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October Blog

This is the post excerpt.

A-study-on-how-television

The Creature in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein sparks an interest in the long-lived debate of whether violence is an innate or learned trait, nature versus nurture, if you will. Is the creature created to have a violent mindset from the start, or were they aggressive actions “lashing out” as a result of an unaccepting society’s rejection? Many psychologists debate whether goodness and evil are learned or naturally occurring, this age-old debate has been a hot topic among psychologists and philosophers for centuries.

Two of the most renowned early philosophers who studied morality were Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Hobbes believed that humans were fundamentally evil and selfish beings. This contributed to his immense support of an absolute monarchy, “a system of government in which absolute power is invested in the monarch; a state governed in this way,” because if people were naturally evil, then they had no business participating in a democracy. Conversely, John Locke was quite the opposite of Hobbes. Locke believed that people were naturally reasonable, and therefore capable of managing a democracy; he championed democracy and liberality. They are differing beliefs are widely disputed and currently practiced in many countries worldwide.

The 21^st century has seen exponential growth in violent crime, and only seems to be increasing in many parts of the United States; it is as if violence is a normal part of life. American popular culture glorifies violence. Modern day children are hardly sheltered and grow up looking up to aggressive villains and characters, it’s quite astounding. Psychology refers to people imitating violence after visual exposure as the violence-viewing effect. An article in the New York Times discusses how “[v]iolent crimes increased nationally [in 2017] by 4.1 percent and homicides rose by 8.6 percent, one year after violence increased by 3.9 percent and homicides jumped by 10.8 percent.” As frequency of crimes increase, more people cannot help but tune in to try and understand why such a change. Such obvious growth would not have occurred if humans were naturally evil because there would not be such an obvious jump if humans were biologically predisposed to violent behavior.

This evidence would bolster the argument that Frankenstein, assuming he had a human-like psychological mindset, was not predisposed to violence, but rather it was learned. Throughout the novel he experiences immense rejection. He is a monster, and knows of nothing else; that is his identity. Ultimately, violence is a learned trait, proven by current statistics and psychological studies of the violence-viewing effect. Unfortunately, The Creature is a disturbing combination of societal rejection and hatred: a glimpse inside of how violence begins and grows.

Sources:

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/absolute_monarchyhttps:// http://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/us/violent-crime-murder-chicago-increase-.html Picture: http://pattayatoday.net/features/youth-focus/a-study-on-how-television-media-can-affect-children’s-behaviour-and-if-it-has-any-connection-to-their-attitudes-and-beliefs-when-they-move-into-adulthood/

Love Lives Here

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This book has taught me so much. It’s hard to put into words how meaningful this has become to me in the past couple months. There are a few things I hold near and dear to me: a poem, a few memories I can recall as if they just happened, and now this book. Love Does shows a side of the world that needs to be seen more, heard more, talked about more.

Love is ubiquitous. It’s where you least expect it. Along with that, love will wait for you, but love is also waiting for you to reach out, “accept the invitation to live,” and really carpe that diem. Love means a million and one things, and most of all, it’s what you make it.

I’m a bit of what you’d a high-strung person, I tend to live a safe distance from the edge, minimize risk, you know? As I move into the next chapter of my life with new people in a new place, I want to make a point to let love lead my decisions even if that means losing some control. Be vulnerable, and let love liberate me.

Shake the dust, because love lives here.

Talk is Cheap (#3)

Going through the book, there is one glaring theme, that love is doing. It’s right there in the name of the book for goodness sake! When I saw the book, I wasn’t quite sure what the title meant, and I’ve been on a bit of a search throughout my reading to find more meaning. In my first blog, I concluded that love meant doing, but I am finding that it is more complex than that. Love is how you speak and talk to others, but you know, talk is cheap. Real love, care, and compassion are found in actions. You can’t just “talk the talk,” you’ve also got to “walk the walk.” Being able to live like this, a life where love backs your actions, points to an authentic lifestyle. “Live authentically,” if you will (what a cliché saying:).

This isn’t an easy task. I think Bob lives just as authentically as a person can. It requires so many moving parts. Number one, vulnerability, to live this type of life, you really have to put yourself out there. It seems that by letting parts of yourself go you are able to grab onto what is most important. Number two, empathy and selflessness, living authentically means that you’re stepping aside from our more individualistic culture and into a more collectivist, empathetic culture. It’s not every “man for themselves,” it’s “every man for their neighbor.” I think that empathy and selfness go hand in hand. In order to be empathetic, you can’t really be selfish, and in order to be selfless, you must understand that other people have struggles too and therefore you’re not alone. And lastly, number three, kindness. A little kindness goes a long way. It’s crazy to reflect on, but what if everyone went out of their way, just once a day, to do something nice or help someone out. That’d make the stress of everyday life a little more bearable if you knew there was someone out there actively supporting you. These things aren’t hard to do, but too often get put on the backburner.

I have definitely struggled with striving for this “authentic lifestyle,” wondering if it’s even attainable. I would say that my primary struggle is vulnerability. Thinking about opening up and revealing parts of myself that I generally keep private makes me just a little bit nauseous. It seems unnatural! But it’s the type of discomfort people need to take them out of their comfort zone because that’s when meaningful relationships are made.

Maybe that’s the point though, the unattainability of authenticity, that no one is ever living perfectly, but it counts as long as your trying your best? I suppose the beauty of trying to live authentically is that you never stop working to make yourself a better person and the lives of people around you a little nicer.

The feeling of love can come easy, but maintaining love is hard work.

Say Yes a Little More

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This book is amazing. This guy is amazing. I’m amazed.

This book is quite literally, if not an invitation to live your best life, the motivation you need to try something new, go somewhere new, or just change your outlook on things. Bob Goff has the most unique way of turning life’s downs into an opportunity to learn and grow, and not in the typical way.

Chapter Seven has been tugging on my heartstrings ever since I finished the chapter. Bob talks about how he met his wife, fell in love with her 31 years ago (before she gave him any thought), and continues to do so. Being an all-around sap, I think there’s a very distinct beauty in all people, and, more specifically, how people fall in love. I mean, there are countless ways in which people fall in love for goodness’ sake, what a cool thing! Bob talks about how his wife, who he only refers to as “Sweet Maria,” paid no mind to him when they first met, but day after day, he somehow wore her down (after a child sized Valentine’s Day card and leaving PB&J’s on her car every day for a month without telling her it was him) until he finally convinced her to go out with him.

I’ve never heard of persistence quite like this man’s. He has vision, but more importantly, he has tenacity and follow-through. This doesn’t just appear in his commitment to relationships, but it seems to be an overarching theme in his life. Maybe that’s a little of what love is: perseverance. I’ve never thought about love in terms of perseverance and follow through, but it makes so much sense! If you have a love or passion for something, then do you also have a responsibility to see it through? The answer seems to be pointing towards “yes.”

Our culture is drifting away from commitment and working towards something to instant gratification. The trouble with this, while an awesome idea in theory, is that the instant gratification is rather temporary. Bob indicates that his most proud achievements and failures are the ones that he worked hardest to receive. He is proud of being promoted to a waiter in a fancy restaurant after working there for a year even if he was fired on the first day. He is proud of his marriage because it took a lot of hard work to get there, and continues to require hard work. The best things life, in Bob’s case, are the things that have asked the most of him and inspired him to work harder.

On a final note, I love how Bob says yes so much. He talks about how every sunrise, every morning, every new day is like a invitation to get out there and make something beautiful yourself. Thinking about an “invitation to life,” like he call it, makes me imagine waking up every day with an Evite in my inbox that just says “Hey, hey you! Today’s the day. Get out there and live it up,” and hey, I wouldn’t mind it one bit.

What Exactly Does Love Do?

Choosing this book was fairly simple, what drew me in was the name, “Love Does.” What do you mean “love does”? What is love doing? It’s not a person or thing, but rather an abstract idea. Is love everywhere, or do you have to search for it? Does it happen naturally, or do you have to learn to love? I have so many questions, so I’m turning to this book for some answers.

Six chapters deep, and so far, I’ve learned that Bob Goff is one cool dude. He is a no-excuses type of man, and takes an adventurous lifestyle to an entirely new level. Here is what love has been “doing” so far:

Chapter 1: Love has led a freshly newlywed man, Randy, to drop everything to hit the road with a teenage boy, Bob, who was on the verge of losing himself and finding himself simultaneously.
Chapter 2: Love shot BB gun’s pellet into Bob’s stomach as a child purely for the sake of adventure and mischief
Chapter 3: Love led a young man name Ryan to pull out all of the stops on his way to proposing to his girlfriend: from dinner at a stranger’s house to the Coast Guard putting on a show with their hoses after he proposed.
Chapter 4: Love picked him up after he lost the job on the very first day after having worked toward it for a year.
Chapter 5: Love and a playful spirit encouraged him to want to become a forest ranger, but love reshaped itself when his high school sweetheart dumped him for another man.
Chapter 6: Love motivated him to wait outside the admissions office of a law school for eight full days until he was told to “buy his books” despite having nearly failed his LSAT.

Love pushes, and it doesn’t take excuses. Love asks what you want and tells you to find a way to achieve, take a risk, or push through. It lets you know that you are not alone, and that the whole world is in arm’s reach as long as you are willing to stretch. Love is love is love, and it takes so many shapes and forms. It is ubiquitous; there is no hiding from love in Bob’s eyes.

I am beginning to see what he means. In the days since I started the book, I’ve picked up on a few things that I surely would have missed prior to reading. There are little things people do for each other that stick out— like holding the door open for someone even though they’re just far enough away that you don’t need to, but you hold that door open anyways, or like when your friend lets you have a half of their fries even though they’re really hungry— love lives in these moments.

Love is doing.

“Living a life fully engaged and full of whimsy and the kind of things that love does is something most people plan to do, but along the way they just kind of forget. Their dreams become one of those “we’ll go there next time” deferrals. The sad thing is, for many there is no “next time” because passing on the chance to cross over is an overall attitude toward life rather than a single decision. They need a change of attitude, not more opportunities”

Goff, Bob. Love Does. Thomas Nelson, 2014.

January Blog

“This above all, to thine own self be true” (1.3)

This is a lesson that has been years in the making and is still a work in progress.

I sat disgruntled, casted arm sagging in its newest sling, on the exam table in my doctor’s office. “Well, you know Mary Beth, it’s better to be smart than athletic,” the doctor sympathetically explained while I, a hopelessly clumsy eight-year-old, stewed in the disappointment of not being able to keep up with most children my same age because I was too clumsy to play the typical games. The ultimate tragedy, right? It was way cooler to be the funky athletic kid rather than the clumsy bookworm during the fourth grade. And, I was already the asthma kid, inhaler always in hand or within arm’s reach. I was torn; half of me yearned to be able to be the cool athletic kid, or at least have an ounce of coordination, and the other part of me just wanted to be me: nerdy crafter and book enthusiast. I wasn’t destined to be an athlete.

Since this “ultimate tragedy,” (not quite an “uncle murdered my father”
type of moment, though) I have steered clear of contact sports, and have found my strengths elsewhere. Those minor bumps in the road ultimately directed me towards my passions. Though it’s hard to come to terms with what your strengths are versus what you wish your strengths were, my shortcomings helped me evolve into what I like to call a more “hum-bitious” person.

What does that made up word mean, you might ask? It can be found right at the intersection of humility and ambition. I first heard this expression when I entered into my first leadership role with “girlFriends,” a volunteer group made up of high school girls from all around Atlanta that benefits Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA). This group is dedicated to fundraising for the local children’s hospital, spreading healthy habits, from eating to exercise, and bringing awareness of childhood diseases to our community. I didn’t think much of the expression at first, but the more I worked and grew with the group, the more I found that the expression rang true to the type of leader I wanted to be. As I’ve grown– and have been given more responsibility with girlFriends and in other aspects of my life– being both a humble and ambitious person are at the forefront of my mind when thinking of goals and organizing events for girlFriends. Specifically, there is an event hosted annually by the group called Battle of the Bands; it is a night at a well-known concert venue where high school artists and bands have a chance to showcase their musical talents in front of a room of supportive peers. My junior year of high school I was designated the event coordinator, and was in charge of scheduling bands, working with the tech team at the venue, and more. I was so stoked to take this on, but quickly realized I perhaps had bitten off more than I could chew, and would need some help. I utilized my personal strengths by giving my peers assignments that matched their strengths. In the end, we reach our goals by supporting CHOA.

Over the course of my involvement, I’ve truly fallen in love with not only the position but also the new people and new experiences that I would not have been introduced to without the group. I have been so lucky to learn so much, but at the end of the day, I am most grateful to girlFriends for showing me the type of leader I should strive to be. With that in mind, unthinkable goals can be accomplished and more people are able to be efficiently involved by finding and applying their own unique strengths. By striving to be a humbitious leader and accepting my weaknesses, I’ve seen that other strengths have been unveiled and new doors have been opened; it simply took being true to myself to reach this point.

Drawing, Misc. Portfolio

Still Life, ’15: Pen + Ink

Lightbulb Still Life , ’16: Drawing Device + Ink

Our Place on the River, ’16

Maroon Bells, ’14: Acrylic on Canvas

Walk on Water, ’16 (Work in Progress): Oil on Canvas

HIES Midday, ’16: Charcoal

Columns, ’16: sketchbook pages

‘M,’ ’16: Ink on Scratchboard

Frogs, ’16: Inktense

Run, boi, Run, ’16: Pencil on Vellum

Deer Angles, ’18: Pen + Ink

Deer Angles, ’18: Pen + Ink (b/w)

Alice in Time, ’14: Spray Paint

Poorly Done Still Life, ’16: Pen + Ink

Music-Centric Portfolio

Azizi Gibson: Conté Crayon

Azizi Gibson: Print 1/2

Azizi Gibson: Pen + Ink

TFB: Conté Crayon

TFB: 3/5

TFB: 2/5

TFB: 1/5

TFB: Oil on Denim

David Star: Pen + Ink

David Shaw: Conté Crayon

David Shaw: Oil

Greensky Bluegrass: Print

Shaking the Dust in a Dusty World

For the December blog, I wanted to share something a bit more personal, my very favorite poem “Shake the Dust” by Anis Mojgani:

That poem was brought to my attention on February 24, 2015; it was featured in one of Mat Kearney’s songs from his new album, Just Kids. “Shake the dust,” it said. “Shake the dust.” That phrase echoed through my mind. It could mean a hundred different things depending on what perspective you choose to look at it with. I suppose that is the purpose of art itself, but every question you have about it has a simple answer: shake the dust. For reasons I don’t understand, things and people generally appear in our lives at the most perfectly inopportune times; this poem did just that. It means so much to me that it is hard to put it into words. Plain and simple: it’s beautiful.

What can I write that could equate to the beauty of the poem itself? How does a person “shake the dust?” It seems so simple, those three little words, but it is not: it takes courage, trust, and drive. Everybody carries their own burdens and struggles, but those struggles don’t have to define you as a person. Life doesn’t judge people so much by their struggles, but rather what they do to overcome them. Breaking the invisible bonds that stop you from trying new things, going places, meeting people, and living boldly, well, that takes bundles of courage. Rising above your struggles doesn’t require an enormous life change, but the boldness to live a life of integrity that makes you proud. Secondly, it takes trust. Trust in where life will take you, but, first and foremost, trust in yourself to live a life of integrity. Finally, “shaking the dust” requires drive. It’s simple to live a routine life that makes you comfortable, but too often people aren’t satisfied. In order to take charge of your journey, you have to be driven and motivated by the potential of a more fulfilling life, both for yourself and for those around you.

What makes it so unique is that it speaks to every type of person, encouraging and letting them know that they possess infinite potential. I believe that whether or not we employ ourselves and rise above our struggles, shaking the dust, well, that is up to us. Mojgani illustrates a verisimilar portrait of suppressed emotion that he manages to capture in four minutes: an ineffable feeling of excitement, but not knowing the cause of it. These portraits of humankind speak to so many identities that everyone can connect to one or multiple aspects, regardless of their circumstance: race, religion, or socioeconomic class. So together, let’s shake the dust.

•••

“So when the world knocks at your front door

Clutch the knob tightly and open on up

And run forward and far into its widespread, greeting arms

With your hands outstretched before you

Fingertips trembling, though they may be.”

•••