Women's rights, underdevelopment & terrorism

This article (just click on the blog title) and the others in the publication make a very strong connection between the rights of women and the nature of society. But not only that the link between regimes that are repressive to women and the rise of terror activity amongst those societies' men.

It is so easy for us to take our access to education, economic choices and even fertility choices for granted, and to look at the countries where women as repressed and think how backward they are...and yet even we did not have those rights until 100 years ago, which is really so recent! there is a smug superiority i think that sneaks into these conversations, that really has no right to be there, given we are really not that much further on ourselves!

And yet we are further on, and the benefits of education and economic independence for women are so dramatic for the women, their families and society in general that we see it as blindingly obvious!

I hope you enjoy, as much as i have, the superb journalism here, and the scope of the publication's take on women's rights. Leila you may even be able to buy it in paper!

A case study in loneliness

I became infatuated with someone recently, and for a little while it was mutual. When it became apparent that he wasn’t interested in me anymore, I had overwhelming feelings of loneliness. Again when I found out he was seeing someone else. Then one day soon after I was chaperoning a couple of teenagers to the airport, and while waiting to hear if their flight got away safely I had some good time to analyse what I what the source of the loneliness was. Here is what I came up with.

Upon realising the infatuee didn’t like me, my initial reaction was upset at not being able to have what I wanted and resistance of the reality. Then came feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness, then loneliness and sadness.

Naturally, I had the thought that he was never going to love me and I was never going to be with him, but also that I was never going to be able to know and love him. Was the loneliness have been the result of my thinking the former or the latter – that I was never going to be loved by him, or that I would never be able to give my love to him?

My attention was one hundred percent on myself - and I wasn’t loving. I didn’t care whether or not the people around me felt loved. When, in the moment, I generated love for other people I had flashes of a kind of lightness and relief. Could the loneliness have been generated by the inhibition of my own expression of love, triggered by the thought that this person didn’t love me? Could the lack of the expression of love in fact have been the cause? Is it possible to feel lonely in a moment in which you are expressing love for someone else (romantic or otherwise, but genuine)? I think no. Is it possible to feel lonely in a moment in which you are receiving love from someone else? I think yes.

Then, generally, how important is it for me to experience that the loved I have expressed has been received? Imagining a situation in which I am giving love to someone and they are not accepting it, I don’t feel lonely. That feeling only comes if I turn that into an experience of being unloved by them. The love I have for them cancels out the lack of love from them, if I manage to maintain it through their rejection.

Why is it that my love for others is stifled when I experience being unloved? It feels like a kind of stinginess – like I can’t be bothered giving to other people if I can’t have what I want. My experience when I first realised the infatuee didn’t care about me was one of complete single-mindedness. I could hardly think about anything else and felt unequal to working or anything other than obsessing. I wonder how much the chemical component of infatuation contributed to this? Like hunger can become overwhelming. Maybe a chemically driven obsession did overwhelm me and limit my ability to love others. But then, loneliness occurs without infatuation. Is it that I normally do feel unloved when love I express is not received, triggering the thought that there is no point in expressing love and a vicious circle of being unloved and unloving?

My feeling of loneliness was furthered I think by a perceived paucity of people to love and be loved by – or even simply to have a connection with. If I open myself, I notice beautiful warm faces everywhere and that blows away the loneliness. If I create the belief in myself of an abundance of people to love and connect with, I don’t feel lonely anymore.

Mum, how does this fit with your experience of loneliness as a child? Is it possible that it was triggered by a perception of a lack of people to love – or even the reality of that lack?

What I have gotten out of this is that giving my attention to other people, focussing on loving them, having them feel loved and appreciated when they are around me and relating to the world as a place abundant with loveable people is – for me – an antidote to loneliness.

Just as an aside, isn’t it interesting and funny that the word infatuation looks like “in a fatuous state”!?

inspiration

have an idea, go to the library, and do it!

being kinder on ourselves

What is loneliness?

Alright so that's a large question and hardly new. But I'd like to think about it. It seems to me a many-faceted beauty.
A few points to empty my brain on the subject:
People report feelings of loneliness when surrounded by friends, families or strangers and there is plenty of evidence to support the notion that a lack of company does not necessarily equate to loneliness (I would say, ergo not at all).
Some people find pets (I think especially dogs) cure loneliness.
It comes and goes like ocean swells - one can feel completely satisfied in company that at another time was accompanied by feelings of loneliness.
Even people in solid, loving relationships report feeling lonely sometimes.
So what on earth is it? A feeling? A way of being? A chemical shift in the brain?
Maybe this is glaringly obvious, but is it the emotional response to believing oneself unloved? Could that be all it is? If that were so, I'd say then that it starts with 'unloved' as a way of being, resulting in loneliness as the feeling and then a chemical shift in the brain that produces lingering feelings of depression.
Hmmm?

I have been paralysed by prudence

I was once waiting for a bus in Kilbernie with a friend late one very cold night. We had been waiting about 30 minutes and during that time a young woman had been sitting very still on a nearby seat with her legs up against her chest and her hood pulled down over her face. When my friend and I realised there were no more busses coming, I became concerned about the girl - realising she was not waiting for a bus but seeing out the night at the stop. I asked her if she was ok and what was up and she told me she had run away from home and had nowhere to go. We were off to a party so I invited her along - just for some warmth and maybe snacks. She came quite gratefully I think and stuck to me like glue once we got there. When I was ready to go home I didn't feel I could leave her so I invited her back to my flat and she spent the night on my couch. The next day she told me her story - not so horrible but not great - and she told me she would never go to a shelter and would not ask for help from family or friends. I bought her some fish and chips and then sent her away. I was almost broke and didn't feel equal to helping her any more than I had. I felt bad for that, but I didn't think her health or safety were in immediate danger and ultimately, it was impractical.
Now, when I see stangers who seem to need help I don't offer any because I know I'm not willing to give them the full extent of help they need and so resign myself to doing nothing.
Having said that, if I saw someone faint on the street I would help.

Paralysed by Prudence

Today I noticed an article about a girl who, having just given blood, fainted outside a busy department store in Perth - and nobody offered to lend her assistance. A pastor has commented that we have become "paralysed by prudence". Ah what a beautifully alliterative descripter.

Have we though, become paralysed by prudence, or is the source of paralysis a consequence of our separation, our isolation from people we know - really know like people used to know each other in villages and stable communities?

Does this phenomena relate closely to our earlier discussions on reciprocity? It would be most unlikely that a good Samaritan in this situation would ever see the lass again, and unlikely that they would get anything out of helping. Is that the reason? But then that is not new - because, after all, the story of the good Samaritan highlights exactly this situation!

We come back to paralysed by prudence. Afraid to help because it might backfire on us? Afraid to assist as the person may resent it and abuse us? Afraid to help because if could be a ruse and we'll be robbed or beaten or both? How many people do you know who would react with violence, or abuse, or theft? I don't know any. So how common are they in the community? Have the newspapers and TV and Internet reports bought it so to the fore of our thinking that we can no longer think rationally, and no longer act compassionately?

Shades of Michael Moore's analysis of our need for fear to generate our daily dose of andrenalin discussed in Bowling for Columbine here perhaps.

What can we do as individuals to fight the paralysis of prudence?

I'll commit to offering help rather than moving on by.

Censorship of Fine Art

Today in the news was an article on the censorship of a painting of a female nude at an exhibition here in Sydney. The gallery decided that the female artist's rendition of a female nude in classical style might be seen as offensive by some, so they did not include it in the catalogue and have hidden the painting behind a curtain at the exhibition and put up a warning sign. The painting is still able to be seen, but is separated from the rest of the exhibition and "hidden". The artist seems both bemused and upset.

I feel the same, bemused and upset. The nude human form is beautiful. It is what it is, and we all have one. As a picture, a portrait, a portrayal of shape, form, light, dark, texture, colour and tone, it is a representation of and homage to that beauty. As long as it is not overtly and deliberately sexually provocative, it too is what it is, a nude human form. The emotion that arises, arises in the veiwer not the painting itself; and the emotions that arise have the potential to be as many and varied as the number of viewers.

So my question is, do the feelings of discomfort and confrontation that some feel mean that paintings of nudes should be hidden? Surely this titivates instead of honouring the human form? Can those people choose not to dwell on what they are seeing? Choose to move to the next painting on the wall. What if I find depictions of murder and death upsetting (which I do), is it reasonable of me to request that such pictures be withdrawn from public viewing (think of depictions of war, beheadings, even Jesus on the cross)? No its not! I choose to see what they are depicting, and to move on. So why must we pay homage to people who find nudity, that most natural and vulnerable of states, offensive?

Pornography is a separate domain; I'm not discussing it here, and I think there is a clear distinction between portrayals of overt, or provocative or explicit sexuality, and an artistic presentation of form, althouh there will always be pieces that are at the margins. Lets forget them for the sake of this discussion and consider works that are intended as fine art, that follow the traditions of fine art and are similar to pieces exhibited and celebrated the world around - should we be hiding them away?

Changes

Hey you two! thought i'd prefer the page less segmented - so here's the new look.

Add your thoughts whenever you have a few minutes to spare.

Anonymity

when are we entitled to anonymity? this is a very interesting thing to ponder in the global village where we have moved from the clothes line, the pub, the square and coffee shop to the web to share our thoughts, happenings and gossip. In the real village we do not have anonymity, when we speak we are known and our thoughts and ideas are identified quickly and instantly with us, and are passed on with reference to us as their author. this is the case no matter what our position in the village, whatever our role official or unofficial.

So what makes the printed form or the electronic form different? If we have something to say, should we not be prepared to be identified as its source? Is being an ANON cowardly?

Nikki Gemmel wrote A Bride Stripped Bare as Anonymous. I seem to remember an article saying she chose to do that to protect her husband - which is a fair call. Yet what happened, as with the case you quote Alex is that it fuelled the fires of the curious - there are those among us who feel they have to know and have the right to know. With Nikki again it was a journalist who tracked her down. And that is a journalist's training, to assess something is interesting to readers and track it down. Writing as Anonymous gave A Bride Stripped Bare great publicity - that is not to denigrate the book at all, it's wonderfully crafted and opens the debate on female sexuality sharply and clearly - but it is to make the point that we find the anonymous a challenge.

We find them a challenge for two reasons. Firstly because we just crave to know, we don't like the separation from the water pump where we would know because we heard the person speak the words who was the author, that is we crave to know because we just need to. But secondly i think we find it challenging because the authority of the author is lost when they write anonymously - and we like to be sure of the credentials of the source.

All that is quite separate to your debate, Alex, which is do we have the RIGHT to remain anonymous when publishing on the web, since the web is a public resource and a public space, a little like speakers corner in Hyde Park! Actually i agree with the judge in this case - even though i would like to remain anonymous myself, i don't think we can afford to allow anonymity as a right. the web is so impersonal, and so easy to publish material on, and that can then be shared by so many that we need some way of being able to authenticate the content, and the only real way to do that is to identify the authors.

So we may choose to be anonymous, and while with no obvious irony the journalism.co.uk have posted an article on how to remain anonymous i don't think we can claim it as a right.

Reciprocity

today as i've written about bribery i've grown to appreciate how deeply imbedded in society is the notion of reciprocity, and how gravely bribery manipulates it.  as we struggle to exist in close proximity to others, as we seek ways of avoiding conflict while we enhance our lot and that of our family and friends we rely on reciprocation.  when people don't reciprocate we feel hurt, abused, bemused.  and yet i reflect, how often i have failed to reciprocate - when i've been low, or tired, dog weary, or just plain negligent ... and today i feel deeply sorry for that. 

i'm thinking, too, this is at the heart of our repudiation of bribery, our assessment of it as a deeply immoral act. while bribery has been around for time immemorial (there exists a list from Assyria of bribers that was created 3400 years ago) it still exists, it still flourished, it still damages and distorts equality and the scales of reciprocity. 

how's that? because even deeper than this sense of reciprocity is our sense of self advancement, our own entitlement? 

Happiness just snuck up on me

for the first time in as long as i can recall, i found myself thinking spontaneously 'how great it is to be alive'. it was that the thought snuck up on me that was so surprising. i often consider life and how good it is to be alive, the novelty was that i did not create this thought - it just flowed into my brain as i wandered past the fountain in fitzroy gardens and the sun played in the palms.

that has me wondering what is happiness? we know what it is chemically, and we know that we can create it with love, and that we feel happier by the sea or in the mountains. we know that we seek happiness by shopping or eating or drinking .... and that happiness is temporary, transient, fleeting ...

so if our duty is to create the greatest happiness for the greatest number as some philosophers suggest, then what is it we are creating?