Man's Struggle...haaa haaa

but through a confident women's perspective. Love is like a river that can flow both ways, up and down stream...can't explain this one yet.

Cloth

my life is an elaborate weaving of colorful threads, that at times flow elegantly. other times the threads knot and tangle. regardless I have created a fabric that in some angles looks pleasing. I have created a fabric that is compromising. my fabric is abrasive in some areas and silky when held just right. because my fabric is sometimes drug through areas that smell pungently it can repulse.

there are times when my fabric has been lofted by winds and stretched across landscapes, making shreds,creases and tear. bulging rain clouds have cleansed my fabric, with their tears, while bleeding pigments from one thread to another.

the fabric I am weaving is mindful of the weaving process. I am becoming aware of how to influence the nature of my patterns, colors, and rhythms. I want my fabric to be versatile. I want it to warm. I want it to shelter. I want it to cleanse. I want it to decorate. I want it to weather.

I expect it to stain. I think it will fade. I dread it being ripped. I know it will erode back into the soils of earth anxiously preparing to be woven again.

a blanket, shawl, rope, flag, or rug, regardless I have become aware that I can be woven and therefor I am a weaver.,,

Ron Valerio Estrada

Sientate, Callate, Escuchate chico!

o te voy a enviar a la oficina del director!

There might be a day when American children will be forced to listen to our history. There might be a day when anglo children will be forced to listen to how great our fore fathers were. But for now, I must carry the burden of two histories, one buried and renamed and one force fed. I must dance with the responsibility of upholding two cultures, one addicted to pain and the other crippled by choices. I must struggle with discerning my acceptance or rejection in both.

See past your bias and into the child

If we take a second look at our lower classes and see past the dysfunction, I think we could recognize a child's eyes. If we looked beyond the physical and into the culture I think we can recognize an underdeveloped child. If we looked beyond the violence and filth, I think we can recognize an abused child. If we looked at our lower classes with a compassion towards the collective I think we could recognize and underdeveloped culture. My longing is to not assign blame, not to trickle down opportunity, not create boot straps, but to be critical in action towards those who blame, delegate, deny, and take advantage. When I look into the eyes of the aspiring tycoon's culture I can see an adolescence's eyes.

In a common family the Adults model for their children, and develop, invest, and care for their children's future. In my family even siblings support and provide for younger siblings. In this country at times it doesn't feel like a family.

Inspired by:

Trailer

Consideration

Keeping in the spirit of paradox, with my bigotry on ideas and social bigotry on beliefs, I am comforted with the simultaneous existence of consideration. It has been hard for me to teach myself to find the benevolent route. I am starting to recognize the opportunities but too late to capitalize. In fact it is discouraging because so many people who have come into my life try to share their skills in kindness and in the time shared with them I get it. Then life and my environment antagonize my old hostile attitudes. So the characteristic of bigotry and consideration are battling in me. Depending on my environment, wellness, and connections I am susceptible to both.

In my last post I used the term "most", and this caused me to consider its validity. Because I really can't rationalize its use based on my experiences with people, I think it has been supportive or a crutch to the transitions in my maturity. Generalizing some how gives me a sense of reason and satisfaction. There is actually no objective account for bigotry or benevolence. It is like dew in the morning, an aroma but no source, or like a smudge on a lens that is hard to get to. Its there amongst the rest of our qualities.....subjectively revealing itself teasing me to try and objectify it.

Che & Pac

There is a bigotry I see in the distribution of ideas. There are ideas that are discouraged, smudged, feared, or ignored. There is a poetic justice that is delivered with the lyrics that come from 2-Pac. There is a invigorating patriotism that I find in Che Guevara's lifestyle. The bigotry is found when trying to make their message mainstream and respected.

I recognize the bigotry as I try and build a bridge between the messages of these men, and the message found in scripture, Poe, Thoreau, Oliver, Niche, Jefferson, Chomsky, Rand, Douglas, Frankle, Dr. King, Horney, Gandhi, Twain, or Cash. The bigotry is not so much racial as it is for dominance. There are too many people who refuse to look in the shadows, preferring to remain in the limelight. There are too many people who prefer short cuts to a thorough journey. There is a bigotry towards sacrifice and a bias for reward. There is a bigotry towards decomposition, whether it is physiological, emotional, or theoretical.

In this post decomposition can be described as breaking down. Most people are judgmental of failure, creating a stigma around failure. It becomes bigotry when one group of people decide what is failure. In America, the dominant culture, this being white European, determines the definition of failure. This has created a subculture of failures, those who don't fit in, or what can be described as perceived failures. The bigotry is a collective idea that there is a right and wrong way of living, feeling, or being. The bigotry is detrimental to the necessity of paradox, causing imbalance.

I see the bigotry manifesting itself in education. I was taught what the dominant culture chose and still chooses to teach. I was taught that I was lessor by my community of Chicano elders by their insecure choices made while facing an immigrant white culture. I continue the bigotry by believing I am lessor and unfortunate, separating myself from the mainstream, and judging lifestyles. The bigotry comes into play when I am entertained, by being overwhelmed with what the dominant culture has chosen to be worthy of publication, and my desire to reject it by seeking out the underground. The bigotry comes into play when I am influenced, by being punished, restricted, rewarded, or deceived, with aspirations molded by the dominant culture. The bigotry of ideas is tainting the learning process and gaining momentum in the educational systems I belong to. The bigotry is flowing to me and from me.

So Che Guevarra and 2-Pac have lessons to teach. I am seeking mature learning systems that can critically look at their message and learn as much as they can about the people they represent. This desire to understand can lead to respect. Respect might lead people to personal dignity. This personal dignity can lead people to reconciling the histories of being left behind, oppressed, smudged, and exploited. The reconciliation might lead to prosperity for all, not just American's. We might be a world under God, we might one day ask God to bless our enemies, and we might one day realized that faith is written on our hearts not in the pages of scripture. This week is the birth anniversary of two inspirational men in my life, their lessons will be taught and promoted......by me.

Google Song

Today's Google home page lets you record a song by strumming the strings o the google banner.
My first song for today
My second song for the day
My third song of the day (this is addicting)

Jumping To Conclusion

Anthony Weiner has caused a major glitch in the moral fabric that America pretends to display. We are a sexually fueled generation. We are marketed to with what past generations considered pornography. The body has become a stock exchange for instant gratification. It seems as if our imagery of who we should be is manipulated by none other then our pleasure center. I cannot condemn Anthony Weiner because the erotic connection is a powerful force. What I am trying to do is hear his actions.

Embarrassingly, infidelity is something I am guilty of. Watching the spectacle that Anthony Weiner is undergoing leaves me happy to be a nobody. I am also surprised at how so many in the media have not taken a mature perspective and listened to the real story being told. What I see from Anthony Weiner might be a projection from my past being resurrected with the reminder from his circumstances, regardless there is an emotional void this man is experiencing.

He is revealing a major void in the masculine culture. Maybe for this post it is my void. The void is male validation. The void is created by not dealing with our intense desires for pleasure, being desired, and being recognized. These desires are rarely maturely discussed among my masculine clicks. I find it interesting how shameful our desire for pleasure is. It is thought to be feminine to have the feelings of needing to be desired. It is demeaning to need to be recognized.

Having recently embraced texting I see how effective texting is at establishing intimate connections. I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of men are "sexting". Having had to experience being a single man again, I have felt like an oddball for not receiving nude photos. But when I look into my daughter's eyes I am thankful that I have restrained from acting on my ever functioning desires. There are times when in a group of men sharing stories of sexting I feel invalidated. I have wanted to be part of this culture, just havn't had the will to make it happen...and not entirely for all the good reasons either. I know that enough consciousness,luck, and misfortune have all stifled my interest in sexting.

It is amazing how influential perversion and nudity fills this void in the male culture. It is confusing how validated I have felt by being considered attractive and how pleasing it is to be sexual.

Anthony Weiner is a symptom to greater Masculine concern. Men open your eyes to what it truly means to be exposed.....and vulnerable.

Coward!

For most of my life I have just needed someone to blame. I think a quality of being a man is shouldering more blame than unloading it. Better said, it is taking responsibility for my contribution to the circumstances, and looking for it when it is not obvious.

I am free to be accountable to others, knowing I will fall short of most expectations, but my expectations are selfish and not as diplomatic. That is where blame comes in to play. Others can create circumstances that are unfair. Conveniently it is easier for me to recognize how unfair someone else is before I recognize how unfair I am. My responses thus far have mostly been passively violent. When things don't work to my advantage, I fall back on disappointment, forgetting to find the opportunity in the fallout. I tend to get bogged down in pity, when dignity is ripe for picking. My reactions are usually inspired from fear, and I can see how useful blame becomes. It keeps me from feeling pain or failure. Blame is pain reflected, where sweat and tears symbolize pain transcended.

There are lessons in the communities I live in. I think my family has shown me that responsibility is my gift to culture. I think society teaches me that I can buy my way out of responsibility, but I cannot buy true responsibility. The "both and" is that there is a consequence to every benefit. Finding out how and what responsibility should look like, is living. We are a creative species....when some of us take a break from blaming.

Enhancing Traditions

This inspires me to be more critical of how I approach what aspects of my cultures to enhance, sustain, or accept. I am more like my neighbor then i am like, the person I think I am. To the outsider it is easier to draw a distinction, and to the insider it is easier to say I belong. In reality, nature is laughing knowing we are both.

P.S. Happy Anniversary Grandma and Grandpa Estrada

More History!

I am part of an American culture that is leaving behind a generation that once resisted civil rights. Their generation left behind a generation that resisted human rights for non white. This is what I see as enduring freedom. Now, I am part of a generation where most citizens believe that every citizen has an equal opportunity. Equal opportunity for what? That is the question.

When you look at the modernization of the colonized nations, we see the effects of technological advancement. We can see how gradually those technologies trickle down to the lowest of socioeconomic classes. I see how the European pioneers have created economies like no other, spanning the globe and even into orbit. I also see how filtered indigenous participation in Americas progress has been. Often participation is suppressed, stifled, limited, and in my view controlled. Even in saying this I feel a subconscious voice telling me,"don't play the victim role, the poor little Mexican, the poor little brown guy". I have been condition to overlook the disadvantage and the white advantage. I have been conditioned by subtle and moderated progress. A mentality that asks me to feel overly grateful for scraps from the privilege banquet table. But then I realize how God given talent and privilege only takes a person as far as the elite will allow.

I see how important it is to look a certain way, how important it is to know certain people, and how important it is to be in the right place. I think about how many generations of white Americans have a legacy of formal education in a system designed for them, indoctrination in formal business systems convenient for them, established networks of other culturally competent people using codes convenient for them, and a pedigree of enhancing privileged life as is convenient for them. What an advantage they have.

I think about how many white Americans deny their immigrant status and confuse me into generalizing them all as privileged. This makes it easy for me to forget that the Italian, Irish, German, and Jewish cultures, only to name a few, have fought the same class struggle that I feel my culture is fighting right now. Its as if the fight for acceptance is won only to make the segregationist opponent stronger.

Well I think this featured documentary by Kareem Abdul Jabbar is a great example of how the privileged white Americans have controlled and continue to control how inclusive the lower class/minority people can be. Be mindful of the mining, media, agro, and oil industries as they benefit most from keeping a lower often indigenous class.

On the Shoulders of Giants
( a documentary by Kareem Abdul Jabbar)

Be aware that most products are global and the luxury you see in your communities is often at a great expense to another community very far from yours (Guatemala, Cambodia, Philippines, Mexico, etc..).