Many people are pointing out the hypocrisy of the sentencing of Brock Turner for his rape of an unconscious woman juxtaposed against the 8 year prison sentence of a then 14 year old Davontae Sanford for crimes he was coerced into admitting to but never actually committed.  There are some who still don’t see the inherent racism and classism about these two cases.  Brock Turner received a lighter sentence because he was perceived as a high-functioning member  of society partly because he was an All-American swimmer.  Marcus Dixon, a black man who was also a star football athlete, faced the same fate, but was handed down a stiff sentence of 10  years.  It was later overturned, but why did one man get off so lightly when another didn’t?

Let’s put race off the table.  Let’s say there are no people of color and only people from different social and economic classes.  Those who are perceived to be at the top of these classes are seen as contributing members of society simply because they have wealth.  Because of their wealth, they are able to obtain the highest levels of education and procure professions that would bar those who were less advantageous.  They are able to access exclusive clubs and forge contacts with those in high positions.  Because they are educated, they are more able to navigate the legal system and have the wealth to extricate themselves out of situations that those who are poor do not.  When a man of this stature arrives before a judge, the judge unknowingly takes these biases into consideration.  A man who is poor may not cooperate, but a wealthier one will and in their minds, be able to contribute to society further upon their release.  So it is in their best judgement to give more lenient sentences to contributing members of society than those who do not.

Now, if you inject race into it, the water grows murkier.  If you are constantly bombarded with images that black people commit crimes and a black person is in court, this unconscious bias may already sway you.  If the laws are directed disproportionately toward all those who are poor, those who are poor and minorities will be more affected than those who are not.  We all carry biases, and that is okay.  What isn’t okay is the fact that we deny this.  The denial of these biases is what creates imbalances because there are no check and balances to what we feel.  It is not only because Turner is white and privileged that he is getting off and Davontae is poor and black.  It is because we unconsciously assign certain societal attributes to these classes of people and it is these biases that shape our views of them for better or for worse.  This will never change, but what can change is the acknowledgement of it.

I’ve been reading articles about what exactly constitutes an old soul and found that most articles on the internet are reiterating the same thing with nothing particularly new.  I like some points such as all souls are old souls, but some have just experienced more, that these souls seem to understand more than others, and how they relate to the world around them.  Firstly, I must believe in the existence of a soul because I think we are more than just our body.  That’s just my belief.  Once I believe that, I have to consider the possibility of old souls.  For me, an old soul is and always will be an outsider.

As an outsider, they see everything with the eyes of a child because they can detach themselves from their present surroundings.  By present surroundings, I mean cultural practices, socially-accepted ideas, and what is perceived as normal.  To an outsider, normal is abnormal because there is no rule to them that it has to be that way.  Because of that, they are able to question long-held beliefs without judgement.  They see that time is set, but the rules we construct to govern ourselves are pliable because they have always changed.  To hold on to arcane beliefs just because those who came before us held onto them without question is absurd.  If we cannot question our world, we control nothing.

At the essence of an old soul is someone who is very sure of themselves.  They have always known who they were.  They may have changed different notions about themselves as they age, but they have always known exactly who they are and how significant their interactions are with those around them and the wider world.   At the same time, they are withdrawn from their peers but also extremely aware of how they affect them.  They have an almost clinical fascination with others because they are interested in how people act, but not particularly affected by them because they see the larger picture.  This may make others perceive them as cold, but they can be both caring and disinterested at the same time.

They knew things as children that most children don’t understand.  As they age, they can still hold on their childhood innocence because it is easy for them to perceive all ages at once.  They learn from other’s mistakes so they don’t have to go through them themselves.  They are always listening and taking things in, but can also drown the entire world out and seem very withdrawn.  They may not always understand societal rules and may refuse to conform who they are to the norm.  Those who are more enlightened old souls will understand some conformity is needed if they want to actually change the environment they live in.  These ones see what is and what could be and know how change can come about.  They also know what they have to do to bring change.

Divorce can be extremely traumatizing to children, so sometimes, parents avoid it at the cost of their personal happiness.  We’d do anything for our kids, but sometimes, we fail to explain what divorce is and what will happen to our kids, and this is what causes issues that can stay with a kid into adulthood.  When nothing is explained, kids internalize the guilt and blame themselves for the disintegration of their family.  If they do not know who they will stay with or what will happen to the family, they can become fearful of the future and reassign the importance of their own identity.  If they don’t know what is happening, they don’t have the time to process who they are at the moment when everything is torn apart.

Divorce in itself is healthy because you are separating from something that is no longer working, but if there are children involved, parents need to explain the reasons for it and explicitly let them know it had nothing to do with them.  Kids needs boundaries and rules to feel safe, so it’s best to explain to them exactly what will happen to them and how their time will be divided.  I’m not even going to go into the bickering between parents because that is obviously detrimental to the growth of kids.  If a kid hears someone berating one of their parents, they feel as if they are berating them because they are a part of their parent.  It is best to explain their actions if applicable, but still reinforce the love the parent has for them.

I’ve always been a little awkward.  Okay, I lie.  A lot awkward and it used to hold me back from meeting people and new experiences.  What if they don’t like me?  What if I say the wrong thing?  Don’t you just hate awkward silences?  No, that’s just me hoping you won’t continue this conversation because I don’t know how to talk.  I’ve become a lot more confident in myself, but I find I am still awkward and have just learned to embrace it.  I’m never going to be perfectly poised, but I’ll always have a sarcastic comment poised to take you down like a wildebeest.  You know how they say courage is not the absence of fear but the decision to continue despite it?  Well, that’s what confidence is.  Confidence is not about the absence of awkwardness, but the ability to continue despite it.

Being awkward is awesome!  Sometimes people think you’re being a snotty bitch who refuses to talk to others when in actuality, you’re just awkward.  You give people strange answers that make them bat their eyes, but if you’re confident, you can make it a memorable moment that both of you can laugh about.  You call it awkward.  I call it quirky and I’m damn quirky!  I accept it and know it’s a part of me because that’s just me.  When you learn to embrace all your detracting values, you learn to love exactly who you are.  Now say it with me: I’m awkward and I’m not afraid to admit it!  Whew!  Now, let’s join that after-school Star Trek club.

We’re always looking for patterns. Sometimes, we make it out of nothing, and sometimes, we completely miss them all together.  Most of the time, we want to make sense of our lives and draw some meaning from it, so we try to make a pattern out of nothing.  We say it was meant to be or there is a reasoning behind a certain act.  This makes us feel like we can control our destinies and feel more secure in an unsecure world.  What we fail to do is make patterns of our ourselves.  We don’t see the pattern in history and continue to repeat mistakes and blame others for acts we did in the past.  We don’t recognize the patterns of those around us and how they affect everyone involved.

There is pattern to poverty.  It allows a segment of society to be scapegoated and loathed while an other is defined.  There is a pattern to political power.  It allows an elite few to gain power through fear-mongering and the persecution of some.  There is a pattern to religious power.  It allows groups to proclaim rights in the name of their gods without impunity.  There are simple patterns in how people avoid their problems, but we fail to recognize them over and over. Someone is crying out for help when they are drinking heavily and promiscuous if they were not in the past, but we only see their actions and not the root.

We fail to recognize these patterns because they give no immediate meaning to our lives.  They don’t uplift us in any way, so we do not care to look for these patterns even though it is through these patterns that we can predict outcomes and be able to read people better.  There are patterns every where.  If it is not an isolated case, and a problem arises with a pattern, a broad solution can be proposed to solve the issue.  Except we don’t solve these issues because we blame the individual instead of the pattern.  There will always be individuals who take advantage of the situation, but for the most part, the pattern is what should be blamed.  If we can realize the importance of this, we can stop dehumanizing our neighbors and help them instead.

We’ve all had something happen to us beyond our control that has been emotionally and/or physically devastating.  When these events unfold, we cope with them in different ways.  Some of us tuck it neatly away and never try to think about it again.  Some of us let the tragedy become us and the reason why we cannot move on.  Some of us choose denial, which is different than compartmentalization.  The latter involves moving an issue to the far-reaches of our mind while still acknowledging it, while denial is the act of denying the issue altogether.  This is the most harmful decision of the two, for it forces you to deny a part of who you are and what happened to you.  Compartmentalization can be healthy if it allows a person to move on in the near present.  Although we could choose to go down many of these paths, many of us pick either one of two options: we either choose to let it become our excuse, or we choose to grow directly because of it.

No decision is innately wrong, but the most healthy choice is to decide to see what happened as a learning experience.  We must realize we always have a choice and we can choose to remain stagnant or grow.  When we are stagnant, we are more prone to unhappiness, but if we see life as chances to grow and change, we suddenly see opportunities to be happier.  It doesn’t guarantee you happiness, but remaining stagnant will ensure depression.  Sometimes, we don’t realize the options we have and think we are limited because of that.  However, there are always options whether you realize it or not.  Every day, you make the decision to be where you are.  Once you see that you do have control of your life, you’ll recognize that your options are endless.

We can never change the past, but we can change how we feel about it and what we can do about it.  We have to see that these events have shaped us into who we are today and we wouldn’t have the vision we do if we didn’t endure these things.  We know things other people who did not experience them do.  We can choose to see these defining moments in our lives as excuses that hold us back or the reasons why we succeed today.  Tragedy is not what happens to us, but what we continue to hold on to.  This is the real tragedy in life, for we have never really escaped it mentally.  I’m not saying it’s as simple as saying you are over a situation, but it starts at the very simple act of just acknowledging the trauma and letting it either change us or changing because of it.

You hear a lot about restoring American and family values, but what are they exactly?  Many of the people who espouse this rhetoric usually want values and mores to turn back the clock to the fifties, which they see as a simpler time.   It was a simpler time in the context that the definitions of a man, woman, an enemy, a foreigner, and a family were neatly written out.  However, people were still agitating for equal rights for minorities and women, so this period is not as quaint as it has been glamorized by Hollywood.  So what exactly do the people who say this want?  They do not want that particular period, but they long for the time when you could easily define someone.

When you can easily define someone, you can see right away who doesn’t belong, and if someone were to question the status quo, they would be seen as not conforming.  That is what that time period was  all about: conforming to social norms.  When a large majority of society conforms, it makes it easier to flow through it because everyone understands their role and place.  When the lines are blurred, people are afraid of their own status and the status of others.  If you define yourself as a man and such a category as a transgender man exists, does this devalue who you are?  If you and your neighbors have always been one color and now the color of those around you start to change, who becomes the foreigner if you can’t tell each other apart?

Some people would say that these modern times have created more strife because of these new freedoms and views, and to this I would agree.  When there are more options, there will be more reasons to disagree and create factions in the people.  However, the opposite of this would be to return to the catchall term of ‘family values,’ where our identities are strictly defined, and when they are, people will be silently unhappy.  At least with more options, people can voice their opposition.  I think people are threatened by the changing definitions because they have to question who they are and the power they are losing by conceding the definitions to those they do not agree with.  As such, they point to the strife in modern society and claim it is because of modern values that this has happened, not acknowledging the strife that existed in the past.

I would rather live in a world where women are given the same opportunities as men, minorities are afforded the same rights as the majority, and the LGBT community is able to marry as with those who are straight than a world with stagnant definitions of who I am and who we are as a people.  When we redefine the rules of society, we do so to offer equality, but some see this as a redistribution of power, which they resent.  We can go back and live by these old rules, but in doing so, we undo our progress for the sake of conformity.  Values and Mores are not what sex we want to be with, how much we get paid, or equal access to education, but they are how we judge ourselves.  These things are rights, but they are not values.  I hope we will  judge ourselves as open and compassionate and our children will judge us as such when the time comes.

We talk about confidence all the time, but it’s not as easy as you think.  You either have confidence or you don’t.  For those who don’t have it, it’s really hard to understand.  Confidence can be broken down into self-esteem and self-respect.  First off, what is self-esteem?  How is it different from self-respect?  Is there a difference?  Yes.  Some people respect themselves highly and know they would never let someone else disparage them, but if they have low self-esteem, they may still believe it.  The two can exist independent of each other, however, those who have high self-esteem usually respect themselves as well, but those who have low self-esteem can still respect their selves outside of who they are. Whereas self-respect plays to how a person is treated by others, self-esteem plays to how a person treats themselves based on how they feel about themselves.

Self-esteem is where true confidence lies.  People who have high self-respect may portray themselves as confident, but it is not complete unless they also have self-esteem.  So, how does one go about building their own self-esteem?  It’s not as easy as you think.  There is the old adage of believing in who you are but how do you get there if you don’t have the tools?  I find many people simply don’t believe in themselves.  They will not let someone walk all over them, but they walk all over themselves.  They believe they are not worthy and accept a defeatist attitude because they think they will fail anyways so they do not even attempt to try.  This is because they fear failure.  They fear looking like a fool.  They fear being laughed at because they are not good enough.

These are all internal fears.  They have no bearing on their actual strengths in the real world.  To believe in themselves, they must forgive themselves for embarrassing memories they still hold on to.  Out of all the memories you hold, why do you still vividly remember this moment?  Because you do, you can never let go of the guilt and shame attached to it.  It does you no good to hold on to it.  Instead, attach a good thought to it.  I used to remember certain events all the time such as why did I say that horrible thing to her that I shouldn’t have?  Then I attached the thought of ‘but that doesn’t make me a bad friend.  It was the truth, but I shouldn’t have said it and I have learned from it.’  When I thought back to this memory, I would think of the good note as well and soon enough, the memory faded from my mind because the shame and guilt disappeared with it   The memory itself does not change, but how you feel about it has.  We cannot control the past, but we can control how we feel about it.  When we can move past the shame and guilt, we are free to learn from the experience.

Once you have done this with past memories, you can build on the foundation of who you are.  You can do this by living faithfully to your own words.  How this works is that you simply try not to contradict yourself.  If you ever call someone selfish for not sharing, you will make sure that you share.  What this does is two-fold, for you will watch what you say about others and watch your own actions so you are not a hypocrite.  Some will say you can simply set really low standards and fulfill this, but even those people will contradict themselves eventually.  If you adhere strictly to your beliefs, you will gain self-confidence and pride in who you are.  You are conscience of others and accountable to your own words.  This system will set you up for success because if you feel sure of yourself because of your actions, others will perceive the same of you.

This is how confidence is built.  Oftentimes, you can tell a child ‘you’re so smart’ and think this instills confidence in them, but it does not.  They already know they are smart so you are not building their confidence.  They simply see this as a fact.  If you build on their negative experiences, you will get them to FEEL better about themselves.  If they ask a classmate out and are rejected, they may feel horrible about it and never ask anyone out again.  However, if you ask them to see the positive, they will feel good about the action.  If you tell them ‘you got an answer.  It’s not the answer you wanted to hear, but now you know.  Some people go their entire lives without ever knowing, but you had the courage to ask and you know.  Aren’t you proud of that?’  This gets them to see their mistakes in a positive light and they do not attach negative connotations to the memory then.  Confidence is not how we think about ourselves, but how we feel about ourselves.