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Apr 24, 2005
the catcher I felt young again. I let myself out for a while. It was fun. Tonight several of us went to Hofbrauhaus (and no, I have NO idea how to spell it. I took French and Greek). It was a lot of fun, more fun than I've had in a while. For some reason I was looser than normal, and it wasn't the beer. For a while my college personality came out. That guy is fun. I was a little rusty tonight. But, it's been too long since I was willing to stand on a bench in a resturaunt and do the chicken dance. I've been reading "Reviving Ophelia" for one of my classes (paper due tomorrow.) I had to read it for a class 2 years ago, and unfortuately I lost that paper. Actually it's not so unfortuante. When I read it two years ago, I didn't like it that much. I thought that it was of some value, but it's a pop psychology book, which I tend to not like too much. Typically, these books are written by counselors, and they notice trends in their patients, and then make generalizations on everyone based on clinical assessments. Usually, such generalizations don't work. However, upon my second reading, I have like it much better. Well, actually, like doesn't really describe it. Actually, I hate what I'm reading, because I'm finding it to be more accurate that I originally thought. The book describes the pressures that girls go through during adolecence. Pipher, the author, points out in the beginning that pre-adolecent girls rarely require counseling. They are very confident and resilliant. Then in adolecence, due to many factors, many of which are societal, they begin to mask themselves and push away thier true selves, instead conforming to what society says they should be. This transition can be very difficult for some, and thy can lose confidence, and still struggle with that well into adulthood. I guess what was different this time is how much more aware of this that I am now. I see it so often. It makes me so angry to think of what people can do to each other sometimes. It gets to me, because I can relate to it. It was a very different set of societal standards in my case, but the end result was the same. My preadolecent self was beaten down and lost out someone who lacked confidence and became very fearful. With that said, we saw a documentary in this class a couple of weeks ago about how media and marketers sell to adolecents. Through much research, they have come up with two characters, one to market to boys, the others to girls. For the guys, the character is called "The Mook." The mook is the Adam Corolla, Tom Green, and Johnny Knoxville type. Wild and crazy, no inhibitions, and funny. What is interesting though is that in this case, they are not selling an image, it is the mook himself that does the selling. For the girls, the character is called "The Midriff." The midriff is the Brittany Spears type. In this case, it is totally the look being sold. The personality is irreleveant . . . it's all about the looks. This has disturbed me since I saw it. It bothers me so much, the societal pressures that we get from our media and popular culture. Why do we by into this stuff. It's not real. Maybe that is the point. As I was reading today, I just became frustrated. I wanted to fix everything, and protect everyone. But I can't. It reminded me of "The Catcher In The Rye." It's been a while since I read it, so bear with me. But, I remember as Holden is talking to someone (maybe his counselor, or it may have been one of the characters,) and the ask him what he wants to do with his life. He began talking about a song (or it may have been a book) where these children are playing in a field. The field is on a cliff. He said that he wanted to stand at the bottom of the cliff and catch the children as the fell off (I think it was a rye field, hence the title of the book.) I never had a clue what that meant. But today I think I got it. So many people are headed for a cliff. The fall is painful, and maybe even fatal. I want to be the catcher in the rye. But there are so many people, its overwhelming. Plus, I'm still injured from my fall. If I try and catch someone, it might injure both of us. One thing I do know: we need to start rejecting the lies. I've been trying that this week, with mixed results. It's a long road. I need help. If I am saying bad stuff about myself, or making fun of myself, make me stop. I don't care if I'm kidding or not. Don't contradict me. Just tell me to stop. And from now on, I'm not going to let anyone else buy into the lies about themselves either. We aren't taking that guff anymore! posted
by Unknown @ 11:17:00 PM |
