Consumption vs Production

Yesterday I worked the North Eastern Regional NCAA hockey semi-finals, and in between selling $50 tickets to Yale alumni and proud BC (Boston College) grandparents, I found the time to finish "Writing to Change the World" by Mary Pipher. The book stirred me to life, ever page either made me laugh or cry. And the energy must have taken over my whole body because more than usual customers asked, "Are you always so smiley?" While the rest just seemed calmer than usual, wanting to chat with me instead of running to their seats.

I sat in my chair at my little ticket seller window wanting to write so badly. Quotes like "We write to discover what we think."-Joan Didion and passage by Pipher like, "Once we are immersed in writing, we forget our anxiety. Focusing on clarity and beauty clams us down," and "Any form of writing can change the world. Your goal is to find the form that allows you to use everyone of your talents in the service of what you consider to be your more important goals. You want to search for what you alone can say and then how you can say it most effectively" made me ready to write. I sat there seeing beauty and purpose in the way I string my words together in letters to my loved ones, in my journal entries, and even in my facebook status updates. My head was racing with excited characters, ways to discover the social issue most important to me, and past anecdotes that illustrated the power of empathy and the hard yet family centered life of the rural poor in Upstate New York.

This urge to write stayed with me until the end of my shift. I felt centered and full of light. For the first time in months, I felt like I was digesting social change material that spoke to me. No violent revolutions, no dichotomies, no labels write on post-it notes and mentally stick to people's back. No pessimism. I was reading about empathy, connection, honesty, authenticity, and thought all changing the world. I was reading about change happening at the level of the individual, at the level of the writer and the reader, and this individual change reaching out like a ripple in Lake Cayuga.

The excitement stayed with me. When I got home it was still there. But did I write? Did I produce anything? Did I even produce junk that could later be sifted through, leaving behind only the original thoughts, phrases, and honest observations? No, of course not.

I chose to consume instead. I ate dinner and watched Gosford Park, and through the whole thing marveled at the beautiful scenery and dresses, joyously watched and listened for snark British one-liners, and enjoyed the underlying commentary on humanity and the evils of power and oppression. How can we take away a persons life, making them nothing more than a servant, meant to notice only us, our needs, our wants, even anticipate these things before they are in our awareness? Why do we allow others to take away our lives? Why do we begin to identify not with ourselves, but with those who control us, those who are held higher in society, and those who oppress us?

I thought an consumed. My thoughts may be considered a production of sorts. But to me they were nothing more than energy. The energy that was used to produce the movie was broken down in my mind to its smallest parts. The thoughts were nothing more than the concrete illustration of a transfer of energy. It was my responsibility, as it was after reading Pipher's words, to take that energy and use it to create. But I did not. I went to sleep.

I've wrote about this consumption vs production issue in this blog before. It was during my summer in Berkeley and I wanted to write so badly, the energy that I was consuming was so powerful and transformative, yet I only managed to post a few blogs and send a few smiles. Although my addition to conversation that summer were deep and meaningful, which hasn't been the case since I've come back to Clark. Those conversations, I believe, do count as production. I was passing the energy further, creating my own rippling waves.

When I looked at the stagnation of my writing then. My over consumption and under production, I had decided was mostly due to what Pipher, and many others refer to as "the shadow self." This is the darkness that comes from fear, guilt, envy, anger and despair, according to Pipher who's major training is in psychology, so I guess this makes her more reliable than most. I accredited fear, guilt, and envy with my writer's block. I was feeling guilty that I wasn't writing. I was envious of all the beauty others were able to manifest and the talent that they had. But most of all I was fearful. Fearful that my thoughts were foolish, that my view of the world was too far fetched. I was afraid that I wasn't able to express myself clearly enough or that what I found beautiful others would find cliche. Pipher used a Mark Twain quote that really seemed to capture this, "The human race is a race of cowards. I am not only marching in the parade, I am carrying the banner."

So, now I wonder where is the fear coming from? Why do I lack the confidence to believe that my thoughts are worth sharing? Why do I keep questioning that I know something?

And then I thought back to my Education and Development classes this semester. I realized that for 18 years of my life I've been in school and told that I know nothing, that there are people out there that have written theories that truly explain my reality, and that I need to read them so that I really understand my world. I've read them. I saw value. I took them as my own theories. I lost my voice. I lost my unique addition to the conversation.

Grad school has been even worse. I feel like I lose a little of voice every class. I read a reading. I am moved and excited. Then I am bewildered at where the classroom conversation goes the next day. Everything I found relevant to my work, everything that I found profound appears to be just wasted space. I read the same pieces, yet still have no place in the conversation. But the point of this independent study is to rediscover my voice, my place as a change agent.