The Real "Rape Culture"

A yearbook photo of my cousin. R.I.P., Roxanne.

When I was 15 years old, my mother told me that something terrible had happened to one of my relatives. She told me that my second cousin had been found dead in a creek bed. Later, we were told that there was evidence that she had been raped and murdered. The police deemed it a suicide and let the case go cold. Twenty-two years later, a man made a death bed confession and said that he had been the one who killed her. The rape aspect was covered up by asserting that the relationship between the victim and her killer was "unclear".

This was my first experience with the idea of rape. My cousin was the same age as me when she was killed. I remember being shocked at the fact that someone would want to have sex with someone so young. I was pretty naive and I didn't know about things like pedophiles and pederasts. It was also 1979 when it happened and rock stars could openly "date" very young women in their early to late teens without anyone batting an eye.

While I can, thankfully, say that I was never raped, I was non-invasively molested when I was 6 or so years old. A teenage boy lured me up to his room while my parents were visiting his parents. He was wearing blue jeans under which he had an erection. He grabbed me and held me on his lap while he banged his covered penis into my covered vagina until I squirmed free and escaped. I was also propositioned by a dirty old man who was a drinking buddy of my father's. He pointed at my pelvic area and asked, "Can I have some of that?" At first, I was confused, and then I was ashamed and humiliated. Both of these experiences occurred while I was alone with the males in question, though not entirely so. The first occurred in the home of my parents' friends while they were downstairs. The second in my own home (in the dining room) while my parents were off doing something outside and imprudently left me alone with that disgusting old pervert.

I didn't tell my parents about either of these experiences. The first time, I had no idea what was happening. I only knew that I didn't like it. The second time, I simply did not want to think about it and my lack of understanding about exactly how perverse this man was made me think I'd somehow gotten it wrong.

These days, with all of the news about women being raped while they are intoxicated, people talk a lot about "rape culture". They speak of an environment in which men (usually) think it is somehow okay to sexually assault women (usually) because they are vulnerable. There is talk about how we must make sure men know that it is "NOT OKAY" to do these things and they need to know they'll be punished. Much is made of this and how we need to stop this mindset which contributes to "rape culture".

Here's the thing. This is not the rape culture we should be directing most of our attention toward. The real rape culture is not in colleges, bars, or frat houses. The biggest circumstances in which rape flourishes are those in which there is isolation, poverty, and a lack of parental oversight or protection due to the types of neglect and ignorance that accompany rural poverty. Because of the focus on rape as an issue for young, affluent (and often white) women, the image most people have of rape is very different from the reality.

Most rapes occur in remote areas in which the rapist can find a victim alone and in circumstances in which crying for help is a useless endeavor. Most rapes occur among people who make $25,000 per year (or less). Most rapes happen because someone isn't paying attention to what is happening to their daughters, sisters, wives, or girlfriends because they are intoxicated, preoccupied, or make an assumption about safety. Most rapes happen in the atmosphere that saw me molested as a little girl and propositioned as a pre-teen. The real rape culture is one in which men know what they are doing is NOT OKAY, but they know that they have the right set of circumstances in which to get away with it. They do it with the knowledge that the chances that they'll pay for it are exceptionally low. This is doubly so because the world, which worries about college rape, is blind to where the bigger problems are occurring.

The overwhelming majority of rapes are not happening to drunken party girls. They are happening to people who are alone and far from help. There's a reason Alaska is the "rape capital of America" and that Native Americans suffer more rapes as a percentage of their population than any other group. It's substance abuse (alcoholism, largely), isolation, and poverty. The Huffington Post posted a list of 50 facts about rape, but failed to include one bit of data about the issue. The word "rural" did not occur anywhere in this long list because nobody gives a damn about the lives of those who exist in remote areas. It's boring and the victims are simply people who are being taken advantage of rather than those who are putting themselves at risk with their actions.

Without the moral ambiguity, there's no argument to be made about "rights" and no privileged environment to argue passionately about. There's just a social problem that emotionally activated people who see themselves as empathetic and involved have no solution for. If they can't talk about it from a position of self-righteousness that allows them to confirm their sense of what a good person they are for being involved in the issue, they have no interest in it. 

The types of people who  believe they are all over social justice are, ironically, extremely worried about the rights of white girls who are affluent enough to go to college to get drunk off their asses and not be assaulted. They'll shout and protest the mentality that allows that sort of thing to happen while remaining utterly ignorant and indifferent to the culture that allowed my cousin to be raped and murdered. Why do they worry so much about the  minority of cases and ignore where far more problems occur? In my opinion, it is that they only care about the part of the problem that they can relate to. They care about the part that affects them or people like them. They talk about social justice, but what they really want is justice for members of their tribe, not the greater number of victims of the real and more common "rape culture".

Misophonia

As my situation with the noisy neighbors with the bassy surroundsound system drags on, I've been working on methods of managing my reactions and changing my thoughts. I've also turned to the copious resources available online to see if they have any ideas that I had not come up with. What I've discovered is that I've actually thought of nearly everything already - which is rather unfortunate. However, I have found that I am not alone, which makes me feel better.

While digging into this issue, I've learned that there is a condition called misophonia and I seem to have it. I wasn't born with it, as some extremely unfortunate people have been, but I appear to be prone to developing it. Misophonia manifests as a hatred of certain sounds. In my case, it is deep, loud, bass noises which vibrate the floor. Even at low levels, it gets on my nerves, though I have to say that it didn't used to and that I've become hyper-vigilant about it as the neighbors have been ramped up the noise and been increasingly disrespectful of those of us living above them.

The site I linked to in the previous paragraph mentions a metaphor that I coincidentally used when talking about what this was wadding up my undies so tightly. This noise is like fingernails on a blackboard. It is nearly impossible to ignore no matter how hard I try. Of course, there is the added difficulty of how not thinking about something or attempting to ignore it tends to focus your attention on it all the more.

I should note that my earliest experience with misophonia was when I was a teenager. I remember my mother sitting on the sofa reading a book and continuously making an annoying little throat clearing noise. I tried to ignore it, but it just got more and more under my skin. I asked my mother why she did it and she said she wasn't making any noise. My father said that she certainly was and she denied it again, but both of us pointed out when she next made this noise. Eventually, I just left the room when she started making this irritating little sound. This early experience is what makes me believe that I'm constitutionally prone to misophonia. At that time, it was easy to get away. Unfortunately, in my present situation, it is far more complicated, so I compiled a list of coping strategies a little over a week ago and mailed it to myself to reference:

I instructed myself to read this list when it starts to ramp up:

1. Push the sound back (imagine physically putting it into the background while pulling focus onto something in the foreground). This is meant to counteract the subjective enlargements of stimuli that is so common.

2. Tell yourself that, while it is annoying, it is not that bad. It could be worse (could be loud rap music or something more frequent).

3. Tell yourself that you can, if necessary, escape it either in the short or long term. You are not trapped even though you may feel that way.

4. Understand that it is random and not personal. No one is trying to hurt you. You are collateral damage. 

5. Create positive stimuli to focus on - watch a video, listen to music, take a walk (if possible), jump on the trampoline

6. Focus on a task. Write. Clean. Read. It may be necessary to listen to a white noise or background sounds to help as these are quiet tasks. Multi-tasking may be most effective. 

7. Understand that you have allies to support you in dealing with this both logistically (property manager) and psychologically (husband).

8. Focus on your body's responses (stomach knotting, heart beating faster, tension filling your face and upper body) and try to relax them or stop these responses consciously. 

9. Sooth using sensations. Hold a debu neko (a stuffed toy cat from japan). Light a candle to create a pleasant scent and focus on the flame. Draw circles in one palm with the other. 

10. Remember that, even if you stay here for now, this situation is a transition, not permanent. Some day, you will move past this. You do not have to tolerate it forever. It is just a temporary experience. 

11. Remember that whatever coping techniques you build to deal with this now will be with you to employ in future difficult situations. Look at this as skill building instead of a test of your limited resolve.

12. Understand that your resolve is limited and it is okay to admit that it is sometimes going to be tapped out. Try to deal with this outcome, should it come to pass, as something that is understandable. It's okay to cry about it. It's okay to self-soothe in some (hopefully non-destructive) fashion.

13. Put the situation in perspective in regards to your entire life. This is a blip in the continuum. What is important is love and growth. What is important is building a life and a character that fits your ideal. Being activated by this is not part of that ideal. Being capable of managing your response is. 

14. Remember that you have survived and endured greater hardships than this for long periods of time. You are more than capable of managing this intrusive issue. 

15. To escape the floor vibrations, jump on the trampoline or lie on the bed (depending on whether you want to move or not). Put your feet up under the desk or rest them on a pillow. 

I have used some of the items on this list in the past week and it has helped, though it doesn't always help. I also downloaded a bunch of nature sounds (rain, waterfalls, rushing rivers, etc.) and spent the better part of a morning saturation listening to it. That was actually pretty exhausting because I had to have it up super loud and the truth is that I have been training myself up until now to deal better with silence than incessant noise. 

There was a time in the past when I was so unhappy with my own thoughts that being alone with them was unbearable. I'd constantly have T.V. on in the background or be doing something. I needed the "white noise" of banal words and thoughts to stop me from thinking negative thoughts or ruminating. I realized this was not a good thing (hence the "orderly mind" business) and trained myself to be okay in the silence and to deal with my thoughts. Now, I feel really resentful that someone else's rude behavior is pushing me back into needing to saturation bomb my senses so I don't hear obnoxious noises, but I'll have to deal with it and realize that this isn't about the same issue as before. 

At any rate, yesterday, I reached a new level in coping which should start some serious movement toward better coping and possible recovery. Up until then, I had to drown out or escape the noises. Now, I'm trying to work with being okay with their presence. The message now is that I can be "okay" when I hear them. I don't have to have an emotional reaction or get frustrated, angry, or upset. I tell myself that they are just sounds and they don't matter. They are part of the tapestry of life and no more or less a part of it than the street noise, birds, and other neighbors sounds that I routinely tune out. I'm not past my reactions, but I'm making progress. 

The only down side to this, and this is not my constructing worry webs or grandiose outcomes, is that I know that if I mellow completely, the neighbors are likely to do what they've been doing for the last nine months. That is, if my husband and I don't complain, they'll gradually start getting louder and then listening more loudly more often then later at night and earlier in the morning. Part of what created this loop of suffering and brought on this misophonia is the anxiety that was built around the patterns of their behavior. That is, the cycle of them being loud, us complaining to the manager, his telling them to cool it, their settling for a little while then getting louder then us complaining again and the cycle repeating. It doesn't help that they have gotten more bold and contemptuous toward us as time has gone by. Their whole attitude has become the equivalent of flipping us the bird.

It is this cycle that has put me where I am today, but I have to look at this from the viewpoint of knowing that they're on thinner ice now than they were before. The property manager has heard them blast it late at night when he comes home from work and he's been in our place and heard it clearly through our floor. While I wouldn't say he's on our side, he knows that our complaints are credible and will always do something about it, at least eventually. I'm going to use that belief to tamp down the part of me that feels out of control sufficiently to send me into a frustrated rage when I hear them playing the T.V. loudly on occasion. It's pretty much all I've got as a barrier against the anxiety when it comes down to this particular aspect of it. 

Incidentally, there is a misophonia scale here. I realize that I was at level 8 on this scale as I imagined doing things like vandalizing their garden or dumping garbage on their doorstep in retaliation. Fortunately, I have been able to walk myself back from that point and am hovering between 5-7 (closer to 5 now). I'm not a bad person, but this situation made me want to do things dramatically out of character for me. There were times when it drove me close to what would be madness for me.

That Volunteer Thing

Two months ago, I decided to finally act on taking a volunteer job that I'd been pondering for quite some time. There had been notices in the local library asking for conversation partners for non-native speakers of English on Wednesday mornings and, given my experience with ESL teaching and curriculum development, it seemed like a good fit. I was looking to use my skills as well as meet new people through this outlet.

When you think about a job of any kind, be it volunteer or paid, you imagine a situation. I thought this was going to be a single native English speaker partnering with a single non-native speaker in order to help him or her improve or practice. The situation was very far from what I envisioned. There was a huge room filled with tables capable of seating up to four people. Two of the tables were pushed together such that a large group sat around each. Usually, this meant there were two native speakers and six non-native speakers per group.

I will admit up front that the organization of the situation did not encourage me. I knew from my experiences in Japan that large groups never functioned as well as smaller ones and I didn't know why they'd choose not to break the groups in half when possible to pair three non-natives with one native. Bigger groups tend to end up with more "listeners" rather than "speakers" and it is harder to manage the conversation. 

This first sessions started with a deadly dull and incredibly tedious video presentation on library software for people who want to learn other languages. It was a half hour long, which is 1/3 of the 90 minutes allotted for the club to operate. Since this was my first time, I wanted to use that time to "read the room". I noticed that most people had pretty much checked out after 10 minutes. Some were shifting in their seats, others were looking at cell phones, and still others were slumping lower and lower as the time dragged on.

In order to justify this useless presentation, the librarians who offered it tried to tell everyone how great and important the software was. This was underscored by the woman who is in charge of the program, Nancy. It was clear that the whole thing went over like a lead balloon, but in order for the organizers to convince themselves that it was important and valuable, they carried on like cheerleaders long after the team had lost dismally to try to convince the spectators that it had really been a great game.

After that fiasco, I shared a group with a woman named "Jean". Jean was a retired school teacher and she approached her group like a bunch of students under her tutelage. She started by asking them to introduce themselves and a quick round of anemic introductions that included only their names and place of origin followed. This was a silly way to introduce people because there were placards in front of each person with their names written on them anyway, but that was the way each of three shared sessions that I had with other volunteers seemed to go.

Jean then asked if they had done anything the previous week. Some people had nothing to say. A few were more outgoing and told a story. One had bought chocolates in Korea (her home country) and gave one to each person. The chocolates had chili pepper in them and everyone - except me - was reluctant to try it. I gamely gave it a shot and said that I used to write a snack blog about foreign food so I was generally okay to try anything. I described the taste and then asked the non-natives if they had noticed that American chocolate was different than that in other countries. I did this to give them a chance to talk about something which could be common ground. Jean hijacked the conversation to say her relatives were originally from Switzerland and the chocolate there was the best then she changed the subject (rather nervously) to something she wanted to speak about. That killed the talk before everyone could comment on something which I had hoped was common ground for each person to speak about.

In Japan, I found that there were certain "universal" experiences through which everyone could share their lives. One of them is food. I found that it was also a "safe" topic that never brought up controversy or bad feelings. Other such topics included holidays, family, work, and education. I could rely on these as connections that everyone could bond over, but Jean had a need to run the show as she likely always had - as a teacher who introduces what she wants to discuss rather than allows the students to carry on.

Jean chose a few random words to write down and ask the students if they understood. She also asked what they thought of the video and none of them liked it. One student never said anything. A few said very little, and a couple tended to dominate while Jean acted like an elementary school teacher to stitch it all together. It wasn't bad. It wasn't great. I finished thinking that the opening video choice displayed a gross lack of understanding of what non-natives wanted to hear about as well as too much of an investment in promoting services and not enough in helping people actually speak English, but I wanted to try again.

At the second session, they opened with an off-the-cuff suggestion that we do a "morning mingle". This was poorly explained and implemented. It was mentioned that we should walk around talking to different people, but it was clear that this was not heard or understood. Shouting vague instructions at native-speaker speed to a large room simply does not work. It's dicey at best even when everyone speaks the language fluently. It's quite ineffective when the people who need to hear the instructions don't.

I ended up spending the entire "mingling" time talking to the same low-English-level Korean woman who locked onto me like a duck imprinting on its mother and wouldn't let me go. She was nice enough, and I could tell she was shy and relieved to have someone who she was comfortable speaking to, but this was nothing like a "mingle".

During a deadly dull meeting after this second session, another volunteer said that she experienced the same problem and that they needed to do something to make sure people changed partners if they were going to use this exercise again. This meeting, incidentally, informed me very clearly that the focus was on what the volunteers wanted to do and needed and not on the needs of the learners. All of the talk seemed to center around what they wanted to do or how they could fill time. Not one person asked or considered what might be good for the learners or seemed to talk about the operation from any perspective other than the library's resources and providing fuel for the volunteers to burn up the minutes in the session.

During this second time I took part, I shared a table with a woman named Shannon who had also taught in Japan. She had lived there for 13 years and ran an English school. I could tell by the way she managed the table that she was more adept at this sort of thing, though she did employ what I'd call some of the more unsophisticated ways of handling a group. She'd break us in pairs so we'd talk to each other. She'd try some of the common tricks of getting people to talk which displayed mechanistic knowledge, but did not betray any sort of subtle reading of the group or members and finding common threads to talk about. She had a good bag of tricks, but it was the stuff that people used after a few years of teaching, and nothing inventive or interesting.

To offer an example of what I'm talking about, a new teacher will use structured materials to conduct a class. For example, he or she will play a game or use a pat question and answer method to get people to talk. An experienced teacher will ask some questions or creatively find what people want to talk about and then expand upon that. I used to do this all of the time with students with very specific interests so we'd cover what they wanted to rather than some arbitrary method. Shannon was fine. She used the arbitrary methods, and it felt a bit rigid, but it was okay.

During the third session, we opened with the "morning mingle" again, but this time they re-explained it and turned the lights off every 10 minutes to indicate that we should switch partners. The sort of half-assed implementation that happened the first time was indicative to me of the amateur thought processes behind how things were being done that I had been noting. Things were being done poorly and corrected later, at least when it was being noted by the volunteers that there was an issue because it bothered them. I was also noticing the things which were not working well from the side of the non-natives.

The dull thuds and loud clunks of what was an issue for the learners was an aspect which no one, but me and, possibly Shannon, was noticing. At one point, I mentioned the large size of the groups to Shannon and asked her if she thought this was for the best. She looked uncomfortable and said that it was Nancy's group and it seemed to be working for her. It was clear that she also felt things could be better, but wasn't going to rock the boat. It turns out she knew better than me in this regard.

I had my worst experience with sharing a session with a woman named Shauley during my third time. She was of Chinese descent, but spoke like a native speaker with a bit of an accent. Her qualification to call herself a native speaker was not in question, but her ability to run a group was pretty bad. She favored the two Chinese people in the group and a woman from France spent most of the time looking bored and unhappy as she was rarely given a chance to speak. It was clear that an elderly woman (one of the two Chinese people) followed the same practice each time and that she always paired with Shauley as Shauley explained that this old woman read her introduction - a long, rambling document about her home town in China - each time. It made the old lady more comfortable, but it was a killer of the energy and conversation at the table, especially as part of the start of the group. It didn't help that she finished reading her page and broke out into loud, heaving sobs because she missed her home so much.

At one point, I tried to introduce a technique to allow the learners to do most of the talking instead of me during my introduction, but Shauley hijacked it and distorted it so that they spoke less and she talked more. Instead of allowing the learners to ask me questions, she asked me questions. I tried to mitigate this by asking on occasion if one of the learners knew the answer. For example, I was asked about the Amish in Pennsylvania because I live there and an Italian woman to my right indicated that she knew who they were after watching a documentary, so I asked her to talk about them instead of me. Even this effort was undone by Shauley as she started answering the question about the Amish herself instead of allowing the Italian woman to do it on her own.

Shauley displayed to the greatest degree a problem that new teachers in Japan had and that every single volunteer there had shown. That is, they are so uncomfortable with a moment of silence or hesitation that they jump in to fill the gap. When you are dealing with non-native speakers, you have to get comfortable with their pauses as they collect their words and express themselves. Most people, especially Americans, have so much discomfort and inner turmoil about pauses that they can't sit with this. I sit with it just fine, and this was one of the reasons students chose me as a teacher. I was not dealing with my internal issues. I was accommodating theirs because I understood that it was hard to speak a second language and they needed time.

In each shared session, dealing with the volunteer's handling of matters was a problem for me. I would try to set the stage for a method through which the non-natives could express themselves, and the native volunteer would grab it and start talking or change the method before everyone had an equal chance to speak. I found this immensely frustrating. I am not used to being in a group of people in a social setting and allowing some to be largely ignored. Even when I tried to draw in the bored and clearly dissatisfied French woman by talking to her about the fact that she mentioned her boyfriend was going to buy a car (as a connection to my hating to drive here), Shauley hijacked that before the French woman could answer beyond a few words and started talking to one of the Chinese women about her driving.

After this third session, I felt very tenuous about going back, but returned for another. This was the first time that I was able to run the show myself as there weren't enough volunteers for me to share a table. I noted that Nancy only decided to move me to a table alone after another volunteer said she didn't think she could do one by herself and she remarked to me, "You can handle one on your own." Yes, I can. This was a concrete reflection of what I'd already perceived again and again. This show was being run for the volunteers, not for the people that they were there to "help".

The opening activity for this time was a golden oldie of the English as a second language game. It's called "find someone who". We used to use it in large groups in Japan all of the time, but we were always careful about the content to make sure that it matched the capability of the participants. We didn't use vocabulary that they couldn't understand. We also explained beforehand that it was for practice in asking questions. The documents for this versatile activity always were structured as such:

Find someone who...

...has been to New York City.
...has eaten fugu.
...has a sister.
(etc.)

The small challenge for the learner is to structure a question like "Have you ever been to New York City?" During the use of this in the ESL club, no one explained the purpose so everyone was walking around saying, "Has been to New York City?" They just read the stems because of the inadequate introduction.

Beyond the poor explanation, the document had clearly been grabbed off an internet site and no one bothered to think about whether or not the words were comprehensible to most people. The first question was "...a jack of all trades." This old-fashioned term is not only out of favor in the modern age, but extremely complex to explain and unlikely to be in the arsenal of words of a non-native speaker. Though we sometimes had to use words that we believed students might not know, we always made an effort to explain those words before the activity. Again and again, the approach in this group was to confuse and then explain (if at all). This is a sloppy approach and it's a bad experience for the learner as not understanding too much makes them stop trying to understand at all. It also makes them feel like they are failing constantly.

After a month of sessions, I planned to give it one more shot before deciding to continue because the fifth one was to occur just before Halloween and there was supposed to be a pumpkin-carving activity. In fact, I was really looking forward to this as I felt that it would be structured around actions rather than be oriented toward the volunteer's needs. Unfortunately, I got sick, and the following week I had already planned to skip because of my husband's birthday. In the interim, I got an e-mail from Nancy saying there was going to be a meeting in which they would discuss whether or not they should break the groups into levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced).

She asked for my feedback about the levels, and I gave it. I gave it mentioning a lot of the problems I'd noticed and how they'd impact separation into levels. In particular, my concern was that the "beginners" (who she mentioned in her message that no one wanted to work with) would require far more preparation and structure than any other group. I also mentioned that, if this was social thing, it was better to leave them mixed. If it was a learning thing, then they needed to break them up.  I also talked about the group size and how it tended to be a bigger issue for lower levels (as higher level students dominated) and that generally the whole thing wouldn't work unless the volunteers were trained to manage the time without any insecurity about how they'd fill it. (Note: I didn't use the word "insecurity", but tried to be "nice" about how I said everything. I may have failed in that regard, but I really tried.)

I mentioned a lot of things, and I should note that, after the first session, Nancy told me that even if I only came once, she wanted my critical feedback. I came four times, and when I gave some of that critical feedback, I could tell by her response that she wasn't happy about what I'd said. She essentially blew off every concern, justified every choice they were making, and dismissed my difference in opinion as the reflection of someone who'd primarily done ESL in business and didn't understand what they were doing there. She did this all as nicely as possible, but I could tell that, while she asked for critical appraisal, what she really wanted was mostly validation of what they were doing. She said quite clearly that she didn't think I understood what they were doing and had hoped she could talk to me later after I had properly comprehended their program.

It is true that my experiences were primarily with business in Japan. I even noted that I understood that they were dealing with volunteers so it was different. However, I think it's not uncommon for volunteers to receive training and these ones were getting none. Not one of those people knew what they were doing and the whole situation smacked of people who were well-intentioned, but largely throwing things at a wall and waiting to see what stuck. What was worse was that they were only viewing success through the lens of what worked for the volunteers. No one had a clue about what it was like on the other side for the non-natives. In fact, until I mentioned this point to Nancy, I don't think it even occurred to anyone to even think about that aspect of the situation and I'm pretty sure right now that Nancy won't think twice about what I said now that I'm gone.

Had Nancy received my comments less defensively, I may have returned and even offered training had they wanted it. I have copious experience training people to teach English and a huge bag of techniques to share. However, it may surprise no one that I decided I was done. It's not because I wasn't being "heard" by people who knew far less than I did. It was because I already was tired of costarring in an amateur hour when I am a pro. Sharing sessions with people who are unskilled was already close to unbearable for me. Sitting with them as they thwarted my efforts to help the learners so that they could talk more themselves is just something I wasn't prepared to keep doing. It was simply too frustrating.

The thing is, I'm sure no one will really miss me. This is a free service and I'm sure most of the non-natives in that room have had experience paying high fees for what they were getting there for nothing. The population of the area I currently reside in is so diverse and filled with people who are here temporarily while spouses work on various contracts that there is a large supply of people who will take what they can get as long as they don't have to pay for it. There's also the fact that those who are learning a language rarely possess the capacity to evaluate an experience qualitatively. If you have only ever eaten consumer level cheap candy, you have no idea that expensive, quality candy tastes much better. They have to have had excellent experiences to realize that what they're getting isn't "good".

The question of whether or not I stayed or left was really about only me. The learners weren't going to be or feel deprived. Nancy and the other volunteers weren't going to care that much as they would certainly continue to pat themselves on the back and see success even when neither was warranted. The big question was what I was going to "lose" or gain by going. What I was going to lose was something I did value, and that was meeting new people from various cultures and having the potential to get to know them. Unfortunately, unless I managed a group alone (not a high probability or something I could control), I found that I couldn't get to know anyone because of how the other volunteer directed the verbal traffic. The frustration to enjoyment ratio was just too high, so I decided it was best to stop. I wrote to Nancy and told her that I wouldn't be continuing due to personal issues (true, but vague). I didn't complain or mention how disillusioned I was. That's not really her problem to deal with. It's mine.

In the end, I am glad that I did this volunteer stint. The biggest reason is that I don't like it when I say I will do something and I simply never do it. There are often logistical reasons why I don't get to things. For example, I wanted to join Toastmasters, but they're too far away to travel to conveniently at the correct time. This ESL club business was at a library within a ten-minute walk of my apartment so there was nothing in my way except me. I'm also glad because it reinforced something that I already knew and, even though it's not a "happy" conclusion, it did provide clarity.

That is, I am as outside of American culture now as I was outside of Japanese culture there. I'm an outsider in my native culture even after two and a half years back. This experience somehow crystallized that and made me feel more "okay" with the difficulties I'm having. I'm just really not like other Americans and integration is probably not going to happen (ever). I'm too educated and intellectual. My sense of self is not based in enough trivial external interests (T.V., sports teams, etc.). I seek and enjoy complexity rather than simplicity of thought and understanding. I'm too sensitive and worldly relative to the average person. I am capable of taking too many perspectives.

It was the last one that killed the volunteer experience for me. I didn't operate from the perspective of the volunteers. I operated from that of the learners, and I just couldn't live with the fact that the 12-16 people who ran the situation were the priority instead of the 60-80 who they were there to help. In the end, what I realized was that the majority (the native speakers - mostly white people) couldn't adopt the perspective of the minorities they were serving. Having lived for many years as a minority, I could. This will always make me an outlier. I'm okay with that in general, but it does make it harder for me to do this sort of work, particularly when I'm not being paid to put up with it.

How to build a bad obsession in just one week

The name of this blog is not a clever, off-the-cuff choice. It was very deliberately chosen to illustrate the way I tend to operate. I've worked over the years to be very disciplined in my thought processes and especially in my emotional reactivity. What that means in plain English is that I spend no small number of years being controlled by my temper and anxiety and that I've employed various techniques to corral my impulses and break those stallions.

At the root of the desire to do this was a need to end the suffering I endured as a result of my propensity for anxiety and anger. I don't know if I congenitally was like this, but I am certain that my upbringing created or exacerbated a lot of it. My mother's emotional abuse and my father's alcoholism and the chaos and uncertainty surrounding these problems made me prone to a lot of psychological issues including compulsive eating, depression, and anxiety. To varying degrees, I have managed to distance myself from all of these things. However, in times of stress and difficulty, they move closer to me and I am at risk of falling deep into these wells.

Recently, the issues with my noisy neighbors (detailed perhaps a bit too often in this blog's short life) have brought back an anxiety-based tendency that I experienced more in the distant past. One of the good things about having a disciplined mind and experience managing your thoughts and emotions is that you can change over time with great effort. One of the not so good things is that you can also change back to your destructive ways, often with less effort and more rapidly.

In the span of a week, I've grown nearly obsessed with the noise my neighbors are making. Any hint of overhearing their T.V., even at what I would have considered before to be reasonable background levels, sends me into a state of anger and tension. I'll sit around fearing this reaction. I've managed to whip myself into a frenzy about this and have been having intrusive thoughts about it and am ruminating on it. I have had to overtly and consciously derail myself from this destructive sequence time and again over the past week and it has been exhausting.

How did I manage to become so overwhelmed by this in a short span of time? There are a lot of possible reasons. One is that this situation is a microcosm for my entire experience in America since returning from 23 years of living in Japan. It has all of the elements that have frustrated me so deeply. The neighbors are rude, selfish, careless, entitled, and take it as their right to do what they want at my expense. What is more, they are actually breaking a rule of our rent contract - no noise that disturbs other tenants - and still refuse to stop. I think part of what I'm so wrapped up in this is that I'm fighting the bigger battle of my frustration and anger at everything about America that has let me down. If I were winning, it would probably not be something I'd get so worked up about. The best I can say at present is that we're at a stalemate and I have every expectation that I'll start "losing" again as they'll slowly return to form.

Another reason for this is that my life here is so much "smaller" than my life was in Japan. I spend a lot of time in my apartment pursuing my own interests and dealing with household responsibilities (all of which I take care of since my husband is working super hard as an intern at present). I've tried to branch out in many ways, but have found it difficult and frustrating for a variety of reasons, no small number of them linked to the aforementioned American character issues in the previous paragraph.

My sister-in-law once told me about an experience with my father-in-law that she had in which he saw a paint blister on the side of his RV and a variation in the color of the paint job after he removed a retractable awning from the side. He was worked up beyond reason about these matters and she just couldn't see what the big deal was since her father is hardly someone who is preoccupied with appearances. The way he keeps his house both internally and externally reflects his lax habits and overall laziness. I told her that the reason was likely that he didn't have enough to keep him busy and that he focused more on tiny things because his world was small. I think there is an element of that in my being so engrossed in the noise situation with my neighbors.

Into all of this mix, we can add the fact that one's state of being influences perception. In a study that I read recently, researchers found that thirsty people saw water glasses as being further away than people who were not thirsty. We more commonly experience this when we feel that the first mile is shorter than the last one when we walk a long, long way. How we feel at present affects how we perceive stimuli. That means that the more upset I am about the noise, the more likely it is that I feel it is louder.

It's also likely that the lifestyle my husband and I lead make this issue more remarkable for us. We live quietly. That is, it is rare for us to turn on the T.V. or music. There is no constantly babbling technological brook to obscure the booming bass sounds emanating from below us. If we were similarly trying to drown out the world, we could blot out some of their aural waterfall with a babbling brook of our own. Though I could choose to start listening to something to help with this, it is unfortunate that the very act of changing your lifestyle to not notice something will make you notice it more. You'll know you're only doing it because of a problem and not because you enjoy it. It only serves as a reminder of the problem you want to get away from.

I realize part of the problem with the neighbors is them. Their behavior has been inconsiderate and rude to the point of overt hostility; they once turned the T.V. up even louder after I asked them to turn it down. My sense of powerlessness in this situation is also playing a part. People who fear no consequences (which they apparently did not and may not still) and have no concern for others will not change their behavior. However, part of the problem is also me and what I'm making this into and I need to stop and readjust my thinking.

Unfortunately, part of the reason I'm so fast at building up a frenzy about this is that the time is ripe for it based on my experiences in the U.S., but also that I'm actually pretty damn good at training my mind. Since this was a slippery slope for me in terms of a propensity to be anxious or angry, it was a fast trip down there once I started wiring my brain for this sort of obsessiveness. Getting back up that mountain is a long, hard slog with slippery patches. I'm struggling to climb up and out, but I frequently slip back.

I have an entire list of cognitive techniques to help me work through this and it helps. I'm actually very good at structuring self-induced CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy). I'm less good at follow-through and implementation, but I'm working at it. One thing that helped was that, for some time yesterday, I spent some time mentally where I want to be. That is, in a non-obsessed state in which I had the proper perspective on how out of character this all is for me (at least in my present state) and how out of proportion my reactions are getting. I spent some time "sane" as it were and I could use that as a reference point.

Yesterday, I told my husband that this was like I was in a space with two adjoining rooms. In one room, I was "Sane Orderly Mind" (SOM) and, in the other, I was "Crazy Orderly Mind" (COM). It felt like COM was constantly dragging SOM into that room and trying to keep her there. Every time I've felt the pull of obsession, it has helped me to visualize this and refuse to be pulled in. My list of coping strategies will be the weapons I use against COM in order to fight her and empower SOM.

My husband has also been instrumental in my coping with this. He couldn't stop me from rapidly weaving an anxiety web as I descended into a sort of madness, but he can hold my hand and encourage me while I try to climb back out again. I need this more than I can say because I've been through a lot emotionally since returning to America and my capacity to tolerate has been tapped out for years now. I'm constantly running on fumes in this regard and he's the difference between my giving up in a crying heap of feeling overwhelmed and continuing to fight back is his support and understanding.

It has also helped to blog about the process. I've found that it helps to have this outlet as a focus for the energy generated by these experiences as well as a focus. I banged out three posts in a row because I needed something to do other than obsess. That helped as well (and it's on my CBT list). Watch this space to see how successful I am. I'm sure it'll all play out here.

Why Americans Need Religion (A Theory)

Unless you live outside of a system, you are often unaware that other systems exist or are even possible. You may read about such systems and understand them in an academic fashion, but you cannot truly conceptualize what it is like to operate within them unless you live within them. In the U.S., we live under a capitalist system which is largely ran by market forces. In Japan, a country in which I spent 23 of my 50 years on this planet, they live in a system which is capitalist, but has protectionist aspects in order to keep their native markets alive and they have many socialist aspects underlying their daily existence. People operate largely as individuals in America and that shapes the culture here and people operate largely as part of a collective in Japan and that shapes the culture there.

Based on what I said in the first sentence, I know that everything I said in the remainder of that first paragraph can only be understood in the most abstract sense by those who haven't spent a long time in both countries. The bottom line is that American society largely has people responsible for themselves. It encourages people to look out for number one, to make their own destiny, and to rely on being the biggest, baddest rat in the race. In Japan, you actively want to be just like every other rat, have the support of society, your company, and your family in building your destiny. You are supposed to be looking out for everyone as well as yourself.

There are, obviously, outliers in each system. Some Americans are exceptionally interested in social harmony and helping their fellow man. Some Japanese are selfish and opportunistic about whatever helps them look out for number one. The difference is in the numbers and general tendencies. You can find all the anecdotal cases you want in each culture in order to negate my generalizations here.

Another big difference between Japan and America is that the society in Japan is paternalistic. That's a "big word" way of saying the government is, to some extent, your daddy. To varying degrees, so are companies. They promise that, if you do the right things and are an obedient child, you'll be looked after. That system has been crumbling as of late, but it's still generally in place. The Japanese government encourages this by indirect means. They don't regulate, but they do let it be known that companies that don't play ball  might find themselves getting the short end of certain sticks if they don't get their house in proper order.

In America, we have no such paternalism. You're on your own, Jack. In fact, the conservative politicians of the U.S. talk about how bad "big government" is and oppose regulating anything because it'll suppress free market systems and cost more tax dollars to oversee everything. My point is not about politics though, it's about the lack of an entity that will look after you in America. Many other countries with socialist policies or other systems which look after the well-being of their citizens have a paternalistic sense about them which America does not. No one has your back here, except... well, except God.

There is a strong thread of Christianity in the U.S. Eighty-three percent identify as Christian. That puts us close to Northern Island, but far from one of our nearest cultural neighbors, the U.K. The former is about 82% Christian and the latter 59%. Why are Americans so much more religious than some other Western countries and why do they feel the need to talk about their beliefs so much and to insinuate them into the daily lives of everyone?

My growing sense as I've been back in my native country for about two and a half years has been that Americans need God because they need to believe that someone "up there" is looking out for them because they sure as hell know that no one else is. The government especially isn't going to be there to help you out in times of distress or difficulty. In fact, Libertarians will often assert that private charitable organizations will pick up the slack if we eliminate entitlements for the least fortunate. No small amount of social support for the disadvantaged in the U.S. is at present provided by churches. The best estimate for the Catholic Church alone is that 17% of privately offered social services are provided by it. When the government doesn't offer enough, we look to God and those who offer help in God's name.

In Japan, people weren't very religious. I believe that this was because they had government and family. Families there were very different from those here. Children weren't expected to leave home as quickly as possible and extended support throughout a grown child's life was very common. The American family is fractured into "parents" and "kids" and often one separates from the other in early adulthood with the expectation of total independence. Japanese parents wanted their children to succeed, but they never really left a family. This is a situation which was not only embraced personally and on a bureaucratic level. The government keeps "family registries" in which you must be assigned a family and lumped with every member of that entity. A person who marries has to choose a family to "join" in a legal sense. It's not just a marriage to an individual, it's joining their entire family line.

The Japanese didn't need God because they knew they weren't on their own. Family was with them. Government was with them. Quite often, even their companies were with them. They had a strong sense of personal responsibility, but they also felt responsible for others around them. There was a social safety net, and it was less economical than psychological. Americans are much less supported in every way compared to Japanese so they need to look for a comforting concept of a "big, caring daddy" elsewhere. Many of them find it in church.

I was raised a Christian, but I gave that up after far too many stories about how some people would be saved when the book of revelations was finally opened and its first page lived in the world. I was 15 years old and I felt that it just couldn't be that "God" would punish people who never read a bible by virtue of having been born in a place where those teachings weren't a part of their cultural experience. Such a God would be playing favorites in an epic fashion. It seemed too much like winning lottery tickets instead of like divine wisdom.

Giving up on God was not an easy thing for me. Unlike many people who scoff at the notion of a supreme being, I did not suddenly conclude everyone else was being duped and I was smarter than them. It's not an easy loss. You're alone and unprotected. No entity greater than your parents cares about what becomes of you. Your smallness in the order of things is all the greater. You're not even a part of a bigger plan anymore as no one knows when you're sleeping, knows when you're awake, or cares that you've been bad or good.

As the years went on and I grew up and experienced more of the world, I embraced deist principles. I didn't find deism and then say, 'that's for me.' I believed what I believed as my notions formed and I one day stumbled upon a definition that surprisingly fit what I already believed. It just put a label on my pre-existing beliefs that would make it easier to communicate what I generally have come to believe and how I approach life and the meaning of it (or lack thereof). The part of deism which struck me as most profoundly in tune with what I'd come to conclude was that "God" does not interfere in the interests of man or the world. In essence, whatever entity is responsible for the mess we're all in set the wheel in motion and walked away. It's not looking after you. It's not answering your prayers. It's not punishing you for being bad. It's closer to the big old scientist in the sky than the sometimes caring, sometimes punishing pappy of Christianity.

One of the things which sealed the deal for me in terms of how I conceptualized "God" was my sense of all of the suffering in the world. If God were a concerned entity, his behavior would make him more like a tantrum-prone child that enjoyed pulling the wings off of flies based on the way the world is run at present than a loving entity. My guess is that God is more like an entity that let's the kids work out answers to their own problems rather than get in the middle of things, particularly when those kids made the mess in the first place.

I know that many people of varying religions have woven answers to various questions which request an explanation for why God, who is supposedly omniscient, omnipotent, and has a penis, doesn't just help us all out when we've been so very, very good. In particular, when good people suffer and bad people succeed, you have to start wondering what that's all about. Well, my feeling is "God" doesn't give a rat's ass. It's about the process, not the outcome.

I believe that most Americans need a caring father figure badly because their culture doesn't provide one in any other way. Religion fills that need, and I don't have a problem with that. Part of the reason for that is that I'm not one of those people who is sure she's "right" about the nature of existence. I think what I think, and it makes sense to me, but I could be wrong. I think people need to go with what works for them and that there is already enough fear in the world without removing the loving and protective daddy in the sky comfort that a lot of people get from their religion. I'm not going to crap on it as long as they keep their dogma off my philosophical lawn.

The Saga Continues

When my husband and I were living in Tokyo, we once had neighbors who seemed to be banging and crashing around in the apartment above us at all hours of the day and night. At 2:00 am, it sounded as if they were rearranging heavy furniture. After putting up with this for awhile, as we figured the initial situation may have been related to the sounds one makes when moving it, we complained to the landlord. He told them about the problem and it stopped.

In my ongoing saga with my noisy neighbors (born in the early Pleistocene age), the record to date has been:

1. Experience them loudly playing their T.V. after midnight on the evening of the Chinese New Year. Ask them to turn it down and be met with the response, "We're celebrating the Chinese New Year." I had to say that my husband had to work the next morning as it was not a holiday and could they turn it down. They did turn it down.
2. Experience them loudly playing their T.V. on multiple occasions and go down during the day to ask them to turn it down and be met with, "It's not us. Our T.V. is not that loud. It must be someone else." I called the manager and told him there was a noise issue, but the downstairs neighbor said it was not him. 
3.  The manager and we walk around the building at various times of day and night trying to work out who it is. Eventually, it turns out it is the people downstairs and they lied. The manager talks to them and asks them to cool it on the noise front. For a short time, they do.The loud T.V. starts coming back again. The manager asks them again to stop it. They stop for an even shorter time.
4. Increasingly louder T.V. starts to happen again and I get fed up and have the exchange detailed in this post. For those who do want to go back, I asked them to turn it down and they told me essentially that they could do what they wanted and I could go sodomize myself (in attitude and not words). I call the manager and say that this problem needs to be dealt with as, even if we moved, the next tenant would be unlikely to tolerate it either.

Yesterday, the property manager (Hector) came by to reassure me that the situation will be resolved. He told me some things which I did not know, but am not surprised about. First of all, he said they have a surround-sound system. That explains all of the booming and highly "mobile" sound (it seems to move from one side of our apartment to the other). He said the bass is likely set too high and that is causing the vibration. He told me that he would go to their apartment "tomorrow morning" (today) and adjust their bass and find a volume that he felt was reasonable and ask them to stick to it.

That all sounds good in practice, but it's nearly noon here and the "morning" is nearly done and I don't think he visited them. What is more, I think that they are actively avoiding him. Hector told me after my last call that he called them three times and left three messages at a time when we both knew they were home. They did not call him back at all and it is clear that they purposefully avoided talking to him because they knew he was going to ask them to cut it out again. He said that, in the past, the old man has always called him back immediately so this was clearly different behavior.

This morning, I'm pretty sure I saw those ancient creatures leave their apartment. It wouldn't shock me if they knew Hector may come by and left to avoid him or if he knocked on their door and they didn't answer and then took off because they knew he wanted to confront them.

All of this running away and avoiding the property manager in order not to face the inevitable may seem completely irrational and stupid to responsible adults, but it frankly does not surprise me. There are no small number of people, and especially elderly ones, who have behaved in this fashion since I returned to America. They are like children who think that they won't have to face the consequences if they ignore the problem. It's the type of thing that causes kids to skip school despite their awareness of the fact that the teacher will know, the school will require a note from the parent, and that they won't be able to produce said note.

Everything about this old man (and his nearly silent wife, who I believe isn't he major player in this) speaks to his wanting not to take responsibility or deal with this issue. He lies. He lies again. He denies. He avoids. He pretends it's not really happening and that I'm making things up. I have little doubt that he'd "manage" this issue by attempting not to deal with it at all, especially when he knows on some level of his cobwebbed brain that he is in the wrong. He just wants to avoid facing the inevitable - he can't play with his toy the way he wants to and someone is going to take it away from him in at least some capacity.

The situation is complicated by his age and Hector's sense of his fragility. Yesterday, he told me that the man is 85 (no shock) and has suffered a stroke and a few heart attacks (also no surprise as that would relate to the hearing issues). Hector said that the old man was very upset when asked yesterday to cool it on the noise so he wanted to wait until "tomorrow" (again, that's now today) to confront him because he was afraid of initiating some sort of health crisis. Yes, it has been many a person who has had a heart attack because he can't listen to T.V. at sky-high volumes on his surround-sound system. This old man is, essentially, having tantrums because he can't do what he wants and Hector is being tentative because of it. I wish he'd worry more about me getting an ulcer than that enormously old big baby having a tanty and sending himself into a seizure of some sort.

At any rate, I'm writing about this both for catharsis and as a marker on the evolution of this process. I also want to let it be known that, in Japan, where people have consideration for the feelings of others and care about how they get along with others, this would be a done deal after the first complaint. In America, rather than the offending party taking responsibility, he does his best to not change and avoids responsibility at all costs. The response here is entirely selfish and manipulative. Unfortunately, I don't think this is a rare case and it is a reflection of the "individuality" culture in America.

"You Are Amazing"

I once listened to a TED talk about marketing. Before I get too far, let me say that I don't usually listen to TED talks because I regard them as the Cliff's Notes of lectures. I think that they are compressed bits of information designed for people with short attention spans who grew up channel flipping and surfing the web such that they can't handle a well-crafted real lecture. All of that being said, sometimes I'll watch a TED talk if the subject is one of limited interest to me on the whole, but covers a particular aspect of a topic that is of greater interest.

In this talk, the topic was about how a message is more effectively conveyed to consumers. There was discussion of how one type of ad worked better than another. For instance, does a poster that says that people dispose of X number of tons of litter each year which costs X number of dollars to clean up work better or does a poster showing a famous athlete tossing his trash in a can stop more people from littering? The answer is the latter because people are more influenced when they are told that other people are doing something than when they are informed about consequences.

This little tidbit was just part of the talk, but it highlights something which I already knew. That is the fact that messages are carefully crafted by marketers in order to optimize their influence over you. The way you are  managed is not an accident. Someone has carefully considered the message and optimized its delivery for maximum manipulation.

I thought about this several days ago when I made a rare trip to a theater to watch a movie ("Interstellar"). The movie was, as is so often the case, preceded by a sequence of ads and trailers. One of the ads was an animated short meant to get people to turn off their cell phones while watching the movie. It did not ask people to be considerate of other patrons. It did not talk about how disruptive cell phone use can be during a movie. It showed how cool it was and the animation, which was little red balls bouncing all over the places with faces on them, was energetic and hip. At the end of this short, presumably after convincing the audience to turn off their phones because it's the cool thing to do, the narrator said with great enthusiasm, "You are amazing."

When I was in Japan, most of these sorts of messages were offered in terms of, "Let's not disturb other people," or "Let's be polite to one another." In America, the message caters not to empathy and consideration toward others, but the vanity of the listener. Turn off your cell phone because it's the cool thing to do. Do it because it will mean you're "amazing".

The fact that this message is crafted to appeal to the narcissism and self-centeredness of American people made me sad. We care so little for others that asking us to do things in their interest is deemed too ineffective so we have to compliment them on their greatness in doing what is asked. What is more, saying that someone is "amazing" for turning off a cell phone smacks of rewarding people for doing next to nothing. It feels a lot like the whole "everyone who shows up gets a prize" situation that is becoming more and more present among young people today. We tell people they are great for doing nothing. We reward them for nothing.

This was not the America that I grew up in, but the one that developed while I was gone. I'm not some curmudgeon waxing poetic about the good old days because I don't think the old days were necessarily good, but I am alarmed at how self-centered people have become and how it's so natural that narcissism as a psychological problem has nearly been wiped off the map. When everyone is a narcissist, it is no longer a concern. It is a character trait common to this culture that is pandered to rather than discouraged.

The Minority Narrative

My husband and I had a friend that he met through graduate school who once told a story about an experience she had in a parking lot. She was walking through the lot with a friend of hers who had a baby that she was pushing in a stroller. As they were making their way through the lot, a woman in a somewhat nice car honked in irritation at them.

Under these circumstances, what would your first conclusion be about the dynamic in play during this encounter? As someone who has been in a car and driving through various parking lots with no small number of pedestrians walking willy-nilly (rather than using crosswalks or speed bumps as crossover points) and often doing so in a very sluggish and seemingly disoriented fashion, my first conclusion was that the woman was damn tired of being blocked by people who felt it was fine to mosey through the lot in the path of vehicles without concern. In fact, when I was in Japan, I thought the pedestrians were bad, but I've found they are worse in the U.S. The sense of entitlement in a country which reinforces the rights of those on foot has created a situation where pedestrians routinely jaywalk, cross highly trafficked areas like parking lots without even looking for oncoming vehicles, and in general seem not to think that they have an obligation to stop, look both ways, and cross when there are no cars - which was what I learned growing up - not that I could meander around anywhere and expect cars to look out for me as seems to be the case in California at present.

The first paragraph is the sum of the actual interaction and the facts of the experience as related. There is no added information. The woman did not say anything else. However, I will add two other facts. The friend and her acquaintance with the child are of Chinese descent. The woman in the car was white.

When this friend told this story, she told so in an impassioned manner in accord with sharing an experience she had which reflected her status as a minority. She spoke emotionally about how the woman may have been jealous because she saw someone with a baby and she might not have been able to have one. She said that it could be the woman hated Asians and was a bigot. Nowhere in her narrative was the possibility that she and her friend were doing what so many pedestrians of every race, creed, and color do and that the woman was annoyed because they were taking up too much space on the way to getting in or out of the parking lot and moving at the pace of snails; the driver may simply have been increasingly impatient.

Why would this be a missing possibility from this friend's narrative? It is, after all, a highly likely explanation. The reason is that it is the only explanation which makes the two Asian women in the story responsible in any way for the unpleasantness that ensued. It would have meant that they would have to recognize that they behaved in a way which was inconsiderate at least, and oblivious at best.

Now, I will change the story to an experience that I had today with my ever aggravating ancient neighbors. I have never mentioned this before, but they are Chinese. My guess is that they were born in China roughly 500 years ago and came here at some point in order to annoy the crap out of me. They speak to each other in Chinese, dry cabbage and pickle vegetables outside of their home, and play extremely loud Chinese programs on their T.V. (programs with booming bass music). I know what they watch since they so carefully insure that I hear it as clearly as possible by pushing the volume up into the stratosphere.

Today, they were pushing the limits and I decided to go down and ask them to turn it down. This turned into a very unpleasant situation as, being as they are deaf and they have already been told twice by the manager to chill out on the noise, I had to shout to even be heard at all. Of course, the deafness wasn't the only reason I had to shout. They wouldn't open the door when I knocked and just tried to talk to me through it. I started out asking them to please turn it down. The male fossil of the couple, who finally opened the door, said that it was not that loud. I said that it was vibrating our floor and, yes, it was loud. He said that just was not happening. Um... OK, but, I said that, yes, it was happening and he couldn't hear how loud the T.V. was because he was deaf.

At this point, things degraded further. He said that I should complain to the manager. I said that I already had and I knew the manager had spoken to them about it. He then switched to saying that it wasn't late at night so they could do what they wanted and then slammed the door in my face after I said he was being very rude.

I'll admit that that was hardly my finest hour. I made mistakes. Part of the cause of those mistakes was based in the need to shout at all. Part of it was my amygdala was all hepped up on adrenaline due to the ongoing aggravation. The straw that snapped the camel's back and made me call him "deaf" (true) and "rude" (also true) was him asserting that I simply was not experiencing the noise as I was. Why on earth would I go down there and complain if nothing was happening? Why on earth would I call the manager repeatedly to try and get the situation dealt with? Well, that is where my story about my friend comes into play.

In this situation, there are several explanations for why I'd complain. No, strike that, I can only think of two. One is that I am actually experiencing the vibrations and noise. Two is that I have a need to harass my neighbors for imaginary problems for some reason. What would that reason be? Well, if my neighbor wants to find the most comfortable narrative, the one that relieves him of all responsibility for creating the issue, he can tell himself that I am prejudiced and therefore making things up to create problems for him. My best guess is that that narrative would either be about age or ethnicity and I'm wagering on the latter since, at 50, I'm hardly a spring chicken myself.

Minorities in America are indoctrinated into a mindset which I've seen with stunning frequency since my return from Japan. That is that they believe any action which they dislike is the result of bigotry. If they don't get a job, it's racism. If they don't get an apartment, it's racism. If they behave in ways that upset others and those folks have the audacity to complain or protest, it's racism. What is more, the white folks in the U.S. are not allowed to challenge their conclusions that everything bad that ever happens to them is the result of historical or present racial inequality. With the talk of "privilege" and the sensitive nature of any interaction between a white person and a person who is not of European descent, we are not allowed to question any conclusion made about the nature of an interaction, even when more cogent and likely explanations are sitting right out there for anyone with half a brain to see.

I know about this minority narrative because I lived as .2% of the Japanese population for 23 years. I also lived in a place which had none of the safeguards (legal, social, or otherwise) that America offers its minorities. I had zero power to challenge things like labor laws being broken at my expense, being questioned by the police without cause, being refused apartments, being turned away at restaurants, etc. (and all of these things happened to me there). After years of this, I constructed a minority narrative. Every time something bad happened to me, it was because I was white in a sea of Japanese people and they knew I was a powerless minority in their culture. I became incredibly hostile in public when I was gawked at, pointed at, laughed at, and people didn't sit next to me on the train (for fear of catching my cooties as a foreigner).

After spending years constructing and living with that narrative, I started to deconstruct it. I got tired of being mad omnidirectionally all of the time. I got tired of the stress. I felt bad about telling my husband that the people who treated me badly were little more than "animals" in their self-awareness and intellectual capacity. I am not a person who naturally belittles others, but my narrative had me doing it nearly every day as a way of coping with the hardships I was enduring.

As part of really looking at that minority narrative, I had to present myself with some cold hard possibilities and facts. One of them was that not everyone treated me badly because I was a foreigner. Sometimes bad stuff happened because bad stuff happened. People are jerks. People are rude. People don't care about anyone but themselves much of the time. Maybe I was the dog they chose to kick because of my whiteness, but if I hadn't been there, they'd have kicked someone else who they also felt was sufficiently lacking in status or power for them to abuse in their hatred and frustration with life. It wasn't about me. It was about them.

Further, I had to consider my responsibility in bringing on some of the actions I hated. I can't say right now what some of those might have been. Part of it may have been a defensive posture, a pushy, and sometimes malevolent look to try and intimidate people so they wouldn't stare, point, laugh, or talk about me. Part of it in terms of my work and interaction with students could also have been feeling that my "American" way of offering opinions as if they were facts may have been more than a little off-putting in their culture and my lack of understanding that they have a way of dealing with each other that is indirect which is in contradiction to American directness.

When I took things apart, I could see at least that some of it was about me and some of it was about them and some of it was, yes, about racism. However, I could not logically conclude that any time something went badly, it was because of my skin color. Being white, I was also constantly challenged in any assertion that I was experiencing racism (other white people in Japan don't hesitate to descend on you like pack of rabid dogs if you suggest the Japanese aren't anything but totally kind and helpful to the .2%).

In America though, I, however, cannot challenge anyone's perception that an interaction was racism and suggest that maybe, just maybe, the issue was that they did something jerk-like to provoke a response or, maybe, just maybe, sometimes you can't always get what you want because the pie in life doesn't have enough slices for everyone and you don't always get served first. I'm not allowed to say any of that because of my skin color. I am muzzled by the concept of "privilege" when such narratives are played for my consideration. That is not to say that sometimes it's not racism or the consequence of the feces pie that minorities have been force fed throughout history (especially African-Americans who have been shafted worst of all), but sometimes, hey, it's not racism!

At any rate, I don't know what will come of the situation with the prehistoric entities living beneath me, but I will never confront them directly again as it is clear that they will not take any responsibility for their actions. I did contact the manager once more (third time) about this and mentioned that, if we were to move, there's a high likelihood that any replacement may also be less than keen on the vibrating floors and bombastic T.V. This was my way of encouraging him to deal with them more aggressively because, if we go away, the problem won't go away. My guess is that he'll tell them, again, to use headphones to deal with their issue and that they, again, won't do anything differently other than cool it on turning it up to "11" for a short time then start limit-testing me again.

They feel entirely entitled to do whatever they want because they don't think they are doing anything wrong and the only reason I'm complaining is that I've got some sort of personal issue with them. The logical explanation that a person with a hearing problem can't tell how loud his T.V. is because he can't hear very well just is one they won't accept because then it's their fault and not mine.

It's not my fault. I am not against them because they are old or Chinese or lacking in basic self-awareness or whatever. I just don't want to feel the earth shaking under my feet while I'm sitting at my desk making whiny blog posts.

A Dream: November 8, 2014

Context: My father was diagnosed with bladder cancer within the last few months and has been undergoing treatment since then. His prognosis is encouraging, but the situation is never truly clear as he has good days and bad days depending on what sort of treatment he has received and how long ago it was last given.

The Dream: I cannot remember the portion leading up to the end of the dream, but my father supposedly jumped into a pool and nearly drowned. The general sense was that he did it on purpose. While everyone else (my sister and others who I could not identify) stood by as he lay (pale and anked) at the bottom of the pool, I jumped in and pulled him out and tried to get the water out of his lungs. I laid him over my shoulder (in the dream, he was much smaller and lighter than he is in real life - he also looked younger and had the body of a young man) and tried to angle his body to force out the water. I did so successfully and he seemed to be breathing again. I was relieved, but later, I was told that he died anyway for reasons that I have either forgotten from the dream or that were never asserted.

After my father died, I felt devastated and people around me seemed not to know or understand why I felt so bad. Everyone was indifferent to my suffering except for my former boss from Japan (Darryl). Darryl showed me a picture of his father, who had died long ago and explained that he knew how I felt because of his experience. The pictures in my dream were utterly clear and distinct. The first one was of a young woman with exceptionally long and wavy hair that looked as though it had been crimped. She looked like she was wearing something like a British school girl uniform. Tangentially, I should mention that Darryl is Australian, but I don't think that had anything to do with the picture's look.

There was another picture which showed Darryl's father with this woman with the super long black hair, apparently from a later date. Her face in each picture was always turned to the side so I could not see her clearly. The man with her was young, had a beard and mustache, and wore glasses. He was dressed casually in blue jeans and a T-shirt and looked a little like the image of a "hippie" or someone from the early 70's. These images were the last thing in the dream before I woke up as I began to engage in lucid dreaming when I saw them. That is, I wondered why these pictures in a dream were so incredibly vivid and real and were of people I'd never seen, but as if I'd seen them before.

Analysis: While I started typing the final paragraph of the dream description, I started to cry for reasons that I believe are related to the meaning of the dream, but were not clear in the moment. I don't think that my father in the dream is related in any way to my real-life situation with my father. I think that his death, resuscitation, and final death are symbolic of a lot of my hopes, dreams, and expectations of my life in America which have "died" again and again no matter what I attempt to do.

I have found a great deal of despair as of late because I feel insignificant and powerless in America. I came back to the U.S. feeling that I had something unique to offer and would find a path for myself through which I could fulfill my potential and offer those who worked with me something of value. I have found that I am largely invisible here and that people are so self-involved and superficial that I cannot be seen at all by anyone, let alone potential employers. I remarked last night to my husband that the prevailing mentality in the U.S. toward people is "meh". No one is seen as valuable or special and everyone is seen as ultimately replaceable including friends and loved ones. People are abandoned for arbitrary and petty reasons. People are rarely "heard" when they speak and mainly valued for their ability to act as an audience. I certainly have found the employment has been exceptionally difficult to find, at least in the way of any job which takes advantage of my talents and skills (which I can say are considerable, but not in areas of commercial value like computer programming or engineering).

I'm somewhat at a loss to understand the relevance of the people in the picture that were so realistic. I have had many experiences in a dream state or in moments between wakefulness and sleep in which I have seen faces which are crystal clear (like watching a movie or looking at a photograph) and they are people who I have never seen before in any way, yet they are clearer than the faces of people in the dreams.

I should note that I rarely "see" people in dreams, but have a sense of who they are. For example, I know my sister is my sister in the dream, but she doesn't look like she does in real life at all. No one looks like themselves in dreams, but I know who they are. This is directly opposite to the experience I have with the faces I see at times or the photo in this dream. I once saw a lecture on the parts of the brain and how the more active parts influence what aspects of dreaming or being in a semi-dream state affect what you may experience more vividly and I dimly recall (so I may be wrong) that seeing faces as I do indicates higher activity in the temporal lobes of the brain. I will discuss this tendency in another context at a later date.

The people in the dream could represent my husband and me. He has a beard, glasses, and, when he was young and he was prone to wearing jeans when he was younger. I have very long hair which is wavy, but it is strawberry blonde and not as long (and is not crimped) as the woman in the picture. However, I find that I always disassociate actual appearance (especially mine) from reality in dreams. Even if the pictures represent my husband and me, I don't see the relevance of them being presented as the deceased parents of my former boss. The only possibility in such a case, and I'm going further afield at this point, is that the young people in the picture represent the selves my husband and I were when we lived in Japan - selves that are now essentially "dead" as the way we were at that time does not exist anymore. 

Interpretation confidence scale rating: Regarding the sense that the "death" of my father is parallel  to my situation with my hopes and dreams in America: 9 Regarding the photo: 5.