The Concept Of A Human Caricature

Before I start I would like to say that nothing I am about to say comes from a place of superiority. I am not ultimate judge when it comes to human nature or how people act and this is simply me giving my opinion on a concept that was brought to my attention earlier today.

This week I started following a Youtuber by the name of Satchbag’s Goods. The content of this channel consists of in-depth video game analysis with connections to rich themes and the real world. It is a great place to check out if you are a diehard gaming fan; or just want to expand your mind. Anyway, plugging aside one of his videos brought up the concept of a caricature and it struck me as interesting. The basic idea he brought up is that humans have a habit of defining others by the one thing that stands out about them most. For example, say if someone robbed you, then you might go out of your way to say that person is “nothing but a thief”. That seems correct right? They wronged you in a specific way so you respond by remembering and defining them by their specific action. The problem with this is that in thinking this way we no longer treat that person as a whole, but as a caricature of what that person really is.

By Caricature I simply mean that the person is treated as an exaggerated representation of who they really are. It is not possible for someone to be “nothing but a thief,” because for that to be the case they would literally have to be stealing something every minute of every day. Now I know some of you may argue that that is simply a figure of speech and not meant to be taken literally but think about it this way, how many people do you define by one specific thing? How many people have you burned bridges with because of the one time they cheated on you, the one time they lied to you, the one time they made a mistake? We are so quick to write people off for one thing without having in all of the information present, but when we do this we are writing off the person for something their caricature did to offend us. The way Satchbag put was “taking a 2D view of a 3D world”. We are all guilty of this, hell I do this all the time, but why does this happen Why are we as humans so able to categorize others by their most bare traits and then decide what kind of person they are based off of that? Part of my thinks it is a defense mechanism and another part of me thinks it is just a refusal to relate.

As a defense mechanism it makes sense that we make caricatures of people and use that to keep them in line. Life is dangerous and we simply do not have the time to learn everything about everyone. We need to think quick and make decisions about people on the fly so we pick out what is important (or not important) about them and use that to define them.  He stole from me  therefore I cannot trust him, she abuses children  so I will not leave my children with her, he has always been there for me so maybe now I will give him a chance, etc. It makes perfect sense and you should not feel bad if this blog has suddenly made you aware that you do this. The only downside of this natural phenomenon is that is horribly unfair to the people we strip the personalities of. If you are in a bad mood and you yell at your significant other because of it, then you KNOW why you did it. You know it was because you woke up and were late for work, stubbed your toe, whatever. You have a 3D view of yourself because you know yourself. However if your significant other gets all at your throat you may not be so quick to dismiss their temper  as  “just a bad day”. We can never know someone as well as ourselves and this very fact leads us to not be able to understand everyone else’s 3D personality. We can try but it will always be easier to take the high ground and confuse a caricature for a person.

Now in response to all this I ask the question of what can we do to change this. Is there a reason to change this? I am sure this skill has saved us all the annoyance of a bad friend, annoying roommate, or a terrible date. But does that make what we do right? Is it possible for us to take the time to get a 3D image of all the people in our lives? I personally think it is, even if we cannot know anyone like we know ourselves, I think it is worth it to try and understand everyone you love as much as you are personally able to. It will help if a strain is put in your bond to know that Blank person is more than “that guy who lied to me once”, or “the girl who is overacting”. This is personally why I make it a point to not talk trash about my Exes. No matter where we may be now there was something that attracted me to the people I was with and we shared bond that kept us happy for some time. Even if the times change I honor that that person is still someone who was able to make me happy at some point in history. Now, there are some people whom even when you learn everything about them, they will still not be worth your time and it is okay to realize that. I am not saying you should be a saint and try to give everyone a fair shot, because some folk genuinely do not deserve it. What you might want to try next time you are arguing with someone or talking ill about someone you care about, is to consider the whole picture. Consider what that person is going through or how they might have felt, and make sure that you are not just mad at the caricature of a person you have stripped down in your mind.

Star World Thoughts.

Letting out the hot air…

Being someone who constantly crumbles under the weight of his own baggage, I used writing as a way to get some of the stress off my shoulders. By sharing everything I feel with everyone ranging from complete strangers to close friends I can convince myself that I am not alone in my quest for sanity and life gets a little easier because of it. So if you are a returning reader of the Star World then I thank you for reading my attempts at wittiness and truth. If this is your first time reading, then welcome to the Star World, a place where I get to carve out my own little niche of clarity.

Ever since my mental state started interfering with my life I have gotten into the extreme habit of saying “I’m sorry” a lot, and I hate it. Not because I hate the phrase itself, but because I hated saying I’m sorry to someone knowing that I will probably just often them again. I have cursed people, insulted them, ignored their help, and worried them with constant musings of my depression or suicidal tendencies. I want to stop that. Now that I am on a hot streak of being able to get out of bed and be happy about it (what an achievement right?) I can finally see how much of a strain I put on a lot of my relationships. I put a lot of pressure on friends and girlfriends and then got angry or irrationally sad when they couldn’t support my enormous weight, and that is just downright unfair. So I am sorry to anyone I have scorned in the past year or so, hell I am sorry to anyone I have ever hurt. I know just how selfish and hard to deal with I have been but I have been doing much better. I won’t go into detail about ever way I hurt every person, but know that if something went down with us and it was my fault, I know about it. And if you think I don’t feel free to tell me and I’ll admit to any wrongs I have committed. I believe to be a good person you have to accept that there is bad in you, that you will make mistakes, hurt people, and have to burn bridges for something that could have been avoided. The upside to that, however, is that by accepting your faults you get wiser, wise enough to save your relationships and not let your past define everything about you. So while this is a blanket apology, it does not mean I am going to stop learning and improving myself in every way possible. People love to quote a tiny green alien who says “there is no try, there is only do or do not”, and I have long been done trying to get better. Now is the time to do.

That latter half of this is me letting go of a lot of dumb stuff that I have held onto for no good reason. I used to wish I was more popular with women, not that I have any desire to be a womanizer (that takes way too much effort and charisma for my tastes) but I just felt like it would be nice to be desired by people. As shocking as it may seem I used to be shy and hate talking to anyone or anything. I hide myself from the world because I knew that at least then I would be safe. I wanted to be liked but I refused to make myself likable in anyway (if that makes sense) and until recently I have still put so much time and effort into making sure people like me and that is just…stupid. We all want to be loved but that comes at a price. You should NEVER compromise any part of your person just to be loved by others. If you are an oddball you will find other oddballs to roll with (as I did), if you are a serious dude then you will find other serious dudes, and if you feel you don’t deserve to be here then I guarantee you are not alone and will find others like you. All it takes is one little thing: being content with who you are. If you can look yourself in the mirror and say, “eh I’m a 6 out of 10” I think that is one of the healthiest things you can do. We are so used to either building ourselves up or tearing ourselves down that we rarely take the time to just sit and be proud that we survived another day. I wished I had more people because I didn't appreciate the people I had near me, and this carried on for a while. I would hurt friends and find new ones until one day there was a group of people I just could not leave. It took me being and idiot to see that who I am is pretty okay…like seriously I am a pretty cool dude most days. It is not easy to be content with yourself and it is something that no one can teach you, but if I can learn it so can you, and you will be much happier because of it.

I am trying to own up to everything I am so I can improve upon myself and accomplish my goals. I want to be a writer, I want to start a dance company, I want to be a therapist, and most of all I want to help people realize that there is more to life than feel like you should not exist. I’m sorry to the people who were with me through the lowest times and know that I love you for not giving up on me. I feel like my posts are getting predictable and I do not want that. So here is to positive futures and learning from the past. You are going to do things you regret and a lot of times you will hate yourself for it, but we are strong enough to look at a broken mirror and still see ourselves in the reflection.

And in the Star World we are all on that path to becoming our true selves. 

A little bit of nothing

I think too much. I was trying to think of a clever metaphor but I think it is much more effective to just write how I think. Which of course means there are going to be an abundance of words that I throw just for the sake of extending a sentence. Sometimes I hate my brain. More specifically I hate that I feel as though my brain works on a different level than others. Not in a more advance, but in a more personal way. Things that don’t get to other people get to me, I internalize tragedies that happen across the country and treat them as if they happened to my family. I go above and beyond to try and solve my friend’s problems because the problem gets to me personally. I like to tell myself that this will help me in my therapeutic future but this is probably unhealthier that I give it credit for.

My mind also has a hard time distracting itself. What I mean by that is that if there is something on my mind, there is almost nothing I can do to get it out. Even by end all solution of dancing cannot clear my head in extreme cases. If there’s a girl I’m into then I cannot stop thinking about her, if there is an event coming up that I am excited about then there is no calming me down, and on the negative side if there is a problem in my life then it will stay with me all day and night. This is a tad bit irritating as you can probably tell, because it seems like everyone I know is better at distracting themselves then I am. Or at the very least they are better at acting like they are distracting themselves.

I realize now that this probably does not make a lot of sense, but such is the curse of my writing style. Its honest and confusing, much like my personality. Hey a simile! Look at that I am already making progress. I guess the point of this is just that I had a random thought and it carried its way through my fingers and onto this post you are now reading. It is kind of funny how the tiniest spark of nothing can build until you have…well something. That something may not be important, but it is more than the nothing that came before it. I’m so used to letting my mind wander and linger, yet still surprised at some of the thoughts I have. Still surprised at how far my nothing has come, and I can only hope that it becomes a very important something one day.

All I Have

            All I have are these words that I type into a blank word document, trying to describe to you what it feels like to go through XYZ so that you can understand that I am genuinely trying to get my act together. These words that have kept me sane through months of doubt and self-loathing because I know when it boils down to it I want to get better. Self –pity is great but you can only use it as a crutch for so long before it breaks and you end up feeling worse about yourself. So I use these words, these odd symbols that we have taken to form a coherent language, to write down everything I feel so I can pinpoint my sadness. Only then can I look back and see how ridiculous I was for letting little things drag me down.

            All I have are my friends, scattered across the world, who serve as my support system and my extended family. I have never had siblings so I grew accustomed to treating my friends as the family you do not usually get to choose. I have cursed at them, used them as a shoulder to lean on, and had their backs as much as they have had mine, but I feel like it is never enough. In this life where terrible people can lurk around every corner it is imperative that you surround yourself with positive people who care about you, because you never know when you will need the extra hand to help you up. In the worse parts of my moods I have constantly complained to some of my closest friends about how sad I am or how life isn’t worth living or some other nonsense. To which the response is them telling me how much they hate for me (the pillar of energy and optimism apparently) to speak like I have given up. And for I time I had, but once someone close enough to my told me that through all my funk they felt like I was no longer trustworthy…well things changed. Choose people who will be honest with you, people who will be sensitive when necessary but are not afraid to really stick it to you if need be. We are all stronger than we know and sometimes we need a reminder of that.

            All I have is this dance. A person at school once told me, “Zeke in all due respect, you aren’t a science, you’re a dance”, meaning simply that it is just what I am best at. Psychology is my interest but dance is my passion, finding new ways to move and new concepts to film and perform are exciting to me. I am constantly told that dance is not a stable career path and I could care less. I am going to school for Psych and Dance, and whatever I do in life will involve those things, I could give less of a care about trying to get a safe office job with a stable income. We spend our whole lives playing by other peoples rules so for once it would be nice to get a say in what we do. It is okay to feel afraid of the future, it is okay to be undecided, and it is okay to choose a more risky path in life. All I have is this thing I like to do, a thing that has lead people to respect me, helped me gain confidence, and allow to feel like I fit in a community full of the most interesting individuals I have ever met. Dance is the thing I do for me and no one else, and I think it is important to have that thing in one’s life

            All we have is what we make, what we are born with, and what we choose to surround ourselves with. Life is never going to be perfect but we can at least make it worth it. So choose what you enjoy, and let the world work out the kinks.

A Starling’s take on love…or something

I have been on an upward slope for a little while now (emphasis on a little) and I thought I would take this time to write something.  For some reason or another I feel like nowadays I am encountering love everywhere I go now, whether it be with people around me getting in or breaking off relationships, or just the sad fact that no young adult wants to end up alone. So full disclaimer everything I am about to say is from what I have personally learned and is knowledge I try to apply to relationships or whatnot. These things may not work for you, and that’s okay, because the beauty of our lives is just that, they are our lives. Live, experience, and learn what works for you, because that is what really matters at the end of the day.

            Okay so first off I find the concept of a “soul-mate” irritating. Not because I do not believe in true love/am too cynical to accept such an absurd concept (although there may be some truth in that), but because it is just so limiting. If I were to go by the logic that there is ONE person out there for me then the chances of my finding that person on a planet of 7 billion plus people are slim to none. Remember the soul-mate myths only states that there will be a “right” one for you, not that you will ever find them. I mean sure you could maybe cut 7 billion in half if you are only attracted to one sex, but that still leaves billions of people to go through and not nearly enough time to go through it. So instead I offer you this piece of advice: explore and take chances with people. Do not look for a person to be your “one” or your “destiny”, simply look at them as the person whom you won over or who won you ever. In most cases there is a reason you fell for them so remember what that is and build off of it. Look for people you can stand being around for long periods of time. Wait what that sounds just like common sen- no listen, my generation especially is really bad at this concept. This does not mean anyone you can get along with (because that number will always outnumber the people you can actually function as a couple with), but rather the people that you can be with. Life is short and we will never get as much time as we want to do everything our heart desires but you should have a good idea of what you like. A good friend of mine said to look for “similar interests but different personalities”, because dating someone just like you would eventually get overwhelming or stale. So you may never find someone perfect for you (by the definition of perfect), but you may find someone that you would not mind spending a lot of your precious time with, and that seems like a fair trade off to me.

            Another thing is the concept of trust and being open. With social media being present in the past decade or so I think the idea of being open with people has changed a little. Being open implies more posting unnecessary selfies on Facebook or updating your twitter every 20 seconds with your daily schedule, but rather everything you do not put on these sites. For example I think by now we all know of my little depressive spells or what have you, in order for me to be with someone I need to be willing to talk to/ with them about how I feel during my lowest points. Not just because it is healthy for someone to talk about how the feel with a close confidant, but because if you cannot do this then you lose credibility in a partnership. Two people (or more I will not judge) need to be a team, and if you hide personal information about yourself and a situation pops up where you need to be trusted, then you may be screwed. Now in theory this is simple, of course I can talk about my life with my lover that is easy, but life never makes the road that clear. This also means that if you have been abused, or you are prone to some sort of illness, or even if you just have a secret you consider to be super embarrassing and personal, you need to come clean. Trust (if used properly) can only breed more trust and once you and whoever can actually trust each other a lot of things become easier. Granted no relationship is going to be easy, but I think it is each persons duty to make things as simple as possible for the other person. Again I can personally say that I am bad at this. I am really dramatic and have a tendency to try and solve problems with words and follow with actions (as opposed to action first). Also I have let outside events influence my relationships several times and they fall apart, but this is all part of the process. Eventually you get to develop a sense of who you are and can put aside your issues to be present with another person, or even better bring those issues to light with the person and they might just be the guiding hand you did not know you needed.

            I think that is all for now, I am sure there will be more dumb poorly written material like this in the future but for now I will leave you with this: life is short. It is a cliché we all know but seldom put into practice, if you have a person you want then go for it. When you both work toward a positive healthy relationship then more often than not a healthy relationship will form. Even if it someone you never thought you could fall for or some madness like that, don’t be afraid to take chances and live. We are people, we function best when we are not alone, and that is just pure truth.

Too many

There have been so many reasons to do it...stress, pressure, and loneliness all coming together to spend the night in my head without a proper invitation. Too many times I have told myself that I am not worthy when in reality I have earned everything I've got.

These demons floating in my brain have sickened my mental immune system to a point where I can be officially known as "mentally ill." These monsters become so bold as to stop hiding under my bed and start hiding under my skin, sprinkling all of my positive thoughts with a dash of "you aren't good enough try harder," or "they don't really love you," or "you will end up just like your father"...the list goes on and on until I simply have too many reasons to not get out of bed in the morning.

I claw my way out of the monsters clutches, finding good days in the bad, just to realize that it's not that easy to just "get over it". I spend my time in the company of good people enjoying life and doing what I love but when night falls and I am by myself the too many troupe starts to rear its head and...Well screw it...maybe death is the only true silence to these monsters that have taken it upon themselves to scream in my ear.

But as the blade approaches my wrists and with it the very blood I feel is poisoned by my tormentors I remember my mother. I remember my friends and family and all the episodes of Buffy I have ever watched along with every time my high school friends have made me cry tears of laughter. I remember my first kiss and every kiss after that and how special those people have been to me. I remember every Indulgence dance practice when Rob would do a move in a ridiculous way and we would all mock him for it. I remember when she thanked me for being the only one who saw anything special in her. I remember the first time I showed someone my poetry and they didn't laugh at me. Then the blade gets heavy and all of a sudden my boiling blood starts to calm itself. I remember the reason I have made it thus far and all the love that has kept me afloat.

And then I have too many reasons to keep on fighting. 

The Rising Junior

In high school I remember being told that Junior year was the hardest year by far, I remember getting anxious and almost breaking under the weight of the idea before the year even started. How could a year be harder than social awkwardness, romantic rejection, and being in that spot where you can kind of dance but still don’t have anything worthwhile to show? By some miracle I made it through and now 3 years later I stand faced with the same problem. Coming off the most difficult semester of my life I cannot possibly imagine what Junior year has in store for me.

At the beginning of Sophomore year I told my mom that this would be the year that makes me or breaks me, I have no idea why I thought that, but I could feel it in my bones. I needed to stake my claim in the world, to solidify what I wanted to do in life, and to stop questioning every move I make. I wanted to be a dancer, to actually be a dancer. She wants me to go to graduate school and get my PhD in Psychology. I vowed to do both because I have always been a good son and a good student. I thought this would be the year that convinced me I could only do one but I was wrong. These two paths of academia and expression do not diverge as much as our career-driven society would make you think. There is no rule book saying that we can only be good at one thing, that we have to find a profession and then do nothing but that profession for the rest of our lives. Sure that works for some but as humans we should never be satisfied with ourselves until we are at the peak of what we can do.

I've made it no secret about the things I have gone through or felt this semester; it got to the point where both of my parents asked if I would be happier transferring home and I honestly considered it. The reason I didn't is simply because I am stubborn and do not want to leave behind the people I have grown fond of at my school. They have made any depression, dark moments, etc. bearable for me and I is because of them that I know I can make it. Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) once said in an interview “Well yea I’m sad, of course I am. But I don’t think my sadness is any worse than anyone elses. I am just not afraid to say the kind of stuff we are all thinking.” I always want to be able to be real with myself and the people crazy enough to listen to me or read this blog. I wanted to give up this semester, to pack it in and come home to the golden state where everything made more sense, but I have work to do. I have dreams to aspire to and it was in my lowest of points that I was reminded why I wanted to leave in the first place. I needed to be able to make it through all this funk, otherwise I would always just give up when life reared its head. In reality that is probably a terrible reason why but I stuck it out because everyone else did. We all go through our own hells and if my friends and family can stay strong through theirs, then I cannot back down just yet.

This Year I took a variety of classes that allowed me to learn from the past and connect to my future in new and interesting ways. From my Blues class to Advice and Dissent to My Dance Improv and Dance Therapy classes to my Psych courses I have learned so much value information and little ways to improve myself. I have always valued education for educations sake and now I am proud that I have found new ways to apply my knowledge in my actual life. It was also this semester that through the dance program at UR I had the crazy idea to throw myself into modern dance. I no longer want to just be a hip-hop dancer, I do not want to constrain myself from learning new ways to move. So I stepped out of my comfort zone. I performed an amazing chair dance in front seasoned dance veterans at the ACDFA gathering over spring break, I was part of a dance thesis concerning rape and the importance of non-verbal communication and expression, and I finally got over my fear of the women in the dance program long enough to meet some great new people.

I want to start a dance company, I want to write a comic book, I want to be a voice for others and help people. Even when I am home my mind races with the possibilities and opportunities for me to create, express, and inspire. So that’s where my life is right now. I made it through hardest semester of my life and I want to act like it. To prove I learned something, to stop myself from getting that overwhelmed again. I want to balance love and work so that I never neglect either. I am a dancing writer who wants to study the mind and help others find their way. Sounds kind of complex doesn't it?

Just another day in the Star World.