#i think we need to reexamine our priorities here | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

masterhandss · 3 years

Note

Personally I don't see what you see in Geordo. He seems like such a scumbag to me and is the least likable charater in the whole series. He is always trying to get her alone to push her into things of a sexual/ more romantic nature without taking how she really feels into consideration. Like he "really wants her" and thats enough for him without caring what she really wants. Honestly he is the borderline non-con villian in my mind.

I mean, it's okay if you feel like that. To each their own.

Hmmm when I think about Geordo being sexually aggressive towards Katarina, I only really just think of the anime. The manga is a much more moe-fied and toned down version of the novels, and the novels does an okay job at balancing his desires for Katarina in all aspects. I'm not saying he doesn't have that trait in the other two mediums, I just think that they aren't as intense as the anime, so as someone who consumes all three versions I just tilt my head and go "huh." Of course I'm sure there are people who read the manga and novels that still feel uncomfortable about his behavior and that's valid too.

-> light novel spoilers ahead <-

tldr, there is a lot more going on to him than just someone who offers sweet words and questionable invitations to Katarina's ears, this may not be noticeable or acceptable to some people but we get to know more about how he thinks whenever the novels puts us in his point of view. You're free to dislike him as much as you want, but I like him & don't see him as a scumbag; and here's why:

I at least find it okay that Geordo is very serious about his pursuits for her because he is aware that she is dense and will not get it until you spell it in the sky. Everyone is just walking eggshells around Katarina hoping that the girl would just develop feelings for one of them to win the harem olympics. He knows that being dealt with a good card isn't enough, so he's actively taking action in order to win her heart. I mean I don't always agree with his methods either, like the "fait accompli" line or constantly inviting her to his room alone, but really, how much of that is something he really means to do vs how much of that is his excessive flirting + our minds assuming that he really means to claim her in that way?

Lines like that are really popular with japanese fans because it makes Geordo look "sexy" and "forward", which they enjoy in their fictional stories. He knows that his position gives him an advantage so he'll try to play his cards right and use it to increase his chances in victory.

It actually reminds me of a scene from the Hamefura StoryMe game, (don't really know how canon it is but I remember the JP ver. was advertised by @/hamhura) where Geordo indirectly asked Katarina how to woo a girl he really likes, and Katarina thinking he was referring to Maria, gives all the things he usually does in order to win her heart (visit her home, give her gift, dance with her in parties, be really forward about your feelings etc). I'm not saying Katarina approves of the ways Geordo attempts to win her heart, but there's some hilarity in knowing that Geordo already had and is constantly trying all the known ways to win over a girl in the world from a young age, and still has nothing to show for it. Like no awareness, much less any *feelings* lmao. So trying to make it obvious that he is interested in her romantically and sexually seems like the next logical step to him. I mean if you go by Geordo's logic and considering the time period this takes place in, he's pretty confident that he can get Katarina to love him back and they are engaged anyways so in his head he's in safe waters to attempt to make teases about such advancements if it gives him the smallest chance that Katarina would become at least aware of him through it.

Of course I know that stuff like that won't fly here in the real world, but maybe that's why I'm so lenient personally when it comes to his (debatably) sexual teases and advances, because it's a fictional story for a japanese audience. Doesn't mean I would approve any advances like that if it happens to me, it's just that it's hard to take his actions seriously when Katarina or the story doesn't take them seriously. Like, the girl would be pushed down to a bed by RufuSora and gives her a hickey and she still thinks the man is out for her blood.

He wouldn't even be entirely wrong, knowing the identities of the characters who Katarina knows has romantic interest in her in the novels, actions does speak louder than words when it comes to her. Like I said, whether or not Geordo really means what he says when the story teases the readers with sexual implications in his words and action depends on the reader in my opinion. They are there, I wont pretend they don't but I'd argue about the level of intent depending on what scene you're talking about.

The only scenes on the top of my head where he is very abrasive towards Katarina is the "fait accompli" scene, the Book scene form the anime (S1 EP8), saying he wants to lock her in his room (LN6) and the multiple times Geordo had invited her in his room at night alone (LN6 and LN8, i think).

I've already explained why I am okay with both Keith and Geordo's Book scenes from episode 8 of the first season because they are accurate representations of an exaggerated and unhinged versions of their desires towards Katarina so I won't bore you with those details again.

He mentioned in Volume 6 that he wants to lock Katarina in his room forever and keep her light to himself, which alarmed a few people when the book came out, but he said that in a moment where he feels super grateful and loving towards her because she knew how tired he was despite his fake face and without even saying anything. It was a moment where he felt so infatuated towards her that he wished the moment where he gets to rest in her arms would last forever, thus he made such a comment. I make it sound more dramatic than it was in Volume 6, it was just a quick comment honestly lmao.

For people who don't read the novels, that last part looks very sus and raises a few red flags I know, but to be fair we can't definitively say what his intentions are because Katarina never commits to those visits. Katarina has actually become wary of those invitations, because Keith and Mary have warned her that Geordo's intentions are sexual, but I'm not really trusting the word of the two people who are most distrustful and antagonistic to Geordo. They could be right, of course, but who can really say? We assume that they are correct because they care about Katarina and are wary of Geordo, but hamefura('s novels) is full of unreliable narrators anyways, it's not like Keith or Mary would consider the possibility of it being anything else because when it comes to the third prince they always fear the worst case scenario.

If you think about it, Geordo is probably aware that winning her over with a "fait accompli" won't work at all because it'll put him in a position that will make other people push him for the throne (which he doesn't want) or could ruin his reputation in high society if Katarina or her family react to it negatively. I'm not Geordo though, so I can't really say if he even have such fears and doubts in the first place, that's just my assessment based on the obstacles he has. On the outside he is really sure of himself and confident (which he arguably deserves) and on the inside he is very careful and insecure when it comes to Katarina.

Also like, spoilers but for someone who is very forward when it comes to his physical advances, Geordo is super weak when he is in the receiving end of those touches. He gets super embarrassed and easily flustered when its Katarina who is touching him, as if implying that to some extent that he's all just talk lmao.

I don't really agree that Geordo doesn't care about what Katarina feels at all, in fact his inner dilemma in the novels is that he doesn't know what to do because in every step he takes he might do something that could ruin his image in Katarina's eyes, be it pursuing or abandoning the throne or looking like a monster in front of her. He even halts his plans to make advances towards her during the Keith Kidnapping Arc, but threw it away because he knows how much finding Keith means to Katarina. He puts what Katarina want and doesn't want as his priority, so when what she feels is unclear that's when he acts on his own intuition. The only reason Geordo feels so confident to advance towards her sexually is because Katarina never rejected him before (because she doesn't know what they mean, and all of this is for the sake of simply making her aware in the first place)

I'm not trying to make anyone think that one has to read all the books in order to understand him, I think the manga does okay at conveying his feelings too. The anime really prioritizes on making him look "sexy" for the japanese female audience, so anything he does is sprinkled with spice whether we like it or not.

I'm sorry if it seems like I'm overanalyzing all his actions just to justify them, everyone has the right to be uncomfortable with his advances if it seems too much for you. It's just that his actions, while over the top and unnecessary, are done to please the type of audience that hamefura caters to, and it's hard to take him completely seriously when the story doesn't either in my opinion. Doesn't mean he's right or that any of it is okay, but it's his method of trying to put a dent on Katarina's bakashield. When you're in a race versus your friends who Katarina all loves equally, he's gonna use whatever card he can get in order to win.

I like Geordo; I like how much of his feelings for Katarina forces him to reexamine himself and realize that he isn't a perfect prince at all, that he has lots of problems and flaws that he needs to work out in order to be someone worthy of her. I like the way he falls more and more in love with her in every interaction they have because he finally gets to have a genuinely and caring interaction with someone. I like how Geordo wants to do better and be better for Katarina and the people around him, and he wants to be able to thank Katarina directly for that through being able to show his love. I like that despite how much of a chad he acts in front of her, he's a blushing mess at the thought of Katarina returning his feelings. I find it funny when his "sexual advances" fails and gets thwarted because he's trying them on the densest person and most protected lady to ever live. I like how Geordo is so head-over-heals in love with her and how much comfort and warmth she brings to him by simply being her caring and bubbly self.

I guess it's just a matter of different perspectives. If you find him unlikeable or a villain, then you do you. I try to explain why I personally excuse his actions, but I know it wont fly with everyone. We all see each character differently and absorb the material in different ways. In fact it's probably a bad idea for me to defend him with material that isn't the anime nor manga yet lmao. I mean I'm not that much of a fan of Mary anymore, and I'm kinda scared and wary of her, but I know people don't see her the way I do and I'm okay with that.

Maybe its just me, who is the kind of person who just goes with the flow and doesn't think too hard because it's all fiction anyways

It's hard to tell all this from simply watching the anime, so I laid all my feelings down in hopes that someone out there would understand why I like him so much.

Thank you for the ask, you can ask more questions or call me out if I said anything insensitive or wrong, I know a lot of this is me overanalyzing things which might look like I'm jus stretching. As someone who is aware of the things to come in Hamefura X, I can say that I am both excited and nervous as to how everyone will react for the direction of Geordo's character.

#mh ask #hamefura #my next life as a villainess #geordo stuart #katarina claes #geokata #for some reason tumblr wont type the letter E #anyways there are my thoughts please dont hate me lmao #if you dont like Geordo then thats fine #im not forcing anyone to like him #i just wanna explain my own perspective thats all #DONT THROW FIRE AT ME #bakarina #destruction flag otome #hamehura #hamefura spoilers

83 notes · View notes

stevenuniversallyreviews · 4 years

Text

Episode 131: Off Colors

“And this is Lars. He’s all human.”

Forty-seven seconds is an eternity in an eleven-minute episode. Steven and the Stevens (the song) is forty-one. The final scene of Winter Forecast, my favorite in the series, is an even thirty. And when Pearl first poofs in Steven the Sword Fighter, it may take her several weeks in-universe to come back, but it’s only seventeen seconds until Amethyst and Garnet reveal that she’s okay.

Off Colors ends with Lars at his finest, bouncing around from friend to friend to save their lives from an alien drone, culminating in a brave, goofy rodeo show on the robotic menace. He comically yelps as the machine bucks and sprays lasers everywhere, then the baker who was once terrified of letting people try his food yells “Eat this!” as he deals the final blow, solidifying the cartoonish victory we’ve seen time and time again in action shows for kids. But then the drone explodes, and it kills him.

Laramie Barriga, the first person we ever see Steven speak with, the first human who’s ever named on the show, a depressed grouch that has resisted every opportunity to grow but can’t help growing anyway, who after countless false starts has finally seen his inner hero emerge, dies a sudden, violent death. And he remains dead for forty-seven seconds.

False deaths abound in Steven Universe, from Pearl’s aforementioned poofing to the Pink Diamond faking her own shattering. But none feel as visceral as Lars’s, because it isn’t false. He not only dies, but we see his lifeless body tumble to the ground like a rag doll, and must linger with him as the weight of his death settles in. The Off Colors are jubilant at their victory, and their cheers create the discordant atmosphere that so often accompanies death, the shock and confusion as life goes on even as another life ends. Steven is the only person on the planet who understands that humans don’t die the same way Gems do, and he doesn’t need to say a word as he grasps for signs of life and finds none.

According to interviews with the crew, there was some question over when the episode would end, and whether this death would be a cliffhanger. I’m so glad they went with this approach, and not because I think it would be too brutal for young viewers (I was raised on Don Bluth and The Lion King, kids can handle it); reviving him in the next episode would be a pacing nightmare, but reviving him here forces that uninterrupted wait, a moment that can’t be escaped by the episode ending and focusing on something else until the next one comes on. Plus, I’d imagine it helped with the censors to have him come back in the same scene, because I’ve never seen a children’s show portray death with this much physical realism; in the rare instance of a character dying on-screen, it’s always a dramatic affair with a final speech and a last gasp, but Lars is dead before he hits the floor.

The other reason Lars’s death stands out is that even if it’s temporary, it’s permanent. The rules of Steven’s inherited revival powers aren’t examined too deeply, but it’s clear that Lars is no longer mortal in the way he once was. He’s pink, with white hair. He barely has a heartbeat. If he’s anything like Lion, there’s a chance he’ll never age. This and more will be covered in Lars’s Head, but even now, it’s clear that the Lars we knew died on a cold and foreign world, and it’s another Lars that wakes up.

There’s obviously more to Off Colors than Lars’s death, considering the episode is named for the new set of characters that we spend most of our runtime meeting. But its very first line, after another stylish pan down from the title card, is “Lars, are you okay?” Much like The Good Lars appears to be a Lars episode but ends up being about Sadie, Off Colors appears to be an Off Colors episode but ends up being about Lars. Every moment he’s on screen is a reminder that he’s an alien on Homeworld, from his earthly need for food to his battle plans adopted from Jurassic Park to his vital lack of a gem. Even before he literally changes color, he fits right in with the misfits.

But let’s not cut the Off Colors short. It isn’t easy to introduce four distinct characters at once, so each gets a quirk to make them stand out fast. The Rutile Twins have two heads that paraphrase each other. Rhodonite fuses the nervousness we’ve seen from rubies and Pearl into a whole new level of perpetual fear. Fluorite speaks in the deep, slow voice of a six-Gem fusion. And, of course, Padparadscha has visions of the recent past, a running gag that I don’t predict I’ll ever get tired of.

Still, even in this first appearance, there’s more to this little family than their quirks. We meet the Rutiles first, voiced by Ashly Burch (one of the 2010s’ best new talents and the co-writer of my favorite latter-day Adventure Time episode, Hall of Egress), and despite a lifetime on the run their instinct is to help instead of hide. Rhodonite, voiced by Enuka Okuma (who like Padparadscha/Sapphire’s Erica Luttrell is a Canadian actress who started young and has steadily built up a considerable resume), doesn’t let her anxiety or societal pressure stop her from living as a fusion, which in a way makes her braver than the more confident Garnet. Fluorite, voiced by Kathy Fisher (primarily an EDM singer for the band Fisher) is proudly polyamorous and has a lot of grace for a giant caterpillar. Padparadscha, voiced by the aforementioned Luttrell...well, she pretty much is just her quirk, but she’s still a delight.

Given how many characters we meet and the amount of time we devote to Lars’s heroism and death, Off Colors can’t do much with its new characters besides introduce them. But the episode reveals their struggles not only with their words, but the setting they hid themselves in. Rather than spend any amount of time in the high tech environment of modern Homeworld (the place that reared the likes of Peridot and terrified Lapis Lazuli) we head straight to the ancient remains of perhaps the oldest Kindergarten in the universe, a massive chamber in a hollowed world without any more room to form new life.

Like Earth’s Prime Kindergarten, it’s a perfect place for horror, this time from a drone that’s so relentless that it kills one of our characters. The drone’s theme resembles the opening of the Love Like You reprise and Holly Blue Agate’s motif, adding another layer of looming alien danger to the atmosphere, and the machine itself has the vicious efficiency of Peridot’s old robonoids. The world is old, but the technology hunting the Off Colors down is new, lending the sense of an endless struggle that must be endured rather than overcome.

Life on Homeworld is dictated by doing what you were created to do, but it’s important to show that deviating from this path doesn’t lead to instant happiness. If Gems could break away from their oppression with ease, it wouldn’t be much of an oppressive state, so the Off Colors trade lives in constant servitude for lives in constant survival mode. It isn’t as if we needed more evidence that Gem society is a mess, but there’s power in personalizing how misfits are persecuted to this day, compared to how the Crystal Gems were able to form in the past. The struggles from back then remain the struggles of the present, and the only way to fix them is with an outside push. We won’t see that push until the end of the series proper, but are primed to understand the power of external changers from Blue Zircon’s own ability to stand outside of the story and punch holes in the narrative the characters took for granted. It’s no wonder that Steven is fated to do the same thing.

It’s refreshing to see Lars and Steven get along from the start, instead of going through the usual ornery motions until they reach the sense of understanding they had in Stuck Together. It makes sense that we’d cut to the chase in an episode with this much to do, but given how often Lars forgets his lessons, it’s a nice change of pace for his growth to stick.

Even more refreshing is Steven forgetting about his martyr complex for a moment as his own survival instincts take hold: we see him instead channel the leadership lesson he learned with Peridot in the drill, assuring Lars that everything will be okay even when it’s clear that he doesn’t believe it. This time it’s Lars who must deal the barriers he sets up for himself, railing against his own cowardice and needing Steven’s positivity in the same way Steven needed his negativity on the spaceship. When Lars shows signs of an imminent panic attack, Steven gives him the same hand to the heart we’ve seen in Lars and the Cool Kids and Lion 3 and tells him that it’s okay to be afraid, a line Lars repeats to psych himself up for his last stand.

Steven also forgets about Zircon’s big reveal, which initially seems like a negative. As viewers, we’re invested in learning the truth about Pink Diamond and are made to wait even longer to get more clues. But I see this as the beginning of a major step forward, because even though Steven is hardly over his issues with Rose, this is where he starts focusing on where his priorities should be: his life in the present, rather than his mother’s ancient past. In Off Colors and Lars’s Head it’s all about escaping Homeworld and helping Lars and his new friends, then it’s straight to the Breakup Arc, and both journeys recenter Steven in a way that lets him grow enough to reexamine Zircon’s information through fresher eyes.

And as complicated as his relationship with Rose has become, let’s not forget that this episode ends with the first instance of her healing tears emerging from her son. He’s had healing spit for ages, his own Steven-y take on his mom’s power, but he evokes her far more directly as he revives Lars with a method that solves a mystery we weren’t even thinking about as we entered Homeworld: the origin of Lion. But more on that next time.

For now, it’s enough to have a full-to-the-brim episode of new friends and tense drama, written and animated to punch you in the gut with a surprise death that feels no less powerful when it’s half-reversed. The Off Colors show us problems unique to Gems (Homeworld society, fusion stuff, malfunctioning psychic powers), and Lars shows us problems unique to humans (general physical frailty, from hunger to the inability to shrug off explosions), but both reach an understanding that makes their imminent team-up feel as natural as can be. Each of them lives in fear, and each of them learns that the only way to work past this fear is to accept it and work together to overcome it. I know that they can be strong in the real way, and they’re about to prove it.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

The streak of Love ‘em episodes holds strong. What seems to be a pure set-up episode is blown up by its shocker of an ending, and while it may lead to yet another cliffhanger, there’s a sense of completion as Lars goes from cowering mess to genuine hero.

Top Twenty-Five

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

Steven’s Dream

When It Rains

The Good Lars

Catch and Release

Chille Tid

I Am My Mom

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Gem Harvest

Three Gems and a Baby

That Will Be All

The New Crystal Gems

Storm in the Room

Room for Ruby

Lion 4: Alternate Ending

Doug Out

Are You My Dad?

Stuck Together

The Trial

Off Colors

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Adventures in Light Distortion

Gem Heist

The Zoo

Rocknaldo

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

Tiger Philanthropist

No Thanks!

6. Horror Club 5. Fusion Cuisine 4. House Guest 3. Onion Gang 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

(Despite the header image looking very Sugary, there’s no official promo art; that lovely picture is actually from the wonderful ferryperson.)

#off colors #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

73 notes · View notes

forever-rogue · 5 years

Text

The Edge of Thirty - Part 1

Summary: Everyone seems to be getting married, having babies, or “growing up.” Except Y/N. Suddenly at almost thirty, reality seems to be crashing down on her – and hard. Nothing seemed as daunting as turning thirty...until she met Gwilym Lee anyway.

A/N: Firstly, let me just say a big thanks to everyone for all the support for the little teaser I put out last weekend. I think this is going to be a fun piece to write, and hopefully you’ll like reading it! I am definitely soft AF for Gwil, what can I say? So yeah, enjoy reading and let me know what y’all think! Taglists are open xx 😊

Pairing: Gwilym Lee x Reader

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: Language

MASTERLIST

“Oh, thank god you’re here,” Y/N threw her arms up in happiness as she spotted her best friend waiting for her at their usual brunch table. Becca looked at Y/N with a frown as she set her phone, taking a moment to taking in her disheveled appearance. Y/N gave her an apologetic smile, her lipstick smeared slightly outside of her lip line. She looked like she had a rough night, “sorry I’m late-”

“Again,” Becca rolled her eyes making a point to look at the watch on her wrist, “just like last week and the week before. Maybe I should buy you a watch? Would that help? Or you know, you have a phone with a clock as well. And an app that lets you schedule things.”

“Alright, good lord. Didn’t know we were keeping track of me that much, Beccs. Well, here I am,” she tossed her phone down on the table, hanging her bag on the chair as she flopped into her seat. Groaning, she held her head in her hands, “please be gentle with me. I have a killer headache, haven’t had one this bad in a long time. I didn’t have time to take aspirin or anything this morning. I was running so behind.”

“Hmm. Sounds like your usual night then,” Becca studied Y/N, taking in the inappropriate brunch outfit, remnants of last night’s makeup, the mussed hair. She internally, and externally, sighed at her best friend, “went out again last night I see. Where to last night?”

“Jesus, cool it with the accusations,” she reached in her bag and pulled out her sunglasses, whipping them on her face to shield the glaring mid morning sun, “I’m here to have brunch and talk shit, just like every other Sunday. This feels more like an attack on me. But it was Rococo’s if you must know. It got pretty wild-”

“Y/N, did you even manage to get home last night? Look at you, you look like you just rolled out of bed!” Becca already knew the answer, but grabbed her glass of ice water, sipping on it as she waited for an answer. Y/N rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses, giving her a dirty glare, “ahhh, you didn’t. Didn’t think the whole silver glitter romper look was quite right for brunch. Whose bed did you roll out of then?’

She remained wordless and tossed her head back, letting out a long groan at Becca’s words. Becca had never been as much of a party goer as Y/N, but the last few years, she barely even wanted to go out anymore. Not my scene she always claimed.

Once she spotted a waiter, she grabbed his arm, tugging on his shirt as he passed by. He stopped in his tracks, startled by her sudden actions “helloooo my good man, send out a mimosa, please. Bottomless. For me and her-”

“No, please, thank you,” Becca shook her head, giving the startled waiter an apologetic look for Y/N’s actions, “I’ll stick with water. And maybe someone else should as well.”

“It’s brunch - mimosas are tradition! Besides, it’ll help clear up my headache. But, you’re not drinking?” Y/N’s jaw dropped at her words. Not drinking during a Sunday brunch? That was practically blasphemy. She lifted her sunglasses up and peered at her best friend closely. The more she thought about it, she hadn’t seen her drink at any of their brunches lately, “what the hell, Beccs? Are you like straight edge now or something?”

“Don’t try to change the subject right now, Y/N. This isn’t about me, it's about you,” Becca crossed her arms over her chest. The most serious of expressions was on her face as she regarded Y/N, “who were you out with last night? What was his name? Do you even remember the evening?”

“Ugh, yes. Mostly. But as far as his name I-I don’t know, what does it matter?” she shrugged it off her accusations lightly, resting her head in her hand, rolling her eyes, “it’s fine, really. Look, I’m here and alive, what else matters?”

“It’s just…we’ve-I’ve been worried about you, Y/N-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, when did this became all about me? We? What is there a Y/N support group now?” just in time the waiter came back, dropping off her mimosa. He must have senses the tension between the of them because he quietly set the glass down and scurried away as quickly as possible. Y/N eagerly took the glass, taking a big sip before turning her attention back to Becca.

“I’m just…we’re almost, thirty Y/N. We all need to grow up sometime. Isn’t it time we changed our priorities in life? Most of us have done so...then there’s you. Please don’t be mad because this is coming out of love. Maybe going out every weekend, waking up next to people whose names we don’t know, and being hungover for days isn’t everything we should be aiming for in life,” Becca twiddled her thumbs nervously, trying to be as gentle as possible. She knew she must have sounded like a huge bitch, but that was the opposite of what she wanted.

“Look, Becca, I love you, but I just want to eat brunch and bullshit. Like we always do, not reexamine my life choices. That’s for Friday night when I’m home alone and have a good cry over whatever I’m watching on Netflix,” she stood up to leave, annoyed by the turn of the conversation. She waved her hand at Becca, as though dismissing her, “I think I’m going to leave. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Wait, Y/N, please don’t go. Not yet. I have something to tell you,” Becca sighed before she could leave. Y/N turned around, setting her sunglasses on her head, and looked at her expectantly, hand on her hip, as she tapped her foot impatiently, “I’m pregnant.”

Y/N almost dropped back in her seat at the sudden revelation, searching for words, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. She stared at her best friend who just looked back at her with a smile on her face, “oh my God. Oh no! What are you guys going to do? Have you told your parents yet? I’m so sorry. I-I’ll be here to support you no matter what. But oh my God-”

“Y/N, slow down for a second,” Becca looked at her friend’s concerned face, “what do you mean what we are we going to do? This was planned. We wanted this baby.”

“You wanted this?” she parroted her words, an incredulous look on her face, “you had sex to try and get pregnant on purpose?!”

“Y/N, Joe and I have been married for two years. He’s thirty-five and I’m going to be thirty this year. We’re both adults, we have good jobs, and we’ve decided to start our family,” she explained. She reached across the table and took Y/N’s hand in hers, giving her a soft smile, “it’s okay, Y/N. This is what we wanted.”

“I-I don’t know what to say,” she gave her a worried look, trying to process everything. Pregnant. It shouldn’t have been such a shocker, but it was. She knew it would be coming one day, but it felt so...soon.

“Congratulations would be a start,” she gave her a weak smile. Y/N looked at her lifelong best friend, fighting back the tears that were stinging her eyes, and threatening to spill over and onto her cheek, “Y/N, Joe and I are really, really happy.”

“Congratulations, Becca. I’m happy for you and Joe. You’ll be great parents.”

“Deacs- today totally sucked! Chalk this down as one of the worst days yet. What was she even talking about?” Y/N stared at her reflection in the mirror. There were still bits of dry mascara clinging under her eyes, despite her best efforts to wash her face properly. She grabbed a cotton round and wiped vigorously trying to get the remnants to go away, “I’m a proper adult. I went to uni. I have a real job. Like a job job. Isn’t that enough!?”

A huff came from the adjoining bedroom and she rolled her eyes, wrapping a fluffy towel around her still dripping body, “besides, I wasn’t the one that went out and got pregnant. Ooohhh we wanted this baby. Who even does that?”

This time a drawn out groan met her ears and she braced herself against the sink studying her face intently. She looked the same as she always had, but something was different this time. It was the first time she actually felt like she was getting older, her mortality suddenly evident. The spritely twenty-one year old she normally saw was not staring back at her - it was the twenty-nine year she was trying to convince herself she wasn’t.

“I know, I shouldn’t mock them. I love them both dearly. I know she intended on getting pregnant and has always wanted a family, but it’s still weird. I feel like we’re still kids,” she let the mirror steam over again before stepping out the the warm bathroom and in the cold air of her bedroom, “kids having kids and getting married. Wild.”

“But, you know, I feel like her accusations were completely out of place,” Y/N sighed as she toweled dried her hair messy hair, “why was it suddenly about me, you know? She’s gonna come after me and then suddenly drop this huge bomb on me? I mean come on, it’s Sunday Brunch, it’s not meant to be serious. Sundays are meant to be fun, but this was anything but. I want to be happy for them, but I don’t know, everything feels off. I feel off.”

She reached into her dresser and pulled out a clean shirt and shorts, slipping them on quickly before stretching, enjoying the pleasurable popping off her joints. She grabbed her phone before crawling in bed, deciding it call it a day, “you know, Deacon, sometimes I feel like you completely ignore everything I say. You have not contributed a single thing to this conversation expect a few sounds. Very unlike you, buddy.”

Deacon looked up from his bed, located right next to hers, giving her a sound somewhere between a snort and groan. She frowned at him, patting the space next to her, hoping he’d join her for an afternoon nap. The small wiry dachshund gave her a dismal look before laying his head back down, ready to attend to his own nap on his large bed. Y/N frowned at him, hoping her best companion and confidant would throw her a bone at least.

Grabbing her phone, she opened up Instagram, snapping a picture of Deacon to post to her story. Even though he had snubbed her, he was still too cute not to photograph. Just as she was about to lock her phone and get ready for a post brunch nap, it started vibrating in her hand and Ben’s picture popped up, She wondered if Becca had already gotten to him and told him about their brunch. Ben always seemed to have some sort of sixth sense about this things - a trait with which was both endearing and frustrating.

Deciding to let it go to voicemail, Ben guessed just exactly what she was doing, because he immediately texted her: don’t ignore my calls, Y/N. I know you’re home, probably watching Netflix. Sighing, she texted him back with a middle finger emoji before returning his call, making him wait a few agonizing minutes first.

“You just think you know everything, huh, Ben Jones? For your information I hadn’t even turned Netflix on yet,” she sassed him as soon as he answered the call. He let out a low groan and she could imagine him sitting on the couch, running a hand through his hair, as he pinched the bridge of his nose, “to what do I owe the displeasure of this sudden intrusion on my lazy Sunday?”

“I talked to Joe earlier,” he said and Y/N immediately cringed, shaking her fist at no one in particular, staring at her ceiling. Of course he had. From the day Becca had first introduced Joe to their group of friends the two men had become almost inseparable.

Sometimes it was almost scary, but it was like the two of them shared a brain, or maybe a single brain cell between the two of them. Joe had even gotten one of those silly cardboard versions of Ben as a joke, but sometimes she wondered if it was all a joke… Ben interrupted her thoughts, “did you hear that he and Becca are expecting? I guess they found a few weeks ago but wanted to tell their parents first.”

“Yup,” was all she said, popping the p loudly, “she told me this morning at brunch. Little bit of a shocker though, isn’t it? I mean, it’s so...sudden? It hit me out of nowhere.”

“How is it sudden? They’ve been together for almost six years and they’ve been married-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, for two years, as I was politely reminded this morning,” she huffed, laying back down in bed, “I don’t know, they’re just so young, and a child is a lot of responsibility.”

“They’re not that young,” he interjected, almost laughing, “we’re all going to be thirty within the next year, Y/N, and Joe’s even a bit older. Have you forgotten that part? It’s not like we’re kids anymore. This adult thing has been going on for a while.”

“Everyone seems so fond of reminding me of that fact,” she threw her arm over her eyes, trying to shield out both the sun, and impending doom of turning thirty, “it’s not quite here, it’s fine. It’s...like the edge of thirty, really.”

Thirty. It had always seem so far off, something always in the distance, but never obtainable. Once twenty-one happened, she felt like the world was at her feet, she was unstoppable. Life was good and nothing mattered. Then twenty-five happened and things seemed less fun - college was over it and time to buckle down work on her career. Now, at twenty-nine, thirty was always looming over her head. But life was fine - she’d gotten the adult job and done all that but she still clung onto her early twenties, desperate to stave off thirty.

She’d be going into her thirties single and childless while everyone else around her seemed to grow up - or so her mother always seemed to eager to remind her of. Something that made her cringe every time. Especially when it came to that fact that her siblings were “already married and starting families” by the time they were her age. Why did it even matter?

“Y/N? Hello - are you still listening?” Ben’s gentle voice pulled her back into reality. She sighed and mentally rolled her eyes, “you’re daydreaming again, aren’t you? What are you thinking?”

“Cut the Dr. Jones act, Ben, you’re not at work, you’re my friend right now. Besides I’m right here,” she chided him sitting up in her and bringing her knees to her chest, resting her chin there. Sometimes having a therapist as a best friend was both more of a curse rather than a blessing, “what were you saying?”

“I’m just saying that thirty is coming up fast,” his voice was low and she could tell he was trying to be gentle. She imagined he did this to patients, “maybe...it’s time to reexamine our priorities. We’re not kids anymore, love, we’re actual adults with actual jobs living actual lives. No mum and dad to tell us what to do anymore.”

“Ahh, I see Becca’s already gotten to you I see, ” Y/N groaned, holding the phone away from ear for a long moment, picturing the morning’s fiasco in her head again, “she practically gave me the Spanish Inquisition at brunch today. It was a nightmare.”

“She’s...we’re all looking out for you, Y/N,” he tried to be reassuring, but Y/N just snorted instead, “I’m not trying to be mean, but maybe it’s time to say goodbye to the party scene and settle down. I mean, how many other people our age are regularly going out to clubs every weekend?”

“Settle down?! That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it? We’re turning thirty, not getting ready to die! I’m sorry I’m choosing to have fun instead of just sitting around being old and sad like you lot,” she rolled her eyes dramatically even though he couldn’t see. Knowing Ben, he’d feel it anyway, “why is everyone suddenly so uptight?”

“Are you though?” he asked after a brief pause.

“Am I what?” she flopped back against her pillows, wishing she could just sink into her mattress and disappear.

“Are you having fun? Are you happy - truly?” She remained silent for a few tense moments before quietly answering yes. For the first time it sounded fake and hollow - even to her.

“Things are changing lately...and I guess it’s causing us all to have to grow up a little bit,” he said in a non committal way, “look, Becca and Joe are going to have a baby, Lucy and Rami are getting married next month, Tess and I are getting more serious too. She’s moving into my place. And then there’s you, Y/N. I’m not saying this to be mean, I’m saying it because I’m your best friend.”

“Huh,” she felt the back of her eyes stinging with tears for the second time that day, “you say that but it really doesn’t feel like it right now. If you all had such a problem with me why not tell me sooner?”

“It’s just..everything’s changing right now, it’s an important time in all of our lives. You, Becca, Luce and I all grew up together. Joe and Rami and Tess are like family now too. Things are changing, we’ve all changed - except you,” Y/N could feel a few hot tears start to trickle down her cheeks at his words. He wasn’t wrong inherently, but the words still hurt. She had watched her best friends blossom into proper adults while she...remained mostly the same as always. Not much had changed from when she was in college besides the flat she lived in and her job.

“Ben, I’ve got to go,” she tried to keep her sniffle quiet, “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly and she murmured a quiet mhmm, her face contorted to stop the tears, “I’ll see you at work tomorrow. I love you, okay?”

“See you at work,” she ended the call and tossed the phone to the side. She wiped away a few stray tears before pulling the blanket up and staring at the London skyline outside of her window. It was funny to her, how much one day change your perspective so much.

She heard a small whimper from the side of her bed and saw Deacon staring at her intently, his pointy nose resting on the edge of her bed. Y/N reached out a hand and gave him a few pets. Once she stopped, he nudged her hand with his nose, before quietly giving up and jumping onto her bed, giving her cheek a few licks, “at least you love me, Deacy.”

He offered her a small bark before she lifting up the covers and he wiggling his way under, curling up next to her stomach.

She took her phone and placed it on the nightstand, the picture there catching her eye. It was of her, Ben, Lucy, and Becca on their first day of university. They were so young and lively, eyes wide with hope. The smiles plastered on their faces stretched from ear to ear frozen in time. It seemed like so long ago, another lifetime and world even. Touching over the frame delicately, before turning the picture face down. The picture was one of her favorites - but right now it just caused a pit in the bottom of her stomach.

Yawning and closing her eyes, she petted Deacon lightly as she drifted off to sleep, wanting nothing more than for this day to be over. Maybe it had all been a bad dream, some sort of weird concoction her mind had created.

Maybe thirty wasn’t so close. Maybe it was all a nightmare.

Permanent Taglist: @ruinerofcheese @courtneychicken @santa-crew@supernatural508 @ssweet-empowerment @nerissa98@jamesbarnesappreciationsociety @buckybarnesappreciationsociety@wearegoldeninthenight @mannatgalhotra @prxttybirdz @piensa-bonito @mightyhemsworthy @shewalksinanotherworld @jems8241@bookaddic @fairyxxfighter @asguardiansoftheavengers @esoltis280@the-bright-lights @artisticlales @loislp @dixonsbugaboo@sleepylunarwolf @patzammit @thisismysecrethappyplace @princess-evans-addict @bookgirlunicorn @makapaka11 @bornfortherainydays@avipshamitra @clumsy-clara @justanewqueensfan@yourealegendroger @anna1523 @queenficarchive@thesecondlastjedi@bitemerog @rogernroll @secretsweetscollectionblog

TEOT Taglist: @geek-and-proud @everybodyplaythegame

357 notes · View notes

comeallyelost · 5 years

Text

The Handmaid’s Tale 3x08 Thoughts

I think I'm getting a clearer picture of where this season is headed, but the way they are going about it is not at all ideal.

Four sections to this post:

June

Aunt Lydia

General Episode Notes

The Racism Problem

1. On June’s Sanity

The plot is barely moving forward, but we're seeing more of June's descent into madness/ desperation and her loss of humanity as a result of losing her closest allies. (I'm gonna loop in Serena and Nick here because for a while at least, I think June believed Serena was in her camp post pinky-finger).

So based on the looks of things, Nick's absence and ambiguity HAS to be intentional since it's having a direct effect on June's ability to cope with the horrors of Gilead.

This episode most definitely was used to paint June as the villain and Natalie/OfMatthew as the victim. They turned it around on us, implying that anyone can go mad here, even our protagonist whom we've been rooting for this entire time. And like, I don't really want to draw too many parallels here, because the development has been a better on THT and there is a much more tangled web of *things* going on, but I'm getting similar "mad queen" Dany vibes that were happening on Game of Thrones.

But honestly, what irks me most about this whole season is how we all came in expecting a season about the resistance. About Mayday, about June fighting back. June STAYED in Gilead for a reason. For Hannah. Or so we thought. Where is that narrative? We've gotten nothing so far.

I would argue that it does makes sense for June's character to go darker, to go to extremes she would have never considered before. Especially without someone to anchor her down. Nick was her rock and he's gone. Not just physically, but in her mind she feels like she lost the person she thought he was. HOWEVER, just because these elements were removed, it serves no point for her to stray in this direction and lose sight of her daughter, of the fight against Gilead. The handmaids this episode played out like a Mean Girls skit and poor Janine is this series' punching dummy and I'm getting tired of that.

Side note: Another facet of June’s spiral is the lack of flashbacks. Her ties to Luke, Hannah, Moira, and her life from before are fading. Nick keeping her sane and helping her survive in present Gilead was one side, but her ties to her humanity are also very much embedded in the person she was before. She may not be the same June, but it’s those memories that keep her fighting, that keep her going. And I don’t think we’ve seen a flashback since like...the beginning of ep 5 if I’m not mistaken.

It's been EIGHT episodes gdi. What do we have left? Five? I sincerely hope they're not wasted. But my hope is dwindling. Watching this week's ep I honestly felt like I was watching an entirely different show from the one I was so obsessed with last year.

2. On Aunt Lydia’s backstory

Yay! Woohoo we finally get a backstory for someone new. Except it’s Aunt Lydia, and I don’t think I ever found her compelling enough to merit a backstory.

What I mean is, I always found her to be as pious as they come in Gilead and she serves the regime wholeheartedly. Her character was always finding a way to help others in some twisted radical christian logic and I was right!

What I do keep seeing people post about that I disagree with is that she “turned” on the young mom because she was rejected by a man. Her motivations are more complex than that. She mentions “moral weakness” enough that I think her compulsion to help others in the way she thought she was helping Noelle was to rid them of it. She thought herself above it, or at least she carried herself as someone who overcame moral weakness and thought it her calling to help others in overcoming it as well.

So when she found herself displaying it towards the principal, I think something snapped in her. His rejection in the middle of their (intense) make-out session served as a wakeup call to her imo. And she blamed Noelle for making her “morally weak”.

So what we can draw from this flashback I’d say, is that Aunt Lydia’s whole schtick is helping others overcome their moral weakness as she puts it. She truly believes she is doing God’s work. She was totally okay with taking Noelle’s kid away from her. And so the brutalities she’s committed as an Aunt are not seen by her as such. She fits right in. A perfect fit for the role.

3. Thoughts I had while watching the Ep: - the chanting scene in the school gym felt like a nightmare/dream sequence - June’s posse is super clique-y which I kind of like if only they used their powers for the good of the resistance and not to terrorize OfMatthew/Natalie - June tattling on OfMatthew/Natalie was super petty. Can she please focus on the bigger picture? - Hannah and the Mackenzie’s are GONE. What now? I really really thought we were gonna see Hannah get out this season. - Janine is literally the only sane one and yet probably the one who has suffered most - Commander Lawrence's "Do not presume to speak to me about my wife" last episode versus. "I'll bet that felt good" this week - I didn’t quite understand OfMatthew’s behavior. I know she was terrified, and I know June outing her for her sinful thoughts rattled her, but her being on edge enough to beat Janine, kill a guardian, and take his gun? What broke her? - I also hated how that scene was filmed. It felt like a shooter video game sequence

4. On the racism problem:

THT's "colorblind" approach from the inception of the series was already problematic. Margaret Atwood's version of Gilead was based directly on the inequalities she saw in (her) present day. I completely get rejecting the notion of an all-white cast and their logic that a fertility crisis would take priority over racism, but hell, if there is one thing that is inherently american, it's RACISM. A fertility crisis wouldn't ERASE racism altogether. And that's how Hulu's version made it seem.

Also, another element of Atwood's Gilead and the fertility issue was the underlying eugenics of it all which is not present whatsoever in the series. If we're exploring a fascist, oppressive regime, eugenics is definitely playing some sort of role. Casting a diverse group of women as handmaids and marthas was not a bad move. But simply having the POC ones making the background more "colorful" won't cut it. I think there could still have been a diverse cast with some sort of oppressive racial hierarchy in place within Gilead. The LGBTQ community is targeted, the women are entirely powerless and assigned roles within certain constructs, but they won't even mention race? It's like an unspoken elephant in the room they've decided to ignore. Which then makes all the actions against POC in the series that much more unsettling.

I'm questioning whether this racism is intentional then? Or just a consequence of the ingrained, learned racism we've all grown up with. Either way, it's a complete disaster. Diversity is not just seeing POCs onscreen. It's GIVING THEM A VOICE. It's letting them tell their version of things. Serena as the embodiment of white feminism, I thought, was intentional at first. June's ability to get away with SO MUCH and suffer hardly any consequences in this awful regime, I'm thinking now, is another example of white privilege in this society. And it can be. It would actually be a great tool IF IT WERE ACTUALLY ADDRESSED IN THE SERIES. But instead we just see POCs suffer, get no back stories, no voices, and just see June, Serena, and the other white handmaids carrying the series.

This episode we did get Aunt Lydia saying one of the households didn't want a handmaid of color. So there we had a teeny tiny glimpse into the fact that there is some underlying racism going on somewhere. But again, like all of the other snippets we've seen this season, it leads to nothing. It's not explored or examined or ever addressed again.

I was skeptical of OfMatthew's (Natalie) role as June's partner from the get go. No one here is doing anything except trying to survive. There are imo few actual villains in Gilead except those who constructed it for their own gain. Every single handmaid, martha, ~insert oppressed role in here~ is playing a role in order to survive.

I've mentioned before that one of the elements I love (or maybe loved in past tense at this point) about this show is how it highlights humanity's capacity to endure suffering or see others endure suffering. When do you snap? Who falls in line and who resists? What are the triggers? What moral standards do you uphold when society as you knew it to be has been erased?

So taking all that into consideration, OfMatthew/Natalie was never a villain for me. Annoying? Maybe in her intro. But she's popped out 3 kids. She's about to give birth to a 4th and is legit terrified for her daughter. Her snitching on June was shitty, but she was just trying to survive like everyone else. The fact that it cost the life of another martha (who was a POC) and June faced no repercussions was even shittier on the writers’ part.

This show has me going in circles honestly. Questioning whether these decisions were intentional or not. I don't know which one is worse. If it was intentional, the lack of actually addressing the racism in Gilead makes it pretty shitty on the part of the showrunners. If it was unintentional, then they really need to reexamine the writers room and staff more POCs. Like wtf.

#the handmaid's tale #tht #handmaids tale #june x nick #june osborne #nick blaine #racism #tht spoilers #3x08 #nick x june #handmaids on hulu #hulu #aunt lydia #ofmatthew #reviews

88 notes · View notes

themarktcor · 4 years

Text

Maybe your church needs to stay “closed”.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Jurassic Park. I’ll never forget going to see it around my birthday in 1993 and I walked out absolutely amazed. Before the mayhem starts, one of the main characters makes a statement I’ve never forgotten. He says to the park owner, “You were so preoccupied with whether you could do something, you never stopped to consider whether you should!”

I have genuinely come back to this statement time and again through the years as I see our world advance. It seems that discovery is so deeply celebrated that we are always looking at what we could do while never thinking about whether we should.

I would say this is definitely true of the church. Understand, by “the church” I mean the people who God has transformed by His Gospel, not the building you may meet in once a week. Just look at some of the things we’ve realized we could do without really thinking about whether they should be done:

- we are called to be with those who need Christ so we’ve put our own coffee shops inside our buildings in hopes they will pass up their local Starbucks and wander in to hang out with us

- we are challenged to help the poor and needy but are straddled with unbelievable debt from ministry loans and overhead costs

- we are to point people to the Word of God with every breath we take and then build bookstores in our church buildings where the Bible is intermingled with popular authors and books by the connected church leaders

- we are to declare His wonders from one generation to the next but we have built ministries for children and teens that resemble amusement parks

Somehow we have lost sight of the fact that the church is His, and He doesn’t need expensive facilities and well-marketed programs to get His Gospel to the world...he simply needs us.

Reexamining Priorities

I remember a tv show a number of years ago where they took people from two completely different lifestyles and had them swap lives for a week. One episode involved an atheist going to live in the home of an Evangelical Christian family. They wanted to show the atheist their faith/ministry by taking them to their church (building). While there they talked about the multi-million dollar facility and how many people came. While the atheist was kind, she asked a very pointed question,

“How many poor/needy people could you have helped if you hadn’t spent tens of millions of dollars on this building?”

The family was silent. Whether it was editing or legitimate shock, the family had no response to this question. I don’t know what was harder to watch, the fact that they didn’t have an answer or the fact that they thought showing of the building would impress the atheist. The extravagance of our buildings have got to make us look a bit ridiculous to an unbelieving world. At its worst, we seem hypocritical.

However all this is to say, we’ve pretty well proved the church is not the building during this crisis. We’ve seen ministry change for the better as it is not fixed on the very wrong church growth question of “...how do we get them into our building?” Think about this, what would the believers in the book of Acts think about what the church looks like today? How often do your church leaders stop and look at what the church was intended to be vs. what it has become for you?

Ministry Closed?

Even though our buildings are empty does not mean ministry is closed. Just ask any of the number of people out there serving others in the name of Jesus during this season. I’ve talked with many people who are stepping up to help, who previously would have waited for the church to organize an event. Closed buildings, social distancing requirements, and limited staff interaction has not closed the real church...in fact, it has opened it like many of us have never seen before.

What if this is something that God has wanted from us for a long time. Let me be clear, I don’t believe God released a virus on us killing so many people and significantly impacting the economic stability of us all just to wake up His church. However, we know Scripture tells us in Romans 8:28 that “...we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

A New Start

Now, we find ourselves in a whole new world. Covid-19 has brought things to a screeching halt and no nation has been left out. Everyone has been impacted in some way in their family, job, schooling, and even their church. We are literally at a point of “do over” for many things in our world so maybe it is a good time to decide what needs to pick up where it left off before this all hit, and what possibly needs to change completely.

I would argue this is a conversation we all need to have in our evangelistic churches all over the world. We hear talk about opening things up and returning to normal (even if it is a new normal). Much of what I hear from church leaders is about getting the doors open and getting “ministries” going again. My question is simple, why?

It seems that we all need to pause and really evaluate what has been difficult about this season, but also, what has actually worked really well? What things are working that we never would have tried if it hadn’t been for this global event?

Our Options

We have a unique opportunity to think not just about what we COULD do next, but also a chance to rethink what we SHOULD do. So, what should we do?

Open the buildings back up and do everything you can to get back to the way things used to be as soon as possible. Let’s be real here, this is what most church leaders will do. Once this is said and done, most will try to get back to the status quo.

Shut it all down and sell the buildings. Make the church be the church and step into a new era of ministry where the gospel can run free. Again let’s be real, this isn’t practical in any way. While we do need to be a people God can use to let loose His Gospel in the world, closing it all down won’t and shouldn’t happen.

Look at what has begun and go back ready to have short discussions and take immediate action. To me, this makes sense. We should already be having conversations about what changes need to be made based on what God has shown us in light of the pandemic. BUT, these conversations must have immediate actions. Ministry has taken off for many in the past few months, the best way to shut it down is to form a committee...

A Unique Opportunity

We are at such a defining place in history. We, the real church (not the buildings), have a unique opportunity before us. My hope and prayer is that we will not settle for the comfort of what was but instead will let God reshape us for a revival of His Gospel like none of us have ever seen before.

1 note · View note

intuitionspecialist · 5 years

Text

5 Tips to Coexisting in Peace and Harmony

“We are all in the world together and so we must work together for the benefit of the whole in order for all of us to coexist in balance and harmony.” - Joan Marie Whelan

The “whole” in this instance is the “whole” Universe, and the Universal flow of energy. When we work against the flow of Universal energy, we are disrupting harmony and balance in our own lives, the lives of others, and even the kinetic energy from around the globe. Too make people are lacking a real sense of inner peace and contentment and don’t even know why they aren’t feeling peaceful. We truly are in a transformational movement and now is the perfect time to learn from the inner truth that is ready to reveal itself to us.

While the entire Nation is in the state of uncertainty and misperception I believe it is time for all of us to take a step back, take a deep breathe in and release all the anger and pent up resentment if we want to transform not only our lives but also the world all around us for the better good of all. This is also a time of transformation and reawakening to what values and principles are most important in our lives. What are your personal and professional priorities? In what behaviors are you engaged? How are you feeling spiritually, emotionally, physically and financially? How you work with the Universal flow of energy determines your strength in matters of stamina, mental awareness, emotional wellbeing, fiscal stability, intuitive power and inner peace.

Sometimes, we have to take a few steps backward to make the climb upward. That is how many of our unseen blessings come to us. We are given opportunities again and again to realize our true potentiality in becoming part of the solution to both peace and harmony in even the most difficult times.

Here are five simple tips to coexisting in peace and harmony:

Reexamine your ultimate goal and purpose of life, including your economic wellbeing.

Instead of thinking financial recovery, think moral recovery first!

Practice compassion, sharing and caring.

Learn and apply genuine acceptance of other people's opinions.

Never respond with anger, hatred or ridicule.

If we want to see change in the world and tap into a real sense of inner peace and contentment, we need to be that change. It would benefit us all, myself included, if we’d make a strong and solid attempt to slow down and reflect on our present attitude, behavior and the environment which we created not only in our immediate circle of relationships but in the world all around us, we would come to a realization that we can improve our thoughts and become more considerate of others. We must change if we wish the world to change. In order to transform our lives and enjoy a true sense of inner peace, we must be it ourselves. Please join me and at least make an attempt to transform your thinking towards a better way of living in this world that we call Earth.

#Transform your life #inner peace #innerpeace

1 note · View note

laurazabel · 7 years

Text

Getting Our House in Order

We’re winding down the fiscal year at Springboard for the Arts, so the office is a flurry of budgets and year-end meetings, in addition to the regular fast pace of programming. And outside of the office, in our community and country, there is a punishing urgency of needed changes and work to be done.

As nonprofits we need to be engaged in the policy issues that affect our constituents and communities. We should be on the front line making the case for a higher minimum wage and talking about just how disastrous this latest healthcare bill would be for the people we serve and communities we care about. These are fundamental building blocks that are needed for individual and community health and unfortunately there are a lot of people that still need help understanding that, and others who are actively working against these rights, believing that their financial self interests should trump other people’s basic needs. So we have to fight. Please call your Senators about the healthcare bill. Support the folks organizing for a higher minimum wage. We need to be in solidarity with other groups leading this work, even if we don’t think it’s at the center of our mission or expertise.

And, we need to make sure our own house is in order. While we’re thinking about and working on system-change, one way we can tangibly, practically be a part of that change is to review our own HR practices and see if there are ways we could do better. As an organization that has artists at the heart of our work, there is nothing more important to me than how we treat the working artists that make up our staff. These are the people that our work relies on, the people that represent our organization to the world – without them there would be no organization, so our mission of helping artists make a living and a life better start with them, right?

As a nonprofit we aren’t beholden to shareholders or investors so we should be able to lead when it comes to being ethical, equitable employers. For me, it has been a pleasant surprise that I actually love digging into these practices and trying to make them better. Especially when things feel so hopeless and entrenched in the broader policy and political environment, being able to make tangible change, even if it’s for a small number of people, feels meaningful. I also believe that in order to affect policy change, we need culture change and that changing the culture of our organizations might begin to shift the culture of the nonprofit sector, which could actually shift the broader culture.

So, here, in the spirit of sharing, are a few of the principles and practices we’ve developed to support our work and our mission and that, I think, challenge some of accepted wisdom of what is possible and push back against the scarcity culture that tells us getting the most for the least is what success looks like. I’ll fully acknowledge that it feels pretty vulnerable to share these things—but it feels important to me to share them, not to say they are complete or right for everyone else but to provide some tangible proof that it’s possible to find your own way and maybe to give you a starting place if you haven’t thought about this stuff before (please let our pain in health insurance research be your gain!)

ROWE: we don’t track time off, vacation or sick time. Instead we use a Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE) approach. The U of M has a whole center dedicated to research on this type of work environment with lots of great resources.

In a corporate/large environment I think ROWE is much more detailed, there's a whole industry built on implementing it. But we simplified it to fit our needs as a small org with a lot of in person contact. In addition to helping build an environment of trust and accountability, this structure also provides efficiency gains in the form of not spending time filling out time sheets and cajoling colleagues to fill out time sheets etc.

Full office time away: Though its not mandated by our manual, I’ve made a habit close the office for a week in December (usually the week before New Years) and a week in July (usually the week of 4th of July) to make sure that the whole staff has these 2 weeks away from work – obviously everyone can and does take other time off, but this is a nice foundation and shared time away (when we’re less likely to bug each other for something!) Depending on the work you do, this can be a pretty simple thing to implement that doesn’t actually cost you much.

Artistic Practice: We put a lot of emphasis on time for artistic practice, staff take leaves, or work out flexible hours to accommodate for residencies, big projects etc. There’s huge value to the organization in their experiences as practicing artists, so this serves our mission directly. Think about the work you do holistically and find ways to recognize that the organization directly benefits when people can build their networks, travel, connect in new places and bring their whole selves to their work.

Parental leave: Staff have up to 12 weeks of leave, 4 of which are paid, typically we work out some kind of combination of full-time/part-time work that lets people stretch the leave/pay longer or come back in a phased way. I hope I don’t have to explain why this is important.

Healthcare: healthcare/insurance is a huge priority for us, we offer 100% health/dental premium coverage for employees and 50% premium coverage for their families – individual employees can also take that same amount of money and stretch it over a less comprehensive plan so it covers more of the cost of their dependents, or they can pay a bit more and get an even more comprehensive plan. We put in a HUGE amount of work and effort to reexamine our health insurance every couple of years to try to make it work best for the most number of staff possible.

Benefits eligibility: our benefits cover all employees who work 21+ hours a week, and we almost never have employees that work less than 21 hours. Covering PT staff benefits helps them make the organization more of a priority, helps with retention and makes sure that our part time jobs are great jobs for working artists and gets us great candidates. I can’t emphasize this enough, if you are mad about the terrible state of healthcare in this country and you’re not trying to figure out how to get your entire staff access to health insurance, then I am confused. Our insurance broker looks at me like I landed from Mars when I tell him we want a policy that covers part-time employees, which is how I know the culture needs to change.

Salaries: Look, no one is getting rich working at Springboard, but we do try to have transparent practices around salaries. We primarily use the MCN Salary survey to figure out salary levels, and our goal is that every employee is at least the 50th percentile for salary for their job title. Our annual salary increases range from 1-5%. When we are able, we use a performance based bonus structure that allows for bonuses based on contributions to the financial, programmatic and guiding principles of the organization in the previous year.

Again, it's not to say that these things are the right policies and practices for every organization or every business. If there's one thing I've learned about this stuff, it's that the systems for how we take care of our staff are a constantly moving target and you have to keep re-examining and reinventing them. Keep understanding the tools that are available to you and the changes in the external environment that impact your employees and keep investing in the people who make the work possible. We arrived at these particular practices and solutions after a lot of research, staff surveys, and with a lot of help along the way from coaches and consultants, specifically Nonprofits Assistance Fund, Chris Rodenkirchen, Chris Kemp and Susan Campion, who helped us rethink and reinvent the infrastructure of the organization to meet our mission. We have also had great boards of directors who supported this work and empowered us to think differently about human resources.

One thing I struggle with is the difficult part of human nature and scarcity culture that makes it easy for people to look at practices like these and say, “well that's easy for you, you're a healthy organization” or dismiss these as the icing on the cake after you’ve built a sustainable or stable organization. And I definitely acknowledge the privilege we have of stability at this point in the organization’s life, I also want to emphasize that we started doing some of these things because we were unstable. As an organization, we aren't that many years out from the time when I had to put my own paycheck in the drawer because we couldn't make payroll for the people who worked here and these ethical employment practices are part of how how we built our way out of that hole, not a symptom of getting out of that hole. You can’t build a strong house without a foundation. For us, the people are the foundation. At the end of the day, I believe that we can’t fulfill our mission unless we are taking care of the people who do the work. Put another way, “If we can’t take care of our own employees than what the hell are we even doing?”

4 notes · View notes

ferix-writes · 7 years

Text

Re: These really detailed, oddly specific prompts on the kink meme

Alright, so. I know this isn’t my place because I’m not a mod of the kinkmeme, but this is my blog so I’m going to say it anyway. I’m sure anyone in modern fandom is tired of hearing how “the old days” were, but: if you don’t like my opinion, don’t read it.

This isn’t just about the oddly specific prompts. This is also about the repetitive prompts. This is for all the prompts about Ardyn raping Noctis, about Gladio saving an Ignis in distress, about Prompto being abused. This is for all the “+++++++++++++” that everyone seems to like doing. I’m going to be frank, here:

I don’t think you guys know how a good kink meme functions.

And before I go on let me say what this post is NOT about. It’s NOT about shitting on the mods. They’re doing the best they can, because I know this kinkmeme really exploded after the first few months. I’ve never volunteered or run a kinkmeme, and I cant even imagine how hard it is, especially with all the little arguments that break out.

A good kinkmeme doesn’t function well because of the mods, a good kinkmeme functions well because of the community, aka the fandom. There are a few basic rules that most kinkmemes have, right? Lets go over them.

No duplicate prompts.

One prompt per comment.

Don’t kink-shame.

Don’t take over other anon’s requests.

Got it? Okay, cool.

In my experience, kinkmemes that are wonderful places of smut and self indulgence where we can request all of our deepest desires function well because the fandom self-polices itself. And I DON’T mean going on to someone’s prompt that you don’t like and telling them it’s a shit idea. What I DO mean is that YOU should go look through the pinboard or the previous parts of the kinkmeme and see if your idea has already been prompted. Then YOU, as a member of our wonderful community, should put on your big-girl or big-boy or big-person pants and say “Someone has already prompted this. I don’t need to prompt nearly the same idea, I’ll wait for someone to fill that original prompt.”

Now, if you say to yourself “But I want Prompto to be raped THREE times in my prompt, this original prompt only has it happening ONCE!” Okay. Well. I guess it’s a free world and all but I think maybe you should reexamine your priorities a little.

But heck, you know what? I’m not here to kinkshame you. You want Prompto to be gangraped by every damn character in the game? Go right ahead, go right ahead and prompt that and tell the authoranon all about how you want Ravus to fuck his face and Noct to whip him and Gladio to wreck his ass. Go ahead and see what happens.

Odds are, if you prompt something that is wildly specific and has all these specific scenes and little things that you just ~have to have~ because it’s ~your prompt and you’re so original~, it’s not going to be filled. And let me tell you why.

A kinkmeme needs 2 parts of the fandom to function, right? The people that prompt and the people that fill. Obviously people can do both, but I’m just going to refer to them as two groups for right now. I have no idea who you anons are that are requesting all these long, specific prompts that have similar ideas to many prompts before. I don’t know if you’ve ever filled anything or know what it’s like, but let me tell you my perspective.

Kinkmemes are the perfect place to get all your deepest desires turned magically into fanfic, but they’re also a wonderful place to foster your own creativity as a writer and learn to challenge yourself. Seeing a prompt like “Noctis/Prompto, getting hit with confusion” (short, to the point) makes my imagination run wild. Think of all the possibilities! Are Noct and Prom together when it starts, or will they get together during the fic? I could include so many situations, action scenes, conversation, and how will it end? Oh boy I love writing hurt/comfort, so this will be so much fun!

Seeing a prompt like that details every little bit of Noctis and Prompto’s relationship and exactly where they are in the timeline of the game and exactly where and by what monster they get hit with the status effect and how Gladio and Ignis come swooping in to their rescue and everything they do to make Noct and Prom get better and and and—

Do you see my point?

There’s no room for creativity there. There’s no room for having fun writing. Fillers don’t come fill your prompts and deepest desires out of the goodness of their hearts. They fill them because your prompt resonates with them in some way and inspires them. Filling a prompt like the one above would be, frankly, a huge chore. I’d have to keep checking back to see if I’m including every little detail that the prompter wanted and jeez, I can’t even imagine writing like that.

What a funny coincidence that all those super specific prompts on the kinkmeme never get filled? Who woulda thunk.

Giving a writer room to be creative is so important my friends. That’s what I mean when I say I don’t think you understand how kinkmemes work. I guess all those people with the very specific prompts are looking for a super long fic that just pushes all their buttons and sends them into fandom euphoria? I don’t know, I really don’t know what you’re expecting. Again, a filler isn’t going to fill something if they’re not having fun with it (or getting paid).

I know you all want these super long awesome fills, but understand that they are few and far between for a reason. In my opinion, anything over 10k words requires a big time commitment and a lot of planning. And all for a prompt that wasn’t even the writer’s own idea in the first place. It’s a big challenge and test of commitment.

But those super fills can still happen! It’s all luck, luck and knowing how to request a good prompt. Take it from me, who wrote a 50k word fill that was inspired by 2 sentence prompt. (different fandom, not FFXV) It can happen, friends. But you’ve got to give a filler room to be creative and have fun.

#i just want the kinkmeme to be cleaned up tbh #its not always fun going there anymore #some of the prompts are so bad #ill probably get hate for this but w/e #not edited because idgaf #rape tw #abuse tw #rant #personal #you want to send me hate #hit me with your best shot #dialogue is encouraged though

7 notes · View notes

some-triangles · 7 years

Text

Episode 37. This is the finest thing Ikuhara ever produced, I think.

The duels are over, the winner decided. We have reached an inflection point: from here, the revolutionist can choose either to restart the narrative or end it. The power that Utena won is the power of the liminal. She stands outside the story right now and can do whatever she wants.

A knock-on effect of this development is that the episode structure we’ve been relying on to carry us forward is gone. We’re no longer building to anything because it isn’t clear that there’s anything left to build toward, and we don’t know what kind of person our main character is, just now. Utena was a lot of things but first and foremost she was the girl who wore that ring.

The girl who loved Akio, the girl who loved Anthy. What is there left for her?

Well, she can ask Akio out on a date, in front of Anthy. Just to test her arm.

I think we see the strength that makes Utena the one who will bring the world revolution, here. Her reaction to seeing Akio and Anthy together isn’t denial and it isn’t revulsion. She doesn’t immediately decide how she feels about either one of them. What she embarks upon is a slow, careful reexamination of her situation, and of what power she still has.

And – now that she finally gets the idiom of poisonous doublespeak she’s been living in these past weeks – she engages in some of it herself. Just to see.

UTENA: Man, most girls would kill to go out on a date with someone as cool as you, Akio!

ANTHY: Hyuu, hyuu. [trans: wow, ok]

We head to the balcony to catch up with Touga and Saionji. End of the World has sent Dear John letters to all the duelists save one. Utena got a very different letter, but she hasn’t opened it.

Touga, there, discovering that a princess once acquired is not so easily shook.

Utena and Akio come back from their drive. Akio asks why she’s not wearing her ring – she says she’s not sure it suits her anymore. Any action is possible, out here, so why not turn into a different person entirely?

They go through the “you look like a girl”/”well, I am a girl” routine. Utena remarks that Akio hasn’t said anything about the stars tonight. He is sufficiently confident in his victory – confident that she’ll wear his ring, so that he can turn his attention elsewhere – that he drops a little piece of his seduction routine prematurely.

But – there are still some details to be worked out, aren’t there? We’re still waiting for the final act.

Utena finds Anthy waiting up for her when she gets home. There is so much to say at this point and so little time to say it in that every word that passes between them is significant, and it’s difficult to find a way to condense it. Maybe translation would be a better approach.

UTENA: Are you angry? [I acknowledge that you have a prior claim on your brother in a way I didn’t recognize, and while I am not exonerating you in this, I am not judging you, either – similarly, I am acknowledging that you may, in a way I still don’t fully understand, have a prior claim on me.]

ANTHY: About what? [I am still unable to speak to you about this openly.]

UTENA: I thought you’d say that. [I understand that acknowledging what is really happening will destroy this world that we’ve created together, and I don’t want that, but we must find a way to communicate around this issue.]

Then something that doesn’t need translating:

UTENA: Akio said I looked really girlish tonight. What does it mean to be girlish?

ANTHY:

Anthy takes Utena by the hand and tells her that if she goes to that castle in the sky, she’ll meet her prince. There is a smile on Anthy’s face when she says this.

Meanwhile, Akio is taking pictures of Touga and Saionji on top of a pile of cars. They tell him that his plan has failed, because Utena has chosen him, a flesh and blood man, over her prince, an ideal. He says:

So, the setup’s complete. This was the plan, such as it was. He’s shown her a beautiful lie and an ugly truth and now she gets to walk away from Omelas, or not.

The next day Utena is playing basketball while preoccupied (gotta watch that – remember what happened last time!) In the morning, she and Anthy had the following exchange:

ANTHY: Utena, I wish the three of us could stay like this forever. [If you don’t go through with the revolution, you will be trapped in this purgatory with me for all time, along with all the other girls Akio will eventually add to his collection.]

UTENA: [rips the letter from end of the world into a million fucking pieces, thereby calling Anthy’s bluff, and indicating that she’s feeling pretty friggin MATRIMONIAL all of a sudden]

As we’re left to absorb the way that these nasty little moments are practically the only time Utena and Anthy get really real with each other, Juri and Miki show up, and it’s time for the Badminton Game of Redemption.

If you were wondering whether any of the other duelists were going to get a shot at resolution for their character arcs, this is about as close as you’re going to get. I don’t even think I’m going to run it down, here – it’s too good and pure to be picked apart.

Suffice it to say that there is power in their mutual acknowledgement of powerlessness, comfort in their open acknowledgement of their flaws. And in the end, when they all say that they’ve fallen for Utena, as the objects of their obsession look on – that’s them telling her that she’s the Prince. It’s the prince’s job to be the lightning rod for the love that passes understanding, the love that will break a normal person if they are forced to bear the brunt of it. The prince acknowledges that the love she receives is the love of something higher than herself, the love of nobility, loyalty, grace. And so, when she is loved, she laughs. She laughs with the people who love her.

Nanami doesn’t have a religious bone in her body, but offers Utena acknowledgement of another kind – that they will both keep fighting, because it’s who they are.

It’s an enormous gift they give her, here, the gift of their friendship, their support, and their acknowledgement of the potential she has to remake this world for the better. But the last shot of the scene is this one:

There is only so far that her friends can take her. She is going to have to do the next part alone.

Then the shadow puppet girls put on an epic performance, recapping the stakes at hand in thorough detail and also briefly acknowledging the central grossness that the rest of the series skirts around. It turns out that Prince Audition Judge is the young applicant’s

And did you know, by the way, that only one girl can get the part?

I love the shadow puppet girls because we have similar priorities. They and I have elected to fight the power in the same time-honored, highly respected, and completely ineffectual fashion, i.e., by making fun.

Then there’s like fifteen seconds of Akio fucking Anthy really brutally (via the car metaphor but there’s no attempt to hide the implication) and nothing is funny anymore.

God, and then.

Utena and Anthy are talking in the kitchen. Utena asks Anthy about her future plans – what she plans to do when she grows up, essentially – which to Anthy must sound like asking a convict with a life sentence what their dream job would be if they got out. Anthy asks Utena if she’s ever heard of a particular kind of deadly poison, the kind the Borgias used, and then asks if Utena’s enjoying the cookies.

Utena takes a moment, and then she finishes her cookie.

Anthy takes a moment, and then she takes a big sip.

They found a way to communicate around the issue! It’s like a trust fall, but with murder. It’s incredibly heartwarming, and I’m not sure why.

Anthy asks Utena where she sees herself in ten years. Utena says she doesn’t know, but it’d be nice if the two of them were still together then, drinking tea and laughing. (“Laughing.” Anthy and Utena don’t have much in common, beyond taste in men, but they do have the same pitch-black sense of humor.) They promise to make it a date.

Later that night, Anthy tries to throw herself off the roof.

It’s the confirmation that Utena still loves her – that, in the end, Utena will choose her over Akio – that’s too much for her to bear, I think. Knowing with absolute certainty that she isn’t worthy of that love.

The following day, Utena is back in her uniform and on her way to the dueling arena. She passes Touga and Saionji, who are eager to share some of their new poses while they ask her why she’s suddenly interested in world revolution. “It’s not just that”, she says. Touga correctly intuits that it’s Anthy’s freedom she’s after. Standing next to his best friend, he reminds her of the central axiom of his life:

To which she replies, “I am a fool”, of course.

Utena is wearing her engagement ring. Anthy is waiting for her. Together, they walk into the end of the world.

#utena #utena liveblog #the real best episode #I forgot that so many iconic moments happened like #within these twenty minutes

140 notes · View notes

nciwch · 7 years

Text

Risky Play: Why Children Love It and Need It

(adapted from an article by Peter Gray, Ph.D)

Fear, you would think, is a negative experience to be avoided whenever possible. Yet, as everyone who has a child or once was one knows, children love to play in risky ways—ways that combine the joy of freedom with just the right measure of fear to produce the exhilarating blend known as thrill.

Six categories of risky play

Ellen Sandseter, a professor at Queen Maud University in Trondheim, Norway, has identified six categories of risks that seem to attract children everywhere in their play. These are:

• Great heights. Children climb trees and other structures to scary heights, from which they gain a birds-eye view of the world and the thrilling feeling of I did it!.

• Rapid speeds. Children swing on vines, ropes, or playground swings; slide on sleds, skis, skates, or playground slides; shoot down rapids on logs or boats; and ride bikes, skateboards, and other devices fast enough to produce the thrill of almost but not quite losing control.

• Dangerous tools. Depending on the culture, children play with knives, bows and arrows, farm machinery (where work and play combine), or other tools known to be potentially dangerous. There is, of course, great satisfaction in being trusted to handle such tools, but there is also thrill in controlling them, knowing that a mistake could hurt.

• Dangerous elements. Children love to play with fire, or in and around deep bodies of water, either of which poses some danger.

• Rough and tumble. Children everywhere chase one another around and fight playfully, and they typically prefer being in the most vulnerable position—the one being chased or the one underneath in wrestling--the position that involves the most risk of being hurt and requires the most skill to overcome.

• Disappearing/getting lost. Little children play hide and seek and experience the thrill of temporary, scary separation from their companions. Older ones venture off, on their own, away from adults, into territories that to them are new and filled with imagined dangers, including the danger of getting lost.

From an evolutionary perspective, the obvious question about risky play is this: Why does it exist? It can cause injury (though serious injury is rare) and even (very rarely) death, so why hasn’t natural selection weeded it out? The fact that it hasn’t been weeded out is evidence that the benefits must outweigh the risks.

One of the theories that has come out of this research is the emotion regulation theory of play—the theory that one of play’s major functions is to teach young mammals how to regulate fear and anger. In risky play, youngsters dose themselves with manageable quantities of fear and practice keeping their heads and behaving adaptively while experiencing that fear. They learn that they can manage their fear, overcome it, and come out alive. In rough and tumble play they may also experience anger, as one player may accidentally hurt another. But to continue playing, to continue the fun, they must overcome that anger. If they lash out, the play is over. Thus, according to the emotion regulation theory, play is, among other things, the way that young mammals learn to control their fear and anger so they can encounter real-life dangers, and interact in close quarters with others, without succumbing to negative emotions.

However, over the past 60 years we have witnessed, in our culture, a continuous, gradual, but ultimately dramatic decline in children’s opportunities to play freely, without adult control, and especially in their opportunities to play in risky ways. Over the same 60 years we have also witnessed a continuous, gradual, but ultimately dramatic increase in all sorts of childhood mental disorders, especially emotional disorders.

Look back at that list of six categories of risky play. In the 1950s, even young children regularly played in all of these ways, and adults expected and permitted such play (even if they weren't always happy about it). Now parents who allowed such play would likely be accused of negligence, by their neighbors if not by state authorities.

Here’s an index of how far we have moved: In a recent survey of over a thousand parents in the UK, 43% believed that children under the age of 14 shouldn’t be allowed outside unsupervised, and half of those believed they shouldn’t be allowed such freedom until at least 16 years of age! My guess is that roughly the same would be found if that survey were conducted in the US. Adventures that used to be normal for 6-year-olds are now not allowed even for many teenagers.

Over the same period that we have seen such a dramatic decline in children’s freedom to play, and especially in their freedom to embrace risk, we have seen an equally dramatic rise in all sorts of childhood mental disorders. The story is both ironic and tragic. We deprive children of free, risky play, ostensibly to protect them from danger, but in the process we set them up for mental breakdowns. Children are designed by nature to teach themselves emotional resilience by playing in risky, emotion-inducing ways. In the long run, we endanger them far more by preventing such play than by allowing it. And, we deprive them of fun.

Play, to be safe, must be free play, not coerced, managed, or pushed by adults. Children are highly motivated to play in risky ways, but they are also very good at knowing their own capacities and avoiding risks they are not ready to take, either physically or emotionally. Our children know far better than we do what they are ready for. When adults pressure or even encourage children to take risks they aren’t ready for, the result may be trauma, not thrill. There are big differences among kids, even among those who are similar in age, size, and strength. What is thrilling for one is traumatic for another.

An ironic fact is that children are far more likely to injure themselves in adult-directed sports than in their own freely chosen, self-directed play. That’s because the adult encouragement and competitive nature of the sports lead children to take risks--both of hurting themselves and of hurting others—that they would not choose to take in free play. Children playing for fun rarely specialize (they enjoy variety in play), and they stop when it hurts, or they change the way they are playing. Also, because it’s all for fun, they take care not to hurt their playmates.

So, we prevent children from their own, self-chosen, thrilling play, believing it dangerous when in fact it is not so dangerous and has benefits that outweigh the dangers, and then we encourage children to specialize in a competitive sport, where the dangers of injury are really quite large. It’s time to reexamine our priorities.

#Montessori #Nature's Classroom.#Play #risk #outdoors

6 notes · View notes

griffinkathryn95 · 4 years

Text

Ex Get Back Stunning Useful Tips

Keep yourself respect and be back in a positive future.You need to get your ex - all you need to show her that you like to go from breakup to breakup faster than you are you going to attract her back because she will call when she says it's over play again and then continue on as though you cheated, it is therefore necessary that you can actually begin the back of his dreams despite being remarkably average--average height, average looks and even start thinking about getting her back again - she also loves you, but if done right you could easily get your ex back.Although you may see them if they've made their feelings clear.If he has to shut off her phone, ignore him, he might just piss your ex back.

For this you can start through the next time around it all on single handed, a partnership should be in especially if you are serious in trying to bring back your ex, then it is too late or are they won't work because you did something or didn't do something about or lose him for sure.It can feel confident as you would do is listen to them just talked about their relationship.These are the real easy to follow if you truly want back, then you more and more.Patience is what all the TV talk shows say?Women want a fresh view of the common lies that you are cool with it.

Some have fall victim of some steps in recovery after a little while to think about her threats.Put each puzzle back into your life revolve around your ex.Well there you have to be a show or movie?If you really want your relationship when you are willing to pardon yourself?You need to tackle carefully in order to get your guy back, you're in for a certain level of wealth, his priority will change.

There are several approaches to use, even after you are looking for third party involved.So what can I do know this, it will be noticed for miles... and that's what ruined mine.Even the best ways to get him back for just about anything else can be averted.Second, during that time, you cannot get answers if you were when you show him that you're sorry.If you really have to get back together with each meeting you'll get his girlfriend Melanie, and I broke up, you need to be sure that the partner jealous.

You need to show you're ex partner they should get back with your ex.The unfortunate thing is I might have tried desperately to your ex that is your chance to talk to him before just accusing him.When you first started dating, only with a more positive reasons rather than wasting the time is the predicament Amanda found herself in a fantasy world where they are trying to say to him, look: You woke up in the right move for you.Well, we have until we lose it, we can make is to always look gorgeous and dressed up for very small reasons, and that is usually a smart move.More than likely call you - so many relationships.

My first tip is, when you win him back not to have a clue how to get back with an ex.My powerful and when you are willing to make changes.That means that if you want to know what the situation it won't.You are looking for ways to get your spouse back books.Even break ups so badly to be honest because they don't understand one another.

It's not easy at all regarding my love back because they are back together, take it personally.Think about the two things - someone who has ever had of getting your ex back.Wondering whether it is impossible for you to win her back are slim but not necessarily something difficult.And by the solitary impact/isolation caused by your appearance.Most guys fail to get your ex after a while.

Firstly you need to do, because if you can't do anything to make a book to share to you and your ex will think that the best thing that's ever happened to be reexamined and you have given each other and you should try to endure a breakup.Times you were the luckiest guy in a million and this can certainly be achieved in a book to share to you anymore.I know, because I am just a matter of weeks.In reality, when a man because he left you.He was pretty impressed and asked me about it in the way to work on.

Get Ex Back By Law Of Attraction

Third, remember her birthday or other event that has proven to provide them with you again, so that's why you broke up.The Middle Ground - While all out to obtain their ex-mate over through shame.The sole purpose of doing something stupid.So don't call him, he'll be better to wait at least make sure her ends will meet.After you lose your partner feels and make compromises to satisfy their needs.

Are you wondering how to get back together with an ex girlfriend tell you that if you are going to do.Playing Games - Games are not nice enough thus change drastically by being overly nice to her.They followed through their emotions overwhelm them.Being nice is great but when you are separated from your wife, in the long run.Actions speak a thousand words, languages; it could be helpful for your partner to want them back, with little effort on your appearance.

But here's a little crazy and you will do more harm then good.Do a little homework and force her to ask for outside advice.But, make sure you know he holds close to something or didn't do something to get your husband back remember when I began to get your partner will see there are proven time tested ways to get back together.Next, poor Bob started sending her a text message, don't do it.However, I was taught the real reason is always hope for you and pursue you.

After just a drink can not have, and it's okay to try and contact you, but there are several tips out there who have already proved that you have succeeded in getting him back.At the moment, but she'll realize that they will come through, and I can quote from online forums.If that's the case its a sign of desperation.Is this making sense to listen to your union, are you both could have you any encouraging answer for it, and don't bombard her with your ex back.I bought the e-book and implemented the techniques right away.

It has taken a lot of good sources of information.Second, know the exact story of our lives.To get your girlfriend back by sitting on my work day and beg her to think about why exactly are people who experience relationship break downs and split up get so clouded with their friends, their interests.The hardest thing about having her more annoyed.It will only get you pointed in the same day but my point is to write a letter.

You don't want anyone, especially your ex, thinking you're just fine!... as far as she used to you longer.When most women who tend to not only help tremendously when you break them down, or talking to an end.If you want to have patience and let them have it, even if this is in love with the situation, learn from them.Will you believe you if they could lose their personal identity once they realize you have become more of an attitude like you have.Women tend to work out then you will have far greater than words, and at times it just furthers their frustration, don't be available there again for you is going to attract her to you about the whole breakup and grow from it.

Get Your Ex Boyfriend Back With Text Messages

#Ex Get Back Stunning Useful Tips #Back With My Ex Jeremy

0 notes

coteriesrp · 4 years

Photo

– JENN HAS BEEN ACCEPTED WITH GUERRA! CONGRATULATIONS!

The style… The panache… You nailed the vibe SO perfectly and I love your writing style so much. Didn’t expect to fall this in love with Guerra but here we are I guess? May need to reexamine my taste and priorities. Seriously, though-- I keep rereading your application because every sentence so perfectly communicates what it’s going for, providing such a visceral image of the character at hand.

— KIT

I hate Guerra, with all my heart (by which I mean, I love him). I wrote him and constantly had such a visceral reaction, I could feel the smugness easing off him. And you captured that, while injecting depth into him. In my mind, Guerra's unapologetic about who he is, and you said "yes, and..." — no doubt that we're of the same mind when it comes to who Guerra is and should be, and I love that, honestly.

— GHOST

You’ll be sent a link to our Discord shortly and have 24 hours to accept the invite or your role will be reopened.

out of character info.

ALIAS › Jenn

PRONOUNS › she/them

AGE › 28

TIMEZONE › GMT-6

in character info.

CHARACTER › Guerra

GENDER & PRONOUNS › cis man, he/him

APPARENT AGE › late twenties

DISCIPLINE › auspex

DEMEANOUR ›

There are moments scattered through life that serve as cross roads. The pause between a strike of lightning and sound of thunder. When the bait is taken and the trap triggers. The deep breath between when eyes meet and hands reach out for their lover. These intersections, the ones where wonder meets danger is where Guerra can be found. He is the bait, he is the trap, and he is the prize.

JOINING THE COTERIE ›

Opportunity. Variety. New York’s reputation exists for a reason, and it serves as another one of those things he loves so very much: a crossroad.

(UN)LIFE’S PHILOSOPHY ›

As a human, Guerra’s life was a series of moments. He was a man with a short attention span and little forethought, one that flitted through life riding an almost unnatural amount of luck. Afterlife has brought him into a new skillset, specifically patience and an understanding of long-suffering before satisfaction; and the beauty of hairline fractures before a shattering. These learned skills have become is north star, and they’re the framework of his plans.

THOUGHTS ON HUMANITY ›

Guerra got over humanity startlingly quick. His transition to undead was taken in stride--- perhaps the adaptability of his human personality that continued on. As a result, he gives it littler credence. Humans are necessary in their own right, but as a meal and tools. They are expendable, short sighted, and not much more than a resource.

LIFE EVENTS ›

Cairo Congress of Arab Music

Guerra can remember the vibrations of the moments before turning. They came in the form of Râuf Yektâ Bey’s Mahur Peşrevi as a man played an iteration of the piece of the street outside the window. Cairo was overtaken by music, enlivened by the revitalization decreed by King Fuad. The festivities carried on for days, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the city as vibrant. He could smell the small shop down the street that cooked kushari, and the slight bit of sandalwood on the skin of the man beside him. He could feel smooth skin under his fingertips. He couldn’t make out words but he understood the tones still. He understood lips pulled into smiles. He could feel kisses against his skin--- he hadn’t noticed the slight coolness, but maybe the heat of the night was to thank. They’d spent nights together, since the Congress had begun. And there they landed, entangled in sheets, whispering about the brightness of it all. Teeth had been mistaken for a love bite; and it brought bliss with it.

Taste

He cut the right shape of a temptation and a mirage; two things lacquered together like the color of the prettiest and most poisonous jungle flowers--- the ones that called out to be touched without words. The kind that let his hands find her hips and slide along her back, his head tipped down so his nose could brush her neck and he couldn’t smell anything beyond the thunderous rush of blood just under thin skin. It was rhythmic with the music, matching it one for one; so abundant and so personal all at once. He smiled, and his lips brushed her skin in the process. He could feel her fall out of sync with the beat, a flutter in her chest making the blood rush---- so easily read and understood. His teeth sunk in for the first time and it threatened to disconnect him. It was a punch to the center of his chest, one that made him more thirsty than he’d been since the freefall of a moment began. He couldn’t feel her fingers tighten in his shirt or the little gasp she took. There was only sweet metals, ones that wrapped a cool body in warmth as he drank too long. It wasn’t until a hand gripped his arm, too hard to ignore, that he broke away, his tongue instinctively brushing across the wounds as he was shepherded away--- full, high, and already thinking of the next hit.

EXPANDING CONNECTIONS ›

Harel

Guerra doesn’t care for the Assamite bullshit, much less when its in Camarilla hands. He’d love a blood curse or two of biblical proportion, and he’d love even more to apply them himself.

miscellaneous info.

EXTRAS ›

Playlist

#accepted.#guerra.

0 notes

thepowerofyourotherhand · 4 years

Text

The Art of Transforming Fearful Mental Images

Our guest blogger is Claire Perkins, an artist, author, and expressive arts coach. During an experience of deep grief, Claire discovered the healing and awakening power of expressive art and journaling, which she now brings to her clients. Trained in the Creative Journal Expressive Arts (CJEA) method, Transformational Life Coaching, Active Dreaming and SoulCollage®, she gently guides people to deeper self-awareness, inner healing and awakening with a juicy mix of simple expressive art, dream work and journaling. Here is what Claire shared with me: “This pandemic is definitely a challenging time that triggers all kinds of fears. A perfect time for this work in the world. Over the past few days, I have been collaging imagery around my own fears. Today I wrote a blog post that includes two of the SoulCollage® cards that I created - the first expressing virus fears and the second, an "antidote" vision of healthy lungs. I journaled with these cards using both "I am the one who" (a SoulCollage® format for working with cards) and CJEA journaling dialogue with the non-dominant hand. It was a wonderfully transforming activity. The Art of Transforming Fearful Mental Images by Claire M. Perkins When vague inner fears dance around in my heart and mind, I’ve found that giving them visual form through collage is an excellent first step in getting a handle on them. There is something healing in the act of gathering together those disturbing but hazy feelings and turning them into a visual you can hold at arm’s length and address in a more solid and concrete way. It’s cathartic. This corona virus pandemic has definitely stirred up some fears, so I decided to explore my uneasiness through SoulCollage® and Creative Journaling, including the use of my non-dominant hand (NDH) to allow the images to speak. The first card I created is a representation of this virus pandemic that I call “Aye! Corona!” In this card, the whole world is wearing a mask (of illness? of fear? of protection?). Those spiky little virus buggers have evil monster faces and sharp teeth – and they are everywhere! The poor beleaguered health worker, like something from a horror movie, looks out through the eyes of the virus.

Allowing the card to speak, here is what emerges from the voices of the virus, the world, and the health worker imagery. Virus Images I am one who is coming at you with teeth bared and spikes out. I am one who is everywhere. You can’t hide from me any longer. I am one who has come to make you wake up and pay attention. I will multiply until you start to listen. I am a symptom of a world out of balance. I am a desperate call for change. What do you need from me? (NDH) I need you to wake up. I need you to recognize that I am a messenger – that this is bigger than the here and now crisis – that your entire culture needs to make deep, systemic changes if humanity is to survive. Think about the gift of your breath. Your breath is life. It feeds your entire system. It is a balance of gathering in and letting go. But your culture gathers, gathers, gathers and never lets go. The wealthiest of you always wanting more, more, more while so many have not enough. If all you ever did was inhale, you would explode. And your culture is doing just that. It is no accident that I attack the lungs. I am a metaphor, a symbol of breath out of balance, of a world drowning in an excess of greed and complacency, like a balloon about to burst from too much air. It’s time to let go of this need for more, more, more. World Image Help me! I am desperate. I am dying. I can’t breathe. I am one who has been your home, your mother. I am one who has been abused – nearly to the point of no return. You and I are one organism. We will live or die together. It is time to come together. There is still time to heal. What do you need from me? (NDH) I need you all to allow time for a reset. I need you all to reexamine your priorities. I need you all to recognize that this is one world, that all of you are interconnected and bound with me. I need you all to make me – your home – a priority. I need you to recognize how out of balance this world has become and to work at bringing balance back. Start with balance in your own life, in your own way of being. Health Worker Image I am one who is here to help, but I am overwhelmed and outnumbered. I am one who must protect myself so that I can help to heal others and the world. I need supplies: gloves, masks, medical equipment, tests and medicines, rooms and beds. I am one who stands on the front lines. If I fall, we all fall. What do you need from me? (NDH) Keep their feet to the fire – those in charge. Make them see that in this moment of crisis we need to focus on procuring the necessary equipment and facilities for the storm that’s about to hit. Please, please, please heed the advice to stay home as much as you can, to wash your hands often, to disinfect surfaces. These actions can lower the amount of cases that land in my care. ~~~ Having created a card that expresses my fears and having listened to what it wanted to say to me, I begin to think and feel my way into creating an opposite or antidote card.

One thing that really stands out to me from what the virus said is the idea of breath – that this is a disease that attacks the lungs. I take a deep breath and feel that my antidote phrase is “healthy lungs.” Yes, there is much more to this crisis – deeper, systemic social construct issues, climate change, greed, etc. But my right-now-fears are centered in the current health crisis. So, “healthy lungs” feels right. A couple things that really stand out to me visually in the “Aye! Corona!” card are the round, spiky forms of the virus and the predominant pink color. When I look through the fear at just the visual impression, I can’t help but think of a softer form in a similar shape and color. A flower, like a peony or hydrangea. Now I have the clues I need to begin to create my antidote card. I find several appropriate images and create my new card. The combination of the pink peony and the pink daisy mirror the round shape and pokey spines of the virus, but in a soft, transmuted way. The pink color is echoed in the bronchial pathways of the lungs and it feels healing. When I look at this new “Healthy Lungs” antidote card, I feel an immediate shift in my energy from fear to peace. Just looking at it automatically triggers several deep breaths and the feeling of peace grows. Healthy Lungs Image We are ones who bring you the breath of life and pour that life through your whole system. We are healthy. We are strong. We are ones who, while vulnerable to viruses and pathogens, have worked and will continue to work remarkably well for the vast majority of your life. What do you need from me? (NDH) Please keep breathing deeply. It helps to keep us strong and clear and gives us what we need to feed and restore the entire body system. In addition, it lowers your stress and relieves the system of stress hormones, which are detrimental to your health and immune processes. When you feel fear and stress arise, remember to breathe. Pink Peony Image I am one who transforms the fear in your head. I am one who softens your thinking. I am one who brings the pink light of healing energy into your entire system. I am one who rests gently around your third eye and crown chakras, opening the way for spiritual wisdom and guidance to help lead you in right action. What do you need from me? (NDH) I, too, am fed by deep breathing. I blossom as fear moves aside, and fear moves aside when you inhale peace and exhale worry. Breathe deeply, and when you feel my calm presence – listen. Listen for Divine Guidance. Know that you are safe, protected and guided at all times. Pink Daisy Image I am one who projects your energy out into the world. I am your spiritual antennae. Like a halo, I project your inner light – or your inner fear to those around you. Like an antenna, I can also soak up the light or the fears from those around you. What do you need from me? (NDH) Be aware of how you are affected by the fears of those around you and the fears peddled on the nightly news. Do not allow yourself to soak up too much of the fear around you. Be aware, too, of what you are projecting out into the world. Try not to feed the fears, but rather to be a light. ~~~ I found this process to be cathartic, calming and healing. If you are looking for a way to transmute your fears about the current pandemic, I encourage you to give this activity a try. Your fears and my fears may take different form. Let your own emotions and intuition guide you as you gather images and make your cards. While I created my cards digitally with free use source images from Pixabay, you don’t have to do it that way. You can also use magazine images, scissors and glue to make your cards. Or source your images from the internet, print them out, and then use scissors and glue. You can even simply draw a visual representation of your fear and then draw an antidote. The main point is to use imagery to express and then transmute your fear. I plan to keep my antidote card out where I can see it throughout the duration of this pandemic as an anchor and a reminder to breathe, to tune in to spiritual wisdom and guidance, and to watch out for both incoming and outgoing transmissions of fear. Claire Perkins Artist, author, and expressive arts coach Certified in Creative Journal Expressive Arts [email protected] https://claireperkins.com ----- Lucia Let us know what you think of this post in the comments below. Follow us and be updated by email when new blog posts are published. www.luciac.com www.visioningcoach.org Order The Power of Your Other Hand (Conari Press 2019) at Amazon.com via Blogger https://ift.tt/2WE6A4g

#Collage #Creative Journal #Grief Work #Guest Blogger #Journaling with Art #Stress Reduction #The Wis

0 notes

blockheadbrands · 5 years

Text

Cleveland City Council Considering Cutting Consequences for Cannabis

A.J. Herrington of High Times Reports:

The ordinance aims to reduce prison sentences for minor drug offenses.

The city council in Cleveland, Ohio will consider an ordinance that would eliminate the penalties for possessing moderate amounts of cannabis. The proposal was introduced on Wednesday by Councilman Blaine Griffin of Ward 6.

Under Griffin’s proposal, all fines, penalties, and drug treatment requirements for possessing less than 200 grams (just over 7 ounces) of marijuana would be eliminated. The ordinance would also eliminate all penalties for giving away up to 20 grams of cannabis except when in the close proximity of a school or child.

Griffin told reporters that he introduced the measure to reduce the racial bias prevalent in the enforcement of drug laws and to reduce the collateral effects of convictions for minor drug offenses, such as disqualification for housing or educational benefits.

“I think this is the modern-day prohibition. The war on drugs to keep marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug hasn’t worked,” said Griffin. “So therefore, it’s time for us to reexamine our laws and look at, are we actually out of the loop with what we should be doing around marijuana penalties.”

Dr. Leslie Koblentz, who was a psychiatrist in the Cuyahoga County Jail for seven years before she joined the Alcohol Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board of Cuyahoga County as the Chief Clinical Officer last year, said that she supports the decriminalization of small amounts of cannabis.

“We have to make priorities,” Koblentz said. “If you’ve read about the jails, been in the jails, they are very, very overcrowded. The jail’s not the place for drug treatment. The jail really is not the place for mental healthcare.”

She added that while there are risks associated with the use of cannabis, knowledge and drug rehabilitation are more effective than incarceration.

“We need education, we need drug treatment, we need a sustained program that will help the person,” said Koblentz.

Cleveland Following Trend in Ohio

If the ordinance passes, Cleveland would not be the first major city in Ohio to cut the consequences of possessing small amounts of marijuana. Cincinnati did so in June, and earlier this week city leaders in Columbusfollowed suit.

Under the ordinance approved by Columbus City Council on Monday, possession of up to 100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) of marijuana will be subject to a fine of up to $10. Those caught possessing between 100 and 200 grams of cannabis will face a fine of up to $25. Possession of more than 200 grams is still a felony.

The fine for possession of marijuana paraphernalia was also reduced to $10. The ordinance also increases funding to help those with previous convictions for marijuana possession offenses have their criminal records sealed.

TO READ MORE OF THIS ARTICLE ON HIGH TIMES, CLICK HERE.

https://hightimes.com/news/cleveland-city-council-considering-cutting-consequences-cannabis/

0 notes

clusterassets · 6 years

Text

New world news from Time: ‘We Now Stand at a Crossroads.’ Here’s What Barack Obama Said During His First Big Speech Since He Left Office

Former President Barack Obama gave his first significant speech since he left the Oval Office on Tuesday, commemorating the 100th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s birth.

Speaking to a crowd of around 15,000 people at the 16th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in Johannesburg, Obama called the South African political leader “one of history’s true giants” and someone whose “progressive, democratic vision” helped shape international policies.

Obama touched on numerous topics ranging from the need to stand up for democracy and believe in facts to the current state of politics, though he never mentioned President Donald Trump by name.

“I am not being alarmist, I’m simply stating the facts,” Obama said. “Look around — strongman politics are ascendant, suddenly, whereby elections and some pretense of democracy are maintained, the form of it, but those in powers seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning.”

“Too much of politics today seems to reject the very concept of objective truth,” Obama said. “People just make stuff up. They just make stuff up.”

Obama also made a reference to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, saying social media “has proved to be just as effective promoting hatred and paranoia and propaganda and conspiracy theories.”

You can read the full transcript of Obama’s speech in South Africa below:

Thank you. To Mama Graça Machel, members of the Mandela family, the Machel family, to President Ramaphosa who you can see is inspiring new hope in this great country – professor, doctor, distinguished guests, to Mama Sisulu and the Sisulu family, to the people of South Africa – it is a singular honor for me to be here with all of you as we gather to celebrate the birth and life of one of history’s true giants.

Let me begin by a correction and a few confessions. The correction is that I am a very good dancer. I just want to be clear about that. Michelle is a little better.

The confessions. Number one, I was not exactly invited to be here. I was ordered in a very nice way to be here by Graça Machel.

Confession number two: I forgot my geography and the fact that right now it’s winter in South Africa. I didn’t bring a coat, and this morning I had to send somebody out to the mall because I am wearing long johns. I was born in Hawaii.

Confession number three: When my staff told me that I was to deliver a lecture, I thought back to the stuffy old professors in bow ties and tweed, and I wondered if this was one more sign of the stage of life that I’m entering, along with gray hair and slightly failing eyesight. I thought about the fact that my daughters think anything I tell them is a lecture. I thought about the American press and how they often got frustrated at my long-winded answers at press conferences, when my responses didn’t conform to two-minute soundbites. But given the strange and uncertain times that we are in – and they are strange, and they are uncertain – with each day’s news cycles bringing more head-spinning and disturbing headlines, I thought maybe it would be useful to step back for a moment and try to get some perspective. So I hope you’ll indulge me, despite the slight chill, as I spend much of this lecture reflecting on where we’ve been, and how we arrived at this present moment, in the hope that it will offer us a roadmap for where we need to go next.

One hundred years ago, Madiba was born in the village of M – oh, see there, I always get that – I got to get my Ms right when I’m in South Africa. Mvezo – I got it. Truthfully, it’s because it’s so cold, my lips stuck. So in his autobiography he describes a happy childhood; he’s looking after cattle, he’s playing with the other boys, eventually attends a school where his teacher gave him the English name Nelson. And as many of you know, he’s quoted saying, ‘Why she bestowed this particular name upon me, I have no idea.’

There was no reason to believe that a young black boy at this time, in this place, could in any way alter history. After all, South Africa was then less than a decade removed from full British control. Already, laws were being codified to implement racial segregation and subjugation, the network of laws that would be known as apartheid. Most of Africa, including my father’s homeland, was under colonial rule. The dominant European powers, having ended a horrific world war just a few months after Madiba’s birth, viewed this continent and its people primarily as spoils in a contest for territory and abundant natural resources and cheap labor. And the inferiority of the black race, an indifference towards black culture and interests and aspirations, was a given.

And such a view of the world – that certain races, certain nations, certain groups were inherently superior, and that violence and coercion is the primary basis for governance, that the strong necessarily exploit the weak, that wealth is determined primarily by conquest – that view of the world was hardly confined to relations between Europe and Africa, or relations between whites and blacks. Whites were happy to exploit other whites when they could. And by the way, blacks were often willing to exploit other blacks. And around the globe, the majority of people lived at subsistence levels, without a say in the politics or economic forces that determined their lives. Often they were subject to the whims and cruelties of distant leaders. The average person saw no possibility of advancing from the circumstances of their birth. Women were almost uniformly subordinate to men. Privilege and status was rigidly bound by caste and color and ethnicity and religion. And even in my own country, even in democracies like the United States, founded on a declaration that all men are created equal, racial segregation and systemic discrimination was the law in almost half the country and the norm throughout the rest of the country.

That was the world just 100 years ago. There are people alive today who were alive in that world. It is hard, then, to overstate the remarkable transformations that have taken place since that time. A second World War, even more terrible than the first, along with a cascade of liberation movements from Africa to Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, would finally bring an end to colonial rule. More and more peoples, having witnessed the horrors of totalitarianism, the repeated mass slaughters of the 20th century, began to embrace a new vision for humanity, a new idea, one based not only on the principle of national self-determination, but also on the principles of democracy and rule of law and civil rights and the inherent dignity of every single individual.

In those nations with market-based economies, suddenly union movements developed; and health and safety and commercial regulations were instituted; and access to public education was expanded; and social welfare systems emerged, all with the aim of constraining the excesses of capitalism and enhancing its ability to provide opportunity not just to some but to all people. And the result was unmatched economic growth and a growth of the middle class. And in my own country, the moral force of the civil rights movement not only overthrew Jim Crow laws but it opened up the floodgates for women and historically marginalized groups to reimagine themselves, to find their own voices, to make their own claims to full citizenship.

It was in service of this long walk towards freedom and justice and equal opportunity that Nelson Mandela devoted his life. At the outset, his struggle was particular to this place, to his homeland – a fight to end apartheid, a fight to ensure lasting political and social and economic equality for its disenfranchised non-white citizens. But through his sacrifice and unwavering leadership and, perhaps most of all, through his moral example, Mandela and the movement he led would come to signify something larger. He came to embody the universal aspirations of dispossessed people all around the world, their hopes for a better life, the possibility of a moral transformation in the conduct of human affairs.

Madiba’s light shone so brightly, even from that narrow Robben Island cell, that in the late ‘70s he could inspire a young college student on the other side of the world to reexamine his own priorities, could make me consider the small role I might play in bending the arc of the world towards justice. And when later, as a law student, I witnessed Madiba emerge from prison, just a few months, you’ll recall, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I felt the same wave of hope that washed through hearts all around the world.

Do you remember that feeling? It seemed as if the forces of progress were on the march, that they were inexorable. Each step he took, you felt this is the moment when the old structures of violence and repression and ancient hatreds that had so long stunted people’s lives and confined the human spirit – that all that was crumbling before our eyes. And then as Madiba guided this nation through negotiation painstakingly, reconciliation, its first fair and free elections; as we all witnessed the grace and the generosity with which he embraced former enemies, the wisdom for him to step away from power once he felt his job was complete, we understood that – we understood it was not just the subjugated, the oppressed who were being freed from the shackles of the past. The subjugator was being offered a gift, being given a chance to see in a new way, being given a chance to participate in the work of building a better world.

And during the last decades of the 20th century, the progressive, democratic vision that Nelson Mandela represented in many ways set the terms of international political debate. It doesn’t mean that vision was always victorious, but it set the terms, the parameters; it guided how we thought about the meaning of progress, and it continued to propel the world forward. Yes, there were still tragedies – bloody civil wars from the Balkans to the Congo. Despite the fact that ethnic and sectarian strife still flared up with heartbreaking regularity, despite all that as a consequence of the continuation of nuclear détente, and a peaceful and prosperous Japan, and a unified Europe anchored in NATO, and the entry of China into the world’s system of trade – all that greatly reduced the prospect of war between the world’s great powers. And from Europe to Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, dictatorships began to give way to democracies. The march was on. A respect for human rights and the rule of law, enumerated in a declaration by the United Nations, became the guiding norm for the majority of nations, even in places where the reality fell far short of the ideal. Even when those human rights were violated, those who violated human rights were on the defensive.

And with these geopolitical changes came sweeping economic changes. The introduction of market-based principles, in which previously closed economies along with the forces of global integration powered by new technologies, suddenly unleashed entrepreneurial talents to those that once had been relegated to the periphery of the world economy, who hadn’t counted. Suddenly they counted. They had some power; they had the possibilities of doing business. And then came scientific breakthroughs and new infrastructure and the reduction of armed conflicts. And suddenly a billion people were lifted out of poverty, and once-starving nations were able to feed themselves, and infant mortality rates plummeted. And meanwhile, the spread of the internet made it possible for people to connect across oceans, and cultures and continents instantly were brought together, and potentially, all the world’s knowledge could be in the hands of a small child in even the most remote village.

That’s what happened just over the course of a few decades. And all that progress is real. It has been broad, and it has been deep, and it all happened in what – by the standards of human history – was nothing more than a blink of an eye. And now an entire generation has grown up in a world that by most measures has gotten steadily freer and healthier and wealthier and less violent and more tolerant during the course of their lifetimes.

It should make us hopeful. But if we cannot deny the very real strides that our world has made since that moment when Madiba took those steps out of confinement, we also have to recognize all the ways that the international order has fallen short of its promise. In fact, it is in part because of the failures of governments and powerful elites to squarely address the shortcomings and contradictions of this international order that we now see much of the world threatening to return to an older, a more dangerous, a more brutal way of doing business.

So we have to start by admitting that whatever laws may have existed on the books, whatever wonderful pronouncements existed in constitutions, whatever nice words were spoken during these last several decades at international conferences or in the halls of the United Nations, the previous structures of privilege and power and injustice and exploitation never completely went away. They were never fully dislodged. Caste differences still impact the life chances of people on the Indian subcontinent. Ethnic and religious differences still determine who gets opportunity from the Central Europe to the Gulf. It is a plain fact that racial discrimination still exists in both the United States and South Africa. And it is also a fact that the accumulated disadvantages of years of institutionalized oppression have created yawning disparities in income, and in wealth, and in education, and in health, in personal safety, in access to credit. Women and girls around the world continue to be blocked from positions of power and authority. They continue to be prevented from getting a basic education. They are disproportionately victimized by violence and abuse. They’re still paid less than men for doing the same work. That’s still happening. Economic opportunity, for all the magnificence of the global economy, all the shining skyscrapers that have transformed the landscape around the world, entire neighborhoods, entire cities, entire regions, entire nations have been bypassed.

In other words, for far too many people, the more things have changed, the more things stayed the same.

And while globalization and technology have opened up new opportunities, have driven remarkable economic growth in previously struggling parts of the world, globalization has also upended the agricultural and manufacturing sectors in many countries. It’s also greatly reduced the demand for certain workers, has helped weaken unions and labor’s bargaining power. It’s made it easier for capital to avoid tax laws and the regulations of nation-states – can just move billions, trillions of dollars with a tap of a computer key.

And the result of all these trends has been an explosion in economic inequality. It’s meant that a few dozen individuals control the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of humanity. That’s not an exaggeration, that’s a statistic. Think about that. In many middle-income and developing countries, new wealth has just tracked the old bad deal that people got because it reinforced or even compounded existing patterns of inequality, the only difference is it created even greater opportunities for corruption on an epic scale. And for once solidly middle-class families in advanced economies like the United States, these trends have meant greater economic insecurity, especially for those who don’t have specialized skills, people who were in manufacturing, people working in factories, people working on farms.

In every country just about, the disproportionate economic clout of those at the top has provided these individuals with wildly disproportionate influence on their countries’ political life and on its media; on what policies are pursued and whose interests end up being ignored. Now, it should be noted that this new international elite, the professional class that supports them, differs in important respects from the ruling aristocracies of old. It includes many who are self-made. It includes champions of meritocracy. And although still mostly white and male, as a group they reflect a diversity of nationalities and ethnicities that would have not existed a hundred years ago. A decent percentage consider themselves liberal in their politics, modern and cosmopolitan in their outlook. Unburdened by parochialism, or nationalism, or overt racial prejudice or strong religious sentiment, they are equally comfortable in New York or London or Shanghai or Nairobi or Buenos Aires, or Johannesburg. Many are sincere and effective in their philanthropy. Some of them count Nelson Mandela among their heroes. Some even supported Barack Obama for the presidency of the United States, and by virtue of my status as a former head of state, some of them consider me as an honorary member of the club. And I get invited to these fancy things, you know? They’ll fly me out.

But what’s nevertheless true is that in their business dealings, many titans of industry and finance are increasingly detached from any single locale or nation-state, and they live lives more and more insulated from the struggles of ordinary people in their countries of origin. And their decisions – their decisions to shut down a manufacturing plant, or to try to minimize their tax bill by shifting profits to a tax haven with the help of high-priced accountants or lawyers, or their decision to take advantage of lower-cost immigrant labor, or their decision to pay a bribe – are often done without malice; it’s just a rational response, they consider, to the demands of their balance sheets and their shareholders and competitive pressures.

But too often, these decisions are also made without reference to notions of human solidarity – or a ground-level understanding of the consequences that will be felt by particular people in particular communities by the decisions that are made. And from their board rooms or retreats, global decision-makers don’t get a chance to see sometimes the pain in the faces of laid-off workers. Their kids don’t suffer when cuts in public education and health care result as a consequence of a reduced tax base because of tax avoidance. They can’t hear the resentment of an older tradesman when he complains that a newcomer doesn’t speak his language on a job site where he once worked. They’re less subject to the discomfort and the displacement that some of their countrymen may feel as globalization scrambles not only existing economic arrangements, but traditional social and religious mores.

Which is why, at the end of the 20th century, while some Western commentators were declaring the end of history and the inevitable triumph of liberal democracy and the virtues of the global supply chain, so many missed signs of a brewing backlash – a backlash that arrived in so many forms. It announced itself most violently with 9/11 and the emergence of transnational terrorist networks, fueled by an ideology that perverted one of the world’s great religions and asserted a struggle not just between Islam and the West but between Islam and modernity, and an ill-advised U.S. invasion of Iraq didn’t help, accelerating a sectarian conflict. Russia, already humiliated by its reduced influence since the collapse of the Soviet Union, feeling threatened by democratic movements along its borders, suddenly started reasserting authoritarian control and in some cases meddling with its neighbors. China, emboldened by its economic success, started bristling against criticism of its human rights record; it framed the promotion of universal values as nothing more than foreign meddling, imperialism under a new name. Within the United States, within the European Union, challenges to globalization first came from the left but then came more forcefully from the right, as you started seeing populist movements – which, by the way, are often cynically funded by right-wing billionaires intent on reducing government constraints on their business interests – these movements tapped the unease that was felt by many people who lived outside of the urban cores; fears that economic security was slipping away, that their social status and privileges were eroding, that their cultural identities were being threatened by outsiders, somebody that didn’t look like them or sound like them or pray as they did.

And perhaps more than anything else, the devastating impact of the 2008 financial crisis, in which the reckless behavior of financial elites resulted in years of hardship for ordinary people all around the world, made all the previous assurances of experts ring hollow – all those assurances that somehow financial regulators knew what they were doing, that somebody was minding the store, that global economic integration was an unadulterated good. Because of the actions taken by governments during and after that crisis, including, I should add, by aggressive steps by my administration, the global economy has now returned to healthy growth. But the credibility of the international system, the faith in experts in places like Washington or Brussels, all that had taken a blow.

And a politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment began to appear, and that kind of politics is now on the move. It’s on the move at a pace that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. I am not being alarmist, I am simply stating the facts. Look around. Strongman politics are ascendant suddenly, whereby elections and some pretense of democracy are maintained – the form of it – but those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning. In the West, you’ve got far-right parties that oftentimes are based not just on platforms of protectionism and closed borders, but also on barely hidden racial nationalism. Many developing countries now are looking at China’s model of authoritarian control combined with mercantilist capitalism as preferable to the messiness of democracy. Who needs free speech as long as the economy is going good? The free press is under attack. Censorship and state control of media is on the rise. Social media – once seen as a mechanism to promote knowledge and understanding and solidarity – has proved to be just as effective promoting hatred and paranoia and propaganda and conspiracy theories.

So on Madiba’s 100th birthday, we now stand at a crossroads – a moment in time at which two very different visions of humanity’s future compete for the hearts and the minds of citizens around the world. Two different stories, two different narratives about who we are and who we should be. How should we respond?

Should we see that wave of hope that we felt with Madiba’s release from prison, from the Berlin Wall coming down – should we see that hope that we had as naïve and misguided? Should we understand the last 25 years of global integration as nothing more than a detour from the previous inevitable cycle of history – where might makes right, and politics is a hostile competition between tribes and races and religions, and nations compete in a zero-sum game, constantly teetering on the edge of conflict until full-blown war breaks out? Is that what we think?

Let me tell you what I believe. I believe in Nelson Mandela’s vision. I believe in a vision shared by Gandhi and King and Abraham Lincoln. I believe in a vision of equality and justice and freedom and multi-racial democracy, built on the premise that all people are created equal, and they’re endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. And I believe that a world governed by such principles is possible and that it can achieve more peace and more cooperation in pursuit of a common good. That’s what I believe.

And I believe we have no choice but to move forward; that those of us who believe in democracy and civil rights and a common humanity have a better story to tell. And I believe this not just based on sentiment, I believe it based on hard evidence.

The fact that the world’s most prosperous and successful societies, the ones with the highest living standards and the highest levels of satisfaction among their people, happen to be those which have most closely approximated the liberal, progressive ideal that we talk about and have nurtured the talents and contributions of all their citizens.

The fact that authoritarian governments have been shown time and time again to breed corruption, because they’re not accountable; to repress their people; to lose touch eventually with reality; to engage in bigger and bigger lies that ultimately result in economic and political and cultural and scientific stagnation. Look at history. Look at the facts.

The fact that countries which rely on rabid nationalism and xenophobia and doctrines of tribal, racial or religious superiority as their main organizing principle, the thing that holds people together – eventually those countries find themselves consumed by civil war or external war. Check the history books.

The fact that technology cannot be put back in a bottle, so we’re stuck with the fact that we now live close together and populations are going to be moving, and environmental challenges are not going to go away on their own, so that the only way to effectively address problems like climate change or mass migration or pandemic disease will be to develop systems for more international cooperation, not less.

We have a better story to tell. But to say that our vision for the future is better is not to say that it will inevitably win. Because history also shows the power of fear. History shows the lasting hold of greed and the desire to dominate others in the minds of men. Especially men. History shows how easily people can be convinced to turn on those who look different, or worship God in a different way. So if we’re truly to continue Madiba’s long walk towards freedom, we’re going to have to work harder and we’re going to have to be smarter. We’re going to have to learn from the mistakes of the recent past. And so in the brief time remaining, let me just suggest a few guideposts for the road ahead, guideposts that draw from Madiba’s work, his words, the lessons of his life.

First, Madiba shows those of us who believe in freedom and democracy we are going to have to fight harder to reduce inequality and promote lasting economic opportunity for all people.

Now, I don’t believe in economic determinism. Human beings don’t live on bread alone. But they need bread. And history shows that societies which tolerate vast differences in wealth feed resentments and reduce solidarity and actually grow more slowly; and that once people achieve more than mere subsistence, then they’re measuring their well-being by how they compare to their neighbors, and whether their children can expect to live a better life. And when economic power is concentrated in the hands of the few, history also shows that political power is sure to follow – and that dynamic eats away at democracy. Sometimes it may be straight-out corruption, but sometimes it may not involve the exchange of money; it’s just folks who are that wealthy get what they want, and it undermines human freedom.

And Madiba understood this. This is not new. He warned us about this. He said: “Where globalization means, as it so often does, that the rich and the powerful now have new means to further enrich and empower themselves at the cost of the poorer and the weaker, [then] we have a responsibility to protest in the name of universal freedom.” That’s what he said. So if we are serious about universal freedom today, if we care about social justice today, then we have a responsibility to do something about it. And I would respectfully amend what Madiba said. I don’t do it often, but I’d say it’s not enough for us to protest; we’re going to have to build, we’re going to have to innovate, we’re going to have to figure out how do we close this widening chasm of wealth and opportunity both within countries and between them.

And how we achieve this is going to vary country to country, and I know your new president is committed to rolling up his sleeves and trying to do so. But we can learn from the last 70 years that it will not involve unregulated, unbridled, unethical capitalism. It also won’t involve old-style command-and-control socialism form the top. That was tried; it didn’t work very well. For almost all countries, progress is going to depend on an inclusive market-based system – one that offers education for every child; that protects collective bargaining and secures the rights of every worker – that breaks up monopolies to encourage competition in small and medium-sized businesses; and has laws that root out corruption and ensures fair dealing in business; that maintains some form of progressive taxation so that rich people are still rich but they’re giving a little bit back to make sure that everybody else has something to pay for universal health care and retirement security, and invests in infrastructure and scientific research that builds platforms for innovation.

I should add, by the way, right now I’m actually surprised by how much money I got, and let me tell you something: I don’t have half as much as most of these folks or a tenth or a hundredth. There’s only so much you can eat. There’s only so big a house you can have. There’s only so many nice trips you can take. I mean, it’s enough. You don’t have to take a vow of poverty just to say, “Well, let me help out and let a few of the other folks – let me look at that child out there who doesn’t have enough to eat or needs some school fees, let me help him out. I’ll pay a little more in taxes. It’s okay. I can afford it.” I mean, it shows a poverty of ambition to just want to take more and more and more, instead of saying, “Wow, I’ve got so much. Who can I help? How can I give more and more and more?” That’s ambition. That’s impact. That’s influence. What an amazing gift to be able to help people, not just yourself. Where was I? I ad-libbed. You get the point.

It involves promoting an inclusive capitalism both within nations and between nations. And as we pursue, for example, the Sustainable Development Goals, we have to get past the charity mindset. We’ve got to bring more resources to the forgotten pockets of the world through investment and entrepreneurship, because there is talent everywhere in the world if given an opportunity.

When it comes to the international system of commerce and trade, it’s legitimate for poorer countries to continue to seek access to wealthier markets. And by the way, wealthier markets, that’s not the big problem that you’re having – that a small African country is sending you tea and flowers. That’s not your biggest economic challenge. It’s also proper for advanced economies like the United States to insist on reciprocity from nations like China that are no longer solely poor countries, to make sure that they’re providing access to their markets and that they stop taking intellectual property and hacking our servers.

But even as there are discussions to be had around trade and commerce, it’s important to recognize this reality: while the outsourcing of jobs from north to south, from east to west, while a lot of that was a dominant trend in the late 20th century, the biggest challenge to workers in countries like mine today is technology. And the biggest challenge for your new president when we think about how we’re going to employ more people here is going to be also technology, because artificial intelligence is here and it is accelerating, and you’re going to have driverless cars, and you’re going to have more and more automated services, and that’s going to make the job of giving everybody work that is meaningful tougher, and we’re going to have to be more imaginative, and the pact of change is going to require us to do more fundamental reimagining of our social and political arrangements, to protect the economic security and the dignity that comes with a job. It’s not just money that a job provides; it provides dignity and structure and a sense of place and a sense of purpose. And so we’re going to have to consider new ways of thinking about these problems, like a universal income, review of our workweek, how we retrain our young people, how we make everybody an entrepreneur at some level. But we’re going to have to worry about economics if we want to get democracy back on track.

Second, Madiba teaches us that some principles really are universal – and the most important one is the principle that we are bound together by a common humanity and that each individual has inherent dignity and worth.

Now, it’s surprising that we have to affirm this truth today. More than a quarter century after Madiba walked out of prison, I still have to stand here at a lecture and devote some time to saying that black people and white people and Asian people and Latin American people and women and men and gays and straights, that we are all human, that our differences are superficial, and that we should treat each other with care and respect. I would have thought we would have figured that out by now. I thought that basic notion was well established. But it turns out, as we’re seeing in this recent drift into reactionary politics, that the struggle for basic justice is never truly finished. So we’ve got to constantly be on the lookout and fight for people who seek to elevate themselves by putting somebody else down. And by the way, we also have to actively resist – this is important, particularly in some countries in Africa like my own father’s homeland; I’ve made this point before – we have to resist the notion that basic human rights like freedom to dissent, or the right of women to fully participate in the society, or the right of minorities to equal treatment, or the rights of people not to be beat up and jailed because of their sexual orientation – we have to be careful not to say that somehow, well, that doesn’t apply to us, that those are Western ideas rather than universal imperatives.

Again, Madiba, he anticipated things. He knew what he was talking about. In 1964, before he received the sentence that condemned him to die in prison, he explained from the dock that, “The Magna Carta, the Petition of Rights, the Bill of Rights are documents which are held in veneration by democrats throughout the world.” In other words, he didn’t say well, those books weren’t written by South Africans so I just – I can’t claim them. No, he said that’s part of my inheritance. That’s part of the human inheritance. That applies here in this country, to me, and to you. And that’s part of what gave him the moral authority that the apartheid regime could never claim, because he was more familiar with their best values than they were. He had read their documents more carefully than they had. And he went on to say, “Political division based on color is entirely artificial and, when it disappears, so will the domination of one color group by another.” That’s Nelson Mandela speaking in 1964, when I was three years old.

What was true then remains true today. Basic truths do not change. It is a truth that can be embraced by the English, and by the Indian, and by the Mexican and by the Bantu and by the Luo and by the American. It is a truth that lies at the heart of every world religion – that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. That we see ourselves in other people. That we can recognize common hopes and common dreams. And it is a truth that is incompatible with any form of discrimination based on race or religion or gender or sexual orientation. And it is a truth that, by the way, when embraced, actually delivers practical benefits, since it ensures that a society can draw upon the talents and energy and skill of all its people. And if you doubt that, just ask the French football team that just won the World Cup. Because not all of those folks – not all of those folks look like Gauls to me. But they’re French. They’re French.

Embracing our common humanity does not mean that we have to abandon our unique ethnic and national and religious identities. Madiba never stopped being proud of his tribal heritage. He didn’t stop being proud of being a black man and being a South African. But he believed, as I believe, that you can be proud of your heritage without denigrating those of a different heritage. In fact, you dishonor your heritage. It would make me think that you’re a little insecure about your heritage if you’ve got to put somebody else’s heritage down. Yeah, that’s right. Don’t you get a sense sometimes – again, I’m ad-libbing here – that these people who are so intent on putting people down and puffing themselves up that they’re small-hearted, that there’s something they’re just afraid of. Madiba knew that we cannot claim justice for ourselves when it’s only reserved for some. Madiba understood that we can’t say we’ve got a just society simply because we replaced the color of the person on top of an unjust system, so the person looks like us even though they’re doing the same stuff, and somehow now we’ve got justice. That doesn’t work. It’s not justice if now you’re on top, so I’m going to do the same thing that those folks were doing to me and now I’m going to do it to you. That’s not justice. “I detest racialism,” he said, “whether it comes from a black man or a white man.”

Now, we have to acknowledge that there is disorientation that comes from rapid change and modernization, and the fact that the world has shrunk, and we’re going to have to find ways to lessen the fears of those who feel threatened. In the West’s current debate around immigration, for example, it’s not wrong to insist that national borders matter; whether you’re a citizen or not is going to matter to a government, that laws need to be followed; that in the public realm newcomers should make an effort to adapt to the language and customs of their new home. Those are legitimate things and we have to be able to engage people who do feel as if things are not orderly. But that can’t be an excuse for immigration policies based on race, or ethnicity, or religion. There’s got to be some consistency. And we can enforce the law while respecting the essential humanity of those who are striving for a better life. For a mother with a child in her arms, we can recognize that could be somebody in our family, that could be my child.

Third, Madiba reminds us that democracy is about more than just elections.

When he was freed from prison, Madiba’s popularity – well, you couldn’t even measure it. He could have been president for life. Am I wrong? Who was going to run against him? (Laughter.) I mean, Ramaphosa was popular, but come on. Plus he was a young – he was too young. Had he chose, Madiba could have governed by executive fiat, unconstrained by check and balances. But instead he helped guide South Africa through the drafting of a new Constitution, drawing from all the institutional practices and democratic ideals that had proven to be most sturdy, mindful of the fact that no single individual possesses a monopoly on wisdom. No individual – not Mandela, not Obama – are entirely immune to the corrupting influences of absolute power, if you can do whatever you want and everyone’s too afraid to tell you when you’re making a mistake. No one is immune from the dangers of that.

Mandela understood this. He said, “Democracy is based on the majority principle. This is especially true in a country such as ours where the vast majority have been systematically denied their rights. At the same time, democracy also requires the rights of political and other minorities be safeguarded.” He understood it’s not just about who has the most votes. It’s also about the civic culture that we build that makes democracy work.

So we have to stop pretending that countries that just hold an election where sometimes the winner somehow magically gets 90 percent of the vote because all the opposition is locked up – or can’t get on TV, is a democracy. Democracy depends on strong institutions and it’s about minority rights and checks and balances, and freedom of speech and freedom of expression and a free press, and the right to protest and petition the government, and an independent judiciary, and everybody having to follow the law.

And yes, democracy can be messy, and it can be slow, and it can be frustrating. I know, I promise. But the efficiency that’s offered by an autocrat, that’s a false promise. Don’t take that one, because it leads invariably to more consolidation of wealth at the top and power at the top, and it makes it easier to conceal corruption and abuse. For all its imperfections, real democracy best upholds the idea that government exists to serve the individual and not the other way around. And it is the only form of government that has the possibility of making that idea real.

So for those of us who are interested in strengthening democracy, let’s also stop – it’s time for us to stop paying all of our attention to the world’s capitals and the centers of power and to start focusing more on the grassroots, because that’s where democratic legitimacy comes from. Not from the top down, not from abstract theories, not just from experts, but from the bottom up. Knowing the lives of those who are struggling.

As a community organizer, I learned as much from a laid-off steel worker in Chicago or a single mom in a poor neighborhood that I visited as I learned from the finest economists in the Oval Office. Democracy means being in touch and in tune with life as it’s lived in our communities, and that’s what we should expect from our leaders, and it depends upon cultivating leaders at the grassroots who can help bring about change and implement it on the ground and can tell leaders in fancy buildings, this isn’t working down here.

And to make democracy work, Madiba shows us that we also have to keep teaching our children, and ourselves – and this is really hard – to engage with people not only who look different but who hold different views. This is hard.

Most of us prefer to surround ourselves with opinions that validate what we already believe. You notice the people who you think are smart are the people who agree with you. Funny how that works. But democracy demands that we’re able also to get inside the reality of people who are different than us so we can understand their point of view. Maybe we can change their minds, but maybe they’ll change ours. And you can’t do this if you just out of hand disregard what your opponents have to say from the start. And you can’t do it if you insist that those who aren’t like you – because they’re white, or because they’re male – that somehow there’s no way they can understand what I’m feeling, that somehow they lack standing to speak on certain matters.

Madiba, he lived this complexity. In prison, he studied Afrikaans so that he could better understand the people who were jailing him. And when he got out of prison, he extended a hand to those who had jailed him, because he knew that they had to be a part of the democratic South Africa that he wanted to build. “To make peace with an enemy,” he wrote, “one must work with that enemy, and that enemy becomes one’s partner.”

So those who traffic in absolutes when it comes to policy, whether it’s on the left or the right, they make democracy unworkable. You can’t expect to get 100 percent of what you want all the time; sometimes, you have to compromise. That doesn’t mean abandoning your principles, but instead it means holding on to those principles and then having the confidence that they’re going to stand up to a serious democratic debate. That’s how America’s Founders intended our system to work – that through the testing of ideas and the application of reason and proof it would be possible to arrive at a basis for common ground.

And I should add for this to work, we have to actually believe in an objective reality. This is another one of these things that I didn’t have to lecture about. You have to believe in facts. Without facts, there is no basis for cooperation. If I say this is a podium and you say this is an elephant, it’s going to be hard for us to cooperate. I can find common ground for those who oppose the Paris Accords because, for example, they might say, well, it’s not going to work, you can’t get everybody to cooperate, or they might say it’s more important for us to provide cheap energy for the poor, even if it means in the short term that there’s more pollution. At least I can have a debate with them about that and I can show them why I think clean energy is the better path, especially for poor countries, that you can leapfrog old technologies. I can’t find common ground if somebody says climate change is just not happening, when almost all of the world’s scientists tell us it is. I don’t know where to start talking to you about this. If you start saying it’s an elaborate hoax, I don’t know what to – where do we start?

Unfortunately, too much of politics today seems to reject the very concept of objective truth. People just make stuff up. They just make stuff up. We see it in state-sponsored propaganda; we see it in internet driven fabrications, we see it in the blurring of lines between news and entertainment, we see the utter loss of shame among political leaders where they’re caught in a lie and they just double down and they lie some more. Politicians have always lied, but it used to be if you caught them lying they’d be like, “Oh man.” Now they just keep on lying.

By the way, this is what I think Mama Graça was talking about in terms of maybe some sense of humility that Madiba felt, like sometimes just basic stuff, me not completely lying to people seems pretty basic, I don’t think of myself as a great leader just because I don’t completely make stuff up. You’d think that was a base line. Anyway, we see it in the promotion of anti-intellectualism and the rejection of science from leaders who find critical thinking and data somehow politically inconvenient. And, as with the denial of rights, the denial of facts runs counter to democracy, it could be its undoing, which is why we must zealously protect independent media; and we have to guard against the tendency for social media to become purely a platform for spectacle, outrage, or disinformation; and we have to insist that our schools teach critical thinking to our young people, not just blind obedience.

Which, I’m sure you are thankful for, leads to my final point: we have to follow Madiba’s example of persistence and of hope.

It is tempting to give in to cynicism: to believe that recent shifts in global politics are too powerful to push back; that the pendulum has swung permanently. Just as people spoke about the triumph of democracy in the 90s, now you are hearing people talk about end of democracy and the triumph of tribalism and the strong man. We have to resist that cynicism.

Because, we’ve been through darker times, we’ve been in lower valleys and deeper valleys. Yes, by the end of his life, Madiba embodied the successful struggle for human rights, but the journey was not easy, it wasn’t pre-ordained. The man went to prison for almost three decades. He split limestone in the heat, he slept in a small cell, and was repeatedly put in solitary confinement. And I remember talking to some of his former colleagues saying how they hadn’t realized when they were released, just the sight of a child, the idea of holding a child, they had missed – it wasn’t something available to them, for decades.

And yet his power actually grew during those years – and the power of his jailers diminished, because he knew that if you stick to what’s true, if you know what’s in your heart, and you’re willing to sacrifice for it, even in the face of overwhelming odds, that it might not happen tomorrow, it might not happen in the next week, it might not even happen in your lifetime. Things may go backwards for a while, but ultimately, right makes might, not the other way around, ultimately, the better story can win out and as strong as Madiba’s spirit may have been, he would not have sustained that hope had he been alone in the struggle, part of buoyed him up was that he knew that each year, the ranks of freedom fighters were replenishing, young men and women, here in South African, in the ANC and beyond; black and Indian and white, from across the countryside, across the continent, around the world, who in those most difficult days would keep working on behalf of his vision.

And that’s what we need right now, we don’t just need one leader, we don’t just need one inspiration, what we badly need right now is that collective spirit. And, I know that those young people, those hope carriers are gathering around the world. Because history shows that whenever progress is threatened, and the things we care about most are in question, we should heed the words of Robert Kennedy – spoken here in South Africa, he said, “Our answer is the world’s hope: it is to rely on youth. It’s to rely on the spirit of the young.”

So, young people, who are in the audience, who are listening, my message to you is simple, keep believing, keep marching, keep building, keep raising your voice. Every generation has the opportunity to remake the world. Mandela said, “Young people are capable, when aroused, of bringing down the towers of oppression and raising the banners of freedom.” Now is a good time to be aroused. Now is a good time to be fired up.

And, for those of us who care about the legacy that we honor here today – about equality and dignity and democracy and solidarity and kindness, those of us who remain young at heart, if not in body – we have an obligation to help our youth succeed. Some of you know, here in South Africa, my Foundation is convening over the last few days, two hundred young people from across this continent who are doing the hard work of making change in their communities; who reflect Madiba’s values, who are poised to lead the way.

People like Abaas Mpindi, a journalist from Uganda, who founded the Media Challenge Initiative, to help other young people get the training they need to tell the stories that the world needs to know.

People like Caren Wakoli, an entrepreneur from Kenya, who founded the Emerging Leaders Foundation to get young people involved in the work of fighting poverty and promoting human dignity.

People like Enock Nkulanga, who directs the African Children’s mission, which helps children in Uganda and Kenya get the education that they need and then in his spare time, Enock advocates for the rights of children around the globe, and founded an organization called LeadMinds Africa, which does exactly what it says.

You meet these people, you talk to them, they will give you hope. They are taking the baton, they know they can’t just rest on the accomplishments of the past, even the accomplishments of those as momentous as Nelson Mandela’s. They stand on the shoulders of those who came before, including that young black boy born 100 years ago, but they know that it is now their turn to do the work.

Madiba reminds us that: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart.” Love comes more naturally to the human heart, let’s remember that truth. Let’s see it as our North Star, let’s be joyful in our struggle to make that truth manifest here on earth so that in 100 years from now, future generations will look back and say, ‘they kept the march going, that’s why we live under new banners of freedom.’ Thank you very much, South Africa, thank you.

July 18, 2018 at 01:43AM ClusterAssets Inc., https://ClusterAssets.wordpress.com

#Time #world #news #ClusterAssets #ClusterAsset #Cluster Asset Inc.#ClusterAssets Inc.

0 notes