Short Notice

Blogging is put on hold for now...
I need the month November for focusing on my career as  Writer, Researcher, Subtitler and Translator.
So I'll be working on that and boosting up my website "JoJasper.org"

If  time allows it.
    a little post might come up...
Else.
    all blogging will be postponed until December...
 Endif.

You see?  It is high time I switch to a full time career as writer and stop being a programmer.

True to the Child

"Everything is right for me that is right for you, O Universe. 

Nothing for me is too early or too late that comes in due time for you.

Everything is fruit to me that your seasons bring, O Nature"

Marcus Aurelius

I am doing research on the roman era.  No doubt this will influence my posts for a while. Although... right now I'm studying stoicism. And I must say: I have always been very much a Stoic. -Not the weird definition we have of  stoicism now, but one who sees how giving in to Lust can distract you from finding Love- 

The rest of the text for this post is already written down on a paper handkerchief. All I need is the time to type it out as a post.



October 10. 

Thanks to something horrid I suddenly have time to write. While I'm in the middle of sorrow I finish this post that deals with the question "are you content with your life?"  Only my greatest fan(s) understand(s) this weird twist of fate...

December 2011  I introduced a portrait in clay... Eve, the Goddess of change I named her later on. Because my life is changing ever since I started to make her and climbed out of the garbage bag I was in. Was I living in it, or hiding from life I ask myself now? 

Even now that Eve has left my house and lives practically on the other side of the earth.. -to help someone else change his life :)  -  the changes don't stop. And they don't come easily. So naturally I ask myself at the hard moments "Are you satisfied?" 
I decided to pass the question on to the child I was forty years ago.

I remember having on my night stand a small pile of papers with the beginning of a story typed on it. My first "Chapter 1".  I could barely read and already I was addicted to books and drama. I knew what I wanted to be, when I'd grow up... a writer. 

I remember the plot and the plan.  It would be about a classroom with all the classmates in it.. torn off the building by a storm. It would land on some remote, enchanted place and there....  I didn't have any clear idea of actual scenes or dialogs, but I knew it would be about the confrontation between the class's most popular girl and it's ignored "class dummy". This  "wall flower" would step out of the shadow into the light. I just didn't know how. I simply had faith that while writing the story, it would enfold itself.

That is how I write my stories today! Even the theme is one I'd like to work out right now.

So when I ask the child I was whether she's content with how I'm doing now... I know she says "Yes". As I knew for sure several years ago that she'd say "No".  
Not that I've reached all the goals I was dreaming of as a child. But I'm believing in them, reaching for them and putting up a fight whenever I am pushed back into the shadow. And that is how I was at six... openly defending what I thought was right. Not caring whether I got hurt due to the fight. By watching passively I felt hurt so much more. 

Slowly I let my society, and my fears, cover these traits with the dreamless gray dust of forced adaptation. I lost my way. But I've found it back again and I'm determined not to let it get out of sight again.
Look at me, I'm actually writing. Only very few listen, understand and appreciate it, but those few are enough for me to push on. I thank them for their support, right here! 

Is your inner child happy with you?

Jo

AWOL

I am defecting, right now, right here, I should be either translating a text from German to Dutch, or write an English text about sexuality amongst the ancient Romans.  I should.  I used to define the verb 'should'  as 
<< I know I ought to, but let's not...>>  with a smile.

Now that's the problem. My smile is gone.  I looked under my bed, it isn't even there. 

According to the newspapers I'm an average dutch person, and being very fashionable: having a part time job and setting up a small private company.  The difference between me and the interviewed persons however is that this is not what I want. I see this as a very unfortunate phase that must be 'lived down' as quickly as possible. I spent eight and a half hours in the office today, including a thirty minute lunch break in which I have been translating a booklet on autism.  Next to the office hours, I travel almost 3 hours, forth and back, in which I work approximately an hour. working on that same translation. And now I feel I ought to be writing for a few hours more.
I know, there are people who have to work even harder than I do, for less reward. If they can manage to do so while retaining their capacity to smile ... I am jealous of them. 
I don't mind the hard work, but something grim crept in. That's what I'm complaining about. I seem to have maneuvered myself into the corner of competition.
What for, I ask myself right now... it may be only a ghost that  I've conjured up myself...

That is exactly why I started to write... because my blog, born out of a toothache that I'm still grateful for, is the only place where I manage to mellow again, become myself, I write here what I like and if you like it, join me, read my posts. If you don't, move back to google. Find yourself another page!  Ay, here I go again, being gruff and short tempered.

Maybe the crucial part is my shaky belief in the outcome. The dark muddy garden, only seeds in the ground and no idea whether they will send out roots and leaflets... If you read the post on the woman at the well, you will realize I haven't taken the water that will cause me to not to be thirsty ever again... 
Then again, anyone can hang in, if he had the guarantee the outcome would be good. Child's play. It's time to stop being childish and mix planting with pleasure.  
I must make sure my nose is still capable of smelling when the blossoms open up in my garden, And my taste buds must be in order by the time the fruit of my work begins to ripen. All is dark now, seemingly resting but in truth.. teeming with life power... 

Sigh... there's nothing to do, doing too much might cause harm. But there's so little to enjoy right now, in this barren backyard. Working is actually more fun than 'loitering' when there's no palm under which you can drink your piña colada. Or in my case: a beech tree to keep the rain out of my coffee mug :)
I'll do some watering tomorrow, and some weeding the day after... I should do as my saplings are doing:  lie still and let Life run through it's course. But I know what will happen while I try... it won't be happy thoughts, growing roots. It'll be weed, shooting up and becoming a 'choker'.
-May be for the better Jo. So you can identify them and get rid of them most effectively -

This gardener should learn to dream again, she still could, not so many months ago ... even if it's only about the harvest celebration that  -stop doubting!-  she one day will have.That would be the biggest loss: to be bitter by then. 

Maybe I'm not smiling brightly yet, but at least I know what is most important right now... find something tiny, amazing and touching. Or something that needs care, not toughness.  That's the best cure against bitterness. Deadline's, Reputations  and Prestige can't hold up against such rivals :))

Jo

Disempowerment 2

Overpowering...

With fascination I have read about Beckham’s Panopticon and Foucault’s study of Beckham’s gruesome design. The Panopticon is a prison, a building in which the inmates cannot see each other but they can be seen constantly by the guards. 
Staying in a Panopticon can deform a person's 'psyche' completely. According to Beckham this can be used in a positive way: to make a useful person out of a good-for-nothing. A criminal, a psychiatric patient, a child.
But who is to be the judge of that, who will throw the first stone?

Gruesome, that’s what it is to me, I have trouble accepting unconditional power of one person over another. Because almost always this power is used without real consideration of the powerless party.  Wantonly or because the one exerting his power is incapable of truly thinking and acting in behalf of the party or individual subjected to his power.

Why would someone long to have power over others? To secure his own happiness? I'm usually happy over little things: moderate possessions, funny challenges and silly 'adventures'  -mere anecdotes.
Actually, my happiness is built upon the happiness of others. Don't you know that exhilarating feeling.... of having a rush of  positive energy washing over you when you exchange furtive winks or someone smiles at you. A  real smile, in which the eyes are in harmony with the mouth?
Thus my fascination was a negative one and it took me some time  - to distance myself from the subject-  before I could write this post.


Divide and Rule. Or: Isolate and Subordinate
<< In Discipline and Punish Michel Foucault builds on Jeremy Bentham's conceptualization of a panopticon as he elaborates upon the function of disciplinary mechanisms in the prison and illustrates the function of discipline as an apparatus of power. The "panoptic" style of architecture may be used in other institutions with surveillance needs, such as schools, factories or hospitals. The ever-visible inmate, Foucault suggests, is always “the object of information, never a subject in communication.”.
 He adds that, "He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection"  >>

In other words the inmate adopts the ways of thinking and deciding of his suppressor and loses his own value system, his individuality He becomes a docile body.

Foucault speaks of the Gaze and generally people emphasize the permanent visibility of the inmate of the panopticon as the aspect that makes the Panopticon so effective:
The Panopticon was the ultimate realization of a modern disciplinary institution. It allowed for constant observation characterized by an "unequal gaze"; the constant possibility of observation. Perhaps the most important feature of the panopticon was that it was specifically designed so that the prisoner could never be sure whether they were being observed at any moment. The unequal gaze caused the internalization of disciplinary individuality, and the docile body required of its inmates. This means one is less likely to break rules or laws if they believe they are being watched, even if they are not.


Unless  the Gaze is meant to be seen metaphorically, this is not the aspect that makes the Panopticon so dehumanizing, turning people into docile bodies. Look at the TV hypes like the dutch “Golden Cage” where a group of persons let them selves be 'locked up' in a house or on an island, being filmed day in day out. These people were being watched constantly. They knew and they didn’t care.  The Gaze didn't bother them.
Because there was no 'unequality' in the gaze. They were allowed to express and pursue their own visions, ideas and  opinions. Of course not all they did went by without criticism... but at least the contestants were allowed to explain and defend themselves, to criticise their critics. They had the choice to go on as they liked, if they were willing to accept the consequences like being voted away from the show.

The Panopticon uses the credo 'divide and rule'. It is constructed to isolate the inmates. While the inmate is alone, sees nor hears anyone who can back him up, the guards are obviously part of a group. They communicate and inform one another about the inmate’s transgressions. And the inmate is not allowed to explain his acts, to defend the motivation behind his behavior. Whether and how his doings are to be punished is solely dependent on the what the group(members) decide(s).  Or to quote Foucault: the inmate is “the object of information, never a subject in communication.”

And this is devastating. This is what causes a person to outwardly live a life that is accepted by the rulers, but inside … his soul is wilted, suffocating. Foucault again: the inmate became a “docile body”.
Our souls simply need appreciation and recognition to thrive. Or when you're alone... the possibility to act outwardly in accordance with what lives inside. This is harmony and causes your heart song to well up in you.



How to maintain an abusive system

Funny, didn't we just run into a weak point of the totalitarian-like system described above? I wrote <<dependent on the what the group(members) decide(s).>>   Now here is a weak point: does the group decide or do the group members decide? 
In order to maintain itself, a system based on unequal power [totalitarianism] depends not only on keeping the lower ranking members subordinated, but also on making sure that the leading party, the elite, will be faithful to one another. 
In a way the leaders are each other’s subordinates…. However the Elite's cage is gilded and chances are that they are willing to stay inside.
It's the subordinates in their rotten smelly cages that are willing -or should be willing-  to leave. And therefore they are to be kept under control by ‘discipline’ . As in 'disciplinary action', not as in healthy self control. 
This is done by imposing FEAR…  fear of what might happen if you go by you own ideas.  The frightful thing that might happen can either be a severe punishment, physical or psychological, or your efforts to live your own life turning out to be a flat failure, causing you to end up lost, lonely and poor.

To infuse such a strong fear of failure in a person you must
a)  make it hard for him to communicate with others, especially outsiders. Because others might support ideas of the victim that can cause him to become insubordinate.
b) cultivate very low self esteem.rob people of their ability to act and think creatively, to think for themselves, by my making them feel insecure. 

If the organisation plays it smart, the victim thinks he is being saved while in fact he is being held down. In the Netherlands we have a saying for such people:  <<He is pushing you into the ditch just to get you out and say “I've saved your life!” >>   

It is just that "Ill save your life" credo that attrackts people in the first place, right? An ideology and a charismatic leader... the hallmarks of a totalitarian system.

 
Why stay in an abusive system?


If your life seemed empty and meaningless at the moment you were being pushed into the ditch, just being noticed and rescued feels so nice, so safe and loving... You'd rather warm yourself in that glow, wearing a blindfold, than open your eyes and see that the flames come from a dragon's mouth, opening wide to swallow you.

Or maybe you are greedy and your rescuer is one who promises you golden mountains, if you just... do this, do that, just hang in there a leeeettle longer...  At one point you realise you're on the wrong train, it'll never take you to the destination you once had in mind. But it's so much more easy to stay on the train than disembark and find the right one. Besides, who'll guarantee you'll hop on the right one after disembarking? 
'Though I think this kind of reasoning fits someone who is higher up in the abusive system, not really suffering -yet-. 





To be continued....




 






The quotes (italics, blue) are from Wikipedia "Discipline and Punish"