Fear transformed into Power

"To center is to embrace the tiger of our fear and return to the mountain of our higher self- connected, joyous, and aware." -"Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain" 

Modern science teaches that evolution and transformation can arise out of chaos. Chemist  Ilya Prigogine, challenged the scientific world with his disequilibrium theory. "When a molecule's implicate (existing) order starts to fall apart, the entity faces a moment of choice, the 'bifurcation point.' It can either go out of existence, or reorganize itself at a higher level to accommodate the new variables." Basically either change or die. Which you would think would be easy for humans to choose. As Crum describes it "understanding this chaos theory, it's easy to see why we often need to get lost in order to learn something new." But there's an important step to this, confusion. Confusion enables us to get centered, to give up trying to control the universe, and enter this realm of discovery. 

Intuition. "The ability to acquire knowledge without inference and/or the use of reason." Intuition is like a Mosquito,  as Crum describes it. "Intuition often flies directly in the face of the rationale of the moment, asking us to shift gears or change direction, which usually means confronting somebody or something making life more uncomfortable for all concerned." What does this mean? Well as humans our tendency is to avoid discomfort, by using guilt, or fear of losing approval, to "swat" the annoying feeling out of the way. "Why is it that it's usually after we are picking ourselves up from the bottom that we finally recognize the power of intuition?" 

"Without a jot of ambition left I let my nature flow where it will. There are ten days of rice in my bag, and by the hearth, a bundle of fire wood. Who prattles of illusion or nirvana? Forgetting the equal dusts of name and fortune, listening to the night train on the roof of my hut I sit at ease both legs stretched out." -RYOKAN 

When paralyzed with fear, you are basically stuck in time. 
F.E.A.R
Fantasy 
Experienced
As
Real 
In fear you are trapped this illusion of time, between anxiety about something that might happen AKA the future, and something that you perceived did happen AKA the past. To deal with fear we must go into a place where fear isn't- The Present. Sounds crazy, but the present is where you are fully aware, fear no longer paralyzes you, making you able to respond appropriately with Power and Grace. The key factors to center are- Breathing, Seeing, Feeling. Center increases your awareness of how your fear is reflected in your body. Breathing relaxes the area you feel tension from your fear. To develop this awareness you have to ask yourself certain questions. "Where am I carrying this fear- my throat, stomach, neck, knees? Analyze it specifically- How big is it? What is its intensity on a scale of one to five? What color is it?" These questions heighten your awareness, your fear shifts, the tension within your body dissipates. Moving away from the future and past, and move into the present. 

Have you noticed that every problem, or wall that blocks us from our center is due to our obsession of time. Whether it be the time on the clock or the past, present, future. It is the base of all our reasons to hold back and be reserved. It is the easy excuse we make for things we are too scared to accomplish. 

Automatic Living with No New Meaning

"But how soon we forget those precious moments of center in the chaos of our lives- the phone calls, the latest body ache, the need to defend our position on every topic in the known universe. What we need, of course, are more learning experiences, forcing us to color outside the lines." -Journey to Center, Thomas F. Crum 

Have you ever stepped back and realized that a good portion of the time we react in the same old predictable way to those irritating things in life- "an uncooperative child or parent, a coworker's decision, a friend's broken commitment, or most tragically, a missed three-foot putt?" As Crum labels it we are on "automatic", living each NEW day the same way we lived yesterday; with the same ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. "We become so unconsciously competent in reproducing the same old unhealthy patterns of behavior, that the rut deepens, every day's the same old day, same old people, same old attitude." We are living everyday with same feelings, thought process, and attitude, but expecting a different outcome. This leads to disappointment because how can you expect the outcome to be different, if your actions and intention is the same? That's like learning to ride a bike and you fall, but keep doing the same action that led you to fall, but expecting a different result. This is also the definition of insanity. No wonder people are so stressed and irritated with how their life is going, they are pushing themselves to insanity; Thinking that their actions are not the issue but the people around them are the reasons for their disappointment. 

Thomas Crum talks about a personal story in this chapter about him speaking to a group of 800 alienated kids that had either quit or had been thrown out of high school. "With pounds of chains clanging, black leather creaking, and cynical eyes checking me out, they let me know that the average lecture wasn't going to cut it....They were not into philosophy, they were into survival." These kids were labeled by school and society as failures. These kids believed, and accepted this label and felt that anger and rebellion was their only recourse. But what Crum thought was crucial for them to know was the basics of survival, true strength and power, and calmness under pressure. "I explained that those skills required a mind and body that worked together- an integrated mind-body state... They witnessed a demonstration of power and resolution with neither side being harmed." Their reaction to this lecture was not what was expected from a group of "misfits", they were "coloring outside the lines" They didn't leave right after lecture was over they stayed, asked questions and were intrigued. Crum described them as "courageous, eager, and special." He was inspired. 

Life is change. Change means to color outside the lines. "Events that shake up our beliefs and perspectives happen to each of us, but too often we miss the opportunity to step outside the rigid lines of thinking." The reason we resist change is because we view the situation as threatening to our comfort zone, and react by clinging to what we know. But by resisting, we lose energy, by moving forward, we gain energy. In difficult situations we usually react with flight, flee, or freeze. The martial art of Aikido offers this idea of flow that translates to our daily life, Aikido employs three principles: Acknowledge, Accept, and Adapt. Acknowledge is to be aware of a conflict you have and understanding your feelings toward this conflict. But to also appreciate the other side's feelings and view without labeling and judging them as good or bad. This is something society did to the rejected teenage kids, labeling them as failures, but not understanding there side of the story. Not knowing the reasons behind their decisions that led them to having this label. Accept is to show the other side that you want to work out the solution. Taking responsibility for being a part of this conflict, and that all sides are in this equally. This ties into the first paragraph, living everyday the same but expecting a different outcome, leading to disappointment, and blaming society for the outcome. Life and relationships are a two way street, it is not only one side to blame. Refusing to see this leads to peoples insanity. Adapt is to be willing to change and being open to new ideas. Able to consider all solutions without judgement. The teenagers that were labeled as "failures" were the ones that wanted to learn more about what Crum taught in his lecture, coloring outside the lines and being open to the solution Crum had. It's interesting to see that the "failures" were the ones open to change instead of the straight A student. We label people after one mistake or by what we see from the outside due to our own insecurities, and pre accusations we make before understanding the person or situation. Your life will consistently be disappointing if you never evolve or see each day as a new day with a new outlook. Life will lead you to insanity if you refuse to understand that you are the reason your day is good or bad, you are the that is in charge of your life, don't blame others for the outcome, because you are part of the conflict. 

"Ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same; the lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush or into the brush... Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use." -Don Juan (Carlos Castaneda)

"Am I Right or Am I Wrong?"

"The key is letting go of what you think you know. How much of all there is to know in the universe do you know? Since we all know that the percentage is infinitesimally small, why spend so much time and energy trying to be right about so little." 

-Journey to Center, Thomas F. Crum

In our society we are told that we need to be perfect, as Thomas Crum calls it the "Perfection Syndrome". Basing our traits on trying to be perfect yields our ability to discover; our self-esteem, performance, and how we compare models depends on the opinions of others. Leading us to feel this need to perform at a certain level in order to feel okay about ourselves. This whole idea of being perfect blocks our discovery process, that was originally intact when we were born. Our need to discover and not worrying about others gave us the ability to learn. "Self-esteem based upon performance or a model leaves you focused on the outer world and appearance". This constant concern about having to always be perfect begins to make you feel that you are just a bug underneath a magnifying glass. Making you hesitant about stepping out fully into life.

Think about it, when you watch a little kid who falls they laugh and do it all over again; but when a 12 year old falls their cheeks turn red, and feel embarrassed. Because to them that fall demonstrates failure; due to societies outlook on what is right and wrong. But the fall isn't a demonstration of failure it is a way for you to realize that way didn't work, and to try another way, making you more knowledgable over what works and what doesn't. We spend so much time worrying about failing in front of others or not succeeding the first time, that we forget those wrongs make you find out the right. Thomas Edison for instance, was interviewed by a young reporter who asked Edison if he felt like a failure, he replied with "Young man, why would I feel like a failure? And why would I ever give up? I now know definitively over 9,000 ways that an electric light bulb will not work. Success is almost in my grasp." After over 10,000 attempts Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. Our world is constantly changing which means Societies idea of "right" is always changing. So why would you try to be "perfect" if it's never consistent, you will always lose. The great leaders that we learn in history class all have something in common, they didn't conform, they didn't care about what the opinions of others were. For the most part people thought of them as failures, or crazy, but if it wasn't for them we wouldn't have some of the most critical things in our society.  Under the "Perfection Syndrome" you tend to go against change, trying to control your environment instead of working with it, just to avoid failure. In the end no matter how successful your life looks on the "trophy shelf" you end up being stressed and burned out. Nothing will ever make you feel accomplished because you're living your life for others rather than yourself.  

"Peak Performance" is when you are able to reach out and discover, using the natural essence of self. The natural essence of self is creativity, inquiry, and aliveness. This is what you should base your life on. Operating from these qualities, rather than perfection where you ask yourself whether you are right or wrong, you ask "what can I learn? What am I feeling? What value am I adding?". These questions lead you to be "Fascinated with the outcomes of your actions. and that fascination gives birth to the key to peak performance- awareness." Such as when a child is learning to walk. Living this way makes you secure in yourself, strengthening your center. The point of living is to learn and grow, and to appreciate what the world has to offer and what you can contribute in response. 

"By being open to discovery, you are taking a courageous step toward resolution." 

Giving isn't Giving if it's Self-Centered

"We've given them more than we've taken away... Think of the troubles they had before. Don't you remember the singles' bars, the indignity of high school blind dates? The meat market. Don't you remember the terrible gap between the ones who could get a man easily and the ones who couldn't? Some of them were desperate, they starved themselves thin or pumped their breasts full of silicone, had their noses cut off. Think of the human misery."

The Commanders quote  clearly demonstrates the one sided view of Fathers arranging marriages for their daughters, and the overall view of women as a whole. You haven't given them anything, you took away their independence, their options for the future. The men see this as a great thing because it's convenient for them, but cover this up by saying they are saving their daughters from misery. The fact that "human misery" is representing a girls freedom, shows how even though they're not handmaids they're still seen a sort of prize, or object. For their personal opinion and identity does not matter because the men are satisfied. These examples the commander uses as being negative are not negative they are supposed to be part of life that help you mature and to be able to find that one person you want to marry. By adding in starvation, silicone breasts, and a nose job is his way of over exaggerating the horrors women went through to make themselves beautiful for men when every woman didn't do this, and men weren't always the reason for these actions. And thereby justifying his opinion, and manipluting it to make it seem a selfless action.

In love vs. Physically used

"I turn away I see her straighten her blue skirt, clench her legs together; she continues lying on the bed, gazing up at the canopy above her, stiff and straight as an effigy... Which of us is it worse for, her or me?" -Handmaids tale by Margaret Attwood 

Is it worse being the woman the man is actually in love with, or the woman characterized as a container and used for only a job to reproduce? It's almost worse being the woman who's in love because before this change in society sex was a way to show love and a way to connect with that specific person. Even though the society is different that attraction and want is still there but having to watch her love, have sex with another woman, would be the most difficult thing to witness. 

Viewing it from the Handmaids perspective this dehumanization is already there. She doesn't have actual emotion towards the man, and will never have to deal with him again. With being a Handmaid even though its dehumanizing, in this society you at least still have a purpose. And there was a choice given, though it wasn't entirely obvious, there was one, they had a choice into this profession, because unfortunately it was the best one.

But his wife has to live with him everyday, watching him sleep with several Handmaids in order to keep society alive. What's her purpose then? Even though it's just the Handmaids job, as demonstrated in the quote, "clench her legs together...stiff and straight." She will still be angered, and protective over her husband, the one person that's only for you and not meant to be taken away is being shared, and not just being shared taking their time together, but being shared in the most connective way possible a human has with another; and she can't be that one. 

Is it better to be loved without the physical connection, or not to be loved at all and only used for the physical connection? With having to witness the physical connection of the one you love with someone else changes this question since both aspects are put together in the situation. Affection is a critical factor in the psychological aspect of human development, it is needed for creating relationships, social reasons, mental and emotional, but also in our body development. Is either woman receiving affection in the right way? 

A Nurturing Container

"We are containers, it's only the insides of our bodies that are important" 
"The outside can become hard and wrinkled, for all they care, like the shell of a nut" 
-Handmaids Tale by Margaret Attwood

Women, literally translated as a container, de-personifying their whole existence. The imagery of being a container represents women carrying a child in the womb, such as a container holds food. This concretes the idea of being seen as an object. How they look and they feel means nothing, the only importance is their reproductive organs. From something that is supposed to be a physical action that represents love and commitment now represents only the scientific aspect of a sperm and egg forming a fetus and nine months later the baby being born. The social schema of sex is commitment, trust, love with one person, a connection that can never be taken away. Is now only it's script, a routine, emotionless, careless, a cold act that is now a job. A job you are applauded for, but not for being a woman, and respected as that, but for being a tool to reproduce and keep society alive. 

The fact that their skin can wrinkle suggests that they don't care about your age, or whether it's healthy for you to become pregnant, as long as you're fertile that's all that matters. The health risks mean nothing, whether it's safe means nothing, you are looked at as an employee. If you fall on the you get fired, if you can't get pregnant you're not even considered a woman. And the fact that the parallelism to their appearance is "the shell of a nut" signifies how they are just a thing, on the side, that can be stepped on, pushed away, unacknowledged, like you do with a nut on the sidewalk. You never pay attention to their significance. 

Overpowering Minds, Dehumanizing the Soul

"It has taken so little time to change our minds about things like this" 

This quote from the Handmaids Tale by Margaret Attwood represents how quickly their society has changed. From woman wearing knee length skirts, high heels, and red lipstick to becoming a thing used for just reproducing. Taking walks to keep their stomach muscles stretched for when they're pregnant and being only used for that. 

The quote also emphasizes how fast this change has occurred, not just a little change but drastic. From being an independent woman to being a resource. And realizing that staying silent, and doing as told led to this; even made the process go faster because no one questioned the actions. It also represents the fear, that if this drastic dehumanization has occurred in this little amount of time what other corruption will occur? How far will they go? And how much of themselves as people, as humans with souls will be taken away from them until they stop? if they ever would stop. 

 This quote also ties in with how the angels hand pick the guards and give them guns. In this Dystopia what makes it so extreme is how Margaret Attwood uses the bigger power, "God" and his followers in heaven, the "angels"  as the ones who create the destruction. The dystopia manipulates mother nature, our basic reason of life, to produce; and turns it into a job, but not only a job, but manipulates the whole concept of a woman becoming a mother, to a woman being a tool for men, to get the job done. Dehumanizing the woman to such extremes that she has no thought process, not say in anything. Just the title, her only identity, of being a "Handmaid"

The Animal underneath the Human Shell

"The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear- fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable, what he wants above everything else is safety." -Henry Louis Mencken 

In the Land crab by Margaret Atwood the characteristics of fear and aggression are imaged as "soft gut" and "hard bone" of a land crab to represent our defensive and vulnerable sides as humans. We extinguish the fact that we have this fight or flight instinct in ourselves because we refuse to believe that underneath our language, morals, and conscience that we are animals. Our fear is emphasized with this refusal of being an animal by having this hard shell we refuse to look underneath, Margaret Atwood represents this with the allusion of a "nightmare" symbolizing what we don't want to see in ourselves. 

"When we're afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators repression." -Marjane Satrapi

Does this make us the "dictators" of ourselves? Our fear causes us to repress the fact that we are mammals, we are animals on this earth. With dictating this quality we have, does this cause our fear and aggression characteristics? If we accepted both sides of ourselves as humans would our decision making be altered? 

Even though we have this "nightmare" that terrifies us, we have to remember that a nightmare is short term, it's not always there. Which is like our animal instincts, it's not constantly activated. We have more qualities than this, we think about the future rather than just the present, we think about the consequences of our actions, and even if we react to things without our conscious awareness we remember how it affected others so that we can fix it if it wasn't the way we wanted it to be. 

The Land crab in the poem represents the negative connotations of a human, we try to extinguish this parallelism but our harsh environment causes us to have this "hard shell" as well. 

Fear can only control you if you let it to be. What makes us different is that we can control this instinct. We can choose to be fearful or choose to overcome and realize our hard shell can push us through the barrier we had. We have the knowledge to realize if the situation is worth being fearful about,  and realize that we are capable of changing the outcome.

Angels for the Guns

"Guns were for the guards, specially picked from the angels" -Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood

How far can a human being go in the process of gaining power, before it crosses the line of protection and becomes corruption? 

Protect: to defend or guard from attack, cover or shield from injury or danger
Corrupt:Having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain. Cause to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain.

The quote from Handmaids tale prevails the setting of a dystopian society and contradicts the typical stereotype of an angel and a gun. An angel is a spiritual being believed to act as an attendant, agent, or messenger of God; representing hope, peace, guiding you towards the right path. The fact the "angels" are handing the guns emphasizes their governments purpose, to control all through fear. It represents their want to dehumanize the people, while showing them that they don't care what the cost is to gain power. How soulless and power ridden to go through drastic procedures to gain want they want. With the angels "specially" picking the guards demonstrates how they reward violence. Praise is only received through violent actions. This representation also shows how guns and violence is a good thing in their society because the "messenger of God" is picking them, meaning it has to be the right choice. Showing that protection is not the purpose of these guns, but authority and the ability to make people fear you to gain control leading to absolute power, and because they have already reached absolute power the next step is corruption. 

The Wave Persists

Her wavy hair soaks up the salty air
Her feet running in the gold crystal sand
why do the minutes have to be unfair
reality seems so vapid and bland
Her problems build as the waves are crashing
she rides the tide conquering all her fears
sucked into the under-toe she's splashing
holding her breath unable to see tears
she climbs her board to take on the next round
riding the tunnel searching for the light
though it's not always able to be found
through the dark cylinder there's something bright
she rides to the end and then starts again 
she persists, knowing that she can sustain