How to be a good ally

This week (Ahem, Aug 3rd) we read "The Land of Shadow."  Frodo and Sam continue their desperate journey towards Mount Doom.  Sam, for so long the soft one, has to bear the brunt of the burden.  Frodo can hardly go on.

When Sam rescues Frodo from captivity, he offers Frodo his things back.  Frodo refuses them all, except of course the Ring.  Of Sting, the Elvish blade, Frodo says, "Sting I give to you... I do not think it will be my part to strike any blow again."

What does Frodo mean?  His journey is not done, the Quest is not complete.  Frodo, if anyone, should be prepared for a fight!  He's the one with the Ring!!

But Frodo is exhausted.  Frodo has no energy to fight.  And moreover, Frodo is beginning to understand that fighting, the very act of struggling, is a losing gambit.  In order to achieve victory, Frodo has to trust in calm and peace.  The Ring wants struggle, it wants anger, it wants resentment.  Frodo realizes the only way to win is to give it none.  Otherwise, he may become the monster he is trying to save the world from.

Here's another pop culture example of a character realizing that fighting, even fighting evil, is part of the problem.  In order to defeat evil, it must be engaged with love, compassion, and passivity.  Fighting is exactly what evil wants. (The whole scene is great, but 4:35 is the moment I am talking about)

We've discussed before how war may, in fact, be the real villain of our text.  War must be, but conflict cannot be truly ended by war.  Beating an enemy into submission will cause resentment.  The enemy must be engaged and loved and respected.  Otherwise, they will only become a defeated enemy, rather than becoming a friend.  The Ring will twist any desire for glory Frodo has to its own will.  Only by removing himself from any potential conflict can Frodo hope to overpower it.  The Ring needs a will to twist.  Frodo will not give it one.

Fighting is our natural instinct.  Well, fight or flight.  Those are seen as two options with no grey area.  You stand your ground, or you run away.  But what if we could embrace.  Tell the troubled and angry people of the world that we are here to listen to them, and to try to understand them.  What would happen if we tried that?

That's very high minded and idealistic.  I'm not in the habit of giving unrealistic idealism.  Advice is useless if it isn't practical.  So what's the lesson here?

We are not all Frodo.  Sometimes we are, but sometimes we are Sam.  Frodo has a struggle, he has a Burden.  Sam does not.  Sam is his companion and his friend.  Frodo is not telling Sam not to fight - he is saying it is not his part to fight.  But it may be Sam's.

When one is downtrodden and the disenfranchised and oppressed, they can become exhausted.  Exhausted of their position and exhausted of their struggle.  That is what Frodo's experiencing.  He is done fighting, he realizes resisting only worsens the problem.  He just wants to be finished.  Sam, meanwhile, is privileged.

Here's a potentially useful, if very verbose, definition of privilege (Source):  Privilege is an unearned advantage that systematically empowers certain groups or individuals and not others.  Those who have privilege are often oblivious that these advantages are not universal.  

The events in Ferguson, MO are disgusting and reprehensible and not something I can even begin to cover in this blog (Though Cracked.com has done a fantastic job of it, even among a plethora of fart videos).  Part of me wishes I could go down there and assemble - show my solidarity with them physically and not just through hashtags.  I marched in LA when George Zimmerman was acquitted, and that was an incredible experience.  But Missouri is so far away, and in any event I'm moving and don't have the money or time to do that.

That's my privilege.  Because a(nother) black youth can be shot, and I am in a position that allows me to say "Well, I could do something, but I don't have to."  Another definition of privilege?  "Being able to ignore a problem."  I could do nothing, and my life would be fine (Except for obvious moral decay).  In fact, except sharing the information I know, I am doing nothing.

Let's broaden this discussion.  The more the oppressed struggle and fight back and argue, the more it seems they should be oppressed.  Look at how damn feisty they are!  It plays into the circle of oppression.  It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  That's partly why Martin Luther King & Ghandi were so effective - peaceful protests break that cycle.  That's the only way to win.

Or to have allies.  Frodo is asking Sam to be an ally.  Frodo cannot fight, it will not end well for him.  But he knows he needs to fight.  Enemies are out there.  Frodo is asking Sam to fight on his behalf.  He is asking Sam to do what he physically cannot do, and what he spiritually should not do.  If Sam fights for Frodo, it will inspire Frodo to hold his course, and cause his enemies to pause, seeing he is not alone.  That's the idea, at least.

Generally, we see slacktivism as a huge social woe.  I agree, clicking and sharing and hashtagging doesn't change anything.  However, it does help begin to send a message.  A message to the oppressed that they are not alone, and a message to the oppressor that we will not stand silent.  But it is the beginning of the message.  It must be followed up with action.  Frodo giving Sting to Sam becomes a pointless part of the text if Sam refuses to fight.  "Why would Sam refuse to fight?  That would make him a poor friend."  Yes, it would.  And us reposting about Ferguson but not following up with action makes us poor allies.  I marched in LA, yes, but then I returned to school the next day.  I didn't follow up.

I have no idea how to address this problem.  The reason we don't follow up isn't because we don't want to, but because we feel that we can't.  I don't know what's different between now and the 60's, when thousands of citizens in the north went to the south to protest segregation.  They had jobs then, too.  Were they less afraid to lose them?  Were their employers more willing to give them the time for such a noble cause?  I don't know.

It isn't enough to look at the oppressed and say the burden is on them to overcome their situation.  That's privilege in its grossest form.  Sometimes, struggling will make their situation worse.  We, when we are outside the situation, must recognize that they need our help, and we must do what we can.  They don't need our help because they are weak or lesser or because we are stronger.  They need our help because obviously the oppressed will struggle.  But an outside voice has moral authority.  An outsider can say "This does not affect me, and in fact I might benefit from it.  But it is wrong, and I refuse to allow it to continue."

Imagine you are oppressed (whether by a government or a social group or your job or your significant other or depression, etc).  Imagine everyone walking by you, not even noticing your oppression, because they are busy with their lives.  Day after day you are ignored and though you struggle, it is exhausting and it doesn't even help.  How do you feel about those people walking by?

Then imagine someone steps out of the millions of faceless people who have walked by and says "This is not right!  We must stop walking by.  We need to help this person."

That is why we, the privileged, must stand up.  Because otherwise, the oppressed will feel alone, and resent our inaction

Meanwhile, I will continue to repost stories about this and other situations, all the while staying at home packing all of my things.  Do as I say, not as I do, I guess.

Life without checkpoints or: How I learned to stop worrying and celebrate the work.

This week (Well, originally the week of July 27th) we leave the battle in front of Mordor and return to Frodo and Sam.  Our chapter is "The Tower of Cirith Ungol," which is where Frodo was taken when he was captured.  Sam is looking for him.  But let's back up a moment.

The previous chapter ends on an unclear note.  Pippin has stabbed a troll, but it fall on top of him and begins to crush him.  Pippin thinks, "So it ends as I guessed it would," and we are told his thought begins to fly away.  However, it hears one final thing, shouts that "The Eagles are Coming!"  The chapter ends.  What eagles?  And what of Pippin?  What of the others?  Is this, indeed, how it ends?

At the start of the chapter, the Creative Wizard makes the timeline clear: we are now going to learn what happened to Frodo and Sam even before the Battle of the Pellenor Fields.  We know what hopelessness their companions will face.  Will what Frodo and Sam do make a difference to their fate?

Sam still has the Ring.  From what we learned from the Mouth of Sauron in the previous chapter, it is possible that Frodo is dead, and that Sam will die.  As Sam searches for Frodo, a bleak picture is painted.  Mordor was built up as a terrible and dreadful place, and Sam's experience aligns very much with that foreshadowing.  He begins to find the awful nature of the tower too much to handle.

The dead bodies: the emptiness; the dank black walls that in the torchlight

seemed to drop with blood; the fear of sudden death lurking in doorway

or shadow; and behind all his mind the waiting watchful maline at the gate: it was almost

more than he could screw himself to face.  He would have welcomes a fight - with

not too many enemies at a time - rather than this hideous brooding uncertainty.

But that's silly - we know Sam isn't much of a fighter.  He can when he must, but even then in terror.  So why does our cowardly Sam want a fight?

Fighting is quick.  In fighting you win, or you die.  And dying is easy.  It doesn't require much effort.  By spoiling for a fight, Sam is asking for his struggle to be over.  Either he is victorious, or he dies.  Either outcome is preferable to a long slog.

We see this in our own lives.  We want tangible advancement, or a clear sign of our failure.  But the in-between is frustrating.  It's difficult to measure, and do we ever love our measurements!

We measure temperature, we measure wind speed, we measure intelligence, we measure grades, we measure luminosity, we measure sharpness, we measure opacity, we measure success, we measure how we measure.  Seasons of Love, a song ostensibly about the ridiculousness of measurements, suggests measuring a year in love.  That's fine, but why measure at all?  What if we could endure without measurements, or at least without such constant measurements.

One of my favorite things about summer camps is that, unlike school, measurements are few.  The goal of most camps is adventure, relaxation, joy, fun, and friendship.  These things are difficult to measure.  Contrast this with teaching, my year-round job (And the year-round experience of campers), and measurements abound.  Not only do teachers measure student success, we measure our assessment tools to ensure they are doing what we want, and sometimes we assess those tools.  It's an ever-widening circle.  And while one answer is, "But if you're going to measure things, you should measure them well," we rarely wonder why measure so much at all.

More than not, life is not a series of fights, not a set of checkpoints to pass.  It looks that way in retrospect because that's the easiest way for us to digest an entire lifespan, to look at the major markers, but life is generally more of a slog.  We move forward with little understanding that we are moving forward, we succeed without feeling success, because in our mind success comes with balloons and trumpets and cake, even when it generally doesn't.  One frustration I felt over the summer was that I wasn't getting enough positive feedback for doing my job well.  But why do I need that?  I was doing my job well and being given guidance when I was screwing up.  I should be able to have, recognize, and enjoy success without a party thrown in my honor.

When one completes a project, the completion is seen as the success.  But the work should be, too.  Did it take 30 days to complete?  Then each day, or at least most days, was a success.  Saying that only completing the project was a success devalues all that work.  Hard work isn't necessary for success, hard work is success.

Sam wants a sign, he wants something tangible that he can hold up and say "Ah!  I've made it!"  He wants to battle orcs, kill them, and know he is victorious.  But he doesn't get that.  He's forced to slog through the brooding uncertainty.  But he remains unaware that he is, in fact, getting closer to Frodo.

Only when Sam has found his master does he celebrate.  But this is not his only success: He snuck around Cirith Ungol without getting caught, he followed the voices of orcs he heard, and earlier he had defeated Shelob.  But he will not realize those successes.  He only sees the token of success - a reunion.  It's tunnel vision.

If you go through life looking for tokens, tangible signs of your success, you will find yourself often disappointed.  There are few moments when we can showcase our worth, and fewer when others will just tell us.  Positive reinforcement is wonderful, but we shouldn't depend on it.

I think the hardest thing to learn graduating college is that, now, you're expected to work and do your job but not get "measured."  Well, you get paid - that's your measurement.  Every 2 weeks you get a token of your success.  Money.  But money is a funny thing.  Our culture loves and loathes it.  We see it as a phony measure of our worth, but it's the main measure we have.

School gives you constant measurement, and many forms of it.  Society after school gives you one measurement: your salary.  That's it.  That's how you know your importance.  And that generally drives people to misery.  They want another measurement (Hence: Seasons of Love).

But why measure at all?  Why stay in that mind-frame, where measurements are paramount?  What if we could transcend them.  Rather than look for constant tokens of success to keep us going, why not acknowledge they just won't come, or at least not regularly.  Instead we can move forward with a few goals in mind, a few objectives to complete to reach those goals, and then slog through whatever mire comes, knowing, through our focus and determination, that we're headed in the right direction, even if sometimes it feels futile.

Most goals take longer to reach than we would like.  Don't go looking for a fight because you're tired of the wait.  Don't let your impatience to be done ruin the long, slow work you've been doing.  Rather than despair each day that you still aren't done, celebrate each day you get closer to your goal.

The Power of Touch

(ANNNNND we’re back.  Quick point of information:  I’ll be doing several blogs per week until I’ve caught up to schedule.  So there’s that.)

This week’s (Well, the week of July 20th)'s chapter is called “The Black Gate Opens.”  In it, Aragorn and Gandalf lead the forces of Minas Tirith to Mordor for the purpose of distracting Sauron.  Most of the city’s forces leave, except for Eowyn, Faramir, and Merry.  Eowyn has to stay behind because she’s still bed-ridden.  Faramir also remains, though the chapter doesn’t explicitly say why (He had been healed several chapters earlier by Aragorn.  It is likely he remains because he is the Steward of the Gondor, and should remain with the people).  Merry is up and feels able, but Aragorn tells him, “You are not fit for such a journey.  But do not be ashamed.  If you do no more in this war you have already earned great honour [by defeating the Witch King].  Peregrin shall represent the Shirefolk.”

The army leaves, and Merry watches it with Bergil, whom Pippin introduced to him.

The last glint of the morning sun on spear and helm twinkle
and was lost, and still he remained with bowed head and heavy heart,
feeling friendless and alone.  Everyone that he cared for had gone away into the gloom…

As if recalled by his mood of despair, the pain in his arm returned, and he felt
weak and old, and the sunlight seemed thin.  He was roused by the touch of Bergil’s hand.

Merry’s deep misery is assuaged, if momentarily, by touch.  Touch is a powerful tool.  It can be used to hurt or help.  Sometimes being welcomed by a hug will ensure the welcome is felt.  But sometimes even being brushed up against is enough to make one feel unsafe.  It’s difficult to say, as a generality, what kind of touch is good and what kind of touch is bad.  With the exception of the extremes, it’s mostly about one’s personal preference.

But touch, when used correctly, can dramatically increase one’s health.  Touch is an important way to express and receive affection, which increases our overall sense of security and decreases our feeling of being alone.  Touch can also be a way to express what words cannot.  (That link is on the extreme side, but even that extreme is an important and unfortunately pervasive one)

For myself, I am alright with people touching me.  I like hugs, I like high fives, I like a pat on the back.  They make me feel good.  Now that camp is wrapping up, I need to start to mentally preparing myself for a big decrease in the amount of casual physical contact I will be experiencing.  It’s a big drop.  The culture of the “real world” is that touch is something reserved for special occasions.  Especially for men, casual touching is frowned upon (There was some article I read about this in June, but try typing “men need casual touching” into Google and see what you get.  Actually, don’t bother).  However casual touching has fantastic benefits for one’s emotional well-being.  Then again, if men aren’t supposed to show emotions, we can understand why they should be able to endure without casual touching.

In any event, that lack of contact is hard for me to get used to after a summer at camp.  If touching has all of these very realbenefits, those are benefits I have to suddenly do without.  There are some men whom, due to societal pressures, do not regularly experience them at all!  And how much worse for a sexual assault victim (of either sex) for whom almost any kind of touching reminds them of their trauma?

The good news is, most people know what kind of touch they want and when they want it.  Many people will bear a conversation they don’t like, or eat food they’d rather not, or smile when they don’t really feel happy.  Polite society, for better or worse, demands those things.  But people tend to be vocal about their physical boundaries.  If they are crossed, we should respect their protests.  Ideally, however, we ask ahead of time what they like and when.  Everyone has the right to be comfortable in their body and their space, and we should work to ensure those around us feel that way.

Don’t think of this as asking for limits.  If you’re having this kind of conversation with someone, it is likely you are their friend.  And we want our friends to be happy and secure.  Asking allows us to ensure that, when we touch them, we are doing it in a positive and acceptable way for them.

If their answer disappoints you, own that disappointment.  Maybe you had a crush on them and are disappointed they don’t like an arm around them, or a (what you mean as) friendly touch on the arm.  That’s fine to be disappointed, but don’t blame them.  They don’t have an obligation to enjoy what you do.  If you really like them and want to get to know them, you need to be prepared to cater to their needs.  Relationships are all about compromise, so I’ve heard.  No one wants to date a dictator.

If you get to know a person’s needs, and you get to know how a person likes to be touched, it opens vast levels of communication.  Words are powerful tools of communication, but sometimes we need to transcend their limits.  What could Bergil have said that would have stirred Merry from his grief?  Reread that quote - Merry is spiraling from despair to despondency.  His emotional burden is beginning to affect him physically.  But a simple touch of the hand “roused” him, and reminded him that he was not alone, and that the world endured, and he had people who could support him.  He could have sadness inside him without being overwhelmed by it.

Touch is an incredible thing.  We should use it wisely.