4 books

I read an interesting hypothetical online today: "If you could prevent four books (or series) from being destroyed forever, which would you choose?"

There are two answers to this, I guess. One would be if I had to choose four books just for myself. That was the slightly easier question. I would choose:
Asimov's Foundation series
The Three Musketeers Saga
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
The Feynman Lectures on Physics

These are books I could not live without.

But, if I had to choose for all of humanity? That becomes a more difficult problem. Should I choose Great Works of Literature? By whose metric? What should I choose from Shakespeare, or Homer, or Dante; Goethe or Moliere? What about non-Western literature, about which I know far less than I should? What about science texts? Could humanity afford to lose Newton's Principia Mathematica? Or Darwin's On the Origin of the Species? Do I need to choose the Bible, or the Koran, or the Torah, or some other religious or holy book?

Faced with these dilemmas, I think I'd have to choose books that challenged me personally, or forced me to think, or contained ideas I think others should consider. To Kill a Mockingbird makes the list, hands-down. So does Inherit the Wind. I would probably add 1984. And Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol, by Tom Mula.

Look for upcoming posts on what those books mean to me.

You Are Beautiful

Today on twitter, one of the trending topics is #youarebeautiful. Normally I don't pay much attention, but The Bloggess asked her followers to share the reasons they are beautiful. Our "assignment" really made me think. What do I love about myself? I've mentioned previously that I suffered from depression (still do, but the medication makes it a negligible influence these days), so finding reasons to love myself is still somewhat difficult for me.

The response I gave was: "I am resilient. Somehow, even when the world seems dark, I find a way to believe in myself and keep going."

This is true. I've been having a tough year, with lots of stress coming from various sources, but I keep telling myself that I'll get through it. And somehow, I will. I've been in tough spots before, feeling like a failure, and I've always managed to get through it, and come out the other end stronger. I'll do it again.

Why else do I love myself?

• I care about others. I'm a self-described "bleeding heart." I genuinely like people, and I want to help. I feel that my purpose in life is help others, to improve the world in some way. That's what drives me.
• I give others the benefit of the doubt, probably to the point of naivete. I always try to assume that other people have good intentions, and to try to understand their point of view even when I don't agree.
• I try not to let the small things bother me. Life is so precious, it seems silly to waste time and effort worrying about little irritations.
• I have a good sense of humor and love to laugh at myself. I try really hard not to take myself too seriously.
• I am strong. Not physically, but mentally. I have a lot of willpower and determination. I know I can get through whatever life throws at me without breaking.

What makes you beautiful?

They're practically the same movie!

Recently, I spent a weekend visiting some friends. Since a few of them had never seen "Rocky Horror Picture Show", we watched it. Then, being in the mood for another movie in which Tim Curry is ridiculous, we watched "Clue." And it struck me that there are similarities between the two:

1) Tim Curry stars in them (duh)
2) Both include scenes of a dinner party gone wrong
3) The butler did it (ok ok, technically Riff-raff is a "handyman." I think my point stands.)
4) The "bad guy" gets kneed in the groin
5) Aggressive dogs keep people from leaving
6) Both take place in a castle / mansion in the US
7) It's raining when the guests arrive
8) The guests don't know what they're eating until it's too late
9) Someone comes "back from the dead", only to be killed again a short while later (Eddie, Mr. Boddy)
10) Alcoholic beverages get splashed all over the table, in between glasses.

Living up to my name

I've realized I have a fairly eclectic taste in movies. I love old classics (like Casablanca, Sabrina and Bringing Up Baby), modern action-blockbusters (like Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones and the most recent James Bond films), Disney movies (like Beauty and the Beast, The Princess and the Frog, and the severely underrated Hercules), and also camp (both the purposely campy, like Rocky Horror Picture Show and Doctor Horrible's Sing-along Blog and the unintentionally hilarious Shark Attack 3: Megaladon).

Yep, I'm weird.

Teh Awesum

Recently I've been finding a lot of awesome around teh interwebs, so I thought I'd just post a bunch of links with brief descriptions.


1) You know how things from the 80's are sort of simultaneously horrific and amazing?

So I was reading Topless Robot, and at the end of one post was a link titled, "Has anyone seen Tim Curry's tamborine?" Curious title. I think I'll click the link.

And was treated to this explosion of awesomeness.

(Some of the comments are also pretty spectacular.)

It's like someone asked a group of 2nd graders to come up with words that rhyme, and then they pieced together a song, and the effects guys threw in pictures of all the random stuff, and Tim Curry put on a large cape and sang it.

What part of this is not epic?

2) Another curiously titled link, this time on Mental Floss: "strange charm." Could this have anything to do with particle physics? Why YES! Yes it does!

3) As a Trekkie myself, I was glad to see that my colleagues were quick to set things straight. This article (correction, really) made my week. (found via Techland)

4) Speaking of things Trek, My dad and I are going to see Patrick Stewart on Broadway this weekend; according to my dad our seats are so close that "if he slips and falls off the stage he'll land in your lap!"

With that in mind, my friend Erin has been nagging me to watch this video; I finally got around to it and...wow.

5) And finally...THE MICHAEL BAYIFIER!!! I had far too much fun with this.

Bullying

This post was inspired by Single Dad Laughing's post on bullying.

I went through a lot of the same things he did, emotionally. I wasn't fat, but I was a geek. And I got tormented for being different. Some of the stand-outs: having a project destroyed in art class; having a "Kick Me" sign taped to my back; getting prank-called; being told that no guy would ever find me attractive; being used as the standard of "loserdom" in school.

Unlike Dan, I haven't hidden this part of my past. It's part of who I am. In some way, it made me stronger. I think it's a major reason why I get so upset about injustice, intolerance, or bigotry. And the process of learning to love myself after questioning my self-worth for so long has helped me mature into the person I am today.

But it was brutal.

I think Dan perfectly captured the mind-set of someone who is bullied relentlessly. I quickly learned to hate myself. To feel I was completely worthless, that no one would (or even could) love me. To feel worse than invisible.

I wanted to die.

Not in the hyperbolic, "Noooo, something didn't go perfectly right, my life is ruined, argh I want to die!!" drama-queen fashion.

No, I really wanted to die.

Sometimes, even now, it scares me how close I came. I remember how much I just wanted to die, to blink out of existence, and it frightens me. I remember trying to think of a painless way to kill myself. That's what held me back, really - the fear of pain. If someone had offered me a pill that would have granted me painless death, there's a good chance I would have taken it.

Maybe you think it's cowardly. Maybe you think I should have been stronger. Maybe you think I should have known that it would get better eventually.

But at that time, the way my peers were treating me convinced me that I was a worthless human being. Not just different, or even less. I was made to feel that I was literally worth nothing. And being worth nothing, what rationale did I have to continue living?

Recently, I mentioned in passing to my dad that I'd gone through this in middle school, and he told me later that he felt he must have been a failure as a father to have not noticed it. But the truth is, there's no way he could have. After all, I felt like a worthless human being - why would I bother anyone else with my troubles? Why should I believe that anyone else would care? I hid my hurt, internalized it, until it festered and consumed me, making me feel worthless from the inside, rather than because of the external bullying.

I'm so grateful that I came through it all, that I survived that experience. Because now, taking the long view, I can see that the bullying was never about me - it was about the bullies' desire (or perhaps need) to feel bigger than someone else. I was an easy target, that's all.

And the experience has had lasting effects, both positive and negative.

Having had to deal with people who made my life miserable just to feel better about themselves, I'm always inclined to be more sympathetic to those in less fortunate positions than myself. I don't feel I have the right to judge others, and I certainly don't need to do so in order to feel good about myself. And if I can sympathize, I want to help. I think dealing with the bullying in school, years ago, has shaped me into a person who is motivated to help others now.

That's the positive.

The negative is the lasting effect of being made to feel personally worthless. Dan mentions that in high school he learned to love himself again; I went through the same thing at about the same time in my life. (For me, the bullying was intense in middle school, but let up significantly in high school.) However, the process of learning to love myself was a long and difficult one, and continues today. I still have feelings of being "less than worthy." I still doubt my intelligence, my beauty, the value of my friendship and love. The bullying was almost a decade ago, but the scars from it run deep.

Politics

I was reading a news article on politics and the subsequent reader comments at lunch today.

me: "Well, if you believe the vitriol spewing on the web, either you're a socialist or you're a fascist."

coworker: "There's no middle ground?"

me: "Nope."

coworker: (rolls eyes) "I'm moving to Canada."

me: "So you choose socialism, apparently."

Hopefully the vitriol dies down a bit after the midterms.