I vividly remember my grandfather’s wallet, because tucked inside was a long clear insert with pictures of my grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins, which folded out like an accordion each time the wallet was opened. He had photograph of his mother in there too, all old and yellowed; and a photo of my grandmother, where in it he still swears she’s the most beautiful women he ever knew. My father has some pictures of us kids in his wallet, they’re tucked alongside credit cards; and other than that I can’t recall the last time I was talking to someone about the ones they love and they pulled out a tangible four by two paper card.
Angelica the Mexican girl downstairs, who I am always chatting to, just loves the idea that I have a blog. She’s all curious about my results, and after pulling out her iphone that has a saved total of two hundred and fifty family pictures, still believes it is just not the same as a real photograph. She says, “they’re lost.” The photographs are lost once they are transferred to her iphone is what she is referring to; I find this interesting,since she is so technology prone, but question why. We decide that if you can’t hold it, then it is not really real.
The Bangladesh man working next door assures me that he knows just how his wife and kids look, as he sees them every night, so there just is no purpose in having their photographs lying around. Much less in his wallet- just the idea of this seems to throw him off guard. And his extended family lives so far away, he keeps his memories at bay, and so again, there isn’t much point in having their photographs lying around. Maybe, he humors me, if more people asked them what his family looks like, then he’d reconsider his memorabilia-free ways.
A Korean man, in his mid forties who has been living in New York City long enough to lose his accent, has two photographs in his wallet. Both of them of his mother, where she is looking especially beautiful, but he promises this is how she looked every day. In the photographs his mom looks no older than my age, but he is not sure of the details; the only thing he is sure of that they have been whatever wallet he has carried since he was my age. The photographs have curled yellowed edges and one has small rip sneaking up from the bottom, but I can tell he has treated them kindly over time. The other man working aside him is twenty four, born and raised in New York , and just laughed when I asked him for a picture in his wallet. He replied with, “You mean phone?” and then motioned to the Korean man, “but of course he does.” The young man explains that the picture on his phone of his mom (yes, both of these men immediately pull out photos of their mom) holds the same importance as a real photograph. I can tell the Korean man disagrees, but he won’t articulate why. I suppose I implore him to tell me exactly why it is that, to me his photographs mean so much more; but he evades making any inferences. I ask: is it a generational thing? A technology thing? A cultural thing? Why is it special that you keep these two treasured photographs in the back of your wallet, everyday in your pocket, this simple thing that is just is not so common anymore? “It is a human thing,” he tells me.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Coffee shops and Daydreams
Dreams while you sleep are mysterious, the lack of control we have over our subconscious thoughts is alluring. But what about day dreams? These are pretty interesting too… In many ways during our daydreams we foresee our lives, whether in a fantastical or realistic sense, even throughout the day our absent minded thoughts and secret wishes stringing us along from A to B.
A Question for the Daydream: What would you today if you woke up and had five thousand dollars to spend and did not have to attend to any of your regular responsibilities of today?
The lady, Liz, working behind the counter is entirely stumped when I present her with this question. She says that one time in her life she had a million answers for this, all planned out and ready to go as if this may be a realistic situation one day. But now she does not have time to be frivolous, she tells me, and if she were to do something too out of the ordinary today with this money and this free twenty four hours, she would probably wake up tomorrow feeling hung-over. As she places the backside of her hand to her forehead and says, “it’d be like, oh my, Liz, what have you done!??” She resolves that she would sign up for these two classes she has been saving up for, as they are pre-requisites to apply for school, and then she would continue walking and head to work. She laughs at the thought and momentarily hesitates, thinking on the idea that she would choose to work even if give the option not was entirely permissible. “Yes, yes, I would still go to work, because I know who it would be on if I didn’t show up, and I wouldn’t want to do that to them… and besides, I like it here.” Then we contemplate if she should take the more typical route and just show up at the airport and pick the first place that sounds intriguing. But then, who wants to go to an exotic island just for a day? Too much travel time, and we wouldn’t want to go alone. Her happiness is here, where she works, spends her days, and where her friends are near. Liz, I think is doing all right; much better than most people. Why is it that when given such a proposition do many people immediately think to run? I’d rather be all right where I’m standing.
Everyday sitting outside of the coffee shop where Liz works is a little chalk easel that reads, ‘organic oatmeal cookies’ or ‘organic direct trade coffee.’ Written on the window is ‘how to build an green bakery…’ and a sign that offers a fifteen percent discount to any customer who arrives by wheels. Little coffee shop/bakeries with this grass roots approach to business are popping up all over the place. Fair trade products imply that that the coffee is sold for a reasonable price, in order to be Fair Trade certified , the coffee is bought for no less that 1.26 a pound, and the proceeds go straight to the farm, not to the middle man. The coffee shop I was in, sells Direct Trade coffee, which minimum-buying rate is 1.60 per pound.
The first link there has some pretty interesting comments about Starbucks and coffee as well; which I find to be a overheard of subject, but actually knowing some facts never hurts. This article discusses some of the issues involving the coffee industry. The most important part of the coffee industry for me, that I feel like often get overlooked, is that the conditions of coffee farms for the workers. They are referred to as, coffee sweatshops. As something that many of us drink daily, and just by living in the country who is it’s largest consumer, it is always beneficial to know what your sipping on entails.
A Question for the Daydream: What would you today if you woke up and had five thousand dollars to spend and did not have to attend to any of your regular responsibilities of today?
The lady, Liz, working behind the counter is entirely stumped when I present her with this question. She says that one time in her life she had a million answers for this, all planned out and ready to go as if this may be a realistic situation one day. But now she does not have time to be frivolous, she tells me, and if she were to do something too out of the ordinary today with this money and this free twenty four hours, she would probably wake up tomorrow feeling hung-over. As she places the backside of her hand to her forehead and says, “it’d be like, oh my, Liz, what have you done!??” She resolves that she would sign up for these two classes she has been saving up for, as they are pre-requisites to apply for school, and then she would continue walking and head to work. She laughs at the thought and momentarily hesitates, thinking on the idea that she would choose to work even if give the option not was entirely permissible. “Yes, yes, I would still go to work, because I know who it would be on if I didn’t show up, and I wouldn’t want to do that to them… and besides, I like it here.” Then we contemplate if she should take the more typical route and just show up at the airport and pick the first place that sounds intriguing. But then, who wants to go to an exotic island just for a day? Too much travel time, and we wouldn’t want to go alone. Her happiness is here, where she works, spends her days, and where her friends are near. Liz, I think is doing all right; much better than most people. Why is it that when given such a proposition do many people immediately think to run? I’d rather be all right where I’m standing.
Everyday sitting outside of the coffee shop where Liz works is a little chalk easel that reads, ‘organic oatmeal cookies’ or ‘organic direct trade coffee.’ Written on the window is ‘how to build an green bakery…’ and a sign that offers a fifteen percent discount to any customer who arrives by wheels. Little coffee shop/bakeries with this grass roots approach to business are popping up all over the place. Fair trade products imply that that the coffee is sold for a reasonable price, in order to be Fair Trade certified , the coffee is bought for no less that 1.26 a pound, and the proceeds go straight to the farm, not to the middle man. The coffee shop I was in, sells Direct Trade coffee, which minimum-buying rate is 1.60 per pound.
The first link there has some pretty interesting comments about Starbucks and coffee as well; which I find to be a overheard of subject, but actually knowing some facts never hurts. This article discusses some of the issues involving the coffee industry. The most important part of the coffee industry for me, that I feel like often get overlooked, is that the conditions of coffee farms for the workers. They are referred to as, coffee sweatshops. As something that many of us drink daily, and just by living in the country who is it’s largest consumer, it is always beneficial to know what your sipping on entails.
Monday, October 4, 2010
A little follow up on Islamic Dream Interpretation…
Islamic religion and much of their scholarly works, as I have recently learned, began in psychological analysis and focused on an awareness of one’s conscious rather than an awareness of the empirical self as we often see in Western theology. The Islamic God, Muhammad, professed the significance of dreams and included in his hadiths (his words that are studied and recited, much like the Christians read the Gospel) he explained dreams and provided guidelines to their interpretations. http://www.deenislam.co.uk/dreams/dreams_in_islam_1.htm Here is an example of this work that discusses dreams, and in the second link here are more examples, which include some descriptions of what the symbols entail. http://muttaqun.com/dreams.html.
In the late first century a Muslim scholar, Ibn Sirin, wrote a book entitled, Dream Interpretation, which focuses on how to understand the dreams written in the Qu’ran an and also a further break down of how to interpret one’s own dreams and implement them as an aspect of themselves. http://pdf-free-download.com/interpretation-of-dreams-ibn-sirin.pdf Here is a list of PDF files you can download from this website that provide further reading on the interpretation of dreams and some analysis. The seventh link down the page outlines the three different categories where Islamic religion believes dreams can be classified. Ibn Sirin created these distinctions as an aid to those attempting to better understand their own dreams. The dreams that Manaan shared with me, I think would be considered Personal dreams and he knew this because he told me that he did not need to share all of his dreams with an interpreter, as he realized that some were too personal and intended for him to make sense of on his own.
Often in Western culture we relate dream interpretation to Dr. Sigmund Freud, as he was one of the first psychoanalytic philosophers and began to illustrate the importance of dreams, as they express the subconscious mind of his patients. One of my favorite pieces of his literature is the case study he wrote covering the hysteria of his female patient Dora. By clicking on this link you will find the introduction of this text and a section of the text itself. http://books.google.com/books?id=KM5tlvpcti0C&dq=case+study+on+dora+sigmund+freud&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=0BOqTL_OGIG78gavr4HVDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false Freud decided that much of our dreams pertain to our repressed sexual selves that are typically so repressed and unacceptable we may not even be aware of these thoughts ourselves. Through our dreams we receive the projections of these repressed sexual feelings, however they are often convoluted and have many hidden messages that only an expert like Freud himself can discover.
The Islamic tradition of dream interpretation has little to do with our subconscious sex drives, but rather they analyze their dreams as predictions and advice given to the dreamer by God (sometimes, not all the time) that will help him prepare for his future and give him insight into his possible fate.
Manaan also told me that he is happy, and alluded to the fact that he is not happy by the commonly thought of American definition of happiness, but rather happy in the sense of stable contentment. Happiness he would define as peace and simplicity, contrary to the sentiments of bliss, success and action. This blog has beautiful photos of Muslim people living their day-to-day life. http://banglaphoto.wordpress.com/category/daily-life/page/2/ The second section on this page reinforces much of what Manaan has explained to me about family ties in Muslim culture, and notices that perhaps the people of Bangladesh are in fact the happiest in the world.
In the late first century a Muslim scholar, Ibn Sirin, wrote a book entitled, Dream Interpretation, which focuses on how to understand the dreams written in the Qu’ran an and also a further break down of how to interpret one’s own dreams and implement them as an aspect of themselves. http://pdf-free-download.com/interpretation-of-dreams-ibn-sirin.pdf Here is a list of PDF files you can download from this website that provide further reading on the interpretation of dreams and some analysis. The seventh link down the page outlines the three different categories where Islamic religion believes dreams can be classified. Ibn Sirin created these distinctions as an aid to those attempting to better understand their own dreams. The dreams that Manaan shared with me, I think would be considered Personal dreams and he knew this because he told me that he did not need to share all of his dreams with an interpreter, as he realized that some were too personal and intended for him to make sense of on his own. Often in Western culture we relate dream interpretation to Dr. Sigmund Freud, as he was one of the first psychoanalytic philosophers and began to illustrate the importance of dreams, as they express the subconscious mind of his patients. One of my favorite pieces of his literature is the case study he wrote covering the hysteria of his female patient Dora. By clicking on this link you will find the introduction of this text and a section of the text itself. http://books.google.com/books?id=KM5tlvpcti0C&dq=case+study+on+dora+sigmund+freud&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=0BOqTL_OGIG78gavr4HVDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false Freud decided that much of our dreams pertain to our repressed sexual selves that are typically so repressed and unacceptable we may not even be aware of these thoughts ourselves. Through our dreams we receive the projections of these repressed sexual feelings, however they are often convoluted and have many hidden messages that only an expert like Freud himself can discover.
The Islamic tradition of dream interpretation has little to do with our subconscious sex drives, but rather they analyze their dreams as predictions and advice given to the dreamer by God (sometimes, not all the time) that will help him prepare for his future and give him insight into his possible fate.
Manaan also told me that he is happy, and alluded to the fact that he is not happy by the commonly thought of American definition of happiness, but rather happy in the sense of stable contentment. Happiness he would define as peace and simplicity, contrary to the sentiments of bliss, success and action. This blog has beautiful photos of Muslim people living their day-to-day life. http://banglaphoto.wordpress.com/category/daily-life/page/2/ The second section on this page reinforces much of what Manaan has explained to me about family ties in Muslim culture, and notices that perhaps the people of Bangladesh are in fact the happiest in the world.
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