Winter Crusade

Yes:

I praise the first lady's efforts to eliminate childhood obesity within one generation. My kids would eat fruits and vegetables and whole grains and lots of fish were I lucky enough to have kids.

In a New York Times article covering this initiative someone said that some schools actually have a McDonald's in them. Of course too as one commenter mentioned agribusinesses that manufacture food products with high fructose corn syrup need to be exposed.

It is my ethic to live a conscious life: conscious of the food I put into my mouth and of how my behaviors support or hinder a healthy lifestyle and of how I share the earth with other human beings and how my actions effect other people.

Everything I do I seek to do for the greater good and that is why I live a simple life unburdened by unchecked consumerism. It doesn't hurt that Mom is sending me a Valentine's Day card with a $20 bill so that I can add it to the cost of the necklace. This money will come just in time.

Honestly I don't know how someone could criticize Michelle Obama for wanting to stamp out childhood obesity as one commenter did on the Times web site. Something has to be done and I'm glad she stepped up to the plate.

So I give her kudos for tackling this 300-lb. elephant in the room.

______________________________


This is all I do going into the spring: go to the gym and be mindful of what I eat. Tonight I did the treadmill at a 5.5 incline and 3.4 speed and for the last 10 minutes I upped the speed to 3.5. My heart rate skyrockets with this kind of workout. I sticker in my appointment book the days I work out with smiley faces.

You come to this on your own.

Or at least I have: set a challenge. The winter has been so frightfully cold that setting any other goal for these dark days I cannot bring myself to do. Only this: go to the gym and eat more healthfully. The perfect winter crusade. I have come at this goal without understanding why it has struck me with such force. Perhaps the astrology book will enlighten me. Will take it off the shelf and read the section on 2010.

So sad to say that I have no other goal. Yet is that sad? I will reach inside myself and do it My Way.

In the New York Times today there was an article about deadly karaoke: more people are killed during karaoke when the singer is belting out "My Way" by Frank Sinatra. This phenomenon is most often observed in the Filippines where violence is high and the police have a code name for death-by-karaoke. Some revelers steer clear of this danger by choosing not to sing "My Way" because of the threat of Sinatra-cide.

Can you imagine?

______________________________


Right now it is late and I'm exhausted and praying for snow so I will go sign off.

Tootles.

Song of Life

You know it's not going to be good when you take one of those little black shopping totes when you enter Sephora after seeing your psychiatrist.

Yesterday: I went to the Barnes & Noble and bought the Cultural Creatives book because it was only $16 and I decided that would be okay. I skimmed it waiting in Dr. Altman's office and on the way home.

One thing: I doubt I would be willing to go to jail for what I believed in and most likely I couldn't anyhow because I'm on the Geodon and we know what happens to people with schizophrenia who wind up in jail.

Also I continue to read Traveling With Pomegranates and I'm halfway done. Cultural Creatives buy and read more books than most people and attend cultural events in greater numbers too. In that book someone interviewed was quoted to the effect that the ego gets in the way. This was the contention Eckhart Tolle made in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose.

Always: I've had a sense of self that guided me to achieve things. The concept of failing didn't occur to me and even if it did it I set out on my merry way regardless. I admit a part of me revels in my achievements. Does that mean I have a big ego?

In ways it doesn't matter to me whether I make a name for myself as there's no glory in mental health activism: you do it because it's the right thing to do and only that.

I wanted to buy the book because I have now another book I'm reading: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert. So I want to wait on reading Cultural Creatives until I finish this book and the Pomegranates one.

What can I do? How can I act? Protest marches aren't my style yet I want to be certain I "walk the talk" as the expression goes. I was approached with a request to join someone in advocating for better and safer atypicals and I'm at a loss for what can actually be done. Government research dollars would need to be freed up for this effort. Could I send a letter to my elected officials? The three key factors beside education are research, research, research when it comes to making things better for people living with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.

I feel like Isabella Rossellini who in an interview lamented that so many people made demands for her time and she could only give the interviewer two hours. Possibly I have to concede that all I do is good enough and there's not much more I can do. How many people face the dilemma of doing too much? I wonder.

A friend said one thing that needs to change is that people keep saying the mental health system is broken yet nothing has been done to fix it. True enough. Yet I cannot stand on the side of people who are against forced treatment because sometimes that is necessary and the death of Esmin Green should not be a deterrent to getting people the help they need. I'm as shocked and outraged as anyone however my contention is: if you have schizophrenia you'd better well take your medication you have no right pushing a woman in front of a subway train. What about Kendra Webdale's civil liberties? So I couldn't allow Kendra's Law [requiring forced treatment] to sunset in 2010. All the civil liberties folk rail against forced treatment well if I hadn't been hospitalized against my will the second time I would be dead. Case closed. Andrew Goldstein did not have the right to kill someone folks so get out of the way and let people be treated with drugs for their medical condition.

The laws are not perfect however in the absence of the laws there would be chaos. More than that the billions we spend on mental health might reach into the trillions if we allowed people their "rights" to go off their meds and decompensate and go off their meds again and further deteriorate.

My contention is that when you are diagnosed with schizophrenia and have to take medication to be able to function well, you give up certain rights: namely, the right to do as you please and not take your medication. I believe it is part of the social covenant each one of us has with everyone else in the world that we do the right thing not what we feel like doing. So Mad Pride and the Icarus Project can champion their right to be crazy and it holds no sway with me.

Mental illnesses are not "dangerous gifts" they are real diseases and require treatment with medication.

I'm sorry but I gave up my rights a long time ago when I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The one thing I did not give up was my right to have a good life. That is what taking the Geodon does: enables me to have the kind of life worth living.

Now I do believe that some people can be what a friend calls "crazy as a jaybird" and still function in society. However that is not everyone and for the great majority of people with mental illnesses we need to take some form of pills.

OK: a person could go off his meds once to see if he can live without them however if he cannot that's not an experiment you want to keep trying. I grant it that this is a natural desire and it's perfectly reasonable to want to see if you can function without the meds. Most of the time this doesn't work, OK?

Because. I'm not. The kind of person. Who would settle for less. Another life awaits me when I go back to school. Which would not. Be possible. Without medication.

I think I've made my point and there's no need to belabor it.

Tootles.

P.S.

Days later:

The idea that some people are cultural creatives I can't square away. How did the researcher determine there were 50million of us living in America? Will anything we do actually change the world for the better when the old way of life is seductive to most people? Can we set climate protocols?

One thing: true cultural creatives do not lean to the left or to the right politically. We espouse new solutions that require a different kind of government that is neither right-wing nor totally left. That is not to say we would always be centrist.

Days later I muse on this because it seems a fuzzy concept: the idea that people can be cultural creatives. How does that translate into real life? There's an expression: "If you name it, you can claim it" and possibly that applies here too. Yet I'm uncomfortable with this label, as if I've been found out.

Maybe I'm just too ambitious to want to concede that I use my talents to better the world. I want to be recognized for my own efforts and not lumped into a category. Where does the individual and his or her accomplishments fit into the cultural creative milieu?

I understand that the ethic of "service above self" is a noble one however each of us has a self and I'm not able to subjugate my self or take a back seat, like a Traditional would or someone who is content to lie on the couch all day watching TV. I covet recognition for the efforts I give to certain organizations. This is a two-way street.

So as I type this it's hard for me to understand that I could be a cultural creative. I abhor doing things in a vacuum: I want to be heard when I communicate my message. I realize not everyone is going to want to hear what I have to say and others will not be receptive to it. That's why I can't sell my book as if I wrote it to de-stigmatize people living with schizophrenia because I did not. Indirectly it does that-true. Yet I don't allow stigma to dictate how I feel about myself or whether or not I'm going to seek to set goals and achieve them. Stigma carries no weight with me.

Funny: it feels like a stigma to be outed as a cultural creative even though we do good things and there should be no shame in living a life of service to others. I'm going to check out of the library The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing The World because I don't have the money to buy the book.

A life of volunteerism is the hallmark of a cultural creative. When I read the book I'll be better able to sift through this knowledge and come to a conclusion I can live with.

For now I'll leave you with this:

The reason I don't buy this lifestyle is because I'm not certain we can actually change the world, as the usual way of doing things is so entrenched in most people. I would like to think our actions can have a lasting impact yet who am I kidding? I need to see concrete, tangible results to believe the tide has actually turned. Give me the numbers: tell me how many people's lives have been changed and what the results of our efforts have been. The fuzziness of it and the feel-good aspect doesn't sit well with me.

Though the truth is it's possibly not an ethic that can be defined in words or accounted for with bottom-line principles, so maybe language comes in a poor second to describe the impact of a cultural creative's actions.

Days later I'm mixed about this because I wonder if to be a cultural creative I have to live an ascetic life and the truth is I don't deny myself trinkets like the necklace.

I'm searching now. I'm searching for my own words to describe my life ethic that won't be co-opted by a researcher or a sociologist. I've been sifting through this knowledge all weekend. I will let you know more after I've finished reading the Cultural Creatives book.

You think. I'm obsessed. With this. Now.

So I'll go sign off and leave you to enjoy your day.

Cheers.

Look Book

These photos are from the look book I created today. In the first one I'm the image of a latter-day punk rock school girl. The second I consider grunge-y: a typical casual outfit. In the last picture I wear the trendy necklace I bought in Banana Republic when I ended the cognitive therapy.

In all the photos my friend shot I'm wearing only lipstick, as I do on most days. In the last photo posted here I look ethnic. Thus I feel having 16 tubes of lipstick is justified: I know exactly which shade to use for each outfit to brighten my dull skin.

I look Italian. There is no way around this. I have distinctly Mediterranean features. You won't see me on a cornflake box. An old college friend [whose wisdom outlived the friendship] told me: "You look good without makeup."

Fear I look severe in black [the Sicilian widow effect] because although I do wear colors I fall back on black. Would like to buy a pair of white canvas pants I saw on the Loft web site. I'll see if I can swing that. It would be my one purchase this month apart from the necklace.

Walked past the jewelry store and on impulse I backed up and went in to see if I could find something for $10 or $15 dollars. Then I told myself I hadn't treated myself to anything in awhile so why not take advantage of the layaway plan that has generous terms. So I did. Shoot me.

The food order arrived just now. I bought a container of quinoa salad with faro in balsamic dressing that I'll have for lunch tomorrow. The bulgur cooks in 12 to 15 minutes and one serving fits the RDA of whole grains. I stored the salad and the baby beets in the refrigerator. I will try some baby beets with dinner tonight: have the crab cake and bulgur and baby beets.

2012 beckons. I want to be ready for it: fit and lean. With a sinewy mind. The way I see it: in three years I will have to make the decision the woman who gave me the reading told me I'd be faced with. That is a relatively short amount of time to make this kind of change in.

The rest of the winter and continuing in the spring I will devote my energy to the gym and to eating healthful foods. Only that. In March I will enlist the services of the image consultant.

The idea that you cannot look back in anger holds sway with me. You can only move forward with hope. To quote Linda Ellerbee: "Change is one form of hope. To risk change is to believe in tomorrow."

I believe tomorrow can only be better. I won't stress over things going on today and I won't worry about future events that are yet to happen. Always I will maintain a positive spirit. It is what I must do: keep hopeful. You would not continue to read JM if I put you in a downer. So I aim to entertain as well as educate.

Now I will go sign off and cook dinner.

Enjoy your night.

Odd Girl Out

Good morning.

Or so it seems though it's after twelve.

Skimming a weekly horoscope column: I was struck by the astrologer's use of the term cultural creatives to describe a segment of the population 50million strong. I researched this culture via the links provided and taking the quiz I was able to see that I'm a cultural creative type. Those values just made sense to me and are reflected in my decision to go back to school for an MSW.

I was born in 1965-smack in the middle of the civil rights movement-and as a young woman I was deeply impressed with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s ethic of nonviolent protest and social change. I cannot tell you why I was so affected by this great humanitarian because even to me that is a mystery.

On the cultural creatives homepage it demystified this culture for me and I could understand how I unwittingly joined the club early on in my life: first when I quit my supermarket job to become a disc jockey [a labor of love] and then when I abandoned a law library career [with its potential for me to make the big bucks] and chose public service as a writer and activist.

I would not judge anyone who makes the choice to chase money and the things it can buy. No no no I wouldn't do that. [Spoken from a woman who placed on layaway a polish amber necklace.] These so-called Modernists have a different ethic from mine: I would not be afraid to pay higher taxes to fund social programs or environmental measures. I wasn't afraid that Barack Obama would turn America socialist as I felt that could only be a good thing.

So even all these years I toiled away on my activism and kept my ideas to myself I had no idea I fit into the image of a cultural creative. Their core value is to live an authentic life. When I read that the word authentic was their keyword that's when it clicked with me: that I believed in a power bigger than myself and yet I intuitively knew that self-actualization results in a better world for everyone not just you.

Working on self-improvement is the core value of a cultural creative only we do not equate self-improvement with improving ourselves financially and in terms of possessing material goods. So that is the difference between a Cultural Creative and a Modernist.

My only trophy is the action I take to better myself and the world. The action itself is its own reward. Imagine: I have talked in here about living an authentic life and have done so as a cultural creative without realizing I could be considered a cultural creative. I couldn't not be one because my very act of being open and honest in order to help others heal is the hallmark of a true cultural creative.

Listen: you don't have to protest in anti-war rallies to be part of this population. The Wikipedia entry is a good start to examine this lifestyle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Creatives. The official web site is another good resource: http://www.culturalcreatives.org/

Exploring those web sites I could understand why I always felt like the odd girl out in my family of dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. I could see that it made sense why I left the town I lived in to move to the City. I didn't agree with the politics yet never knew exactly why those beliefs were anathema to me. I would only thrive in a world where I could be free to express myself and practice my faith in humanity without fear of reprisal.

Yes: this has been a heady blog entry. What can I take away from this? I want to meet people who are committed to a sane lifestyle because unchecked economic development and overpopulation and unethical corporate business practices are not sane.

We elected Barack Obama, didn't we? Now get out of the way and let him lead this country. It might be too much to expect our president to help us heal as a country yet certainly we would not be on our way to healing had McCain catapulted himself into the Oval Office.

It's not a white house any more. Neither is the world.

I want to tell people to get real and get with the program. 2012 is not going to be the end of the world. It's going to be the beginning of healing and transformation on both a personal and global level.

Only good can come of us.

I believe in a higher power. I also believe that this higher power works through every one of us and is in us. We can sow love instead of hate. We can choose to do what's right instead of what feels good. We can change ourselves and in so doing change the world.

Peace y'all.



p.s. - I'm uneasy with the idea that I could be part of a movement. To me, I'm just one person doing my own thing. I'll have to sift through this new knowledge and see what I can do with it to use it in a good way.