Humanity

Ryan Gosling's cereal could make you cry

In 2013, Ryan McHenry created the video series entitled Ryan Gosling Won't Eat His Cereal. It was met with much acclaim, catching the attention of Entertainment Online, Huffington Post, even Gosling himself who acknowledged McHenry in a tweet, writing, “I actually love cereal” (via) even though his movie appearances prove otherwise.

Then, in “late 2013, McHenry started experiencing a painful lump in his leg.” He was diagnosed with osteosarcoma and discovered that it had spread to his lungs. “He announced the news on his Twitter page”, writing,

"I got told yesterday that I have cancer. I would just like to let you all know I'm staying positive and I'm going to fight it. Fuck Cancer." (via)

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Sadly, it didn’t work.

“After initial signs that McHenry had beaten cancer . . . {it} returned,” and on May 2, 2015 McHenry’s body succumbed to the deadly disease (via).

But not before one last comedic stand.

Two days before his death McHenry tweeted:

“Yesterday was my 10,000th day alive on this Earth and not one of you got me a card or anything..."

On May 5, Ryan Gosling posted this:

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-N- Stuff  :  Humanity  : Ryan Gosling

Parkour: “Respect your environment. Respect people.”

“There’s no written code for Parkour, but pretty much every where you find the same principals . . . At some point, even the strongest person freezes on a jump. It teaches you humility and reminds you where you came from.” That’s why no one ever finishes a challenge alone . . . “Parkour was always about community” (pg. 154)

In his book, Natural Born Heroes, Chris McDougall is arguing that mankind can do much more than what we’ve come to believe. Heroes and acts of heroism were once normal, common, and expected. Now, they’re the exception. Largely because we’ve forgotten what our bodies can do. What they were made to do. And why they were made to do them: to live, and to serve.

Parkour, according to McDougall, is a modern day example of what we’ve lost. The real obstacle to Parkour isn’t strength, it’s trust. “I never knew what my body could do,” Shirley Darlington, a Parkour participant and leader of the movement, explains, “so it took a long time to build the confidence to throw my full weight into a movement” . . . “Once I did, it changed everything.”

Her body, her mind, and her sense of belonging.

She now runs a Parkour movement where on any given night, she will email her Parkour group telling them when and where to meet. From there, the city is their gym, their playground, their sanctuary. “You’re always on the edge of fear,” Shirley explained, “because your body senses it can do more than your mind will let it.”

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-N- Stuff  :  Humanity :  Documentaries 

Cambodia : A home uprooted, a land displaced

photo by goprojectfilms.com

photo by goprojectfilms.com

“Never before have I witnessed the uprooting and displacement of land itself,” Mam said. She wanted to understand where all this sand was going, and how a country—considered one of the most affluent in the world—could destroy someone else's home to build its own. “It is already enough to be removed from one’s land,” Mam said. “It is another thing entirely to have one’s land removed as well” (via).

Decades following the dissolution of the regime, thousands of Cambodian families are experiencing a new wave of displacement. By talking with locals on the island of Koh Sralau, Mam found out that since 2007, the government of Cambodia has granted several private companies concessions to mine the country’s coastal mangrove forests. Each year, millions of metric tons of Cambodian sand are shipped to Singapore to expand that island nation’s landmass; Singapore has imported more than 80 million tons of sand so far. According to Mam, “The people and all the living creatures that depend on these forests for their livelihood are forced to cope with this massive loss.” In addition to displacing those who live and work on that land, Cambodia is also destroying its only natural barrier against erosion, rising sea levels, tsunamis, and hurricanes.

You can read the entire interview here.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Humanity :  Documentaries  :

The Other Half of Stories : An interview with NatGeo photographer Ami Vitale

Photo by Ami Vitale

Photo by Ami Vitale

(From Wild Ideas Worth Living Podcast)

In war-torn Gaza, Ami Vitale was asked to “focus on the violence.” Then, one day, while her and all the other photo journalists were capturing kids throwing rocks and soldiers bullets, Ami heard music. She followed it. And found a wedding.

“Why aren’t we telling these stories too,” she thought, “the ones that allow us to relate to one another as human beings.” She suddenly realized she was telling a lie, because she was only telling half the story. “There were all these other stories around us. Stories that allowed us to relate to one another as human beings, {stories} that allowed us to connect” by reminding us that we “share the same things on this planet.”

“As a journalist,” she continues, “I was being asked to create more fear and polarization on this planet and see those people as other and different than us. The truth is, it was just a beautiful young couple wanting the same things that we all want in life. That was when I stopped and asked myself, ‘Why aren’t we telling these stories too?’”

From then on, Ami Vitale changed the way she tells stories. She still captures the hard and terrible ones because that is still very much a part of life, but she also seeks out the beautiful and hopeful, the ones that inspire and spark joy, because those too are a part of life. And Ami Vitale wants to provide a balance and reminder “of our connections”, that we are all human beings on this world, longing for the same things, eager to tell and share our stories.

Our world could use a lot more people like Ami Vitale.

You can listen to her full interview at Wild Ideas Podcast or watch her How to Photograph Hope presentation for NatGeo Storytellers Summit.

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-N- Stuff  :  Humanity  : Podcasts : Inspiring Art

Sojourner Truth's, "Ain't I a Woman" read by Alice Walker

“Poet Alice Walker reads the 1851 speech of abolitionist Sojourner Truth. Part of a reading from Voices of a People's History of the United States (Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove,) Novemeber 11, 2006 in Berkeley, California” (via).

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say (via).

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Humanity  : History

Mass Shootings : We are Responsible.

Photo by @davideragusa

Photo by @davideragusa

It happened again. This time, in Thousand Oaks, California. You and I both know how the days and weeks to will play out.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to . . .” we will hear whispered from podiums, while “Enough is enough” banners are posted on websites, blogs, and social media. And for a brief, brief moment, the country will be unified in grief, shock, and horror of what our country has become. Then someone will point the finger of blame. Then another. Then another. Until everyone is pointing, shouting, and condemning, calling for reform, calling for justice, and demanding someone does something to stop this madness.

All the while, someone somewhere will have made a plan, written a note, or posted a video. Right under our tear-stained cheeks and upturned noses. Just like they did in Columbine, almost 20 years ago.

“Eric Harris was a psychopath,” David Cullen concludes in his New York Times bestseller, Columbine, “he was a narcissist, he was a sadists. He wasn’t out to bully bullies, he was out to hurt the people he looked down upon . . . humans.” He wanted to destroy everyone, all of us. Yet fortunately, he only made it to thirteen. He had planned for many more.

According to the investigation that followed Columbine, Eric Harris wanted to go down as a legend. He wanted to make a mark bigger than the Oklahoma City bombings and he wanted to be remembered forever. So he planted bombs in the park on the other side of town, set to go off as a diversion for the cops. Luckily, they didn’t. Neither did the propane tanks in the cafeteria (which would have killed hundreds) nor the bombs in his and Dylan’s cars (which were set to detonate after the police and paramedics arrived, killing them too). In fact, Eric and Dylan never intended to enter the school. Their plan was to wait outside and pick off the surviving few as they fled the carnage of Columbine.

But things didn’t go according to Eric’s plan, hardly anything in fact, except for one seemingly minor detail: the media was there, and they granted Eric Harris his deepest dying wish. He became famous.

Dave Cullen, an author and elite journalist, was “one of the first reporters on the scene” at Columbine. He then spent the next ten years writing Columbine, which is “widely recognized as the definitive account” of the school’s massacre, and for many of the 300-plus pages of his heart-wrenching book, Cullen spends a great deal of time talking about who Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were, what happened in the days prior, during, and after the infamous shooting, and how people from across the country responded.

But that’s not why he wrote the book. He wrote it because he was trying to figure out why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold did it. Once answered, he concludes his book with the most important takeaway of his journey: how to prevent this from ever happening again, and who is responsible.

His findings are not extenuating.

Dave Cullen’s conclusion of who is responsible for Columbine and every shooting and massacre is not a familiar one, nor is it a popular, but it is the most accurate and reliable one.

The answer of who is responsible, according to Cullen, is us. We are responsible. Malcolm Gladwell says the same, but where Gladwell fails to provide a solution, Cullen does. It is us. We are the solution.

Let me explain. Or rather, let Cullen explain.

Almost 100% of the time, the perpetrator of mass killings is male, and “{f}or his glorious week,” Cullen explains, “the spectacle killer is the hottest star on earth. He dwarfs any sports champ, movie star, president, or pope . . . They spill a little blood, {and} the whole world knows who they are . . . His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.”

So, “If you’re planning a spectacle murder,” Dave Cullen once told a CNN anchor, “here’s what you do:

{There are} two routes to the elite club with the star treatment: body count, or creativity. Choose body count, and you’ve got to break the top ten. The media loves scorekeeping and will herald your achievements with a banner beneath the victims as they grieve. For creatives, go for originality and horror . . . Maximize the savage nature. Make us fear movies theaters, or churches or {school} - and a Joker costume at a Batman movie takes theatrics literally. Live TV was a great twist - only took two victims in Roanoke to get the big-star treatment. Surprise us.

The anchor was justifiably horrified, but that was the point. “These are the tactics the killers have turned on us so callously,” Cullen writes, “They cracked the media code. Easily.” And if the media care about ending this, “we in the media need to see our role as clearly as the perps have. We did not start this, nor have we pulled any triggers. But the killers have made us reliable partners. We supply the audience, they provide the show” (pg 380).

In these few short paragraphs, Cullen models the role we all need to take after events such as these occur: point the finger at ourselves, find where we are responsible, and take ownership of it. Just like Andy Dufresne.

Like everyone else, my favorite scene in Shawshank Redemption is the one where Andy Dufresne emerges from the septic tanking, raises his hands to the air, and is finally free from the deathly Shawshank prison. But it wasn’t until I read those lines from Cullen that I understood why I love that scene, and how Andy Dufresne was able to get there.

Throughout the first half of the movie, the audience is left in the dark as to Andy’s involvement with his wife’s murder. There’s that scene in the beginning, of him stumbling from his car, drunk, and carrying a gun, but nothing more. He adamantly denies killing his wife, but we are never fully convinced of his innocence. Till we hear the story of Elmo Blatch, an old cellmate of Tommy’s, and then our suspicions are confirmed, Andy Dufresne is completely innocent and absolved from the murder of his wife. Somehow, though, that isn’t enough. The movie isn’t entitled Shawshank Absolvement, it is Shawshank Redemption, and Andy is not yet redeemed. That comes later, after Tommy has been killed and Andy beaten, placed into solitude for calling the warden “obtuse”, and at the brink of ruin. And like Cullen, as he comes to grip with the harsh reality of what has happened and who is to blame, his hammer of judgement falls to no one else but himself.

“I killed her Red,” Andy he says with a dull sincerity to Morgan Freeman as they sit in the yard, leaning against the giant stone wall, locked in Shawshank Redemption. “I didn’t pull the trigger but I drove her away. And that’s why she died, because of me.”

Red leans down and sits on his heals, “That doesn’t make you a murderer,” he counters, and he’s right. But so is Andy. He didn’t pull the trigger, but he did play a part. A small part perhaps, or at the very least a forgivable part (no on goes to prison for being a bad husband), but a part none the less. And once Andy is finally able to see that, he is able to admit it. And once he admits it, Shawshank could no longer contain him. He is free.

A few scenes later, he climbs into a sewage pipe and crawls to redemption.

“We did not start this, nor have we pulled any triggers”, Cullen admits, echoing Red’s “That doesn’t make you a murderer.” But Cullen, like Andy, isn’t content with being absolved. He wants freedom. Freedom from a grey and deathly prison, freedom from guilt and shame, and freedom from fear that this will indeed happen again. So he accepts his portion of the blame, “we supply the audience, they provide the show.” He acknowledges his responsibility and admits his complicit role. Then, like Andy Dufresne, he climbs into the sewage pipe and beckons us to do the same.

We, on the other hand, continue to sit in horror and amazement, waiting for someone to unlock the cell.

“For the past few years,” Jason Kottke writes, “whenever a mass shooting occurs in the US that gets wide press coverage, the satirical news site The Onion runs an article with this headline written by Jason Roeder: ‘“No Way To Prevent This,”’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens’.”

After each mass shooting, our nation raises its hands in grief and disbelief, “How does this keep happening?” Then, because there is never a clear answer, we quickly defend ourselves, our beliefs, and our rights, leaving many people absolved, very few freed, and even fewer redeemed.

There are two definitions offered for redeemed:

  1. the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.

  2. the action of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment, or clearing a debt.

Both require an admittance. Both require action. Neither point to someone or something else.

I, like the rest of our country, desperately long for these headlines to be eradicated from our headlines. I’ve also been convicted by Cullen and Andy and believe that casting the blame onto others will only perpetuate the acts. But because I’m not a journalist, I cannot rest with Cullen’s admittance. I must find my own, as an educator.

So far, I’ve come up with three.

Purpose:

“Education is inherently selfish” I found myself saying to a room full of educators, “we spend so much time and effort convincing kids to pursue school and grades so they can better themselves and their future” I said, “we encourage them to follow their dreams and be whatever they want to be, but for what purpose?” I found myself trying not to look at a particular school that has geared their entire program around personalized learning and a system that focuses on each kid as an individual, that teaches each kid to learn at their own pace, in their own way, completely isolated from their peers.

Why school? Why do kids have to go? And why do they have to take the classes that they do? A school I once taught for attempted to answer that question with a giant poster that hung in the hallway for each student and teacher to read. “Do it for you,” and it bothered me every single day.

Is that why kids need to be in school? So that they can go to college, get a nice job, and buy nice things? Or is it so that they can collect experiences and enjoy life? So they can learn how to “Follow their heart”? If so, no wonder they’re miserable.

After they’ve pursued every relationship, dating the hottest boy or girl they can find, after they’ve driven the coolest car, bought the the newest technology, and worn the nicest clothes, what next? After sex, popularity, success, and whatever else their hearts desire. what happens when they’re still miserable, empty, and without direction?

Daniel Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, says, “When the product motive becomes unmoored from the purpose motive, bad things happen” (via). The purpose of education, as is written and expressed today, has become unmoored from the deeper more existential purpose: to discover our gifts and talents, to hone them, and then figure out ways to give them away. To serve others.

And for that, I am responsible.

Humanity:

My friend Glen Walenda once theorized on one of my recent blog posts, that Teachers and coaches (perhaps even parents) “often treat {children} as future people instead of people. We are so blinded by their potential we don't see them in the present.” In doing so, we concentrate on the superficial, the tangible, and the quantifiable measurements that will help them succeed (whatever that means) later on in life, when they’re future people.

Because that’s how we know we are doing a “good job,” when our students are scoring well and paying attention in class. It’s also how we’re failing.

The best comedy, according to George Carlin, is a process of digging through the layers of humanity. Instead of simple jokes, the best comedians spend their time talking about feelings and who we are, our loves and likes, our fears and nightmares, and the stuff that makes us, us. That makes them, them. The human being stuff. The stuff that no standardized test or classroom assessment can ever measure.

Curriculum, teaching strategies, and assessments are important and necessary to gauge learning, but how to live life, how to work through struggles and celebrate victories, how to engage humanity and find our purpose in life, these are what we stay alive for. These are why we learn. But because we cannot measure them, no funding is attached to them, and because it is easier to grade knowledge rather than character, education focuses on GPAs rather than character, compliance rather than curiosity; it focuses on the future people rather than the now people.

For that, I am responsible.

Humility:

 The most “influential and inspiring people,” according to John Dickson, “are often marked by humility” which is “the noble choice to forgo your status, deploy your resources or use your influence for the good of others before yourself” (pg 24). Fred Rogers would agree. “The real issue in life,” he believed, “is not how many blessings we have, but what we do with our blessings. Some people have many blessings and hoard them. Some have few and give everything away” (via).

Schools, however, don’t often teach students to give their resources and blessings away. Instead, we focus on individualized learning, valedictorians, and high GPA’s. We focus on counting our blessings and building resumes.

We buy letterman jackets, award honor rolls, and crown kings and queens.

People of character, however, focus on how they can best give away their gifts and resources rather than hoarding them. They care more about their classmates, their community, and whoever else might be in need. They rarely focus on their own.

They care more about living in harmony than they do standing in the spotlight.

“Harmony,” the poet, theologian, and philosopher John O’Donohue states, is everything uniquely itself, “and by being uniquely itself, part of a greater community” (via). Sadly, I have not taught that enough in my classes.

I have focused on the uniqueness of the individual, but not on how their uniqueness fits into the great narrative. I have focused on their gifts, their talents, and dreams they want fulfilled, but I have not taught them well enough the responsibility of those gifts, and the joys of giving them to others. I have focused too much time on developing their resume virtues, not their eulogy virtues.

I didn’t pull the trigger on any mass shootings, but that doesn’t mean I don’t play a part or that I’m unable to prevent the next one. Because I’m an educator, I’m responsible for building and guiding a culture. And so far, I haven’t done the best of job.

For that, I am responsible.

Andy Dufresne crawled through “five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness, {we} can’t even imagine.” Dave Cullen did the same. For ten years. Then, like Andy, he emerged, clean and redeemed on the other side.

Like Andy and Cullen, we didn’t pull the trigger. But we have pushed each other away for the sake of ourselves. And that’s why we die.

If we, as a country, truly do believe enough is enough, that “No one should ever have to go through this. Period”, and that, names of victims on the back of shirts just isn’t enough, then we too must be willing to endure the worst we can imagine and take whatever responsibility we can upon ourselves and change. We must choose another rather than ourselves, our freedoms, and our rights.

If we can do that. Then, maybe, just maybe we too can emerge from this shit-smelling foulness that isn’t hard to imagine. And when we do, like Andy and Cullen, we too can be free, and clean on the other side.

We can find redemption.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Education  :  Chapters to my book

What Muslims Are Teaching Us About Humanity

Image from LaunchGood.com

Image from LaunchGood.com

Chimamanda Adichie said it best, “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.”

“The consequence of the single story is this” Adichie continues, {{i}t robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.”

Muslims Unite for Pittsburgh Synagogue was set up to help “support the shooting victims with short-term needs (Funeral Expenses, Medical Bills, Etc)” and, to date, it has raised over $230,000 “to help victims and their families following the shooting massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday.”

To create a single story, “show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” Even when that is not exactly who they are.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Humanity  :  Beware! The Muslims are Coming!

A Turning Point : Rebekkah's Story

“If making my detox public is gonna help somebody, even, literally, just one person, I’m all for it.”

With so much detachment and insincere living, I feel like these types of videos and “putting myself out there” moments will become more and more the norm. Which means the pendulum will be swinging into radical realism.

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-N- Stuff  :  Real People  :  Short Films

In times of need, Chef Jose Andres and his "25,000 leaders" serve over 150,000 meals a day.

7N7A0386-1024x683.jpg

every time you have a disaster, you bring the different experts into different areas for the reconstruction, for the relief process. So you need to understand that if you have to rebuild homes that you'll bring architects. If you need to take care of people in the hospitals, you bring more help with doctors. If you have to feed people, it's only very normal and logical to me that you will bring cooks. And that's what we do. Kitchens, restaurants are chaos. And chefs, restaurant people - we manage chaos very well. After a hurricane, it's a lot of chaos. And people go hungry, and people go thirsty. And what we are very good at is understanding the problem and adapting. And so a problem becomes an opportunity. That's why I think chefs more and more - you're going to be seeing more of us in these situations. We're practical. We're efficient. We can do it quicker, faster and better than anybody (via)

Humility : using one’s gifts and talents for the benefit of others, not themselves.

Jose Andres and his team of leaders are a great example to us all of how we can and should pursue our loves, our passions, and our dreams. And then, when trials come, when disaster strikes and people are in need, we give away our gifts, resources - whatever - for the benefit of others. Because it’s the right thing to do. Because it’s the human thing to do. And because that’s why we were given them in the first place: to give it away.

I'm only as good as the people I had around me. And happens, it seems, I became the leader. But actually, we had 25,000 leaders. We had young girls - one girl called Lola that will - while his mother and father were around the island on their food truck giving food away in faraway, remote, forgotten neighborhoods, that young girl was staying behind in the headquarters leading a 1,000-people unit of sandwich makers, making sure that everybody was working hard, working fast and working efficient. Lola is 10 years old. We had leaders everywhere.

If a 10-year-old can be leading hundreds of men and women in a moment of need, making sandwiches, imagine what we should be expecting from our president or from the governor or from our fellow congressmen and senators. If a young girl was able to show leadership in a moment of disrepair, what should we expect from our elected leaders? If you want to lead, lead. But you need to be leading in the good moments but especially in the moments of darkness.

Damn.

You can read more about World Central Kitchen on their website or Jose Andres book, We Fed and Island. You can also join his crew of leaders or help donate to the cause.

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Humanity : Other kitchens serving 40,000 meals a day

9/11 : Falling Man, and how we honor that infamous day

Most images of 9/11 depict destruction on a massive scale. But Richard Drew’s quiet picture of one man falling from the towers conveys the tragedy of every life lost that day (via).

For seventeen years, I’ve struggled on how teach this moment. Is it enough to watch a short documentary? Facilitate a discussion? Spend a moment or two in silence? Because it never does.

As the date gets further and further buried in our minds and history books, I fear we will lose this moment, this terrible occurrence that immediately changed America (much like Pearl Harbor) to “something that happened a long time ago.” To something future generations can no longer relate to or learn from.

Then, a recent email from a great teacher provided a possible solution.

It read:

Over the summer, I read this creative nonfiction account of one man's experience on 9/11. It's incredibly good for teaching language and rhetoric while also honoring those who lost their lives in New York City seventeen years ago, and I will be giving it to my AP kids tomorrow. Give it a read, if you're interested; it makes for such a perfect teaching tool on such an important day. 

“Leap”, by Brian Doyle

The Falling Man is a critical moment because it “it’s a very quiet photograph . . . {and} people react to it . . . they feel they can relate to this photograph. That they might have been in the same situation and might have had to make the same choice the man in the photograph made.” Taking the time to consider the perspective of him and them and those around honors them because it remembers them.

And perhaps, that is all anyone can ask for. Remembering and honoring those lost on 9/11.

Dead Dad's Porno Tapes, directed by Charlie Tyrell

To be clear, this isn't my dad. He didn't die nor does he have porno tapes. Also, this video isn't really about Charlie's dad's porn collection.

It's about forgiveness. 

When his father died, Charlie Tyrell realized he knew next to nothing about him. Tyrell and his reticent father hadn’t been close; as a young adult, Tyrell had been waiting for “the strange distance he felt between them to close,” (via).

Then, rather suddenly, his father passed away, and Tyrell was left to discover who his father was, by looking at what was left behind.

“I had this lingering impulse to make a film about him that looked at our relationship. Then, I found [his] porno tapes,” Tyrell told The Atlantic. “I thought it would be an absurd and funny way to approach the subject. It's hard to talk about a deceased loved one without sucking all of the air out of the room. So, by approaching it with a sense of humor, I found a way to invite people into the story in a less weighty way.”

And it works.

For Tyrell, the making of this video "was emotionally draining at times." Which isn't hard to imagine, but it was also healing.

“This was me exposing mine and my family's relationship with our dad. But the process of looking at our relationship and shaping it into a story for a film allowed me to articulate my thoughts and feelings in a way that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.”

Gene Roddenberry, the mastermind behind Star Trek, once said, "All art is an attempt to answer the question, 'What is it all about?'" 

I think Tyrell's answer might be, "Assume the best. Look for the good. Before it's too late."

 

Thanks for reading!

 

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Humanity

How Millennials Became the Selfie Generation

"The idea that there is this perfect golden you is simply not true."

I really appreciated this short documentary on selfies and the self esteem generation that preceded it.  

Sort of a common theme for people to be setting overly high expectations for themselves and then failing to meet them. And when they fail to meet them over and over again they enter into despair, which can manifest in all kinds of self destructive behaviors. 

This quote resonated with me quite a bit. Not because I'm a selfie kind of guy or anything like that, but because I am definitely an overly high expectations kind of guy. In relationships, personal goals and standards, and family. Most definitely family. Then, when these expectations aren't met, over and over again, the destructive behaviors manifest themselves in a variety of ways, but mostly through isolation. Emotionally, physically, or relationally, it doesn't matter. I just withdrawal and brew. Because it's all about me. And often, you're not allowed in.

What's most interesting though - especially when it comes to my wife - is that I rarely find the solution or peace from within, as we are so often asked to do. Instead, it's when people push in, when my wife pursues and doesn't let me off the hook or when a friend says, "I'm coming over" and we talk and talk until finally the facade is down and the bullshit called for what it is. Then, and only then, do I find peace, when I finally get outside myself, when the world doesn't revolve around me, and when the picture includes so much more than my limited understanding of life. 

This short documentary is based on the book Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing To Us by Will Storr. Here's a brief intro:

We live in the age of the individual. Every day, we’re bombarded with depictions of the beautiful, successful, slim, socially conscious, and extroverted individual that our culture has decided is the perfect self, and we berate ourselves when we don’t measure up. This model of the perfect self and the impossibly high standards it sets can be extremely dangerous. People are suffering under the torture of this impossible fantasy, and unprecedented social pressure is leading to increases in depression and suicide (via).

I've already added it to my Amazon cart.

 

Thanks for reading!

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Humanity

 

How a Disney animator deals with losing his wife : A doodle diary

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Former Disney illustrator Gary Andrews started to "doodle diary" on his 54th birthday. He was happily married and a father-of-two and wanted to remember the joy and beauty of family. Within 3 years he was a widower. Joy, his wife, had passed away from sepsis.

Struggling with ways to cope Gary "opened up his notebook and let his emotions pour out onto the pages" (via).

I was crying so hard it was difficult to focus on the page. I was drawing through tears. Joy had been my soulmate for 19 years. She was beautiful, kind, generous and funny. We did everything together. When I lost her, I felt half of me had gone (via).

Gary has published his work in hopes of raising "awareness for an illness that is often regarded as an afterthought for many doctors. Its symptoms, including fever, sickness, blotchy skin and dizziness, are often mistaken for other illnesses and not recognized until too late. If captured early on, it can be treated with simple antibiotics" (via).

After spending a weekend celebrating my 35th birthday and considering the many (hopeful) boxes I have to fill in, this story and these drawings had me all sorts of choked up. 

May we treasure the time that we've been given.

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This one is my favorite because, as I've heard it said before, "Laughter is the manifestation of hope." I can imagine how often Gary felt heavy and depressed and just so alone - especially when his girls crawled into his lap and cried for Mom. But then, moments like these, and perhaps, seeing a bit of his wife's humor and hope shine through his little girls, his spirit was lifted. 

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Brilliant.

 

You can go here for more of Gary's story and to see a few extra sketches. 

Thanks for reading!

 

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Life Stories Humanity

National Geographic is examining their history, because it's pretty racist.

"I’m the tenth editor of National Geographic since its founding in 1888," Susan Goldberg writes. "I’m the first woman and the first Jewish person—a member of two groups that also once faced discrimination here. It hurts to share the appalling stories from the magazine’s past. But when we decided to devote our April magazine to the topic of race, we thought we should examine our own history before turning our reportorial gaze to others" (via).

One of my favorite comedians once said, "If someone calls you an asshole you can't say, 'No I'm not,' because it's not up to you!" The correct response is to say sorry, and then ask what you did wrong. And that is exactly what National Geographic is doing. 

The article continues:

Unlike magazines such as Life, Mason said, National Geographic did little to push its readers beyond the stereotypes ingrained in white American culture.

“Americans got ideas about the world from Tarzan movies and crude racist caricatures,” he said. “Segregation was the way it was. National Geographic wasn’t teaching as much as reinforcing messages they already received and doing so in a magazine that had tremendous authority. National Geographic comes into existence at the height of colonialism, and the world was divided into the colonizers and the colonized. That was a color line, and National Geographic was reflecting that view of the world.”

. . .

Mason also uncovered a string of oddities—photos of “the native person fascinated by Western technology. It really creates this us-and-them dichotomy between the civilized and the uncivilized.” 

Yet, on February 18, 2018, National Geographic published a video that attempted to show the story of human evolution through paintings on a face. The video is brilliant, but it's also a reinforcement of all that National Geographic is trying to move away from.

Right before we turn into machines (I guess), is the light-skinned human. It's so subtle because it's lost in the brilliance of art, but it's there, and it engrains itself into our psyche every single day.

“If I were talking to my students about the period until after the 1960s," Mason states,  "I would say, ‘Be cautious about what you think you are learning here.'" . . . "At the same time, you acknowledge the strengths National Geographic had even in this period, to take people out into the world to see things we’ve never seen before. It’s possible to say that a magazine can open people’s eyes at the same time it closes them.”

Although National Geographic is making great strides and is an example to us all on self-evaluation, Mason's warning to students of the 60's is a warning that still applies today: be cautious about what you think you are learning here. 

The article ends with, "We hope you will join us in this exploration of race, beginning this month and continuing throughout the year. Sometimes these stories, like parts of our own history, are not easy to read. But as Michele Norris writes in this issue, “It’s hard for an individual—or a country—to evolve past discomfort if the source of the anxiety is only discussed in hushed tones", and I think that's brilliant. National Geographic isn't perfect, but they're also not defensive. They're taking a good hard look at themselves and they're inviting us to join them in the process, to join in the discussion. 

I hope we're mature enough to handle it.

 

You can read the full article, "For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist. To Rise Above Our Past, We Must Acknowledge It" here. And I would encourage you to. It's pretty great.

 

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  On Race :  On Living

Marriage. And Race Shouldn't Matter.

Wrong caste
Wrong culture
Wrong religion
Wrong everything.

This American Life posted an episode today, 20 Acts in 60 minutes, which told 20 different stories in 60 minutes. This was a huge deviation from their regular 3-4 stories in an episode and at first, I didn't like it. But then I got used to it, and by the third or forth story, I was laughing out loud with David Sedaris and crying with the teenage girls from a detention center who performed a song of apology for their parents. It was fantastic.

Just like the short clips from the interracial couples. We don't see them long, but it doesn't matter. In their short moments, both together and separate, they all just humans. Which seems so obvious, but the fact that short clips are being made about them points to the reality that it isn't. There aren't any videos of white couples or two Indian couples talking about their marriages. Because that's just marriage.

Not so with interracial marriages.

Why do we have to put the tag on it, as interracial marriage. Shouldn't it just be marriage?

Yes it should. Because it's just marriage. Between two people. And race shouldn't matter.

 

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Fall in Love in 36 questions  :  Choosing more than a Heineken

 

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Giant Snow Art : Simon Beck

"It started as a bit of fun. But gradually, it's taken over my life."

For the past decade, Simon Beck has been decorating the Alps with his stunning mathematical drawings, created by running in snowshoes across freshly laid snow. Each image takes him up to 11 hours to make and covers an area about 100m x 100m, requiring him to travel up to 25 miles as he marks out the pattern (via).
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Recently, he's diversified into beach art. 

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Watching artists being artists is always inspiring and encouraging to the heart and soul. It reminds me that the purpose of art is to express the beat and conscious of humanity and, if possible, to make or turn that beat into something beautiful, something that makes us stand and wonder of life, of possibilities, and of the greatest things about ourselves we have yet to reveal. Things that could quite easily take over our lives.

Like images in our minds, stomped out on a mountainside, for the world to see.

 

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff   :  Inspiring Art  :  Great Big Stories

Naked, and without shame.

"We are only what we always were, but naked now.  Aye! and the wind. God's icy wind, will blow."

- John Proctor - 

In class today, while discussing the culture of Mississippi, the banning of To Kill a Mockingbird, and if the Confederate Flag will survive the deep south hospitality, a student asked, "Why is all this happening now?"

"What?" I asked.

"The taking down of flags, the rise of the LBGTQ community, and all the sexual harassment stuff."

"Because we're in the midst of a revolution," I said.

A revolution of power. 

A revolution of fear.

And a revolution of responsibility

as parents,

teachers,

adults,

woman,

men, 

people,

And bystanders.

The magnitude of accusations has been staggering, but it's also been terrifying, because it has come from every corner of every neighborhood, like a plague, infecting everyone. Comedians, actors, producers, pastors, reporters, governors, liberals, Fox Newsers, presidents, neighbors, and family members. 

Recently, for a poetry unit, one of my students wrote, 

. . . it was a bathroom filled with smoke and shot glasses littering the table.

I try my hardest to forget but I know I am not able.

I remember all I could think was, "Please do not come any closer."

The night soon, just not quickly enough, came to an end and he asks, "Promise not to tell?"

Me? Not not me. No sir.

Who would I have told with so much on the line?

A life would be ruined and I'm absolutely sure nothing would be fine,

Except now I fear hands that are bigger than mine.

. . .

When I called DFS and reported the story, they already knew. But there was nothing they could do. It was his word against her's. 

And she's just one of thousands of woman, both old and young, who have hidden and damning stories that have been trapped beneath years and years of lies, fear, and power.

That's why the cover of the New York Times, Cosby Woman has an empty chair, and it why the TIME Person of the Year cover has a mysterious elbow below Taylor Swift, because "she’s symbolic of all those people who have yet to come forward and may be struggling to do so for fear of repercussions" (via).

Why is all this happening now?

Because it needs to happen now. 

We are what we've always been, only naked now.

So let the icy winds blow.

For the innocent feel no shame.

 

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  #Metoo : this is the hand . . .  :  On Living

 

SAMSARA : The ever turning wheel of life

Filmed over a period of almost five years and in twenty-five countries, SAMSARA transports us to sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial sites, and natural wonders.  By dispensing with dialogue and descriptive text, SAMSARA subverts our expectations of a traditional documentary, instead encouraging our own inner interpretations inspired by images and music that infuses the ancient with the modern (via).

The following is a fusion of SAMSARA and BARAKA, a film of similar purpose and design.

That ending scene, of the monks destroying their brilliant masterpiece, is so fantastically powerful. And I can't decide where my own inner interpretation lands. Is it meaningless meaningless all is meaningless? Is it that I am here, that life exists. And identity. That the powerful play goes on and I may contribute a verse?

Or is it something else entirely? 

I kind of like the idea that all humanity is a different color, making up a much larger work that will, inevitably, be destroyed - whatever that means.

But not yet.

Because "SAMSARA is a Sanskrit word that means 'the ever turning wheel of life,'" and at least for now, there is a lot of Life left for us to dance.

 

Even in jail.

 

Yet, there are some that never will. Or if they do, it won't be for life.

Because that too is part of the our reality and inner interpretation that I just quite understand.

 

"SAMSARA was filmed in 25 countries and produced over the course of almost 5 years." You can watch the full length movie on Amazon.

 

 

For more on . . .

-N- Stuff  :  Inspiring films about Humans  :  Inspiring Art  :  Documentaries