Dear Elitist Women,

I have always been thin. Tall, slender, decently athletic, graceful, coordinated… I have gone through phases of my life where I treated my body wonderfully (loving sexual relationships, healthful food intake, no toxic substances, restful slumbers) and I have also gone through phases of my life where I treated my body like a trashcan (gorging on fast food, living a sluggish lifestyle where sleep and exercise were compromised, emotionally abusive relationships, troubled sex, toxic ingestions). I know what self-hatred is; I know low self-esteem. And I know, first hand, that it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with what you look like!

I don’t care whether you are full-figured, or skinny, or have breast implants, or other plastic surgery on your face. I don’t care if you are pudgy, obese, muscular, slender, round, square, or triangle. Every single human being has the right to feel what they want to feel about their own goddamned body, including the right to love their body however it is, or isn’t.

I am skinny, and, quite frankly, I find it offensive to hear large women preach about how ugly and unhealthy  slender person “must be”, just by their judgement of that physical appearance. They’d have no idea that I am a talented dancer with incredible body control, or that my thin fingers have allowed me to excel in writing and drawing through my life. For me, being thin is part of who I am, it’s part of how I have cultivated my talents, and part of how I see the world. My experience in my body is no less valuable than anyone else’s. Let’s talk about inner beauty, then.

 

Here I am over here, using my body to make dope art, through a variety of mediums, and I’m not “allowed” to strive for better physical awareness without being accused of having some sort of body dysmorphia disorder…

 

I’ll keep enjoying the photoshopped Barbie-doll figures in the media, because guess what, they are created to appeal to the human preferences for symmetry and proportion– Imagine that! My eyeballs can enjoy something that looks like a perfect genetic combination of human characteristics, like a smooth gazelle gracefully poised and full of vibrant vitality. I don’t personally care if that visual didn’t exist in nature– Human interaction made it pretty, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that.

One time several years ago, when I was at a slim weight, since I had spent years with severe anxiety and depression, crying out all my energy daily, barely eating, sleeping in nightmare lands with no real respite from “life”, a girl I believed was my “best friend” told me that I looked “terrible” (yes, terrible!) when I dressed up in a long black evening gown for fun… ON MY BIRTHDAY. Being depressed, it’s hard to care about personal stuff like dressing nicely and brushing your hair. For this birthday, all I wanted was me and my few close girl friends (and my wonderful lady cousin! ❤ ) to dress up fancy, just because, and go to dinner. I thought it’d be fun for us all to look glamorous, and have people wonder where we were going when they saw us all dazzled up in public. So, I took this day for myself to shower, primp, do my hair and makeup, and bring out an old prom dress from the annals of my youth. I was insecure, miserable– But I was grateful for this one night to have a nice happy time, and to LOOK the part too. But my “friend”, who was always dieting and starving herself unsuccessfully, just to weigh less, couldn’t even let me shine on my day. She had to tell me, in front of the others, that I looked “terrible” because my collarbone and hip bones showed (and they always have and always will, because, did I mention that I’m naturally slender anyway?). Then, in private, she went to “talk to my mom” about me “obviously” having an eating disorder… Thank god my mom could see through her. My mom knew that I still ate food whenever I was hungry, and she knew I was self-conscious about my lowly appearance day-to-day, looking tired and sickly, and feeling it inside too.

For other reasons, I’m no longer friends with this person. But I will always remember her in this category of women who feel the need to bring others down to make themselves feel better. And not just that, but they blindly manipulate themselves into unrealistic forms of extreme thinking, like: “a bone is showing on her body– she MUST have a problem, let’s sound the alarm!” or, “I don’t want to exercise too much and get muscles because muscles are ugly!” …in front of someone who is happily athletic and has a beautifully developed muscular physique.

To me this is just bitchiness. Bitchiness at it’s finest.

I drew this beautiful mixed-media female humanoid on my wall, with no visual reference besides what I could visualize in my mind. My human mind. My human mind that sees beauty. Don’t tell me about inner beauty, because this work came from my mind, from my soul, the most “inner” places beauty can exist within. And I am proud of her, for her shapes, for her muscular abdomen. You suck if you think that her beauty is diminished because it makes your own insecurities stand out… And wait ’till you see my Photoshop skills! That’ll be in another post maybe. Maybe I’ll play around with perceived beauty. But for now, just know that there is at least one lady out there who calls bullshit on you, elitist women.

“Creation of self is the highest form of creation.”

daily

Most days I wake up with a slow, dull sinking feeling in my chest, as I come back to conscious reality.

Then, I spend my day doing whatever I need to do to get by.

And then I wait until my responsibilities are done for the day, and find a quiet place where I can finally let out all of my accumulated sadness.

Then I cry until my brain is numb, have a mediocre sleep, and do it all over again.

friendless

Friends.

I used to have so many. They weren’t real friends for my soul, but I didn’t know that at the time. Over the past decade I have lost almost every friend I ever thought I had. Also all my fault, but not necessarily for the reasons one might assume. I decided I couldn’t keep getting my feelings hurt by these same people over and over, from their lack of empathy, or their insensitivity, or whatever else. I chose to be friendless, and I live with that decision everyday.

But I’m the one who is always sad, always on the verge of tears. I’m the one who isn’t valuable in society, who feels like an ultimate failure, maybe even a waste of a human life.

I guess the joke’s on me.

Candid

It’s Halloween. I just took off my costume for the night. I’ve been drinking wine. My dog is licking her butthole. I’m crying.

I was supposed to go to this party, put on by one of my only friends. She loves making themed decorative stuff, so she had spent weeks planning the decorations and treats. I was supposed to go with my boyfriend, who I thought was perfect for me, but he dumped me exactly seven days ago in a crowded restaurant.

I was still going to go to the party alone, because I love dressing up for themes, and I love wearing costumes. But, just a day ago, my party-throwing friend informed me that one of my ex-boyfriends would be attending the party. Wouldn’t be a terrible deal, except that this guy has been a terrible drug addict for the majority of his life, and also stalked me for years, across multiple states…

So I cancelled my plans and stayed at home to pass out candy to trick-or-treaters with my mom. I love my mom so much. She is a very patient soul, and the only human being who has always shown me love I could see.

Oh, I also live with my parents. I am 27, unemployed, and live with my parents. I would try to justify why, and explain the past ten years of my life that have added up to why I am in this state, but it doesn’t really matter, because right now, what matters is that I have the horrendously low self-esteem and morale of an unsuccessful 27-year-old American person who is living with their retired parents.

So the former boyfriend I was recently just dumped by: I can’t, with any rash judgement, even begin to go into that issue, because of the context of this blog, as it is. We should just assume I must be a horrible, negative person, right? To dedicate a written catalogue solely to the negative things I experience? But where I am right now, is, how did I just waste seven months thinking I was in a truly loving relationship, when in reality I was being hardcore judged the entire time for all the less-than-desirable aspects of my current lifestyle?

It’s my own fault, for more reasons than any human being could even guess. But probably not for the reasons any human being actually WOULD guess…

So, here I am, alone in my room, wondering when I will be able to become useful in society. Wondering how exactly people become successful. Wondering what I lack, that everyone else seems to know, or understand, or practice. Wondering why it is that I just don’t get along with most people. Wondering why it is that people “fall in love” with me when they meet me, but then decide later on that I’m the scum of the Earth. I truly just don’t understand what I have done so wrong in my life. I try so hard to be a good person… whatever that even means.

I haven’t talked about depression yet, but I will someday. It’s a hard topic to put into words, to quantize, to translate into a relatable language. Sometimes words aren’t enough.

This is a photo I took this past summer in Hawaii during a family trip.

lowercase shame thought

i’ve embarrassed myself so much in my past. i have so much embarrassment and confusion from acting in ways that i couldn’t actually identify with, ways i didn’t understand or relate to, like anger. i wish i hadn’t “needed” all those times just to learn something so basic. i wonder if that means its my fault for not learning it sooner or faster and avoiding the humiliation and hurt? or if its just coincidental that my life led me here now, versus learning the same lesson in the context of someone else’s collective life experience…

i’ve questioned everything about myself at some point; every single personality trait, every single choice i’ve made, every single relationship i’ve had, with every single human being. it’s exhausting, and i still fail often at trying to be a good person for the people i love. being human is hard. some people seem so good at it…

sometimes i find myself experiencing hate and anger. usually at myself, in relation to how i am or am not getting along in the world. i find myself projecting it onto others, which i can never see in the moment, but hate myself more for once i realize it.

i love my family very much. i regret any times i hurt them. i wonder how long it will take me to make it up to them, if that is possible…

SoapBox: Speciesism

Sometimes, people make excuses for why animal abuse should be continued, because it is truly too painful to delve into what the problems really are… But what they might fail to see, is that all of those excuses still reflect a human-centric mindset, which is something that isn’t even beneficial to humans, let alone the millions of other species we share the Earth with. There are substitutes for every single source of animal abuse we have in our culture, whether it be food consumption, textiles, or scientific research. It seems endlessly difficult to make changes toward these better substitutes, but these substitutes do exist already, and there are surprisingly enormous groups of people who have already helped spread awareness of other options, beyond some labels you might hear, like PETA, or “Vegans!!”, or what have you. It’s too difficult for most people to actually learn about how animals are treated under circumstances they deem necessary (food, science, etc), but for those who have taken the pain of that knowledge onto themselves, it can actually be a liberating experience, because empathy is something humans naturally want to share, but often don’t have an outlet for, in our world of violence. Letting yourself admit that animals are worthy of your deep emotions will put you in touch with deeper humanity. I, a random human being posting this on the internet, strongly encourage anyone who reads this to take the plunge into studying the potential for a completely non-violent culture. This begins with our views of ourselves, continues to our views of other species, and can end with us, if we want it to.

balancing act: an introduction to equilibrium

A concept you will learn about in art theory, is the value of negative space. I have always loved the concept, because it makes such deep, philosophical sense. What defines some entity or experience to be what we consider “positive”, without some sort of defined counter point that we call “negative”? How can we understand light without a concept of darkness, or pleasure without the concept of pain. We can see this duality anywhere we look throughout our lives, that our existence is a constant, cycling fluctuation between extreme vices. So why is it that we somehow let ourselves believe that pushing towards one vice could ever be sustainable or truthful to the human experience?

For any accumulation of net energy in one realm, there is a corresponding deficit somewhere else that continues to gain magnitude. We can see this with the wealth distribution around the world, whereby a small percentage of the human population has accumulated (and continues to accumulate) energy and resources that we sum up as “wealth”. The deficit is distributed all over the globe, manifested as war, hatred, poverty, depression, financial debts, interpersonal debts, and any other form of inequity we can possibly come up with. We can also see this with the distribution of information around the world, whereby, a small percentage of the human population has accumulated (and continues to accumulate) data of sorts, such that, even with globalization, the majority of the human population will never have access to the information that could be most helpful to suit their needs. This too is manifested as war, hatred, poverty, depression, financial debt, interpersonal debt, and the myriad of other problems we all know to exist daily. We can repeat this logic using all forms of raw energy that we exchange amongst ourselves, including personal resources, such as kindness. But, since it is already difficult enough to measure the complex global exchange systems we have had around for centuries, it is even more difficult to measure our individual roles in it all, and why that is even worth the time to think about.

But I see this:

A large gaping hole of negative space, just waiting to be discovered.

An opportunity for new fields of study, an open door leading to a new era of intellectual renaissance. An age of human prosperity like none other before it.

We see the acquiring and accumulation of energy as an ideal, because it predominantly points one direction: up. We like this vice, “up”, because if it’s happening, that means we are doing something right. It means the system in place is so efficient, that it is still able to accumulate energy, while remaining stable, even after energy expenditure is taken into account. In nature, this flow is what makes life different than non-life: Each body is a complex structure that is able to convert external energy into overall growth, while making gains and maintaing the structure itself. You could consider each life form to be akin to a successful business, whereby, the structure will continue successfully storing energy and resources until some other force comes along and causes enough destruction to damage the successful structure to a point where the structure is no longer gaining value, or, just malfunctions completely. But, we know from physics that an object in motion will stay in motion, unless acted on by an external force, and that its momentum will be conserved in the same way. So, essentially we already have the fundamentals for why accumulation happens in any context, how it happens, and how the direction of it’s magnitude will always be “positive”.

Enter: The trickle down.

Using all the same examples of structural efficiency leading to increased net worth — monetary wealth, flourishing life, successful business models, etc. — we now have wonder how these structures can exist if the world is truly a fluctuating pot of raw energy, and we know there to be many flaws that come along as well. How is it that hyper-efficiency in one area could be related to a severe deficit of resources in another area?

Unfortunately, in real life there IS no hyper-efficiency. The laws of physics dictate that no engine can ever reach perfect efficiency, let alone propel further beyond that into an accumulation state. Accumulation is in the eye of the beholder: it is conditional and unstable. An engine, or other generating structure, can be altered to reach higher and higher efficiency, but it will never ever reach the limit of perfection. This is because of the fundamentals of entropy, where our linear time component forces any form of order into eventual chaos. So, at the most fundamental level of energy exchange, there is some universal guiding force that is ALWAYS forcing structural decay. If we “overcome” this natural decay, and continue putting energy into the structure to ensure that it remains functional, we will still be running at a loss. This loss, in efficient systems, is often miniscule and overlooked, if even measurable at all. But it is there, and as other forces push for more energy, and higher efficiency, this loss will trickle downward, little by little, through tiny cracks, through unnoticed system flaws, until it collectively affects other functionality, further away from the initial point. The initial point was “up”, a point that can never truly be reached, but is defined as such because of the positive arrow associated with it, and the new point, derived from the net loss accumulated further and further away, is called “down”. These are the two vices, both of which can never be totally fulfilled, but only one of which seems to get conscious attention.

We steer towards one vice that we perceive to be positive and ideal, but even focusing all of our brain power into a journey toward that vice, will never get us there. It is simply unattainable, by the fundamental laws of nature. But we have another vice on the other end of the spectrum, with equal weight, and opposite magnitude. We don’t focus our brain power there because it is painful to see loss accumulated into other self-functioning structures such as hatred, war, power corruption, and aging. Structures which operate with the same fluidity and grace as all others, structures that grow and flourish on their own, with the same energy conservation principles, and the same conservation of momentum.

And if we could understand this end of the spectrum this way more often… it starts to seem rather beautiful. A neglected vice no longer seems so scary, or so absolute, when we realize how all the energy is connected in the first place. When we turn around from staring in one direction, and look at the opposing side, we can see that is has just as much to offer us, and is just as powerful of a force to fall into.

So why do we oppose looking this way? When did we decide that the downside was something to avoid? When did we, as a species, collectively decide to ban exploration of darkness, a state the entire globe sweeps into for half of all measurable time? When did we decide that we should spend our energy unsuccessfully fighting the laws of destruction and chaos, rather than cherish natural redistribution with welcoming delight?

Maybe, you can see now how exploring negative space is healthy, and that disguising the world into one unidirectional pathway model goes against everything we claim to know about our universe.

Being a Bad Person

You’re not supposed to talk badly about yourself. You are supposed to treat yourself like you would treat someone else you care about, with positive talk and motivation. But what if people treat you like you are just genuinely a bad person? And, what if they actually tell you all the reasons they find you to be so terrible? Then, at what point can you actually conclude that you are actually just a bad person? And where are you supposed to go after that?