P3

Sympathetic Frustration

Forbes Magazine named this place the “the most expensive street in the world” in 2008[1]. I was there back then, during the summer, and I wouldn’t have needed a magazine to tell me that. Fifth Avenue, New York City. The place was as crisp and neat as its name, strangely immaculate and absent of the scruffy charm of the rest of city. White sidewalks led to buildings whose names were held in reverence, the kings and queens of the street—Louis, Salvatore, Tiffany—stores I could only dare myself into. There I was in the city. The city! The same city where my grandfather had grown up after his family moved here from Germany. This is why they had come, for wealth and greater opportunities. So that their descendants could stroll down “the most expensive street in the world”—on vacation—and feel somewhat at home, in their own country. I couldn’t take it all in fast enough.

Bergdorf Goodman's, another fancy store on 5th Avenue.

http://www.visit5thavenue.com/wp/wp-content/gallery/700-800/bergdorf-goodman.jpg

The sidewalk traffic split into two categories: business and pleasure. While I and what seemed like the entire population of Texas gawked on the street,spinning in circles trying to recreate those “alive in the city” sort of montages you see in every movie set in New York, men and women with “real” things to do commanded the sidewalk. As they wove in and around families taking pictures, they taught me that you don’t need to say “I’m sorry,” every time you bump into someone in New York. They wore beautiful suits that spoke success, and I found myself watching them just as much as taking in the sights: these people were New York just as much as Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge.



But there was another sight in the city no tourist could ever miss—a regrettably inevitable part of every human population—that was literally to catch my eye. She caught my gaze at the corner of a very busy intersection on the most expensive street in the world, and for a while she held me there, as if frozen, until the current on the sidewalk carried me to happier, more tourist-worthy attractions. She is still the saddest person I have ever seen.

http://dmhamby2.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/homeless-streets.jpg

She contrasted so completely with the white buildings behind her, dressed all in black and shivering underneath a thick, dark blanket despite the heat. That’s the only reason I saw her, I’m sure. I had been so taken in by the glamour of Fifth Avenue and what that meant—an ostentatious representation of the American dream and of success—that I was thrown completely off guard. She was a reminder of reality in the face of extreme wealth. She threw off the whole composition. Homeless probably, troubled surely, this woman was suffering. And the terrible thing was that I could see it all on her face, and it seemed that no one—myself included—wanted to see it. Every so often, someone would drop coins into the cup in her outstretched hand, but it was as if the coins had slipped and fallen in by accident as her “benefactors” quickened their pace and avoided her gaze. The entire time I watched her, she was sobbing. Unashamed or perhaps beyond caring, she shared her suffering with everyone on that corner, looking at the crowds with tears rolling off her face, and shaking silently each time another coin fell into her cup. She shook her cup weakly, resigned and hopeless. Perhaps she heard the same words I did after each coin fell into the cup. These coins weren’t products of generosity but of selfishness and indifference. The reason that those people in beautiful suits could walk guilt-free past people like her every day. Each coin was just a reminder to her that “Nobody really cares!”


Eventually I willed myself away, after what felt like hours but was surely seconds. I desperately wanted to leave. But she followed me long after I turned my back and crossed the street, long after the sound of her clinking coins was overpowered by the sounds of New York that I love—that of taxis, movement, energy, promises and possibilities. I felt for that woman for several blocks after I left her and couldn’t wipe out the rawness of her pain. My sister eventually asked what was wrong with me, and I succeeded in shrugging off the unpleasant feeling. Of what? Of empathy or just pity? I got over it. All that I had ever given her was the sight of a frightened girl on the corner, staring at her, intruding rather rudely into her life and her suffering. And a story, too, I guess. I wonder what’s happened to her now.

***

And now, on a Greyhound bus heading back to school after a nice weekend home, thousands of miles and hundreds of happy days away from seeing her, I’m supposed to imagine what she felt. Ok. I can get to New York pretty easily, Fifth Avenue definitely. I can imagine the heat, so much hotter than I expected it to be. And how the sun sort of shone off some of the marble on the buildings. And...


How cold it is on the floor! More uncomfortable than cold. God, how long have I been here? Cramped, hungry, uncomfortable. Crying. Why can’t I ever stop crying?! I feel like I’m getting sick. Again. Only a few hours I think. It hasn’t been too long since I woke up on those steps and needed to find another place to sit. I didn’t sleep well. Again. I’m tired. But when do I ever sleep well? There’s too much to worry about in this city, especially at night. Even if I could fall asleep on the hard pavement, I can’t stay that way. A lot of people are eating their lunches now. I guess it’s about that time. God, I’m so hungry! Let’s see, I’ve got....about a dollar. A dollar?! Looks like I’ll be hungry, cold, uncomfortable, tired...crying uncontrollably—all of this!—for a long time! My knee’s cramping up again, but there are too many people around. These people!! Don’t you see me? Me and my damned life?! What did I do to deserve it? And what did you do to deserve yours? I’m a good person, and I had a life once, a real life. Nobody should live like this. No one. You know the hardest thing is that’s who I am now. “Hello, I’m nobody. Who are you?” I am nothing but this damned cup in my hand. I’m a drug problem, or insanity, or laziness. I’m a warning. But I am not me. Thousands of people pass by me every day, but not one looks at me. They avoid me or they stare. Like that girl over there. I wish she’d stop. I wish I’d stop crying. She’s gone now. And here I am, cold, hungry, uncomfortable, tired, crying, forgotten. Here I am...

http://janeheller.mlblogs.com/woman-crying-from-pain-of-abusive-and-alcoholic-husband.jpg

***

I’ve got to admit I felt a little wrong writing that. Fake. What right do I have to tell this woman’s story? An imaginary one’s, perhaps, but not this woman's. As much as I imagined her life story the few blocks after I saw her on the corner, I knew I would never be able to truly understand—to understand in any substantial way, really—what she was going through or what she felt. And to be honest, I wished that I had never seen her. How terrible that is, isn’t it? How terrible but true. After I saw her, I wanted to help, to lift her straight out of her situation and into one of those beautiful suits not two feet away. But I didn’t do anything but stare, not even give her my change or smile! How terrible but common that is.

That woman had next to nothing, but what she did have were her experiences. They are something that I feel I can’t encroach on without her consent. She deserves more than a made-up story. What is mine, however, what I can give to her, is how I react. This exercise taught me that we shouldn’t need to know why someone is suffering to help them. Shouldn’t I have just seen the tears on that woman’s face and wanted to help? I believe suffering is a wrong beyond the need for understanding and never with the capacity for justification. I think we should trust our instincts, that when we see suffering, whether animal or human, we should try to help, few questions asked. Way easier said than done, right?

It’s hard to make an “action plan” for this sort of thing. But what I want to start with is this: try to ease suffering. I think it’s all too easy to put stories behind the suffering we see, but that’s not always the wisest course of action. That’s how we can say that the drag rats on Guadalupe are lazy and crazed, that they don’t deserve our money or some kind words. While I feel I can’t take “Suffering” head on and win, I can easily make small improvements in the lives of those I see suffering. Whether animal or human and no matter the size of their pain, I should always be able to give encouragement or at least a smile. My plan is that whenever I see suffering I can simply ask “how can I help?”

Word Count: 1, 596


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPWOOgOxDJI
A day in the life of a homeless man in San Francisco.


[1] "Fifth Avenue." Wikipedia. January 15, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Avenue (accessed January 31, 2010).

Verisimilitude

When I studied Life of Pi in the ninth grade, verisimilitude was the key word: the appearance of truth. I don’t want to say too much—or really anything at all—about the book, especially to those who hadn’t read it yet. But I believed that the book was a true story, as much as everything was telling me it wasn’t, until I closed it and needed to tell myself that I had really only read a story. Why was it so important to me that Pi’s story was real, that Pi even existed? I think in a way we feel that the lessons we learn from novels can only be true if they are based on reality. It doesn’t seem rational to be changed by ink blotches on a collection of ordered papers, that you can sit or even lie down in one spot, relatively motionless for a few hours and look up changed in some way. It doesn’t matter that the themes of novels are based on the human experience and that the stories in them are based in small and sometimes large ways on our life histories—we still want stories to be as real as the people who wrote them.

Are the emotions we feel from books any less real because they weren't caused by a "real" source?

http://g1-wallpapers.com/albums/userpics/10004/misc-love-books.jpg

I think in other ways we can even be hurt that the author has lied to us when they create a world that you believe in for a few days or even weeks that is false. A small part of me, I’m sure, is still convinced that the wizarding world is very angry at J.K. Rowling for revealing its secrets in her Harry Potter books and that the owl who was delivering my acceptance letter to Hogwarts got lost along the way. I read Memoirs of a Geisha literally cover to cover. I do that when I read a book I really like, even glancing over the copyright page (which is a little weird I know.) I guess it’s because the world made alive in the book is entirely contained in the pages, and I just need to know everything! Anyway, I didn’t have time to start up where I had left off again, so I read the copyright page and then the page that said that the characters, events etc. were entirely a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to actual people or events are a coincidence...and it went on. I felt totally betrayed in a sense! Who was this, what was his name?, Golden guy to lie to me like that? He had “interviewed” this geisha later in life as she was telling her story. I thought it was all real, and I felt so much for her and her story. I didn’t read the rest of the book in the same way, although I still liked it very much. I felt like this lady had been taken away from me, that suddenly all her problems and experiences and everything I had felt about them no longer existed. But why shouldn’t they? If I could feel sympathy for this woman, why couldn’t I respond to her suffering and problems in an abstract way? Wasn’t that even more useful in a sense, to be able to feel compassion for someone who didn’t even exist? Maybe this “practice” would make it easier in the real world, my emotional push-ups and jumping jacks.

This is another verisimilitudinous work. I thought her story was real and felt greatly detached from the character when I learned it wasn't. But there's no reason I need to do that.

I think Yann Martel is similarly concerned with this issue, of blurring the lines between reality and choosing our “better story.” (Martel, 64) Like when you tell a story about something that happens to you until it becomes better and better than what really happened. And eventually, perhaps, even your memory of the event changes and you remember the incredible happiness, or peace, clarity...whatever that you “felt” at that point and can hold onto it, real or not. Pi creates his own ideal reality through his choice of religions. When the three religious figures collide on the street and Pi has to face the world with his unconventional Hindu-Christian-Islam faith, his reality is challenged. To the world, his combination is not possible: “the wise men seemed annoyed when they realized that all three of them were approaching the same people,” (Martel, 65) and proceeded to argue possessively over Pi and convince him that he could not choose all three faiths. But Pi replies that, “‘Bapu Gandhi said, “All religions are true.” I just want to love God.’” Pi’s religious quest is a noble one. He embraces these faiths for the different things they mean to him, but ultimately because they all bring him to the same purpose—to be closer to God. Whether his “religion” is possible in the real world, whether it can be a true “reality” is inconsequential because Pi has chosen it to be in his reality, to be a part of his story.

So, like Pi, I feel I can make my own reality, my own “faith.” I am Catholic because I was raised that way. Because it's ok that I'm not sure. Because of the sight of little black crosses one Wednesday every year and incense wafting over the altar boy’s head. Because of St. Francis and all the other saints in that picture book I was given after my First Communion. Because people have crossed themselves the same way I do for millennia. And because most of the other people sitting beside me at mass are as preoccupied as I am. But I am also connected to the Earth. Because in nature you should also “treat things as you would wish to be treated.” Because it is beautiful and calm and still dangerous. Because nature is a commonality we cannot explain away. Because you can learn as much as you want about it or nothing at all. And because any day is made better if I’ve spent some time outside. And finally, I am also rational because, well, it doesn’t make sense not to be. I think it’s ok to be whatever mix makes your “better story.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BzqsKLbGpM
Here's Yann Martel talking about his book. He says the story is "unreasonable" and talks about the artist as the "witness!"

Ram Dass 3

Ok, this is kind of a stupid example, but I really think it’s relevant to what we’ve been talking about in class. At least after this last reading. Ever seen 10 Things I Hate About You? A few of us were watching it in the Andrews lobby one night last week, and at that point, apart from the scene in a bookstore when they pan over the book shelf and there’s 7 Habits on the shelf (We screamed, a little terrified.) it really didn’t jump out to me as a quintessential lesson in service or a perfect topic for my DB.

But the main character, Kat, always bugged me! She was ‘one of those’ people who denounced capitalism and consumerist culture. (In the not-so-good television spin-off series she stood for all sorts of other issues as well: feminism, being environmentally conscious and on and on.) Of course, that’s not what bothered me about her. It’s that she responded to these “injustices” by holding herself above all others. She was self-righteous, stuck to herself without trying to make any difference or change anyone else’s mind, seemingly content to be the only one who was getting it right. I felt that she just wanted to let everyone know that they were wrong. I never liked her character and would probably never be changed by her approach to right and wrong: after all, “people don’t like to be ‘should’ upon.” (Dass 157) Kat was missing an essential bit of ‘making a difference.’ Just simply “being right” isn’t enough. There has to be service and action and the hope that the outcome of these acts will be for the good of all....or at least as close to ‘all’ as we can get.

Here's Kat from 10 Things I Hate About You

http://image-1.verycd.com/caaaa90c09149eb04f726ea6aef06ba080756(600x)/thumb.jpg

This last reading was really about unity, what Kat was missing. And it related a lot to what I had just read for my cultural anthropology class about cultural relativism, that what is right for you or I isn’t always the case for others. Take cannibalism for instance. The book gave an example of one tribe which eats its dead. For them it is an integral part of their grieving process, as they wish to be rid of all reminders of their friend’s life on earth. When they were told that they could no longer do this and had to bury their dead, the idea disgusted them. Similarly Dass gives the example of the one hundred and one year old man who relates to the man who helps him that “before I met you I never had all these problems.” (Dass 204) He had been just fine with his life without anyone tampering with it. An important part of helping is understanding because without it you may not be helping at all. We all must strive to understand each other, definitely not to agree with everyone, but just to realize where we are all coming from or at least that there are differences that we need to take into account.

Like cultural relativism, we need to take the differences in all people into account.

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/images/news/article_main/news_cannibalism_main.jpg

And now we are back, once again, to listening as a skill highly necessary for service. I might think with all my heart that cruelty to animals is wrong, but I’m not going to change very many minds if I just tell them that. Maybe one person has been attacked by dogs and has pent up anger and fear against all animals after that experience. Perhaps another has just been around hunting for sport their entire lives. I may not be happy with their actions or approve of them, but no effective change could occur if I felt that this made me “better than them” or that we would never be able to come to an understanding. Similarly with volunteering or regular service. We need to view each person as just that—a person and not a task. After all, as Dass and Gorman explain, “we’re strongest when we act from what we have in common” (Dass 160) and what simpler similarity is there than just being human? All of us can attempt to understand, to just listen. What a simple first step to true service!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frwaGCQooPE

I really liked the meditation we did in class, and I feel that it may be easier to listen to the differences in people when you are at peace and relaxed.

How Can I Listen?

At my high school we were required to do a Senior Service Project. A lot of girls didn’t take it seriously, went to camp for a week during the summer to get it over with, washed dishes for the required one hundred hours and happily professed to not having gotten anything out of it. To be honest I wasn’t that excited about it myself. I contacted a local senior services center, Sheltering Arms, because I thought it might be fun to work with the elderly and listen to their stories. They told me they really only had work in the administrative offices, and I was less than enthused. Making phone calls, answering e-mails, and filing papers?? What was that really going to do? I joked with my friends that I had become an annoying telemarketer for senior citizens, most of whom couldn’t hear me anyway! But I was uncomfortable with my job to be honest.

I felt almost like I was providing an annoying disservice.

http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/4860285/telemarketer_Full.jpg

My main task was informing them about the DTV transition switch. “Hi,” I’d say. “My name is Katherine Kling. I work for Sheltering Arms, and I just wanted to inform you about the DTV cable transition that will be occurring in February. If you just give me your information, I can send you a rebate for a....” “DTV, what?!” they’d usually say, and instantly the phone call became more personal, with me trying to explain something that I honestly hardly understood myself. Half the time, after I muddled my way to an acceptable explanation, they’d turn to other topics. “You work for Sheltering Arms, right?” they’d ask and launch into question after question about whether they could get help with groceries or a ride to the library or anything else. I would try to refer them to any of Sheltering Arms’ departments, but I couldn’t do much: after all, I had barely arrived there and knew little to nothing about the organization. I tried to keep my distance and not overstep my bounds. I didn’t know if it would be ok to get personal with them, to ask them how they were doing or offer any consolation. In this way I felt trapped by the system and myself, in Dass’ “helping prison,” unable to provide the true help I knew these people needed: a sympathetic, listening ear that wasn’t going to cut the conversation short to say, “Well, I can refer you to [X department] which may be able to help.” Once a woman began crying to me over the phone: “We don’t have any air conditioning,” she said. (Mind you this is during a Houston July) “And my mother and I are just too hot. Is there anything you can do?” I could only say that I could transfer her call to my boss and that I was terribly sorry. Honestly this job was getting me down. I didn’t really feel like I was doing anything for anyone, especially myself. But then I made a call to one man. We got through the DTV cable schpiel, and then he began to talk about other things. I really liked this guy. He was very funny and endearing, and we had a nice, simple—albeit short—conversation about his day and mine. When the phone call had come to its end, he thanked me for calling and I replied that I had a very nice time talking to him. “It’s just so nice to talk to someone,” he said. “I get so lonely here by myself.”

I finally felt like I was making a difference, simply by listening!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59477083@N00/498493120/

That struck me. I had actually been doing something for this man, simply by listening. The DTV instructions were nothing, peripheral and relatively unimportant information. By limiting my service to “the DTV phone call” I was blocking out all potential to help these people in a deeper way, simply by letting them know that I was really listening to them, that they actually mattered. After all, as the book says, “a situation defined is a situation confined.” (Dass 122) I realized that I had been like the doctor who witnessed the monk in action and knew that though he had “palpated a hundred thousand pulses,” he had “not felt a single one.” (Dass 119) I had been simply going through the motions of “service.”After I opened myself to the possibility that my phone calls could be more than I had defined them, I enjoyed what I was doing more and felt that I could help in a much more substantial way. I asked everyone how they were doing and meant it and realized that I didn’t have to have an answer for everything immediately as long as I was there to listen to what they were going through. I could “hear into their pain” (Dass 114) and really want to help them in a personal way. It’s interesting what a big difference truly listening made.

This picture made me think about how truly isolated you can feel when you're supposedly being helped. This man lacks a personal connection with his "helpers."

http://www.wagneropera.net/Images/MarthalerTristan3akt.jpg

Reliving this experience while writing my DB and reading over How Can I Help? really made me think about what true charity was. You can’t just throw money at a cause and expect everything to get better. Sure anything is helpful, but it’s the personal connection and attention that make a lasting difference. Who hasn’t been helped by a nasty store clerk only to wish that they hadn’t even been helped at all? I hope I’ll remember the dedication and awareness necessary to real help in the future.

I sometimes sing this song to my sister whenever's she's not listening to be cheesy, but Beyonce's really showing how much she needed to be listened to!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj8bsHOKKzY

How Can I Help?

Over the winter break I worked a bit for my mom’s friend, Carol. She and my mom had worked for the same law firm and had become best friends many years ago, and Carol had very expensive and extravagant tastes. This meant that what I mainly did was organize her “mid-century modern” house and, as my mom called me, serve as her “girl Friday” which I never truly understood the meaning of, but derived that it meant running any and all sorts of errands. I practically broke my back sorting over three decades of Gourmet and Bon Appétit magazines into boxes and once totally embarrassed myself in the checkout line at Randall’s when I had to check through over one hundred cans of Fancy Feast to make sure I had picked the “with gravy” variety. Nevertheless, Carol also just liked to talk, and one day she stopped me to ask what my classes were like at UT. I started talking about our class, and we eventually came to Earthlings and how I was still struggling not to eat meat. Carol said that she was happy she had never seen anything like it because she knew she’d have the same problems too, but I knew that she never would really face the problem: like we’ve talked about in class before, she was happy with being blissfully ignorant. She then began to talk about how she doesn’t understand the fuss made over fur coats and related a story when someone confronted her, in her mink coat, in an elevator. She replied, “Well, look at your shoes and your wallet” (both of which were leather) and turned away from her assailant. She said that there has to be a point when you must force yourself to forget the ethical issues behind every decision you make, that otherwise we would be overwhelmingly overcome, constantly guilty and consumed by the fact that we couldn’t do everything right. Essentially, that we, at a certain level, have to forget that a trip to the movies could have been replaced by an “operation [which] could restore someone’s sight in a third-world country.” (Dass 10) She wasn’t being harsh or uncaring or saying that we should forget all or most ethical dilemmas, but purely being practical.

Fur and leather. Sure, what's the difference, but that doesn't mean that both are acceptable just because people are using it.

Lady Gaga's statement against fur

http://www.radio538.nl/upload/3344694_661_1249991564622-Lady_GaGA_kermitpak.jpg

Given the difference in our ages, my state as her “employee” and the fact that I would have been up against a high-profile attorney, I didn’t want to argue with her. But I definitely had many problems with what she was saying. I admit I’m an idealist, an identity which I truly hope isn’t simply attached to my youth, but I don’t want to believe that I could forget what is right or wrong simply for convenience’s sake. What we think is “realistic” now may only be because people are not taking the time to collectively make positive change. If we all set aside ten percent of our salary to charity, then that would become the reality. Practicality seems just like a convenient shortcut to me. We should confront every ethical problem faced before us, from animal rights to just being kind to the dog you see walking down the street.

I know this is kind of silly, but Blockbuster's reminder to "Be kind, rewind" is a perfect example of the little issues. I would always fuss over rewinding movies when I was done, but it's just a little kindness that makes a stranger's day better in a small way. And how annoying was it to open up a movie and see that someone had carelessly chosen not to rewind it for you?

http://www.nba.com/media/blockbuster_160_061208.jpg

But these “levels” of ethical problems really started to bother me. Why was it that I could care so much about the “headline” issues of ethics—the death penalty, treatment of animals, and global poverty—while thinking that the little issues could wait? We are faced with mini-dilemmas every day where the solution is very clear. Thoughts like, “A friend is having a hard time. I think I should phone to see how she is, but I just don’t feel like doing it tonight,” (Dass 9) happen all the time but we don’t give them a moment’s thought. Taking the time to care for others or make simple helpful choices like recycling paper not only help others but enrich your own life. We all know the wonderful feeling you after volunteering: I was addicted to it and left each time knowing that those I had helped were really helping me in return. Like Dass says, true help should blur the distinction between the “helper” and the “helped.” We should think of our well-being collectively: “if one of “Us” needs help, if one of Our arms gets caught in a door, naturally we use the other of Our arms to set it free.” (Dass 50)

These people are showing what it means to be connected to each other. They are enjoying each other's company while also relaxing--and therefore benefitting--themselves.

http://www.yogawithlove.com/Images/connection.jpg

It is ultimately more beneficial to view help and service in a very personal way, forgoing the easier and distanced “pity” that we may feel toward those suffering of the big “headline” issues and choosing compassion instead, an understanding that you are suffering as well because the world is not as whole as it can be. I know that I really don’t want to live conveniently but in the right way and that means not only doing what I can to help the big issues but making sure that I really and truly remember the little things.

This video shows how you can help in both grand and small ways. We need to make help a personal and multi-dimensional experience, caring for those who need it without closing off the opportunity that we can learn from them in return.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxcgzjv2Yf4