Princesses and Comic Book Heroes
Children are a philosopher’s dream.
A lot of the time, I think that kids are not a part of my future. Not that I don’t think I would enjoy being a mom, and whatnot, but when you are a mom, that’s usually what you are expected to be. In a very singular way. For the first fifteen years of their lives, your life is not yours and you live to serve your kids. Then after that you can start branching off, doing other things, but they are still first. Maybe I’m just too selfish, but I’ve always expected that I wanted those years to myself, spending them doing whatever I wanted, all in the name of the pursuit of knowledge.
But I do this thing once a week called Big Brothers Big Sisters. It’s an easy volunteer job, I go for an hour and just hang out with this girl, trying to be a good role model and someone consistent in her life and whatnot. But today she said some of the deepest things I have ever heard. I think listening to a child’s imagination and how she has interpreted the influences in her life (mostly movies and such) really show the message of the culture clearly.
For instance, in her make believe world, she told me that she was a princess (in Britain, I later found out) who was forbidden by her mother to go out and fight with swords. But apparently there was some sort of war going on, with a vague unspecified enemy, and she wanted to join it. She got this guy to free her, and then she joined the ten other men who were fighting on her side. When they were done, she said, there was only six of them left. But they had won, because of her.
Then she had to go back to her “tower” (which was really part of the playground structure) and wait for the prince, because that’s what princesses do. But she made a suit of iron (strangely gold and red, just like the recent Iron Man movie she’s been talking about all the time) and it gave her the strength to sneak around and go about her mission to find the lost parts of her soul, which were feline in nature.
I guess imagination just fascinates me. I don’t really have a very good imagination myself. But the things she was saying were really intriguing! Through this story, I think she told me how she feels imprisoned and alienated for being different. I gather that from knowing her, since that is what I’ve seen her life to be. How she keeps on living seems to be through make-believe stories where she can turn into a princess or a cat or a comic-book super-hero like Iron Man.
Her alienation by her peers has caused her sorrow. Sorrow is difficult to understand. It happens to everyone, and yet it never loses its originality. When sorrow strikes, it always feels like you’re the only one who has ever felt that way, and that it will never end. How do people cope? Especially if its not just a one time event but something that affects your life forever? Every day afterward is lived in light of the new carving that has been made on your heart.
Do we make up stories and play make-believe? I think that’s how it usually happens. We create an image of ourself that we present to society and when it is found acceptable we are affirmed enough to live on the outskirts of happiness, never fully having, but always chasing after the light of the sunset.
But is this the most True way of dealing with sorrow? Playing make-believe? It seems false… but what would the alternative be?
Journalism
If someone told you that writing is the same no matter what field you are in… they lied. I’ve always loved to read, and the flip side of that is writing, so because of being well-versed in language, I would often get good grades on papers and things for school. However, in the last couple of years I would just write something and take it for granted that it was “good.” Then I ran into some criticisms that I took extremely personally… it meant that I really couldn’t write! What was this!?! I had been masquerading all these years?… but after my initial reaction of dismay, I decided to change that and allow the criticisms to make my writing better.
In the midst of this growing process, I have gotten the opportunity to write an article once a week for my local newspaper. Here is a link to the first article:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/argus/index.ssf?/base/news/
1209752457288840.xml&coll=6
But even though I am now “published” for the first time ever, I’m not as proud of that fact as I would have been a few years ago. I know, that while my article was okay, it wasn’t great. But, it’s a learning experience, and I hope to improve in further weeks. I’ve already written one for next week’s column, and that one feels much more comfortable to me. But writing for a newspaper is much different than writing for a school paper, or even a blog. Every medium is different, I’m finding.
