Guatemala Evolution: Mistakes and Faith

"We never change. Do we?" - Coldplay

Here are the same mistakes. A boy. A really immature, selfish, and deceitful boy. Too old for these inconsiderate games, but too young for me to blame him; it's my fault. I was greedy, gaming first. Poetic justice; I'm almost thankful. Let this be a lesson to me I will never ever forget. This is so embarassing, I don't know where to hide.

It's gotten in the way of my connecting with anyone from the trip; this fucking cloud of awkwardness. I never meant to be on the sly.

These days, I'm really looking for change. I need to reconsider my priorities. I need to exercise better judgment and act with greater consideration for consequences. Professionalism. I care about this work more than anything else; and right now, I feel broken and empty at the end of it. What a shame.

I hate hypocrisy. I see it in my actions, which do not match up with my words. I am genuine! But my decisions are immature. They were wrong. I am learning. I must change.

These days, I'm really looking for change. I can grow from this, and be a stronger person, a better leader. This can be a very valuable experience for me if I put the lessons into practice.

"Then, without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that a quiet conscience makes one strong." - Anne Frank

How do I change? It's culminated to such a point of urgency for me now. This is not the first time, and it will not be the last time unless I really deeply and completely re-think my life, my priorities, my morals and values, the way I make decisions, the way I interact with other people.

I need to be more open, honest, and accountable to others; I want to be more down-to-earth and approachable. I really need to exercise a cool objective perspective and strengthen my self-restraint. I need to make a habit of thoroughly considering the impact of my decisions on others before I act, and taking the time to do what is best for everyone, and building the emotional strength to carry out my rational decisions.

Discipline over heart. It's a simple principle of adulthood. It's time I start being a woman: strong, caring, decisive; not a helpless emotional victim of a girl. Never again. Love fool. Never again.

Professor Dalton said yesterday that what makes Malcolm X an example of good leadership was his openness to evolution. He was a man who, in spite of his firm and passionate conviction in his ideas, was open-minded and objective with himself, and upon realizing error in his old ways of thinking, he consciously and openly changed himself. He sought to embody the principle of "being the change." According to Dalton, this is what made Malcolm X a most extraordinary human being and leader.

I want to see a world of honesty, transparency, cooperation, equality, and democratic participation, where people live in dignity and intellectual freedom, and have a say in the governance of their communities. I want to see a world where people connect with each other as people, and value that connection, that special human JOY, above all other things. I want to see a world where people can work together to solve humanity's collective problems, and put their personal interests and egos aside, and collaborate on the urgencies of the Earth. I believe that human beings can set aside their personal desires, temptations, laziness, selfishness, and aggressions in times of urgency. I believe that a civic culture with greater emphasis on collective responsibility and true political equality is possible.

I seek first to be honest, transparent, and cooperate with others. I seek to always work hard and take responsibility for my part in my family, my friendships, my communities. I seek to be strong and keep steady in the face of emotional turmoil. More than anything else in life, I seek to connect with people, honestly, openly, without fear of judgment, with only kindness, respect, equality, and love. More than anything else in the world, I just want to connect with people on a deeper level! I feel my personality is constrained due to fear of judgment and I want to set it free. I want to be unafraid of making mistakes in front of others, and unashamed of my personal failings, and I won't beat myself up for them so long as I am genuinely dedicating my life to being the best person I can be.

More than anything, I want to focus on my own spiritual growth this year. I am ready to set aside this silly ego. My one most important goal this year, this lifetime, is to focus every day on being a person of virtue and responsibility, of wise judgment and consideration for others, and develop true, caring, down-to-earth friendships with people. The progress in this can not be measured by lofty nonprofit programs to help the poor, but rather in my everyday words and actions, how I treat people, and how I prioritize my life.

I have set goals and went back on them before. I have reached for virtue and fallen into vice. I have tried many many times, and succumbed to temptation or despair. What will sustain my change this time around?

I am looking to connect with a higher universal whole, and to completely lose myself, embracing only what is right in this world. I have been thinking a lot these past two days about a Baha'i prayer that Makini introduced me to on Wednesday night: "Let my soul like a mirror, and my heart like an empty reed, to receive and reflect the goodness of God." Only by losing the ego, the binding desires that tie me to my bodily, singular SELF, would I be able to be connect with what is good in this world.

I seek to lose myself. But in this destruction, find true connection and purpose. This semester, I am turning to faith for a supportive community.

Words are abstractions. I don't want to merely wax poetic. There's nothing more urgent in my life right now than to embody the good that I desire in the world, for that is the first step, and the hardest lifelong path. I am tired of my selfishness and impulsive, emotional decisions that hold me back from doing what I know is right. I need to strengthen my conscience and will.

I believe I can change. I must. Because I can no longer live with the way I am.



"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." - Charles Darwin

Alex, I am thinking always of you. Your memory guides me. You are my role model, my wisest friend, my confidant forever. Help me be strong.

Men are ridiculous.

Men are ridiculous.

So I organized this discussion group for our Economic History of Latin America class, and included all the guys who are in my discussion section. Mistake! This is why it's important to be selective about who goes into your midterm study groups:

1) Men are stupid assholes. They will spend the whole time bitching about the TA, saying retarded chauvinist things like "we should get her laid."

2) They will come a whole fucking hour late, and try to leave after 10 minutes, when they've collected everyone else's portion.

3) On top of that, they'll lose their midterm study sheet, and won't do the reading they said they'd do; in fact they'll email you at 10:00PM the night before to ask you for the reading, and put the blame on you for THEIR not having read the damn thing because YOU didn't get back to them until 12:00AM that night. (Bed time for Mr. Chauvinist Piggy?)

3) And when Mr. Alpha-Male-Brazilian comes into the room, all the other guys go nuts to lick his balls. The subject of the conversation flows ever-so-gently to football and how many chocolate bars and cans of beer they had for breakfast. Wow.

Okay. So that's not even what bothers me the most...

There's an essential difference in the TA's take on economic history, and the professors' take. Economic history is a super-pragmatic semi-history that seeks to extract all the useful information from the past that can be used to give quick-fixes to current policy, and ignore the rest. In-so-doing, it often whitewashes obviously racist ideas with lofty economic terminology: "ethnic heterogeneity in Latin America was bad for economic growth." Excuse me? Did you just say what I think you said? Who was it who came rape-landing onto the continent with his guns, germs, and steel, crashing civilizations, and bringing his slaves with him? "Ethnic heterogeneity?" If you're so worried, why don't you just stay the fuck home, white man!

And as you can see, I definitely agree more with the TA's take on economic history than with the professor's- that economic history is way more econ than history, that it just doesn't give you a good fair look at what happened. This is not the only "history" I want to know.

But the men in the room disagree. They like that alpha male crap.

And they are the Ivy League crony-boys that are far more liable to be ruling our world in the future and setting our policies than I.

And this perspective on economic history, on simplistic notions of "institutions" that negates the more complex realities of people, race, power, struggle - this stupid self-congratulatory belief in mathematical "economics" and "institutions", which whitewashes inequality and injustice, IS WHAT THESE GUYS ARE GOING TO CARRY WITH THEM TO THE TOP.

(And they are Econ majors...the Alpha-Male-Brazilian is Econ-PoliSci...so that's where their ambitions lie.)

And their football-beer cronyism, their chill-buddy, fuck-that-bitch attitude is the attitude in the upper echelons of government! In fact I bet that's what white house meetings are like. Just a bunch of stupid chauvinistic men, talking about how much chocolate and beer they had for breakfast.

This is why I hate my major. Why do I put myself through this shit, knowing that I don't believe a fucking word of it? Is it really worth it to put myself through all these miserable classes so I can "master the language" (economics) of those policy-makers - is that really how I would be able to make a difference in changing it?

Damn. I really should have gone for comparative literature, anthropology, anything. Not this shit. Stick with my happy, hippie art world.

What made me most upset about this morning: I hate that I didn't speak up for the TA during our meeting today. I didn't speak up for the ideas of social history, which I really DO believe are superior to those of "economic history." I kept quiet in a room of obnoxious guys, and I didn't call out their chauvinist, DISGUSTING comments. Why not!?! If I can't speak up in a meeting room with a bunch of stupid college kids, how will I ever speak out in the future? In another bigger, more dire room?

Next time, I swear I will not be this quiet.

On the Insignificance of Brian Foo

Contrary to purpose, reading Voltaire makes a Candide of me. Upon reflection of the story, I must confess that I also believe I live in the best of all possible worlds. Or rather, in this grotesquely imperfect world, I inhabit the best situation. I am incredibly blessed with the right amount of wealth/poverty at the right times to enable me acceptance into the right "programs"; doubly am I blessed with the right talents, for presentation and positive impression, regardless of substance; triply am I blessed for my unparalleled education up to this point; but most thankful am I for my passion and strong sentiments, for though they cause me much suffering and chaos in this life and make a fool of me in many circumstances, they also bring my life a fullness I seldom witness in others.

To whom do I owe these blessings? Society. The Democrats. Countless social welfare programs and nonprofit organizations. Most of all, my parents.

I feel I have a heavy debt to pay to society. I am standing on the shoulders of giants, my purpose yet unfulfilled. I must give back. I must give back. This is why I'm in college: to better understand my world, the power structures of human society, the troubles and sufferings of people who are without power, and the means by which these people can be empowered. The only way to live up to the gifts I've received in the past seven years of my life is to pay back: sevenfold, elevenfold - help people, keep paying back evermore.

(However, for the people to which I am most indebted, my parents, my contributive efforts are most impotent. I am a plague upon their lives. I traumatize my brothers. I am terrible. I know not how to amend my deeds; right now, I seek only escape from further witness.)

Seeing my life in this light, Brian Foo becomes very small. Transient. Ephemeral. A joy, but not deeply significant. The story of Candide makes me count my blessings; he is one of the best blessings in my life right now. However, the story also makes me think about the temporary nature of blessings: my life is going to be long and eventful, whatever joy or pain I feel I have experienced thus far will be nothing compared to the accumulated joy or pain I have yet to experience; Brian may be joy today and sorrow tomorrow; I don't know, it doesn't matter right now; I'm so young, I know so little about the world, I'm an unbroken idealist and abstractionist, I have a lot of hurting left to do. I embrace the coming suffering as it is the only thing in life that I am sure leads to growth; or if not growth, then signficant change; I do not ask for pain to come to me; nor do I brood, placing upon it dooming expectation; I think nothing of it, yet suffering will come of its own accord. That said, I am prepared.

Sometimes I want him to be my everything. This is magical thinking. I express it in saccharine platitudes, causing cavities in both our mouths. Other times, like in his cold moods of quietness when he ignores me, he becomes but a passing snowflake to me: unique? yes. lovely? surely. significant? not at all. There will be others, I don't care. I can't tell, and I won't hold my breath.

On Self-Condemning Ideals and My Wish for Redemption

I am inspired by the Blue and White article featuring the accomplishments of a certain Columbia student, who is a former slam poet from San Francisco, and who is now deeply involved in issues concerning immigrant and migrant worker rights.

That's amazing.

I come from a similar background, and feel that I have lost my roots, or perhaps was never heartfully involved in the matter of social justice and human rights. All the workshops that I went to, all the programs I've been involved in, CYI especially - I feel these ideals were never very deeply lodged in me. I have been involved in many activities throughout high school, but maybe only for the purely selfish motive of promoting myself in college applications. Maybe the do-gooder in me is only as good for the world as greed is socially beneficial in a market system.

So I want to open my mind a little more to the world: the poor, the needy, those for whom I claim to be securing a privileged education, the people I want to help when I graduate.

Do I still want to do this? Or have I blackened totally to the temptation of investment banking and the evil (but oh so golden) side of my nefarious major?

At the end of my Theoreticals class, Professor Burgstaller said to me in a brief conversation regarding Smith's conception of productive and unproductive labor: "the economic surplus allows wasteful people like Wallstreet Workers and Lawyers to survive." They are the waste of society. Yeah, who needs them? Some economists disagree. I, myself, am not sure.

In French class, when the SIPA students speak, I'm lost. I have nothing to say about current events because I haven't read the news lately. I guess maybe I've never really cared about any of the issues, or I would, at least by some urge of curiosity, have taken the time to figure all the stuff out. What the hell is going on in the Middle East? Words and terms I do not know. Newspapers I do not read. I am living in a bubble!

I am displeased with myself. I want to know what my world is made of. I want to know stop this self-important academic seclusion. I want to get out of this academic bubble and really see people for what they are, what they want, what they fight for.

I came into college thinking I knew what I was studying for: social justice, giving back to society, bettering my world. I am worried that I was never deeply committed to the cause. Well, I want to be.

On the Fucking Western Canon

I've always had a problem with English class: I hate being told what to think when it comes to things that are supposedly "open to interpretation." I remember a time when I was very young, when I fully, carefreely enjoyed reading; enjoyed picking up random books for the plain and simple sake of experiencing stories, enjoyed the pure joy of empathizing with characters. Then Judgment in the form of the English teacher and the Wishbone/Cliffnotes list of "Classics" imposed itself on my literary choices. Henceforth, I could not but choose to read only those books regarded as "high level," "truly literary" works, as all other things were obviously a waste of my time and efforts. Imposed on top of my own sense of literary merit was an academically baited appreciation for symbolism, foreshadowing, and parallels, all picked out with arm-shooting vigor. Not to discount these three literary devices as important aspects of literature, for I am very grateful to have become acculturized to these techniques at an early age, but I must say, ever since their discovery, literature has become for me a cheese maze of literary devices, like sifting through dirt for gold nuggets; the integrity of literary works have become dangerously undermined, and with its capitalism of teacher-approved insights, I've garnered a pride and greed in literature class, and lost the paradise of self-trusting pleasure in fiction.

I think the problem with the canon is that it forces one to lose trust in one's own sensual experience of language and storytelling. Using Christine Froula's analogy in "When Eve Reads Milton : Undoing the Canonical Economy," the sensual, or visible, is lost to the higher-learned, or invisible, preachings of the teacher, who is the Sparknotes guru readily equipped with key quotes, symbols, and themes. It is to the reader as the Voice is to Eve: it subjugates, it destroys the self-contained and self-complete experience of literature, it casts doubt. It takes authority away from the reader, and makes for "mediated" rather than "experienced" appreciation of the text. Never in English class have I felt that I am being taught how to enjoy reading; rather, I have always felt that I was being preached to, converted into a brotherhood of text-dissectors, all self-approving and busy with toolkits and eulogies. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention to the coin-tossing ("Guess What the Teacher's Thinking") lectures. Never in English class have I ever been told to just pick up a book, any modern, present-day book from a bookstore, and read it, learn to have fun with it, and in its enjoyment, learn to incorporate reading into my daily life. Book-lovers always complain that the novel is being replaced by technology and movies; I think this needn't be the case if high school teachers taught their students to read and enjoy reading, and to really incorporate present-day, non-Classics into their daily lives. Reading would feel less like Judgment and more like Joy.

Why is the Cannon the cannon? Perhaps because power must be limited to be potent: the names inscribed on Butler, the mystical history, the authority, the ho hum, literary scholars who know so much better than everyone else, academics who revel in their esoteric language, their exclusive clubhouse - are they, like Adam and the Catholic Church, actually acting out of fear? If literature were truly free and open to everyone's interpretation, how would English professors pay their bills?

I write from a rude, inconsiderate rebellion. I do have respect for English professors, especially for their passion and sublime appreciation of language. I also truly do enjoy identifying themes and symbols in books, not only, I hope, because I feel it validates my reading in some way, but also, I hope, because this way of analyzing stories has become ingrained in me and it helps me in my daily life to create poetry out of the mundane. Through the process of identifying symbols and themes in books, I have learned to identify symbols and themes in my own experiences and memories.

I think there is something in the human psyche that naturally identifies and creates themes and symbols. Perhaps it is a neat way to create meaning and nuance in what may otherwise be a plain and unaccented narrative of existence. I have seen that there are immense beauties to be learned from literature, from the artful transmission of human experience through words. The pedagogy of structured, unifed, compliant analytical reading is useful in many ways. But one thing I feel I must express in vernacular: the canon sucks.

On Confusion, and Self-Indulgent Memoir

What should I do with my liberal education?

According to my big brother Six, we, the American liberal-educated, are living in a Kantean "Post-Modern World" where we are given the freedom, knowledge, and encouragement to define our own values, and this cornucopia of choice is precisely the reason for much of our anxieties. Here in Columbia, we are told that we are the exceptional bearers of the torch, that we can change the world someday; indeed we must, for that is our American Ivy League destiny. But can we all do this? What is the world market for genius? What's the structural unemployment rate? Whatever we do, we have to be the best at it, and it's impossible for us to all be the best.

A liberal education is the ultimate luxury. I can take whatever I want in college because the degree is a symbol of my market value, which stands in the job market regardless of my course choices. In the modern economy, I have to get an advanced degree anyway if I want a competitive wage, and even those courses may have little to do with my work in the "Real World."

The blessing: I can do whatever the hell I please. For a person of my means, I can rest assured that in New York City, I will always be able to make a living wage. I have the luxury of a top-notch education, and I can do whatever makes me happy; I can create a neat list of values and priorities and decide to "center my life" around these abstractions.

But what is my obligation to the world? In society, not everyone can do whatever they please. I have been conditioned to feel that I must take my luxuries, my economic surpluses, and use them to best serve my society, my species, my planet, life at large and in abstraction. How would I go about doing this? My liberal education has nurtured in me a plethora of interests, talents, and possibilities; which path should I choose? Should I buy into the economic notion of "comparative advantage" and pursue whatever I (and/or others) identify as my best quality? (ie Performing, Writing, Teaching) And say I feel that quality is writing and I decide to be a writer; but say there is a great supply of people who feel this way about their comparative advantage, and not enough demand for it in the market; and say I discover down the road that I'm not good enough to beat the curve, do I allow myself to be cut from the market? Or should I tailor myself to the market by filling a less competitive or more secure position? (ie start off with Finance or Accounting) Is comparative advantage an illusion too? Do we really have choice or are our lives ultimately determined by the market?

Do geniuses at the top of the curve have choice?

According to Six, it is both risky and tiresome to try to be a genius. You have to be very lucky. You have to be better than everyone else, then you have to run into the right people to recognize that you're better than everyone else, and then you have to have the right inspiration at the right times to produce consistently at that level in which you are better than everyone else. And a lot of people, especially at our Columbia's and Brown's, believe that we are part of that genius class, so a bunch of them must inevitably be disappointed. How do they respond? Do they hang their heads, tuck their tails between their legs, and join the big corporate wheel?

Does anyone ever really leave that wheel? Should I take the risk?

How do I best serve my society? I am studying economics, politics, and environmental science in order to understand the most recent trends of the world, and see how I can help the progress. In the future, I think I'd make a great teacher or educator of sorts. I'd like to work with people on the ground level; I enjoy planning curriculum, teaching, counseling, playing, and helping people be creative and feel inspired, especially through art or theater; and I can imagine myself working globally in community building through schools. This will also allow me time and opportunity to learn about different cultures and fields, connect with different people, think, write, and spend time with loved ones. I will be happy.

However, my parents absolutely scorn the career path of "teacher," at least at the pre-collegiate level. Today, when I told my mother about my dreams of being a teacher, she responded: "why don't you just jump out the window? Why don't you just kill yourself? I don't care." Teaching is "没出息" - no future prospects, a disappointment to the family.

Well, there are other ways to change the world. Working with people directly may be too small scale anyway. If I really want to do anything worthwhile, I should work in policy. I should be a big shot politician, or at least a CEO, a director of some non-profit, an entrepreneur, heck even an academic or a think tank brain cell - but not some primary or secondary school teacher. I have no doubt that policy is incredibly important and money is the language of the world; that is why I'm studying these things which come so unnaturally to me. However, I don't feel a life of statistical analysis, diplomatic schmoozing, and frantic ladder climbing is particularly fulfilling. It doesn't makes the most of my abilities to inspire people or enjoy life, and it just doesn't seem very fun.

Who said life is fun? Why don't I just kill myself? My mother doesn't care.

"Live your passion." That is what my eigth grade English teacher, Ms. Neelakantappa, told me one day on the subway after we chatted briefly about my desire to write poetry and my parents' desire for me to write chemical equations. She said, "One day you will have to make that choice between what you want and what others want for you. Choose the one that will make you feel more alive." She also said, "Your parents will come to understand, respect, and love you for what you choose and who you are."

That is such a liberating idea. But it opens up several whole new cans of worms; namely, an Education Major at Barnard in addition to my gazillion other ambitions, and several awesome philosophy, anthropology, and history courses next semester that I "don't have room" to take. Choice is awkward and paralyzing. If I had only one path, I'd suck it up and deal with it. My parents can bind my feet, arrange my marriage, sell me to my in-laws for some rice and a porcelain chamber pot, and I wouldn't know to protest. But since I live in a Kantean Post-Modern World, hell yeah I'm fucking blessed, but also quite anxious at this point in life.

For those who worry excessively (ie me), an endless variety of possibilities is cause for misery. There are difficulties in all things, my parents tell me, and no career is easy, and in the end all jobs are about the same. Still, I believe some things are more personally difficult than others, and some things simply bring me more joy. Does JOY matter? My mother doesn't seem to care.

Some questions:

1. How do I live my life to the max?

2. What is happiness? Is it adaptable, as my parents say? Is it determined by attitude rather than activity? Or is there something concrete about achieving happiness in life? Does it matter?

(It seems matter very much to me. But who is "I"? Some social construction of identity: a myriad of voices, a perception, some arbitrary and ambiguous thing.)

3. What is identity? Who am I? Am I for sure? Can I know? Does it matter?

4. What is good and what is the good life? Should I listen to others' definition or my own? What is my own definition but a composition of others' definitions? Why do I want so badly to be good? Does being good matter?

5. What matters? Do I have the discipline to live according to what matters? Am I in danger of a life of misery? Why am I so unsuccessful and unhappy right now? Am I doomed to be forever this way?

On Hegel and History, as applied to Marxist Political Economy, My identity, and My Love

First, a compendium of concepts. Next, its application to my life.

From my First-Year Seminar:

Hegel's view on history can be summed up in three main points:

1) History is not a random sequence of events but a comprehensible process governed by objective laws that can only be grasped by looking at history as a whole.

2) History is not a unified, linear progress in a single direction, but a sort of dialectical process. It consists of stages of development, each of which is comprised of contradictions that resolve in higher synthesis in the next stage:

THESIS, ANTITHESIS, SYNTHESIS

3) History is the story of the development of ideas. The dialectical development of human thought is the motor of history. This progress of the human mind continues towards a goal: self-consciousness. At the end of history, humans realize they are the architect of reality. Through self-consciousness, the human spirit becomes aware of its freedom, and man is master of himself. ["There is no spoon." - The Matrix]

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This third point is called Idealism: the belief that ideas are primary and physical reality is secondary; that mind governs reality. Marx, a Materialist, differed from Hegel in this respect only. He believed that material and physical reality precedes human ideas.

Applied to political economy, this embodies the difference between Marx and Weber's views on capitalism. While Weber believed that the ideology of the Protestant ethic helped to give birth to Capitalism, Marx believed that the material realities of the world give birth to human ideology.

Specifically, Marx believed that within the infrastructure of society, the mode of production, or technology, is the keystone. Society is shaped around the material technology of production available to workers. The social relations of production, which is composed of one, property relations (who owns what) and two, division of labor (who performs what task) are dependent on the mode of production. Thus, the following quotation from Marx:

"The plow gives you the master and the slave. The windmill gives you the lord and the serf. The steam engine gives you the capitalist and the worker."

On top of this infrastructure of technology and social relations is built a superstructure of culture, values, and a political and legal system. With this superstructure comes the ideology of society, how society interprets itself. This ideology comes from the ruling class and is transmitted to society as a whole. Thus the ideology often conforms around the reality, bringing justification to injustice, and value to the invaluable. Every age there is a different superstructure. The task of the social scientist is to find out how things really work.

Thus, according to Marx, change of ideology roots not from pure human reason and innovation, but from a change in the material composition of society, most specifically from a change in technology. Constant technical progress makes for constant change in social relations of production, which in turn creates change of ideology. This process is entitled Historical Materialism and exists in stark contrast to Hegel's Historical Idealism.

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Although Marx' Historical Materialism seems more evident than Hegel's Historical Idealism, I am drawn on a spiritual level to the Hegelian belief of mind over reality. We are the architects of our own lives - Hegel asserts. Through self-consciousness, we are free to shape truth in the light of beauty. Such, I believe, is the nature and necessity of art.

I am constantly in the process of interpreting and re-interpreting my life: my feelings, my desires, my history, my relationships, my values, and my goals. My personal history is not unlike Hegelian dialectical history; it is full of contradictions, theses and antitheses, that synthesize at every stage of my life to give me a compounded, multi-dimensional, and variable identity. My personal ideologies are often tailored to changes in the infrastructure of my life: my material surroundings, my social relationships, and my production patterns. But just as often, my ideologies of the moment, which change from day-to-day according to what I learn, read, and think, have a great influence on my behavior, social relationships, and material surroundings.

There is a dialectic between Materialism and Ideology in the composition of my personal history. I would play the role of social scientist, and attempt to examine my life for Truth, but any such examination is self-conscious in nature, and only adds to my Ideology.

Scientific method is an ideology. The concept of rationality is a classic Western ideology. Rationality may be irrational, depending on how we define it. Mathematics is ideology. (This helps validate the Hegelian view of history.) However, the manner in which we, human beings, go about examining life and analyzing our observations, is limited by the technology, the mode of production, of our senses and sensibilities. (On a personal identity level, this helps confirm the Marxist view of history.)

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The most powerful and most compounded/multi-dimensional/variable Ideology of my life is surely Love. I sometimes believe that I could convince myself into Love and just as easily convince myself out of it. Often when I'm with the one I love, I am so busy emoting and interpreting my lover's face/eyes/heart and pushing emotion onto my own face/eyes/heart, I'm so busy squeezing meaning and ideology into every moment, that I can not live the moments purely as they are. I can not live Love naturally; it almost feels dishonest, or dubiously heavy with sentimentality; like I am playing with time, stretching it with my face/eyes/heart. I feel like I'm constantly trying to manipulate Love by tampering with the natural emotions, loading on popularly constructed expressions of Love, for effect.

What is Love? Love is a dialectic between truthful recognition of the Material and an Ideal desire for beauty. The experience of Love is always somewhat unreal.