Category: Entry 3 (Page 1 of 2)

In my international politics class, we talk a lot about humanitarian crises throughout the world, and it got me thinking a lot about how many of us are guilty of dissociating from the suffering of others across the world simply because it does not actively affect us and is so far away. I wanted to express this. I never want to strongly express things in the form of resentment and negativity when it’s possible to advocate for change. Of course, this is really difficult at times, but I think that’s a part of being human and trying to improve for the better.

When I started writing this time, I wanted to convey the positives. I wanted to provide examples of the truly amazing things we are capable of when we work together and show empathy for everyone around the world. Additionally, I wanted to express the conflict I felt on the matter and how it makes me feel. By trying to write honestly and realistically, I want to convey the message that failures to be always do the best thing are completely part of being human, and when we refuse to talk about these failures, we isolate from each other. I feel like this stigmatizes honesty about our shortcomings and makes it harder to outright admit weakness and ask for help to improve. I realize this kinda strayed away from the initial problem I wanted to tackle, but like I said, I want to write honestly. This is the direction that my brain veered into because it’s an issue that is very close to my heart, and tends to be at the forefront of my mind. I think all it really takes is learning to create a balance.

As the season came to a close, I began to think about the project in a different light. I continued with my conversations with people on the team in hopes of better communication by being on the same page. While I think the team is coming along better with communication, I figured the project should shift more internally and personally. I adopted meditating as my nonviolence tool to achieve.

I remember meditating in middle school and rarely in high school. With and busy schedule, I found the time to meditate 45 minutes before I go to bed. For 20 of those minutes I would sit still listening to my breath, my mind in thought. I would think about nonviolence and all the ways it can help us navigate life positively. With the season sending the way that it did, frustration surely built up inside and I found meditating as a way of relaxing and clearing my mind. Instead of verbally communicating something, that might have been taken negatively, I would reframe from saying them. I would then meditate.

My mind naturally drifted to those instances and because I did that, I had better night sleeps. Waking up after meditating is mind refreshing, and I would not have discovered it without this project. Going into off season workouts, I will incorporate both nonviolent communication skills and meditation techniques to further promote nonviolence.

Since my last project entry both Fatimah and I have been trying to get out of our comfort zones and challenge ourselves when it comes to our diet. My goal was to adopt a vegan lifestyle for at least a week, and hers was to avoid eating pork. I wanted to challenge myself because as I was urging people to cut meat out of their diet, I felt that it was only right that I also take the initiative to eliminate all animal byproduct from mine. The process was extremely hard for both of us. Although she was successful at times, Fatimah found it difficult to resist the fresh made bacon and egg breakfast sandwiches made at the Marquis dining hall. She claimed that it was too hard to avoid pork because most of her go-to meals for breakfast included bacon. According to Fatimah, she was so accustomed to eating pork that she sometimes forgot about her pork free diet. Even though she wasn’t completely successful in sticking to her diet, I commend her for being courageous enough to at least try it out. It is important to recognize that these changes take time because it is hard for people to completely avoid foods that they are so accustomed to consuming.

I experienced a similar struggle when I tried a vegan diet. I had already struggled with finding vegetarian options that taste good at the dining halls, so finding tasty vegan dishes was even more challenging. I couldn’t eat the crepes, bagel with cream cheese or cereal that I usually ate for breakfast. Finding vegan foods that provided the nutrition and energy I needed throughout the day posed a greater challenge than I had imagined. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to continue with the diet after a couple of days. I am planning to attempt veganism again over winter break because I will have more control over what I eat and more options at home.

             I have now moved into the draft writing stage of my personal project. I think the most challenging aspect of this stage is dedicating time to write amongst my busy schedule. I’ve found that my habitual devotion to writing has become therapeutic because I can convert my daily struggles into the emotions of my characters. I think writing, is a very effective tool of nonviolence because the pen is truly mightier than the sword.  

             Now that I am in the draft writing stage of my personal project, I have completely developed my film. I am still deciding on a title, as I believe that a striking title is instrumental in getting people’s attention and conveying the right message that I want to relay.   

            The main theme of the movie is the power of forgiveness in the face of a familial travesty as the epitome of nonviolent action, but there are also other themes, such as family, colorism, racism, and structural violence, and social inequities.  

             In the film, Amani, the protagonist, finds out about her sister’s murder while away at college and is, unfortunately, unable to come to her family’s solace because of her distant geographic location. Amani, who has a fiery personality, is devasted by the death of her peaceful sister, Nia. She is forced to deal with this tragedy without her family and seeks appropriate avenues to channel her pain. In the end, she chooses to blog as her outlet and begins a blog in her sister’s honor named Nia Lives. Through the blog, Amani enumerates ways to advocate for real social change and to keep her sister’s memory alive.  

              I’ve decided that the project will be animated because animation allows for more flexibility and creativity. I am looking forward to the next stage of physically producing the film.

The last couple of weeks have been quite stressful and to my surprise I have found myself gravitating to creating mandalas to relax and regain my composure during these times. I am still working with mandalas on a smaller scale, however I am attempting to spend more time on each mandala that I do, so that they can be as neat and through as I desire. I have struggled to find a particular meaning and message that fits behind each mandala that I create, however I think as I continue this personal project an overarching theme may appear.

In Horgan’s The End of War and Nagler’s \ Nonviolence Handbook, the two authors talk about the importance of the end of war and a world of peace stemming from an inner strength and desire to engage in nonviolent behavior. To me, there lies a connection between this inner strength and the process of creating a mandala because both practices start with a center. When creating a mandala, I start by creating the most inner circles and then expanding my circle making outwards. I also start the designs on the mandala from the inside and work my way to the outside. The idea of starting from the center in a mandala creates the same impression of working from the inside to create peace and change in society.

As I continue to make mandalas, I hope to discover more connections between our nonviolence class, my life and my mandala making.

For the past two weeks or so I have been practicing a type of meditation called Vipassana Meditation. This type of meditation is similar to mindfulness, except it utilizes a key concept and strategy called “mental labeling”. “Vipassana” is a Pali word meaning “clear-seeing” or “insight”. This practice focuses mainly on attaining a clear sight on your physical and mental being, without holding on or concentrating on one thought or feeling.

One way to practice Vipassana is to sit on a cushion on the floor, or on a chair, sitting with a straight spine. To develop concentration, one must focus on their breath and chest movements. This specific exercise is called samatha practice. While focusing on the breath, other perceptions and thoughts can creep in, such as sounds, physical feelings, thoughts, emotions, etc. Vipassana focuses on accepting those sensations, and then returning to the breath. The attention is kept on the breath, and everything else continues in the background.

To aid in concentration, one can use the “noting” method. This method requires one to focus on the main object, called the primary object (the breath). A secondary object is anything else that may pop into our minds. If a secondary object pops into your concentration, the labeling method suggests you label the thought or feeling with a mental note, such as “noise” or “memory” or “feeling”. This helps your mind to move on quickly and not focus on the thought. This concept and practice of focusing on your  main object, while being aware without attachment on secondary objects is called mental labeling.

Vipassana meditation was definitely a first for me. I had never used the labeling method and was a little skeptical on if it would be effective. I found it to be really helpful during my meditation. Putting a quick and easy label on something made it easier to move on from the thought and go back to my primary object of concentration. Overall, Vipassana helped me better connect with how my body was feeling and working, as well as my mind. I found my mind to be busy with thought about schoolwork, assignments, and scheduling. Once I was able to label those thoughts and release them, I was able to focus on lightening my mind and helping me focus and go into different obstacles with a clear and focused mind. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who would like to try meditation!

For me, the mandala has become a symbol of peace and calmness. Anytime I see a mandala either that I drew or see one elsewhere, I can take a step back and breathe and feel at least slightly more mindful. Additionally, I prefer to relate my mandalas to something significant in my life. Recently, I came into contact with a pocket watch at a festival and I have been using it as of lately. Immediately, I noticed a mandala-like abstract design on the back of my pocket watch, which serves as the theme for this 3rd personal project.

A clock, just as in the stopwatch, appears in the middle of the mandala, and it goes to represent the importance of staying on time and not wasting time. Both of these are things I hope to do in the future. Furthermore, there are flower-like images around the centerpiece

Picture of mandala

Pocket watch

which relates to our current change of seasons in the falling of leaves, changing of colors, etc. Coincidentally, I purchased this stopwatch at the Jim Thorpe Fall Foliage Fest.

Regardless, this mandala is based off a pocket watch and is intended to keep in mind good time management habits and a motivator because the time one has is limited.

For my project, I have decided that I am going to have my team members write either why they think it is important that we speak out against social injustices, as Azza Soliman has in Egypt, or why they think equality in general is important. However, what this has helped me to realize is how separated the distance runners are from the sprinters on the track team. I have spent about two weeks attempting to speak to them about it, but I seldom come in contact with any of the distance runners because we do not practice together. This has created a sense of division among the members of the team, and I plan to use my personal project to try to be more friendly with the cross country members.

So while there is a divide between team members, I see this divide not as a negative aspect of our team, but rather as a challenge for the team to overcome as a whole. By eventually getting everyone’s thoughts on this, I will be able to create what I decided will be an art project that displays a map of Egypt, and a gender equality sign in the middle, which is made completely of the answers that the team members will write. This will have the explicit social message of gender equality, which is what Azza Soliman has fought for in Egypt. Creating this art project and simply being able to communicate better with other members on the track team will benefit both a presence of social justice and a sense of friendship among the team.  

In my last post, I posed a future aim to find information about why the US’s rates of meat consumers are so high, and to see whether or not a decrease in this percentage is realistic. 

According to an article in Psychology Today, though our society has gained much knowledge and awareness about the atrocities of the meat industry, we still have yet to moralize our preference for no animal cruelty into a set value. Having this shift from a meat culture into a vegetarian one has proved difficult for multiple reasons, one of which is from an economic perspective.

In the US, maintaining meat in one’s diet provides more “bang for your buck”, then not. Because of the US’s industrial scale production of meat, it is extremely cheap. Not only is meat cheaper than vegetables/vegetable based products, but it is far more nutrient dense. Therefore, it takes way more food to fill one up on a vegetarian diet than it does otherwise. This reality has allowed for meat to become a staple in the American diet. This is a hard issue to combat, especially considering the economic pressures that come with trying to feed yourself, let alone an entire family.

Another factor that persuades the eating of meat is its health benefits. Besides the fact that meat has a higher protein density than anything else, meat (particularly beef), provides heaps of iron, which has been found to be a critical component to our overall health. Though iron is present in other foods like quinoa, tofu, legumes, etc. the amount of iron in these foods is proportionally insufficient compared to the amount found within one serving of beef. Iron is essential in maintaining proper amounts of oxygen carrying red blood cells in our bodies. If our body doesn’t have enough iron, then we cannot produce the amount of red blood cells needed for proper heart and lung functioning. This can result in major fatigue, inability to breathe properly, and other major issues. As someone who is highly anemic, I cannot emphasize iron’s importance enough.

Iron’s importance is just one example of how overall health can actually be affected by meat, which may be one of the reasons Americans feel inclined to eat it.

In a different Psychology Today article about the declining vegetarians in the US, it was reported that back in 2005, 3 times as many US adults reported being “ex vegetarians” than current vegetarians, showing that about  75% of prior vegetarians had resorted back to eating meat. Out of those, 35% of them went back because they had noticed a decline in their health.

After realizing this pattern, I figured that many of these health concerned people were/are probably unaware of 1) iron and its importance, and 2) one’s ability to sustain healthy levels of iron through daily supplements. From this, I concluded that if Americans were more aware of the fact that one can feel just as healthy without meat as they do with it, that they may be less likely to quit the vegetarian lifestyle due to health related reason, and that there may be more people willing to join the vegetarian lifestyle.

I realize that educating people about iron and their ability to feel great without meat wouldn’t necessarily lower the US’s number of carnivores by a huge amount, but it’s something. After reading articles proposing the two reasons above and various others, I feel that it may be more realistic for people to try and take steps in reducing their weekly meat intake, instead of finding ways to turn all Americans over to the vegetarian lifestyle.

Sources:

“Why Do Most Vegetarians Go Back To Eating Meat?” Psychology Today. Accessed October 24, 2018. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animals-and-us/201106/why-do-most-vegetarians-go-back-eating-meat.

“Why Are There So Few Vegetarians?” Psychology Today. Accessed October 24, 2018. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animals-and-us/201109/why-are-there-so-few-vegetarians.

As with my last sketch collage, I focused on Kurlansky’s Nonviolence : The History of a Dangerous Idea as my source of creative inspiration. Looking back on my last discussion, I noticed that the practice did not feel as meditative as my original collage, most likely because I had not set specific parameters for my focus and allowed myself to narrow in on some of Kurlansky’s points that I found personally conflicting or troubling. In order to redirect my focus, I decided to choose more specific inspiration for this practice – I chose my top six favorite rules/observations of nonviolence that Kurlansky lists in the appendix:

1. The problem lies not in the nature of man, but in the nature of power
2. Despite all of society’s promotion of warfare, most soldiers find warfare to be a wrenching departure from their own moral values.
3. The state imagines it is impotent without without a military because it cannot conceive of power without force.
4. Violence does not resolve. It always leads to more violence.
5. A propaganda machine promoting hatred always has a war waiting in the wings.
6. Behind every war there are always a few founding lies.

Below are my artistic reflections of these observations. These sketches ended up being much more crude and cartoonish than my others, most likely because I spent much more time analyzing the meaning and translating it into art than on actually finessing the details of my work. I found that choosing narrow and specific concepts and forcing myself to convey them through symbolic imagery was very useful in diving deeper into the meaning of each statement. Representing a written idea through art requires utter commitment to your own interpretation of that concept, and I am finding it is a really powerful way to solidify my understanding of texts.