Imagine if you were a surfer. So you basically live for a perfect wave. Imagine catching that perfect wave, the water rushing under your feet, your body perfectly balanced, your mind in perfect sync. And then that wave turns to stone and stops right there.....
Or the water suddenly freezes beneath your feet and you are frozen to your board....
What would surfing be without movement under our feet? What is life without change? What is life without opposition?
We simply don't have amazing experiences and accomplishments like this....
.....without opposition. We cannot progress without the push and pull and constant change of the world and life around us.
Just as surfing doesn't work without the pulls and pushes of the water beneath your feet and over your head.
So I wrote a song about it.... you can view it at:
I feel like attachment theory is kind of the whole sum of both of the videos we watched in class and thir corresponding songs.
Fuiste Tu is definitely all about attachment theory. I think that these two people Arjona is writing about loved each other, they loved so deeply that they are afraid to admit it. Have you ever felt like that? They were afraid to admit that they loved the other person and they were afraid of that deep love, that deep passion scared them. And so as a result they react out of fear and place blame on each other for the failure of their relationship.
Have you ever loved so deeply that it scared you? I know that this intensity of love is scary because it has the potential to create pain. The pain of losing what you love. That is very scary.
I think that this video by Calle 13 about Latinoamerica is very very interesting when you compare it to attachment theory. Let's take what was just discussed above and apply it to Latinoamerica.
So the first part I want to talk about is the very beginning it looks like this:
SOY
Soy, I am, Soy de Latinoamerica, My origin is Latin America. But what does that mean? He goes on to try and describe it...
Soy lo que dejaron, I am what they left. I think this line is really interesting especially in conjunction with the beating heart in the ground attached to the roots of a tree.
What is the origin of Latin America?
Is this the origin of Latin America? To me this looks like a single mom. A mom and a child that has be "LEFT". Something like La Malinche.
Similarly I think this scene puts it all together:
Watch closely at 4:43 in the video.
What I notice is that the woman who is a tree plants a seed and it becomes a heart beating in the ground and then it becomes a child who grows. I think that this child is "Latinoamerica".
Who is this child, what is latinoamerica? Who does latinoamerica love so deeply so that at the same time he is afraid of and hates?
Attachment theory. I feel that this song is about attachment theory. Think about it. =)
"She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women
sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with
what she got or was she sorry because she couldn’t be all the things
she wanted to be." (House on Mango Street, Pg. 11)
Salvador Dali, "Woman at the Window"
"Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don’t
want to inherit her place by the window."
What does the name Esperanza mean? She says:
"In
English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters.
It means sadness, it means waiting." (House on Mango Street, Pg. 10)
I feel like this picture is the epitome of the name she describes. ESPERANZA. Hope, sadness, waiting, regret, wishing, desire, longing, yearning.
I really think this painting depicts Esperanza's thoughts very well. She gazes out over the sea and sees a ship sailing. I think sailing is very symbolic of freedom for many people.
for instance: this looks pretty free huh? I think so.
But, on the other hand, sailing can be more like this:
Throwing up seasick, and confined to a small space, kind of trapped. Not so free...
My point is that freedom often times is something we see as being what we dont have, we see freedom as being outside of our selves and our little space we live in. But TRUE FREEDOM lives within a person. I feel that we truly become free when we learn to be free inside ourselves instead of looking for other things outside of ourselves to set us free, like a fast car, or sail boat, or a million dollars.
Martin Luther King Jr. was confined in Birmingham jail, but he was never not free inside, despite his conditions on the outside. From that jail he wrote the Birmingham Letter, which stated:
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." - Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail"
"I
bless you in the name of all that is good and strong and beautiful,
Antonio. Always have the strength to live. Love life, and if despair
enters your heart, look for me in the evenings when the wind is
gentle and the owls sing in the hills. I shall be with you."— Pg. 261
I really like the line "Love life, and if despair enters your heart, look for me...I shall be with you." I feel like the world today could really use that promise. There is a lot of despair around us.
People become depressed or feel despair for different reasons, maybe this man lost everything, maybe he feels alone, maybe he doesn't know his purpose in life. Have you ever felt like this?
Despair does just come to the men in America who lost everything. Many children throughout the world have lost everything before their one year old birthday. These children make me think of the line above, "Always have the strength to live."
I feel like the world around us sends so many messages that can be extremely discouraging.
With this kind of attitude around us it makes me wonder what people said when the goal was established to do this:
But I believe in what John F. Kennedy said, "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
I think we need this kind of encouragement, that someone will always be with us, that we are not alone. I think it is extremely important for us to love life regardless of what is going on, because it will give us the will to live. We need a reason to wake up in the morning. In Japan there is a saying, "Ikigai" it means, "the reason to get up in the morning". I feel like waking up with an Ikigai mindset is the kind of mindset that helps a nation rebuild after destruction and despair.
This is a picture of Hiroshima right after it was hit with the atomic bomb. There was nothing left. It was completely destroyed. Below is a picture of the same building in Hiroshima today. It took some love of life and strength to live, but the people of Hiroshima were able to rebuild their home after it was left in despair.
"I had been afraid of the awful presence of the river, which was the
soul of the river, but through her [Ultima] I learned that my spirit
shared in the spirit of all things" (p.15).
I feel like we are afraid of what we don't understand. Especially things that are powerful, especially water, as exemplified above. We fear water for quite a few reasons.
For instance: we don't know what is in the water.
We also don't know where the water will take us.
We know that water is extremely powerful and we don't want to be caught in it's way at the wrong time.
This fear can be really good when it can protect us from dangerous situations, but it can also rob us of opportunities to harness an incredible power.
I feel like water is not the only power that we do not understand, equally so it is not the only power we fear. What are some other forces that we fear? I believe that people fear the wind, the sun, LOVE, the power to create life. What other powers can you think of?
It is important to respect these powers but I feel that fear of them can be detrimental. I think that Ultima is trying to teach us this. She wants us to realize that we too are powerful and that we should not fear the water, neither should we fear ourselves. We must learn control, or learn to harness this power correctly.
I feel like a huge part of harnessing this power is to live in the moment, to operate in the present.
Gerry Lopez, a famous surfer said "Well, I think one of the big lessons you learn about surfing is how to
operate in the present, that's really what the foundation of the entire
surfing experience is."
This concept is also the foundation of being a panda, and doing kung fu.
If we do not learn to operate in the present what will happen to us on the waves of life? Will we harness their power?
Or will we be let ourselves be swept under and into the razors of the reef and devoured by the sharks of life?
"For man always seeks a happiness far beyond that which is meted out to
him. But man's greatness consists in the very fact of wanting to be
better than he is.In laying duties upon himself. In the Kingdom of
Heaven there is no grandeur to be won, inasmuch as there all is an
established hierarchy, the unknown is revealed, existence is infinite,
there is no possibility of sacrifice, all is rest and joy. For this
reason, bowed down by suffering and duties, beautiful in the midst of
his misery, capable of loving in the face of afflictions and trials, man
finds his greatness, his fullest measure, only in the Kingdom of this
World.”
― Alejo Carpentier, The Kingdom of this World
The contrast of slavery and freedom really illustrates this concept. When we think of slaves we think often of oppressed humble people who were once happy villagers living a simple life and who are now just lowered one notch below there social norm to being slaves. And how sad that is. I think that we are missing something here. Not all slaves were happy little villagers, some slaves were the warriors and leaders of their societies.
A prime example of this is the movie Gladiator. The main character, Maximus, was not a simple minded villager, he was royalty. But he was made into a slave. The story is super epic as he fights all the way to the roman Colosseum.
I think there is a difference between submission, humility, and meeknessvs. living below your potential, slavery, loss of freedom, and captivity. I think the difference is faith, hope, and love.
Submission, humility, and meekness arepositive attitudes. They imply self control, love, and trust, looking forward to a brighter day. But the opposite which seems so similar is actually negative, degrading, breaks trust, and denies agency. It causes man to be chained down as they lose hope of a brighter day. Maximus is the epitome of this kind of a situation.
He was once royalty with all the freedom, rights, and opportunities that come with it. But then he lost his freedom, rights, liberty, he was degraded to being a slave. He was made to be less than he really could be. He lost everything. He lost his family, his lifestyle, everything. But he did not lose himself, he did not lose who he really was. Inside of himself he was still the same man, he was still free. He humbled himself and meekly took on the situation. He did so by perservering and not giving in to the easier ways out. He submitted himself to the situation and thereby took control of his own life. He allowed love of his family and freedom to motivate him with the hope and faith that he would one day be reunited with them if he held on and fought faithfully to the end.
In this final scene of Gladiator the warrior Maximus dies in the arena. But he lives on to be reunited with his family in the kingdom of heaven as it were, where there is no grandeur to be won, existence is infinite, all is rest and joy.
Music is a tool used to create unity in many cultures
For instance, in Europe, music played on the bagpipes and drums was used to unite an army in battle.
The foundation of this music is the beat or the rhythm of the drums. Marking out the march of the soldiers. Thumping and pumping the adrenaline through their veins.
In the American Civil War the drum was also used in battle to unify troops under the commanding officer. To provide direction and orders to the troops while they were in combat.
Even our marching bands today have a drum line to unify our schools during football games and other sporting events.
They drum in Africa.
They drum in Latin America. Music cultivates unity between people, but it also cultivates unity within a person.
Dance. When you hear certain types of music it makes you want to move. This movement is called dance or dancing. There are many forms of dance, for instance in class we discussed forms of Latin American dance like Samba.
Have you ever noticed how when people dance really well they are able to move their body in really amazing ways that you wouldn't other be able to do unless you were dancing? The body can move in dance in very fluid, flowing, rhythmic, coordinated, or in other words UNIFIED motions. I feel like dance is an outward expression of how music unifies your body with the rhythm that is going on inside.
Another example of this is a form of "dance" that is not as commonly known as dance is also a major point of unity, especially in Latin America, as well as many other countries. This form of dance is called soccer.
Do you notice how the principles behind dance and soccer are really similar?
Why is it that music unifies the body?
The heart beat!!! It is the basic rhythm of the human body. Listen to this!
So I conclude that the basic rhythm of the body is also found in music, especially Latin American music, dancing music.
These children make me think of the line above, "Always have the strength to live."
