I fell asleep from like 6-9 or something and then drank some caffeine so my brain will not shut up.
I am reading a book on sex addiction, the author suggests an activity of "turning the lights on, in your auditorium"
It sounds dumb, but kind of makes sense. If there is a voice in your head somewhere telling you what to to, what to believe, how to think about things, and you are pretty sure that voice is working against you... turn on the lights and find out which of the audience members (the parts of your personality) is actually speaking. In this case, is it the 11 year old who's first experience of sexuality was pictures on the internet? Is it the 15 year old who is convinced he will never get a girl friend?
But in a larger sense, is it the part of you that ran away in one situation, and now can't remember all the times you stood still, or fought back, or made things better? Is it the part of you that isolates to avoid vulnerability, when what you want is connection? well, turn on the lights and find out.... and then recognize the other voices that are possible, and decide which one you want to listen to.
Not easy...
I wasn't thinking about that though when I couldn't get to sleep. I was thinking about how disappointed and angry I am with SoT. I feel like we have all these big goals, and no follow through. I feel like people commit to things because we believe in them, but not because we want to actually do them, so we half ass it. Its a sad organization sometimes. I am currently the leader of it, and all around me I have watched it fall apart since "taking the reigns" and I sometimes feel like its my fault... but when I look at the other people, I see how they avoided following through, how they neglected their responsibilities, how one by one we have all lost spirit... and I am wondering why I should care... and definitely mad that even part of me blames myself... but mostly I am just annoyed and exhausted, the world is hard to change. In progressive movements there is often this idea that the people most affected by things shouldn't be the only ones fighting, but one of the necessary factors to fight is having skin in the game... well, its hard to constantly remind yourself of all the ways you are being hurt by injustice, when you can so easily escape into watching tv or whatever...
My job is exhausting. We are trying to change habits, skill levels, mind sets... we are doing too much and have too much invested in outcomes... and when my goal is nothing less than changing the world....
-I had a student today say something to the equivalent of "Why would you rape someone, when you can get pussy for free?" -which in his mind was an anti-rape comment...
-I had a 16 year old ask me what homosexuality and heterosexuality were, because he hadn't heard the terms before, "Oh you mean straight and gay, that's cool"
-None of these kids understood why anyone would be against marriage equality, but half of them use the term "gay" to mean stupid, and I am sure the men call each other "fags" all the time to reinforce their idea of masculinity.
-In a class room with 6 students I repeatedly had to tell them to raise their hands because they continued to talk over each other for an entire hour.
-A good portion of my school think the Illuminati are real, a few think Jewish people rule the world.
-I had a kid today say he didn't need to learn to budget because he was going to be a rapper. Last week I asked him if he had ever performed in front of an audience and he said no. I asked him if he had had opportunities and he said he always turned them down because they were beneath him.
-1 page of notes is a lot, but most of them think they will do fine in college.
-Reading 10 pages in class is too much, reading a paragraph out loud is too much, editing their writing is always too much.
No matter how good the day is, no matter how good the discussions, or how good the community is going, this is the constant, the background, the baseline... and yes we rise above it, but we sink below it some days too.
and on the side I am supposed to rally adults to be inspired about causes and actions, knowing full well, they also do jobs like this. ooh... its not sustainable.
this whole damn system aint sustainable.
On the upside...
My roommate's band made a sort of promo-music video today... and it was awesome. I got to be the shaky camera man.
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