How to Be Ugly

"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." - Sirius Black

Beauty is skin deep. We preach and preach about everyone has their own special brand of beautiful, whether it be inner or outer beauty. Honestly, I don't care about outer beauty. That's not going to be the point here. It's that people can be ugly. It matter how they act in society.

Basically, it boils down to treating your friends great and everyone else like dirt. And that is true of society when you notice how many people are truly oppressed on a daily basis. The words racist and homophobe didn't appear because we just wanted to have a word just in case. They appeared because that's how society acted. And technically, still acts when you read the statistics on how many rights minority groups don't have. A person's character can only truly be summed up by their personality.

Essentially, a good person is someone who accepts people for who they are. Someone who doesn't find groups of people unsettling to be around. Someone who doesn't want someone to change to conform to society. Do these people exist? I know the internet will surely give me a list of people that claim they are always respectful of every group and are truly good people. Unfortunately, I shouldn't be finding them on blogs that deem it acceptable to mock celebrities. Or trust them, because the internet is anonymous for the most part. That's part of the allure. I can't know because I don't know that person and their life. I can only trust that I try my hardest to not offend people. I do slip every so often. I will call a women the "b" word if they seem to be acting in a horrendous manner. Yet, I do also realise I probably shouldn't have done that. I try and correct it, limiting the use of the word until I feel that I have a handle on not using that word. I don't want to demean women. There is already not enough respect for women without me insulting my own kind. So I actively attempt change.

How many people are as aware as I am? Even if I'm not particularly in love with subjects that are tough, I still seek out those topics and read comments on them. I try and change so that those issues don't become my issues. We aren't set in stone. We never have been.

Attractiveness is far more than skin deep. Society is quite ugly and well, who knows if they'll ever learn that.

Choices

"...if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy..." - Albus Dumbledore

Everyday we make choices. But how many of actually choose something outside of our comfort zone? Stand up for ourselves? We pick the easy route, the one of usually least resistance. Is it right?

When one hears about things that happen in the media, like the suicides of the gay students last fall, you usually hear how no one helped. Or the issues in Washington and how they rather restrict our rights instead of being a free country with CHOICE. Those are easy solutions. That's how things operate and they continue to operate. To be right would to be to stand up for the rights, to fight for those who are bullied because they are seemingly not the norm. It's easy to find these people on the internet, especially when you have a nice veil of anonymity to hide behind. Most people aren't on the internet. Most people live their daily lives not knowing some of the issues that truly face our nation.

Take for example the abortion debates happening. People have decided that the right choice is to not let a women decide what she wants to do with her body. That's not the right choice. That's the easy one. That's the one that lets men who aren't ever going to experience childbirth tell a woman what to do. In a society that supposedly becoming more progressive, women still aren't allowed to choose what they want to do. Is it right to force women to have children when they aren't prepared for it: mentally, physically or financially? No. Yet that is what Congresses around the nation see fit. Undoubtedly, the cycle will continue. They force women to have children they don't want, to then blame them when they can't provide for these children. You can't realistically try and get rid of government aide while forcing women to have children they might not realistically be able to provide for. Is it horrible to let a women decide what she wants to do? Are we really trying to say that women still mean nothing after all these years? People who don't have to endure the physical pain of childbirth shouldn't be the ones choosing what a women can and cannot do. Yet we live in a society run by men, who we unfortunately still have to obey.

Remember, easy and right aren't the same thing. Right is doing whatever you can to make people have better lives. Easy is what we all unfortunately choose on a daily basis.

Why We Can't Progress

"Progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged." - Professor Umbridge "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"

This seems to be the sentiment of society as a whole. Not just from those who have decided that society has become too progressive but from those who have decided that we haven't progressed enough. It's truly what people characterize as the "want it all, need it all". We either have to fix everything in one fell swoop or declare the world to be a misogynistic, racist, homophobic world that can never be redeemed. While I'm not going to deny that the world isn't those three things, it's not the fact that we can't fix them, it's that we've decided that everyone must fit into a box and that's not how the world works.

Recently, I was reading about misogyny on the popular show, Jersey Shore, which detailed a double standard that had been portrayed on the show. Then I committed a cardinal sin of the internet: I read the comments. Most comments were about how the Jersey Shore had fallen from being entertaining and the discussion of how it was wrong. Then I hit a comment about how all 20-something men are misogynists. It was a heated debate, either agreeing with the original commenter about how right they were, or that they were wrong and there are men who wouldn't be deemed misogynists. I do have to agree that there are men who are misogynists but there are men who aren't that we seem to think have some hidden agenda against women. I'm going on the offensive: The louder a person is, the more polarizing it makes the group as a whole. It's why we deem conservatives stupid, feminists as bra-burners, and liberals as evil socialists. With the abilities of the internet, we can easily communicate with people and tell the stories of the hard struggles that it stays with us longer than the other side of the story.

Honestly, just like with sexuality, there are degrees. There are raging misogynists who see no value of women and actively abuse them. There are those who only verbally say things like believing women shouldn't work and should stay at home. There are those who allow women to do what they want while in their relationships. There are those who are right alongside women, demanding that they are treated the same as they are. Problem is, we only hear the extremes and forget that those who aren't vocal or aren't horrible statistics do exist. I'm all for equal rights of everyone, because I don't see the point of demonizing anyone whether it be for gender, sexuality, age or race. Yet, I wouldn't be taken seriously because I'm a young, white, straight girl. I couldn't possibly know the struggle of others except when it comes to my gender. I don't claim to know how everyone feels, but I can at least try to help people. Instead of demonizing anyone and everyone who doesn't share your exact and only opinion, why can't we help each other understand? Why can't we let those of privilege help those who don't gain some? Not everyone that has some sort of privilege wants to watch those who don't suffer.

Take the steps as victories. Aim to destroy those who destroy our progress. There's no point in having such a black and white version of society because that's not what society is. Aim to teach children how to treat each other, not to let the television be the only teaching tool. We can change how society is, but we can't expect it to be fixed tomorrow.

How to Be Alone

One would think that in a world with six billion people, everyone would at least have a few confidants. Reality isn't so kind. In a world full of people who judge rather than accept, it's easy to get lost in the fray for simply being quiet.

Different countries value different virtues and unfortunately for me, I live in a culture that deems quiet and shy as uninteresting and plain. I do admit that I'm not the most interesting person, but that's because I haven't had experiences like others have had with friends. Simply because I don't have them. Our world focuses so much on how people look and discriminate that we forget that simple personality traits can make someone feel alienated from the rest of society.

I'm what one would classify as a drifter. I drift between different friend groups, but I don't belong to them. I'm a convenient partner or the last resort for people. I've had three roommates since coming to college, and I haven't maintained a relationship with any of them. The biggest reason for this is because I don't know how to be social. I don't know how to create small talk, yet I can discuss many things in a long conversation. That's not valued. Neither is letting someone gain your trust unless it benefits you. I'm not going to detail every aspect of my life when I don't know a person, but apparently that's customary in American culture.

Next time you are out in public or sitting in a classroom and you see someone sitting, most likely by themselves, maybe consider talking to them. Maybe consider talking to someone who might not know how. The saying goes, "The world is a lonely place" and for some, that's just everyday life.

When You Feel Lost...No One Will Help.

As you grow up, the eternal struggle becomes what are you going to do with the rest of your life? Do you go to college? Do you start working in the family business? Start a family? What do you do if you feel like the only one who can't make a decision?

That's exactly where I and millions of others stand. For me, the dilemma is what do I actually want to do in college? What do I ultimately want to achieve my degree in? For some, it's do I fit in? Others, it's how do I explain I want to do something other than what my family has determined? That's how one becomes stuck.

Right now, I'm a journalism major. A few months ago, I could tell you a list of reasons why I chose journalism and ditched English. Having taken one class, I feel lost and confused as to why I thought it was the best choice. Mostly, I thought if I was a journalism major, I would lose the fear of talking to people. Two months into my first class, I am just as bad as I was before. I also love learning and viewing all sides of the story, but as I've learned, journalists think differently. The way I've learned it, I think too rationally to be a journalist. I'd rather not die for a story than interview an alleged criminal who claims to actually be innocent. I'd rather not die in a foreign country because what I'm saying isn't agreeable with that country's politics.

Everyone has been told to follow their dreams. Problem is, how many actually do just that? One assignment for my journalism class is to write about our dream job. I don't know if I write about the dream job I sell for appearances, or the one that really exists in my heart. I tell people I'd love to be on a major news channel, as reporter, anchor, or contributor. What I really want is to act. To get the chance to show people the depths and layers that exist under the almost anti-social exterior. That's something that's never been supported by my parents and something I could never tell them is my real passion. That's why so many people don't follow their dreams. They don't have a support system behind them, telling them that they can do whatever they want.

That's where the stuck feeling comes in. Do I switch majors for the third time? Do I actually give up the potential for a real job for something that will probably never happen? Am I really just doing this because I don't want the learning experience to end? Questions are abound in my head, but with no one to talk to, that's where they forever rest. Just like with millions of other people.