I like to pretend that National Freedom Day has nothing to do with a President, or something being signed, but rather that it is a day dedicated to the commemeration and vision of liberation from wickedness and deliverance unto perfection. I like to think that it is about all the bad in the world being taken away, and being replaced by the power to do boundless good: to speak without restraint put on by the cold and irreligious bonds of society.

Happy (National) Freedom Day!



(I am not sure who the poem on that painting was written by, so I can not tell you to whom the credit is do. I can only tell you to whom it is not do, and that is me).

I've got this ongoing quest for unrationalized(there's probably an actual word for that), un-industrialized stuff. Not crappy home made crafts, but stuff that I would otherwise buy at the oh-so-rationalized Wal Mart. This is why I like buying products from Threads 4 Thought, Nest (buildanest.com), Ten Thousand Villages, Sway Hearts and local green/eco-friendly stores (though all those places are still pretty rationalized). My favorite, though, is stuff made by myself, or someone I know directly. I like seeing a bunch of different elements beforehand, watching them be sewn, glued, stitched, and taped together, and turned into something useful and fun.
What I realized today is that music totally comes from people; music is bureaucracy-free (that's what unrationalized means in sociology terms)! Not machines, not huge organizations, just people. Even the sound-machine sounds that are infused in all the songs one hears on the radio can't hide the individuality of the drums, the guitar, the violin, the human voice. It's awesome. One can pick apart the different instruments, and it's not machines playing those instruments, it's people! There's a different person behind each sound that goes on. Heck, even DJs are behind those sound machines. Basically all this means that if i, Robot does happen, and we humans lose this time, we'll still be the ones with the music. There's a beautiful process that we miss out on when we're working on just one part of something. It's so rewarding to be able to break stuff down and get it back to the people, and the raw ingredients that make it real.





Lydia

There is a trailer park of sorts that I pass everytime I go into town from where I live. It's pretty dumpy looking. There's three trailers. They're all very small and only one of them-that I can tell-has air conditioning. It's a window unit in a window facing the street. The yard around the three trailers is littered with anything, everything: car parts, toys, broken trampolines, just everything. Right smack in the middle of the community yard is a car. It's jacked up on a box (I think) and is in pretty bad shape. The front bumper is hurting and there is something the matter with the general engine-area. I know this because in the last few months I have seen the inhabitants of these mobile homes out there working on it. They're always sweating it out, drinking out of plastic cups and cans, and looking generally raggedy, and there is always more than one of these people out there. That's what I like about them. They get it. They really get it.
Instead of insisting on quiet while he works, Mr. Fix-it is surrounded by his kids as he invests his time in this white car. Instead of staying in that one air-conditioned room, Mr. Fix-its brother sits on the porch talking to the Old Man of the Blue House, whose trailer has no air conditioning. Instead of telling her daughter off, Ms. Fix-it joins her thirteen-year-old outside on the trampoline. These people know; they see that it isn't about popularity, or education, or careers, or trades. They understand that concept which still manages to elude me, day after day: that people are the most rewarding way to spend your time.

As Victor Hugo says in his (fantastic, amazing, epic, life-changing) work "Les Miserables", There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.

Mr. Hugo, like the Fix-its sees that people are the most important things that happen to us in this life. So let's be the Fix-its, and get it. Really get it.

(Funny the way it is)

Lydia

Yesterday I worked (cleaned house) for an older couple that lives down the road from me. They were laughing over a comic strip in the newspaper when I came in.
"Sometimes, the comics remind us of ourselves." Mrs. S said. I smiled and looked at the page in her hand. It was Pickles, the comic strip about the old couple and the ups and downs of growing old. That made me think: there's a comic strip for every stage of life, and all the dimensions of relationships. Mr. and Mrs. S like Pickles, I like Zits. Zits is about the teenage boy who struggles to get up in the morning and who gets a kick out of loud music and hanging out with his friends. I get a kick out of hanging with my friends, and sometimes have trouble getting out of bed on time. The old man in Pickles has trouble locating his glasses, Mr. S has trouble finding things. That must be why the comics are so popular, and so widely read. Ask anybody, everyone has a favorite comic strip. No doubt our favorites are about characters perpetually wedged in the season of life we find ourselves in for now: Baby Blues and The Family Circus for young families, Girls and Sports for High School jocks, Hagar the Horrible for those who love to hate marriage, Mutts for animal lovers, and Blondie for, I don't know, the people who love sandwiches.
This example of society's acceptance of the unknowns in life and the way we are all able to laugh through tears is nothing but inspiring. We peruse these comics and they remind us that we are not alone. What they contain is usually to close to the truth for us to accept them simply as fiction. Surely they came from the author/illustrator's true-life experiences. Maybe putting these experiences into words and pictures hurt the author/illustrator a little bit, but if their job is to speak to people and make them smile then they must accept and embrace the undignified moments of life as well as the clean-cut and easy ones.

Funny the way it is.

Lydia

"As much as the world has an instinct for evil and is a breeding ground for genocide, holocaust, slavery, racism, war, oppression, and injustice, the world has an even greater instinct for goodness, rebirth, mercy, beauty, truth, freedom, and love. The coexistence of these aspects of human character is a great and universal paradox. That is why the struggle for peace and the need for reconciliation exists not just in Africa, but throughout the world."

-Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu

Funny the way it is.

Lydia

Last Friday I started a book about a young girl from Nepal who is sold into sex-slavery when she is thirteen (it's a fictional story, but the uncomfortable truth is that there are girls like Lakshmi out there today). Her stepfather sells her because they have no food to eat. Last Friday I ate three meals, and then some. I don't feel guilty about those three-and-then-some meals, I just want to emphasize the vast differences that exist inside of our world.

While one beautiful child eats donuts in a coffeeshop, another eats plantains in a thatch-roofed hut. While one person reads a book, another walks ten miles to get a book. One teenage girl buys a new dress, another feeds her child. One man builds a house, while another tears one down. One kid skips school, another dreams of going to school. A person signs up for a relief team, while someone else donates two-hundred dollars to a homeless shelter.

There are so many good and bad things going on at every moment in this universe that it is easy to be confused and overwhelmed by everything. I mean, why do we hike six miles for no other reason than to hike? Why are head coverings worn by some but not by others? Why does one child get shoes when a different child gets shoes and a backpack? Why don't we listen to only the music that represents our culture, worldview, and beliefs instead of having a varied music catalogue? Why do we use crayon instead of paint sometimes? Why do some people drink tea and others drink coffee? What is the point of getting in the water when you are just going to dry out again?

All this stuff is confusing and at times aggravating but when I really think about it I realize that without all this variety, without all this difference, everyone would be an awful lot alike and that would not be cool. What would be really cool, though, is peace.

Funny the Way it is.


Lydia

Duya (please, Krio)


Emmanuel Jal is Sudanese man who was forced to fight in his country's brutal civil war as a child. Now he is a rapper. In his book he makes a comment about how it confused him at first that Western artists would rap about guns, sing about violence. He knew these things. He had been exposed to violence all his life and it has scarred him. Now ignorant Americans rap about it as if they know anything of real violence, real conflict. Sure, many of them grew up in terribly unhealthy environments, trapped in the midst of gang violence and rivalries. But none, none of these rappers whose lyrics so confused Jal was conscripted into an army that burned, pillaged, and tortured, as well as stole childhoods away from boys and girls.
After his redemption from a violent lifestyle, Emmanuel Jal only wanted to rap about love and care. He wants his music to speak to people and bring peace. But we seek after music that makes us angry, that stirs us up. There's nothing wrong with a tune that one can feel to one's soul, nothing wrong with listening to a song that you like, but why do we want our music to be about pain and brutality? Why do rappers insist on insulting everyone and everything? Why do they sing about women like prostitutes as if that's the way we should be when women throughout the world turn to that occupation as the last possible means to feed themselves and their families? War, prostitution, torture, risk, disrespect, it all holds our society back. If people like Martin Luther King Jr. have tried so hard and so long to rid our world of such evils why do we glorify them now?
Most Americans live easy lives. Our biggest problems matter to us, but do not compare with those of people in third world countries. It's wonderful that we have the ability to live such prosperous lives but glorifying the problems that others in the rest of the world(and even in our own country)struggle with is a cruel and arrogant practice. We flaunt problems that aren't real to us, but are to others as though the problems are what is cool, what is desirable. By doing this we broadcast arrogance and degrade our fellow humans. Instead of creating conflict, Emmanuel Jal raps about peace, love, and his desire for unity in Sudan.

"I can't, I can't wait for the day
When I will see no more tears, no more fear, no cry
No tribalism, nepotism, and racism in my motherland
I can't wait for that day when the wonderful people go back home
And plant their nation in this generation."
-Gua (Emmanuel Jal)

Funny the way it is.

-Lydia