Oh SNAP panic attack!

Good Afternoon. ^_-

So, I have a tendency to reflect on conversations unintentionally for hours, days, weeks, months, and even years after they occur. I'm not really sure why. Some people have advised me to merely "shut off my brain" or "stop thinking" but it's not that simple. A person, especially me, can't just turn off their brain as though there is an 'on/off' switch. Bits and pieces of conversations always comeback to me. I may forget your name, but many conversations replay in my head, despite my lack of memory in regards to the person I am speaking to. But anyway, it is not something I can just get rid of.

The other day my dad was telling me that in his culture growing up, people used to burn their old journals to symbolize a new start. That with blogs, it is not as easy to give up on the past and start a new beginning with all these emotions still percolating in your brain. That well, people are unlikely to 'delete' all their old posts (or disable their old accounts). As much as I think that burning old journals is a wicked way to start a new phase in life, it is not really probable for me... Unless I suddenly get amnesia.

Anyway, so I was having a conversation with someone today. We exchanged some words and our argument escalated. It escalated quickly and ended quickly, but escalated nonetheless. This conversation was not a new one. It was one that has been lurking in my mind, snippets from other conversations in the past; Like they snowball into one moment and suddenly disperse. Anyway, I organize things in my head thematically, so it doesn't matter who the person is, it is the issue/topic itself that triggers emotions for me.

Basically, I realized something after my conversation this morning... well, in comparison to past conversations as well. People don't do the same thing. People don't think the same way. People don't remember conversations. In fact, people rarely think about the conversations after the day's end or maybe the week's end. I know it sounds silly to not realize that previously, because I knew this, I just didn't realize it. I don't think I bottle up emotions, but I do think that I have a reserve that I tap into sometimes. Today, is one of those days... When the reserve is overflowing, and on such days I avoid conversation. I avoid confrontation. I avoid speaking at large. I avoid it, because I know that whatever I say will escalate and I'd rather not save that argument unintentionally in my mind. This is not something people need to take personally, it's a human flaw that I have. I need to learn how to deal with it.

So, basically... What am I saying here?

For most people, they'll just assume that I'm temporarily 'moody'. I allow that assumption to hold. But really, I am overflowing with thoughts... I am thinking so much about so many things, that I avoid people till my thoughts settle. Sometimes it's a five minute break other times it may be a day. Otherwise, my thoughts are like boiling water, burning hot, bubbles popping, somewhat impetuous, and can only be tempered with a bit of time.

Why am I posting this? Well, for me, blogging allows some of those thoughts to settle a bit more quickly.
But really, Why am I posting this? Well, because although I know I can't stop thinking, I am hoping that someone out there has some constructive advice on how to deal with 'overflowing thoughts'. As well is, how to filter out some of those conversations that really don't need to stay in my brain, but end up there for years. I mean, I have conversations from when I was in summer camp in 1998 playing in my brain and trust me, that period of my life is done and over with. I have a couple from kindergarten even! And they just randomly play in my head... and I sit there and think and think and think about them. Constantly asking myself: What does this mean to me now? Why am I thinking about this? Is it wrong to think about this? Am I psychoanalyzing myself? Then I go on a cost-benefit analysis of self-reflection.... and this will all be going on, while I'm in mid conversation with one of you about, I don't know, say the revolutionary war or something. So, this internal frustration with lack of answers will lead to an aggressiveness in our revolutionary war conversation, and viola --> we escalate into an argument, that really was not supposed to happen.

So, again... why am I posting this?
A) Advice please! on de-cluttering the mind!
B) Forgive me if I ever pushed you into an argument without meaning to.
C) If I need a moment to 'breathe', please it'll just be better for the both of us if you let me take it.
D) I will think about our conversations long after you've forgotten about them, so.... just think about that for a bit.

I guess that's all I really wanted to say.
peace.

mother effer

I type this... as tears stream out of my eyes and my heart clenches in a way that can only be the product of utter exasperation and irritation.
I walked around campus today, and heard and heard and heard the repetition of the word "mother effer..." but you know, the full word. Now, as a woman, mother anything strikes a sense of anger within me, but a word that is so saturated with racist history... well, that hurts.
It hurts me so much, that I could help but start crying when I turned to this boy standing by me. And I said.... "do you know what the word you just said means?" and the one who had made the moronic statement said "what?" As though he was unsure of what I was saying, or maybe that I even spoke at all. Given that my voice was shaking, we were in a room full of people, and well I was the only person who really looked "different" I gathered up my courage, threw a silent prayer to the skies and said "It is the term used, in which slave owners referred to their slaves, because they would force them to breed with their mothers"..... And the boy looked at me... I say boy, but he may have been my age, who knows. But he looked at me as though I was the ignorant one, as though I was the rude one, as though I was the one who spent the last 5 minutes cussing up a storm.
And he said, nothing. Actually, it was more of a "gasp" but not in that "oh my God" kind of way. But you know....

So, I walk away, to pick up my order from taco bell, and he turns to his friend and he's like "I have plenty of black friends, and I've never heard that before".... and then starts cussing me out, like I wasn't 2 feet away, or that he was pretending like I should pretend not to hear him. Now, if you were wondering about his race, I guess his statement makes his distinction clear.... So, moving from that point of distinction, his friend, who happened to be black, was so beautifully eloquent, that I just wanted to hug him on the spot, but resisted the urge. Anyway, the one who used the poopy statement, just went on and on about how I should have not spoken. But from the looks of everyone in the room, I think they all stood on me with this issue, and his friend said "she's just educating you about history".... and they just went on and on.

So, I moved on. Sat down at the first secluded table as I tend to do. And began writing. I decided, that I will write a poem about those words, about this encounter, but I am not quite ready to do so yet. Some things are better left unsaid, and sometimes the messenger gets shot, but someone needs to 'deliver the message'. I think he was upset that a small little quiet girl had the audacity to say something to him. I'm sorry for verbally castrating you stranger, but sometimes things are worth saying. Some things, like those words, are better left unsaid....

Now, why the post? Well, it hurts that people are so naively ignorant. Just because you never heard something before, doesn't mean there is no history to it. Science is the discovery of preexisting things, moments, times, experiences, and/or all of the above, and giving it a name or label. Not that I am reducing science to that meaning only, but in this instance I will stand by that definition. I instantaneously started crying when I heard this young man. Tears just poured out of my eyes, as though I was actually standing outside in the rain, rather within the shelter of a building. I hope that people become more aware about the words they use. Or willing to accept advice from a stranger, who has nothing to gain and everything to lose when giving their thoughts to someone they may never see again.

I don't know where I am going with this. But I know this, I am too sensitive when it comes to words. Maybe it's a product of being a student of philosophy, but I hope that people just develop a tiny bit more understanding and respect to their surroundings.

I don't know. I guess I'll never know. Thoughts anyone?

Some posts I'd like to share:

http://open.salon.com/blog/trig_palin/2009/09/04/a_history_of_the_term_motherfucker

oh snap! oh-sama!

I don't really know how to begin to comment on this. In fact, so many people attacked their facebook walls with messages of relief, of shock, of sarcasm, of anger, of justice, of fear, of hope, of conspiracy theories, of so much. I find that maybe, just maybe a collection of those posts would be interesting to view in one larger post... but I'm too lazy to do some investigative facebook stalking *cough* I mean....journalism.

Anyway, so Osama Bin Laden has been killed. http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.dead/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN
and really, I just don't know what to say. The first thought that popped into my head when CNN sent me my news update via text message was: wow... it feels like the boogey man is dead.

But then I thought, as I drifted back into sleep, that boogey man has friends.... and they are equally as scary. :x
I don't want to turn our political reality into a bed time story, or a 'monsters' movie sequel, but my relief turned into a sense of fear. Not because I believe these monsters may retaliate, because we could withstand that as long as we remain human, but rather people have been so accustomed to hating an unseen (and deserving) enemy, that we may direct that hate elsewhere. I don't know. I fear that we have internalized hate and it has become a part of us.



An interesting blog post I wanted to share: http://sweetlife.blastmagazine.com/2011/05/01/bin-ladens-dead-now-what/

So, what do I have to say about OBL's death, nothing really. I will not say that it was good or bad for him to die, because, in the end, he was a human being, twisted, but human. I would have felt that rather than being a casualty of war, he should have been put to trial for his crimes against humanity. This should have been something the world should have witnessed. Who knows. I mean, I'm just a young person with no real wisdom. But, I pray that we all find a sense of justice and hope towards improving society through mutual understanding, compassion, love for humanity, toleration, and even more so, acceptance of people's differences.

I will end on this:

“The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression” (W.E.B. Du Bois).