3-31 How Can I Help?

My mom is the most compassionate person I know. Helping others is “not something [she] really thinks about, merely the instinctive response of [her] open heart” (5). Her “effort [is] so natural …” that she gets “… self-conscious [when you] make something of it” (5). I could offer you a laundry list of her great deeds, but I think that would be disrespectful to her. She doesn’t do things for recognition or praise; she does it because she believes it’s genuinely the right thing to do. She once told me that when she stops helping others, then others will stop helping her. I remember when she allowed her co-worker’s “troubled” 16 year old to come live with us for a few months. The girl- Jessica- came from a super conservative family- home schooling, no TV, no telephone, no friends over, women cook and clean, children write an essay if you break a rule, etc. Anyway, she ended up getting pregnant. Her dad wanted her gone, and her mother- not the type to stand up for her children I suppose- asked my mom to take Jessica in. of course she said yes, and, within the second week, Jessica and my “life savings” was gone.


The equivalent of "my life savings".

I was devastated and inconsolable- especially since my mom didn’t vowel to avenge this crime, but instead told me that Jessica probably needed it more than I did.


a inconsolable child... what i probably looked like... except this girl has blond hair.

Later she elaborated on this point, and gave me my first introduction to the idea of karma: “when we join together in spirit, action comes more effortlessly, and everybody ends up nourished” (5).


the image i have in my head when i think of karma

I don’t fully understand where my mom’s generosity comes from. I never felt like that was a conversation I could have with her. I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable with my observations of her generosity, and I didn’t want her to be disappointed that I didn’t have that same bounteous well of compassion. However, I’ve recently learned that my mom’s “experience of separateness guides [her] to appropriate understanding and support” (22). She knows what it’s like to be in a place like Jessica. That doesn’t mean she is condoning her actions; rather she understands why she did what she did. Jessica was really young and scared, and she didn’t have a thorough understanding of what her options were. I’ve recently found myself following after my mother’s example. Though our actions are not comparable I am very aware of the people that I chose to extend my compassion to, and this is because “from [the] body of common experience, much care is born” (22). I’m not suggesting that I only feel sympathy for certain people- I am a surprisingly sympathetic person. However, what I feel is much different from what I do; this difference probably exists for a lot of people. My mom on the other hand doesn’t differentiate between who she feels deserves her generosity. This is because of “[her] impulse to do all [she] can to relieve… another’s pain…” (55). I know my mom’s generous nature has forced her to confront “a pain so excruciating that it [has] threatened the very fabric of [her being], shattered [her] tenuously held faith, and cast [her] into deepest despair” (56). What I don’t know is whether she has ever been able to recover from it. I appreciate what she did, but I don’t appreciate what it did to her. However, I think that her experience of “a tragedy that [broke her] heart” (56) enables her to determine “how much pain to let in, and whose” (56) better than almost anyone else.

Bellow are three essays I’ve addressed to my future self about how I’ve changed since attending college. They’re all dominated by one theme: fixing things.

Dear future self: December 13, 2008
I still remember what it felt like to think I could conquer the world: the adrenalin that ran through my veins as I passionately demanded retribution from governments around world; the silent pleasure experienced as I witnessed people react to my liberal nonsensical jargon; the purpose and optimism that networks inspired; the moral superiority that consumed me. Do you still remember those feelings? I also remember how I eventually resented everyone around me- I didn’t understand why they weren’t interested in decorating “Holiday Cards” for prisoners of conscience, why they laughed at me, or why they kept calling my foolish.

It wasn’t until I came to UT that I experienced the constraints of my activist cocoon. I had allowed my emotions to influence the way I saw the world, and I had become soft. I had never challenged the information sent to me. I believed everything my high school text books said, including the stories about George Washington’s apple orchards. It never occurred to me to question why there was only a small bar in my History book that mentioned African American’s involvement in the Civil War, or whether the material Amnesty International sent me on labor camps in Mexico was full of one-sided propaganda. Do you still have that binder of pamphlets? Do you ever get nostalgic about how easy it was to be so naive? Remember when I first encountered professors and people who presented me with opinions and facts that clashed with my fundamental beliefs? They demanded that I had a thorough understanding of the topic I wanted to discuss, and they incessantly played devil’s advocate. I was angry at first, then ashamed, remember?

That introduction into a wealth of understanding I had never known existed has inspired me to change the way I look at the world. I have come to understand that issues are not divided by good and bad. Conflict is sometimes a result of corruption, but, for the most part, it is strongly influenced by inherent differences in people’s cultures. Moreover, I learned to appreciate these differences- they are as understandable as the variation among people’s preference for breakfast food. I may not agree with the way certain affairs are conducted, but I can see why governments or organizations chose to take the actions they do. Do I still believe in muticulturism, or have I finally accepted the neoconservative view of culture? Did I ever get around to reading Marc Steyn’s books?

Not only did this transition completely revolutionize the way I approached my education and global awareness, but it also devastated the security I’ve known in high school. I find myself appalled by war, but now I can selfishly justify it. I understand how America’s investment in other countries- the investment that pays for a lot of the things I consume- will stand in the way of a country achieving self-determination. I understand what politically and psychologically motives the conflict in Sudan, and, more importantly, I understand that I will never be able to do anything about it. I will never be able to end starvation around the world, fix poverty, or cure disease in Africa- no matter how many letters I write, flyers I pass out, or research I do. Do you remember how lonely it was realizing this?

My goal has always been too broad: world peace. It’s not possible, and, while it has taken me a long time to accept this and the fear it inspires, when I finally did I found a peace that I had never experienced in high school. However, along with that peace comes a frustration and loneliness. I can’t fix the world, but I can do more good understanding this then naively leading crusades that the rest of the world doesn’t take seriously.

Dear Future Self, Arbitrary Date?
I’m emotionally numb. Has that changed?
All of my decisions are driven by logic now. I still feel an emotional reaction to the things I hear and experience, but I always stifle it before it becomes something too messy to deal with. Sometimes I feel this detachment makes me coarse-does mom still call my callous?- but I’m trying to be positive. There are certain obvious benefits that come from being emotionally detached.

Do you remember reading Siddhartha in Bump’s class? Do you remember the discussion on detached compassion and love? I never realized this, but, for the past few months, I’ve been practicing it. I think it started after I was hired on to Red Lobster. Everyone kept shoving their advice down my throat- “you can’t be a full time student and a full time waitress, it’s too hard”, “you’ll crash and burn”, “your grades will suffer, you shouldn’t work so much”, “you can’t afford UT, just get your Associates at a community college; it’s more realistic”. I know what they say is true, but I am offended that they feel it is their place to judge my choice. I never asked for their advice, but they gave it to me anyway. Moreover, they aren’t even aware of the entire story. They made assumptions about my motivation for getting a job, and that makes me even angrier than being told something I already know.

Being forced into the situation I had put countless others in- telling them I knew what was best for them, carelessly throwing my supposed moral, intellectual, or spiritual superiority in their face – has changed the way I approached conflicts among my friends and family. I may disagree with their decision- I may fear for their safety or stability, but I cannot suppress them with it; I can’t fix their flaws and mistakes. I just have to accept them.

if they ask for my opinion I’ll give it to them, but only if asked. This is because I believe that, even if they don’t realize what they are doing isn’t in their best interest, they’re the only ones who can realize that for themselves. I will always love them because they’re my friends or members of my family, but that doesn’t mean I can intrude upon their lives. Besides, my moral foundation isn’t necessarily the right one.

Dear future self,
It has recently occurred to me that I cannot fix the world. I cannot fix my friends and family members. But- you know what I can fix? Me.

In Houston, it was easy to get caught up in others’ actions- whether they were friends involved in insipid drama, family members who were hurting, or politicians who were making scandalous remarks. I don’t know how long I lived my life monopolized by others, but it reached the point where I hardly knew anything about myself. However, when I moved to Austin I left many of the people whose life I had made my own. I was alone with no one to distract me from getting to know who I really am.

Being forced to evaluate who I am inspired a lot of questions within me. Was college a good fit for me? Could I afford it? Could I handle it? Was it worth everything that I had to give up? What did worth mean to me? Why was I doing the things I did? Why did I lie? Judge? Why was I disappointed in myself and others? What were my expectations?

These kinds of questions plagued everything I did, and I began to doubt myself. I couldn’t sit down in a coffee shop to study without feeling pretentious, even though I was really there because of the cheap refills; I couldn’t feign interest in people or things without feeling fake, even though I knew that that was a part of simply being social; I couldn’t participate in discussions without feeling like a pseudo-intellectual, even though I knew I was only having these discussions because I like to debate. These feelings forced me to look within myself and explore why I felt the way I did, and, when I confronted the true motivation behind some of these feelings, I wanted to change them. For example, after reflecting on my feelings about a political conversation I had had in the West MallI I realized that for the past six months I was forcing my experience in college to determine my self-worth. Who I was and what I was capable of was determined by how often I could use what I’d learned in my classes, and that wasn’t an appropriate use of my education.

Realizing this was the first step, and changing it was the second. When I realized how disappointed I was in myself for abusing my college experience- when I understood what I wanted from my experience here at UT- I was able to morph all of these negative feelings into something positive. It’s a hard trap to avoid, but I think I’ve done well so far. Am I still doing well? How do you determine your self-worth now?

3-24 Siddhartha 3

“Detached love” is a synonym for “tough love”, but the words cannot be used interchangeably. One word will always be more appropriate depending on the situation; like practically everything in the English language, the phrases are contextual.

"Tough love" tends to have negative connotations because people don't understand it or they use it incorrectly. A personal example of "tough love": my mom stopped giving me money at 16. She wanted me to learn the value of a dollar, and gain my financial independence before it really mattered. Some would argue that this is unnecessarily harsh, but my mom didn't do it because she wanted to be mean and punish me. She did it because it is a lesson everyone needs to learn, and she loves me enough to ensure that I learn it.

The principle of both phrases concerns the actions of at least two individuals- one must “let go” and allow the other to… develop. Develop could mean a variety of things: mature into an adult, learn right from wrong, comprehend a truth, develop a truth, pass away, and much more.

The most applicable example of “detached love” would be that of Siddhartha and his son. Siddhartha does not understand that his son’s “…pain will not be slight; after all, his heart is hard and proud, and people like this have to suffer quite a bit, make many mistakes, do a great deal of injustice, and burden themselves with a lot of sin” (111), because he is too afraid that his son will”…become enthusiastic, lose himself to pleasure and power, [and] repeat all of his father’s mistakes” (112). As much as it may hurt Siddhartha to watch his son travel down a dark path, he must acknowledge his son’s independence regardless of what that entails.

No one wants to see their child wrapped up in greed, like the women in these phots.

I feel that a lot of people in relationships make this mistake: they try to mold their child, friend, or partner into the people they wish they were. I’m not talking about developing a fundamental moral backbone like one may do with a child- I’m talking about imposing ideals and standards. Only when we recognize that someone will only change if they want to are we serving the role that most benefits them. Vasudeva says it best when he asks Siddhartha “don’t you shackle him with your love? Don’t you, everyday make him feel inferior, and make it harder on him with your kindness and patients?”

This acceptance is not a cessation of our love, rather it’s the detachment of it. To love someone is to do what’s best for them, and, in the case of their “development”, it is granting them the space they need. “…Even if you would die ten times for [someone], you would not even be able to take the slightest part of [their] destiny upon yourself” (113).

People will not change unless they want to. This is most obvious when you consider hard drug abusers. As many times as you tell them that what they're doing could kill them, they will not stop unless they want to. When they want to stop is when you can help them, and, in the case of this example, send them to a rehab like the picture above.

If we allow ourselves to detach from the love we feel for an individual, we can relate to where they’re coming from. For example, we must remember that we’ve been in similar situations: “Hadn’t [Siddhartha’s] father suffered the same pain on his account that he is now suffering because of his son?” (122)

“Detached love” doesn’t allow for the emotional mess that love does. When one cannot think objectively they stunt their growth and the person they love growth. I’m not suggesting that we all go our lives and practice detached love or compassion, for that would prevent us from doing a lot of good. They key is to know how to differentiate between the two, to contextualize them, and to grow the balls to act on them. Yes- “the flame [will] not go out on its own” (122), but, as Siddhartha learned, you reach a point in your development where you will “… be inclined to despair” but also “… no less inclined to laugh at yourself and the rest of the world” (123).
If you don't give yourself room for emotional detachment then you will be consumed by how someone else is making you feel, instead of how you're making them feel.

“but hardly yet
Knew the young child of sorrow, pain, or tears,
Save as strange names for things not felt by kings,
Nor ever to be felt. But it befell…” (X239)


The French Revolution was a result of greedy bourgeois aristocrats, who, most would argue, didn't feel sorrow, pain, or tears.

When a swan is shot down “in the Royal garden on a day of spring…” (X239) Prince Siddartha “[sooths] with a touch the wild thing’s fright,/ Composed its ruffled vans, [and clams] its quick heart…”


A swan

This quote is referring to Siddartha’s first experience with exploring his compassion. Looking back on my childhood I can relate to the way Siddartha felt before he saw his cousin shoot the swan. I remember definable points in my life where I really felt sorrow, pain, or tears. Though I had always known what they meant, though I had used them interchangeably with other words, it wasn’t until I was able to recognize others’ real pain that I began to recognize my own. Whether this “pain” was a result of acknowledging my own suffering or having compassion for others, my ability to feel it was based on my exposure to the rest of the world. By opening my mind to people beyond my immediate family, I couldn’t be as self-centered as I once was.


This is me- but not really- opening my eyes to see the rest of the world.

However, before Siddartha discovered this enlightenment he “started to cultivate the seed of discontent within himself” (Hesse 7). He felt that “never had he quenched the ultimate thirst” (10) of living a blessed life. In his quest for understanding Siddartha joined a group of pilgrims and ascetics who “… wafted a hot scent of passion, of a duty that destroys, of a merciless self-effacing” (Hesse 11).

As I mentioned before, I feel like I can relate to Siddartha’s choice to forsake the “luxury” of living as a prince for a deeper spiritual understanding. Though I wasn’t seeking “spiritual understanding”, my quest to find the answer to “why the world is the way it is” resulted in a period of time where, like Siddartha, “nothing was worth even the glance of [the] eyes… [because] everything was decaying while nobody acknowledged the fact” (Hesse 16).

Siddartha’s journey to “…know the one and only thing that was most important…” (Hesse 8) had a great impact on his life and the lives of every Buddhist since 500 BC.




(snazzy ending…?)

I want to avoid reiterating previous DB discussions, so I am splitting this entry into two unrelated parts. Neither will really focus on any kind of animal ethics. The first will cover the two readings on Jainism, and the second will offer a critic of Kipling’s “Beast and Man”.

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“How can we survive on a planet of ten billion points of infinite greed and pride?” (232)



Good point.
A few more good points: Why try? Is it a futile effort? Where will America be in the next twenty years? Where will the Middle East be? Africa? China? What condition will the planet be in? What is the most pressing humanitarian cause? Hunger? Disease? The environment? Animals?
Jainism is a religion that believes humans have “a moral obligation toward nonhuman creation… Jain teachings can serve to remind the world of the power and complexity of nature…” (232). I agree with the idea of responsibility and reverence towards nature that Jainism “preaches” (do they preach?), but I think my reasons are slightly different. Jainism came to this conclusion based on ahimsa, which is “… the largest love, [and the] greatest charity” (231). I reached this conclusion based on our (i.e. Homo sapiens) biological similarity and shared anatomical features with every other earthling in the kingdom Animalia. For example, vertebrates have a backbone just like us; mammals have hair and lactate just like us; primates have forward facing eyes, grasping hands just like us. (Can use successive semicolons? Probably not.)

The super family Hominoidea includes four species: Gibbons, Orangs, Gorillas, Chimps, and Humans. Each of these species with the exception of Gibbons uses tools. Tool use is taught to children, and passed down through generations. Depending on the species the tool use can be really advanced. This is an example of how interconnected humans are with other earthlings.


In my opinion, maliciously hurting an animal for one’s materialism and/or dominance is just like hurting a human being. Moreover, destroying the environment- our life source- is like killing a mother.

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Now on to Kipling… (I feel like inserting some kind of manic laugh here).
Kipling came from an upper middle class English family; his father was an imperialist and avid supporter English involvement in WWI. This background is necessary for one to fully understand why Kipling’s text includes such a biased, inaccurate portrayal of India.
The “Beast and Man” is full of loaded diction that portrays Indians as uncivilized. This is most apparent when one encounters Kipling’s descriptions of Indian people. For example, page 249 offers a description of the goat and buffalo sacrifices in Bengal: “for there may be seen thousands of people gloating in delirious excitement over rivers of blood.” When one reads this sentence a barbaric image is brought to mind. The image immediately dominates readers’ thoughts, and they forget that the sentence lacks any contextual content. Kipling mentions that the ceremony is a sacrifice to Kali, but he never mentions who Kali is. He doesn’t describe the significance of the animal’s death, or how it is killed. Moreover, Kipling does further injustice to his readers and the Indian culture by comparing this sacrificial ceremony to an English man’s “decent solemnities [that are] described in the Bible or in Homer.” It’s like comparing apples to oranges; you just cannot compare cultures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdEGJb5W5ks

READ THIS BEFORE WATCHING: I am not endorsing Steyn’s belief that Western culture is superior to Muslim culture. The relevance of this video to my DB lies in Steyn’s argument that cultures are not comparable. One cannot superimpose their supposed superior values on a country. Kipling doesn’t have an issue with eating meat, but, if he attempted to promote his belief in India where there is a “spontaneous desire to protect [cattle] from sufferings in old age” (265). It just wouldn’t work.

Another example of Kipling’s intentional misrepresentation of the history between Indian and England is apparent when he says, “They have done justice and loved mercy, they have protectted the lowly and weak, saved the widow from the fire, fed the famine-stricken, taught the ignorant, and made that a nation which was not a nation; -- but they kill and eat the cow, and are therefore, in a levitical sense, abominable” (254). I just want to laugh at this excerpt- he portrays England is valiant and benevolent, as if their action “[making] a nation which was not a nation” was done out of charity. Secondly, he simplifies “Indian resentment” (254) and attributes their disapproval to the English’s appetite for red meat.

3-3 19TH-C. ENGLAND: COMPASSION VS. HUNTING/ IMPERIALISM (KIND OF)

Since everyone is “tried of talking about animals”, I am going to take a “liberal” approach to this topic.

In my TC on Africa we spent the first two weeks discussing the definition of words like post-modern, colonial, neo-colonial, master narrative, and imperialism. We eventually understood that these words have an overwhelming variety of interpretations, and it is up to us to form an educated opinion on what each word means. I believe that the word imperialism is the most relevant to this DB; imperialism is a term that is generally understood as one independent country’s dominance over another “independent” country.



A symbolic photo of American imperialism.


With ease the term can be extended to “animals” and “humans”- every species that falls these categories are supposedly autonomous beings because they can “think” for themselves (the intellectual/moral scale that one weighs them by is irrelevant really), however, one species- the “animal”- is always the less of the “two”. Imperialism, in its literal and extended deff. is a product of the following:

According to Linnaeus’ taxonomy Homo sapiens fall under the kingdom Animalia; this means that “we”, Homo sapiens, are animals. Having reasonably drawn this conclusion, one is must ask why “we” continue to draw a distinction between “ourselves” and “animals”. Some may think this is taking things too far, but I would argue that our insistence on this distinction is similar to the English man’s bigoted insistence on distinguishing himself from Indians. One can see an example for this in Orwell’s essay, “Shooting an Elephant”. Orwell continually distinguishes between himself, “the people”, and “the elephant”: “We began questioning the people as to where the elephant had gone and, as usual, failed to get any definite information” (219). This distinction, done for literary effect, communicates the racist, imperialistic mindset of the English occupation of India; it establishes the Indians as “an other”, despite their relatedness to Englishmen.

Moreover, this distinction- predominately when applied to animals- encourages an egocentric view of the world. In the short story “Very like a Whale” by someone-whose-name-i-don’t-remember-and-cant-find-on-google the author emphasis how anthropomorphism is wrong. In a nutshell, the author (a boy? A girl? Maybe both or neither?!) argues that anthropomorphism robes a wild “animal” – for here on referred to as a “being”- of it’s majestic presence.

The story draws its moral from the way people sta at a beached whale.



Which means, though I agree with what “Eleanor Frere Fenn [asserts,] ‘nothing could more effectually tend to infuse benevolence than the teaching of little ones early to consider every part of nature as endured with feeling.’” 174 I disagree with the way that a lot of “people” go about teaching this. Additionally, to depict animals as being similar, in any way, to humans encourages a mindset that humans are superior. By “our” standards “they” are this and “they” are that. By “our” standards “they” can’t do this and “they” can’t do that. When one begins to believe themselves superior, they begin to believe that they need to “help” the lesser being (be it “animal” or race) to become civilized and domesticated. When they start on this quest of civilizing the masses they begin to embrace cruelty, because dominance goes hand in hand with cruelty.

In the “Hurt Hawk” there is a verse that discusses various beings’ understanding of “the wild God” (215). This verse plays into my arguments that “animals” and “humans” are not that much different from each other (having come from the same place) and that there remains a group of “humans” who will never accept this fact. The verse is, “You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him;/Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him;/Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, remember him” (215). To me the God figure that Jeffers is referring to would be nature, because a hawk cannot remember/worship what is, in my opinion, a manmade idol. Nature would be the place we all come from that I mentioned above. The communal people is a representation of the people who will always remain close minded.


The three elements in this photo- earth, water, and sun- have given every being, every earthling life.