Ms. Hanna

First, I want to thank Ms. Hanna for coming to class to discuss a topic we have not covered a lot in class; homosexuality. As I have expressed in papers and projects I have am an avid supporter of people having the choice to love whomever they want; even if it's the same sex. Although we have come many miles forward, homosexuality is still frowned upon in many places in the world and not widely accepted. I truly hope that equality among all lovers will occur in my lifetime.

Ms. Hanna discussed homosexuality as an illness; unfortunately, this was not the first time that I heard this. I cannot express how hurtful it is to be in love with someone and people look at you like you have a deathly illness. It's unfair that same sex couples have had so many restrictions when coming to loving one another. In my experience, the same sex couples that I know are so genuinely happy. What fascinates me is that same sex couples endure frequent struggles, are not allowed to be themselves in many areas, and are often judged, but after all of that they still love each other; if anything, it is inspiring.

Ms. Hanna read a poem that said, "I die of love for you, but keep it secret". This signifies two struggles, in my opinion. First, I believe that it shows the difficulties that an individual faces with self identity. They think they might love someone of the same sex, but they do not know if that is normal; therefore, their uncertainty keeps their feelings secret. Secondly, they love the other but are not allowed to express their love because of the consequences they would face being a homosexual. No one should have to keep their love for someone secret and they should be able to freely and respectfully display that love just as any heterosexual couple would be able too.

I was intrigued when I learned that words such as "naked" and "make love" are banned in some Middle Eastern countries. I cannot imagine Americans walking around trying to filter these common words from our language and everyday lives. Sometimes I think that Americans can take their freedoms for granted and this just shows how lucky we are to have our freedom of speech.

Yard Work is Hard Work

Jodi Mack was an awesome presenter; she is young and extraordinarily creative! I admire her ability and patient to create animation in the way that she does. I do not see animation like hers often, but I think that is why I was so fascinated. Jodi incorporated love, desire, and environmental sustainability into her work.

My favorite part of her presentation was the enthusiasm she shared about environmental sustainability and recycling. She used junk mail, magazines, and other pictures to create her videos. I think it’s great for her to share her passion with her viewers about making a healthier environment. I believe that is something she desires. She dreams of a cleaner and less wasteful world and is able to express that through her work.

Jodi has an unbelievable talent. She said, like our class has often discussed, that media forms our expectations of love. Whether we read, watch or listen, our society forms our expectations and desires for the perfect love and the perfect relationship. As children, we read what love is meant to be like in story books with fairytales. As we grow older, we start watching TV and movies while listening to an array of music that talks or displays imagery of love. Yes, all of these methods show the happiness and sadness to love—but more heavily focus on this perfectly ideal life of love and happiness which just is not accurate. I think this course is making me bitter towards love, because I seem to think about things more negatively and with less care when it comes to the subject. I don’t think my opinion on desiring will ever change because I feel that I always want, want, want! Realistically, I think it’s easier to desire than it is to love and the film “Yard Work is Hard Work” exemplifies this. If they have this house and make it their own, and show that these desires sometimes overpowered their love. Their love struggled when all their assets were in a slump. I think her film showed that it is easier to desire then to love. 

Poet Mr. Garren Smalls

Poetry can sometimes sound like a foreign language, but whats fascinating is if you read deeply into poems they can hold so many meanings and so many truths. Poetry can pose many questions about love and about life. As Mr. Smalls was reading poetry to us and with the discussion following each poem I began to ponder a few questions that he posed; can love conquer hate? What does love really require? Are we going to be able to come together and grow as human beings? 

In both love and life, I think it will be difficult for all humans to come together as one for the better of society. For example, we have not come together as one to support each other in marriage opportunities. We also have not come together in creating a less judgmental society or accepting individual differences. There is so much in our world that is unjust and divided that its hard to be optimistic that we could even come together as whole. 

I don't think as a whole love can conquer hate. Ideally, it would have to be a perfect world for this to be true. It saddens me that there is so much hatred in our world. For example, the recent Boston Bombings that killed three and wound over a hundred people was a horrific act that shows no love for one another or our society. 

In class we focus on the love that two people share as well as the desire that coincides with living, but we don't look in depth to love in a broader aspect. Can we love our earth, our neighborhood, our school? To answer this, I believe we can love everything--I feel that people make a choice not to love the things in their life. Mr. Smalls titled his talk "Fires that dare to ignite" which he later expressed that this meant that to love requires courage and commitment to whatever it is that you love. Toning in to what Mr. Smalls had to say, made me understand the importance and the courage to commit to your own life as well. 

We have talked frequently on finding love in another because of what we lack in ourselves. If we our lucky enough to find that person to fill those voids we are more whole, more complete. I believe that we need to commit to our own life first, focus on desires and well being before we try and invest that time into another person. I do believe that we need to love ourselves before we love another. 

To keep our love strong, regardless of who it is with (i.e, friends, partner, family) we need to communicate. We need to do more than just talk, we need to listen. Mr. Smalls said that we often talk, but we don't really listen to what the other person is saying which ultimately leads to love lost. Is it possible to master the art of communicating? 

I know my thoughts are scattered, but its because so much was going through my mind when Mr. Smalls was reading the poetry. I had a hard time answering some of the questions I found myself asking in my head or being asked. I will definitely look more into Mr. Smalls work because it gets my gears in my head cranking. Overall, his presentation was really enjoyable. 

Why We Love, Why We Cheat

I was unable to attend Dr. Lucy Brown’s lecture on Tuesday evening, so I took the liberty of checking out the website she had sent out to us seeyourfeelings.com. As I was scanning through the website briefly, it became obvious that the two women at the forefront, Lucy Brown and Helen Fisher, are two incredibly smart and fascinating women. Both these women have invested their lives to the science behind love. Due to the inability of being in the lecture on Tuesday, I decided to listen to a TED talk by Helen Fisher titled, “Why We Love, Why We Cheat”.  From the beginning, I started to question what it means to be “in love.”

Fisher spoke on romantic love saying that we seek special meaning, we are sexually possessive, we emotionally crave the other person, we are motivated by the other person, and we become obsessed with the other person. Fisher conducted research where she looked at the brain of people who were in love and those who were in love, but heartbroken through a machine. She asked multiple questions, but the two most striking were “What percent of the day do you think about him or her?” and “Would you die for him or her?” To Fisher’s surprise, people answered the first question with “all night and all day” while the second question was answered with a “yes.” When the brain was actively in love it looked like it was on a drug, Fisher gave the example of cocaine.

Fisher explained that three brains are involved in the process of loving; lust, romantic, and deep attachment. Lust is responsible for the sexual drive—the “intolerable itch” we have to please. The romantic aspect focuses on the energy it takes to mate with one person while the attachment aspect is to be able to tolerate the other person.

Fisher discussed that more marriages today would be considered symmetrical marriages meaning that the two people are equal. This stems from the continuous advancement of women in the world in regards to economic power, health, and education. Fisher also elaborated on the strengths that women have over men such as verbal ability, imagination, the ability to collect data, and the ability to plan. This woman is awesome in giving other women a moral boost!

Fascinatingly, we can and are allowed to love multiple people at once. Fisher referred to this as the mental “committee meeting.” Honestly, I am not sure about how I feel about being able to be in love with multiple people to fill different needs because I certainly don’t want to share my boyfriend with anyone unless I give it the OKAY!

Lastly, Fisher discussed the use of anti-depressants and its relation to love. She said that anti-depressants are being used at a greater percentage than ever and it has effects on our ability to love. First, anti-depressants alter the dopamine levels which are associated with romantic love and the emotional connections. Secondly, anti-depressants used long-term kills the sex drives which kills orgasms therefore killing our ability of attachment to the other person.  As Fisher said, you mess with one part of the brain you ultimately mess with the other parts too! I believe that we need to love to be living, just like if we did not desire we would dead and as Fisher put it, “A world without love is a deadly place.” 

Desire for Freedom Through Slavery

Anthony Reed, a professor at Yale University, shared his passion and knowledge about slavery through the use of films. I have learned about slavery, racism, and the Civil Rights Movement all throughout my education   which is bitter sweet for me. I grew up with almost no diversity regarding race and ethnicity, but as I came to college I began to explore all different varieties.

Slavery in cinema has some signature icons such as cotton fields, plantations, faithful song, white powerful men with guns and whips, and hard working black men and women. I could never imagine experience this traumatic event first hand, but I do believe in the powerful debates and discussion that this unfortunate time of history taught us to have. Some of our nations greatest leader rose among the dark to defend the rights that blacks should receive of citizens of our country. Now I understand that slavery was long before the Civil Rights Movement, but they carried similar desires; the desire to be free.

Amistad, a film that Reed focused his discussion primarily on, shared the quote "Give us us free." This quote was so powerful because I could not imagine yelling for my freedoms when all these people wanted were to walk without chains and not get beaten. Reed explained that slavery was a labor relationship; yet, the individuals had no opportunity to have any other relationship. Slaves were unable to have intimate  social, or academic relationships.

In recent decades, I have come to know many stereotypes of African Americans. I strongly disagree with these that I have learn and I truly believe in equality. Equality is something that not only African Americans desire. Woman desire equal pay, work and educational opportunities, the poor desire the comforts of living with basic necessities, and many nations desire to be great like the American nation (although it's not always so great). We desire what we don't have and what we want more of, but many of us have our basic necessities. Slaves desired the freedom to live their own life that many were denied. Slaves wanted the opportunity to create individuality among themselves and their friends and families (if they had family).

It saddens me to know that there was so much hatred in our past, but our history is what we learn from. Ideally, if we know our history it won't repeat itself. Equality is so important among many people in the work place, in ethnicity, in sexual orientations, etc. and as hard as we try our nation will never be completely equal. As there are many negatives to this inequality, it creates our economic status and individual standing. Reed said that many of these films are not accurate entirely, but they don't have to be to exhibit the horrific period of our nations history. With optimism for our future, I hope generations to come will not face anything to the extreme that our past generations had to endure.

Before Sunset

Before Sunset, the sequal to Before Sunrise, is the continuation of a conversation through which two people have fallen in love. Celine and Jessie are two strangers who met on a train and decided to spend some time together in Vienna before they had to depart. In their brief time together they found love. There was great passion and unbelievable desire for each other. Upon departure from each other, they decided to not give each other contact information and meet again six months later at the exact place from which they were leaving. Before Sunrise leaves you hanging onto your seats and waiting in anticipation, will they actually meet again? 

Before Sunset is nine years later. At this point, Jesse is married and has a son named Henry. He is a New York Best-Selling author who writes about a fictional love story about a very special moment in time. We learn later, that his hopes to writing this book and doing a book tour might give him and Celine a chance to meet again. Jessie's story was an idealized version of the night he had spent with Celine. When they did meet again, nine years later they both had a very different version of love. Jessie was unhappy, but would remain unhappy for the sake of his son. He never felt real love, but he felt he was fulfilling the necessary obligations that one had to deal with in life. Jessie never let go of his love for Celine, in fact, he lived it daily through his book and through dreams. 

On the other hand, Celine's idea of loved seemed very different from Jessie's and very cold. She preferred to have her boyfriend be away so that she could could still have her and independence, but still miss him. Later in the movie, she cracks and blames Jessie for the reason she can't love. 

In one discussion, Jessie said that "if you liberate yourself from desire then you will find that you already have what you need." What caught my attention as they were talking about desire is that Jessie said "need" to desire is to "want." As they talked with each other, Jessie said that we are "designed to be dissatisfied," as if we are meant to always want more; nothing is ever good enough. Although Celine believed that it was a sign of depression to think that way, I find it very true. I believe that we always want more. We want more in clothing, at work, more money, more time, better love; we are designed to want more, more, more! Why can't we seem to get a grasp on this want? If Celine and Jessie met six months later, would they still desire each other the way that they did nine years later? Had they given each other their contact would they have lost the spark? I think that they would have. 

It's so hard to put a limit on wanting. Personally, I know I have what I need, but I want more. Sometimes I think it wouldn't be bad to be content, but does that mean I am settling for less than I might be worth or capable of? Before Sunset captured the missed time and lost love of two people perfectly. The movie also captured how longing and desiring for another is so plausible through our fantasies and that's what keeps us hopeful that maybe someday we will be able to grasp what it is that we think will fulfill our desires. 

The Dirty Deed

I am an open book when it comes to sex and secrets inside the bedroom, but I never thought about what it might take to write about it. Steve Almond, New York Best Seller, writes graphically about sex and the encounters two people may have in the rawest form. This technique is not only fascinatingly interesting, but naughty and passionate. Almond made it apparent that sex comes with some emotional connection, but it doesn't mean that its the only thing on a person's mind when the deed is being done. Almond emphasized that there are many ways of loving and that you don't need to love someone. Almond said that when you love someone you love the "ugly" parts of them or the wounded. This concept was shared when Almond read his short story "Skull" and the man fell in love with the sexual interaction that he shared with his girlfriend and her damaged eye. Love is about finding another person and paying attention to who they really are. Is this possible though? Do we really ever know who the other person is? Sometimes I would like to think I know my boyfriend really well, but then so much of my time I spend wondering what is going through his head and why he processes his thoughts the way we do. I love him, but if I can't answer these questions and recite everything about him have I not paid enough attention? 

I wish I thought to being money to class on Tuesday because I certainly would have purchased his book. I really appreciate his openness and his candidness to love and sex. Some people struggle talking openly about sex let alone writing about it. Almond catches the details that some may never write or even think about and the details that some wish to carry out in their own sexual endeavors. 

On a final thought, Almond said "the path to truth runs through shame" and I can not seem to get this statement out of my mind. Why? I know the expression the truth hurts is often used and maybe this has something to do with it. Is the truth shameful? Unfortunately, I think about my life and some decisions I made and sometimes I believe that it is... I don't regret decisions I have made in my life, but if I could do it again I certainly would have made different decisions in sex, love and fulfilling my desires. I think we need to be able to take what we knew and revisit it so that our future doesn't hold truths that have passed through shame. Sexually or not, our truth doesn't need to be shameful; does it?