Camaraderie in the Commute

Riding the L feels like I'm flying through the city. Every time we go around the bend the train leans and creeks in such a way that I'm convinced we're about to topple over from the weight of a hundred suits. I marvel at the stoic expressions that we all intentionally place on our faces and wonder why it's appropriate to scream and laugh widely on a ride at an amusement park, but sit there like "it's no big deal" on the train (when in reality we're traveling faster than any ride!). I feel awkward at my taking of a seat, which is almost always (I feel on purpose) not taken by a man. I like getting to know the personalities of my usual conductors; I like the fact that they are vocal enough for me to be able to discover their characteristics. I'm enjoying the commute. It sort of makes me feel like a part of something. That even though I'm having trouble adjusting to a nine to five lifestyle, hey we are all in together!

Camaraderie in the commute. Ain't it the truth?

Weather Snobs

In my life I've noticed that the weather is often a topic of conversation upon forced chit chat with a stranger or even a newly found friend. "Oh man it's really coming down out there!" or "I can't believe how hot it is!" was all pretty standard fair for Floridians. Since moving to Chicago though, my small talk experience has turned into a bit of an inevitable routine because as I've determined, midwesterners are not only obsessed with the weather, but obsessed by how they are so steadfast in their resilience to it. "Hi I'm Leila," will some how lead to a: "so where are you from?" To which I repily, "south Florida." Then this maniacal smile spreads across their face, as if they've discovered a secret and that secret is the recipe for the best joke ever. "OH!!!!! Florida, well my! Aren't you in for a treat! Do you even have a coat?" I respond with a solemn no and that I am indeed terrified of the winter. "Oh well yah, our winter's are pretty bad, not going to lie. In fact they are pretty horrible." At which point I begin to wonder to myself then why are they still living here? "But you know, they're a bonding experience. HA. Florida. HA!"

I've determined that to the Illinois native my situation is something of a novelty. Sure it seems normal for them to move to Florida, but for me, a person whose spent more time inside hurricanes than in snow, I must be dysfunctional. Their jeers aren't so far off, I really don't have any idea what I'm in for. The consistency of which the weather comes up though makes me feel like I'm in my own personal Groundhog's Day. I'm faced with the same scenario over and over again: "you're going to freeze… you're going to freeze," only so that I can eventually come to terms with my fate and it's only by accepting it am I released from repetition.

So here it goes, in an effort to speed the process along: You midwestern have superior skin, it's tough and thicker than mine. I will be cold and I will hate it. You will be cold and you will love it because you chose to. I don't know if I'll develop that same Lake Wobbegan esque strength. I guess I'll start by buying a coat.

Caricatures of Communality

As I mentioned a couple of entries back I've found myself living with twelve other twenty somethings in a huge old house in Berkeley and working on an urban farm. This is the largest group of people I've ever lived with and not to mention the most insular as well. We are almost consistently surrounded by one another and as you can imagine the month that we have spent together triples within the mind's internal clock. I think we all feel as though we are getting to know one another on a "deeper" level with each passing day and I would say that sentiment is correct to a degree. I'd like to offer up the idea though that maybe we're actually doing the exact opposite - that instead communal living has reduced us to caricatures of our fuller selves.

Here's how I see it, from my own internal vantage point: these relationships have a deadline. Sure I hope that we will stay close and connected, but circumstance just isn't going to allow for the same sort of proximity that we've been experiencing. What we have is three intense months... to do what? I suppose to make an impression, it's the sort of impression that we want to make and our ability to manipulate it that is interesting. Let's say we did want to express who we really are, in order to do that given the scenarioI believe that we feel the need to become "hyper authentic." It's as if we were shouting "This is who I am! I am this sort of a person! Look at my quirks! Know me! PLEASE!" I think we all in a way experience his desire to an almost overwhelming degree, I mean, what's a better feeling than to be understood? And not just understood, but known, loved, and respected for all those self-declared oddities that make you, you.

The other instance of caricaturing that I see happening is the communities need to place people. We were asked to this in a more formal setting under the "Eight Shields Model," but I believe that this is something that we are constantly doing in the house anyways. It's been my experience that for one reason or another certain descriptive traits, anecdotes, or hobbies are latched onto depending by the group and those become a person's definitive qualities for the allotted time of relation. Why we choose what to focus on is probably a larger question.

Well I am sleepy, long days doing manual labor that my poor post-thesis body isn't used to have encouraged 9pm bed times. There's a lot more that I'd like to write about, but I think in order to do so I'm going to have to switch to a more conversational tone for the time being. It's just I haven't had much time to write and a lot of what I'd like to write about is general "life stuff", which I didn't initial intend to be placed on here. (That's what we have livejournal for, immaright?!) But we'll see anyways.

Good night ya'll.

Smiling for Whom?

After having entered an intense communal living situation and being faced with the ever presence of another, I've begun to wonder about the differences between smiling to yourself and smiling with others.

The thought was that smiling to yourself is a particular form of pleasure that we not only experience far less frequently, but which also illicites a greater joy than mutual humor would.

The Cultural Divide

Maybe I am stuck between east and west. I'm sitting in my grandparents apartment in L.A - in the Valley. The walls are painted a bright pink, the floors a covered in carpets - family heirlooms, heck there are even neatly framed carpets hanging on the walls. Family photos are everywhere, including a handful of old one's from Iran. My grandma is in the kitchen listening and signing along to the Persian radio. She is always in the kitchen and there is always a big meal that she insists on preparing. This time it's for a close family gathering in honor of my visiting, just thirty or so of my cousins will be crammed into this apartment.

Geejoo a parakeet old and fat after eating a diet consisting of way too much rice perched in the corner of the kitchen, she'll only let me aunt get near her, and is consistently adorned with lipstick marks from her kisses. My grandfather is a stubborn man. He rides around in a power scooter that he only recently acquiesced into buying. His hearing is bad, so he spends his days reading and watching Spanish network game shows - hey you don't need hearing to see Latina women bouncing around in bikinis.

Later tonight we'll have a Shabbat dinner with just my immediate family, who I see only twice a year. You see, I was raised in Florida far away from the hubbub of what is affectionately known as "Tehran-geles". That isn't to say that I don't feel a strong connection with my heritage, but it has necessarily manifested itself in a much more muted form. Sometimes I feel like a stranger here. I have trouble speaking the only language that my family speaks. This makes the majority of our conversations superficial. I wish that I could discuss politics with my grandfather or understand all of the love-driven advice that my grandma has to offer.

The gaps extend beyond language, to our differing world views, or to the ways that we engage with culture. They have managed to bring Iran with them, but I'm a first-generation American who is disconnected from the community that they have surrounded themselves with. I sometimes wonder if I will ever integrate into that world.

New beginnings

I recently graduated from college and I am presently faced with a bit of a blank future. I have various jobs to occupy myself with over my self declared "gap year" that is without a foreseeable end, but this is the first time that I have been presented with such openness. It's daunting, as I'm sure many recent grads are experiencing. Currently I just want my life to have a positive impact. To do more good than harm for this world. I hope that I can still maintain this blog and nourish it with the various oddities of experience that I have in store for myself. For now, I'm of to Berkeley to work on an urban farm and then from there to Chicago.

I'd like to actually take this opportunity to tell you a bit about my plans for this upcoming year and hopefully enlist your help. (Assuming someone is reading this blog, which I have my doubts... but I why not try?)

Beginning in August I will be moving to Chicago for a year to participate in AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps. AVODAH strives to create the next generation of socially conscientious Jewish leaders. In order to achieve this, they have established a program involving three key components:

1. Working: Each AVODAH core member will be working in a different poverty-focused non-profit organization. Specifically, I will be working as an outreach worker for Faith in Place, which believes that faith can inspire environmentalism.
2. Living: I will be living in a house in Chicago along with ten other AVODAH participants. This should be an interesting (and hopefully enjoyable!) experience. Our house will not be the only one though; there are additional AVODAH sites in DC, New York, and New Orleans.
3. Learning: I will be attending weekly seminars, along with my housemates, regarding the intersection between Judaism and social justice. By combining all three-program aspects, I hope to gain a better appreciation for my responsibility to those in need, both as a Jew and as a human being.

AVODAH is an effective and reputable organization. I am amazed by all of the great work they do; however, AVODAH cannot function without monetary support. To that end, I have established a goal to raise $1,000 in donations for AVODAH this summer. Donations to AVODAH help support its 65 core members (myself included!) who will be working in anti-poverty organizations for the following year. This allows the non-profits to fill their staffing needs in a cost-effective manner so that they can continue to help populations in need. Moreover, AVODAH donations allow for the perpetuation of strong-minded Jewish individuals who are actively involved in social change.

If you're able, please donating whatever amount you are able to the cause in my name. Any little bit really does help and is greatly appreciated!

Here is a link to my fundraising page where you can make a secure contribution: http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/leilashooshani/donate

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm so grateful for all of your continued interest in my progress and I will happily keep you updated on all my happenings!
With love,

Leila

The Perfect Woman

Upon hearing the latest Radiolab episode: "Talking with Machines" I was intrigued to see for myself what AI looks like today. I was almost half-shocked to realize that the vast majority of humanoid intelligent androids are built to look like… you guessed it! Attractive women. In fact, in my quest to hopefully discount my initial observation, I only came across a handful of named male androids. None of which I might add, possessed the same hyper magnification of those qualities that we deem to be the most beautiful.

I say that I was half surprised about this realization, because popular culture and science fiction has prepared me for this reality. The earliest example that I can think of in my young mind, is Seven of Nine from Star Trek. True she was only half borg, but her appearance certainly reinforces the notion that there is just something hot about a female robot. I think the underlying question here has not to with looks, but why when we are building or even portraying robots we choose the female sex?

My impulse is to declare that it is because women are often already reduced to the robotic level, programmed by the patriarchy and expected to carry out their instructions. I want to say that it's because we tend to not view women as whole and complete humans, with complex self-reflective capabilities that inform their own selfhood. I want to say that the idea of a subservient and desirable woman android is sexually arousing in our society.

But really, I don't want to have to say these things. They seem such an archaic backdrop against modern innovation. To think that humanity is at the point when humanity can talk to computers, intelligent computers, but what we want from them is still of the most unprogressive content. Sure the majority of the work underlying AI pursuits has sincere scientific motivations; however, for whatever reason (whether it be the possibilities I suggested above or something other) we have collectively chosen to represent robots as hyper-feminine creatures, with bodies that do not represent the majority of human women.

It's sad to think that in some areas humanity has come so far, but then there are these ever present beliefs that we are plagued by. I would like to see a more androgynous machine, one that reflects its mechanical being and doesn't attempt to skirt over the complexities of human gender and sex formation.

Love's Manifest

A brief reflection on love's manifest. Can one identify love when s/he see's it? Love is that which is the most difficult to define, looking back on my previous entries it's very apparent that it's a term that I struggle with a lot intellectually, although personally I utilize it on a daily basis. And it feel real to me. That's the tricky thing about love, it's extremely subjective and thus difficult to get a hold over. It changes over time, experience might render what was thought of as a past love just "puppy love." But if you feel it at the time isn't it real? Doesn't the personal experience of love mean something? No doubt it means something when experienced firsthand, but subjective knowledge leads to some epistemic difficulties. So what do we do when something is uncertain? We obtain reassurance. We look towards others to validate the presence of "love" and I think one of the most interesting instances of such, is when love is visually manifest. It really is just something that when one sees it, they know exactly what it is that they are looking at. And difficult to define or not, existent or not, it's the most lovely thing isn't it?

Our Self-Construction

Going through big life changes prompted reflection and my own feeling of uncertain future lead me to seek refuge in the past. Where did I go? Instinctively I clicked on my Facebook page, only to pause for a moment to realize how messed up that was. It got me thinking about how Facebook is essentially our own self-caricature, we take the best bits about ourselves, the most trivial bits usually, and arrange them in a presentable order.

Well this in turn got me thinking about our actually constant self-caricaturization - it reflects in the gender that we present (think "we're all in drag"), the emotions we choose to wear, and the popular or subcultures that we identify with.

Is this reduction of the self bad? I don't think so. I think it's practical on both the personal and societal levels. Still, we'll always desire to understand ourselves as something more than our trivial presentations and personal histories and even more intensely, we'll desire others to understand us in this way. I don't know if it's possible, but it's nice idea no?

On love

Well everything in my life has been pointing towards a certain topic for me to write on. I tried to evade it, drown out the clues in my life, but the world was screaming "Leila! You need to think a little more carefully about love!" So I tried and I'll document my attempts for you, but with the disclaimer that they are pathetic grasps at what has made itself apparent as all to elusive for me to get a grip on. But here we are, thinking about love like people do.

Love's first call came from within. I was listening to a song that I hadn't heard in a while, but was one that was on repeat during an occasion of my own falling in love. All these feelings came back, they came back so easily! It made me wonder which came first, the love I felt or the music? Maybe I had created the perfect conditions for me to fall in love, the right music, a distinct openness in attitude, a feeling of romanticism about the season... The more I thought about it the more it made sense, the idea that we just tend to trick ourselves into falling in love became more real to me. And so started my pessimistic analysis.

The other night I found myself wandering a foreign location looking for love and I that's what I found - but in a different form than of that of the person for whom I searched. I found an exhibition on the subject, an art gallery on love. People were writing their ideas about what love meant on little pieces of paper and clothes pining it to wires. The answers were romantic, religious, or comical. My friend asked me to write something deep down, she said to just write what I learned from reading philosophy. I couldn't write anything, which come to think of it is probably the best representation of what I've learned. I've been there, crying while reading Sartre post first fight with an old love. Reading about mutual objectification didn't quell my need for Romanticism at the time, but now... only these few years later... is that all it takes to break a spirit? Standing there, pen in hand, thinking of what to write I thought back to Sartre, I thought back to my tears, and I thought "I was so naive."

This is where I am today. I'm faced with the most abstract of concepts because I believe love can't be defined by what it is, but why it is. I think that the problem of "why" is an issue because most people wouldn't like their answers. Love doesn't spontaneously erupt as a perfect feeling towards another person, it's always mediated by circumstance. Even further, I wonder if there's anything to the word at all. It's a silly word! After experiencing new love one often reflects on a past affair by saying, "Ah I had no idea what love was then!" Why not? Were those feelings not just as real as these new (but soon to be outmoded) ones?

Tonight I watched El Secreto de sus Ojos, which turned out to be the impetus for me writing this blog tonight. It connected two things: memory and love. I began to think that the two aren't so different after all. Love is always in hindsight and our memories are always re-constructed. The present feeling of "love" isn't really love at all. It's the feeling good about yourself being needed or needing someone else. It's an admiration, an amusement, but it's not greater than the moment. Love only becomes greater than the sum of its parts in retrospect and the past is always a little sweeter because we're able to re-write it.

But don't get me wrong, just because love is fake doesn't mean that it isn't real.

I still dream about it, but life can be hard and it's almost always lonely so we create what we need to.

Nostalgia, Inertia, Etc.

Another year has slipped away and the world paused to for a moment to reflect. I hate taking that second to think about where I've been and where I might go, because I'm afraid to get caught up in my own temporal web.

Still we move forward ad sometimes I wonder what is that invisible force that carries us all unthinkingly along in time - where does my inertia come from? Maybe we can look at it this way: Force is equaled to the product of mass and acceleration. If a person's figurative mass can be measured by their weight of influence and if acceleration is representative of motivation (forward seeking behavior), then is that what comprises the force which compels us to go and conquer another day... another year... another decade? What happens when one's acceleration decreases and one's motivation to move forward dwindles? What about when a person's mark on others, their mass, becomes barely noticeable?

This blog being what it is, I think it's now time, you guessed it, to make sweeping gestures about humanity at large (now's the part when I tell you about your nature). Even in the face of opposition, with barely any mass or acceleration, there still exists a force that pushes us forward - as a species and as individuals. Maybe it's cause is something as simple as instinct or maybe it's as indefinable as the promise of something that we can't even conceive of.

The force of the 'yet to be defined' draws us towards it like moths to a flame; as much as we may hate the process of not knowing and though its a dangerous endeavor, we move forwards towards the mystery. We are towards nothingness!

So hello 2011, I'm glad to see we're here together, but I'm ashamed to admit that I'm terrified as we now embark. We're new and fleeting friends - such is the way these things have to be!