Finding silence in a world of screaming voices

The world has been loud lately - screaming with pain that demands to make itself known. The news is plagued with people who are hurting, who look to find a voice, to seek justice, to create peace.

Working in journalism can be a frustrating thing at times. There are moments when all I want is to turn off the news, but to do so would be irresponsible of me. Not only as a journalist, but as a human being. I can't bring myself to turn a blind eye to suffering simply because I don't want to feel even a modicum of what they must be going through.

So I seek other ways to create silence for myself while continuing to tune in. It's not always easy, as I crave stimulation in the same way that I crave hot tea, doughnuts, or a slice of pizza from OIP. I could attribute that to growing up in a generation of instant gratification, but truth be told, I can't ever remember a time when that was different for me, even before the invention of the internet. 

I was that preteen sitting on a couch, reading a book while the television played in the background. I was the annoying kid in the backseat blaring my Walkman because the monotony of sitting in silence was too much for me. Even when I'm writing, I rarely do so in silence. Sometimes I have to trade in my everyday music with something a little more instrumental so I'm not distracted by the words, but there is still always something playing in the background. 

Dear Time Magazine...feminism is my favorite word

If you haven’t heard, Time Magazine released the “Which Word Should be Banned in 2015?” poll.

The list includes a series of words that – even as a millennial -  make me wanna groan, slam my head on a table and simply shake my head at humanity for making them so ingrained in social media (the word  “bae” comes to mind, which is on the list) that they're impossible to escape. 

Bae, basic, literally and obvi are a few that make the short list that seem to be popular in the vernacular of my generation. I hate every single one of them (with the exception of literally which I’m guilt of using literally all the time), but every word has its day, so I’ll continue to roll my eyes into the back of my head when I see or hear them until we’ve moved on to the next catchphrase.

I was pleased to see bossy also on the list, not because it’s annoyingly everywhere like bae, but because the word has a negative connotation used only in association with women in power or in charge. To read more about this, visit this link, which explains the movement to ban bossy.

I was incredibly disheartened, however, by Time’s inclusion of my favorite word –

Feminist.

Panic Monday: the ever-evolving writing crisis

You'll notice that I've not-so-subtly changed my alliterative 'Manic Monday' title to 'Panic Monday.'

For which there's a very good reason.

The other day as my roommate/best friend was discussing applying for a well-paying job in her field, I had a really unsettling, startling thought that has continued to unnerve me from the moment I had it:

I will likely never be financially stable in my field unless I’m successful at publishing a manuscript.

It’s true that I’m a working journalist, but even writing for a large city (which I’m not) newspaper is rocky, with print media continuing to evolve with the ever-growing interwebs. And while I would never rule out a gig working for The New York Times, I’m also not certain I’m passionate enough about journalism to want something like that badly enough to make it happen for myself.

I like journalism well enough and I'm so grateful to be an employed writer, but my love affair with writing has never really been about the truth – which defines journalism at its very core – but about falling into another world, providing an escape from the harsher realities of the universe.

Manic Monday: always love without shame

This post kind of goes along with last week’s theme, in that we should accept happiness where we can find it and not let ourselves (or others) dictate where we find it.

And I think that rings true when it comes to what we love, as well. I’m not really talking about relationships or friendships – though I guess that it applies there too – but more our tastes and the kind of things we can lose ourselves in. For an entertainment junkie like me, they would fall under categories like music, film, television, literature, etc.

I’ve never let someone else tell me what I can enjoy, but I do let it affect how or if I express that joy. I’ve always cared about what other people think, but I’d like to believe that’s decreased over time and will continue to decline as I get older. I will say, however, that I’m done with letting the fear of judgment prevent me from embracing my whole and true self.

Manic Monday: Do what you love (even if you suck at it)

Today marks the first in (what I hope to be) a series of Monday blogs – affectionately titled “Manic Mondays” – in which I write about something that’s been on my mind the past week, whether it be a thought, feeling, piece of news, new film, etc. As I’m only currently working part-time and one of those days thankfully does not include Monday, “manic” refers not necessarily to my state of mind on this day, but rather what has left me “manic” all week.

Make sense?

As a creative, I find that I’m passionate about many facets of the world, and even if I’m the only one reading this thing, I’d rather not limit myself to simply one line of consciousness. I’m hoping that the theme of “Manic Mondays” keeps this blog coherent and organized enough without limiting what I’m attempting to say.

Now that we’ve got the introduction out of the way –

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about finding joy when the world seems to be submerged in a gaping hole. Sometimes – for me, anyway – it can be really difficult to find the good. Any source of good. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t always have a lot of faith in humanity, particularly when there’s not a day that passes where we’re not bombarded with terrible news or swept away in mass hysteria over own making (the first and last reference I’ll ever make to Ebola in this blog).

Every now and again, I’m pleasantly surprised, but those days seem to come more infrequently. And I’d like them to occur so often that they stop surprising me.

But I don’t know if that day will ever come. And so I’ve realized that it’s up to me to create my own sense of happiness – within myself and within my world – to help combat the negativity that at least appears to be widespread.

The Forever-Eager People-Pleaser

Before I left Los Angeles, I’d actually been debating moving home for a fair amount of time. I found myself leaning more toward the move than not, but there were certain hang-ups I had that, for a while, fully prevented me from committing to the move, even though I knew it was ultimately what I needed. And I’m not talking about tangible external factors like Nicole, my nearest and dearest friend of the city, or the plethora of career opportunities that would likely fall away once I made my way home. No, when I say hang-up, I’m referring to a literal psychological inhibition — my own thoughts that have kept me from doing what’s right for me.

I’ve always been a people-pleaser, to the point that I can’t stand it when people don’t like me, or are mad at me, for whatever reasons they may have. This inherent need has also affected my decision-making, from both everyday, mundane activities, to huge, life-altering ones. Like a move across the country, for example. The problem with making such a life alteration like the one I made, was that it would be absolutely impossible for me to please everyone. Someone, somewhere was sure as hell going to be disappointed by my decision, whether it was for their own selfish (and I use that term lightly) reason or because they felt like I was making a mistake.

And, as always, there comes a time when you start to figure it out, that if you spend your life living on someone else’s terms – or everyone else’s terms for that matter – you’re doing so at a grave cost to yourself. You start to hinder your own growth, stagnant and immobile in everyone else’s perception of you.

What We Can Learn from the Death of Robin Williams

Depression affects millions upon millions of people, and yet it’s still widely misunderstood, along with a grocery list of mental illnesses. A conversation with my roommate last night about the passing of Robin Williams only cemented what I already knew to be true.

Upon learning that he’d not only had a wife, but children, her response was: “What a selfish man he must be to leave behind a family.” She then went on to question his depression and what had "caused it," throwing out theories about his wife cheating on him (pure speculation on her part, I might add. There are no reports that support this, but that’s completely irrelevant to my point).

I tried my best to be understanding, but I’m certain that some of my frustration showed because the bottom line is, depression doesn't typically have a specific cause. And I think that’s really hard for some to wrap their head around if they haven’t dealt with it directly. They can’t seem to understand the notion that depression is a very real debilitating illness that is not the same thing as being in a temporarily “depressed” mood and moving on from it.

It’s true that there are risk factors and other things that come into play. Grief even can eventually manifest into depression if the sufferer lacks effective coping skills. But depression is not a temporary mood caused by one single thing. It can be a combination of life circumstances, family history, and chemical imbalances, among many others.

Those Sucker Punch Days [BRH].

Today is number four. 

Sometimes people ask me if I have a routine on this day, as if death is monotonous, or something to be ritualized. Maybe for some, it's comforting, but I'm unable to plan how I will feel - whether today will be a sucker punch to the gut or a quiet, tempering echo of loneliness. The punches come when I don't expect them and are never limited to this day, but rather make themselves known when nothing seems to make sense in the world. So, no -

I can't plan for this day any more than I can plan for those Sucker Punch Days.

Today I'm sitting in the park on a towel with a book in my lap and a journal at my side. I've managed to find a spot in the Concrete Jungle of the West with some patches of greenery, a few handfuls of trees, and pealing laughter of children with grubby, calloused fingers tripping across monkey bars.

A few ants have found their way between the pages of my book and onto the slide of my skin. I admittedly don't love ants (or bugs of any kind), but they make me laugh now because you feared ants more than a lot of other things in the world, which was never something that I could quite wrap my head around. Just one of your eccentricities that I loved about you.

On Failure, Dreams, and a New Direction

The great thing about failure (and there are really not that many of them. surprise) is that it really forces you to take a step back and reevaluate. 

In my case, failure came in the form of getting fired from a new job. Though in my defense, "firing" is probably way too strong a word, as I was hired on a week-long trial basis, just like everyone else who started there. Perhaps unlike everyone else who started there, I was asked to leave after a few days. My writing style just "wasn't what they were looking for."

I'm not sure that I believe that everything happens for a reason. I think life can be really shitty and senseless at times. It's part of the reason that I've struggled with religion and the idea of God for so long, but I digress. 

And if you had given me such a platitude on Thursday (the day I was asked to leave), I probably would've given you a quick swift roundhouse kick to the neck. But now that I've gotten some space from the whole thing, I can maybe see the potential for something good to come out of it.

The Rise and Fall of a Dream (otherwise known as The Almost Quarter-Life Crisis)

Let it be known that while I may have a flair for the dramatics, I'm also relatively self-aware. Self-aware enough to know that what I'm about to write may seem like I'm overdramatizing life. What I have to say to that is that I'm a natural-born worrier, someone who obsesses over whether or not she's living her life the "right" way, which of course is an abstract notion that only I can determine. But the fact that I am the only person who can figure that out is the problem. 

I have no idea what I want out of life anymore. And while I'm aware that it's a semi-frequent feeling for someone my age to have, it makes me extremely uncomfortable because I've generally always known what I thought I wanted. But let me back up a few steps to where my dissatisfaction lies.