Irritation, Frustration, and Love

So, ever since my weekend at UMD, I’ve been feeling kind of irritated.  Had a wonderful time and got to see some people that I miss a lot.  Coming back to work is always a drain.  Busy week, observation on Thursday, and accreditation next week.  Some high points, had some great conversations with Komi, my UMD kids, and EJ.

To keep keep conversations up, I’ve started following 4 of my former students on Twitter.  I’ve had a twitter for a while, so adding a few people is not really an issue.  So, they talk tweet a lot, I mean A LOT!  A couple of them find themselves in twitter jail (more than 100 tweets in an hour….   that’s more than 1 a minute, every minute).  So, part of their posting also included retweets from others.  Some of these others are current students.  Some of these students that are being retweeted are minors.  So, besides the normal discomfort and disapproval at anything posted that I would consider vile, there is an added weirdness because they are students I see on a semi-regular basis.

I WANT TO EMPHASIZE, I DID NOT SEEK OUT THE STUDENTS TO WHOM I REFERRING BELOW…THEY WERE RETWEETS FROM ADULTS THAT I FOLLOW.

So, if I had to categorize, I think there are five main kinds of tweets that I see from them:

1. #thuglife It is reality that I teach in a predominately african american school.  It is reality that there is a large enough population of the student body who feel the need to emulate, in almost every way, what they see and hear in the media.  I see many students who feel the need to conform themselves to this stereotype of people living the “street” life, being “hard,” being “thug,” being “real G’s.”  This may or may not be who they really are, “in the dark” so to speak.  It gets tiring to read post after post of students acting hard, trying to save face with the friends they try so much to impress.

2. #sex  I know, teenagers.  I just keep thinking back to when I was in high school (I know, I’m officially old) and I just think we weren’t as open about it.  I mean, sure, we talked about sex, we were teenagers.  But, I just don’t think were were quite so obsessed.  Maybe all we lacked was exposure…  With the internet and cable tv, teenagers are inundated with sex.  All the clothes that the girls wear, are to make them feel sexy, to advertise their sex appeal, to get sexual attention from the boys.  I hear the boys talking, so much about who they are or would like to be having sex with.  I just think too many teenagers are hypersexual, whether they are having sex or not.  So, this becomes very evident in their tweets.  The post things like “tired of bitches that play with me,” “Follow me or swallow me,” and “it’s raining, I need to fuck.”  I just… I don’t understand why anyone would just put that out there, into cyberspace, where anyone can see it.

3. #ThatsGay  I know that for a while now, “gay” has been the term people use to mean stupid.  I know that there are many teenagers who in my school who are homophobic, at least for show.  I hear the boys making jokes about it, calling someone gay for something they did, feeling the need to say “no homo” after every phrase, afraid that someone will get even the smallest idea in their head that they are.  If a teacher tells a male student to pull up their pants (because 98% of their ass is hanging over the top of their jeans) the response is “why don’t you stop lookin at my ass, you a fag or something?”  I hear students continually making disparaging remarks about homosexuality, some going so far as to say that some middle eastern countries have the right idea, that gays should be killed.  Even the kids that seem to be ok with the gay students at school are quick to call something gay or say “no homo” as if that were a normal and acceptable way to speak.  As a teacher, it gets on my nerves.  As a gay man, it terrifies me, it makes me sad, it makes me angry, it makes me cry sometimes.  As far as I’ve come, as much as I’ve experienced, as much as I’ve learned, sharp words said in ignorance still cut me like blades.

4. #PersonalStuff  A friend and I were talking not too long ago about the loss of shame.  There was a time where you would watch what you said to people simply because you didn’t think that everyone should know your business and vice-versa.  In this day and age, the shame doesn’t seem to be there, and therefore the holding back doesn’t happen.  People tweet about things I wouldn’t even tell my best friend.  People are telling all of their business in an open arena.  You may as well be sitting at home plate on game day, reading your journal through a megaphone.  A little bit of modesty never hurt anyone.

5. #InaneShit this is everything else.  Song lyrics, responses to one person (why don’t you save this conversation for texting or over the phone or next time you see each other) and advertisements for shoes, and funny pictures.  Whatever.  This is normal.  That’s fine.

So, since I feel that as a teacher, it is my job to teach some good sense, I had a conversation with a couple of kids.  I just let them know that since they have no security on their twitter, anyone can see their tweets.  My security is set up so anyone that doesn’t follow me or that I don’t mention can’t see what I write.  So, if one of my followers retweets, no one can see it except others that follow me.  Two of the kids I mentioned it to could see my point.  I mean, if I can see it, anyone could see it.  Their grandmother, pastor, potential employers, and college admissions counselors.  One kid kinda went off saying he could say whatever he wanted on his personal site and blah blah blah fuckity blah blah.

So I’m bugged and irritated.  At what point does your freedom of speech stop.  I mean, I’m all for expressing a point, but continually spewing filth.  Would never do it, but think it would be funny to copy and paste in an email to his mom, just to see what she thought.

The Silence

Maybe it’s the neuroses talking, but I worry about crossing “the line” with regard to comfort.  It worries me when I’m talking to someone and for no apparent reason, they go silent.  I don’t mean when I’m talking to someone in person, then it might just be awkward, or I can just ask them.  I mean when I’m talking to someone in a chat program or via text message.  And they just stop responding.  And, do you ask if they are still there, if they are ok, or maybe they just don’t have a response to what you said?  So, what do you do?  It just seems a very unnatural end to a conversation.  It’s akin to talking to someone in person and then just turning around midsentence and walking away.  No “goodbye” no “see you later” or anything of the sort.

To belong

There have always been cliques. 

When I went to school, there were jocks and brains and artsy types and nobodys.  In my school, at least, the different groups interacted well.  It was usually pretty obvious to what group someone belonged, but this belonging did not include complete, overt exclusion.  The brains played sports with the jocks and invited the artists to parties.  The cheerleaders, though very sporty, sat next to and studied with the brains in Calculus and Spanish 4.  Sure there was teasing and rumors, but that’s just part of coming of age, right?

I think the tide has changed.  With the emergence of social networking and cellular communications and skype, just to name a few, everyone has to strive a little bit harder to find that place where they belong, the group of people with whom they feel they fit in. 

This is just another example of the cable phenomenon.  I can’t recall the number of times I’ve had this conversation.  When I was a child, we had 5 or 6 channels.  There was an ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliate, along with PBS and maybe one other channel.  Needless to say, flipping through the channels offered few possibilities and took very little time.  Yet, rarely did I find myself at a loss for something to watch.  Today, the average American has over 200 channels.  Research shows that a normal family watches shows on around 50 different channels over the course of a week.  And how many times have I sat in front of my television wonder why I can’t find anything to watch.  With an increased number of options, I have set my standards somewhat ridiculously high and now I find myself clicking away, unsatisfied.

People often find the same situation when they go off to college or move to a new town.  They find that a lot of their friends, the people they were close to, they don’t really keep in touch with once there is distance.  It leaves you wondering, was I only friends with them because we were close?  Do we choose many of our friends by proximity? 

This process, of choosing our friends, has also been affected by mass media.  Why be friends with those around you when you can have friends so much more like you on MySpace or Facebook or wherever.  But, then a new problem arises: if I have 12000 friends online, how good of friends can they be?  Thus a new set of echelons of friendship were born.  On a daily basis, I hear students in my school calling someone their son or daughter, mother, father, aunt, uncle, whatever, to describe their friendships. 

As has been said over many a generation, blood is thicker than water.  So, with the creation of these new “families,” we been excluding individuals that are our close friends, because they are not part of the “family.”  Beyond this, with the great number of friends that we could have, we expect more and more from someone that we call friend, or “family.”  Instead of acknowledging that everyone is a little different and relishing these differences, we start alienating anyone who rubs us the wrong way in any way.  We start becoming more extreme versions of ourselves and getting angry and irate when when people don’t respond in a good way to our new “personality,” the caricature we put on as a mask.  

Also, with all the different ways we communicated, we have become lonelier as people.  I’ve become so good at texting, that my face-to-face conversation skills are diminishing.  I’m so used to being able to talk to someone through chat, or fb comment, or text, that when I’m not talking to someone, there’s an emptiness, a vacant feeling.

With everything we have set up to be stacked against us, it’s no wonder that so many people feel alone.

Fear and morality

There are sects of religious peoples who all believe the same idea.  Man is small; man is frail; man is beset upon by fears.  Mostly, man has darkness inside him. born of the original sin.  Many would delve into the meaning of this: darkness; how does it present itself; how do we rid ourselves of it.  Most turn to God, hoping his eternal light will drive the darkness away.  

I think I know what the darkness is.  It is akin to a tiny walkie-talkie in your brain.  In religious terms, it’s the Devil, tempting you, constantly, with promises of pleasure, and happiness, and love.  In Genesis he took the form of a snake.  In these, much more technological, times, he’s got the walkie-talkie.  And religion, predicated on the ideas of man’s weakness, came up with the grand, and ever-evolving idea of hell.  Originally, hell was absence from God.  Then, hell became a place of fire and brimstone with little demons with horns running around poking souls with pitchforks.  Next, came the idea that it was your worst fears played out over an eternity (think Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey).  And finally we have come to hell as a reflection of the sin that brought us there (If you’ve ever watched the show Reaper, you’ll know what I mean), reflected back upon us.

This is the basis of morality.  Turn away from the darkness, the desires, the impulses, the temptations of the devil (if you will) or face an eternity somewhere, that by any definition, is bad.  How much easier is it to live a moral life for 70 years than to suffer for an eternity.  And we’ve built our legal system on these same ideas.

So why have I spent so much time thinking about these things, especially as someone who is not religious?  As someone who is not religious, I consider myself without the church’s ideas of morality.  In the place of their morality, I have a bit of my own, mostly framed by ethics.  Ethics and morality are the same thing, you say?  Definitely not.  Ethics are based on group acceptance of right and wrong, which may change as times change.  Morality is based on much more strict guidelines and never change.  I think if most people really looked into their lives, they aren’t nearly as moral as they think they are.  How many of you “moral” people find a way to cheat on your taxes (just a little, I’m not talking about saving millions) or won’t correct a cashier if he gives you a little too much back in change.  How many of you support war, or murder for “self defense,” or the death penalty, or abortion (in some situations).  Religious morality doesn’t give you the option of “well, in this case it would be acceptable.”  Morality is absolute. 

But, that’s not the point of this rant.  I have darkness.  I fear the darkness in me.  I fear that one day I will act on that darkness, let just a little bit of it out, and it will consume me.  As someone who doesn’t adhere to religion, I don’t fear going to hell.  The idea doesn’t even enter my mind.  What I fear is losing control and ultimately hurting others.  Many of you know me well enough to know that there are aspects of my being which some would say are bad or evil.  Though, on the surface, I wouldn’t believe those people, I fear in some respects they may be right.  All humans are capable of terrible things.  I am capable of terrible things.  And these things are in my mind, in my thoughts.  And I guess what bothers me most about it, is that I don’t have a “baseline comparison” to say, oh, that’s normal, most people have those thoughts.  At what point have I crossed that line?  At what point have I truly lost control?

And it is said that the truth shall set you free.  But, to whom do you tell this truth?  There are some things that I think, some things that compel me that I can’t even tell those people to whom I am closest.  I must keep them locked away, afraid and ashamed.  I am afraid and ashamed.

A feeling of nostalgia

Was talking to a friend today, and we shared a nostalgia for the days before social networking sites had reduced us to "likes" and 255 character feelings.  I think I might be a little more complex than that.  And Notes, though an ok tool, is a bit much to get into (I mean that in the clicking to open it) and lacks a lot of formatting tools, but has the capability of importing blog posts.... so we'll see how that works.