Inexplicable

I am searching for some long-forgotten senses of self. It's hard to recollect what made me tick back then. I felt that more avenues were open to me. I felt no compulsion to stick to the main roads.
If there is a fountain of light emerging from the top of my head, why do I find it so hard to recall all the compliments I receive? Do I need to deepen this sensation of spiritual transcendence, or reach for another?

Confusion is a self-made thing. It borrows from a manufactured world of mediocre preoccupations.

I push them out, one after the other. Perfectly formed little critters, dazzling in the daylight.

It's time to break the pattern.

What could I be, if I let my thoughts run free? Possibly triumphant as I daren't be. But who is the me demanding attention? Already transformed into something else.

I dared (a bit) today. 

The end of compulsory smiling for me

If I look at all my Facebook profile images up to a certain point, they all have one thing in common: I am smiling. It was over the last two years that I decided to broaden the range of expressions in my photos, by not deliberately smiling all the time. At first I felt like I was being excessively bold, but I quickly warmed to my new range of neutral expressions. There was freedom in not having to grin from ear to ear at every photo opportunity. After a while, the pressure to 'perform' lifted, and I started smiling only when I wanted to represent genuine happiness.
Women are constantly told to 'smile... you look prettier.' Like there's so many things to smile about: ISIS, the West adding fuel to the fire with every new 'policy', Russia vs Ukraine, Tony Abbott, US Republicans, etc. I'm an engaged citizen, and being engaged means feeling a lot of despair over the way the world is conducting its affairs. Some might have better coping strategies, but that doesn't change how harrowing the world often is for me. A smile doesn't necessarily represent how I feel most of the time. It shouldn't be forced upon me.
I encountered resistance from amongst my Facebook friends: One Peruvian acquaintance left a simple note on my wall with his birthday message: "Smile!" He doesn't know me too well, so I just let it go... but it just goes to show that a smile is part of the package of femininity. "Be kind, be nice, be polite." A smile can show that the woman is going along with men's expectations of her. A smile can signal subservience or passivity. I wanted to make sure that I was being true to myself, not going with the patriarchal flow.
There's something cultural about it as well. Being a "good" European "girl." Being happy with the injustices that have been inflicted on me? No more. I have real pain, and if I want to I will express it. At the very least, I will suppress the urge to smile in my photos out of a duty to seem innocuous and carefree. Ironically, I feel more comfortable with my self-image than ever before. (It could also be an age thing.)

The Possibilities

Do you ever feel like you could do so much in your life, that you don't know how to choose? We are spoilt for choice. Sometimes, even though my life has unfolded mainly according to my passion for communication, I wonder if I could go back to university and get a science degree. I feel like this when I encounter extremely interesting scientists, who have a passion for discovery. I normally feel quite content to be typing away in pursuit of some imperfectly beautiful piece of poetic prose, but when I do dream of scientific pursuits, it feels genuine. Like it's the real thing.

It's the same thing with my language learning projects. Anticipating a trip to Spain in the middle of this year, I have changed my target language to Spanish. (I will go back to French, don't worry.) I'm enjoying it, but I do think about the other languages I'd love to learn. It's like having a part of your mind that's constantly nagging - "shouldn't you be doing this instead?"

Life is a kaleidoscope of possibilities, so it's okay to feel like this sometimes. Even though I am "following my heart" by making writing my labour of love, dreaming of other things is a normal consequence of the wide array of options out there. We don't fall neatly into the categories of "writer", "singer" or "electrical engineer". Most of us feel capable of having more than one occupation, and many of us have career changes.

I guess the most important thing is find the thing that you're doing pleasantly engaging. I love writing because, when I put enough effort into it, I can turn up with something really great. I like putting in the effort because I know I'm creating something that I and other people can enjoy. I also believe my writing can have a therapeutic, educational, or uplifting effect on my audience, and I try to compete with myself so that I can do my best each and every time.

And for that, I am willing to let other possibilities fade away, or work them into my writing, as I'm doing now. ;-)

Angelina's Story

Dark red, tan and white. The room was overwhelmingly decorated in these colours. They reminded her of an Eastern European setting, the cool-tinted warm colours a mixture of vibrant and neutral. She had always felt there was something missing from this palette, perhaps a purple or a green, but her requests for change were repulsed. She was reminded that she was not the head of the house, and when she was, then she could bring changes into effect. Angelina lay on the longest of the tan sofas and began to tell her story. The circumstances weren't perfect, but she couldn't wait for them to consume her. She had to rise above them.

How many more people would be shut off in a crowded facility with little to engage them as they pondered their darkest thoughts? Sedation and dehumanisation. The occasional art supervisor came once a week with crayons and paper, but what good was this pocket of spiritual nourishment when her demons told her it was an inappropriate place to go? There were board games and puzzles stacked up in a little-noticed corner of the compound, but Angelina had more pressing things to do, like walking around incessantly, picking up the messages from the swivel of an arm or the droning of the television. On rare occasions she would take refuge in the massage chair, but it was never long before another loud noise compelled her out of her seat and back to stalking the corridors.

It took a special kind of person to pierce the doom-filled bubble she had been floating in. A person who cared about her psychological well-being, not someone invested in a chemical cure. Someone who valued her emotional experience, at least to some extent. It was astounding how easy it was to break free once such a person had shown up, and terrifying to note the neglect that had kept her silent for so long.

She wanted to make a difference, but felt like she lacked the social capital to do so. She was one of the 'others' now, a being so far gone (outside the mainstream) that there was almost no way of coming back. She savoured much about this state, but it also left her ill-equipped to change the system. She feared she would have to rely on outside momentum. Or would she? Anything was still possible, because Angelina wasn't resigned to her fate, and sometimes what was possible became the driving focus of her efforts for social improvement. If so, the cruelty that lay at the heart of the psychiatric system would have to transform itself into something new. Something more befitting visionaries and secular saints.

53%

I can read about 53% of all real French, DuoLingo informs me. I started actively searching for French  texts to test out their assessment of my ability. To my surprise, I understood quite a lot of those texts, and even though the gaps are frustrating to encounter, just knowing that I've progressed so much makes me happy. 

I study French every day, even if it's just a little bit. That's my only real secret: dogged persistence. I didn't imagine that I would get this far when I started out, so the reward is sweet. I can actually understand (some of) what all these new people with a similar talking habit are talking about!

As you might have read previously, I read the Guardian for news and cultural commentary, and part of the charm of the website is that there are three editions: Australian, UK and US. It's interesting to have access to the local news of two different continents, as well as mine. The UK site often has articles on other parts of Europe, and I learn a lot this way. But ever since I discovered Scandinavia, the English-speaking world doesn't impress the way it used to. It seems lacking in sensuality, for one. It seems to be to the right of continental Western Europe in general. 

At first I wanted to learn Swedish, but learning on my own proved difficult. I tried to enrol in a university course, but Sydney offered none. The only Swedish university course was in Melbourne, and it was being phased out. (It's probably completely gone by now.) I bought language software, but couldn't stick at it. I followed a whole bunch of Swedish feminists on Twitter but had to defriend them to save my sanity when I still couldn't understand them after ages. 

Then I discovered DuoLingo. And though it didn't have Swedish, I figured I could learn another language while I waited for a Swedish version to become available. I chose French. I was already familiar with some basics from a year of high school study, which made me more confident in the language than I was with Spanish. And even though DuoLingo has blessed me with a Swedish version just a few weeks ago, I will persist with my French, because I feel like it has become a part of me. I would miss it if it went away. And hey, the more languages you know, the easier it becomes to learn another one! It's not like I can't wait, either. I can wait, because I'm in the now. I'm enjoying the process. (Thank you to whoever invented mindfulness.)

Speaking up - as mentally divergent

My mum believes it is in my best interest to remove all traces of my mental divergence from this blog. She believes that I would be unfairly discriminated against. And she may be right, but I just don't have the energy to pretend anymore. I am different to most people when it comes to brain function, and while this is harmless (and even advantageous to some extent) in and of itself, it has resulted in institutional abuse by forced drugging, unnecessary and trauma-inducing restraint, and massive disrespect for my intellect and intuition. All of that influenced how I go about my everyday life, and how I write. While statistically only a small part of the population experiences similar things, it's a part of my experience that I feel I must make sense of in my own way. I must write about it. To keep it all in would be to bottle it up, and there is nothing more mentally inhibiting than feeling you have something to hide. I don't want to be that person.

I used to pretend that everything was okay, even though to me it always seemed obvious that I was "an odd duck" - a person with heightened sensitivity, a lack of emotional defences, and an intelligence that wasn't seen as socially acceptable. I stand out, and not just because I wear an OBEY hat and a "Feminist" T-shirt, although there's that, too. I walk slowly and pay close attention to my surroundings, trying to find wonder in what could be easily discounted as ordinary. I have "that look" in my eyes - the look of a visionary. I'm kind, perceptive, personable and compassionate.

Mental divergence is not treated kindly in our society. A bit of difference is seen as fine, but if you want to conceptually turn the world upside down, you're going to find so much resistance that it will be damaging to your health. Innovation may seem to be what the rich and powerful are looking for, but if you have openness and drive in large quantities you're going to find out that, mostly, those at the top want things to stay the same.

Things never change quickly enough for me. Australia still hasn't legalised same-sex marriage? I'm already thinking about a time where everybody feels happy identifying as bisexual (or pansexual, if you prefer). Julia Gillard became the first female prime minister? I'm already envisioning a country where 50% of all prime ministers are female, and everyone feels like that is how things should be. Instead, we got stuck in a loop of deranged lashback, which culminated in her tormentor Tony Abbott's ascendance to the top job.

I'm such an asset to the community that there has been a cost. I want it to change in ways it is not prepared for, and as a result it's afraid of me. I know that my impetus for change is the right way of being, but I am being punished for it, even as I type. Even so, I intend to keep mobilising towards that kind of change. Because I know that the philosophies behind it have the community's best interests at heart. And, when I'm on my deathbed, I can say that I helped make the world a better place in the face of what could have been overwhelming resistance to someone with less self-belief. I don't even have to wait that long, come to think of it - I can congratulate myself right in this very moment... daily, once before I go to sleep each night.

I hope you can join me on my journey to create meaningful change in my surroundings. See you around. ;)

Reclaiming 'wonderful'

I loved this ad until I learned it was about consumerism... if you have to rely on expensive purchases to bring back the sparkle in your life, you're in dire need of help! What would have been fascinating would be to explore the theme of wonder through creating new concepts, a lens through which to view the world anew. How does wonder survive in a modern adult, in you or me? Well, I can only speak for myself: Wonder occurs when I opt out of the world of things 'known' (e.g. facts, absolutist rhetoric, 'common sense' assertions) and wake up to the mysteries all around.