility that could’ve been missed so easily?  Maybe what we perceive as “a sign” that we should or should not do something we have been meditating on is truth deep inside of us, the answer we know in our hearts.  Often it is the answer we knew all along but chose not to hear.  Is this the universe speaking to us and through us?  We see signs when we are emotionally, mentally, and physically ready to deal with the repercussions of change.  How can it be that the universe happens to be on our side or against us whenever we choose to vocalize that it is just so?

I believe in karma as well as a kind of determinism.  I think an individual's ability to possess knowledge of self-truth is determined by how much that individual cares to seek truth.  I believe there are truths that are unchangeable--the knowable laws of the universe--the facts we can prove, and I also believe there are individual truths that vary from person to person and that change with age, wisdom, tragedy, and understanding.  These are the abstract and messy laws of love, faith, humor, and purpose. 

Regarding humor, I intend to imply not only the varying codes for laughter in any culture, but also the four bodily humors described by ancient Greek philosophers, the elements of air, water, earth, and fire than exist in all of nature, including the human body.  I say these are abstract and messy because even though everyone possesses the four humors, these elements are ever-changing, unpredictable, and unforgiving.  Like in anti-Transcendentalist literature, we can easily see the ways in which nature is an aggressive, unforgiving force that imposes its brainless will upon humanity.  Hurricanes, Tsunamis, Tornadoes, Forest Fires, Earthquakes and other natural disasters destroy with impunity.  These monsters of the universe have no moral compass, no compassion, no conscience.  If these elements are borne of the universe, and these elements are mindless, might they represent a mindless master?  Why would a God that is good unleash such terrors on the world?  Because these are the natural will of God, an omnipotent, omniscient, being who has predetermined the fate of all souls.  This Calvinistic doctrine, while quite extreme, can be used to explain what otherwise remains inexplicable. 

So, if we argue that the universe is God, the universe is our master.  How, then, do we explain free will?  According to the Bible, God gave humans free will.  This would suggest that predestination is incorrect, for what need do we have for free will if our fates have already been determined?  Unless each choice we make is predetermined as well.  However, if that is the case, then our choices are not our own, thus nullifying free will.  And if our choices are random, we have no control over them, which also nullifies free will.  Each of us believes that when we make a choice, that decision is our own, and it is not one that has already been decided for us.  The Whole idea of doing what Jesus or God would do seems to nullify the concept of free will as well, since you are not choosing what you want but rather what Jesus or God would want.  Yes, you could still avoid that option, even upon recognizing it as God’s will, or whatever.  So that is the foundation of free will?  Your choice?  But how will you ever know whether you actually chose it or whether God or the universe “made” you choose it?

Let’s go back to the forces that impose their will upon us.  The elements air, water, earth, and fire impose their will upon the body through DNA, and then, throughout our lives, in illness, temperament, folly, and vice.  There are innumerable factors that play upon us and render each of us unique.  We are malleable, conscientious, sentient beings.  Therefore, how can we merely be puppets of the universe!  And yet we see that many people face obstacles that seem impossible to overcome while others coast through life.  Is this also not a property of fate?  We are all, to some degree, slaves to our circumstances.  I see no easy way out of this philosophical dilemma.  Perhaps I am unwilling to take a firm stand on either side because I remain ignorant about so much regarding philosophy, religion, and science.  Perhaps I am just unwilling to claim I can know anything of such magnitude for certain.  I concede that there are unknowable truths.  Faith is not enough.  At the same time, I admit that faith is necessary because we are thinking, feeling beings.  Some people rely on their faith, and that is all.  I cannot presume to know that faith is the answer to these dilemmas.  Likewise, I cannot presume to know that it is not.  

Each person must adopt his own creeds, his own set of truths within the architecture of the basic principles of morality.  I think life is about happiness through security and empathy and understanding and curiosity.  My God is love.  But my DNA is so very different from yours.  No one person has the authority to judge what is right or wrong for another.  Why is that we know we cannot know what it's like to be someone unless we've walked a mile in his shoes, yet we continue to preach, belittle, scorn, and condemn?  Author Dave Eggers has professed one thing that most of us can safely know for sure:  "Everyone disappears, no matter who loves them."  Fatalistic? Yes.  Meaningful? I don't know.  Is it what life all boils down to?  Or is that ever-sagacious bumper sticker true in that “the one who dies with the most toys wins?”  That probably is not the answer—at least not for me anyway, unless by “toys” you mean “clothes” or “shoes.”  I have so many questions and not so many good answers.  Maybe the universe can help?  Let me look for a sign.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/josephcamp134756.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalism

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3371.Dave_Eggers

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/shakespeare/fourhumors.html