Perpectives

When trying to relate to people whose actions or beliefs I do not agree with, it really depends on the situation and the person. For people I am not really that close to, it is really easy to just brush or just ignore the action. Coworkers, or more casual acquaintances, it is more of a watch and learn from them kind of deal. Whereas for closer family members or friends, I would spend some time to see if there is a logical link that they see, but I did not at the time. As for beliefs, they really depend on what kind of belief.

A lot of times, when I see a complete stranger do something I do not really agree with I would just observe them and try to learn from what I see. On a semi-drizzling (or super foggy depending on terminology) day, I parked near a high school to finish eating before heading out to class. The next thing I know, a car pulls up next to the one I was in, and bumps into my car while getting out. I looked up, and saw that her body bumped into my car, but she did not seem to notice because she was busy yelling at the person who drove her to school. Watching that scene unfold in front of me like that, I realized how lucky I was in high school when I was able to get rides home. At first, I could not believe that someone would be yelling at the driver like that, especially when the driver probably had to

change their own schedule to drive her to school. Even though I did not get out of the car to approach her, I took note of how bad of an impression she left on me. There were times during high school when I was able to get a ride to my destination through family and friends, especially when it was raining. While I did not yell at them for the ride they gave me, I know that there were times when I forgot to thank them for helping me after a few rides. Through this scene, I realized how nice it would be for the person helping, if I thank them for helping me. Personally, I do not really yell at people (I may rant, but never really yell… yet) so I do not think I have to worry about me yelling at people, but there were times when I got a ride from someone, and just got out of the car when we got to the destination. From watching the way strangers act, I take notes on what I should or should not do in different situation. I know that there are times when I might act in a similar way to the people I observe, but I hope that the mental image of how it looks to an outsider will keep me from repeating their actions.

That is different from what I would do when it is a coworker or a friend (who is more like a casual friend). With the people I work with, I try to pay attention to my own obligations before really commenting on what other people do (at least at work). A few years ago, I ran into an elementary school classmate who was volunteering at a facility that I was interested in helping out in. She started telling me about which positions I should go for, because it is ‘easy’. There are some positions that would give volunteers more time to surf the internet and such while volunteering. She really liked the department she was volunteering in, because she was dealing with one child at a time, and more volunteers were allotted for the job than was needed. I listened while she was telling me about her experience in the different departments, nodded my head, and thanked her. After thinking about what she told me, and the way her life is, I realized that she was using the volunteering opportunity to relax and distress. When volunteering, or offering my help to people, I like to feel productive. So when I was ranking which departments I want to work with, I made sure to rank my friend’s suggestions last.

In general, I want to try to keep an objective perspective when doing things (when possible). That seemed like a good idea in the beginning, but later I realized how hard it is to actually follow through with that idea. I remember a saying someone told me that states something similar to: use the standard you use apply onto others (when looking for faults) on yourself, and use the standard you use for forgive yourself to forgive others. Keeping that saying in mind, I found that it was easier for me to remember that other people have their own reasons for doing things the way they do. It is through the combination of different perspectives that new ideas are developed. This semester, I was able to see how different ideas and perspectives can be combined into a better representation of a situation as a while.

Transitions

One possible reason for reading “The Guest” right after Fromm is the way the story shows a different way to look at life, or starting from small to big when trying to tackle our personal outlooks when it comes to life. With the reading from Fromm, we worked more on the feeling of love, and started to take a closer look at the events that are happening around us. For me, Fromm got me to stop and really see what goes on around me. Over time, a lot of the details get lost on us, and we have to pause, and see things without the blinders that we normally look through. The reading from Fromm’s book The Art of Loving got me to pay attention to what is happening now, where “The Guest” seems more focused on morals, and the consequences of our choices. After reading the story, I started to wonder why the story was ended the way it was. Going from focusing on our views/morals, to looking into how we might use them in a situation where our responsibility and personal views are at odds with one another. Not only that, but we are reminded that reality tends to change our original view of life or plans. There are so many different elements that change and influence our decisions at different times. Love and the way we interpret it is very personal, a reflection of what we see now, and in an ideal world in a way. Ideal, as in focused on one person, without really having to factor in reality, or the hardships that we might have to face in the ‘real world’ or the future.

Another way of looking at it, is going from analyzing only one perspective, to having to take into account the outside factors that come into play. In The Guest, I feel that the way Daru feels, and what he would prefer to act with the prisoner is changed, because of his job. Watching as he tries to justify his actions and decisions, before letting the prisoner choose for himself. Showing us, that we have to think through our choices, because they all have consequences, we just have to choose the one that seems best for us. A really good way to remind us to think further down the line when it comes to any choices we make in life. The story seems to start at a point that is really similar to the ‘third act’ in Shakespeare’s plays. Because almost much all of the important decisions have already been made; nothing the character does during the story can change the ending (another way to put this, doomed from the beginning).

We transition from talking about our personal views through Fromm and developing them further, to acknowledging that there are different influences that come up when we make our decisions through Daru.

Practicing Love...

While I was thinking of what to write about for the last blog, this one came to mind, but I was not sure it really fits in with the prompt. Since it keeps coming up, and I wanted to get it out.

This past week, I have been hearing a lot about a special event called 311 Love Beyond Borders that took place in Hong Kong for the Japanese people. It was interesting to watch clips of the events, and the responses of the actors and actresses had as they were planning the event. One reason why this kept coming to mind is the theme music that was chosen. The music and video has been playing in my mind for a few days now. Over the break, I remember hearing one of the artists being interviewed about the song. The song itself was already written, and was selected to be translated into Japanese for the event, and checked to be sure that it makes sense. Because the people singing the song do not speak Japanese, they found teachers to ensure that the pronunciation is correct. They chose to have images of folded paper cranes in the event because of the Japanese belief of folding a thousand cranes would help a person’s wish come true. It is interesting to see how many details are in the plans for the event.

Multiple voices and people taking part in the event, reinforces the clo

sing comment on the video, that they are not alone. Having different people singing different parts of the song before coming together as a larger group for the chorus adds to the appeal. It brings to mind a song that I used to listen to as a child. The words can be roughly translated to ‘one stick of bamboo can be bent easily, but it is hard to bend several bamboo sticks at once. Having so many people working together behind and in front of the scene shows how important this is to the people in the production. Being able to recognize most of the people in the video shows me how many of these actors, actresses, and singers care for the people this quake effected. A lot of the people shown are people who are well known and famous, yet they get together to do what they can for the people in Japan. Knowing that they probably took time out from their schedule to work on the song and video makes me want to go out and do what I can to help.

I do not know if it is the video, music, or a combination of both that really catches my attention. Seeing so many people working together to do what they can to remind the people in Japan that they are not alone, leaves a really big impact on my mind. While I do not know exactly what the song is about (until I looked up the English lyrics), it still gave me a feeling that I am not alone in the world. This video reminds me not to make judgments about a person because of what they do, and to pay attention to the events that are happening around me now. Focusing more on the present than the past or future, because you never know what can happen in a split second. Not only that, but to concentrate on using what I have and what is available to accomplish tasks, instead of what wishing for something that I do not have. I really like how the event shows everyone that love truly has no boarders. While writing this, the quote about if you truly love someone/something let them/it go, and if it was meant t

o be, they will come back to you. Sometimes, we have to step away from what we have before we realize how lucky we are to have what is around us. From this, I am going to try to take notice of the people around me, and help who I can with what I have. I will give the concept of working with various people in a group setting another chance while keeping an open-mind, because a group of people working on one thing is better than one (depending on what it is….).

When it comes to love, I feel that it is different for me at different points in life. Drawing from some lyrics (with a rough translation) “What is love? You want to know, and I want to know the answer, and in the end we will go crazy thinking about the answer.” combining that idea with something I read recently, where someone states 'Romance is not an idea, but a state of mind,’ seems to describe the way I think about love.

The Horrors of High School

For this experience, I will be going back to my senior year of high school. That year, my friend and I kept up with all the clubs and activities because of how much fun we had the year before. Student government that changed so much, that it became overwhelming for a small group of us (four of us who ended up with everything). Planning events turned out to be more of a chore than anything else. It was as if there was an invisible checklist for the planning process. A of people (mainly the president and her friends[for this group I’m just going refer to them as *president*] ) come up with the script and plays the main roles in the assembly, while a smaller group (me and my friends) gets stuck running around for supplies, making posters, and filling in the details. What kind of details you ask? Getting supplies, running the sound system, checking dates with the moderators, and cleaning up. Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t mind cleaning up after the school events (ripping up the posters is a great stress reliever) but doing so with a small group of people, while others are sitting around doing nothing.... That is a different story.

(I know that this will turn out to be a rant, so feel free to skip this paragraph, maybe skim the next and really start reading the paragraph after that). For the annual Christmas school assembly someone (who only goes to the meeting once a month), came up with the idea to throw ‘snow’ off of the catwalk (up high, over the audience section) to make it seem like it is snowing in the theater… So, the week before, my friends and I went around the school emptying out the hole-punchers for snow while the *president* stays in the office, and ‘iron out the details’ on the script of the assembly. The morning of the assembly, no one in *president* was there to help set things up, instead they stayed in the office to work on the details some more. So, my friends and I ended up setting everything up with the help of the moderators. The actual assembly turned out pretty good for the most part. The people sitting near the front loved the snow, while the people in the back wondered why they did not have any snow…. Little technical difficulties that came up as the plans were put into motion. Other than that, everything else went smoothly. Once the theater emptied out, my friends and I cleaned up what we set up that morning and went to lunch (we had lunch time right after the assembly and class afterwards). We were done…. right?

About ten minutes into our lunch, the student body president marches up to our table, demanding to know what my friends and I were doing, eating lunch instead of cleaning up the theater. The clean up details for this event got left out of the planning stage (AGAIN!!), so she has to walk around and get people back to help clean up the mess in the theater. We thought we already did, turns out she meant cleaning up all the snow from the seats, because another school was coming in at the end of the day to use our theater… Most of us assumed that the rest of clean up will take place after school, when we would have more time clean. Nope, we had to go clean up right this moment. So my friends and I left our lunch with some other friends and went to work. Half way through the lunch period, the president had to stop because she was getting sick from the dust. So she and her friends go to the office to ‘clean up’. That left the five of us (me, three friends and the moderator) to clean up the mess while sneezing our heads off (turns out 3 people are like me, we sneeze a lot when it gets dusty). We were not really done when we decided to stop cleaning. Our teacher (my friends and I have the same class after lunch) was waiting for us, before he wanted to start teaching because of how important the lesson was. The moderator decided to give all of us a break, and stop there. When we get to the office to pick up our stuff, turns out when we were cleaning, the *president* were busy having a party in the office, and made a bigger mess out of the stuff than was there originally.

During all of that, I know for sure I was not really open-minded, because I was so angry at some of the people. Now, looking back (thank you for letting me get that out of my system), I learned a lot from that experience, and from later events that stem from this original one. It has helped me develop being open-minded more. Not only reminding me that open-mindedness includes listening to other people’s views and opinion, but their interpretation on different events/directions. Now, when I ask other people to do things, I try to make sure to show them how much I appreciate it. Or, if it is something that needs a group of people, I try to stay and do the work with them. That year alone taught me how humble people in student government (or any one with some power) can be. No matter how hard one tries to plan things, the plans fall part, and how hard it is to please everyone in a group of people. While this experience is not one of my favorite moments in life so far, I feel that I have learned a lot from it. I have learned how I do not want to treat people, reminded how easily responsibilities can be forgotten, and how humility can help pull people together sometimes.

It is now a little easier for me to remember that the world does not revolve around me. Even before the clean up event, I do not think I was really self-centered but now, I feel that I am more aware of the people around me. To try to put the needs of the people around me before focusing too much on what I want/need. From this experience, I realized how important it is to consider how the people around me will see/think about my actions before actually acting.