COULD BE ME, COULD BE YOU

My sister-in-law's father was imprisoned, beaten, tortured and eventually murdered by the government of Iran in the 1980's only because he was a Baha'i, the country's largest religious minority. Her and her mother and sister escaped to Turkey, then gained asylum in Germany before emigrating to the US and becoming citizens. And now her uncle is being beaten and tortured in Evin prison in Iran for the same reason. Two years ago I was dating a girl who was doing her dissertation on the online university that Baha'is set up for themselves because they were being denied admittance into state run schools. Then one day she was alerted that those involved were being arrested, computers confiscated and servers shut down. After a short time, she could no longer get in touch with her contacts, people who were putting themselves at risk simply by talking to her. People who she, and to a lesser extent, I, had developed relationships with. And I just don't know what to say about all of this. I guess I'm just trying to get the point across that these are real people, not just news stories. We take education and religious freedom for granted. I dropped out of college 11 times. I feel like a dipshit for squandering opportunities that others are dying for. I don't know what to do about it other than going to the DMV Thursday morning, finally replacing my Tennessee license with an Oregon one, changing my voter registration to Oregon, and writing my Congressmen.

ENJOYING THE SILENCE

04/23/12

KAUAI, HI

Sometimes it’s easy to forget who we are. We spend our lives surrounded by friends and hobbies and neighborhoods where our identity is determined for us. Everyone has their roles to play. It’s only when we venture out of these comfort zones that we have the opportunity to reinvent ourselves. To be what we want. To dream without limitation. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to be by myself in the last few years. And for a person who doesn’t like himself, there is no worse torture. You can’t lie to yourself. There is no denying who you are and what you have made of yourself. So you can choose to continue in the misery or to do something about it. And if you choose right, eventually you begin to enjoy the silence. When you look inside, you like what you see. The things you live for become even more enjoyable. You look at every facet of your life with gratitude, even the setbacks. You see beauty, awe and grandeur where before there was none. And in those moments when you are surrounded by family and loved ones, you are reminded of that core, that unchangeable part of your soul that was always there, even when you didn’t see it.