The Giver

Tonight I had the pleasure of going to a play with my good friend Taran. The play was an adaptation of a Newberry Award-winning book called The Giver. As adaptations from books go, this was a pretty good one, I thought. The design of the set was a powerful tool in conveying the feel of the world in which the story took place. I had only a few complaints about the technical aspects of the show. And the acting was very well-done. The woman who played 'the Giver' in particular was an excellent actress who was truly convincing in her part. I found myself drawn to the brink of tears more than once for her efforts, and there was no shortage of sniffles to be heard around the house.

For any who are unfamiliar with The Giver, it is a story set in a Utopian Society, far in the future. It's a world without danger, pain, anger, or even rudeness. There's no injury, beyond an occasional scraped knee, no violence, no selfishness, no hunger, and no natural disasters (due to climate control technology). There's also no passion, no music, no color, no heat or cold, no love. No conscience, no individuality, no strength or courage (there's no need for them) and above all, no choice. Not because those in authority openly force the people to obey, but because they've lived in this perfectly calculated and contained way for so long, no one remembers a time when there were choices. Except the Receiver (the Receiver becomes the Giver when the next Receiver is chosen and the memories of all the past generations are passed on to them). The Giver and Receiver alone are able to comprehend a world where mates, children to look after, and jobs are not chosen for a person. They alone know what a sunrise looks like, or what riding a horse feels like. Only they can see color or hear music. At the same time, they're the only two who know what starvation, injury, warfare, heartbreak, and death feel like. Thus the rest of the community around them is able to stay ignorant and safe and content.

Watching the story unfold in this setting made it very easy to imagine a world in which an alternative plan would have been chosen. Specifically the plan proposed by Lucifer. It would have been a much safer plan, to be sure. Not one soul would be lost. It would have been so easy to justify. As Jonas (the new Receiver) begins to test the bounds of everything he's been taught, he asks: "What if we could choose our own mates?" But then, he just as quickly steps back from the notion, realizing his mistake: "Oh... But what if we choose wrong?" What if, indeed...

It's easy to see the correlation in this fictional world between safety and ignorance. No one ever imagines there could be more to the world than the tiny function they have been taught to carry out as part of the society. They have no knowledge of anything else. Where would they have gained it? Knowledge comes with the experience of choosing. Sometimes we -do- make the wrong decision. But whether our choice is right or wrong, there is always some new knowledge gleaned by experiencing it.

"Why can't we have colors?" Jonas asked. "Why can't I wake up in the morning and choose to put on a red tunic or a blue one? The choice wouldn't really matter.... It's the choosing that matters." Jonas was exactly right. It is the choosing that matters. The ability to choose who to marry, what to do, where to go, how to feel, what to eat, what to wear... Just think of what Christ was willing to do in order to give us those choices! How very much it matters! Ours is a Plan of Happiness. And there was no happiness in that other plan. Only shades of gray.

How grateful I feel that He's given me this world of colors to choose from. Living in a world of grays may have been a safer choice. But it was no choice at all. I could not imagine ever wanting to live in such a world. But then, if I -did- live there, I couldn't imagine very much at all, could I?


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Quote - "God loves you the way you are. But He loves you too much to leave you that way."
Music - "Love Story Meets Viva la Vida," Jon Schmidt
Mood - Gloriously alive!

Waking Nightmares

I had a nightmare a few nights ago. A rather violent, and all-too disturbing one. Essentially, I was stuck in the midst of a genocide war. A "superior" blond-haired military was actively hunting down and slaughtering a race of foreign black-haired gypsies. You'd think I'd be safe, being just about as blond as they get. But you'd be wrong. If I remember right, my family was sympathetic toward the gypsies, and thus we were labeled as traitors. My parents were killed and my little brother and I had to escape by sneaking out of the country with a party of the gypsies. We did so by dying our hair black and tricking them into believing we were like them. However, our group was found out before we could get out and the soldiers opened fire into the crowd. My little brother was killed. My memory's a little vague here. I'm not sure how, but some of our group did escape the massacre and crossed the borders into "safe" territory. Safe as long as your hair's black, anyway. My hair went back to its natural color, and thus I found myself at the mercy of those I had traveled with, who had now turned vengeful. Random people from my waking life often walk into my dreams. In this case we had a cameo from a friend named Marie (whom I haven't seen for about half a year, as she's currently living on the opposite end of the globe) . She was also wanted by the gypsies (though I'm not sure why, as she's brunette), so Marie and I were on the run together. We ran through a dusky forest until we came across a barn (not sure what it was doing out in the middle of the woods) and ran inside to hide. Our hunters weren't far behind, though. They cornered Marie first and shot her. Then me.
Naturally, witnessing the murders of friends, family, yourself, and even strangers would be distressing. But there was something else even more unsettling about it. I realized what it was when I described this dream to a friend and he jokingly stated, "I'm glad I don't live in your head." The fact is, slaughtering masses of innocent people because their hair doesn't match yours is something that should only "make sense" in a distorted dream world where the rules of logic and reason don't apply. But in Hitler's Germany, the Aryan ideal of a world filled with blond haired, blue eyed, "superior" humans became justification for the butchering of 11 million people (6 million Jews, 5 million from other races). And in Rwanda, the Hutus and Tutsis were divided by the size of their noses. Could there be a more ridiculous reason for starting a war? And yet it happened. And it wasn't in someone's warped dream world where it makes sense for your best friend to be an android or for you to get pregnant from eating potato chips. This nightmare happened in the waking world. More than once. How is that possible?


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Mood: Awake... right?
Music: "The Sound of White," Missy Higgins
Quote: "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart," Anne Frank

A Little Lecture I Never Want to Lose

Sometimes, a truly remarkable friend says something you just know you never want to forget. Here's one such gem now:

"Something that I don't think you see is the fact that [insert heartbreaker's name here] doesn't even know who you really are. Yes, I know that sounds weird, but it is true. Because if he had, he would stay. People run because they see something that obscures their perception of who the person is they thought they knew. They don't look for the whole picture any more; they just run. And because of it, they miss the best parts of a person. You don't want someone like that."

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Mood: Warm fuzzies inside

Quote:

Rory: "It wasn't a tackle. It was strictly hands."

Me: "Yes. Your hands on my body."

~~an argument over Rory fouling me during Ultimate Frisbee

Music: "And So It Goes," Billy Joel

For the Longest Time

Working for BYU Grounds crew doesn't present one with as many opportunities to meet new people as one might think. Yes, we're out and about on campus a lot, but we're not really interacting with "the customer" at all. So for the most part, my job allows me to stick to the few friends I've made on my own work crew without branching out too much. Between this and the fact that I'm not attending regular classes, I've met very few people outside my own housing complex in the last year. This isn't a state I lament being in. I'm not exactly a social butterfly, nor do I have the desire to become one.
...This isn't where I planned on going with this topic.
Anyway, today another coworker and I had the opportunity to clean and sharpen the tools we use in the tool room. Not at all a rigorous task, and by no means worth mentioning if not for one of the men I noticed also working in the tool room. So what makes him worth mentioning? The simple fact that I noticed him at all. He was cute. Very cute, I'd say. Tall. Red hair. I confess, I did a little inconspicuous staring.
Will I ever see this cute redhead again? Who knows? If I do, will I ever speak to him? Probably not. So why does it matter? Because it's been more than half a year since I looked at a guy and said to myself, "Hm... I don't know him. But I want to." Simple and insignificant? Perhaps. But I feel good about the notion that I may finally be taking steps forward I didn't even realize I was ready to take.


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Mood: Hopeful
Quote: "That's the whole problem with science. You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder," Calvin and Hobbes
Music: "For the Longest Time," Billy Joel

Nobody Gets Left Behind Or Forgotten

There's a scene in the movie Lilo and Stitch where Stitch and his new family are playing on the beach. He watches while Nani and David build this huge elaborate sandcastle around Lilo, and he obviously wants to be take part and feel doted on the way Lilo is. So he plops down and shovels a pile of sand onto his own legs in an imitation of the sandcastle they built for her. But after a few moments of sitting in the sand alone, he figures out that there's no point so he gets up and wanders away.

Sometimes I feel a little like Stitch. And by 'sometimes' I mean 'right now,' but it's a pretty frequent thing as of late anyway. And by 'a little' I mean 'a lot.' Except that with Stitch it's cute because he's blue and fluffy. And instead of a sandcastle it was more of a snow castle.

I'm kind of kicking myself for not moving out when I had the chance. The third floor just isn't far enough away for me not to notice that my nearest and dearest friends have replaced me and moved on.

Love Thyself

I've been pondering a lot lately on the importance of love for one's self. Once or twice I've heard it said that a man cannot love anyone else without first loving himself. Until recently, I hadn't given the idea much consideration. And now I think I've figured out why it is that self-love is so essential in the romantic equation.

We each live in our own world, totally subjective to our own personal perspective. We often don't realize that when we look at something, another witness, viewing the same thing at the same time, sees something totally different. That being said, a man who does not love himself cannot conceive of the notion that others see him in a very different light. He cannot internalize the idea that others may see someone worth loving.

A relationship is a bond between two people forged by the sharing of one's self with another. In a strong, close, loving relationship, one trusts pieces of one's self to one special other. Pieces that they do not let others near. One shares their good, their bad, their hopes and fears, their strengths, weaknesses, their beauty, and their ugliness. And they do so without reservations, but rather by trusting absolutely that those secret pieces of themself are safe and accepted.
A man who does not love himself has no hope that another can love him due to his faults. He hides his flaws away from those who would gladly accept his imperfections because they love his virtues more. He holds the world at arm's length, afraid that if any come too near, they'll see him as something less upon closer inspection.
It doesn't matter that those on the outside see him without prejudice - and not because they think he has no flaws. They know his past disappointments, but they also know his dreams of the future are beautiful. They're aware of his fears, but they also see that his ambitions are noble. They know he has failed at times, but they believe in him still. They know he is greater and more wonderful than he perceives. They know he is worth loving. And they do love him.
But because he does not love himself, he cannot be happy sharing what her perceives as an unworthy life with them. He cannot truly, deeply, and gladly give himself over and love another.
This most assuredly breaks the hearts of those who are left loving him, refusing to believe they love in vain. When love is unrequitted, the giver cannot long sustain happiness in caring for another. They endure because they know he is worth loving, but they love with a broken heart.

Furthermore, a man who has no love for himself sees the virtues in others and places them on a pedestal. He deludes himself into believing that those around him are higher, greater, more perfect than he is. And so, when he makes up his mind to let someone else in and tries to draw closer to them, he is left disappointed. He finds that the person he has come to know is imperfect, like himself. And since he can't forgive his own faults, he neither can accept another's.
He'll never find someone perfect enough for him to love in a way that can last against this kind of judgement. No one's that perfect. We all have vices.

It should, of course, be our desire to pursue a better way for ourselves. The Atonement exists so that we can improve ourselves and be a little more perfect. But we can't wait to obtain perfection before we find happiness in ourselves.
Please show yourself a little kindness. Forgive yourself. For your own sake and the sakes of those who care for you, give yourself a little love. If you reserve your love for only perfect people, you'll live a very lonely, self-loathing, loveless life. Learn to love imperfect people. Even, and most especially, yourself.


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Quote - "We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly," Sam Keen
Music - "So Close," Enchanted
Mood - Healing is a two-steps-forward-one-giant-step-back kind of process

The Best Song On the Enchanted Sound Track

You’re in my arms
And all the world is calm
The music playing on for only two
So close together
And when I’m with you
So close to feeling alive

A life goes by
Romantic dreams will stop
So I bid mine goodbye and never knew
So close was waiting, waiting here with you
And now forever I know
All that I want is to hold you
So close

So close to reaching that famous happy end
Almost believing this was not pretend
And now you’re beside me and look how far we’ve come
So far we are so close

How could I face the faceless days
If I should lose you now?
We’re so close
To reaching that famous happy end
And almost believing this was not pretend
Let’s go on dreaming for we know we are
So close
So close
And still so far