you're all talk
I'm one of those people who delights in making endless realizations, assertions and discoveries without ever coming to any truths. I'm always looking and hence I'm always "finding." Unfortunately (or fortunately?), I'm coming to realize that KNOWING something (at least intuitively) doesn't always amount to understanding it in practice. Two problems generally arise out of this. The first is that I tend to often apply this rhetoric to myself and end off maybe wiser for it but less happy. I can constantly analyze and introspect into myself discovering layer upon layer of problems and roots without really understanding anything. So I can tell you, for example, not only that am I insecure but why exactly I am the way I am. Yet I still don't know how to help myself in solving this problem. I'm not a person who can just flip on the "happy" switch and be OK. I have to feel my way out... and end up going in endless emotional and intuitive circles.

The second problem and one that I "knew" about but just today really began to understand (or feel) is that all this rhetoric... politic, religion, spirituality, ethic, culture... is just talk. I can say I KNOW that everything is "subjective" and I do know it but I only know it in concept, not in practice. I tell myself over and over that because I believe these things I have an "open" mind. It may be true that I at least leave the door unlocked... but day by day I'm coming to realize that that door is FAR from open.

I've spent the day in one way or another subjecting myself to images and stories from other cultures and despite my "enlightened" (I hate using that word in reference to myself so let's just say "aware") perspectice, I find that I still feel silly and embarrassed when I try to place myself in the "roots" of someone else. The problem is that I want to BE the world. I want to think that right now, I could be me anywhere. But then I look at photographs from Finland and Tokyo and feel silly and out of place. The part of me that is incredibly culturally CONDITIONED looks condescendingly at other ways of life and thinks "that's silly," "that's CRAZY" or "God, that's weird." It irks me that I can intuitively KNOW that I all these different things are equally valid and equally proud-- and that America is equally stupid, equally absurd and equally majestic-- without actually UNDERSTANDING the acceptance of them.

I suppose, of course, that I should neither flatter myself nor put myself down. I'm pretty sure I'm smart. I'm pretty sure I'm liberal. I'm pretty sure I'm well-balanced, well-read, well-spoken, and well-thought-out. But I'm only twenty years old so I can only be so much of any of these things within the limited scope of my experience. I have been only HERE. I have been only ME. And I want to be so much more. Looking at these pictures, reading these stories I realize that the current underneath my fascination and criticism is fear. The fear of the unknown. The fear of NOT EVER understanding. The fear of being trapped as HERE and as ME. The fear of being only ever American.

There are those who will say I can never change who I am, and those who will say that I can change a million times in a million ways. Whatever the case, whether I stay the same or mold into a new woman every year, I have a long way to go before I can understand any of these "truths" that I implicitly want to know. For now all I have to have is the strength to overcome my fear with curiosity, fascination and anticipation. The biggest door I have ever tried to open is looming right in front of me, nearing every day. I expect more questions that understanding when I open the door but I can hope with a small piece of my heart for some truth in the things that I will see.