Imperfections

While I should be studying for my Biology midterm, I am finding myself in desperate need, instead, to write.

I feel as though I am in the middle of some sort of crisis: my life and outlook is at the crux of dawning on a new level. It isn't that I am overly emotional, or that I am spending extravagantly, but instead that my mind and heart seem more unsettled than ever before. I am frustrated with myself, with others, and frustrated with frustration. Moments of clarity seem to be a rare commodity for me right now—I am frustrated that I am so concerned with what is going on inside myself!

I need a new job. The fact that I work for Starbucks is irrelevant; I have become so disenchanted with my assumed role within society. In Linden, serving a cup of coffee to someone was different. The customer became a person, and I, the barista, was a person as well. At my current job, I feel as though I am meaningless and that I am surrounded by a pool of superficial nothingness. It isn't the company, it's the idealized lifestyle associated with it. Now, that said, to hear the Starbucks cutting a massive number of jobs worries me. I need my job. I have it for a reason. Working at such a flexible job enables me to go to school and work in a fairly stress-free way—something I couldn't be guaranteed at the other places I applied to. For me, Starbucks is the roof over my head, and I know that it is much the same to many other people. It frustrates me to no end that people are enjoying Starbucks' suffering—do not see that they are enjoying the suffering of the 6,700 people who will lose their jobs in an unfavourable economy? My heart struggles with not feeling resentment towards such people. Starbucks is a multinational company with a spotted ethical record, but my friend, if you are wearing Fruit of the Loom or eating any form of cash crop (bananas especially), you are participating in far more unethical treatment of human beings than you would in buying a latte at the 'Bucks.

I yearn for a job with more meaning, more effect, but am frustrated that such jobs are unavailable to me because they required full-time or times when I'm in school, or they require the degrees I'm working on getting.

I am frustrated because my courses are challenging me. I'm not acing them. I'm not even the smartest or quickest in the class. My friends and family have such high expectation on my intellect and academia, and when I fail myself in such regards, how can I ever remain confident? I'm frustrated that I care so much about these things.

I am frustrated because I feel like a paradox. I love cultures. I love helping people. I love loving. And yet I find myself resisting integration. I am inadvertently keen on retaining my Albertan/Linden identity (not that I want to forget my upbringing) that I feel like I am pushing people away. I don't really want to be alone, and yet I know that I am sometimes made weaker when I am not alone. Further still, dating and marriage are something I often find myself struggling with. The concepts perhaps not so much, but the superficial facades of both are lost on me. But I am single, so I can say such things. Forgive me.

I am frustrated because I don't understand and know everything yet, and I know that there is so much more, and so much greater things out there…and I am here. I am scared of what my goals may bring to me, and I am terrified that I won't ever achieve them. I can't imagine myself as an adult, let alone a professional adult. Me, a teacher? What a thought! Empowering the minds of the neglected generations, telling them of the greatness that the world needs of them, of what it is…what a humbling role! And international development, humanitarianism, philanthropy...the thought is exhaustively huge! I'm not in it to change people or to proselytize, but to act—to love—when the need arises. At that, I keep asking myself if I am missing my opportunities to act. If I died tomorrow, would one person's life have been made better? I have so much work left to do!

Am I too passionate to succeed?

A crisis of survival? Faith? Self? Perspective? Perhaps what I am going through is more of an awakening: no one really likes waking up because sleeping is so much easier—sleeping is the fantasy and the accumulation of random bits of events, knowledge and idea. It is in the waking that the effects of sleep are transformed into action and thereby, meaningful.

Sympathies

Here's a question I've been pondering for a while: why does tragedy strike twofold? My hometown, though unexplainably intrinsically linked to the whole world, doesn't seem to ever have a year in which something big, and often tragic, happens and it often occurs with another event of similar magnitude. Maybe it is because Linden is so small that any event has such a profound impact. And all the bad things always happen at the least opportune moments—like around the holidays—though I suppose there is no opportune moment for a grievance.

I called my Grandma the other day for Christmas and I was one of the best conversations I've had in a long time. She gets it. She understands what is important in life. This Christmas the tow of us shared something new—we were both alone. Now I understand that sounds depressing, but you have to remember, my Grandma (and it is hard for me to call her Grandma as it paints a sentimental picture which doesn't suit her) is a very cool woman and very strong at heart. We were talking about our first Christmases alone and how we both had too much food in the fridge for just ourselves, how we've been keeping busy, and somehow winded up talking about sympathy cards. I didn't send her one for the simple reason that I think that sympathy cards are ridiculous. Why would someone want a sympathy card? Really, in all truth it is just some cheesy material object sending plastic condolences to the griever, though fundamentally the card is just another material reminded of this terrible sadness which has just occurred in their life. What a horrible idea! Someone who is mourning knows that people feel sad for them. They know that you miss the departed. They feel the same way! My Grandma was telling me that even now, almost 3months later, she is still receiving sympathy cards and she can't understand why people are, as she said, "…wasting so much money on a card that is going to be thrown out. They should…" and this is where she says something that made me feel very related to her "…thrown it into to the Salvation Army or something." How cool is that? She gets it.

If anthropology has taught me one thing, it is that my culture, though heavily based on aspirations and portraying a strong face, is deeply afraid of one thing that they can't do anything about: death. We let it overwhelm us and rather than respect it for the honor it brings to the departed, we mourn it because we are completely incapable of reversing it's effects. We fork out ridiculous amounts of money to send our best wishes to those closest to the departed and on the interment of the departed themselves, rather than understanding the inevitability of death. We spend seven dollars on a card which will be thrown away or flowers which will die, caskets which will be buried and make-up to make the departed seem more alive, rather than something of far greater value. If death is something you are so afraid of or feel sympathy toward, why not do more to prevent it? Donate money to homeless shelters, education and poverty eradication, or medical services? What about supporting the NGO's who are fighting to enforce human rights in places of violent civil unrest or political coup d'état? Why must we fear or let death take control of our lives? It happens, and to acknowledge that makes the moments left living so much sweeter. Striving to make someone's life as good as your own, to know and understand what is truly important? And to live these sentiments…how humbling!

I received an email from my home church in regards to a little boy's viewing that happened a couple of days ago, and it indicated that the attendees were encouraged to wear red as that was the lad's favorite coulour. I thought how wonderful that his parents celebrate his short life with something he so adored. They celebrated that he had about him enough to have a favorite colour. That is mourning, but loving more than anything. I hope the building was full of red! I imagine the family is sad that he is gone, but so much more at peace that he is finally healthy and happily where he was destined for.

I'm not a pessimist. I would like to, in fact, be thought of as much a realist as my Grandma.