Sylvia

"So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them."

I chose this particular quote because it reminds me of how many people I pass by at work, and how they always mention that "nobody cares" or "why bother?" We walk around in our own little bubble, keeping our minds stuck to the never ending list of tasks we need to complete before some imaginary clock starts ringing. And yet you have to wonder: how many people did I walk by today that have a story to tell?

You see, we get so caught up in our own regimented lives that we completely miss the fact that there are other human beings around us with their own life, their own story, and nobody stops to even say hello. It's like we've lost that connection to our own humanity. I'm guilty of this myself. My mind will be in 50,000 different places, including checking off the never-ending list of "Things I Need to Do Today," but taking the time to stop and say "hello" to a client means more than anything to them. You see, without even acknowledging their presence, it makes them feel unimportant. It just reinforces the idea that nobody cares, that nobody wants to hear their experiences, that they don't matter in this world. And when you're depressed, or anxious, or sick, or tired, or a little combination of all of those things combined with poor self-esteem, you walking by them without saying anything just reinforces the misery.

I don't know about you, but I've definitely had days where I just wish someone would have smiled at me. Acknowledged me. Yes, that's me! I'm a human too! I've had so many experiences where I sat with a client and gave them merely five minutes of my time, and they appreciated that five minutes because someone cared enough to ask them how they were, what they felt, what they were thinking. You could make someone's day by doing something so small. 

I guess you can say it's really all about perception. And sometimes we are too busy to consider someone else's perspective. But if you stopped to ask every person you walked by today if they were okay, what their hopes and dreams are, can you imagine how much you could learn? Obviously that isn't practical. But I think it's important to keep in mind.

Also I'm incredibly biased and love Sylvia Plath so there's that.

Memory

Photo credit: tracitodd; Flickr.com

quote credit: Kevin Arnold

"Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose."

I apologize for the month long break from this blog to anyone who reads it! I was taking a small vacation from school work of any kind to rejuvenate my brain, but I am back for a little while!

I've been on a memory kick lately; strolling down memory lane with friends from Grade school and sharing memories to talking with family about people whom we loved and those that have passed.  This quote hits homes, and the picture definitely supports it.

Even though the picture appears to be a tree in the autumn season, this quote brings me to summer.  Now this could be due to the fact that we're on the brink of summer and I'm anticipating it being a blast, but summer seems to be the time when everyone makes the most memories, whether they be fond or terrible is up to your discretion.  

But stop and think about it for a second, how many of you would absolutely love to have a photographic memory to capture every moment in time that has ever meant something to you?  I wish my brain was a camera, that way I would never have to worry about my memories withering.  

Why do we keep things in our memories?  Is it because we don't want to lose them? But that explanation doesn't really explain why we keep bad memories as well.  So what is it about bad memories that makes us remember them?  Is it the vivid detail, is it the intense emotion that might have accompanied it?  Lots of questions and no answers.

Good memories are usually also paired with emotions that can be intense, or little.  They really are things that we want to hold onto.  I would love to hold onto the person I was as a child, because it has gotten me this far, even though I am no longer quite the person I used to be.  We hold memories of people we don't want to lose.  Those that have passed on remain alive in our memories, or so I'm told.  All the great times you shared with them all remain in your memory.

Your own personal scrap book that only you can see, but you can share at times with others.  Memory is a beautiful thing.  Even if it holds regrets, it's a beautiful concept to consider.  The brain is capable of so many things, and this one little aspect is such a large part of our lives.  For example, this week is Civil War week on the history channel.  Everyone wanted to document the memories of those that were left alive at the end of the war for future generations to learn.  Why? Most of the memories were not pleasant and it was a dark time in the history of America.

They wanted to preserve these memories because they tell a story.  They teach the world lessons about war and what happens when a nation tears itself apart and turns against one another.  Memories aren't just there to make you smile, they teach you things as well.  You learn from your mistakes, because you remember what you did and that it didn't work.

Memory is such an important part of our lives and we don't even realize it. Half the time, we take it for granted.

The picture represents memory in the sense of beauty.  For example, we would remember walking through a park or taking a stroll around campus during the fall. Why? Because of all the colors.  The sky is so blue, and the tree is so orange; not only would those facts make you remember what a lovely day it must have been, but you'd remember the season, and you'd probably associate positive emotions with it. Color psychology plays an important role in memory as well.

I hope this was a little insight for you to start brainstorming for yourself about what memory has done for you.

Music

Photo credit: ~cho-oka; Deviantart.com

Quote credit: unknown

"Music is what feelings sound like."

Being a musician myself, this particular quote spoke to me about something I've been trying to word for my entire life.  Have you ever sat down and listened to a song, and you just knew that it was everything you were feeling put into sound and words?

It doesn't even always have to be words, sometimes the song just portrays so many emotions in such a short amount of time that it's almost absurd.  I listen to a great variety of music and I have sung and played to the tune of different genres as well.  Being a first soprano, a clarinet player, and a handbell musician, music isn't exactly something foreign to me.

"Music is what feelings sound like." As I said before, sometimes just one song can portray 4 different emotions in such a short amount of time; it's a beautiful thing.  For example, there is this one song from the movie The New World and when you listen to it, you can just feel the emotions.  You can hear the transition from sadness, to deep sorrow, and finally a build towards a better life that ends on a hopeful note.

Another song that many of you reading this in class may recognize is the piano theme song from the movie Casper.  The song is so sad, but it's so beautiful.  I wish I could portray and word emotions half as well as a song can do sometimes.  There are those songs that make you so happy, then there are songs that make you feel empowered (some people feel empowered by Beyonce's  Single Ladies), and then there are others that can make you cry your eyes out.

Music means something different to everyone.  We've seen it used rhetorically in motion pictures to add to the emotional affects of a specific scene in a movie, whether it should be sad, happy, or epic.  Sometimes, music is the only way you can say what you're truly thinking and feeling.

Music is a beautiful thing.  I wish that music notes could be read like English, with words that portray feeling, because it is a language all its own.  To whoever created music in the first place, thank you.  You've done us all a great service that will last throughout the rest of time.

Immigrant Dreams

Photo credit: Shelley Panzerella

Flickr.com

I accidentally stumbled upon this quote on Flickr today. When I say accidentally, I mean I was looking through pictures and my computer mouse decided to click on it, so I figured if my mouse wants the quote, then I might as well take a look. I happened to find it really interesting.

It's a quote that the artist took from a trip to Ellis Island and it's a quote from a Polish-Jewish immigrant. It says:

"They asked us questions. 'How much is two and one? How much is two and two?' But the next young girl also from our city, went and they asked her, 'How do you wash stairs, from the top or from the bottom?' She says, 'I don't go to America to wash stairs.'"

I found this quote completely fascinating because I was dumb struck for a second.  I have to wonder how old this girl was when she responded with something like this, and I have to wonder what the expression was on the face of the person asking the question.  But the girl has a point.  Who actually came here to America to clean stairs and do menial jobs?

I also find some of the tests they gave immigrants to be completely ridiculous.  What does washing stairs have anything to do with literacy and knowledge of the country you're about to enter?  I know it was probably meant to be a critical thinking question, but seriously, what kind of question is that?

Haven't we always been told that our ancestors came to America to create better lives for themselves and their families for future generations to come?  I have to wonder why they were treated so poorly then, just because they were immigrants.  Having family who came over from Germany, Italy, and all over Europe really, it makes me wonder what my family members had to do so that I could be where I am now.  

I guess you can say that it touches my heart to think about this subject.  We have lots of mixed emotions about immigration now, yet we didn't seem to think it was such a problem back then. I firmly believe that if you're coming to this country to work hard and earn your living then you should be allowed to enter, but that's just me.  Most of the immigrants that came here in the early 1900's, like my relatives, came with the American dream in mind, the dream that anybody could be dirt poor and work their way up to a satisfying and wealthy life.  What happened to that dream?

It's a sad thing when you really think about it.  People who came here with such great dreams now live in poverty due to our poor economy and a government that just can't see to get its act together. We all work every day just struggling to get by; it's almost as if their immigration was in vain anyway. It is terribly sad.

I only hope that the girl who said this lived a long, fulfilling life and that her family appreciates her choice to come to America. I know I appreciate my great grandparents' decisions to come to America for if they had not I wouldn't be here.  I wouldn't be getting the education I need to succeed in my life and I wouldn't have the wonderful opportunities and freedoms that I take for granted every day. 

All I can say is thank you, even if you can't hear me now.

we had a coal company!

The Heart of Poe

"Sometimes I’m terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts."
-Edgar Allan Poe

Photo credit: google.com/images and google.com/images

This week I decided to go along with one of my favorite poets of all time.  Though it's difficult to get a picture of him that doesn't look sort of creepy...this one I thought wasn't too bad. He's got this sort of half smile thing going on, better than the rest of the pictures.

The topic this week? The heart.  Have you ever actually thought about your heart and love?  When I see this it always makes me think of two other quotes.  The first one I think about is the one that I saw flying around the internet a few years ago that basically said love is dangerous because of what it does to your heart.  It talked about how making your heart beat so fast that you feel like you can't breathe is dangerous and how you should feel that way when you're in love.  Now, I don't know if everyone feels like that when they're in love....I think it's more of an issue of being nervous around that person when you first meet them and get to know them.

The second concept I think of is how we say that the heart and the mind are always in a constant battle. But the funny part is, we don't actually mean our physical heart or our brain, we talk about them figuratively.  We say things like our heart wants that person but our mind is telling us that it's wrong or bad.  When you think about it, it's a little silly, yet it's kind of true.

Are we always having this constant war within us?  Which side do you usually give in to?  We're always being told to "follow your heart," but is that really what we should be doing all the time? Does that always lead to happiness? I don't really know the answers to these questions, and I have to wonder if anybody ever knows the answers by the time their life is over.

Poe is talking about both the physical aspect and the figurative aspect of "the heart."  It's an odd combination, in my opinion, the way he talks about the figurative heart wanting things, but then adds that physical connection to it by saying that it stops and starts when it wants things.  It's almost like humanizing the figurative heart, but we already have a physical heart.  It's odd, yet kind of fascinating.  

Our figurative heart is always craving things like love and different desires.  We portray this by saying "I'm heart broken," even though love can't physically break your heart, and "I love this person with all my heart," when in reality, it isn't your heart per-say that loves something or someone, it's the emotional aspect of your mind.

But the whole difference between your "mind" and your "brain" is a completely different argument.  However, the concept is still the same.  What are the differences between your physical heart and your figurative heart? Why do we make associations like this?

I believe that at some point in most of our lives we have to stop and think for a second about what our figurative heart wants and if it scares us or not, which it may.  But I can't help but wonder, if something you want terrifies you, should you really go for it like everyone says you should?

There are a lot of questions about this quote that can lead you around in never ending circles just because it's complex, even though it's only a few words.  But I love quotes like this, they really get you to stop and think about them for a minute.

And just for ha-ha's