Speaking Up

Hey everyone, welcome to Creative Karma’s Notepad. I’m Creative Karma.

It’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog here. Mostly because real life is a real drag when it comes to writing. Having the time to write and coming up with something to write makes everything harder than it should be.

However, I was talking to my good friend TheCinemaChick and she offered up a great idea that we could both do. I decided to give the idea a try because of the opportunity it would give me.

The idea she brought up came from the movie We Bought a Zoo. It was a quote by one of the characters named Benjamin Mee who said: “You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

So this post is going to be my twenty seconds of insane courage to say things I’ve always wanted to say but never had the courage to say to anyone in the hopes that something great will come of it.

One of the biggest things I’ve kept bottled up over the years is my utter distaste for the way society treats the human form, women, and those with disabilities.

The media makes everyone try to believe that if you don’t have skin the color of an animal hide, are super tall and skinny, and plastic surgery to make you look like a teenager for life then something is extremely wrong with you and you need to go out and fix it. Now!

I think that’s a load of crap but everyone is buying into it. It’s gotten so far that I even have certain people around me saying that as I’m looking for a job that I might want to apply for a secretarial job because they are only going to pick some hot woman with long legs, thin body, and drop dead gorgeous. I’m sick of this crap. I completely understand looking your very best when you are looking for a job or working a 9 to 5 job. However, not hiring someone simply because they aren’t supermodel hot is, I think, just as bad as not hiring someone because of a possible disability.

With the way the economy is lately, only the super rich have enough money to put that much effort into their appearance while everyone is scrambling for the mediocre jobs that barely offer enough money to live on let alone pay for the beautifying extras.

No one should ever be made to feel like they are less of a person because they are pot marked, covered in stretch marks, deformed, overweight, or any other number of things. Just because they don’t look like a supermodel doesn’t mean that they don’t have feelings and a heart that breaks. I’m one of those people. And I’m just as deserving as anyone else to have any job that I’m qualified for or to love whoever I want and not to be ashamed of what I look like.

And if you have a disability then there’s nothing wrong with that either. I will proudly admit that a couple years ago I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. I’m not ashamed of having a disability. For those of you that don’t know what that means, AS is commonly known under the term of a high functioning autistic person. People who have this syndrome are not easy to spot most of the time because sometimes they just don’t like the texture of certain foods or they don’t like wearing any clothing made of wool. Other times it’s really noticeable like people who don’t notice social cues like when they’ve been rambling on and don’t know the people around them are telling them to stop. Or those people who are sensitive to lights or those who say things that are offensive and they have no clue that they did so.

People with AS are just as capable as anyone else to function in a day to day working environment. They can handle multiple tasks, they can follow directions, they can climb the proverbial ladder and be in a management position. They only have to function in a different way. They have to write a list of the things expected of them. They might have to ask for their manager to wait while they write down the next few tasks they need to do. Heck, they might even need to ask a few questions to clarify a statement because it didn’t make sense to them.

I could go on and on about this topic since I live with it everyday. No one would ever know that I have it unless I said so or unless I had an off day and some of the signs of that disability came to the surface. But that’s just why I talk about it. I want people to know what to expect of me just as much as I want to know what to expect of the people I might be working for or with or hanging around with on a daily basis.

I believe wholeheartedly that if people weren’t so friggin scared of what everyone might think of them then they’d be more open about what they thought and how they see the world. The very least that would come out of that kind of communication would be people seeing the side of another person that they would have never known was there. A level of understanding that allows people to truly be comfortable with one another and stop worrying about the shoulda, coulda, wouldas and simply enjoy learning about the people around them.

This is the very problem I’m having with two people in my life right now. For this post they will be known as Annie and Valerie. They have the same problem but in slightly different ways and at different intensity levels.

Annie was one of the very best people to be around. She was fun and quirky and loved goofing off with everyone. She had fun and didn’t care what people thought about her. However, once she got settled back into a life with the people from her hometown she began to change. Suddenly, things like what people thought were very important. They formed her identity and changed who she was as a person. Soon she started to look down on others who didn’t live like she lived. I realize that I called her Annie because she is like that namesake play. A girl who wants the world to be the perfect white picked fence where everything is good and happy and everyone does things for her. Where the world is all about her. While the Annie in the play isn’t selfish by any means and just wants help, the Annie I speak of takes the notion of the play being all about Annie and her struggles and runs with it. If it’s not about her then it’s no longer important. She doesn’t really care to learn about the things around her.

Valerie, on the other hand, reads all the books on the subject she needs to know about, she goes to all the most prominent people to try and get all of the facts straight. However, the problem comes around when she’s forced to listen to the people closest to her. When the people around her try to explain how things work for them and how her reactions to them aren’t helping she doesn’t believe them. If her family tried to really talk to her and explain things, she believes she knows everything on the subject and how to handle it. It’s like the definition of insanity: doing the same action over and over again and expecting different results. Its makes it feel like the world must cater to her opinion on things and do it her way.

I have a couple of things to say to these two people.

Annie. The world isn’t Leave It To Beaver Land. Once you have to live on your own people are going to curse, bash your religion and your personal beliefs and not care how it makes you feel. People are going to smoke in the same area you try to eat lunch or dinner and they won’t give a flip if it upsets you. They are going to drink alcohol but they aren’t necessarily going to be alcoholics because they have one or two beers a day. Going to clubs doesn’t mean you have to drink anything you don’t want to. Also, having a closed mind about other people’s religions make you seem like a zealot who believes that everyone that doesn’t believe exactly how you do is going to hell. Those very people that you are putting down are not going to thank you for trying to set them straight and more often than not will immediately disassociate themselves from you as a friend because if you are going to be that inflexible on that topic then what else are you going to be inflexible on?

Valerie. Just because you read every book on the subject and talk to specialists doesn’t mean you know it all. Everything affects everyone in a different way. No one person is ever going to understand things the exact same way at the exact same time. If you are told by countless doctors and such that the people in your life are doing just fine then you need to learn to let go and let those people come to you when they need you. You need to put trust in them that they can figure out how to run their lives in the manner that works for them and makes them profitable to society. You also need to trust that if they need help from someone like you that they will come to you because they know you have the experience and they respect your opinion. Until the day comes that they ask for your help and advice then you have to learn how to watch from the sidelines and cheer them on because they are someone that you want to succeed in life and to be happy.

So there it is. My twenty seconds of insane courage. I don’t really expect the people I’m writing about to read this post. Even if they do it’s something they should know about themselves and how they are affecting the lives of those they love and those they interact with on a daily basis.

If you have it in you to express yourself for twenty seconds I encourage you to speak up. Say those things that have always been on your mind that you couldn’t manage to speak of before. Open yourself up to the possibility that someone in the world will read what you have a say and it will make a difference in their life. No matter how small the difference.

Before I close out this post I want to say one last thing to my dear friend that I will called Kitteh, she knows who she is. You are so my long lost sister and I’d do anything to have more time with you in person than maybe a couple of days every couple of years. You can kidnap me anytime and we can hit up the movies and then our fave burrito place and chat the night away.

Well, that’s all from this little experiment. I leave you with the knowledge that yes you can make a difference if you just speak up.

This is Creative Karma and I’m speaking up.