THE BEGINNING OF VIOLENCE.

I’d like to travel back in time, to the beginning of violence and see where it all started to understand why people could possibly determine killing is better than negotiating or trying. 

There are only 6,824,300,000 people in the world and so I can't fathom why people would want to eliminate another person when there’s really not so many people in the first place. And the average life expectancy of a human in the world is only 68.9, so it's hard to imagine why people can’t spend that short of an amount of time coexisting with others. I also don’t really understand why resources are such a point of contempt, because if everything was distributed correctly, there would be more than enough resources for everyone. 

And sometimes when I watch the news, I close my eyes and imagine that two people, like Sheikh Raed Salah and Benjamin Natanyahu are sitting at a negotiating table and agreeing to everything. I also try to imagine corrupt leaders of the past and present being banned to an Island together like King Leopold, and Queen Isabella, and Hitler, and Mobutu Sesse Seko so they can't harm anyone except themselves.

And humans are always trying to convince other humans that our nature is bad deep down and that’s why there are so many wars and fights, but usually wars and fights are in the news because they are exceptions, and on any given day I think there are a lot more people smiling at each other, doing favors for each other, and helping each other rather than doing mean things to each other.  But the news doesn’t cover smiles at strangers, or a man pushing a child out of danger from a car moving too fast, or an older man showing three little boys how to feed pigeons.

Maybe one day, we can all just live, and that would be possible in a world where everything is possible. 

American Beauty, by Alan Ball.

Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in. 

SOUL BEAUTIFUL.

It would be amazing to live in a world where people only complimented souls and not on outward appearance, so that if you went to work in the morning and someone smiled at you and asked how you were you could say, “Wow, you’re soul is so beautiful today” or you could say, “Tell me how you get your temperament in such good shape.”

And it especially makes sense, because people can’t completely alter the way that they look unless they have big money to spend on plastic surgery, so there’s no point in really admiring or criticizing the way people look because most of the time we can’t even control it, but we can control our souls.

I also think it would help decrease the number of eating disorders in our world, because up to 24 million Americans and 70 million individuals worldwide suffer from them and maybe if people were more focused on the inside rather than the outside people would stop starving themselves or making themselves throw up or hating themselves for the way they look.

And then if someone acted really meanly toward you one day, you could turn to them and say, "My goodness you've gained some negative energy!" And they could understand that they should probably slim down.

And also, souls are really amazing things. 

POLAROID FINGERTIPS.

It would be really beautiful if we could take snapshots in our minds and then we could use our fingerprints to transmit the photos onto a computer to transfer files and print out moments so that we never forget them.

Last night I unexpectedly went to a wedding and it was one of the most beautiful memories to date in my life. It would be really nice to have a picture of the night, since photographs tend to induce nostalgia.

But it’s not like I would have wanted a camera there, because sometimes cameras take away from moments, so if I could just use my fingerprint to produce a snapshot it would be really nice to hold that moment forever.

It would also be really useful for story telling, because sometimes people are visual learners, like me, and they need pictures to fully understand things. 

DELETE.

Sometimes I think there should be delete buttons for the most painful moments of our lives. People always say, “What hurts us can only make us stronger,” but I think sometimes that’s just something people say to make other people feel better, because sometimes what hurts us really hurts and then makes us weaker.

But there are different amounts of pain that different people can handle, and it’s not like everyone should use their delete button. And of course using the delete button could have consequences too, because you never know what pain will come, and if you use your button at the age of 10 for a bee sting, you might regret it the first time someone calls you ugly, or the next time someone close to you dies. So that’s something to take into account.

Also, maybe the best use for the delete button could be when you make someone else feel pain, because sometimes that’s the hardest and worst thing ever. The most important thing is that everyone should have access to a delete button. It shouldn’t be like the digital divide, where some people can use computers others can’t. Equality in delete buttons for all.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.

RUNNING SHOES.

My running shoes are my greatest material possession...

They can take me anywhere.

GIANT ERASERS.

I have thought about giant erasers, to take away boarders.

Boarders just began as lines drawn on maps, so maybe if there were GIGANTIC erasers we could just start taking away borders one by one and be free to wonder in the universe without any passport or ID card.

And also if there were gigantic erasers maybe people would see that we’re really not so different after all, and we also have a lot to learn from each other.

And maybe if there were gigantic erasers people would find less reasons to hate each other, because I still don’t really understand why so much hatred and violence emerges from lines drawn, but if they could be drawn that easily, they can be erased easily too. 

THIS IS WHAT FRIENDSHIP 

LOOKS LIKE:

APPRECIATION TEA.

How amazing would it be  if appreciation could be given in tea bags?

Like someone could make you feel really good, and then in response you could create a tea flavor that he or she would drink and understand how great you felt as a result of their action.

There could be relief tea for people who do favors without asking for anything in return, and when they drink the flavor their body could be overcome with the calm and relief felt by their favor.

And there could be really beautiful tea for people who make other people feel really beautiful so that when they drink the tea they could feel the same beauty that they gave.

And there could also be a tea that lets you know that someone is always there for you, because that’s the best thing to know and the thing I most appreciate about the people I love in the world.

The thing about appreciation is that sometimes I can’t express it enough even though I’m always appreciative, so if there was a way to give people the feeling that I feel directly it would be the best. And tea is easy to package. And, it’s natural, and appreciation is too.

SPONTANEOUS DANCING.

I WISH PEOPLE DANCED SPONTANEOUSLY. 
ALL THE TIME.
EVERYWHERE.

I imagine myself dancing everywhere. I listen to music stuck in my head and I dream of swingin’ to beats while standing on a bus or walking down the harbor or sometimes alone in my house or as I make my way through a park. And then I imagine every one around me dancing too. I laugh out loud to myself considering the 70 something man next to me twisting his hips, but then I think at 70 I will want to twist my hips, so it’s not so unrealistic because he probably wants to twist his hips too. And, I imagine the most serious woman I can day dream of in my head dancing to hip hop as she makes her way through a crowded street and I laugh out loud again, because maybe that’s all serious people want anyway.


(Thanks to Rachel Levin for this photograph).

BEAUTY EXISTS HERE.

SNOW GLOBES.

When I was little I used to collect Disney snow globes. You know, those circular glass balls filled with little people. And little trees.  Or little flowers. Or little boats. Or little houses.  And when you turn them upside down or shake them sparkles fly through water like miraculous snowflakes. And also at the bottom there’s a metal peg that you wind and music starts playing.

I think I loved them so much, because I liked the idea that my existence could be in a snow globe. And that God or a giant or a wizard could be holding my life's snow globe and looking in. It made me feel really tiny when I thought about it, and I liked it, because then it made my problems seem tiny, so that every time I was sad about something I could just hold the globe and listen to the music and my problems would shrink.

And, I also liked them, because they usually capture exciting scenes frozen in time. And then I thought that maybe our time moved really slowly, and that 1 second could be God or a giant or a wizard's 1000 years.

And, I also liked them, because every time it snowed I imaged that it was probably because God or a giant or a wizard turned the globe over to make their own problems seem little too and so I was happy solving a problem for someone.

And, I liked Disney.

THIS IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN I KNOW.

CLOWN BALLOON HELMET

Sometimes I think about armies and I imagine them in a different way:


I see men and women wearing clown balloon helmets, so that people who normally frown can laugh a little. And instead of bombs, I think about planes that drop food packages to places where there are hungry people. And instead of gun shots, I think about medicine shots for all the sick people in the world who can’t afford certain vaccinations. And to me, that's serving and protecting.

And also, I think about the US military budget of $108.5 that goes toward “continuing the fight” and in my mind I think about fighting for affordable education, or providing more affordable housing, or creating more factories and then more jobs for Americans who might otherwise do other things that could be harmful to themselves and/ or society http://www.defense.gov/news/FY10%20Budget%20Request.pdf

And, I also think about strong armies and what it means to show strength. And I imagine huge muscley men and women lifting bags for weak people who can’t carry their groceries home, or picking up trash on streets, or  pushing little people on swings. 

And I know that sometimes people in the army really do these things. And it's amazing. And sometimes they even do more, which is really, really amazing. But maybe if armies existed for love instead of war there would be less hate. And, that's all I ever imagine in a world where everything is possible. 


(photo from this story: http://www.daylife.com/photo/03jt88lfN20rb)
Blog inspired by David Vine, Sarah Block, Kara Newhouse and the rest of the people involved in my Spring '09 class Understanding War, Building Peace

THE MEANING OF LIFE.

I found the meaning of life watching a five-year-old boy jump into a pond.

If we want to live life, I guess we should just jump in.

MY MENTAL IMAGE OF GOD.

My mental image of God looks like him:

(By the way, I saw this man speak at a conference called "Security Without Empire." His name is John Lindsay-Poland and he is really incredible).

MAPS TO GET LOST.

There should be maps for people who want to get lost, where nothing and everything is right at the same time. Sometimes people are too scared to get lost, so maybe the map would help them pretend like they were going the right way.

Picture via http://everythingsright.com/

POTENTIAL RULERS.

It’s one thing for someone to tell you, “You can do anything if you put your mind to it.” and it’s another to believe it.  It would be helpful if there were rulers to measure potential, that way we could convince ourselves of that we really can do magical things.

Then at potential 4.2500028, the kid whose teacher tells him he will never amount to anything can show him or her the ruler and say, “See, but my potential says I really will amount to something.”

I think potential rulers could really change the universe, because there are too many people out there who are limited by their own estimated measurements, and most people are only convinced by things that can be measured in exact amounts like test scores and miles and money.

Also, I wish that the ruler would only give positive measurements for positive things, because badness isn’t really potential, it’s more destruction, which usually makes things move backward. 


photo via: http://www.earlbright.com/studies.asp

The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.

In the book it said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion."
I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. It looked like this:

I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them.
But they answered: "Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?"

My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing.


The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

SHOOTING STAR SADDLES.

There should be special saddles to ride on shooting stars, just like saddles for horses or for camels, except not for animals. Because all shooting stars are is meteors, which are a chunk of extraterrestrial rock pulled into the Earth's atmosphere by gravity. So it shouldn’t be so hard to create shooting star saddles.

The only thing is that people will probably need to take really good parachutes with them, because the reason why the meteors glow is because they are falling and burning.
photo via: http://treasures.angeldolfyn.com/images/ShootingStar.jpg

BEAUTY.

      I wish we could invent and reinvent beauty. 

       Over and over again.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon

"A lie is when you say something happened which didn't happen. But there is only ever one thing which happened at a particular time and a particular place. And there are an infinite number of things which didn't happen at that time and that place. And if I think about something which didn't happen I start thinking about all the other things which didn't happen. 

For example, this morning for breakfast I had Ready Brek and some hot raspberry milkshake. But if I say that I actually had Shreddies and a mug of tea I start thinking about Coco-Pops and lemonade and Porridge and Dr Pepper and how I wasn't eating my breakfast in Egypt and there wasn't a rhinoceros in the room and Father wasn't wearing a diving suit and so on and even writing this makes me feel shaky and scared, like I do when I'm standing on the top of a very tall building and there are thousands of houses and cars and people below me and my head is so full of all these things that I'm afraid that I'm going to forget to stand up straight and hang onto the rail and I'm going to fall over and be killed. 

This is another reason why I don't like proper novels, because they are lies about things which didn't happen and they make me feel shaky and scared. 

And this is why everything I have written here is true." 

DREAM CATCHER.

MAGNETIC HEARTS.

What about if we were all born with magnets in our hearts and when we found our soul mates the magnets would stick together perfectly and if we were with someone who we wouldn’t work out with the magnet would repel the person, so that even when you tried to be with them the magnet would repel them. Then we’d never be too heart broken.

And that would work with the theory that opposites attract, because that’s the way magnets work. A magnet has two ends that are called poles. One pole is north and the other one is south. To attract magnets to each other, you have to place opposite ends of two magnets near each other. And when you place two like ends of two magnets near each other causes the opposite to occur -- the two magnets repel each other. So that's nice. (photo from http://www.lovepicturesoflove.net/)

A MOSQUITO NET.

Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected mosquitoes.

 1,000,000 people die annually, most under the age of 5, more than twice the annual toll of a generation ago.

3,000 children in Africa die daily, one every 30 seconds. 

It affects more people than ever before. It is endemic to 106 nations threatening half of the world's population.

Even though most of the time I feel completely helpless in changing this, sometimes I dream about a mosquito net big enough to go through Central and South America, sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Oceania that would eliminate malaria forever. 

Morning Elegance, by Oren Lavie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HXUhShhmY

(KNOWLEDGE) BUBBLE CONTAINERS

It  would be awesome if we could put our knowledge in little bubble containers and then every time we wanted to remember something or maybe teach somebody else something we could blow bubbles and inside the bubbles there would be little pictures that would be useful to understand a subject. 


Then sometimes if people wondered things like if everyone in Africa lived in huts or dressed in cloth I could blow a few bubbles show them a nightclub in Accra, Ghana and they would understand that life there is like life in many places across the world, but also unique, because in that nightclub the dancing would be better.

It would also be good if I was studying for a test, because I could sit outside and watch the bubbles pass and simultaneously remember words like anachronism which according to dictionary.com means

A: The representation of someone as existing or something as happening in other than chronological, proper, or historical order.

B: One that is out of its proper or chronological order, especially a person or practice that belongs to an earlier time.

So maybe there would be a picture of the word and then there would be a man wearing a wig like George Washington sitting on a rollercoaster at six flags. That bubble container could be labeled: “Vocabulary”.