What hipsters don't understand about "dumpster diving"..

For today, I am going to ignore the fact that in under 40 hours I will begin traveling back to the U.S. and people will be waking up to prepare to vote in an election where Romney could end up being the next President of the USA.

The first time I heard the term "dumpster diving", I had a negative visceral reaction to it. Immediately, I hated the concept and found it difficult not to judge those who supported it due to their clear ignorance of how their privilege alone allows this to be an activity to be proud of and hold on a pedestal. After holding an event for this at the co-op that I worked in as a staff last year, I feel the same way, if not stronger.

Holding "dumpster diving" in high esteem is like laughing at poverty in the face of millions who suffer directly from the inability to find food on a regular basis because they cannot find work or  job that can adequately sustain the needs of oneself or one's family. Young 20 something adults, or children, go "dumpster diving".  It is a great way to bypass having a high paying job as you travel the world as a young person.  This allows that young person to stretch the money that they receive from their parents, or if they are not that lucky, from the bank account they acquired while in college or working in a start-up tech company for 6 months, for as long as possible in a way that will seem trendy and foreign to those in their friend circle.

Would you say the same for a father of two that has to go through the garbage in NYC to find a meal for his family?  Do you think he would prefer to tell his children that after work he first needs to go "dumpster diving" to find dinner, or he needs to bring them with him so that they can search as many places as possible just to find a meal that will sustain them all?

"Dumpster diving" trivializes the strain that real people, of all races and ethnicities face when they are living in poverty. They do not have classes that teach them which food is safe to eat from which kind of garbage disposal, how long a food can be open to air before it is susceptible to life-threatening bacteria, or how to create a well balanced diet based off of what you find. But people who want to make a hobby of "dumpster diving" do.  

This activity also further stigmatizes those individuals that rely on shifting through garbage for SOMETHING to eat, SOMETHING to piece together to find a semblance of what the average person would call a meal.  "They" are the ones milking everything they can get from welfare and are still behaving like animals on the street, but when young rich people do it it is environmentally friendly and a call for a change in every day behavior.

The last thing I want to say about "dumpster diving" is that it is a choice.  Something that those young people choose to do from their own volition. No external forces are actually forcing them to live this way.  People who live in poverty do not have the luxury of this choice, and it is not a transient phase that they pursue in order to broaden their minds.  They are trying to survive, for that moment, for one more day, and perhaps for a future in which they don't have to struggle.

No one will spit or yell demeaning slogans about poverty to a young person who is clearly "dumpster diving", they have the privilege of economic tourism and the privilege to see this activity as pleasure rather than survival with a deep social stigma.

Oh, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have a power over my soul. A power enhanced by coffee and dark chocolate. Could this be a motivating factor to pack? I hope.

On Tuesday, I am supposed to depart to the U.S. via Milan, Italy.  From which, I will go to my hometown, which is the region hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy.  From the pictures, its hard to really fathom the damage that has been done.  Hopefully, I will get to help out a bit, celebrate my birthday, and then I will make my 3rd cross-country road trip to SF. Woohoo.

Being that I have been bedridden with sickness the past three days, I have nothing to report.  Although, I rather like writing about nebulous topics that induce some sort of inner critic in me.

A wavering line

Part of me has always been an old-fashioned intellectual. Pop culture only infiltrated me as much as a high regard for grunge and alternative rock, with which I could indulge my feelings of angst against an opaque societal vision. Classic literature has always been my favorite read, and I have little appreciation for authors that print a book, or more, a year. This ability to churn out books seems so shallow.  Perhaps I am just fantasizing about an author belaboring over word choice and subtleties in the plot.  But I think it is deeper than that.  Authors that have taken a lifetime to author great works, only to be recognized after their death, had some hesitation to unveil their work to outside eyes.  Maybe they acknowledged the complexity of life and the seeming insipid simplicity of people, and were afraid that their work couldn't capture all they knew about the world and how they related to it. They didn't argue for a one-dimensional perception of the world, and perhaps they felt that their work did just that, and so it went unpublished. I'm pointing this out, because I think now is the first time I ever really understood this.

College blew a lot of my hard-lined thought processes out of the window, but it made me realize that going to far in either direction can be dangerous.  Encouraging polar beliefs, discourages analytical thought. Instead of creating banners to incite aggression or alienation, we should be creating banners that encourage research and intellectual honesty. Then whatever you come to, is your own personal belief.  It doesn't fit in a box, it shouldn't.  Coming to a conclusion about something is finite. People make it finite, but making a conclusion finite cuts us off to what the other people have learned, discovered, and feel.  That is why it is so important to be open. Be open, but be rational about it. Question change, question being stagnant. 

Saying Goodbye

Saying goodbye is always the hardest part in leaving somewhere. I know that it isn't a forever goodbye, but I never know when the ebb of my spirit will bring me back, or force me to find a way back.

There is always something so beautiful and sad about an end.  Perhaps, because an end feels like a beginning.  You can see how far you have come since that path began, and the tangible progress amazes you and inspires you to do something more.

The free spirit is calling...

Sexual Violence

Over the years, I never really knew how to describe the personal experience of sexual violence.  Yeah, the political debate rages, and new policies have been put in place over the years.  But where does the gradient of sexual violence begin?  Why do large displays of sexual violence grab our attention, when we aren't discussing the ways that society and the ways that we interact with each other perpetuate instances of sexual violence?

How do you outline the conversation that you would have about sexual violence?

• Perhaps you could first acknowledge that humans are sexual beings: asexual, bi-sexual, gay, lesbian, straight, etc..
• Then that there are various forms of gender identities, which are not predictable based on sexual preference
• What are societal conceptions of sex? Of violence?
• What are your personal boundaries for conceptions of sex and violence?  When you consider them together?
• Do words and gestures have the ability to convey a sense of intrusion into yours/ someone else's sexual lifestyle?

Hmm, I believe that only certain acts of sexual violence should have legal ramifications, I think its important to define what your personal boundaries are so that you can communicate them to others, while being aware that this may be different for other people.

Personally, what is most harmful about sexual violence is the ability it has to depersonalize my moment-to-moment life and leave me powerless to confront the other person.  It makes me feel like an object, devoid of an outlook with which to protest what is happening.

DST

Happy Monday!

As I try to get what I can from the last remains of my computer, I am also trying to squeeze what I can from my last week in Berlin.  This weekend a few friends and I organized a Halloween party.  Some things just fall together so well.  I have always been more of a last minute kind of person, and I find it to be so amazing to how wonderful something can be if you dedicate a few solid hours into it rather than a few here and there spread out over a few days.  Needless to say, I perform well under pressure and it is an amazing motivator.

This morning was the first frost of the season and I was lucky enough to be awake during the end of daylight savings.  Being that the date is different in Germany than in the U.S., it seems that I have mixed up some times for meetings.  The entire EU shifts at the same time, but the North American continent does not, which is something that I never knew.

Phoenixing

It is time to coin a new emotional term, I would like to call it "phoenixing".  This term is different, albeit similar to the concept of resilience.

Resilience infers that one is able to survive through challenging times, and eventually become successful or to not let those situations serve as a permanent impediment. However, phoenixing is different.  It happens after a period of time when you feel stripped of what you had held most valuable, and of aspects of your life that you didn't realize had such a large impact on your stability. It comes when you feel broken.  You know you are burning and standing amidst the ashes of yourself and your life. Suddenly, you are overcome with this powerful sense of individualistic angst.  The pain turns into power and you start to become something similar, but different to what you once were.

An emotionally intense experience, but the most life-changing, that I have had the pleasure of experiencing a few times in my short life.