I cut my own hair

I do so for a few reasons

1) I am cheap, and a decent pair of scissors cost less than a hair cut at LaJames, even.

2) It's nice to feel like I'm doing something practical and useful

3) It's expressive.

4) People seem to think about my hair very differently when they know it is self-cut. It surprises people that it is possible to cut one's own hair and not look like an idiot, and more than once has made someone consider their own hair cutting abilities. I aim to empower (in big ways, clearly. Haircuts).

Um, yep! There's that thought.

An exerpt

I needed to hear these words of Abdu'l-Baha today.

"O ye dear friends! The world is at war and the human race is in travail and mortal combat. The dark night of hate hath taken over, and the light of good faith is blotted out. The peoples and kindreds of the earth have sharpened their claws, and are hurling themselves one against the other. It is the very foundation of the human race that is being destroyed. It is thousands of households that are vagrant and dispossessed, and every year seeth thousands upon thousands of human beings weltering in their life-blood on dusty battlefields. The tents of life and joy are down. The generals practise their generalship, boasting of the blood they shed, competing one with the next in inciting to violence. ‘With this sword,’ saith one of them, ‘I beheaded a people!’ And another: ‘I toppled a nation to the ground!’ And yet another: ‘I brought a government down!’ On such things do men pride themselves, in such do they glory! Love—righteousness—these are everywhere censured, while despised are harmony, and devotion to the truth.

....

Soon will your swiftly-passing days be over, and the fame and riches, the comforts, the joys provided by this rubbish-heap, the world, will be gone without a trace. Summon ye, then, the people to God, and invite humanity to follow the example of the Company on high. Be ye loving fathers to the orphan, and a refuge to the helpless, and a treasury for the poor, and a cure for the ailing. Be ye the helpers of every victim of oppression, the patrons of the disadvantaged. Think ye at all times of rendering some service to every member of the human race. Pay ye no heed to aversion and rejection, to disdain, hostility, injustice: act ye in the opposite way. Be ye sincerely kind, not in appearance only. Let each one of God’s loved ones centre his attention on this: to be the Lord’s mercy to man; to be the Lord’s grace. Let him do some good to every person whose path he crosseth, and be of some benefit to him. Let him improve the character of each and all, and reorient the minds of men. In this way, the light of divine guidance will shine forth, and the blessings of God will cradle all mankind: for love is light, no matter in what abode it dwelleth; and hate is darkness, no matter where it may make its nest. O friends of God! That the hidden Mystery may stand revealed, and the secret essence of all things may be disclosed, strive ye to banish that darkness for ever and ever."

Things I will do this week:

1) Revise my senior project, and discuss it with my mentor.

2) Take an Environmental Impact Analysis exam.

3) Turn in my Contemporary Environmental Issues paper.

4) Take a Physics exam.

5) Continue cleaning all the raingauges in the Johnson County network (and maybe drive out to the Ames sites on Friday? NRG02 ain't connected to its solar panel. It's a problem).

6) Be grateful for the beautiful people in my life (one in particular).

7) Breathe.

This morning I woke up feeling brand new- I jumped up

I don't like to think of myself as prejudiced. I have the good fortune to come from an educated, intelligent family which has always encouraged me to define myself independently of mainstream culture. I was homeschooled by an anthropologist, and thus was able to name the evil and folly of ethnocentrism before most of my cohorts. More than that, I was raised Baha'i, being taught that all of the different forms of culture and color and thought that humanity expresses are what makes us so beautiful; that beyond it being an atrocity to others to judge people's worth based on external things that don't matter, it would harm deeply me to keep myself from recognizing humanity's essential unity as one species.

All the same, I find that I am very rooted in White, Middle-class, American culture. I have been introduced to some hip-hop artists lately, and while the educated and more broad-minded part of me has not been surprised at all to be amazed by some of their music, the closed-minded white-privileged part of me is beckoning to the rest of white America to look at these expressions of Black culture in the inner cities: Guys, there's art here! And truth, and hope, and beauty.

I know I am behind a lot of people in this realization. I'm grateful that I am so rarely judged as harshly as I deserve to be for shortcomings like this.

The song I'm listening to today that inspired this post is Get By by Talib Kweli, from Brooklyn.

There is a whole lot of world out there to fall in love with, friends!

Ha, and here is a link to lyrics for Get By. I also love Dinosaur Comics, like this one.

This is just so sweet

Someone posted this on Facebook. Britain's Got Talent sets up this segment ready for everyone to laugh at this adorable, dumpy, middle-aged woman who comes to sing. Everyone's jaw drops after the first line; she is incredible. Incredible. I cried.

Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent

I think I've watched it about twenty times today. Also, I did some homework.

Right here. Right now.

I've been reflecting on the incredible story that we have the privilege to be a part of right now. The last century saw changes on a scale that was unprecedented in human history, not least because the human population has doubled about three times in the last hundred years.

We are connected to each other, all around the globe, in ways that were simply unthinkable a century ago (I'm sure that someone better read than I am would be able to think of an example of a sci fi author who had, in fact, imagined the Internet before the end of the 19th century. I don't care. I haven't heard of them and most of the people in the 19th century hadn't either. So there). We can hear about things on the other side of the world as they happen, and since there is such an exchange of people and culture around the world, we even have a hope of understanding their significance.

A friend posted a link to this video on Facebook (Ah! That glorious social tool! That infernal thief of my time!) a while ago, and I'm still getting chills rewatching it.

Did You Know?

The piece of information I can't stop thinking about is: "It is estimated that a week's worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 19th century"

Woah.

I am inspired, humbled, and sometimes almost paralyzed by what this means we should be capable of as humans. We have all of this technology, all of these incredible ideas and inventions and abilities at our fingertips- what should we do with them? What would we do with them if our only aim was to make peoples' lives more fulfilling? What are we doing with them now- or how much are we ignoring their potential? Are we capable of living up to the responsibility we are realizing we have to each other and to the planet? I think that we are, but I'll need to rattle that thought around in my brain for at least another week before I'll be able to articulate it, even poorly.

Gee golly, I like friends.

Stephanie reads my blog sometimes!

It's so cool all the ways that we have at our disposal to keep people in our lives. It's also, y'know, a little sad all of the opportunities we miss. But it means so much to me to know there are cool people in the world who care about me. I care about you too! LOVE!