The Tragedies of Solitude

By now we've all heard about the tragedy in Isla Vista over the weekend.  We've all heard about Elliot Rodger, the troubled 22-year-old who went on a shooting spree that killed at least six people before killing himself.  We've over-heard of it, and we're sick of thinking about it.  I know that I, personally, look forward to the next full day I can go without thinking about this tragedy and others like it.

But that day has not yet come, at least not for me.  There's something present in the media coverage of this particular mass shooting that wasn't there in some of the other recent ones.  (Caveat: I hate that we live in a world where I can compare mass shootings in a manner similar to natural disasters or national elections: they impact us all and come almost as frequently.)  Various articles written about Rodger--specifically those that chronicle his history of simultaneously hating and lusting after women--bring up his participation in various forums on the internet, most notably one called PUAhate.com (I believe it has been taken down this week?  I can't find it, anyway).  For more on what PUAhate is and how Rodger was involved, click here, here, or here.

I don't want to get into the particulars of PUAhate.com, especially since I haven't been able to look at the site myself. I don't believe that Pick-up artists or their haters are responsible for the lives that Rodger took.  I don't believe gun owners are responsible for the lives that Rodger took.  I don't believe that some poor model is responsible for the lives that Rodger took.  I know that Elliot Rodger is responsible for his actions and that, beyond the man himself, the system of influences that lead him to make the choices he did is too complex to be able to point at a single element of his life and call it the primary culprit.

Nonetheless, I think that this tragedy should cause us to look more carefully at our lives on the internet.  I've outlined my thoughts on internet social life before, and I've even written on this blog about the importance of public goods as a method of keeping people from losing touch with other people.  Elliot Rodger brings these previous thoughts of mine back to the forefront of my mind, and suddenly, I feel like there are few greater causes to champion than those of community membership and worldly citizenship.

The other day, while reading one of the aforementioned articles about Rodger's PUAhate.com involvement, I stumbled upon WizardChan.org.  (Caveat: I urge you not to go there yourself unless and until you're fully emotionally prepared for it; I can say that I wasn't ready for the hate and fear that I met there, and it has greatly and negatively affected me this week.)  WizardChan.org is a forum website populated primarily by men who seem to be aged from teens to upper-twenties, perhaps older.  From what I've read on the site, these men hang a large portion of their identity on the fact that they are virgins and that that separates them from society in a large, often crippling way.  They call themselves Wizards, which is where the name of the site comes from, and they refer to other people (I suppose under the assumption that all other people, even who just don't consider their sexual-inactivity to be fundamental to their being, are sexually active) as "normies."

All of that, taken by itself, sounds pretty harmless, if a bit unfortunate and strange.  I can't speak to why these men think that their virginity is such an enormous and terrible part of their lives, and I don't know what makes these men choose to form a community around such a trait, but those oddities are not things I want to talk about here.

If you've been to WizardChan or other sites like it--sites (most often forum sites) based around one strangely specific common interest, personality trait, etc.--you'll know that they've developed their own language, their own etiquette, their own systems of self-moderation and social hierarchies.  They are not unsophisticated communities.  Users on these sites are often more entrenched in the forum life than, say, I am on the forum sites I've used to find answers to questions about how to jump my Prius' battery, change out the HD on my laptop, or get emoji on my phone.  

If you've been to WizardChan or other sites like it--many of the above sites, but specifically the ones with a large population of very negative, frightening, even at times violent and threatening posts--you know that these communities are not overall friendly.  The user base is not necessarily made up entirely of people who, like Elliot Rodger, will act on violent thoughts and words, but the threatening nature of the forums cannot be denied.  WizardChan is full of posts spewing hatred and bitterness towards "normies," many of which condone violence and rape in an offhand, desensitized manner.

WizardChan makes me physically sick.  Sick because I cannot square the circle of these people's perspective on life and other people.  Sick because I want so badly for there to be a way to destroy the lens of hate and fear that they use to see the world.  Sick because, even those these people are in the minority, I fear meeting them in the real world and possibly becoming one of the "whores" they rail against, simply because I made pleasant conversation with no intention of turning it into a romantic or sexual interaction.

But even forums without an outright violent bend give me considerable pause.  This is a livejournal post from years ago that hearkens back to an old forum I used to frequent: AntiShurtugal.  The forum itself is no longer running, but it was a bastion of editorials and conversations discussing, negatively, Christopher Paolini's Inheritance series of books.  Some time in high school, I went from moderately liking Eragon and its sequels to absolutely detesting them.  (For the record, I believe it was a relatively slow descent, and it probably had at least a little to do with the fact that I was a teenaged writer who felt trapped in an inability to publish my books.)  I briefly found a community of like-minded people in AntiShurtugal: these people would write long articles analyzing the series piece by piece, tearing it apart for its lack of artistry, for its plot holes and inconsistencies, and doing so joyfully.  I don't know that I made many contributions, but I consumed others' like water in a desert.

I had friends in real life who shared my dislike of Eragon, but commiserations with them never got me very far: it wasn't a conversation they wanted to belabor because it just wasn't as important to them as it was to me.  Had there been no AntiShurtugal, I honestly might not have hated Eragon as much as I did, since hatred takes energy, and AntiShurtugal was the only renewable source I had.

And that's why specific community forum sites on the internet always scare me to a degree.  Even if a forum site were based around unicorns and butterflies and making vegan gluten free candies to give to homeless veterans, I would worry about its members.  These internet communities that base themselves around what might otherwise be a single, even unimportant facet of a human life give those facets greater importance than they would otherwise be able to sustain.  Thus, they warp the users' perspectives of the world; it was easy to forget that Eragon wasn't universally hated and that there were legitimate reasons to enjoy the series, because I spent so much of my time around people who took its lack of quality for granted.  

Forming communities on the internet is not in and of itself a bad thing.  When paired with healthy and full lives spent with real people in the real world, especially with people who think differently and have different interests and beliefs than we do, internet communities can be pleasant and even important places in society. 

But even the best internet communities can cultivate dark sides full of hate and bitterness that spreads negative thoughts and worldviews.  I'd like to reiterate that I don't think that PUAhate or WizardChan or their users are responsible for Elliot Rodger's actions.  But they are responsible for making sure they don't allow themselves to follow in his footsteps.  Hate and anger like Rodger's doesn't need mental illness in order to be unhealthy and lead to tragedy.  And lives of solitude spent finding solace in like-minded lonely people on the internet doesn't need much help to foster such hate and anger.

Fantastic Beasts

Hey!  Remember that other blog I write for sometimes?  When I wrote for them!  An interesting piece about my past; many of you who read this blog know about this part of me.  Some of you don't...so go and check it out!

Net Neutrality

The following is a comment I decided to file with the FCC.  Who knows what good it will do, but at least I felt like I was doing something.  I'm not sure I fully understand the nuances and intricacies of the net neutrality issue, but I feel confident that the issue is important enough to warrant proactivity, even from those of us who find ourselves perplexed by its complexities.

To Whom it May Concern:

I second the thoughts of such other commenters as Rob Vasko and Tarrence Van As, that internet telecommunications companies should be reclassified as common carriers. Nearly every major industry and social infrastructure, not to mention a large percentage of United State's citizens, rely on the internet daily for everything from news and entertainment to education and innovation. If ISPs are granted the ability to choose who gets access to whose content, those ISPs' interests will always win out, and that will create an unbalanced, unfair, and undemocratic system.

While some corners of the internet may seem to be luxuries rather than necessities, and still others are even illegal, the decision regarding who should or should not be allowed to either produce or consume those areas of the internet does not belong with ISPs. ISPs are private companies with little to no fair and public oversight or regulation, unlike law enforcement or government, and as such, their decisions are far less likely to be in the public's best interest. Their job is and always has been to provide the means by which information producers and maintainers--YouTube, Wikipedia, Netflix, and Joe the Blogger--get their messages out to information consumers. Their job should not be to decide which information producers deserve to be heard and which information consumers deserve to hear them.

The internet at its best is the most democratic system this country and even this world has ever seen. If net neutrality were to die off, that democracy may not necessarily come to a screeching halt, but it will never be as attainable as it once was. And with something so important as the universal right to information, there should be no higher motivation than freedom and democracy.

Thank you,
Mary Margaret Healy

If you, too, would like to make a public comment to the FCC, you can do so here.

Games We Play

I did it again.  I wrote a post for The Post Calvin.  It's inspired by my recent "spring break" working at the Boys and Girls Club.  That spring "break" is another post for another time.

This is what I call MicroBlogging

I have a bad habit of getting excessively pensive at the darkest, most trying moments of my life.  It often leads to what I have termed "Xanga-Style" blogging.  Nothing against Xanga in general, but my personal Xanga is a surplus of [preteen and teenaged] angst that the world doesn't really need to see.

I think it's important to express myself on these emotional topics, but I'm worried that an overabundance of my own sadness will bring you all down with me into a pit.

In order to avoid that, I've spent the past few months curating my emotional trials into this list of microblogs.  May it be for you much like a sad love song--in your moments of pain, a commiserate friend; in your moments of triumph, a memento mori that keeps you humble.

Topics too depressing to get their own post

1. When you consistently use more conditioner or shampoo than you use shampoo or conditioner, so that you never finish both bottles at the same time.
2. Spending the whole game of Settlers of Catan winning, only to have the other players revolt against you, and cause you to lose so bad you want to cry.
3. When you're talking with a friend about a TV show or book series that you only casually enjoy, and they ask you, "Do you mind if I give away some parts?" and you say no because you're enjoying the conversation and want it to continue, but then you go back to watching or reading and you realize that the entire experience of the series is changed now that you know that one spoiler.
4. The fact that last seasons of really good, long-running TV shows always come across more as cast and crew nostalgia than as a good ending to the show.
5. Keeping so many emails in your inbox so that you remember to respond to them that you eventually cannot see all of them and so forget to respond to them.
6. Sticky notes that only stick long enough for you to stop looking at them, and then fall off the wall and you can never find them again and they remind you of nothing.
7. How much more fun it is to put up Christmas decorations than to take them down.
8. Dirty laundry.
9. Enjoying the creative stimulation that a caffeine rush gives you, but suffering from so much presticogitation that you can't actually use it to stimulate your creativity.
10. When you like the Glee version better than the original, but can tell no one.
11. Causing a traffic jam by trying to avoid a car accident.
12. Having a terrible day at work, but then having your boss tell you that you're a "great asset to the team" and then wondering whether that is a compliment or a cry for help.
13. Coming to the end of a bagel after mistakenly thinking that you had a whole half left.
14. Loving a song so much that you cannot physically restrain yourself from listening to it over and over and then slowly beginning to hate it.
15. Having really stupid pet peeves, but not knowing how to develop the patience to keep them from peeving you anymore.
16. Taxes
17. Struggling to read analog clocks when you're 24 years old.
18. Wanting to go back to college because it was the last time you knew what you were doing.
19. Wanting to share a funny Michigan-Winter joke on Facebook and then remembering that, because you don't live in Michigan anymore, your friends will be more confused than commiserate.
20. Fun and awesome dreams that are also so easy to psychoanalyze that you're too embarrassed to share them with anyone because they'll immediately know all your deepest insecurities.
21. Seeing deer in your backyard and wondering for the rest of the day if they got hit by a car because what the heck were deer doing in your "yard" in the city?
22. Things that should go viral but never will because famous internet people never see them.
23. Catching up with a book or TV series without realizing that it wasn't over yet, and then suddenly having to wait for the next installment to come out.
24. Dirty dishes.
25. Music that is at just the wrong volume so that you either have to set it to 23 and be barely able to hear it, or set it to 29 and wince at every downbeat.

Thank you for your patience in reading my woes.  I hope I did not bring you down too much.  I may be forced to continue this list in the future because, you know, we live in a fallen world and all that.

--Mary Margaret

The Cycle of Grocery Stores

Yet again, I come here merely to point you elsewhere.  Specifically, I direct you to my post on The Post Calvin where I will attempt to woo you with elegantly crafted prose about the Dominick's down the street from my high school.

A Legacy of Song

Last month, some of you may have noticed my post at The Post Calvin that spoke about my experiences with hymns in church.  This present post relates to that, if only obliquely.

Music is uniquely powerful.  I think many, if not most people feel that power and celebrate it in little moments in their lives.  I'm not a rockstar singer--I dropped out of choir after eighth grade--and my Saxophone is gathering dust in my closet (and is probably also infested with mice, but that's a different story).  Nevertheless, I think I am one of those people for whom music means more than for most.

I'm told that this is because of my grandmother.

Jane Eileen on the Left, Jane Eileen on the Right, Jane Eileens all around, late into the night, ba da ba da

My maternal grandparents were both, I'm told, excellent singers: my grandmother, Jane, a soprano, my grandfather, Joe, a baritone.  When they stood next to each other in church, any number of their six children next to them, they filled those babies' heads with melodies and harmonies and a subconscious joy in the sound of a well crafted, well executed song.

Grandma spent much of her time cleaning, crafting, fiddling about around the house, and unless she was speaking, she was singing.  Sometimes, she would sing songs, but most times, she just sang notes.  I have a vivid memory of watching her in the kitchen in Barrington, Illinois, her soft, wordless singing floating to me over the sound of the rushing tap, the sun catcher on the window in front of her holding colorful images of the birds she loved so much, in part because their songs matched her own.

My mother, also Jane, continued the tradition of constant melodizing, and in fact got a bachelor's degree in vocal performance.  I remember nights as a child when I would wake from a nightmare and my mother would come in to comfort me back to sleep, and I would ask her to sing the Star Spangled Banner, which I called the star song.  I thought it was a beautiful song, and I loved my mother's voice, and the combination of the two soothed many of my frightened fits.  When I would listen to the radio or watch movies, I would sometimes hear a song so lovely, I felt the need to memorize it so that I could sing it to my own someday-children in their troubled moments.

When my mother and I would go to churches other than our home church--if we were out of town visiting family, or if we were attending a first communion, christening, or wedding--I would secretly hope that others around us would hear my mother's singing and be jealous of me because I got to hear it every day.  I got to wake up to my mother singing along to her hymns as she read her Bible in the morning before work.  I got to listen to her sing the harmonies to all the television theme songs.  I got to be serenaded on my birthday.  Everyone should have been jealous of me.

The moment I learned that not everyone sang as much as my matriarchs was, in fact, in a church.  I don't remember what church, or when, but I remember looking around during the congregational singing and seeing dozens of people merely staring up at the stage, some bobbing their heads, some standing with an emotional hand in the air, but none of them singing.  I remember that I tried it, right there.  I tried to just look at the words on the screen as they passed, tried to not sing and just to listen.  I enjoyed the experience of hearing all the voices around me raising up those words, but I did not enjoy not singing.  The words were there, the music was playing, I needed to sing.

The moment I learned that not everyone sang like my matriarchs was, also, in a church.  When I was in England, I weekly attended St. Thomas with St. Maurice with a large contingent of other Calvin students.  One of those students, a great friend of mine, Hope, often stood near me during worship, belting out the words to songs familiar and not.  Her voice, nothing like my mother's or grandmother's sweet sopranos, was, at first, jarring to my ears.  I wanted her to be more on-pitch.  I wanted her to be softer.  I wanted her to sing as beautifully as the women I'd grown used to.

The moment I learned that the beauty in singing comes not just in the sound, but in the act, was not in a church, but in my mother's living room.  At the time, this living room was furnished in thick, sound- and light-blocking curtains hanging in the doorways, several large plastic containers of towels and other hygiene products, and a heated hospice bed where Grandma lay for weeks, her Alzheimer's preventing her from sitting up or standing.  It was a hot July in Chicagoland, but the air conditioning kept my mother, my aunt, and I all comfortably cool as we stood around Grandma's bed, in which, after a few more long hours, she would die.  We held her hands, we ran our fingers through her still-thick, white hair.  We sang to her.

White coral bells, upon a slender stalk
Lily of the valley deck my garden walk
Oh, don't you wish that you could hear then ring
That will happen only when the fairies sing

My aunt began the round.  Like me, aunt Judith was raised with music in the air around her, and like me, she could not make it as beautifully as she wanted to.  Then my mother, with her practiced and wonderful voice, joined.  Their voices came together in a way families should, like at Christmas when Grandpa reads the nativity story to us, first from a rocking chair in the big Tree Room in Barrington, Illinois, and now from a television in my uncle's sitting room.  Their voices made magic, and it didn't matter that one was clearly stronger than the other, or that one had a quaver to it that kept it from hitting every little note in the arpeggio.

As the song is a round, I joined in third, coming in just in time to be in unison with Judith, though I didn't know the song as well as she did.  And now I was in the family too.  And it felt like Christmas feels, like church when everyone sings, even off pitch, like the dishes in the kitchen with the birds watching.  It really was a magic beyond explanation or description.  She gave us our voices, and as we sat there around her, we felt compelled to give them back.  We just couldn't not sing.

Hymn Sings

Once again, I invite you over to The Post Calvin to read my post there today.  I talk about hymns and my experiences with them and how they have shaped my faith experience.  It's all very liturgical...

With a Little Help For My Friends

When I was in high school, and again when I taught high school, most of the teachers had a theory that the 3rd quarter of the school year--the time between finals in mid-January and the week right before spring break--was the worst quarter.  Their reasoning was that

1. The weather was snow and cold, which everyone was sick of, and late February and into March, the weather was never consistent, sucker punching us with 60˚ morning that turned into biting 30˚ evenings.
2. There were fewer in-service days and almost zero holidays, not to mention very few fun, school-wide, social events to look forward to.
3. Christmas was over, and spring break seemed eons away, even if it was only two weeks out.

This theory attempted to explain why there were more in-school fights in 3rd quarter than the other quarters, why grades tended to slump around February, why more break ups happened.  I'm sure there is a correlation-does-not-imply-causation argument here.  Nevertheless, it felt like a sound theory at the time, and it made us all feel more validated in our 3rd-quarter miseries.

I'm currently wondering if that theory can be applied to out-of-school life, too.  I mean, Seasonal Affected Disorder is definitely a thing, there aren't more exciting holidays that come more often once you're not in school, and non-school-aged folk seem even more angsty about lack of social interaction than high schoolers ever were.

Regardless of the reason, I've been privy to the sadness and trials of several of my friends lately, more so than I remember being a couple months ago.  I'd love to tell you that I've handled these privy-counsels with grace and love, but all I can really say is that I did my best, which is not as good as I'd like it to be.

[Caveat] 
I remember in junior high, there was a group called "Natural Helpers."  The administration passed out little questionnaires at the beginning of the year with questions like, "What would you do if your friend came to you with ?" and, "What is the most important thing to do for someone who is struggling with ?"  At the end of the questionnaire, we had to put the name of one of our friends whom we felt comfortable going to with our own problems.  

After a couple of weeks, the administration notified certain people that they were now members of Natural Helpers.  They would go to a training retreat, have monthly or something meetings, and be expected to help their friends with all their problems.  

I was not asked to be a Natural Helper.  Back then, I was just hurt and confused as to why I wasn't a good enough friend to be one.  Now I'm legitimately upset because that would have been good training for anyone, and I didn't get it, and now I feel set back.  
[/Caveat]

Evidently Natural Helpers is a national organization.  Huh.

I've been through hard times in the past.  I've experienced painful loss, I've been through bad break ups, I've felt like a failure, I've been ashamed of myself, I've been disappointed in those around me, I've felt lost and confused, I've been unsure of myself, I've felt betrayed...suffice it to say that I've lived a life and haven't magically avoided issues.  All of those trials have given me tremendous sympathy for people going through rough patches that resemble my own, (They have also given me a fair bit of empathy for people experience pain I can't even imagine, but that's a different story).

Once I find myself on the other side of one particular hardship or another, my first instinct [after celebrating hard with some video games and a good book or two] is to make sure no one else has to go through what I did/have/will.  When you've been in a pit, felt it's cold, damp, darkness, and you see someone else about to fall in, you aren't about to sit blithely by and watch.

For a while, I thought this was enough.  I thought wanting to help was what mattered.  Especially as a Christian, I thought that if I wanted to help and I prayed to God to tell me the words to say, to give me the wisdom I lacked, I could be to struggling friends the comfort they needed.

But in this 3rd-quarter time of struggles for seemingly all of my close friends, I am finding that that is absolutely not true.  Just wanting to help is not enough.  Wanting desperately to lay myself over that pit like a net to keep someone from falling in, or fashioning my body into a rope to pull them out...neither of those is going to help them the way I want it to.

The reasons for this strategy's failure actually relates closely back to my last post, about non-profit volunteering.  When I come into someone else's trial and think myself the expert in ways that they aren't themselves, I am doing what all those well-meaning education students do to the Boys and Girls Club, only I am doing it to my friends.

Worse than that, I am not sure that my net-stretching and rope-throwing is always right-intentioned. I fear that, like the pretty picture above says, I am more trying to help myself than I am trying to help them.  Watching my friends in pain is not easy.  Watching my friends in pain that I have personally experienced is even harder, because I almost feel that pain again.  I want to end their pain so that I can end my own, or I want to end their pain in ways that I couldn't end my own back when I was personally in it.

Moreover, if I persist in trying to end their pain and their pain doesn't end, I might do them the immense disservice of blaming them for continuing to hurt.  I've done everything I can for them, I might think.  If they don't feel better, if they don't solve this problem of theirs, that's their fault.  If they would only take my advice, they would feel better.  I get frustrated with them and misplace my emotions.  Instead of being righteously angry with the forces that put them in the situation they're in, I am frustrated with them for not getting out of it.

I have to constantly remind myself that I am not the expert on life's troubles.  I have to remember that I am not my friend; I do not instantly know what will help them.  I have to remember that, when in pain, advice is not always what is wanted, not always what is needed.  When it is solicited, I may give it, but until then, maybe what they need is someone to sit in that pit with them, hold them, give them warm soup, let them destroy magical trinkets in Dumbledore's office, watch reruns of Boy Meets World.  And after they've done that, maybe they'll need someone to make sure they're taking their medication, someone to make sure they're eating, someone who offers to take them out to a movie or to dinner, or to see their friends.  Someone who shovels the driveway when they can't get out of bed, but then encourages them to go to work anyway.  Support doesn't always mean advice.  Sometimes it is a more subtle, more challenging thing to give.

I'm sure there are times, too, when it's not healthy for me to try to be that person to someone else.  When I am personally wrestling with my own demons, I may not be able to adequately comfort someone else.  When they're problems are too big and serious for me to try to tackle on my own, I should probably leave them to more experienced people.  When that person doesn't trust me, or when I am the source of their problems, I may just make the situation worse by trying to personally help.

But like Leo, there may always be something I can do, even if it just to point them in the right direction.

What do you think?  Is my theory of "helping" a sound one?  Are there other times when you think it's not a good idea to help someone?  Is there a limit to the help you should offer?  Is this a subject that is close to your heart?

Good, Old-Fashioned, Volunteerism

I work at my local chapter of The Boys and Girls Clubs of America.  It's a non-profit, and it's located really close to a lot of colleges and universities, so we see a pretty steady stream of volunteers, especially throughout the school year.

Specifically, I work in the Homework Room.  We get kids of all ages and all levels and most neighboring schools, so there's a lot to deal with from an educational perspective, and it can be pretty chaotic.  When we don't get any volunteers, either because the college kids are on break or because it's just a slow day, we really feel it, so I am always over the moon to have any volunteers.  Even if they can't help the kids with homework because they don't know how to do it (trying to learn "new math" as a 22-year-old can be harder thing than you'd think), they're usually pretty good at distracting the rowdier kids enough until someone can help them.

Every once in a while, though, we'll get those kinds of volunteers.  If you work with a lot of volunteers, you probably know the volunteers I'm talking about.  Maybe they're lazy, or maybe they're not.  Maybe they're smart, or maybe they're not.  Maybe they have good intentions, or maybe they don't.  Maybe they're a know-it-all or a type-A personality, or maybe they're not.  Whatever the reason, they make my job harder or less pleasant.

[I want to reiterate: I am always glad to have volunteers.  Even "those" kinds.  Just because they make my day more difficult doesn't mean they aren't an asset.

However, if, after I describe my experiences with "those" kinds of volunteers, you realize that you frequently are one, I would highly encourage you to reevaluate your methods and change the way you interact at your chosen institutions of pro bono employment. ]

So, forthwith, I present to you, for your consideration, a list of things not to do as a volunteer.  It is probably not exhaustive.

-----

1. Think yourself the expert

At the club we often get college students who are studying education and need volunteer hours with elementary-school kids to graduate or to apply to grad school.  Some of them seem to be under the impression that the club does not have any education professionals, nor has it ever had any education professionals, and so they consider themselves mana from heaven, a light in the dark place, Irish Spring amongst the unwashed masses.

Without asking, they try to run things or turn our Homework Room into their ideal classroom (which won't work; believe me, I've naïvely tried).  They give unsolicited advice about this and that, and offer to help make the Homework Room into a more orderly and scholarly environment.  They are appalled by the students' behavior and take it upon themselves to right the wrong of the leadership that has come before.

If these people come back more than once, I would listen to them more readily.  If they invested in these kids for more than just two hours a semester, I would take their desired instructional role more seriously.  If their answer to the question, "How often do you think you'll volunteer here?" were something other than "Oh, I'm really not sure; my schedule is so hectic these days," I might not be annoyed that they think they can do in one day what I haven't been able to do in months.

2. Make a mess and leave

I mean this both physically and metaphorically.  Some volunteers use the books in the Homework Room to read to the kindergarten girls.  There are puzzles on the bookshelves, too, and some counting games.  The volunteers will take over the table by the door and spread out their educational goodies and play with the kids for all of five minutes before the kids get antsy, as they are wont to do, and ask them to go open the art room or the game room or the gym.  Sometimes, one person will stay behind and at least put the supplies back in some semblance of order, but many times, they will just leave that table a mess.

Sometimes a volunteer will be really popular with some of the kids.  If the volunteer is into sports, some kids will want them to play them in basketball.  If the volunteer has really nice hair, some kids will spend some time playing with it.  That's all fine and good.  But when a volunteer comes into the Homework Room to help kids with homework, it is advisable that the students finish their work before they run off to play. That's just common sense, but it's also courtesy to me and the other staff members who have to deal with the students who come in fifteen minutes before closing and ask us to help them with their mountains (because these kids really do get a lot) of homework because they haven't done it yet.

3. If there is a problem that you can't handle, don't just pretend it doesn't exist

This could be anything--students don't have pencils and the volunteer doesn't know where to find the extras, one student is clearly copying another student's homework, "new math" is too confusing--but frequently, with our students, it is a behavioral issue.  Kids will be bullying someone, two kids will get into a fight, one student is distracting the other students from working, that sort of thing.  Instead of either a) trying their best to deal with it in the common-sense ways they know how or b) bringing the issue to the attention of a staff member, the volunteers often just sit and pretend not to notice.

With problems like pencils and "new math," the fallout is not so terrible; I have to get the pencils myself or the kid has to ask someone else for help.  With bullying, fighting, and distractions, an unaddressed problem tends to build and build until it explodes and the whole rest of the day is shot having to deal with it.  

4. Forget what you're there to do

I saved this one for last because it's too common and uninteresting to give too much lip service, but it's so simple and crucial.

So many people (my high-school self included) are required to do some sort of community service or get a certain number of volunteer hours.  I don't know what percentage of those people actually hate serving their community, but it seems frustratingly high.  If you're going to volunteer somewhere, you really should do what they ask you to do, which, frequently, is not to do nothing or to sit on your phone and never make eye-contact with anyone.  You're already sacrificing your time.  What is the point of wasting it, too?

-----

I grew up volunteering through my church, my school, and various other community organizations; my mom made it a priority for all of us while we were growing up.  While I didn't always thoroughly enjoy the work I did or the fact that it wasn't paid, I can't remember a single position I held that wasn't a learning experience that was overall fun or exciting.  Like my mom, I think helping people in different contexts with different needs is a vital part of belonging to a society and becoming an educated citizen of the world.  But there are right ways and wrong ways to do it, and I hope everyone (including me) can learn to not suck at serving.

Tomorrow Will Be Kinder

It's not usually my style to post about my sadness on Facebook or Twitter.  It makes me feel weird to be comforted by the internet, and I wonder if there isn't something unhealthy about going to the masses for solace instead of to specific people for support and emotional stability.

But today started out so bad, I didn't stop myself.

Yes.  My Facebook is in German.  "Furchtbar" translates to "horrible," in case you were ignorant of that.

I did edit myself soon after, though.

"Feeling horrible" sounded overdramatic to me.

Why did it feel like a Monday?  Well, I didn't work yesterday, and I do work today, so that may have been part of it, but it wasn't all of it.

After about an hour of wakefulness, it already felt like the Universe had a case of the Mondays and was taking it out on me.  All week, my pipes have been playing Wack-a-mole with me: one would freeze, but the other two would still be willing to trickle into use, then the frozen one would unfreeze, but one of the working ones would go out, then only the hot water came out so that any shower I attempted to take threatened 3rd-degree burns and washing dishes would have sufficed as a medieval punishment for stealing.  Then this morning, all of the pipes decided they were done trying.  I left all the working ones dripping last night, but to no avail.  This morning, no water.  

After cursing a bit about that, I then logged into my Amazon account to check on some stuff I ordered that suspiciously hadn't come yet (I bought a 6-year-old PS3 and some games with Christmas money) and learned to my horror that, due to my nostalgic reticence to delete my old Grand Rapids address from my Amazon account, I had actually shipped said orders to said address.  I don't know anyone at that address anymore.

Then, after freaking out a bit about that, my computer told me that, Surprise!  There are about 300 updates you need to install, and if you don't do it now, you're hard drive will become corrupt and you will personally self-destruct.  (Okay, yes, that last bit was my brain's artistic additions, but they all looked like important updates and I was scared of not performing them immediately, due to some recent changes with my computer) Oh, and, these updates are so big, intimidating, and fundamental to your computer's survival that you're going to need to restart in order to complete them.  This task will take approximately two hours and you will not be able to use your computer at all during that time.

If you've been following my blog for the past six months or so, you might have noticed the progressively downward-spiraling trajectory that I've been on.  Starting with my graduation and gradually descending deeper and deeper into a crippling sadness, frustration, and feeling of crushing hopelessness, the latter half of 2013 did not go well for me overall.

If you've been following my blog for the past one month, you should have noticed that I have determined that 2014 should be much better than 2013, if for no other reason than I say it will be, dang it.  I made New Year's resolutions to that end, I stopped going on Tumblr, I began consciously eating more healthily and limiting the number of Netflix hours I spent in a week.  I even made a Super Spreadsheet about how I do want to spend my time and what I want to accomplish this month and every month to follow.  I worked hard to make sure that 2014 at least started off much better than 2013 ended.

And then this day hit.

It may sound stupid, because all of these problems that I've had are very "first world" and fixable, but my first instinct was to crawl back into bed with my puppy, call my mom, and sleep for a while.  For the past six months, the problems have been "first world," "fixable," "easily handled," problems, but there have been so many that I've stopped being able to see them in that perspective.  It got to the point where I wanted to shut the world out and just sleep for a while, hoping that someone else would take care of the problems while I ignored them.

That, of course, is not realistic.  But that, my friends, is depression.

Since I was still wearing my jammy jams, I felt no shame wrapping Fudge and me back up in my blanket.  But when I called my mom, it went to voicemail.  So I lay there for a bit, thinking about how terrible this day was turning out to be, mourning the loss of the morning of fun wedding planning that required a computer and candle making that required running water and Assassin's Creed playing that required that ill-shipped PS3.

What?  This is exactly what I look like when I'm sad and in bed.

But then, a miracle happened.

I remembered that, since I had started to hoard water in various vessels elsewhere in my apartment (my two electric kettles, my nalgene, some pots on my stove) Fudge and I aren't going to dehydrate today.  I remembered also, praise God, my toilet is a beast that could probably get water from the surface of Mars.  I had already used the toilet once, and I had already had some tea and filled Fudge's dish, but these little blessings had fallen from my mind after the other issues had piled on.

I remembered that I have angelic friends who still live in GR and have professed on several occasions that they are willing to do anything for me, including go to a complete stranger's house and retrieve packages that aren't theirs.  I had already texted those people and called my old leasing company to have them warn the new tenants, but in my increased sadness and frustration, I had forgotten about that.

So I got out of bed, I called my current landlord to tell them about the pipes.  I cleaned up the apartment a little in case the maintenance people came around.  I started my computer's updates.  I lit some pre-made candles.  I had breakfast.  I played with my dog.  I surfed the web on my phone.

I got some perspective.  My problems did not end my day.

2014 is already so much better than 2013.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow. 

The Old Q vs. Q Argument with a Lemony Fresh Twist

I haven't slept well the past few nights.  I think it's because of my unthinking untimely intake of tea (I can't help that I love tea and sometimes forget to go herbal after 3 pm) but it could also be due to my sudden enthusiasm for things that happen in my waking hours (a sort of new thing).  Whatever the cause, the effect is that my extended waking hours have, of late, potentially at my loopiest.

So, this afternoon, when I was in my car, driving home from lunch with some friends, and I heard a fascinating story on NPR, I maybe got a bit more excited than I would have on a regular, non-sleep-deprived-and-over-compensating-for-it Sunday.

Such a surplus of excitement, today, means a blogpost.

[End Intro]

The story was about a man who works very hard to make a living streaming music on Spotify.  If you know anything about how not-lucrative online music sales are for the artist, you're probably wondering how he does it.  Well, he does write about an average of 14,000 songs a year, so there's that.

Most of his songs are just catalogs of various nouns.  He's got an album about things he found in his house with a song about a door, and one hit about the hot water heater.  He's got an album of songs about transportation.  He's got a whole "band" dedicated to (ironically clean) songs about defecation.  The band's name is "The Toilet Bowl Cleaners" and "their" biggest hit is "The Poop Song" which...is exactly what you think it is.

Put the calculator down.  I'll do it for you.

An average of 14,000 songs a year, assuming he works 52 weeks a year, is about 269 songs a week.  On the radio program, someone mentioned that he records these songs in his basement 4 days a week, which makes an average of about 67 songs a day, which, assuming he works 8 hour days, is 8 or 9 songs in a work day.  That's written, recorded, mixed, and uploaded.

My brother is a musician who has been in the business for several years now, and he is just now putting together his second album.  I have a feeling he'd have a few choice words to say about Matt Farley and the quality of that music.

But I think both Dennis and Matt would say that two artists so different can hardly try to compare themselves to each other.  They don't have the same goals for their music, their outreach as musicians, or even their lifestyles and vocation, so why would their measurements of "success" be the same?

It's the old Quality versus Quantity argument...

...or is it?  Because, sure, Dennis works slower than Matt and his work is more fine tuned and probably has more longevity, and Matt has a volume that trumps Dennis' every time.  He writes songs four days a week.  He spends little if any time working on pre- or post-production stuff, he doesn't manage tour dates or book shows, and he never has to haul any of his equipment out of his basement.  All he does is just write, record, upload, repeat.

Artists--musicians, writers, painters, and all the rest--often talk about that process as a form of discipline.  Just write, just paint, just play: it's not about inspiration, it's about sitting down and working on your craft, not neglecting your skills, your voice, your practice.  It's about breaking through barriers like, "I don't know if I'm good enough," or "I have bad grammar," or "Am I tone deaf?  I mean seriously, have you heard me?" and just get anything down.

It feels to me sometimes like we feel we have to go through periods where all we're doing is Quantity in order to get to the moments of Quality that will sustain a career, legitimize our talent, and/or bring meaning into the world through our art.  It feels to me sometimes like we believe that the things we create in our periods of Quantity-Only are worthwhile only as part of a journey to the Quality we produce later.  They don't have inherent purpose.

But Matt Farley doesn't think that.  I mean, I guess I don't know what he does think.  But I know that PJ Vogt thinks that Matt Farley's 14,000 songs a year do have merit on their own.  They perform a service to the world beyond just getting Farley to a time where he can create fewer, but better overall work.

PJ tells the story about how he asked Matt to write a song for PJ's step-parents for a Christmas presents.  He gives Matt five bits of information about his stepmom, Nan, and PJ thinks about it for a minute, comes up with some chords, and, BAM, records a song right there.  PJ then takes that song around to his friends for the next few days and is clearly more excited than they are, and begins to worry whether his gift is going to flop.  But then he gives it to Nan on Christmas day and she is over the moon.  She listens to it multiple times, asks him twice to email it to her, and then sends PJ a note about how much she loved it, and how it touched her that he gave it to her.

PJ makes the connection that most of Farley's music does nothing more than acknowledge the existence of things--"This is a door," or "Poop is a thing," or "You're part of the family"--and step-parents often seek that simple acknowledgement without often receiving it.  "[The song Farley wrote for Nan] uncomplicated a complicated situation."  

It took seconds to write.  It was based off of extremely little knowledge of its own subject.  It made two people's Christmases.

If that's not Quality, What is it?

I wanted to write this post without sitting on it or editing it, in one swift action, in the spirit of Matt Farley.  When I was composing it in my head on the way from the curb where I parked my car, it sounded perfect and important.  The bit about Quantity-Only-creations having value all their own really spoke to me on a deep level as I danced out of my coat and skipped into my dining room to sit down and write this.

But as I try to round it out at the end here, I realize that the message is tried and true: quality is everywhere, and quality is what you make of it.  You don't have to be the next J.D. Salinger to write a novel that is great and American to someone.  You don't have to use your passions to pay your bills.  You can Just Write, or you can write sporadically.  There is no one, cookie-cutter right way.

Everyone has said that sometime in the past fifteen years, though, so now this post feels incredibly less perfect and important, even if it still speaks to me in my crazy, sleep-deprived-and-trying-too-hard mental state.

But damn me if I don't post it anyway.

EDIT:

@PKsDancingGirl Thanks for writing about me! Well done. (But, it's 14,000 songs since '08, not yearly (though now I have a new goal!).
— Motern Media (@MoternMedia) January 22, 2014

@PKsDancingGirl I google my name all the time! Check out my movie sometime: https://t.co/AymNwP0bNf
— Motern Media (@MoternMedia) January 22, 2014

It's the 19th! You know what that means...

That's right!  Today, The Post Calvin posted a blog of mine that muses about the strange complexity of photographs that both capture and save a moment in the past, and yet most often have as short a shelf-life as their subjects.  I also briefly mention flowers, in case that interests you.

Life's Little Lessons

Some things I've learned the hard way in the past week, for your sadistic enjoyment, in no particular order.

1. Chocolate & Mint tea that comes in a pretty tin and sounds like a wonderful way to wind down a day is actually quite caffeinated and shouldn't be consumed after 4:00 pm, and certainly not at 9:00 pm.
2. When I am caffeinated, I am consumed by manic Excel cravings.
3. I know just enough Excel functions to do serious damage to my sleep schedule.
4. Ultrasonic mice repellents may only work when they are actually on, or they may not work at all.
5. Dogs are not good mousers.
6. Low-carb diets are low-fun diets.
7. Bagels are not low-carb.

Obligatory Post about Resolutions

I'm going to be writing a post later (that, when it's finished, I shall link to here) about resolutions more generally, because I do have a bit to say on the topic.  (Friends and regular readers are now saying, "She has a bit to say about tying her shoes and flossing, too, I bet.")  For now, I just want to show you my new attempt at actually making 2014 a different year from 2013.  Because we all know that if they end up being twins, I'm going to throw something large through a plate-glass window.

For Christmas, my wonderful and talented friend Christie gave me a beautiful hand-made journal.  A few days prior to Christmas, I outfitted it as my 2014 Planner.  Like...literally, a planner.  I put plans in it.

And in the back cover, I've started a list of resolutions I have.  Some of them are things that I have to continually check in on over the course of the year (#s 1 and 5), some of them are monthly goals (#s 3 and 4), and some of them are things I will be able to check off as I go (# 2), and there is space for more to add as I go through the year and new things come up.

There are a lot of pages in the journal, and I plan to fill them up with dreams of what I will do as well as descriptions of things I have done so that, when I look back on 2014, I can remember it as a proactive and exciting time, even if things start getting rough and going south.

This post is a) a reminder to myself that I did this so that I don't forget to keep using it and b) a request for you to give me ideas of resolutions.  As you can see, I need at least 9 more.  Anything you think I should add?